Cthulhu D

Wait... you've just changed my bridge world. Do most people play (1C)-3C as natural?

That was edited in by me after Auguhombre's post sorry. Habit from another forum. This forum does not mark 'edited by' when you edit though which is a shame. Vvvv: I forgot! And forget.

Frances Hinden made the point in another thread that scratch partnerships win MP events all the time, but never win IMP games. Why is this? It probably points to the reason that science is useful - it's good for finding close games and slams. At IMPs choosing between 3NT and 5D is a decision on which at a lot swings. At MPs unless you know 3NT is a sure loser you are going to bid it anyway. Pairs without science can just blast the most likely contract and hope to make it up in the play. If they don't, it's only a bottom (infact even this is unlikely because you're not the only person playing matchpoints in the field). Whereas at IMPs bidding 5D when 3NT makes is 1 or 2 imps out, but going off in 3NT when 5D makes can easily win a match.

The most common multi paring seems to be garbage multi with 3-8 going through 2D and direct being 9-11. This probably warrants a different defence. Presumably the 2M is quite pure and the 2D is insane.

P had pre-empted showing 4/4 in the majors or better, weak hand and opposition bid up to 4S. Oppo leads the J of spades from the closed hand towards AKxx in dummy, partner plays some random middle spot and then declarer asks me 'so what sort of hands does [partner] bid that with?' The situation is A) Partner has never pre-empted with 4 small in a suit before B) I have pre-empted with 4 small in a suit fairly often. C) I'm looking at the stiff Q of spades, so partner blatantly has done it this time What's my disclosure requirement here? I think I said 'any 4/4 5/4 or 5/5 weaker than an opening hand is fine, we pre-empt aggressively' and they went wrong anyway, but it was a tough spot. What am I supposed to do? Edit: Vvvvvv: I think it was an honest question, this was literally the first time ever they had encountered an Ekrens style assumed fit preempt.

Yeah, the biggest (only?) differences I have noticed are: A) Forgetting the system is a leading cause of swings out B) The biggest source of swings in is opening something, anything, totally irrespective of what it is and why you opened it this week, when the other table didn't. C) Playing highly frequent unusual stuff leads to occasional big wins as people are not on firm defensive ground. Aside from a couple of opening pre-empts - e.g. Ekrens 2H - which benefit very strongly from B and C, I honestly cannot see a difference with most stuff. Ultimately I'm leaning towards your conclusion, I just wanted to see if anyone did anything better. This is part of the problem I have with my current analysis attempts. We started playing only 9 months ago and have had a gigantic leap forward in results over that time. While the system has taken a leap forward over the same period (We've gone from playing 'standard' to playing 2/1 game forcing, transfer Walsh, 14-16NT and friends), it's really because our bidding judgement and card play have taken a quantum leap forward.

I'm not sure complex and information leakage are a given pairing though. Compare the information disclosed in the 1C= clubs or balanced auction 1C!-1NT (to play opposite a weak NT), and the corresponding better minor auction (1C/D-1NT). Similarly playing 1H-2NT(limit+)-3C (Any minimum) discloses more information when partner is minimum and you only have a limit raise, but discloses less information the rest of the time. However, I've been tracking this particular (2NT = limit+ with 3C as a minimum) auction, and while 1H-2NT-3C-4H is reasonably frequent, it doesn't seem to make a difference compared to what tables playing standard methods are doing. That said, my sample size is 12 and it might have made a difference only once but didn't. Conversely when we disclose more information after 1H-2NT-3C-3H-4H it doesn't make a difference either.

That is pretty funny. Ultimately I am not hugely worried about memory strain though. Opportunity is a larger factor. However, Even identifying whether basic things are good/bad is hard. For example currently I play 2C: weak diamonds or any strong. This combine should be-EV on both strong and weak hands (winning only on hands where our 2D replacement is opened) but yet it's hard to see it is -EV at all. That's a first round treatment to, trying to work out whether 1M-3M as 8-10 4 card support is a winner is difficult- we're lucky if this comes up once a month, and we play a teams night, every tournament in town and on BBO. Getting a meaningful sample size together is going to take a long time

Any conventional bid has a cost - in oppotunity and memory strain mostly. How do people ascertain whether the things they play are worth the cost? I track whether conventions win/lose/change nothing in an attempt to see if I can improve the system and cut any pointless gadgets but most things are sufficently infrequent to make analysis hopeless. How do other pairs decide what to keel and what to cut?

That is both lottastic and making me sadface. @MrAce: If you want to wax hell, just buy a cheapish level 60 weapon with level reduction bonuses off the AH. I got a 500 DPS one handed at level 51 for 250k and I overpaid. This won't help at inferno obviously.

The response structure to 1H - 2NT (Inv+) that goes like 3C - Any minimum (I play less than ace more than a minimum opener, but w/e works for you) 3D - Asking Relay 3D - Extras with shortness (3H asks) 3H - Big extras with good trumps 3S - Second suit, extras 3NT - Big balanced hand, to strong for 1NT 4C/D - Second suit with extras. The key is the 3C minimum which solves your problem. It clearly defines the captain of the hand, and it's much easier to see what's going on as you've shown extras with the first bid and can relay out. 1H-2NT-3C-3H is NF with a limit raise only and opener can bid 4H with a nice 14 count or whatever. 1H-2NT-3C-4H is to play. You can use 3NT as serious slam interest easily as you put 3 card limit raises through 2C. Phil, mgoetze and other forum regulars have proposed this before, check out http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/7920-alternative-responses-to-jacoby-or-jordan-2nt/page__view__findpost__p__66326 or mgoetze's BBF systems index.

A HUM with a fert could achieve this though (certainly it could achieve the levels of dominance) - the point though was to establish that despite a level playing field the game can be degenerate. Using Akuma or tunnel rushes are more relevant examples to bridge.

I doubt this has occurred ever in bridge - only a system with a fert could achieve the sort of degenerate metagame being spoken of above - and none of those have ever achieved the sort of tournament results that can be posted by Combo winter decks, SF2: Turbo Akuma or Toxic tunnel rushes in C&C generals - decks, characters and strategies so powerful that they achieved total domination of the metagame, some within days of their discovery. I was just pointing out it is hypothetically possible.

I'm not saying this is occuring here (it's not), but it is possible for a game to become worse despite the playing field still being level through people adopting superior treatments/systems/whatever. A real life example is the card game, magic in which you build decks and then pit them against other people in best of 3 matches. There is a big tournament scene. Banning of particular cards etc occurs regularly because this happens: At the start of the lifecycle there are 5 options, A, B, C, D, E. Deck A 'beats' (goes 60:40 to 70:30 ish) against deck B which beats C which beats D, which beats E. E vs B may be a toss up. This is fine, but then someone comes up with F. F is ludicrously superior to all other options, so everyone plays F. Someone eventually comes up with Anti-F which beats F and loses to anything else. Then you have a metagame of F, Anti-F and the weird holdouts who refuse to play 'popular' stuff (who get crushed by F and beat anti-F). Top 8 of all tournaments are made up of F or Anti-F and nothing else. When this has happened before you regularly play 8 round swiss matches all against F or maybe see anti-F once or twice. This is sickeningly degenerate and bad for the game because everyone plays F or Anti-F. However, the playing field is still 'level' and it will be a test of execution skill when two Fs come up against each other, this is still super bad for the game.

Diablo 3 is basically AH flipping atm, the actual game is pretty secondary. Doubly so if you're a barb, DH's and wizards can build for much cheaper, whereas you really need primo gear for an inferno barb. Also, the blacksmith is a huge trap. Pretend he doesn't exist. But what build are you running? I'm about where you are (though undergeared because my Barbarian was boosted by some friends rather than naturally grown because they wanted a barb fourth rather than 2 demon hunters). http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WVRPik!bV!acbZac is the prefered solo build - the mandatory stuff is revenge+provacation Life on hit gear is great and overpriced atm. That said as most people are hitting inferno now there is some really sweet level 50-59 gear for quite cheap on the AH.

Wouldn't 17-19 as the upper 1C range and 2NT as 20-21 bal make a bit more sense? You're not going to get past 1NT with the 1C opening so invitational sequences won't be totally horrible, so taking some pressure off 1D might be worth it?

The new client works fine with FD cards once you get it set up with a partner, but uploading and managing them is just so annoying. Wish they'd fix it.

Time is horrible for Australia, and I am bad* *Note: I know Mgoetze is joking with the play bridge comment.

I think there is two ways to attack this - play in the open events and only when the selection trials are up enter the last train women's qualifiers if you don't make the open (or are very unlikely to make the open), or play in women's events all the time. I see nothing wrong with plan A. It's not purely optimal in that you're not always playing in the strongest event available, but you'll generally be playing in strong events. Plan B sucks though. There is also a difference between Australian and US tournaments here. Most Australian pair games seem to have one big field, then award the 'ladies' 'youth' 'mixed' etc prize to eligible pair with the highest result in the field - but in the swiss they can expect to come up against people competiting for the mens, open, mixed etc freely. So if your regular partner happens to be a women you can go for the ladies prize will still playing against the youth, novice, open etcetcetc. So for example the national swiss pairs (there was a seperate restricted competition) with an open, men, women, mixed, novice and youth prize for the highest eligible pair in the overall rankings, but people competing for the mixed pairs would play male, female and mixed pairs. In this enviroment you don't have the problem you mention - if you and QuantumCat had of entered, you still could have come up against Justin Lall and the NZ youth he was playing with, or the eventual overall winners. Teams events may be further stratified though.

It was actually completely undiscussed - we're both beginners. I just post here because I get told that my problems are not suitable for the beginner's forum. I had a bit of a guess of what it might be from prior discussions. It probably does make sense to play it as a big balanced hand so I'll discuss that one with partner. At the table, P had 19 balanced and my rubbish decision was made -180 into -300. With 20/20 hindsight, think BillW's logic is correct.

Standing offer to the rest of the thread too, add myself and madmike12. We're probably not super timezone compatible with Straube, but we play a highly artificial 2/1 GF system with canape overcalls and a bunch of other brown sticker garbage. I have no idea if that counts as non natural, but we have an FD card for it. We don't mind other artifical systems and have defences in place, but we're not up to the same standard as some of the other pairs in this thread, we're more a solid intermediate pair. This always makes me laugh.

We're playing a 14-16 NT, so I'd only expect a double from an NT hand too strong for 1NT (so 17-19, balanced, good hand) or something like this: S: xx H: QJx D: Kx C: AKQxxx But either way, you're right, shoulda sat. I guess 4th hand might pull as well.

When is it right to sit partner's low level double? Recent hand: S: 9762 H: KT52 D: 852 C: 97 Vul vs NV, 8 board IMP matches, partner dealt and opened a short 1C 1C - (1S) - P - (1NT) X - (P) - ?? You might not agree with my first round pass, but that's life. Partner's X is showing 17-19 bal or an unbalanced hand with very good clubs. My question is - when is it right to sit this and if you do pull how do you find the right spot? At the table I found the poor bid 2C which goes 3 off, 2D is only 1 off, and they make 1NT. VVVV Cheers for the pickup, spade spot carelessly omitted added. Curse the hand editor not working.

If you're bickering with your partner about this, switch to Jeff Goldsmith's Ogust variation. His proposed response structure is (over 3H) 3C = 8 losers, normal or good hand. 3D relays 3H = bad trumps 3S = good trumps 3D = 8 losers, bad hand 3H = 9+ losers 3S = 7 losers http://www.jeff-goldsmith.org/system/september This is a 6 loser hand so it qualifies for 'best' response. As he points out in the notes this is handy if you have no idea how to evaluate your hand in the context of whatever horrible piece of junk you opened this time, but it also covers those cases were you and partner disagree about what qualifies as a weak 2 opener of various sorts.

Am I the only one that would make a 'normal'*, 1C opening (playing a short club) in any seat at any vulnerability holding that lot? Most people's ability to show a monster in contested bidding is significantly reduced. My chance of going for a number in 1CX is nil, and it picks off their strong club opening (what LHO was presumably going to bid), which means they have to rely on whatever their system for contested bidding is to get to the right spot. These tend to handle monsters much worse. * normal in the sense that partner would ask me in the post mortem why I didn't open if I passed, not in the sense that I expect everyone to do it.