iandayre

I simply do not understand why GIB refuses to fix this issue. Yes, 25 is too high a minimum point range for the jump to 4H. But even given that, with North's 9 it is obvious that the partnership could be off a key card. Jumping to 7 is insane. This is what I mean BB about their unwillingness to address issues. The robots have been doing this as long as I have been playing here, and yet not only do they not fix it, they never mention it.

To me redouble is the right action with the W hand, barring some conventional treatment not played by GIB. I agree it is too strong for the competitive single raise.

Also 2H by E would be forcing. Double gives them a chance to play in 2H.

Good stuff guys. For me, no, I don't think E should be raising on this hand. Except when they are my opponents.

Not that this idea is terrible, but I don't agree. I want GIB to bid 1NT with 3343 shape and the appropriate point range unless both majors are empty. I stopped subscribing to the Bridge World in 2009 and didn't play a hand for 5 years until I started playing here just over a year ago. At one time I considered myself an expert on the 2/1 system but that's a bit of an overbid now. And I have never heard of TWalsh. I could look it up but how about a quick description?

Of course at that point, 4NT would probably have been BW for Spades. As far as I can tell your only chance might have been taking the preference to 4D - no telling what GIB would have done but probably better than 4S. Would be interesting to see how the other humans bid the hand. Still it's hard to imagine why GIB thought better of passing the known 4-2 than rebidding 5C.

They have the Robot Reports. You can e-mail them a copy of any hand starting the same way as copying a hand on HandViewer. I have started doing that since the last update.

Certainly some problems here. Starting with the fact that any move over 2H is a ridiculous over-evaluation. Next, there is no reason that 2S should promise exactly 3 hearts, it should show 5+ Spades and deny 3H, non forcing of course. Then there is the fact that N does have 4 Hearts, despite the description. All in all an abysmal performance by the Robot.

A tough hand whether N bid 2 or 3 Diamonds. But this hand certainly is too good for an "aggressive" weak jump, so the description should be changed.

I would say there is no hard and fast rule. There are good players who would splinter with a stiff A or K and some who would not. Obviously GIB makes no distinction so we must adjust. Your Blackwood bid was an atrocity of course. GIB undoubtedly would have bid Blackwood anyway on this hand though. Then you can blame it if the opponents cash 2 tricks.

I agree Jim that is a case where GIB has handled the auction correctly in the past. I wish BBO would be more specific about what improvement they were trying to make that caused it to go off the rails here.

I think Lycier's point is why 2D cannot be passed with no game interest. And a valid one, the description should be changed to offer that possibility.

3C should be a game, or slam, try. I would not play, especially in the former case, that it guarantees the A. I honestly don't know where BBO finds their descriptions of some of the conventions GIB plays. Many are very much non-mainstream, including the oft-mentioned Lebensohl over weak 2's.

No surprise there will be plenty of kinks in BBO's implementation of Drury. Double of a Drury call is usually played as a takeout of the Major. Here it wasn't made clear what suit the double was takeout for, and the call obviously does not match the description. THIS is a bug.

This is not 4th suit forcing, which is a convention used by responder on the second round. Opener limits the hand with 2C (no jump shift) and 2D shows no more than a minimum, so is isn't possible for N to now have a force to game. 2H was an aggressive action but was very successful here, and it was not forcing.

I don't believe that it is appropriate in 2/1 to bid 2S in this auction without primary support. The auction is a game force and there are so many other possible calls that could be made. KQ, Kxx, xxx, AKxxx? Still I would prefer a waiting, 4th suit 3D. But then, as Uva pointed out recently, GIB has unusual requirements of significant extra values for responder to bid a new suit at the 3 level on the second round. And as he also said, that is not a form of 2/1 that I have ever heard of. It should be dumped.

I would say if N is not willing to show a stopper with Qxxx because the hand is so weak, it should not have opened in the first place. I would not have.

A question about the second hand: Opener did not make a support double, so has less than 3 hearts. This guarantees that opener's club suit is at least 4 cards long. Can GIB make that inference and realize it is reasonable to support Clubs over the opponents 2S?

I am sure it would be Blackwood. I would like to see 4333 hands with 4 in opener's minor stop using the inverted raise and just bid the appropriate level of No Trump - I guess unless they held 16 or more HCP.

I would expect that 4S is the default bid with nothing else to say.

From my experience GIB will run out with a very weak hand into a 5 card suit. I don't know where you can go with this sort of hand.

Here is a result I'm somewhat proud of, given the current Masterpoint race going on BBO: #4096 ACBL Robot Duplicate (12 Boards) - Matchpoints Host ACBL Tables 49 Boards Show boards iandayre Overall: 2/45 Score: 73.28% Masterpoints: 0.90 Honor list (Overall leaders) Rank Name Score ( % ) 1 Leo LaSota 82.90 2 iandayre 73.28 3 kencohen 68.90 4 Donte 66.65 5 cat1111 65.58 6 Lenny144 65.22 7 ccunning 64.99 8 philip987 57.99 9 BAA40 56.64 10 Voytek 56.49 But, poor kencohen got a near zero, completely undeserved, on this board: http://tinyurl.com/nrt7844 The bidding was identical at my table through 4D. At that point, I decided I had done enough, and passed. If my partner had the D length and strength I expected, I figured it would know what to do. Well, it passed but down 2 was still an excellent score for me. Ken chose to double 4D as well, and to his chagrin, CHO pulled it to 4H and he went for a telephone number. It is clear that GIB's programming with regard to what to do when partner doubles is in need of a major overhaul.

I just cant agree with you there. They have NEVER addressed the issue of GIB bidding short suits at high levels. They have yet to address the issue of GIB passing takeout doubles at completely inappropriate times, despite the fact it has come up many, many times,. Yes, when they recognize and fix a problem, they acknowledge it. When they can't or don't fix a problem, they ignore it.

I suppose that is true. A pass of a "forcing" 1NT response should be defined as a good 11 to bad 13, exactly 5 of the major, and no side 4 card suit or singleton. If the programmers do not choose to have GIB pass that sort of hand itself, at least it should know what to expect when partner does. I routinely pass such hands and overall my results have been quite good.

One thing that whoever wrote or writes the descriptions is very bad at, is making them internally consistent. Often you will hold a perfectly normal hand, but in some way it does not qualify for any of the reasonable possible bids one might make. Clearly this is a case in point, any 3334 hand that is too strong for 3NT over a 1M opener must bid 2C, whether they are 5432 or AKQJ.