smerriman

2♥ shows 10+. Double shows exactly 4 hearts, or a hand with longer hearts that is too weak to bid 2♥.

Double seems normal. 4♥ not so much, though I'm not sure why South would have bid 3♣.

Agree. I would just make sure I don't play a club, since I'll need that as an entry. Cash everything else, ending in South, and hope one of the remaining suits is good.

As I've explained in many similar past threads, you can't "know" and you can't do anything to "get" it. If you repeat the same hand over multiple times, GIB won't return a spade. The reason GIB, on very rare occasions, leads a spade is because it doesn't rule out the fact that you might have gone with suicidal declarer play, forgetting to draw trumps and leading from a doubleton spade holding, thus opening yourself up to get beaten by West giving East a ruff in spades. A large part of defense is figuring out why declarer is taking a certain line; GIB has 0 of that built into its algorithm.

1430 is better if the strong hand is asking for keycards, which is usually more common. 0314 is better if the weak hand is asking for keycards for the same reason. 0314 is also better if your partner forgets you're playing RKCB :) Not playing 4NT as keycard in hearts is the optimal solution in either case. But that requires a significant amount of partnership work to get right without regular disasters, so likely isn't worth it for the types of partnerships you're talking about.

GIB's definition of partial stop is length + HCP = 4. It expects you to bid on 100% of the time due to the heart shortage (GIB South isn't even allowed to *consider* passing 3NT with your hand).

Hmm, I guess that's a possibility. I think I read something about it not signaling that late in the play though, will have to check. edit - according to the FunBridge site: "In defence, Argine scrupulously tells you if she holds an even or odd number of cards in all suits, except in the trump suit, until trick 7.". Also says there + on BBO that Argine only signals on the first round of a suit. But your explanation is the the most logical possibility, even if it's still completely insane that it would put so much faith in a late pointless discard.

Penalty double.

Another 0% play by Argine. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?d=w&n=cj63&e=h86dj&s=d76c2&w=s54c9&a=2sppp&d=w&v=n]400|300[/hv] West is declarer in 2♠, and is known to have the last two trumps and one unknown minor card. North on lead. Argine leads.. the 3 of clubs. Full hand.

You might not be prepared to play with either when I eventually publish my lengthy blog post on how insanely broken GIB's bidding simulation logic is (or was back then, to be more precise, but unlikely to have changed) after months of experimenting with it. Not sure whether it'll be days or weeks away, but it'll be epic :)

As others have said, 1NT simply means you are too strong to pass and too weak to bid at the 2 level. Has never said anything about shape or that you want to play in 1NT, whether it's forcing or not. (And this being the standard meaning, it's not alertable, other than the usual announcement about forcing/semiforcing).

Old version of GIB invokes Blackwood every time and it's not close. Pretty straightforward 3♠ - 4♣ - 4♥ continuation playing with humans of course, but GIB is crippled by system here.

If 2♦ is natural, what is 4NT? I'm guessing not RKCB, or you'd look a bit silly when partner had the ♦K instead of A!

Looks like another case of this double dummy bug. When I got the old version of GIB to simulate 100 hands, the results were: 49 times: ST: -480 S7: -450 12 times: ST: -480? S7: -450 39 times: ST: -420? S7: -450 So in that case it still came out with a low spade on top, but given how many times it calculates double dummy wrongly for the spade ten, not surprised at all that other runs could lead to the wrong result.

Tens are only really useful if they're connected with higher honors. I don't see why you'd want to adjust for others; in the vast majority of hands, A432 is going to play identically to A987.

FWIW, it will raise to 2♠ with Q32.Q432.Q432.32 - just needs '7 total points', with the doubleton counting as the 7th. It just bids 1NT with support if it has 5-6 HCP but less than 7 total. I guess you could consider that some form of constructive raise, but not how you're normally interpret it, and not anywhere enough to assume 2♠ is more than garbage.

West Argine flies off the rail again, promising 20-22 points when only having 10 and a misfit. East Argine decides to escape from 4NTx by leaping to slam instead. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|smerriman,~Mwest,~Mnorth,~Meast|md|4SAJT64HAT85D8CJ93,S9753HKQ932DQJ5CQ,SK82HJ76DKT963CK2,SQH4DA742CAT87654|sv|n|rh||ah|Board%202|mb|1C|an|4+!C;%20HCP%2011-23;%20natural|mb|1S|an|5+!S;%20HCP%208-17;%20natural|mb|2H|an|5+!H;%20HCP%209+;%20natural%20-%20Forcing|mb|D!|an|HCP%2010+;%20extra%20strength,%20at%20least%2010%20points%20-%20Non%20forcing|mb|3D|an|4+!C;%204-5!D;%20HCP%2011-23;%20natural%20-%20Forcing|mb|P|mb|3S!|an|5+!H;%20HCP%209+;%20cue-bid,%20strong,%20or%20no%20natural%20bid%20available%20-%20Forcing|mb|P|mb|4C!|an|4+!C;%204!D;%20HCP%2011-23;%20asks%20for%20stopper%20in%20!S%20-%20Forcing|mb|P|mb|4N!|an|5+!H;%20HCP%2020-22;%20quantitative%20invitation%20to%20slam%20-%20Non%20forcing|mb|P|mb|P|an|4+!C;%204!D;%20HCP%2011;%20minimum|mb|D|an|5!S;%20HCP%208-14;%20penalty|mb|P|mb|P|mb|6C|an|7-9!C;%204!D;%20HCP%2011;%20to%20play|mb|D|an|5!S;%20HCP%208-14;%20penalty|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|D8|pc|DJ|pc|D3|pc|D2|pc|CQ|pc|CK|pc|CA|pc|C3|pc|CT|pc|CJ|pc|H2|pc|C2|pc|SA|pc|S3|pc|S2|pc|SQ|pc|SJ|pc|S5|pc|S8|pc|C8|pc|C7|pc|C9|pc|H3|pc|D6|pc|S4|pc|S7|pc|SK|pc|C6|pc|H4|pc|HA|pc|H9|pc|H6|pc|ST|pc|S9|pc|H7|pc|C5|pc|DA|pc|H5|pc|D5|pc|D9|pc|D4|pc|H8|pc|DQ|pc|DK|pc|DT|pc|D7|pc|HT|pc|HQ|pc|HJ|pc|C4|pc|S6|pc|HK|]400|300[/hv]

Well, it can easily give away a trick that you weren't going to get in clubs? [hv=handviewer.html?s=sqt943haq5dkjck93&w=sk5h83d975caqj865&e=sj762h72dqt8642c2&a=1hp1s2c2hp3nppp&d=n&n=v]400|300[/hv] It of course leads a club (Q, 4th best is too dangerous) at IMPs, where the club is the best chance of beating 3NT. But you're not expecting to be cashing all those clubs, and every trick is important at MPs in the more likely case that you're not beating it.

Ah. Your original post said you had a 15+ hand, so that's quite different. But the wide ranging 1NT isn't an issue, since partner will clarify whether they're weak or invitational with their next bid. Every one of thepossum's posts is about robots, and the point range read off the description.

If you have an unbalanced hand with 15-17 points, you have a second suit to bid naturally. If you have a balanced hand with 15-17 points, you open 1NT. Raising to 2NT thus has to show at least 18 points (or a literal 17 count that you upgraded to 18).

I don't see why you'd want to pass. If partner is invitational, you miss a game. If partner is weak with a minor, I'd rather be in the minor, or in our 5-2 heart fit which they may give preference to.

Bridge dealers are subjected to extensive statistical analysis to ensure the hands line up with all measures of randomness. There are many people who have put forward conspiracy theories about the one BBO uses being biased, and every single time they've been proven wrong by statistics. Ones used for higher level competitions are even more strictly tested. That's aside from the fact that biasing them based on 'difficulty' is extremely difficult to program in the first place, and simply not worth the effort.

How do your calls change the fact you average 10 points per hand, just like each of your 3 opponents have? Perhaps you think you're getting a lot of 10 and 11 point hands, and never get to open the bidding? The theoretical probability you get at least 12 HCP is 34.82%. Over those three months, you've had at least 12 HCP on 375 of those 1074 deals, 34.9%. So it's not that. Perhaps you don't get strong hands - say, >= 18 HCP? The theoretical probability is 4.09%. You've had >= 18 points on 46/1074 deals = 4.28%. Nope, I'm clearly missing something.

You know your hand records are publicly available online right? https://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/ So if, for example, someone checked your last month of records, and found that you had played 301 boards, and: - averaged 9.87 points per hand - very close to the expected 10 - declared 85 times (28.2% - considerably more than a quarter, despite two passouts) Or if they looked at the month before that, where you played 789 hands: - averaging 9.97 points - declaring on 192 occasions (24.3%) or the month before that, where you played another 531 boards, with an above-average 10.07 points, and declared 23.55% of the time.. Well, if anyone actually spent time doing that, your statements would look a bit silly :)

According to Mike Lawrence, don't double with a 5 card major unless you're strong enough to bid it next time around.