HighLow21

What Dave said. I'm fully prepared to re-introduce the word "ludicrous" in this discussion if need be. :-)

This article is fantastic. Hahahahaha! I kind of figured Phil had something deliciously hilarious up his sleeve with the obscure reference.

I cannot imagine 4♠ failing based on the auction so far. I would guess it makes >90% of the time. Here are my thoughts: I have a 7-loser hand, 13 HCP, great trump support, the ACE of diamonds (not any other honor is nearly as good), and shortness in partner's second suit. The only way we're in trouble is if partner is dead minimum on the bidding so far, is exactly 5-4-3-1 with nothing in either minor, and the opening lead exposes a 4th loser. This may be the case, and the auction does warn that trump duplication is possible, but even with a dead minimum overcall (minimum for the action in the auction so far) game might be cold here. In my opinion bidding anything short of game at this point is very very wimpy at any form of scoring, unless you have a descriptive forcing bid available. But I cannot imagine stopping short of game here. Luckyloser, based on your description if partner's 2♥ bid was a classic help suit game try, then yes, your hand has improved quite a bit. In that scenario he would be worried about losing too many hearts and your hand says he can only lose 2 at the most. If 2♥ is unclear as to what type of strength is in that suit, then the answer could run the gamut from "improved tremendously" to "horrendous duplication." If partner has, for example, KQJT♥ it is a huge problem. If he has Axxx♥ or Kxxx♥ or AKxx♥ or xxxx♥ it is fantastic news.

Ken out of curiosity, when might be a good time to do so?

This is absolutely correct. The fortunate thing for all of us is the long run, during which time bad bridge loses. This does not change the reduction in my life expectancy when something like this happens, however. B-)

Phil has terminology I cannot even Google. :lol: What is a Burn's fit? If they can make 2♥ I will eat my shoe, even though I do not like my 4 small hearts. It tells me declarer might be able to pick up partner's theoretical trump honors. Still, whatever the penalty means, we have a better than normal shot at taking them at least -2, better than making a game our way.

MikeH for the win, as always. B-)

Good point. I still open 2♣ in my methods, standout. Still 3 losers, still 5 QTs. Others wouldn't, and that's fine, but I still think if the K♥ is the 2♥, a cold game will be passed out more often than 2♣ gets us too high. In fact I would still open 2♣ if the K♥ were the 2♥ and the A♣ were the 6♣. I am certain that many people will disagree with me on this now, but my basic rule for opening 2♣ is: max 4 losers (or 22+ balanced), min 4 QT's. Very easy to remember.

Zelendakh -- the explanation almost verbatim was this: Me: "What was 2D supposed to be?" They: "What you don't know? Everybody knows." Me: "Clearly not everybody." They: "LOL." Me: "And why did your partner respond 2H?" They: "The opening 2D forces partner to respond 2H." Yeah, right.

I think I understand the merits of the double, but with three bad hearts and 4 good diamonds, I would bid 2♦. One thing partner knows for a fact about my hand is that I am short in clubs, unless the opponents are playing ELCD's or some such thing. We also can be fairly certain that RHO is short in spades. If my red honors were in the 3-card heart suit, I would definitely double. But partner will hopefully be able to figure out, based on the auction, that I have to have heart tolerance or a rebiddable spade suit here.

2♣, 2♦, 2♠, followed by: - spade support (decide whether to check on slam) - 3♣, 2nd negative. At this point opener rebids 4♣ and then partner can choose which game for us to play in. I don't get it. What's the problem? :huh:

If I weren't certain that 3♠ was forcing --> and I mean dead certain that partner was dead certain that it was forcing --> I would bid 4♠. I have the values for game and my spade suit tells me 4♠ is that game. If there is anything about partner's hand that suggests bidding further I have no fear that we can make whatever he chooses to bid.

1D opening: Whatever bid you have that demands spades as trumps and asks partner for some help. At IMP's, I would probably double first then bid 3♠. At MP's, I would probably jump it to 2♠ and if partner cannot advance, the game is probably borderline at best. 1NT opening: Here it is much more likely that LHO has too many aces for game to make. I'm looking at 16 HCP and LHO claims to have 15-17, assuming I understand the 1NT bid correctly. Partner will turn up with 1 or 0 aces about 95% of the time. If it is 0 game is hopeless; if it is 1, I somehow have to avoid losing an additional heart. I would bid 2S and compete to 3S, but then give up. I am prepared to double any NT competition by the opening side, now that partner knows what to lead.

I cannot understand opening this hand at the one level. There are 3 losers, assuming there is a black suit fit. There are 24 HCP, all prime (except for the loner K♥). The probability of having a 1-level bid passed out when game (or slam!) is on is much, much greater than that you will get too high by opening 2♣. The only thing that scares me is that partner will make a positive response in diamonds (3♦), in which case I may never be able to show my club suit. But this hand can sometimes make a spade game even if partner has the K♦ only, and a spade void!! Besides, if partner does make a positive response of any kind, you will have a making game somewhere even in a total misfit scenario. I can understand if players have a specific conventional bid for this type of hand (such as Ben's misiry bid), but I cannot see how a 1-level opening can possibly be right.

I was off an order of magnitude... it's almost exactly 10,000 to 1, not 100,000. 13 black cards is 40,000 to 1.

OK thanks Ben. I will forward the full text of the report to the email address you described. (I have it saved here on my hard drive.) -Tate

I would calculate the odds if I had my MS Excel reinstalled (after a complete hard drive failure on my laptop). :-/ That is a monster. 30 HCP. Was there a slam?

Does anyone know the odds of being dealt a double void are? My intuition tells me about 100,000 to 1.

Oh crap, I didn't know that the RESPONDER to the preempt dove in 5H. Hahahaha! Wow.

Hi everyone, I recently sat down at a table where the running score, approximately, was 110 IMPs for my opponents to 10 IMPS for my side. Over the next 8-10 hands I became aware that they were quite good. However, something didn't sit right with me, and now reviewing the hands I played against them as well as the hands that were played before I sat down, the only possible explanation for their success seems to be cheating. Some examples: (EXAMPLES DELETED BY INQUIRY) The list could go on, but this gives you a flavor of it. There are probably 10 other things that happened that are anywhere between surprisingly good play and almost certainly impossible without knowing what your partner holds (and maybe the opponents too, with the aid of an independent kibitzer). The question is: what should I do about this? In my view, if someone at BBO looks at the evidence and decides there's simply no way that someone could play and bid so well without having UI repeatedly, I'd really like to hear that there's a way to get these people permanently barred. Because based on what I observed, it seems impossible that they could perform so well without at least knowing each others' holdings (and in a few cases, without knowing all 4 exact holdings). -Tate

Hahahaha! This just made my day. :-)

Indubitably!

We're talking about Justin's advice because (1) apparently he gave the advice somewhere and (2) right or wrong, the OP referenced it on this hand. I agree that Justin almost certainly meant a singleton or void, but this poster didn't think so.

OK. The 10-8 does increase the chance that they have only 1 heart stopper and decreases the chance that leading high will make the suit inextricably entangled. I still lead low, but I guess I'm not adamant that low is correct and high is incorrect.

Yeah I guess I should say: none of the calls to me is DEFINITELY wrong. If I had to place a wager on the worst call made without seeing the N/S hands, I'd have to put my money on North's double -- again, barring complete information.