AyunuS

[hv=sn=AyunuS&s=S753HKQ975D86CKT4&wn=Robot&w=SAJHJT86D9753C983&nn=Robot&n=S82HDAKQT42CAQJ72&en=Robot&e=SKQT964HA432DJC65&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=PPP1D%28Minor%20suit%20opening%20--%203+%20!D%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%292S%28Aggressive%20weak%20jump%20overcall%20--%206+%20!S%3B%2010-%20HCP%3B%203+%20total%20points%29P3S%28The%20Law%3A%209%20trump%20-%3E%203%20level%20--%203+%20!S%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%204-12%20total%20points%29D%28Takeout%20double%20--%203-5%20!C%3B%204-5%20!D%3B%203-4%20!H%3B%202-%20!S%3B%2015-21%20HCP%3B%2016-22%20total%20points%29P4H%284+%20!H%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%2012-%20total%20points%29PPP&p=SAS2S6S3SJS8SQS5DJD6D7DQDKH2D8D3SKS7D9D2STH7H8C2D5DTC5C4DAC6CTH6C3CAH4CKS9H9HTC7C9CJHAH5S4HQC8D4HKHJCQH3]400|300[/hv] Ugh, why not just bid 4♣? And then I bid hearts which I thought was just the obvious thing to bid with my hand, and then it passed even though it had none. Idk how it could have expected me to think it would have that kind of hand with how it bid. Edit: It's advanced GIB and IMPs.

I've been having a little fun playing some bidding tables where I set E/W to have 40 HCP every time, and I notice that they often still do not bid a grand slam. They like to stop at 6 even when they obviously have more points than the requirement for 6. See: http://tinyurl.com/jk2kort http://tinyurl.com/zwugfjb http://tinyurl.com/gt46avd http://tinyurl.com/zua9jqt And many other times it'll just stop at 6 in a suit as well, but at least in those it feels more like it usually did a reasonably job of trying to get 7 if there was hope. On NT it seems to just go to 6NT even when it has 17 HCP opposite a 23-24 HCP and it should have been obvious from that that they had 40 HCP.

[hv=sn=AyunuS&s=SJ832HJTD9542CKT3&wn=Robot&w=SAKT96HKQ63D873C8&nn=Robot&n=SQ7HA9754D6CAQJ74&en=Robot&e=S54H82DAKQJTC9652&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=P1S%28Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%292S!%28Michaels%20--%205+%20!H%3B%2012+%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%29P2N%28Show%20your%202nd%20suit%20--%2011-%20HCP%3B%2012-%20total%29P3C%28My%20second%20suit%20--%205+%20!C%3B%205+%20!H%3B%2012-16%20total%20points%29D%288+%20HCP%3B%20biddable%20!C%3B%208-%20total%20points%29PP3H%285+%20!C%3B%205+%20!H%3B%2012-16%20total%20points%29PPP&p=S5S8SKS7D7D6DTD2S4S2SASQD8H4DAD9H5H8HJHQSTC4H2S3DKD4D3H9HAC9HTH6C7C6CTC8SJS9CJC5D5H3H7DJCQC2CKHKS6CADQC3]400|300[/hv] Everything started out fine. But then, I find it strange that east would double. For one thing, its clubs don't really count as biddable, seeing as it doesn't have any that are high enough to be useful. Not only that, all its point are in diamonds, when if north has a michaels hand, he likely barely has any diamonds so east has a really bad defensive hand that should no way double IMO. Not only that, then north decides 3♥ is a better bid. I wish it wouldn't do this when I feel I have shown that I have more clubs than hearts, so changing to hearts would most likely make things worse, given that it doesn't have any more hearts than clubs, and it has a lower quality suit, too. Then, thing number 3 happens, which is that west doesn't think this is worth doubling, which seems strange to me given that it has a much better heart suit than west had a club suit, and yet west was willing to double but not east? Furthermore, this bid was just ran to to get away from the double, meaning it's likely not all that great of a bid, and given how I bid it they should figure we possibly don't even have a fit.

Yeah, with 22 total points, GIB would most likely say 1♥ is a better opening since the rebid option of 3♦ would show that hand quite nicely. It only likes to open 2♣ with 22 total points if it thinks it has better options for how to show its hand that way. Also strictly speaking it does have enough points to go for 6♥ given your bids.

But this is different. I've shown at least 4-card support to its suit. So we have at least 12 hearts, and it has out of trump winners (or at least 1 winner if someone tries to nickpick this too much) and I have 6+ points. Surely between all of these it should be easy enough to tell that it's worth going to 4♥.

http://tinyurl.com/zj2hm9m Obviously there's no way we should bid anything more than 3♥, right?

http://tinyurl.com/gqgc2t8 IMPs, advanced robots. Let's see, something went wrong. They have too many total points to not find a game. Either the 2♠ bid needs to show just a few more points, or else east needs to be willing to invite to 4♠. Personally I don't see why east wouldn't invite, seeing as it has 11 total points opposite a 12+, meaning they have at least 23 points so even if they do get stuck at 3♠ they should be totally fine. The drawback of that is almost nothing compared to what could be gained by finding a game, which they likely have.

I'm a person that's never liked blackwood. I feel that aces or even keycards do not make slams. They are worth something, yes, but I've never felt it to be all that accurate of a description of the slam capability of a hand. So, I have created this new little point system of: A: 5 points K of a suit with a known fit: 4 points Any other K: 1 point Q of a suit with a known fit: 2 points And then I have created this lovely little system to show how many such points you have: 5♣: 0-3, 10-11, or 18-19 5♦: 4-5, 12-13, or 20-21 5♥: 6-7, 14-15, or 22-23 5♠: 8-9, 16-17, or 24+ The point of this is that you can likely figure out which range they are in, given that you reached this point in the bidding correctly, and you get a more accurate description of how useful the hand really is at making a slam. You can usually figure out exactly how many keycards they have, since you should have some of the other good cards so there are only so many possibilities left for what they can have. Let's take a look at an example of how powerful this can be in action, on a randomly generated hand, rerolled until it looked like it'd stand a chance at a slam: [hv=pc=n&s=s98643haqt82dcak5&n=skq72h53dakjt43ct&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=1dp1sp3sp4cp4dp4hp4sp4np5dp6sppp]266|200[/hv] So, what's so great about this 5♦? Well, it contains a good bit more information than your standard blackwood or even rkcb. Here's what you can come up with from it. And you also already know they have A♦ from their cuebid earlier. 1. Your partner has 12-13 such points. You have enough that they can't have 18, and if they did, they probably would've bid higher earlier. And if they've shown even one control they can't be in the 0-3 range. 2. So if they have 12-13 such points, they must have exactly 2 keycards. Nothing else they could possibly have would add up to that. So it's either 5♠ or 6♠. 3. So what do you put them at? Assuming 12 points for simplicity, they could have any of the following: ♠AQ ♦A ♠KQ ♥K ♦A ♠A ♥K ♦AK ♠KQ ♦AK Now just figure out if more than half of those will make a slam or not. I like how this looks since I consider all 4 of these to be pretty close to equally good at making a slam, meaning my points are seeming pretty accurate. First one I'd say is a high chance of a slam, since if either the K♠ or K♥ is onsides, you should be able to make it. Second one I'd say you have it easy since your hearts will run and so you likely only have the one loss in spades. Third one well unfortunately, I'd say that you probably won't make it. With only ♠A, missing both ♠KQ, you'd likely only make it on a 2-2 trump split. The fourth one you can probably get away with just the one loss in spades, but in any case, I'll give it more than 50%. So more than half chance of getting that slam, so go for it! And they might even have 13 and then you get an even better chance. But in any case, I feel this does a very good job of splitting the line between where it's worth bidding a slam and where it isn't. Notice that if your partner only showed 10-11, then it's not worth going for a slam since too many of the possibilities would have too bad of a spade suit. I wouldn't bid a slam if my partner only had A♠ or (yikes) only K♠, as you'd likely need a 2-2 split for it to possibly work. But is this really better than blackwood or rkcb? I say yes, since you know what would happen if south used one of those? He'd be like, oh no, we're missing an A, and I don't have a good spade suit, so I guess I'll just not bid a slam. It doesn't get you extra goodies like guaranteeing some extra kings in the event that the ♠A is missing so it's really hard to be as confident. Like in my 2nd and 4th cases, if you don't know that you have ♥K or ♦K, you probably decide not to bid the slam. But those are crucial since they mean you likely only have losers in the trump suit, which means that you likely only have the one loser. Now, I know what the counterargument to all this would be. They'd simply say that rkcb would still find slam. How? After the 5♦, a lot of good players bid 5♥ to ask for the ♥K. Then partner can show it and then you can safely get to 6♠ even without all this extra stuff. While this is true, it took it somewhat more bidding space to reach a comparable amount of information. What I mean is that, if I already know more at 5♦, I could use 5♥ for some other meaning to get even more information to make an even better decision than the rkcb player would make. Additionally, the rkcb player would have to bid ♠ over 4NT so they wouldn't even have room to check for anything like ♥K. One could also argue that it's too each to get stuck at 5♠ with this system with hearts trump. There's an easy solution to this-make it so that 4♠ means this and shift all the responses down by 1. There's no rule that says only 4NT can be this kind of bid. Anyway, let me know what you think. Is this a good idea? Is there some way to make it better? (Well duh, it doesn't even count singletons or voids). If it's bad, show me a hand that it does a bad job at dealing with, so I can get an idea as to how to maybe fix it.

Advanced GIB, IMPs. http://tinyurl.com/qh64t7c Pretty much speaks for itself. And I could understand with some hands, but here, I don't see any good reason why not 1♠.

http://i.imgur.com/dhrl0je.png Behold, ~40.5 IMPs (the pic is slightly out of date) in 17 boards, against the advanced robots. And on many other tables, people were playing as South, but only against the beginner robots. Now, I figure some people might be able to do better, but I thought this was a huge accomplishment. I would like to share my ideas of how I play this game in order to get such a score. I figure this could help new players or some good players may be able to even suggest some improvements for how to play even better than this. Also note that this is without any weird psyche bids. No opening 1NT without a real 1NT hand or that kind of thing. Some hands you can mislead them into playing badly by doing this, but I did this without those kind of bids. I don't believe that kind of thing makes a player good at the game, it just makes them good at beating the robots. Board 1: http://tinyurl.com/q4mlmx6 My First bid: obvious 1♦ hand My Second bid: hand is definitely good enough to go for 3♦ IMO My third bid: Well, I was worried it would only have 4♠, so I thought diamonds was really the safe way to go here. I was really surprised that it would hide that good of a major. Playing board 1: This one's almost as easy as it gets. I have 6 top tricks in diamonds and 5 in spades, and with these hands and this bid, I should be plenty happy just drawing these 11 winners and losing the other two. Board 2: http://tinyurl.com/nrole6z Hand isn't good enough to bid anything. Playing board 2: Really it does not matter here. My team has 1 win in hearts and can't win anything else. I'm feel like east should have upgraded its hand to jumping to 4♠ since it has so few losers and an extra trump card. Board 3: http://tinyurl.com/h9t6fru Hand isn't good enough to bid IMO. Maybe could have gone for 1♠ opposite the double, but I'm really not for it with a likely offsides Q♣ and long clubs, leaving me with a measly 3 useful HCP and just barely a fit, if even a fit at all. Playing board 3: I lead a spade. I don't really like my other options, and I kinda feel like spades really was our team's suit to bid. Really not much else to note here as there's no way to get more than the 3 top tricks my team took at the start, unless declarer messes up. Board 4: http://tinyurl.com/hlm47zc You might think I'm an idiot for using stayman here, but I can explain. I felt the chances of my partner having a major suit were pretty good, and would have rather just passed 2 of whatever major it had than be left on 1NT here. On the other side, if we do get stuck in NT, it's not that big of a loss as it's not overbidding this hand by a particularly large amount. In any case, I thought it had the overall best odds of getting the best expected score. Board 5: http://tinyurl.com/goehvhe I actually wasn't thinking and thought I had more points than I did and bid 1♠ when I didn't really have enough points to do so. But it's not that bad of a bid since it still shows my distribution somewhat, potentially saves my partner from a bad doubled 1♥ bid, and is unlikely to stand as the final bid. After that, since I overbid it already, I'd rather just not bid again unless I have to since my partner is going to get stuck in some suit I don't want us to get stuck on. Playing board 5: Well, my hand is kind of a joke that's dreadfully unlikely to run any of its suits. But my partner has both hearts and diamonds, so I figured I can lead a diamond to try to help make my partner's hand more useful. That's really the main part of my strategy on this hand was setting up as many winners for my team in diamonds as possible. But this bid actually could have been stopped, if only I'd led a club instead of a spade the last time I had control, but I didn't know that. I thought leading the club was setting up another winner for declarer, and I had no idea who had the better diamond. Board 6: http://tinyurl.com/nu853u2 NV vs Vul I like to Michael's aggressively, since it likely makes it harder for the other team to come up with the right bid, and it's hard to get into too many points worth of trouble. Playing board 6: Well, seeing that we have so many hearts, I think a heart lead is good, since it is very unlikely to get endplayed or otherwise set up any winners for the other team. If I'm really lucky, it might even set up a winner in hearts if both opponents have 2, but I deem that so unlikely it should pretty much be ignored. And really, this hand is defenseless the rest of the way, it's just that the bid can't be made with that offside trump K and that club A. Board 7: http://tinyurl.com/nw6frdh Should be an obvious enough 3♥ bid. Playing board 7: This seems like it's going to be a difficult contract to stop. If I let them drop even 1 loser that I didn't have to, they'll probably be able to make it. So, notice on trick 2 that I led a low heart. This is because if I led a high heart, I was afraid of getting ruffed and setting up the q to drop a loser, which I thought was too likely to allow them to make the contract. You could argue that I used up one of North's trump cards, but with a 3-3-3-4 dummy, I figured it wasn't going to ruff anything, so what mattered was how many losers there were in declarer's hand, so that it was of greater importance to still have A♥ than for North to have another trump card. Then, they are unable to find a way to avoid the 1 loss in each of clubs and diamonds, leaving them 1 trick short. Board 8: http://tinyurl.com/gsufrb6 Nothing to bid, especially if they already bid spades. Playing board 8: Well, I have some good stuff in every suit. But I figure that leading from a sequence is less likely to cause any problems than leading from something else, since any of the something elses it might do me some good to get to play last. With a J10, it really doesn't get me very far. So I lead the ♥J. Seeing that no one beat it, I put North at having ♥AK, meaning it's another good play to play another heart. Then I figure it's best to cash the diamond before they get any chances of dropping it. Then, I figure that if they have any more out of trump losers, they have to be in clubs, so I play a club to see if I could draw out any of those. In any case, from there it's all about just taking with as many of the spades as possible, but to not waste them when North is already winning. Board 9: http://tinyurl.com/o5xxz7f I'm in the 3rd seat with some good length and some good 10s so I open even though it's an 11-count. Then I just don't bid again since I already felt it was a somewhat aggressive bid. Playing board 9: Really nothing I did here mattered. Board 10: http://tinyurl.com/zx9wt94 Probably shouldn't have gone for 4♠ here, even though I did have 2 doubletons and there seemed to be a decent chance of making it. But since it is IMPs and I'm vul it seems like it's very often worth it to go for it anyways. Playing board 10: Well, it can't be done, but I'd still try to finesse the spades and then minimize losses after that failed. Board 11: http://tinyurl.com/nkg5fnv Simple enough of a bid. Playing board 11: Well there wasn't really a good way to do this. You could say to finesse the heart, but East can ruff hearts. By the team East can't ruff, I likely don't have an entry left to use the rest of the hearts in North's hand, anyways. So I came up with nothing was really better than just playing some clubs. I figured this would force them to either do something that doesn't bother me too badly, or let me eventually ruff one of the clubs. Didn't manage to get any extra tricks by doing that in this case, but I don't really see any better options. Board 12: http://tinyurl.com/jy34v74 Any balanced 15-17 HCP is best to open 1NT with the robots, IMO. Playing board 12: This one's really obvious. Just draw all the winners you have once you get control. There's really not a good chance of more in any way, but if you lose control you might get less. So just take the winners. Board 13: http://tinyurl.com/zdatsel Nothing to bid. Playing board 13: Well, I've been told that this kind of lead is horrible, but from my experience, it still seems to get the best score on average. They seem to have every suit but hearts, so I like to try to draw the winners in hearts while I still can. But I feel that I messed this one up. At one point I could have dropped a diamond or a heart. I was thinking that I shouldn't drop the diamond since it was the only thing stopped them from just running the diamonds, but actually, I needed to drop it so that I could ruff on diamonds. This contract actually could have been stopped. Board 14: http://tinyurl.com/zm2c7v9 Pretty easy pass here. Playing board 14: Really not much to note here. I kept trying to lead clubs since RHO had no good clubs, figuring that might be able to help, but the rest is pretty much just obvious stuff. Board 15: http://tinyurl.com/zghpv9h I avoided bidding NT since I had no spade stopper. I decided our hands were good enough that we should try for a game, but if I didn't want to go for 3NT, then 4♥ was the most likely option to make. Board 16: http://tinyurl.com/hfamdtr Here's how to show a 2-suited hand's distribution as well as you can. Also I wouldn't run from 3NT in this kind of situation. That's really about it. Board 17: http://tinyurl.com/hs4ajda Very aggressive looking 4♥ bid here, but actually, it has very good odds. Since East doubled, it has HCP and spades, so my ♠KJxx is upgraded. Also consider that it is IMPs so bidding games even without all that great of a chance of making them is still be a good idea. And there you have it. Btw, if anyone has any suggestions for how to improve my game, that'd be great. I feel like my biggest weakness in these was my inability to stop a 3NT and a 4♠ that could have been stopped. Although on the spades one, I definitely should have realized it didn't even have enough entries to use any more diamonds if I dropped my low one from Kx and then could ruff more.

Yes I understand that, but if it can be a 19-point hand, then I wish the description wouldn't say 12-14 points.

Advanced robots in IMPs. http://tinyurl.com/pqz2a9b I passed since I thought it only had 12-14 points. Either the bid or the description is wrong.

http://tinyurl.com/jp47725 Look at west's hand. How can it possibly bid 3♦ force to 3NT with that opposite a hand that hasn't shown any strength? It could've just passed 3♣ seeing that it doesn't have that great of a hand. Edit: And yes this is advanced GIB, in IMPs.

It was advanced GIB. And yes, it's true, in this case every bidding sequence I can come up with that anyone would even remotely realistically bid does seem to end at 7♦. But I still feel that it should make more bids along to way to try to check if there is some way it can find that 7NT before just straight up jumping to 7♦. If the hands changed just a little bit then it'd be possible to tell it had 7NT and it probably would have bid it the same way as this. For instance, what if East had J♣? Then through the whole RKCB + Queen ask process it could find out about the ♥K ♦KQ, then it could add up the tricks to come up with 13, and then it would have probably bid this same thing and it wouldn't be the best bid.

http://tinyurl.com/q6x9nkh 13 top tricks (counting 5 diamonds) and yet it just goes straight to 7♦. Then it gets ruffed and doesn't even make. Surely there's a better way to bid this than to just jump all the way.

2♠. With GIB's system, you really should use 4th suit forcing with most 14+ total point hands IMO.

Just bid 1♥. I know you might not like that with only 4, but it's still the best option here. Consider this, if your partner has 5 or more spades it'll likely bid them, and then you have just the right amount for a fit. And if it has 4 or fewer spades, it won't bid them, so you won't miss that fit. And if it has the heart fit, you won't miss that, either. And I wouldn't worry that much about if you miss a minor fit with that hand so it'll likely get you where you want to end up if you first bid 1♥. And even if you get stuck in a short heart suit, you still have AKQ so you can probably draw out most if not all of the hearts if you need to, too.

http://tinyurl.com/o2b7vdy Express free automated fun tourney. Look at trick 10. If it just plays ♦J then leads ♥A, it could have won 3 of the last 4 tricks, but no, it ducks and then gets fewer. And this is when all the cards are known to it. If north is out of clubs and hearts, then I must have all 4 of them that it can't see, so it should know all the hands exactly.

I've seen much worse. At least it didn't jump to a grand slam because its 3NT got doubled or that kind of bad bid. In fact, if it only ended up down 1 when NV vs VUL undoubled at level 3, then it didn't even end up doing that bad. Also, consider this. If it has 5 spades and the other team has a fit, it can tell that its partner has none. So not only can its partner ruff those but it also has more cards in more of the other suits. I still wouldn't recommend bidding this but it's not that bad.

1st one: GIB seems to just assume you play how it does a lot of the time. And it figures it wouldn't have led away from a doubleton to start, so it probably figures you don't have a doubleton. And then it likes to try to just draw the offsides winners as early as possible so it sees heart weakness in dummy and immediately starts trying to win those. 2nd one: Again you did something other than the standard. If you have something like KJ10x, you should lead the J, and then it would have worked great. It really does not expect you to lead low from a suit where you have a bunch of good cards against an NT contract. It likes to avoid bidding NT even sometimes with a 7-card fit, and then it assumes the other team actually bids that way too and has the suits well-stopped so that leading low from a suit where you have some good cards isn't how it likes to defend against NT. So I don't think either of those is a real problem for it, it's just following a different style than you are.

http://tinyurl.com/ozty9uq Look at 3♠ description. That's a pretty funny looking ♠A and a no ♣A it has over there. If it really wants to make some cuebid showing an A, why not ♣?

Let's see, there are many possible bidding sequences with these hands, and most of them do not lead to 4♠. Possibility 1: 1♣ - Does not get as many points 2: 1♥ - Again doesn't win as many points ~12.5% +6.25% MPs 3: 1NT - Also probably doesn't get as many points ~6.25% +6.25% MPs 4: 1NT with transfer to spades - About equal to this ~18.75% +9.375% MPs 5: 1 something - 1♠ stuff ending in 3♠ - About equal to this ~12.5% +6.25% MPs 6: 1 something - 1♠ - 2NT - Probably doesn't get as many points as this ~12.5% +12.5% MPs 7: 1 something - 1♠ - stuff ending in 3NT - Beats this if it makes, loses if it fails, but with how they'd likely play it'd probably only make about 20% of the time, ~12.5% +10% MPs 8: 1 something - 1♠ - stuff ending in 4♠ - Beats this ~12.5%, +0 MPs Total: +69.375% MPs So I'll go with 60-70%.

But you have the best hand. So west is limited to at most 16 HCP, meaning it's unlikely your partner has 0. So you can probably make something, even though it is obviously a gamble whatever you bid as each possibility comes with drawbacks. I know it's a risk but I bid 3♥ with this. It's only 4 cards but it's a very good 4 and I thought I could make it.

[hv=pc=n&s=sakjt8hkqjtdqt63c&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=1sp2s]133|200[/hv] I ran into this earlier today in a free robot race. So the 1♠ and 2♠ are just the common meaning of them as bid by the robots. It is best hand south so you know no one else has more HCP than you do. Although I'd probably prefer to know what is the best thing to do in the more usual case where you shouldn't know that. What do you think is the best thing to do from here?

I think the explanations were that 2♠ was 12-22 total points with 6+♠, and 3♠ was 15-22 total points with twice rebiddable spades. And I think it would have been 18-22 points if I just went straight to 3♠ over 2♣ but I don't remember exactly. Given the bidding, I would say that with my hand it'd be a safe assumption that my partner does not have a Yarborough and that the other team is missing some points I don't have given that they didn't seem to be all that strong with how they bid. So I was kind of already taking its points into account in the 3♠ bid.