xeno123

Seems to come and go at random. My strong preference would be to use it always (at least for the daylongs).

One way to do well in a tournament like this is to apparently enter many times - undoubtedly you will eventually have played nearly all the boards before. In the most recent Survivor: ivasilev4 77.43 1 ivasilev1 72.67 12 ivasilev2 62.97 630 ivasilev 60.65 1134 ivasilev5 59.92 1373 ivasilev3 48.55 7027 (Ivasilev1 through Ivasilev20 are registered users)

Right now in the free daily tournaments there are two "Just Declares" a week vs one IMP. And the "Survivor" tournaments seem to often have the first round "Just Declare" as well. I've noticed higher participation in the IMPs than the Just Declares, and would like to suggest BBO switch to two IMPs a week and just one Just Declare. Do others agree? The other idea I have is to have a tournament where the flat boards are excluded - only pick hands where there was a wide variance in outcomes in some previous tournament. Bit of work to do, but would make for a very exciting and special tournament. Obviously there would be lots of close decisions on slams vs sacrifices etc. Maybe this could be a Prime-only tournament.

Just a plea to bring this back soon, at least at off-peak hours. I find it's a wonderful tool for teaching people I'm introducing to bridge, because they can play a hand multiple times and see how different bidding and lines work or don't work. Playing one hand five times teaches them a lot more than playing five hands once. It's the first place I send people I'm introducing to BBO.

I'm using Chrome on a Mac and BBO is completely unusable for me - the flashing gives me migraines. Not seeing a problem anywhere else. The html version I tried a few months ago was horrible, but maybe I'll give it another shot. (Edit) I tried turning off hardware acceleration in Chrome, and that seemed to fix things for now at least

So this is the sort of hand you don't see in most beginner or intermediate bridge books because there are lots of possible lines and it's hard to even think about which is best. In the actual MP tournament there were a lot of people in 4♥ except for the lucky few that rebid 2♠ and settled there. Although the hand is makeable if you choose just the right line, nobody made it, with 4 people (including me) going down 1, 11 going down 2, a couple going down 3 and 4 unfortunates going down 4. [hv=sn=xeno123&s=SK86432HAQJ7D7C97&wn=Robot&w=SJ9H9432DKQ4CA652&nn=Robot&n=STHK865DAT86CQJ83&en=Robot&e=SAQ75HTDJ9532CKT4&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=P1S(Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20%21S%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points)P1N(Forcing%20one%20notrump%20--%203-%20%21S%3B%206+%20HCP%3B%2012-%20total%20points)P2H(New%20suit%20--%204+%20%21H%3B%205+%20%21S%3B%2011+%20HCP%3B%2012-18%20total%20points)P4H(4+%20%21H%3B%203-%20%21S%3B%2011-12%20total%20points)PPP&p=H2HKHTH7STSAS2SJD2D7DQDAD6D9HJD4SKS9D8S5S3C6H5S7H6D3HAH3S8H9DTSQH4H8C4HQS6C2C3DJS4C5C8D5C7CACJCTDKCQCKC9]399|300[/hv] So one challenge is to figure out how to make it double dummy after the lead of the 2 of hearts (without using GIB of course). But the more interesting challenge is to explain how to think about a hand like this where there are many options - cross ruff spades and diamonds, set up spades, play to the clubs, and any other options that might occur to you. And also what do folks think about the rebid of hearts instead of spades? The strong hearts and motley spades led me to the choice of hearts, but is there a way to think about this more generally assuming the suits were more normal?

These days the robots do in fact play (reverse) Drury: >>GIB plays one-way Reverse Drury when partner opens a Major in 3rd or 4th seat. A 2♣ response shows at least 3-card support and invitational values (11-12 total points). Also as pointed out above, these are "Best Hands" tourneys, so if I pass it is almost certain the hand will be passed out unless W has a very distributional hand. I have no clue whether that favors bidding or passing though - I would say passing. The normal preemptive effect of bidding is not really needed.

Well yes, to some degree. If you lose the spade finesse then with optimal defender play you will of course be down two. But that doesn't mean some lines don't give the defenders more chances to misplay. Not going to make much difference against top defenders, but against GIB and lower-ranked players it can make a difference. So here going up with K♣ immediately means that West will have a choice of how to get back to East's hand for a second ruff and in practice GIB chose wrongly, trying another club. The way I played, the choice was obvious. (I was hoping that East might duck if I played low). The other line that "worked" in practice was ducking the first heart. I doubt that is optimal play however.

Thanks - hadn't realized that. I checked all the folks that played in 3♠ down one. There were basically three different lines that achieved this, of which not hooking the spade was the least common.

You are on the right track, although not for quite the right reason.

I don't know for sure (as we only get a typical example in these tournaments), but based on the only examples I have where people made 8 tricks, they did in fact hook the spade and lost to the king.

So in a recent GIB daily MP tournament, I ended up with a 31% score on the following hand by going down two. The winning strategy turns out to be passing the hand out (50 players scoring 83%), while my down two (also 50 players) was good for only 31%. But 17 players scored 60% by going down only one on the same bidding as below (and another 17 went down only 2 in 4♠). How did they do better? [hv=lin=ZZ%7C%7Cpn%7Cxeno123%2CRobot%2CRobot%2CRobot%7Cst%7C%7Cmd%7C1SA9862H52DKQ54CQ6%2CSK54HJ874DACJ9743%2CSQJT3HAT63DT97CKT%2CS7HKQ9DJ8632CA852%7Csv%7CE%7Cah%7CBoard+3%7Cmb%7C1S%7Can%7CMajor+suit+opening+--+5%2B+%21S%3B+11-21+HCP%3B+12-22+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C3S%7Can%7CLimit+major+raise+--+4%2B+%21S%3B+10-12+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cmc%7C7%7C]400|300|[/hv] And what do folks think about bidding vs. passing here? I'm still a bidder.

I do have the J♣ as another potential entry for the trump coup, but realistically I wouldn't know it was needed until too late. So you might well be correct that my trump line was suboptimal. The inaccuracy I was actually thinking of was the timing of my ♦ruff - I think I should do it earlier. If East was shorter in clubs, it could discard a club right away and threaten to ruff my club return to dummy after I ruff a spade. Then I'd have a heart loser. (Not 100% sure about this). I really never seem to end up doing well with the Soloway jump shifts - don't know how much is me and how much is the system. Partly it doesn't come up much so hard to practice.

So playing in the free daily tournament (IMP) I ended up in this not very good 7♠ contract. [hv=bbo=y&lin=ZZ%7C%7Cpn%7Cxeno123%2CRobot%2CRobot%2CRobot%7Cst%7C%7Cmd%7C2SAK972HKT2DAJCA97%2CS8HQJ8753D98CT653%2CSJ54HDKQT7542CKJ2%2CSQT63HA964D63CQ84%7Csv%7C0%7Cah%7CBoard+8%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C1D%7Can%7CMinor+suit+opening+--+3%2B+%21D%3B+11-21+HCP%3B+12-22+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C2S%21%7Can%7CSoloway+jump+shift+--+rebiddable+%21S%3B+17%2B+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C3S%7Can%7CSupport+--+3%2B+%21D%3B+3%2B+%21S%3B+11-21+HCP%3B+12-22+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4N%7Can%7CBlackwood+%28S%29+--+rebiddable+%21S%3B+17%2B+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C5N%7Can%7CEven+number+of+keycards+and+some+void+--+3%2B+%21D%3B+3%2B+%21S%3B+11-21+HCP%3B+12-22+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C6C%7Can%7CCue+bid+--+rebiddable+%21S%3B+%21CA%3B+23%2B+total+points%3B+forcing%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C6H%7Can%7CCue+bid+--+3%2B+%21D%3B+3%2B+%21S%3B+11-21+HCP%3B+no+%21DA%3B+%21HA%3B+12-22+total+points%3B+forcing%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C6S%7Can%7Crebiddable+%21S%3B+%21CA%3B+23%2B+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C7S%7Can%7C3%2B+%21D%3B+3%2B+%21S%3B+21-+HCP%3B+no+%21DA%3B+%21HA%3B+13-22+total+points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cmc%7C13%7C]400|300|[/hv] 1. How to improve the bidding? I was indeed worried about the Q♠ but couldn't figure out what to do about it after the 5NT reponse. 2. Why did the robot East not cover the J♠? Certainly gave me heartburn, but I figured I had to play East for the Q anyhow. 3. Why does covering the J turn out to be the only way to set the contract? 4. Why did the robot East discard the A♥? Worried about an end-play perhaps? And why the club discards? 5. I think my play was sub-optimal, although it worked here. Can someone else confirm what I think to be a slight improvement? (Incidentally nobody else in a field of 105 bid and made the spade grand slam - one other player bid and made 7 diamonds, with 6NT being a popular contract).

Yes, I agree that is what happened. I've seen it before, mostly in the context of when a player has "lied" during the bidding. There is a relatively simple fix - near the end of the hand run a handful of simulations with all inferences from bidding turned off. Or even simpler, if two cards are equivalent, play the higher one!