EricK

Note that the fact that two suits were unstopped was irrelevant to the result on this hand. Quite the opposite, in fact. if you give responder the ♠Q and opener the ♣Q but keep both hand shapes the same, so that opener has one suit unstopped, then 3NT plays even worse than on the actual hands. Similarly swap the ♥Q and the ♦Q so that opener has stops or partial stops in each suit, and 3NT gets even worse. Eric

3♣ seems normal. If I bid FSF and partner repsonds 3♦ I am rather stuck for a bid (that is true whether it is forcing for 1 round or to game). Eric

I love Hamman's rule, but it seems to me that the hand screams a suit contract (all Aces and Ks) , and that it's very likely to score in a a suit contract 2+ tricks than in NT... I might double (which is not penalty, here but shows "cards", often takeout oriented, I bid it here despite length in opps suit ) and play either 4S or 5C because I consider Axxx stopper much better in a suit contract.. While As & Ks normally call for a suit contract, it is also the case that a running suit plus 3 outside Aces is a laydown 3NT. Eric

Play that any discard in a suit (except an obviously high card) says you do not like that suit. A. It is simple B. It allows you to discard from your low cards at random (which is theoretically best, I think) C. It only loses out to suit preference signals if you only have the chance to make one discard D. It can allow you to show no preference between the two other suits by discarding twice from the same suit. Eric

South's invitation was a little bit too light. By the same token, North is minimum for his bidding to date - only 18 HCP and 5 of them in a doubleton. On the other hand, this is very close to being a good slam (Just give south ♠Jxx or ♠xx ♥Jxx and suddenly slam is 50%. Similarly you coul give North ♠AQJT or ♥KQJ ♣Kx with the same effect). Playing a natural system it is very difficult to diagnose these fitting Jacks. Eric

1♦ (i) 1♥ (ii) 2♣ 2♠ (iii) 3♣ 3♠ (iv) 3NT (v) (i) I don't like distorting suit lengths but this looks like 5-5 (ii) Responder has no need to distort suit lengths! (iii) initially FSF, but... (iv) ... could be natural (v) I hope it makes! Eric

I'm sorry... I could have sworn that the original post specified that they were playing SAYC... Let me quote from the ACBL's description of SAYC In the section documenting "RESPONSES AND LATER BIDDING AFTER A 1H OR 1S OPENING" Opener's rebids are natural and standard. Rebids with a minimum hand (13-16 points): Rebidding notrump at the cheapest available level; Raising responder's suit at the cheapest level (this can be done with good three-card support if desired); Rebidding a new suit (but not reversing); Rebidding opener's suit at the lowest level I will repeat my earlier comments regarding 1. A pathetic bidding system 2. People projecting their own bidding theories onto a defined system If you bid 2M with the 12-14 hands and raise the minor with 15-16 points you are still bidding in line with that paragraph aren't you? Since the document is deliberately short one has to "read in between the lines" to work out what it really means. Do you really think they mean that in SAYC a 2NT rebid after 1♠ 2♣ shows 13-16 points? If you read the whole document, especially the bit about 2/1 promising a rebid, they can't mean this. They must mean that the maximum minimum hands bid 2NT and the minimum minimum hands go through 2M. Eric

Lord only knows... Playing traditional SAYC, the 3♣ raise probably isn't forcing... The 2♣ response does not promise enough strength to force to game The raise to 3♣ promises a minimum opening... Ergo, the 3♣ raise shouldn't establish a game force In practice, very few SAYC players have actually bothered to learn the system and prefer to project their own prejudices regarding what is right and proper onto this pathetic excuse for a bidding system... For example, lets looking onto the 2♣ response in a bit more detail: In theory, the 2♣ response promises a rebid... Accordingly, after the 3♣, responder is forced to either introduce a new suit at the three level, bid 3N, or raise to 4♣. In short, you're only way to stop short of game is bidding 4♣... But 3♣ does not show a minimum for the simple reason that the 2♣ bid promises a rebid. With a minimum hand you must rebid 2♠ (or introduce ♥ or ♦ where applicable) and then show support on the next round. Similarly a 2NT rebid does not show a minimum. Whether you like this treatment or not, it is very useful on this hand - you can simply raise to 3♣. Eric

I do not pretend to understand the mathematics of Pairs movements so I don't know if this idea is feasible: Pairs play a game according to a pairs movement but instead of MPing the results against all the other pairs, the score is IMPed against one other pair's score, but a different pair for each hand (or one pair for each set of three hands or whatever). This way you would be ranking (or at least attempting to rank) the pairs according to how well they do in a teams match with each of the other pairs as their team mates. That might be a way to select your 3 best pairs. Eric

The dangers of 3NT are when it wrong sides the contract if partner has Qx or Qxx and there are not nine running tricks, or when partner has nothing in spades and we don't have 9 running tricks. The benefit of 3NT is that it will get us to 3NT if there are nine running tricks. Does the benefit outweigh the dangers?

I don't know much about poker, but I know a bit about backgammon. Because backgammon involves dice there is an element of luck, but good players playing against weak players always have the appearance of being lucky. The reason is that they position their pieces so that more dice rolls are good and fewer are bad. In other words they give themselves more chances to be "lucky" and fewer to be "unlucky". A similar thing must happen in bridge as well. As a simple example, where there is a two way finesse, the expert will gather more clues than the non-expert and so is more likely to guess right - he is giving himself a greater chance to be lucky. A more complex example might be hands where the average player sees a finesse as the only chance to make the contract but the expert sees various other plans to try first and only falls back on the finesse as a last resort. When that sort of scenario is repeated, the expert will take fewer losing finesses by the simple expedient of taking fewer finesses overall - he is giving himself fewer chances of being unlucky. Eric

I would like to ask for people's views on 1NT with a four point range. eg What are the pros and cons? Does the range (eg 10-13; 14-17; etc) make a difference? What about 1NT rebids with a 4 card range? Thanks Eric

I doubt that is true. As I said in another thread I think Greco - Hampson are better than at least two of the three US1 pairs :) Without judging the capabilities of each of these pairs of USA1 and USA2, lets for argument sake, replace the best pair of USA2 with the worst pair of USA1 ( assuming the 1st pair of USA2 is better than the 3rd pair of USA1) Do you think, USA1 would have had a better chance of taking on the Italians? I doubt it. Even though on paper, it may seem that the 3 best pairs should form an outfit to represnt USA1, there is more to it than just fielding the 3 best pairs. A lot of intangibles like team dynamics come in to play. This aspect is very much underplayed. Godwin To an extent. I expect the Italians field their best three pairs however. Maybe they are just lucky that they gel together as a team as well. With the USA teams, a bigger intangible is that of money. Eric

There may not be another team there who could have come close but that doesn't mean that replacing, for example, one pair from the USA1 team with one pair from the USA2 team wouldn't have made an even stronger USA1 team. Is it really the case that each pair in USA1 is stronger than each pair in USA2? Eric

To truly test the systems you really need people to play all 4 hands. This guarantees that the competitive auctions are also system dependant (eg there are hands which might overcall a strong club but not a natural club and this needs to be factored in). So if you really want to concentrate on the bidding, organise team matches in which the hands don't get played out! Eric

The trouble with a 1♠ advance instead of a ♥ raise comes when opener doesn't rebid 1NT. Now he can't tell genuine support from genuine preference from false preference. Eric

1) I don't know whether it is "Expert Standard", but it is certainly very common to play 1♠ as forcing unless the 1♥ was a very light response made purely in the hope of improving the contract. 2) When responder made the 1♠ bid he didn't know that opener would rebid 1NT so presumably he had some bid in mind in case opener rebid say 2♦. Since 2♥ in that sequence would just be preference (and could even be false preference with 2♥ and 3♦) he runs the risk of misleading you if he has a genuine 2♥ raise. So I don't think his way is all that playable. Eric

I have just read about Mike Lawrence's trick valuation estimates on his website (although I haven't read the book - "I Fought the Law"). Can anybody who understands the method tell me if I understand it correctly? Firstly SST: I have a singleton, partner has either a singleton, two doubletons, or a void. A SST of 2 or 3 seems reasonable (or do I subtract one because of the second doubleton in the 5422 case? In which case I should definitely be using 2). Now WP: My ♣Q and ♦J may not be working so say I have 5. We don't know much about partner's hand so give him 12WP giving a total of 17WP (It might be lower than 12 if some of his ♠ aren't working, but it might be much more even on a minimum hand eg with ♣K). This gives a downwards adjustment of 1 trick Now tricks should be 13-2.5-1 which is 9.5 (or 10 depending on how you count SST). So this agrees with Justin who said this is closer to 4♥ than Pass. Eric

If partner doubles and they make, it is hardly your fault. Did he think he hadn't already told his story with his first two calls?

While it may not be strictly necessary to have an artificial forcing bid it is occasionally useful. Bear in mind that a natural bid of the fourth suit is only occasionally useful as well! Another point to consider is that having both players make descriptive bids is not always an optimum use of bidding space. With these points in mind, you may want to consider making the cheapest bid by responder as an artificial force asking opener to continue describing his hand, and allow ing him the maximum room to do so. So after 1♠ 2♣ 2♦, 2♥ would be artificial force But after 1♠ 2♣ 2♥, 2♠ would be the general force And after 1♠ 2♥ 3♦, 3♥ would be the bid. However, in this last case there is not much room to pick the best contract whatever methods you play! Eric

Why is the BB organised in this way anyway? Why not have say 4 groups playing all-play-all within those groups then Winner of Group 1 plays runner up of group 2 in one quarterfinal. Winner of 2 plays runner up of 1 in another and similarly for groups 3 and 4. with the obvious semifinals and final. Two teams can only meet each other for a second time in the final, there is little scope to deliberately throw matches and so no need for carryovers at all. Eric

This is not quite true. Playing two shorter matches both of which you are trying to win is not the same as playing to win one long match. If you are trying to win a 32 board match and are find you are losing by quite a lot at the half way point you might very well take swingy actions in the second half as it is your best chance of winning. This will likely not work so you will end up losing by more than you would otherwise. But still it was your best hope. But I think this might discredit the whole idea of a carryover: In the example above, the team which were doing their best to win the first match are effectively punished for that by conceding a larger carryover than they otherwise would have. Why have a system which discourages teams from trying to stage a major comeback in the RR stage? Eric

This is a pass. What the spots do is make it into a reasonable 6 count rather than a crappy 6 count. They don't make it into a seven count let alone an 8 count. Eric

The problem of deliberately dumping is overstated IMO. For one thing, teams hate losing so I doubt most would be prepared to do it. Secondly, the situation will arise rarely anyway. And thirdly, if Team A are in a position to throw a match to knock out Team B then that is a testament to the strength of Team A and the weakness of Team B. For if Team B had played better in the early rounds they wouldn't be in a position to get knocked out. Eric

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=sa973hq72d865cj83&s=s4hak6dakq42cak64]133|200|Scoring: IMP East/West will pass throughout[/hv] You stumble into 6♦ and, after the ♥J lead, you are releaved to see that dummy has some useful cards for a change. What is the best approach to this hand (especially with regards to the ♣ suit)? If you start to draw trumps, you will be pleased to discover that EW both follow to two rounds. Eric