ShirleyMqz

I got this by remembering the lesson of the tenth chapter of a book by George Coffin. Now there's an obscure hint for you!

The consensus is that this is not true. Hand shuffling actually generates MILDER hands than true random shuffling. People complain that the computer hands have more singletons and voids, and there appears to be some truth to that. Another accusation is that computer hands violate the "law of symmetry" that hand-shuffled cards seem to follow, which says that if your own hand is flat then the other hands are more likely to be flat, and if your hand is wildly distributional then the other hands are likely to be as well. In other words, if your hand is 4-3-3-3 it's unlikely that anybody has a void, even more than normal statistics would indicate, and similarly if you have a void it's likely that nobody holds a 4-3-3-3 hand. Computer hands, being truly random, don't behave that way.

BAM is like matchpoints except even more so. There is never a dull moment. Every hand matters equally, making it the most gruelling form of bridge competition. But it's also the best form of bridge competition in its way; the best players nearly ALWAYS rise to the top. All you care about is beating the score at the other table. There is no protection provided by the field; you either win, lose, or tie. How much you win or lose the board by is irrelevant. You can win a board by getting an extra overtrick (by clever play or by right-siding it during the auction), or by playing in notrump instead of a major suit if they get the same number of tricks, or playing in the suit rather than notrump if it gets an extra trick.

I'm for 4♥. Get to the contract we can make and take away their bidding room. I'm not in love with this hand; my ♠QJ are wasted and we could easily have three minor suit losers off the top. On a really bad day we will also have a spade loser (more likely since the lead will be coming through my hand) and we won't even make four. Say partner has ♠xx ♥AKJxxx ♦QJx ♣Qx. Not even a minimum and definitely worth the 2♥ bid. The inevitable spade lead comes through, setting up a spade trick for the defense. We can draw trump but as soon as the opponents get the lead they're cashing four tricks.

Around here it depends a lot on what level of competition you are talking about. The serious players are mostly playing 2/1, with a minority playing strong club systems, an occasional K/S pair, and a few holdouts still playing Standard American. But there are lots of novices and older players who are playing some form of Standard American. If you go to a club it depends a lot on whether you go to a weekday daytime game (mostly SA) or an evening game (larger percentage of 2/1). At a tournament Flight A will mostly be 2/1 but the 299ers and lower will be mostly SA.

Percentage in the daylong tourneys isn't accurate either. Some players play them attempting to maximize their probability of hitting a high spot on the leader board rather than maximizing their average result. That means things like bidding risky slams, and playing for risky overtricks in matchpoint games. If those ploys work it improves your chances of hitting the top 10 or top 100 or whatever; if it fails it just means you're mired back in the pack like you were going to be anyway. Those daylong tourneys aren't anything like a fair test of skill in any case because not all the players get the same hands. If you don't get the slam hands you're never going to hit the top of the IMP or total point tourneys no matter how well you play. If you don't get the hands with a lot of potential for matchpoint swings you won't win the MP tourneys.

I'm not surprised by the actual hand. The key thing here is that it has to show a hand that is massively minor-suit oriented. The opponents probably have a good fit available in one or both of the majors and you want to make it hard for them to find it and sacrifice over your minor suit slam.

It doesn't meet the traditional HCP requirements. It does meet the requirements for a 2S opening but the five card heart suit makes that a poor choice; it will be difficult to find a heart fit if that is your best contract. But "6-5, come alive". Hands with this much distribution tend to play well (not quite so much this time because partner's hand doesn't fit well but you don't know that going in) so it tends to be winning bridge to open them, especially when your suits are the majors. So I would open this, especially if I'm playing 2/1 because I don't have to worry so much about partner making big jumps in the auction.

4NT in that bidding sequence is Blackwood if you're playing it. But South should not have used Blackwood with that hand. Your partnership has no established fit (Blackwood implies that you do have a fit in spades but that certainly isn't true here) so you have no idea what the best spot is. 4NT is also a terrible bid if partner meant it to show minors (which would be a nonstandard agreement) for a number of reasons. His clubs and diamonds are far from equal and a heart contract is also possible (and on the actual hand your partnership's best fit). And there is no reason to use a bulky bid like 4NT to show the minor suit hand in any case. I don't know anybody who plays 4NT as a quantitative notrump invite over a suit opening. Most partnerships do play that it would be an invite to 6NT over a 1NT opening (and 5NT would be an invite to bid 7NT with a maximum but 6NT otherwise) but that isn't what opener bid.

Not true. With East playing the hand it's utterly cold so long as diamonds don't break 5-0. You have 11 tricks on top. A lead of either round suit immediately establishes a 12th trick. If they lead a diamond or a spade you have time to establish a second trick in hearts.

2/1 works well when you have a game forcing hand. Once you have made the 2/1 bid you don't have to worry about being dropped short of game, so you can take time to find the correct contract, and to explore slam possibilities while you are still at a comfortable bidding level. In Standard American you are often forced to jump to game and you lose valuable bidding space. For example, the auction 1S-2H-2S-3H could be droppped; if you have a game-going hand you either have to jump to 4H (losing the possibility of playing 3NT) or invent some other suit to bid (which could get unpleasant if partner takes your second suit seriously). But there is a cost, and the kind of hand you are talking about is it. Hands in the 10-12 point range are more difficult to handle in 2/1 than in SAYC because you are forced to go through 1NT forcing rather than bidding your suit immediately. If partner rebids his spades or if the opponents interfere you may never get to show your suit, which may be your best strain even if partner would rebid his suit (6-3-2-2 shape for example), or which may be the lead that partner needs to make if the opponents play the hand. If I were holding that hand I'd be more comfortable after the auction 1S-P-2H-3D than after 1S-P-1NT-3D.

I have a TCR of 95% and over 100 logins. But for some reason BBO still considers me a new member, which means there are a lot of tournaments that I can't enter. What's the story?

I'm surprised that I'm the only one who has mentioned transferring to spades rather than bidding them myself. Is playing "systems on" in this auction uncommon on BBO?

In teams, the problem we're given here, I pass. If I'm wrong and I only get +500 instead of +620 it's not that big a deal, whereas if I get -100 instead of +500 it's a disaster. If I'm playing matchpoints I bid 2H, transfer to spades because I play systems on over a double of 1NT - you treat the auction as if partner opened 1NT. Having transfers be on in this situation is even more useful than over a 1NT opening because you know partner is sitting over all the strength. Getting +500 instead of +620 at matchpoints will be a bad result, and it's more likely than getting +800.

Any time I try double with a hand like this my partner responds in clubs. I'm with case_no_6 here; I'd be inclined to fudge the spade length and bid Michaels. In the actual auction, North has no clue that his spade holding is so valuable and he may also be concerned about his length in small clubs; I wouldn't accept the game invite with his hand.

GIB has overvalued the stiff K of spades, which is likely to have no more value than a small spade would. If GIB held K in a red suit and a small spade I wouldn't mind the bid quite so much. On the actual hand there would still be no play for slam, but part of the blame for that lies with South, who has opened 1NT a point light and then jumped to 5C which may suggest a maximum. A question is whether GIB's sequence of X followed by the cue bid is game forcing. If it's not, 5C should show a maximum since 4C could be passed. If it IS game forcing, 5C should be principle of fast arrival showing a minimum 1NT opening. GIB's raise is an overbid either way given the dubious value of the spade K.

There is another reason that professionals don't like individuals. You have no partner so there is nobody who will pay you to play with them.