jahol

OK, I must admit, I was not that unclear about the general correctness of my decision in that board (still leading to fatal result). But how about the following case taken from just one BBO tournament later? My hand (nobody vulnerable): 4--K7432--J83--A1053. The bidding started LHO with 1 club, then my partner blocked with 3 spade call followed with 4H from RHO. Would you double? If not, be prepared for one more bid of your partner (4 spades) doubled and down two for 3.4% result (4 H doubled would have been found very tricky contract, which might have been made or not, on the base of several declarer and defenders decisions). It seems to me that I will have to double more, at least here, during individuals.

Playing bridgebase individual yesterday, having advanced(!?) partner, I got the following hand, nobody vulnerable K109874--K1094--54--4 The bidding started with 1 dia from my left followed with partner's blocking 3cl. This looked pretty bad for a while, but only for seconds... as soon as RHO bid 3H, everything was much better. I passed with sight of relief and was very impressed with next call from left side - 3 spades! Such kind of sequence usually leads to difficult--to--play--as--well--as--defend 3NT, but that idea was not allowed to materialize by my partner, who bid clubs once more at level four (is that allowed in such good bridge clubs as BBO?). My headache was about to start once more, but even faster than before, it was changed with a sort of different fascination - RHO bid FOUR SPADES. I almost doubled but after short evaluation, I decided, I could not be sure that 5 dia is not much better contract, even doubled, than four spades passed. In fact, I still somewhat did not believe that LHO is willing to pass such nice (for me!) contract, but voted for waiting. Very fast, LHO passed (OJ!) and....very fast...my patner bid clubs for the third time (OUCH!!, is THAT allowed in such a good bridge club as BBO?). Surprisingly, the opponents were not very eager to bid 5 spades, they doubled five clubs for absolute top. The hand of my partner is not that important - void--AJ3-872--KQ108752. For me, the important question is (since I AM NOT sure, I made a generally correct decision): Would you prefer to double four spades in this situation?

Well, I agree the most with this contribution. My failure that autosplinter did not come to my mind and it is true that partner might not expect a hand like this. Still, he could make a try, but dividing the blame evenly seems to be fair.

We were playing different opponents, playing me, you would have had more difficult time (I bid THREE spades, as you know) . Anyway, this small collection of two tables can show bridge players all over the world, what sort of bidding is typical in Czech Republic.

When expert opponents bid a very lucky game, there is everytime a sort of "intuition" in the evaluation of the board. Too bad, if the opponents are just very intermediate players, that hurts much more.... Like in this board from yesterday, which was the very last one in 28 boards IMP competition. In the previous two boards, we, together with my pard, lost eleven IMP points in each... [hv=d=n&v=n&n=sj876haj1083da6cj9&w=sqhk764dj42cak763&e=sak10932h92d97c1082&s=s54hq5dkq10853cq54]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Our opponents were about eighty years old each. In such age, people normally tend to be a bit careful bidders, not like in their twenties...However, not in my country, where bridge auction is typical with extreme aggressivity.... Nord opened bidding with one heart call (how many experts would recommend it?). Looking at these old guys, I decided to make final act, which would stop them from any experiments, and bid 3 spades (non-vulnerable against vulnerable). South was thinking for a long time, then with an act of resignation doubled. North, after more minutes, with another act of resignation, bid 3NT! Then, I spend four more minutes in attempt to find the best killing lead..no chance, 3NT cold.. and made +1 after the lead of 10S.

In my opinion, partner has to have a fairly strong hand to bid double or something other. I have to help him sitting in re-open seat. 3 spades!

One board from yesterday: Partner..A85--AJ109--1032--AKQ Me.........KQJ107432--2--Q--xxx Bidding (partner was the dealer): 1 club---pass---1 spade---2 dia double--pass---4 spades--pass.... The double was support - exactly 3 cards in spades, no info about HCPs (particularly...no extra HCP values). The discussion: Me: You have too many HCPs to pass my 4S bid. I bid 4S taking into account a possibility of only 12 HCPs in your hand. Partner: You have too big distribution to jump to 4S, you could have bid 3dia first. Me: You are right, but still you should not have passed 4S bid. By the way, it seems to me that 3dia-4spades sequence should represent a bit different type of hand. Who should be blamed for missing cold slam, in your opinion? Me, partner or both of us? Jahol

My previous contribution to loooong thinking topic initiated a quite interesting discussion. How about this case? Both vulnerable, I got AKQJ109x--x--Ax--Qxx and was not too surprised when my righty opened the bidding with 4H call. My first bid was not a big problem - 4 spades. LHO bid 5H in a tempo and this call was passed back to me. In such situations, I follow Larry's LTT with as few exceptions as possible, so that I checked all facts, estimated number of tricks on both lines, positive and negative corrections etc. etc. and seeing no reasonable alternative, decided to double (you may not agree, but you will hardly persuade me that I was wrong here). This thinking took some (fairly long) time, but since my first decision, I was only making a check of, had been to double, I did not see any ethic problem. As soon as my partner (a person of very ethical soul) passed the bid 5H, I was absolutely sure, he would pass my double. So, I doubled finally and then....my partner started hesitating and... bid 5 spades, passed. His hand was xxxx--xx--Kxxx--K10x. After a successful finesse of CJ, I made 5 spades just, five hearts being one down only (two dia and one club, my LHO with 5 clubs being void in spades). TD was not called, but the opponents were rather suspicious regarding our bidding. My partner apologized to everybody, he was just sleeping after 5H call and understood his pass being fatal mistake immediately after making the call. A bit surprisingly, our opponents had no big problem with his call, but they did not like my double at all. Since I know that (in accordance with LTT) my partner surely WOULD have bid 5S immediately being present mentally at the table, I did not see any problem. Do you think that I am right, or we made some kind of ethical collaps? Jahol

One board, one can hardly forget about. IMP competition, both vulnerable. LHO opened 1 club (Precision, strong, 16+). My partner doubled promising 5+ in dia, standard overcall (9+HCP). RHO bid 1 dia (negat, 0-7 HCP). My hand: xx---void---Axxxx---xxxxxx. For I long time, I had not been psyching, this one looked promising. I bid 1H, followed with 4 spades jump from the left. Everybody passed. The continuation is not that difficult to be forecasted. My partner having QJx in hearts led naturally QH. Pure declarer could feel that something did not smell absolutely okay looking at the dummy like Jx---10xxxxxx---x---KJx. I ruffed the first round of H and returned small dia praying for dia K in the possession of my pard. That was OK, I got the second ruff and we took one more trick. Jah

In my opinion, bridge game integrates both probabilistic and deterministic elements. From my practice (20 years working on applications of probabilistic methods in risk studies) I am sure that it is very difficult, in restricted and limited time frame, to "solve" exactly probabilistic part of bridge. However, if you would like to be bridge expert, you have to solve the deterministic part as correctly as possible. At he beginning of the board, probabilistic part totally dominates. You hold your cards and each of LHO, CHO, RHO can have any cards remaining. Typically, the nature of problems remains strongly probabilistic during the bidding. You can be almost never sure that the slam you just bid is a good contract before you see dummy (and many times even after that). As a consequence, in my opinion, it is not very productive to spend ten minutes on solution whether to bid slam or not. Actually, in case of slam, it can be of some meaning, but definitely not in case of game. (By the way, your final result after ten minutes of thinking is, I am sure, mostly done by your psychological status just at the moment of the decision and many irracional factors may influence it) During the second part of the game, you are declarer, or defender, the situation is different. Card after card, the probabilistic nature of potential problems shifts to the deterministic one. The problems start having finite number of solutions, some of them wrong, some of the good, some of them the best. Here, there is definitely time for long thinking, since you have something, you can and should really think about. Jahol

This hand seemed to me interesting. [hv=d=s&v=n&n=s765hk93da83ca1097&w=sk10843hq1072d96cj3&e=saj2hj54dk1052c862&s=sq9ha86dqj74ckq54]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] The bidding just simple, south opening with one di, north 2NT, south 3NT. Opponents passing. The lead dia2, played small, nine, ace. The problem is obvious - how to avoid loosing one dia and four or five spade tricks before taking nine in dia, hearts and clubs. Played dia back, jack took the trick. Now...played spade 9, covered with ten, "ducked". Back king of spades...mission impossible became possible. After the game, was just looking to the way, the same board was played at the other tables. The game was made at half of tables, mostly simple mistakes of the defenders, but one approach was even much more interesting than mine. After the same bidding, the declarer (north) got small H lead and ducked the H ten! "Obvious" H back was taken with ace, dia K was given to the opponents and they "cleared" H suit. Game made! Can experts give me some logical explanation, which way real expert can avoid misdefensing the game in the first and second case demonstrated? Thank you very much. (Not English, sorry for my english, hope, the meaning of the text is clear).

I did not call for TD, of course. As I mentioned, in THIS board, missing grand was just coincidence of partne's faillure and another failure of mine. I do not know if I am not able to express what I would like, but this board is just only a good example of general tendency. This tendency, which was fully confirmed within the discussion here, is: If the opponents bid artificial club or whatever, we are generally allowed to bid not quite in a coincidence with CC to punish those bad artificial guys. I do not think that this approach is ethical, although it is everyday reality. Regarding psycho, I use it too and like it. However, the problem with psycho begins as soon as it becomes so much frequent, that the partner of psyching bidder can expect it better than the opponents. By the way, I am not calling here neither for mercy nor for sympathy (as I was accused several times). Seems to me that some of the responders suspect me that I am writing this just to show my bad opponents (in that board) the record of this discussion to tell them that they did wrong. That was not my intention.

Just to know--I am completely OK with 2H raise. But the 1H bid seems to me to be awful...also from own partnership perspective. The destruction potential of this bid is very very limited and the potencial for cooperation with partner is the same case. But my contribution is not about this..... Just one more question....If I bid American Standard (I like and bid it frequently, both SAYC and 2/1), is the 1H call that OKay now?

Bidding WJ2000 you open one club (either 12-14 balanced, or 16+ with clubs, or 18+ without any limits regarding distribution). LHO, VULNERABLE against non-vulnerable bids 1 heart with QJx--J10xxx--Jxx-Qx, then your partner bid 1 spade and RHO (also vulnerable :-))..) 2 hearts with xxx--Qxxx--xxxxx--x. The problem is that you with your partner are quipped with the following monster: Axxxx--Kxx--AKQ--xx Kx--A--xx--AKJ10xxxx. Still you should be able to find yourselves in 7NT in the end, but your are just normal players, making mistakes (the biggest mistake is to believe your opps, sometimes) and you finish in 6 clubs. The opponents' CC presents 1 heart bid as 10+PC, 5+H. My questions: 1) Do you think that the bid made is in agreement with CC? 2) Do you think that the bid can be qualified as psycho? 3) If the response to the second question is YES, what are (if any) the consequences? Jahol

By the way, many times someone has to be much more brave when passing (and is preparing for the consequences, when the game is cold).

I started this discussion, so I can make clear some points.... 3 dia were alerted and explained immediately, TD was called after the dummy (south) showed the hand. In my opinion (may be, I am chicken), even without north's hesitation, it is not absolutely clear whether to bid game with south's hand. Indeed, some very good examples of hands were demonstrated in the discussion here when the game has no chance to be made. May be, the game should be bid when vulnerable and vice versa. For that reason, I would never bid the game after hesitation of my partner. I may say hundred times that I was not influenced with UI, but that is only my subjecttive, nevertheless best, opinion. In reality, nobody can be sure, there was no influence. I do not have the qualification of TD, but always trying be ethical. In such situations, I bid something different from pass only in case that I have the hand, I really feel, the strength of my partner has no meaning for my decision.

Cross IMP competition. The pair bidding with the following hands: 7654--KJ54--AQ86--7 A109--AQ62--J-KQ632 The bidding is (opponents passing): pass--1club(Acol, natural, 12-20)--1heart(5+points, 4+hearts)--3 diamonds (short in dia, at least invitation to heart game)--3 hearts (just minimum,after loooooong thinking)--4hearts (immediately). My questions: 1) Would you bid the game when your partner has bid 3 hearts in tempo? 2) Would you bid the game after your partner has bid 3 hearts after more than 40 seconds of thinking, hesitation etc.? 3) Let us suppose, you are TD, being invited to the table and made familiar with the story. What would you do? Jahol

Yes, csdenmark, you are right. With high probability, you will be NEVER confronted with some hand like that described in my contribution. I am very, very sorry, I took so much of your time.... Similarly, you will be NEVER confronted with many and many other unique problems, such nice game as bridge can bring (some of them described in Bridgebase fora). You will never meet spectacular hands commented in Zias books, as well - for example. I am very sorry, that also all these people took your time ... with something, what finally appeared so unsignificant for you.... Of course, I have not had any right to write such stupid contribution about something like hand with 10 spades in it. Please, just try to understand one very small reason, I might have.... This hand was played at bridgebase couple of days ago. About fifteen players had to solve my problem and NOBODY bid the way, I did. I was so eager to see, whether I can find some, at least ONE, fellow, who will think the same way as me... Can you understand at least a bit this reason....? What was my bid? FIVE spades..... jahol

In Bridgebase Main club, I got this hand: AKQJ98xxxx-10-x-x. My RHO opened 1H. What would real expert bid when nonvulnerable/nonvulnerable? Jahol

Hi I enjoy playing in Bridge Base individuals. In some of them, one of the limitations defined is "no psychic bid, please". I do not like such limitation since I think bridge is bridge and the rules should be similar for all kinds of competitions. Still, I am trying to follow it. However, sometimes..... Today, I was given with AK54--97--A975--K107 and the aution was (the first call mine, opponents passed): 1D--2C--2NT--3D--? Here, I took some time and then found an interesting bid (in my opinion) - 3H! I expected that there would be a reasonable chance that the opponents would take it as seminatural and that I could get first lead in spades in potential 3NT contract. It was exaxtly what happened! My partner bid 3NT, the lead was spade J (from J10xxx) and my cards were now: 96--843--KQJ2--AJ65 AK54--97--A975--K107. I took the trick with spade ace, played diamond to the king and club to the ten (heart switch would not have been that easy from LHO side). After taking trick with C10, I continued with three rounds of diamonds and club back to the king. The opponents were confused. Two small hearts were discarded on diamonds and H10 on the club (from LHO). Since club distribution was 4-2 and the hearts seemed not to be dangerous anymore for me, I decided to try this suit! I played H9, which was taken with HJ (LHO) and overtaken with HQ (RHO). The next card was HK (RHO), which was overtaken with HA (LHO). Belive or not, my H8 was cold! My partner was fascinated and "so were" my opponents. And that is the reason why I have decided to present the story here. The opponents discussed the hand and their conclusion was that the reason of they loss was, to some extent, that I had been cheating (they wrote it on the chat line). Later on I was contacted with tournament director (in a polite manner) and I had to explain why I had made such strange call! I do not think that my call had anything to do with cheating neither it could be classified and a "classic" psycho. In my opinion, it was nice call, one of those, I play bridge for! If my opponent makes such a call, I am happy (at least a bit) and I am willing to congratulate him. Still, I am a bit uncertain, whether I am in coincidence with BridgeBase rules. What is your opinion?

Recently, my partner has the following "simple" problem: imp SCORINGHe was playing 3NT having the following cards ----7---A62--8762--KQ542 K642--KQ5--KQ5---A109 after spade lead. Actually, he went three down and the result was -14IMP. On the first look, it seems to be impossible even for the "almost beginner" (my partner is well advanced bridge player). The problem was that he opened the bidding with one no thrumph after that LHO bid 2 diamonds - 6 cards in hearts or spades, preemptive (then my 3NT finished the auction). After that my partner decided to play RHO for fourth jack of clubs, but the jack was second in LHOs hand. In my opinion, the fact that LHO has six cards in one major (spades probably) does not justify this play. It is not stupid mistake, but I think that the statistical adjustment is not strong enough to change the way of card play in this board that drastically. What is your opinion?