dwar0123

Smolen is great for some situations, I don't think this is one of them, you know you are going to be in game and you want to tell your partner your shape regardless of how he responds to your first bid over 2nt.

I think I would prefer 2c-2d-2n-3d-3h-3s It allows partner to super accept hearts, which means slam is reasonable if he does and probably off if he doesn't. Also I play Texas here so this is a mild slam invite in and of itself, fully describes my shape and leaves it to partner to judge.

Assuming the 3nt is a typical long suit with a diamond stopper, I'd interpret 4clubs as it is time to run, pass as being meh and xx as in I think we might have slam but this sounds like more fun.

No, was a hand from today on okbridge, my father likes being rated so he switched to okb a few months ago and I play with him there.

Wow, very close MrAce, I had the closed hand and it was actually AKJxx x QJx Kxxx. We actually played in 5 clubs, though 4 spades is just as good, the method by which we got there was insanely risky though(pard just jumped to 5 clubs with the original hand) and I want to assure him that there is a safer way to get there.

What is the proper way to bid south's hand playing fairly vanilla 2/1. [hv=pc=n&s=sq6h98765d6caqt43&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=1sp1np2cp]133|200[/hv] 1nt = forcing 2♣ = could be short What is the correct bid. Out of curiosity, what do the bids 3♣ or 4♣ mean in this auction?

Meh, successful is a meaningless word in this context as it is a comparison of results against expectations and everyone occasionally does better then expected.

You seem to be implying something wrong with that, could you elaborate? If the games are 50-50 with equal opponents, the rating shouldn't change. The ratings system is a rough yardstick to help create competitive games among peers, sure people can manipulate it, but they are few and far between and even then, if they manipulate it far out of their actual skill range they are not playing against people with similar ratings. Hence they can be an over rated 60% playing against 52% or they can be a correctly rated 52% playing against 52%. If they are an over rated 60% playing against 60%, they won't be 60% for very long, the problem is self correcting and the manipulation is mostly cosmetic as it doesn't actually change who you end up playing with.

I mostly play on OKbridge(and kibitz on bbo) and I hardly ever see anyone hiding their rating and it notes in their profile if a rating has been reset recently and I hardly ever see that note. Even in the cases that I do see such things, those players are merely treated as unknowns and generally excluded from tables that are looking for a certain level of skill, which is the vast majority of tables. Playing on bbo is very frustrating when you don't have a regular partner, the skill ranges wildly and there is almost no correlation between actual skill and stated skill, making the entire self rating system meaningless. Even when I did have a regular partner(before he switched to okb entirely) the level of the opponents was generally bad and occasionally appalling and this was after we gave up, joined in and called ourselves advanced. BBO has a lot more players and naturally more top players, but when you are just playing random pickup games in the intermediate-advanced range, it is easier to find peers on OKB then BBO. It's not perfect, there are people who are over rated as well as under rated on OKB, but the deviation is several orders of magnitude less. That said, the access to vugraph as well as the forum community is vastly better on bbo and if you are just starting out, bbo is probably a lot less of an ego hit then the imposed rating system of okb.

Great, now we just need a team!

I'd like to play, no regular partner on bbo, rather new but would like to take it seriously.

Pitch spade, play 10 of clubs, if it holds, play queen, it should be covered, take ace and lead another club. If rho shows out, ruff with 8 of diamonds and finesse lho for the queen of diamonds. If rho has a club ruff with 10 of diamonds, if that holds and both follow suit on clubs, ruff a heart to hand and play a diamond to board intending to finesse the 9. If lho shows out of clubs but does not over ruff, play the ak of diamonds hoping for a 3-2 split. If club finesse fails, you need the diamond finesse to succeed.

Ruffing 3rd heart high is key to unblock the spade suit when you finesse it. You have 7 cards in both minors so on the face of it, its a coin toss as to which minor is part of the two suiter, however I think its far more likely to be clubs, if it were diamonds the rho is stiff and the only honor he could have that would stop a diamond lead is the king, thus its very likely lho has hearts and clubs. After ruffing two hearts and taking the spade finesse and hoping for 2-3 spade break with queen on side, you finesse the jack of clubs and use the clubs to pitch 2 of the diamond losers.

If anyone needs a partner, I am available. We can play some to see if we are a fit first if you want.

Thanks, I love clearing up these many tiny misunderstandings in my understandings of auctions. In this case I was wrong and partner was right! Cheers.

Curious what type of hand north(me) described and what you would bid with south's hand. [hv=pc=n&s=st874hk98dqjcaq86&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=p1hp1sp4hp]133|200[/hv] Thanks

With my luck he will have the akxx of diamonds a void in hearts and 4 spades to the 10.

Pickup partner, specific topic not discussed. Partner would be considered intermediate+. [hv=pc=n&s=skt643h2dt643c965&n=sq87haj94dq2cak73&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=2hp4hdp4sdppp]266|200[/hv] I felt the double was takeout but often converted to penalties, I felt I had enough shape to justify bidding the vulnerable game. Partner felt the double was just penalty. My understanding is that it is more important to protect the possibility of our game then it was to score an extra 100 in setting a dead contract, hence that double was still takeout. To reinforce this point, I pointed out that by doubling you mark the position of the cards and it is now only down 1 for 200 instead of down 2 for 200 undoubled. Hence this double should be used for takeout with the expectation that partner will often convert with flat and even defenseless hands. Thoughts?

Ok, giving it a go. Ruff heart, Play ace of spades(noting jack drop) finesse queen, run 3♣. If lho doesn't ruff in, lead 10 of diamonds to queen, finessing jack if I don't see an honor. I don't much mind if rho gets in, he really can't lead a heart, the only thing that can tap my trump enough to have me lose control, if he does lead a small heart, I let it run to king. If he leads ace, I ruff, I am essentially playing nt now and just push out the last diamond honor. In the more likely case that lho goes up with the king of diamonds and leads a heart, I ruff and play diamonds for 3-2(unless lho showed out of clubs early, which should give me perfect count of hand and inform the continued diamond finesse) by leading to queen and then run diamonds until lho gets bored and ruffs in. Should lose 2 spades and king of diamonds. If I lose the spade finesse to qj tight in rho, the hand is trivial to make with a 3-2 spade break, especially when rho is stuck on lead.

Count to 5 before playing to any trick. If you forget to count to 5, count to 10 the next trick. If you forget again count to 15, etc. Eventually you will annoy yourself so much that counting to 5 will be the path of least resistance. Counting to 5 will make most of these mistakes disappear.

How has our hand become better in a way that our partner wouldn't already be aware of when he decided not to bid 4♥.

Edit: Actually I think partner already made a decision, 3♥ isn't invitational its preference. I think pass is right.

I pulled it out and removed the spoiler tags cause that appears to break it. Included just the hand diagram.

That's exactly how I played it but your analysis was much more in depth(and accurate) then my thought processes.

I would double and double again, I would be happy to play 4♥ doubled at this vulnerability if partner can't find a bid and I would pass anything that partner might bid except 4nt, which I would bid 5♦ over. If they make, then partner has nothing and we lost a few imps for doubling a cold game.