The_Badger

I was going to say exactly the same, but the insane bid in the auction is the bot's 3♠. It's a misfit with minimum values so North passing 3♥ is the only option.

Trump sees his role as Flash Gordon, the all American football hero, but in reality he's no better than Darth Vader.

Hello Colin. Good luck with your bridge. I have known Julian (the owner of the Avenue) since schooldays. It's a real shame (due to disability) that I can no longer play bridge in a club, let alone tournaments. I cut my teeth playing against Terence Reese, Sandra Landy, Maurice Weissberger, Joan Durran, Ian Panto and many others. I remember the good old days when the whole club was full every Tuesday night - 25 tables plus playing duplicate. Alas, times change. I still live in Brighton and Hove: it's a brilliant place to live, though I know a few people who live and have visited New Zealand and they say what a wonderful country it is, too. As you probably gather, I no longer contribute to this forum as I am "out of the loop" so to speak, though I still read the comments on these forums. Keep up the good work, and best wishes for your move to New Zealand.

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That's an interesting thread. Here's another take on this. If a Precision bidder opened the hand in the post 1♣ (16+) third in hand with the intention of passing any bid by partner, it would constitute a psyche. So opening 1♦ (10-15) on the hand given without 10-15 or a suit should be a psyche too. Given that the 1♦ bid in Precision is quite nebulous these days, ranging from 1+♦, it is conventional too, just in the same way a 1♣ bid is. There's an easy way to rule this, I feel, that any bid without the requisite point count and a suit of 4+ cards (or 3 cards with possibly two top honours) is psyche territory; anything else is negotiably acceptable.

I think the problem probably lies with using the word 'Acol' and other players envisioning a quaint tidy British (Commonwealth, sometimes Dutch) system with 4 card majors and a 'potentially fatal - lol!' weak no-trump, that has been well and truly superseded by a standard 5 card major opener and a strong no-trump option worldwide. Yes, plenty of Acol players play five card majors nowadays, and some even use an intermediate 14-16 no-trump - God forbid! But if you say 'Acol' on your profile, and then join a SAYC or 2/1 game, you are probably looked upon, I am only surmising, as a lesser player in some way, not familiar with how the majority play. You might be a far better cardplayer and tactical bidder than the other players, and let's face it how many players actually know full SAYC or 2/1 bidding in its total entirety? - I certainly don't and I'm honest enough to admit it. I have to look up bids in certain situations now and again - but going to a SAYC or 2/1 table and saying 'Acol' is your main system is just making a rod for your own back, I feel.

I feel there's no need to panic to try to pre-empt the opposition out of making a bid. They're red, red's partner has already passed, and you've probably got the strongest hand at the table. I'm bidding 2NT. Anyway, pre-emptive bids are made by weak hands, not strong ones. It's a case of the tail wagging the dog, in my view. Just because the opponents have some kind of major suit fit, it doesn't mean they're going to find it. There's only one downside with bidding 2NT in my opinion: a possible 3NT contract could be played from the wrong side of the table, other than that it keeps the opposition guessing what sort of hand you have.

To be honest, Geoff, I think you are making life difficult for yourself. First, Acol is a marginal system outside the UK and us Brits have to accept that there are far, far more SAYC and 2/1 players than Acol players in the world. Also, agreeing your partner's card when you have limited knowledge of their system and methods, and then 'cocking things up' for want of a better expression will have a downside. Without sounding patronising, do your best to learn SAYC or 2/1 bidding and the conventions you encounter from books or online sources before you go and play. Kibitz team matches and write down the most popular conventions players use: that is your initial template. Also, read up on about the differences between Acol and SAYC or 2/1 bidding: there have similarities, especially Acol and SAYC, but they are different. It's not just a matter of using a 15-17 NT as opposed to a 12-14 one. That said, I do not know what level you play at, or your overall experience - I have looked at your online profile - and it does seem you have been playing bridge for a long time, but so have many other players who have not taken on board that sometimes you have to re-learn the game, be an old dog learning new tricks, to keep up with it. I wish you well, and trust that your team experiences will be more profitable in the future.

No snickering, knowingly or sympathetically here. Walsh-type programming (as steve 2005 says) or not, GIB just doesn't know when to PASS. Period. There's something fundamentally wrong with GIB's programming when it makes bad decisions on the first round of bidding. Obviously, the more bids that are made the more difficult it is to iron out problems, but here is it just the assumption that length and shortness guarantees a bid: we all know that it should be counting HCPs not total points on the first round without a fit, and there should be some overriding function that stops it from making silly bids like this. Yes, it blew my mind too.

It's not a light opening, it's a psyche. I played Precision for many years, and I wouldn't have dreamed of opening 1♦ on a hand like this in 3rd even white/red. Just because 1♦ in Precision can mean a variety of things these days, usually without any reference to actually holding a ♦ suit, doesn't mean you can open a sub-minimum hand with a doubleton in the suit bid and not expect the director to be called. If you opened the hand in SAYC, 2/1, Acol or other natural based systems, it would be classed as a psyche, so why should Precision be treated any differently just because it has some artificial openings? If the hand had been ♠xxxx ♥xxx ♦x ♣AKxxx and it had been opened 2♣ in standard Precision showing 5♣ + 4M or 6+♣ then that's a light opening, in my view.

I play negative free bids up to 3♦ which is jolly useful given that so many players use weak jump overcalls these days. This hand fits the criteria perfectly, especially red/red, 6 card suit and maximum of 10 HCPs. Either that or you incorporate 2NT as some sort of Puppet/Lebensohl-style bid to show this hand, but then you lose 2NT as a natural bid here.

Length before strength except where you haven't got any strength - where's the intermediates?! one unsupported curse of Scotland card amongst nine tramtickets - and I'm opening 1♥ like everyone else. 2♦ is such an easy rebid with this hand in most systems.

Partner hasn't bid yet so trotting out 4♥ over the lowest three level pre-empt is a bit agricultural (but the standard bid agreed). Given the opponents have made a vulnerable first in hand pre-empt, I can't see too much wrong with Dbl, especially with 4 card support for both majors. Dbl doesn't necessarily promise support for all suits but it does promise a hand that wishes to compete however and this is a big HOWEVER Dbl. followed by a suit bid (especially if the opponents compete too) is open to all sorts of interpretations. That's the problem defining the 4-7-2-0 shape afterwards. Even with an experienced partnership this will probably be fraught with difficulty given the limited space, and the expectation that partner is likely to respond in ♦s. On this hand Dbl. could well work, but that is resulting seeing all four hands, so yes I have to agree that pre-empts are sometimes highly effective.

That auction for some of us old folk would be the Weissberger convention showing 5-5 majors and asking for 3 card major suit support. Times change. As for avoiding 3NT, it's just one of those hands where finding the right contract is just as difficult for the opponents as yourselves and sometimes you just have to accept that,

This is another personal bugbear with BBO: players who jump ship, leaving in the middle of hands. It's been said before, I know, but why BBO allow players to be at a table and disappear mid game automatically to join a tourney is totally ridiculous? It's even condoning it! We are all aware of players who join tables, see a hand of 2HCPs and leave, or those who reach a hopeless contract, swear at partner, and then leave, or various other reasons, but why are they then allowed to join another table immediately without some penalty is beyond me. We are playing bridge, not musical chairs! I actually think persistent offenders, even those who don't choose a choice expletive, should be banned from the site as it constitutes abuse. As for those that leave boards for other than a genuine reason in team games, they should at least be barred from other team games for at least a week, maybe a month. Yes, I know, how do you discern between those with a genuine reason and those without? Well, maybe the three strikes and you're out (barred for a month) rule would be a start. And yes, I recognise BBO software would have to be changed to facilitate this but it is a persistent problem that won't go away.

I have to agree, virgos, East's bidding is total pants! ('Pants' is English slang for rubbish.)

I couldn't agree more, Graham. As we all know, there's plenty of combinations (even split combinations) where leading away from KJx is going to cost, especially leading into the strong no-trump hand. This is why I posted this hand because at the time I couldn't see any logic in making this lead. Somewhere between lucky and brilliant in my view. Miamijd's analysis clarifies matters somewhat. If declarer had held the hand above with ♦AQxxx and made the contract, we'd probably put the lead down to a misclick or error of judgement without actually understanding why it was made.

I was unsure whether the 2NT opener (18-19) was part of the system - some players might use that range in association with a multi 2♦ - or whether it was just an aggressive bid or miscount. The match. as I recall, was evenly balanced at the time so it's unlikely to be a "state of the match" bid. There's also a degree of logic involved given West's 7 HCPs count and North's indication of a long ♣ suit that the small slam has been contracted on the less than normal requisite point count allowing East to hold key cards to defeat the slam.

As always a great reply, Mike - thank you! - and like you I spent 10 minutes, more in my case, figuring out some of the logic behind it. And yes, it took Benito just over 10 seconds of thought to pick this lead. On the flip side, aggressive leads don't always work as I remember a hand some years back where Benito underled an ace against a small slam and a singleton king in dummy made. +1 for all those emulated the great Benito

Nearly 30 players have voted - thank you - so here's the actual hand. West was none other than Benito Garozzo who lead ♦8. He is known for aggressive leads against slams but I would have been interested in his thought processes on why this lead is best given the bidding? [hv=pc=n&s=saq932hajdq43ckq8&w=st6hk8652dkj8c932&n=sk87h97d75cajt765&e=sj54hqt43dat962c4]399|300[/hv]

I couldn't agree more, Nige1, but as a former insolvency analyst myself it is doing what plenty of good businesses do that come unstuck later, namely concentrating on the periphery rather than the core. The all- singing, all-dancing aspects of BBO are amazing, but players have to have confidence to use BBO in the first instance. It doesn't matter how many trendy add-ons you incorporate, basically if something as important as GIB is faulty, then players are going to shy away from using it. BBO isn't going to go broke but it's probably losing customer base because of its faults, including those ones beyond GIB too.

I completely agree, smerriman. I'm not a GIB user, but it does not take much to work out from all the posts on here about GIB there is something seriously wrong. Add to this, on a different note, the problems with the iPad compatibility and lots of other issues with BBO generally, and I'm afraid that BBO is just losing the plot, I feel. Which is sad. I don't know how BBO is run, or the revenue streams it generates, but if it really wants to be the biggest and best bridge site in the world it needs a total overhaul. At the moment it is failing on so many levels, in my view. We are perhaps grateful for the brilliant software that makes it possible to play bridge with anyone in the world. But having done that, I feel BBO is perhaps resting too much on its laurels, unaware of the undercurrent of mixed emotions that players feel when they're not being listed to. I am fully aware of the difficulties here, and when I recently posted "A Impassioned Plea to BBO Forum Members" that was my own personal gripe about the lack of enthusiasm that occurs when players - people generally - become disinterested in an organisation because it fails to support the people who enable it to exist - i.e. the customers, or in BBO's case, the players. What makes it perhaps more bizarre is that one of the owners (according to Wikipedia) is none other than Microsoft owner, Bill Gates, a bridge player himself, so you would think that GIB, and for that matter BBO, would have the some of the best technical support and commercial expertise in the world.

It's really tough. I like the derring-do(ness) of 6♠ but, in my view, it alerts the opposition that you have ♥ control. Taking them for granted that they won't find the (potentially) killer ♦ lead is, well, taking them for granted. To me, the RKCB route followed by 5♥ is flawed - how is partner going to interpret that? - or cueing 5♥ directly leaves partner on a guess. In these situations I work on the cards that are needed for slam to make. ♠Q or ♣Q aren't essential (assuming distribution) but either ♦A or K most likely is. One of two cards amongst three hands sounds fair odds to bid 6♠ but I guess it was the wrong bid :(

I have posted this in the Expert Forum as all the players at the table were experts. But anyone is welcome to vote and reply. What suit would you lead against this bidding, and if you wish to be more specific, what card would you lead? IMPs Teams. I will post the whole hand after a few days. [hv=pc=n&w=st6hk8652dkj8c932&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=2n(18-19%20balanced)p3s(Puppet%20to%203NT)p3n(Forced)p4h(Single%20suit%20Clubs)p4s(RKCB)p4n(1%20or%204)p6cppp]133|200[/hv]

East's actual hand with its ninth spade and outside ace is somewhere between a pre-empt and Namyats territory, I feel (though technically with its poor suit it isn't a Namyats bid). Could easily miss a slam if partner has the right controls opening 4♠. Then again, opening 1♠ will invariably let the opponents into the auction. Just one of those hands that's just the luck of the draw.