iandayre

Thank you. I told you I wasn't very good at polls. I saw no responses and assumed no one had voted.

Wow. 176 views in over 3 weeks and not one person thought it worth their time to respond. I would appreciate any comments, especially from regular posters, as to why. Thank you.

We need to address your terminology. Your partners 2S bid is not a jump reverse. It is a jump shift and is game forcing for the overwhelming majority of 2/1 players. So yes, if you responded, you need to bid again. Obviously 2NT is the call with all your values in the yet-unbid D suit. As ArtK stated, a jump reverse in your auction after 1C-1H would be 3D. And also as he stated, it is best played as a splinter raise. 1C-1H-2D is a reverse which is at least one-round forcing, but not yet forcing to game.

The description is fine, clearly the bid is incorrect. There must be a way for opener to attempt to sign off in 3D. It appears that the programmers may not have provided GIB with sensible continuations with a strong hand in support of the suit shown by responder. Seems to me opener should be continuing with a major suit cuebid. It would be an interesting topic to discuss the meanings of both 3H and 3S.

The most useful, if not terribly common, situation for Gerber using modern methods is after a 1NT opening bid and a Stayman rebid showing a major suit. This would indeed be RKC Gerber, including the K of the agreed suit.

It would be pointless for GIB to probe for 7NT. GIB cannot count 13 tricks for 7NT even when it has all the tricks in Aces, Kings and a solid suit or suits. See the recent thread "Negative Simulation" for an example. Here GIB would also have to locate the SQ to assure 7NT, something I expect may be difficult even for many world-class experts.

Not sure what scale you are referring to when you say "my strength is 95". I can tell you that GIB's advanced robots are playing at the highest level they are capable of playing. There is no range of robot abilities available. They are NOT programmed to give defensive signals. Fortunately most GIB tournaments are "human best hand" so our side is declarer the majority of the time.

Deleting. This post is not appropriate for this forum.

One question Nigel. In the case where partner doubles, you rate 1H about 1S. This is completely wrong to my way of thinking. If you bid 1H and opener bids 2C passed back around to you, if you now show Spades partner must prefer Hearts at the 3 level. But if you start with Spades, you can bid 2H on the second round and partner has an easy 2 level preference. What do you consider the upside of 1S over 1H?

Wouldn't be the first time :rolleyes:

What terrible thing could happen? Partner passes with a minimum to average overcall and a doubleton.

I haven't had success doing polls in the past, let's see if this works. GIB actually performed well enough here. Question 2 does point out a common GIB quirk. Both Vul. at IMPS, dealer on your right opens 1C and you hold: A3 AKJ7 65432 T7

This is a well-documented problem that has been discussed here many times. I have sent a few Robot Reports about it. We are all still awaiting the fix. Obviously, after partner has shown values with the jump advance, 22 HCP are not needed for 3NT. Any single jump advance to a takeout double of 1 of a suit is invitational, never forcing. Makes little or no difference if the jump is to the 2 or 3 level. A DOUBLE jump advance below game such as 1C - Dbl - P - 3M is quite rare. I believe the standard treatment to be preemptive. I have never had GIB make this call with me, nor have I ever held a hand where I wanted to make the call, so I don't know how GIB would treat it.

If we are playing Human Best Hand, then 3D is probably enough. In any other form of the game, I would push slightly with 2S. Under any circumstances if I bid 2S, I see no sensible alternative to 3D over 2NT.

Oddly enough, it is well documented that GIB cannot count 13 top tricks in NT even when the bidding makes it extremely easy. It is programmed to ask for specific Kings, but it is unable to use that information to place the contract. I have seen this several times, most recently GIB held AJxx Ax KQJTxx x I opened 1C, 1D by GIB, 1S by me. Eventually GIB Blackwooded and I showed 3 Key Cards with 5C. It bid 5D asking for the SQ and I bid 6C, showing the SQ and CK. So GIB can count 4 Spades, 1 Heart, 6 Diamonds and 2 Clubs, an ice-cold 7NT. But it signed off in 6S. I have sent at least two Robot Reports to BBO about this, no response yet. We seem to be in another one of those periods where no one from BBO is commenting on the Bulletin Board, and it's been quite a long time since the last revision. I have no idea why.

2C-2NT-3S-4C-4D seems easy enough. Even if partner signs off at 4S now, you know he liked his hand well enough to cuebid 4C over 3S. So I'll play him for the SK and bid 7S.

A natural, non-forcing 2NT is out of the question anyway, the only choices are 3C and 3NT. I choose the former. Slam is well within reason opposite a minimum such as xxx, AKxxx, xx, Axx.

You're right of course. For some reason I thought you had the Q.

Then what is there to discuss?? Your comments are correct. As Steve said, others have pointed out the same issue. I can tell you all one thing. I may disagree with you, I may think you bid like a moron, but I will never try to tell you what you can or can't post. And if you (meaning anyone not Lycier in particular) try to tell me what I can or can't post, you're wasting your time.

Easy solution here. You have all the sides suits locked up, and you are missing the AK of H. So bid 5NT instead of 4NT. True, in this case you only improve down 2 to down 1, but you make if partner has one of them, or if they split 1-1.

Something of a system fix. Playing 2C-2D-2NT as 22-24, E has an easy Texas Transfer into game. I assume your range of 2NT was 20-22.

You may be right Jack. We see that often. Someone bids strongly with two suits, rejecting the opportunity to make a takeout double. But GIB obliviously now sticks in the unbid suit on a marginal (at best) holding, focusing on the high card strength shown by partner's bidding, not the shape.

I guess it's sort of like the old caveat to never discuss politics or religion. If your main focus is peace and quiet, and not offending anyone, that is undoubtedly a sound approach. If you enjoy a spirited and intelligent exchange of ideas, as I do, then you sometimes have to ruffle someone's feathers.

Usually GIB's problem is cuebidding with marginal values. I will admit to being surprised here, that with full values for a cuebid, it can't even find a jump raise. I did not learn Lebensohl the way Steve describes it, with a jump advance being a game force. But, I don't seem to still have the Mike Lawrence pamphlet on Lebensohl that I learned from many years ago, and BridgeBum agrees with you, so perhaps that's now the more common treatment.

Continuous?? "Torrent" of criticism?? I made a short, one sentence comment, and subsequently made short, to the point responses to your extended comments. Perhaps you are a bit over sensitive?