EricK

It's tricky though. If opening leader has a choice of two unbid suits and the one he leads turns out to be from Kxx(x). Is it not now more likely that he has the other King - so that he had no choice in underleading a king.

No, an argument that's been debated a few times. Clubs or balanced does not show club shortage. Club shortage is possible, as it is when you open 1NT, but it is not the same as guaranteeing length or shortage. p It depends how you split up all the possible hands. Does it show Clubs OR balanced hand (saying nothing about clubs) or does it show clubs (in a balanced or unbalanced hand) OR short clubs in a balanced hand

If the bidding in bridge is too complicated then it seems clear to me that it is the scoring system that is to blame. Because of the way the scoring table is structured various contracts are almost never worth bidding to naturally, and so they are better used as conventional bids. I am sure that one could construct a scoring system which would allow one to keep all the main features of bridge except for the massive complexity of the bidding.

And who's meant to alert this convention? :D

3 diamonds by me would be a transfer to 3N in this auction. Not by agreement, but in all practicality. I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here - surely partner knows that if you want to play in 3NT you could have bid it yourself so will look to bid something else. My worry would be whether he would bid his strong 4 card major looking for a Moysian, or make the cheaper cue. But anyway you can still take 3NT out to 4♣ and not have lost anything.

I'm wondering whether 4♣ by you was necessary to show support. By opener's 4th bid, he has shown (I presume) 4-4-0-5 and you have shown (I presume) a balanced hand with 4+♦ and no 4 card major. Are bids below 3NT looking for a 4-3 major fit, or are they cue-bids with ♣ agreed. In particular, what would a 3♦ bid by you now show?

Having read "Bridge with the Blue Team", I can confirm that squeeze opportunities crop up on about 3/4 of all hands, and the opponents' cards are positioned right for the squeeze on about 90% of those.

Are you a little worried about how much space you are taking up with 4♥, putting partner to a guess if he is slam interested? How well defined is it? Is partner meant to expect that you have no outside control?

This is false if there is 50% of getting 2Y you should swap the enveloppe. Saying that the envelope already contain Y and 2Y where by switching you are gaining Y or losing Y is a fallacy. Since Y wont have the same value in both cases. The correct calculation is assuming envelope X with x/2 or 2x as the other envelope. Switching will provide. 1/2*2x + 1/2*1/2x = 5/4x wich is higher then x that you get if you do not switch. In my formulation of the problem, Y always has the same value independently of the envelope I happened to choose - it is simply the smaller of the two values. In your formulation, your x changes depending on which envelope you happened to choose. Imagine repeating this experiment a thousand times with a thousand different people. In each case, the envelopes contain $10 and $20. Those who swap either gain or lose $10. The average gain of those who stick with their choice is $15, the average gain of those who swap is also $15. This highlights the flaw in the "1/2*2x + 1/2*1/2x = 5/4x " formula. In this case if you open the envelope and find $10 there is actually (unbeknownst to you) a 100% chance of the other containing $20 (2x) and a 0% chance of it containing $5 (x/2). And something similar applies if you open your envelope and find $40. But just because you don't know the probabilities doesn't mean you can arbitrarily assume they're equal to 1/2, plug them into a formula and hope to get a sensible answer.

On hand 1 the only calls by anybody which I agree with are the 4 passes.

It's very much a matter of bridge philosophy, but 3NT is not at all a bad bid IMO. You are going to end up in 3NT a huge proportion of the time so why tell the opponents what to lead?

That's a very straightforward and obvious sequence. Once opener shows 5 spades and 4 hearts, responder doesn't care how his remaining four minor suit cards are distributed, it's simply a mattter of checking on the major Aces.

This is complete BS, If you lose Y but you had the 2Y envelope you lose a Y that is worth half of the amount in your envelope. But if you hold the 1st envelope with Y and you switch you win Y when Y is the full amount of the envelope. If you have 50$ and switch. If the pair was Y=50$ & 2Y=100$ you win Y but that Y is worth 50$. If the pair was Y=25$ and 2Y=50$ you still lose Y but y here is worth 25$. Its clear that in infinity, real number dont have the same probability. Otherwise by adding them you would get more than 1. With the wallet problem its obvious that the more money you have into your wallet= the more likely the other wallet is smaller than yours. So the probability of having the highest wallet is 50% only if you dont look at the amount you have. Once you know the amount you have in your own wallet the probability depend on the amount you have even if you are in infinity. You can't argue like that because you are changing the definition of "Y". This is what gives rise to the paradox in the first place. One envelope contains Y the other contains 2Y. There is a 50% chance that you chose the envelope with "Y" in and 50% chance that you chose the envelope with 2Y in. Your expected gain if you stick is Y/2 + 2Y/2 =3Y/2 and your expected gain if you swap is 2Y/2 + Y/2 = 3Y/2. The whole point of the envelope paradox is not whether it gains to swap, because quite obviously it doesn't. The point is to find the flaw in the argument which appears to show that it gains to swap.

It's a much easier problem for mathematicians than for bridge players. Mathematicians will always have nothing in their wallet so the bet will be in their favour, whereas the contents of a bridge player's wallet will vary depending on how his last rubber bridge session went.

Pass is a good call here. It is actually a very descriptive call. It passes the message that you have a minimum hand, no spade fit, and (by implication) a genuine diamond suit. Partner will now have a chance to act on this information.

In one of Victor Mollo's stories, the Hideous Hog says "the key to success at bridge is to realise that everyone is dealt 13 cards, even RR". With that in mind, there is no way we don't have a fit on this hand (if partner has 13 cards and exactly 4♥, 2♦ and 2♣, then he wouldn't have responded 1♥).

Were they trying to intimidate you or just helpfully pointing out the rules in case you found yourself up against a nitpicking pair later in the evening?

I don't know if this is standard, but one way of looking at it is that if there is no game try which you would accept, then it is safer to go via 1NT to discourage partner from making a game try; but if there is one or more game tries you would accept, it is dangerous to avoid an immediate raise in case partner has the game try you would accept.

While Fred's advice: is, obviously, excellent, this auction highlights a weakness of standard "no-frills" bidding. Yes, opener has limited his hand, but it still covers a wide range; and yes, responder has signed off, but bear in mind that he has no natural forcing bid to make, and his bid too covers quite a wide range. If both hands are towards the top of their repsective ranges and not too ill-fitting then slam will be a good proposition. Even worse, if partner is in the habit of responding 1♠ with a weak suit, then 3NT might be off with slam a lay down. Opener should be allowed to bid on with slam interested hands like this one. Jumping to slam is clearly a jump into the unknown, but one try, willing to subside in 4NT if partner doesn't co-operate looks to me like it will gain more often than it will lose.

These are pretty much my thoughts too. I would have bid 2♦ on the previous round though. Are we seriously ever stopping short of game vulnerable at IMPS?

How can x ever be wrong? Well, if partner has a 3343 hand without a club stop and decides to show his cheaper (or better) 3 card major and you raise to 4 on your 3 card suit...

Non-fit showing might be better. On a hand like ♠Qx ♥xxx ♦KQTxxxx ♣x after 1♣ 1♦ 3♣ you have no good bid - 3NT might easily be on if partner has ♦A, but a forcing 3♦ might very well take you too high. Being able to bid a natural 3♦ on the first round is useful and probably comes up more often than the splinter. You could use a similar treatment for the majors.

Whether 2/4 or 3/5 is better seems a question which could be answered by computer. Just set a reasonably good bridge program to play a 10,000 deal bridge match against itself, with the only difference being the lead style and see how many IMPS/board one gains over the other. I don't think most people are able to accurately form such judgements themselves just from their own experience. Firstly they probably don't play enough boards with each method to form a stastically significant sample and secondly, unless they meticulously record each result and analyse them disinterestedly, they will be beset with confirmation bias, disconfirmation bias and all the other mental biases which afflict us.

I agree, smart student's are a pain in the ass for teachers, parents should all raise their children equally dumb. They should teach them to behave themselves in class.

I can understand from a teacher's point of view why they would not want the parents to "teach ahead". A child who is bored because he is being taught stuff he already knows can be very disruptive, yet giving that child his own, more advanced, work to do, separate from rest of the class, can lead to that child being picked on by the other kids (and leads to more work for the teachers, who are already overworked as it is). Going over the topics they have already done at school and perhaps showing them a different way to do things is less problematic, as is extending that to cover stuff that won't be covered in class at all.