EricK

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=sq7ha983daj95cak9&s=sakjt3hkq62dcqj84]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] Can you diagnose the 13 cold top tricks and bid to 7NT? Playing with an intermediate level partner, our auction (please promise you won't laugh) was 1♠ 3♦ 3NT 6NT Not a thing of beauty, but at least we got to a slam and beat the pairs in 6♥! But even after a saner start like 1♠ 2♦ 2♥ it doesn't seem all that easy.

It's one of those irregular verbs: We make tactical bids; you psyche; they have an undisclosed partnership agreement.

As someone with a passing interest in statistics (and cricket) I hate to see people make judgements based on a tiny staitstical sample. Imagine a team has a 70% chance of winning an individual game againt any other side in a tournament. That is a huge edge to have. But if they are in the quarterfinals there would still be less than a 50% chance that they got to the final. And if that happened, it would be siad to be a "shock result" and people would be looking to lay the blame somewhere and so on. But since when is and odds-on occurence a "shock result"?!

I don't like the 3♣ rebid, but I can sort of understand it. Yes it might get you to a good low point count 3NT, but it is far more likely to get you too high on a lot of other hands. But 3♥ is really bad, IMO. Partner isn't going to be interested in your four small hearts, and what do you expect him to do on a hand without a ♦ stop? 3NT is a bit of a punt with only a half stop in ♦, but after bidding 3♣, he pretty much forced himself into it. And 6NT is odd, to say the least. What 12 tricks were you hoping for?

A lot of discussions about Acol are misguided. Acol is not about bidding carefully to the correct contract in an undisturbed auction. Of course, it can do that on a large proportion of such hands, but not as often as more cautious systems. No, it is about putting a huge boot into the auction early on, "in quick, out quick" , and in general making it tough for opponents. Frequent opening bids of 1M or 1NT, light 2/1s and heavy use of limit bids all fall into these categories. So (and here I am contradicting my original reply somewhat), If you want to bid 2♥ on the hand in the OP, go ahead. Maybe have a look at LHO first and see if he is just itching to get a 2m bid in.

I don't think I would bid 2♥ with this. A rule of thumb is whether I am happy forcing to game opposite partner's minimum NT hand (here 15 points, presumably). The 1633 vs 1336 distinction is another good point. The fact that your 6 card suit is ♥ gives you a very good opportunity to describe this sort of hand at the 2-level (1♠ 1NT 2m 2♥).

In the first hand, West is to blame for your not reaching game. He took away all your space, and made South devalue his ♦ suit. Game isn't great, but I expect most pairs would reach it unopposed. In the second hand, good judgment is to blame. North merely invites, and South decides his hand is mediocre. They are both right.

Add one more vote for 1NT. Regarding the people who are counting it as 15 or so points because Aces are undervalued: I thought that this really only applied in suit contracts, and that for NT, something like the fifths count (A=4, K=2.8, Q=1.8, J=1, T=0.4) was more accurate.

I've been thinking about the situation where responder has support for opener's major suit and my thoughts run like this: Opener can give his hand a grade of 0,1,2,3 etc, where 0 is a minimum, 1 is one trick better than minimum, 2 is two tricks better etc. Similarly, responder can grade his hand as 3,4,5 etc where 3 is invitational, 4 is one trick better than that, and so on. Now, the level at which the pair should try to play is, to a first approximation, equal to the sum of those grades. But because of the relative size of the bonuses for game and slam and the penalties for going down, and because some hands fit better than others, we want to explore game possibilities if we can, even if this grade sum suggests the 3 level, and we should also explore for slam if the grade level suggests 5 or more, all the while trying to stay at the 4 level if slam isn't there. But also, we don't want to needlessly explore for slam (giving away information to the defense) if it is very likely that game is the limit of our hands. To me this suggests a number of things: 1. Where responder is invitational, he needs to leave room for opener to explore for game, without going above the 3 level. Using 2NT as inv+ (ie grade 3 or more) is a good start 2. To make it easier for opener to gauge whether slam exploration is profitable, it is best to split responder's ranges, so that eg 2NT is grade 3 or grade 5+, and grade 4 hands use a different approach 3. to leave maximum room for exploration, it is probably best to use 2♠ instead of 2NT when opener's suit is ♥ 4. Opener's responses to the 2♠/2NT bid should give some idea of his grade, so that responder knows when to explore for slam, but the partnership also needs a way to see if the hands fit well for game, even if both are minimum. Can we do all that? I believe it should be possible, and I will write up my first bash at a method later. But I have to leave for work now :)

Does anybody have any comments on North's 3♥?

16 1NT

I imagine that forcing is a better use. For 3♣ to score better than 2NT you need to make two extra tricks in the suit contract. It is hard to see how you can ever be confident of that when all you know about partner's shape is that he has 4/5 ♠ and <3 ♥.

Have I misunderstood the auction? Did South cuebid twice in ♥?

5♣ for me. Yes I might miss some slams. But, trust me, I'd miss them anyway.

There's no need to do that - most opponents won't take advantage of our mistakes, anyway.

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=skxhktxdaqjxxckqx&s=sqj9xha8xdxcajt9x]133|200|Scoring: MP 1♣ 4NT 5♥ 5NT 6♣ P Lead ♦T[/hv] The bidding went as shown. Honestly it did. No, really, it did. How do you play it?

It goes something like this: 14-16: 16 17-19: 18 20-23: 21 24-29: mid 20's 30-32: 30 33-37: 30's 38-45: late 30's 46-55: early 40's 56-65: 50s >=pension age: Who cares anymore, just gimme the money.

The best my dog can manage is a couple of ruffs.

1. Why? A raise to 5♠ is a more common bid to show ♥ worries. I would say 5♥ is positive unless otherwise agreed. 2. He should bid it if he has extras. That's the only thing that can be gauged at this stage. I am worried that partner will say to himself something like "Can that be a cue-bid? If so, why did he cue ♥ and not ♣ or ♦? Has he only got a ♥ control? In that case my ♣ don't look at all promising. Maybe it isn't a cue though - perhaps he is asking about ♥. But doesn't 5♠ that? Or does 5♠ asking for good trumps? Well I have fairly good trumps, but no ♥ control. Or maybe it asks if I have extras. Well I still don't like my ♣. Hmmm I have no idea what to do, and there might be bad breaks around. I'll bid 5♠" In short, I would be shocked if, after 5♥, partner did anything other than bid 5♠ - in which case we might as well pass 4♠.

I can't believe 5♥ is the correct bid. For one thing partner might take it as asking for a ♥ control. For another, will partner know what he needs to bid a slam?

"Something can't come from nothing" is obviously false if the "something" you are trying to explain is everything! There is literally no other option but "nothing". Because any "something" is necessarily part of what you are trying to explain. Another way to look at it is to realise that an explanation of some phenomenon or property must only contain things which themselves lack that property (so, for example, the explanation of wetness will not involve things which are themselves wet). So an explanation for existence will necessarily only be in terms of things which lack existence.

The problems with the stop card stem from the fact that the mandated pause is way too long! 10 seconds is an age during the bidding. And for almost every player I have ever come across, if they haven't come to a decision about what the best bid is after 3 or 4 seconds, they won't come to any better decision after 10 (no matter how much they think or stare at the ceiling). If they just made the mandated pause 3 seconds, many more people would actually follow the rules.

I don't know. That strikes me as a bad treatment. One of many in modern American bidding... If pd can crunch 4♠ in his own, then he can do so without my expressing doubts. But if he hasn't he is not likely to bid on either. The double gives partner some new information - "I really want to bid on" - but does so in a way which doesn't get in the way in case he has a penalty double. I don't believe he should do it on this hand though. I'm assuming 2♥ is being played as some sort of two suiter (otherwise at best N has made rather a silly bid, at worst, NS have some serious disclosure issues). Based on that, I don't really want to bid on as North - I've said my piece on this hand.

I would guess that 4 ♣ is a cue bid for ♥. In response I bid 4♥ as the hand looks like a misfit to me, and partner doesn't have enough trumps to make slam on a cross-ruff a good possibility.