AyunuS

I think the free bids are only 1 round forcing but still it does not seem to bid anything that will lead to you getting stuck. Therefore, since it allows openings with only 11 HCP, it'd need 12+ HCP to make a free bid to still be safe at 2NT, which you may have to go to in the case of no fit, so I'd figure the free bid is probably 12+ HCP, 1 round forcing, which is stronger than I'd play you needed for them, too.

Your first mistake was not opening that hand 1♥, since GIB will always assume you have at least 20 HCP to open 2NT, and you only have 19. So from its point of view, it's a 29+ HCP 6NT which has a decent chance of working, and it didn't know any minors you had 3 cards in and it probably would have shown 6 if it just bid one, and it didn't want to guess wrong and leave you in a 7-card trump fit when it could go to 6NT. You needed to bid ♦ and then the bidding would have ended in ♦.

Keep in mind that it assumes you bid exactly how it does. Therefore, it sees you as only having 3+ ♦, and probably assumes you don't have many, given how many it has. And then it probably just assumes you'll have some major fit and make a game in one of the major suits easily, so it probably doesn't have much to lose. You may notice that when it does go down as much as it did, then you may even miss a slam, and 6 ♠ is possible to make with your hands, which is worth about as much. In any of the cases where your team has game, slam, or grand slam, it still doesn't see its preempt going down as all that significant of a loss as compared to letting you find the right bid with your hands, but if it causes you to bid the wrong thing, it could be a huge gain for it.

I was wondering what is supposed to happen in the case where a false alert is given. I was playing a hand online recently where an opponent claimed to bid michael's except he really had a 3/3/3/4 hand, and I don't remember what suit was the 4 but I don't even think it was one of the majors, and it really messed up what my team decided to bid. A simple answer is fine, such as I can't do anything about it, I'm supposed to ask for a redeal, use report abuse in options, or something like that, but which?

Just go for 3NT. Figure everyone other than you has close to 7 points each, as even the bidder was too weak to make a strong bid, and then you'll probably have good support in the non-spades suits.

Spades is the best lead. I wouldn't count on your partner having many high cards in clubs, as with a passed hand he probably has some good cards in spades, and then not much else. You could end up giving the opps a free trick in clubs or even letting them see that your partner has no good clubs and then finessing you for them and you could end up getting nothing on clubs. And if either opponent has a doubleton in clubs and south has the A, you'd just completely give up a trick if you lead a club. Spade probably won't give them any extra tricks.

If the system is going to cause you to get stuck with what you've opened, then you should not open that. Open 1NT if it's low enough pts to open it, and if not, you might just have to pass initially. Or you could just rebid 1NT anyway and hope for the best.

Obvious pass. You probably won't make anything you attempt to bid at this point.

Well, it is a gamble, but 3+ spades may mean only a 4/3 trump suit if it's only 3 spades, which may or may not be worse than what you have in clubs, and so it's a risk in either case.

You need to bid something. Your opponents appear to be weak if all they made was a weak bid, and if hearts are where most of their points are then you could easily have a game here, so you don't want to pass. I'd go for 4♦ and see what your partner bids.

I would easily double. You've got pretty decent stuff on both of the suits that are not the trump suit or what your partner has covered, so they'll probably have no good help suit at all. They are gambling and might crash really hard. If a lot of other players preempt and don't double you'll beat all of them, when people could be stuck guessing what to bid on a lot of other tables, too.

They can't counter ruff though. I had the top trump cards to where I could ruff with one that they can't beat with another ruff, and still have trump AKQ.

http://tinyurl.com/7v3ayqc After south showed ♥A, I just assumed correctly that north had the rest of their HCP. However, there was an unusual club split where I incorrectly figured ruffing one club would mean the rest would be able to take. After I played it, I thought of a way it could be done, but it's something that normally seems like a horrible strategy. On trick 5, if I just led a low club and intentionally lost the trick, then I could have made the bid. If they led a club afterwards, I'd take it with the ♠J, and if they led a diamond, I'd take it with the A, and if they lead a spade, the A, K, or Q wins it. Then I proceed to ruff a club with the J or 10, which would make the rest of the clubs good, then draw all the spades then the clubs, and I would have made it. This strategy was not without flaws, though, since on a bad spade split and a good club split, it would have given them a trick for free, when the bad club split was unlikely, so I never really thought about it until it was too late, and although dangerous, would have worked in this case, but it was IMPs and they only 2.7 for this but if I let them get even 1 more trick they would have gotten 5 IMPs so that one trick on clubs was actually pretty important. There may be other ways to make it if anyone's interested in looking for them. I also find it interesting that it's 26 HCP total on my team, and so many tables bid a game and so many of them failed. It can't make 3NT because of the obvious heart weakness, and it's a pretty ugly fit otherwise where good defense can easily stop anything else.

I agree as you don't really need so many different natural diamonds bids that 3 or 4♦ being used as a splinter would probably be more useful.

It always seems to do things like that. It very rarely leads a long suit and usually leads from a suit it has few to no high cards in.

I think it's that way since you can double and then rebid 2♠ and then it will bid NT if it has a stopper, so there is still a reasonable way you can ask for one. The system requires your bid to be 25+ pts since you force your team to at least 3NT, which is not really a safe place to be stuck bidding at if you have fewer when it might have 0. But, it is true that most players would figure they don't have 6NT if an opponent has an opening hand, but GIB really does assume you have 25+ pts. And it's also strange that west did not double 6NT when it's almost impossible.

GIB counts short suits with honors as 1 less point than as if the honors were in some other suit, so it does not count either of its doubletons as worth any extra here. Therefore, it sees 16 in its hand and 6-10 in your hand. Therefore, it worries your team might only have 22 so it's afraid to go to level 3 because of that. I think the real problem is that it doesn't count the doubletons as worth different points in different situations very well. If it's opposite 6+ trump cards and it has 3, then its doubletons should count as worth a good bit more than in most game-try hands.

Oh sorry I wasn't clear. I meant why didn't west bid something. If Stayman is allowed with 5 diamonds, 4 hearts, 4 spades, and 0 points with the plan to pass whatever response you get, then west needs to bid something here since east doesn't know if west has any points if west doesn't. I really thought west should have bid 2NT. Leaving it on a singleton opposite a 1NT opener pretty much assures that they're on a short suit, so 2NT would virtually always be easier than 2♦.

http://tinyurl.com/75opza9 For some reason, they bid spades, even though they didn't have very many, and I see no reason why they couldn't have bid NT. The 3S bid showed more spades than south really had.

http://tinyurl.com/6tgt3a5 No idea how it didn't bid anything here but it didn't.

I was just playing a free robot race, and near the end, I did what you should do-take a gamble and if it's not going to work, don't play the last card of the hand so it won't count against you. I was hoping GIB would pass my double as I feel there's no way I'd want takeout over 4♥ if I didn't want it over 3♥, but still, it bid something. Then I figured maybe it was okay to continue as long as they didn't double, but considering how little we had, I wasn't surprised that they did, so then I thought I might as well wait until the time runs out. While I was doing that, I noticed that if I were to bid 4NT, it would show 0 spades and a partial stop in spades. That makes no sense and should say something else if you ask me. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/0spartialstopins.png/

I'd pass. Keep in mind, with randoms there's always a chance they won't really have the defense, and if you make the contract at all you usually get close to 10 IMPs, even with no overtricks. If your partner has a very good heart suit you have a good chance to make the contract anyway. You are unlikely to make many more tricks by running, and you might even run to something worse.

I wasn't playing in the game. MrAce was playing online and I was watching him play. It has to be an online version of GIB.

http://tinyurl.com/7urd7ht Yes, there was a messed up spade bid in this hand, but still, south had shown 22+ HCP, so with 11, why wouldn't GIB go for 6NT?

1♠-2♦ 2♠-4♣ (splinter) 5♦ if that is agreed to be exclusion blackwood - 5♠ 1 keycard 6♠-pass