smerriman

Yep, some further clarification on what to do would be good. It says 3 matches in the first post, but not the number of boards.. so is it best of 3 independent matches? Or a total over all matches (in which case 3 matches of 4 boards is the same as 1 match of 12).. or.. Could leave it up to each pair to figure out everything themselves, but would prefer just being told exactly what to do as reasonable defaults; if others want to make up their own rules they can do so.

Me too.

Putting the splinter aside for a moment, what is the ideal bidding sequence here from South's perspective? If you think 3♠ is the best bid, what do you then bid after hearing a 4♠ response? If you bid 4NT and hear 5♦, you can't do anything but bid 5♠ and you miss slam if North has the diamond ace. If you bid 5♣ and hear 5♦, you have no way to continue investigating a grand slam; you're forced to sign off with 6♠. Now suppose I bid 2♠ instead, which I think is better (and Gib agrees with me). After a 3♠ response, I then bid 4♣ and think Gib should cuebid any ace. If I hear 4♥, I bid 4♠. If I hear 4♦, I bid 4NT, and then 5NT if I hear two aces. It won't get me to a grand slam here, but would if partner held another king, which is better than above. With South's hand, there therefore seems to be no upside whatsoever to bidding 3♠ - you know exactly what you want to find out from partner, and this will not allow you to do so. What is the upside of 3♠ that I'm missing? (PS - I am definitely no expert - not even close to advanced - only ever played online. But I'm good with logic, and I can't see a logical flaw with my argument.)

Thanks for the replies. How would you push one more - 4NT seemed the only option to me, and a response showing one ace won't help me decide whether to bid the small slam or not (seems likely to make with just the diamond ace). I considered this, but I saw no harm in bidding 2♠ either, especially when it was described by Gib as still wide ranging, as it allowed me more space for cue bidding. In fact, your third hand showed Gib makes the same decision to bid 2♠ rather than 3♠ after a 2♦ response.

[hv=sn=smerriman&s=SAKQ832HKJ4D54CA6&nn=Robot&n=S764HAQ72DAJ763C4&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=P1S%28Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%29P2D%28Forcing%20two%20over%20one%20--%2013+%20HCP%3B%20biddable%20!D%3B%2014+%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20to%203N%29P2S%28Opener%20rebids%20suit%20--%203-%20!H%3B%205+%20!S%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20to%203N%29P3S%28Support%3B%20possibly%20a%20strong%20hand%20--%203+%20!S%3B%2013+%20HCP%3B%20biddable%20!D%3B%2014+%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%29P4C%28Cue%20bid%20--%203-%20!H%3B%205+%20!S%3B%2021-%20HCP%3B%20!CA%3B%2016-22%20total%20points%29P4S%283+%20!S%3B%2013+%20HCP%3B%20biddable%20!D%3B%2014-17%20total%20points%29P&c=13]400|300|[/hv] Is there a reason Gib didn't bid 4 diamonds here? (From a recent daylong).

I can see it helps with cheating, but it also makes the tournament rather pointless, does it not? You can't say one person should rank higher than another just because they got dealt a better hand.

How do the daylong tournaments actually work? I've entered them several times and was assuming other people played the same hands; but having just played the Total Points daylong, I had a look at the top scorer and discovered they won because they were served up two grand slam deals, and I wasn't, which seems a bit bizarre.

Ah yep, that makes sense. Thanks.

[hv=sn=smerriman&s=SAQ42HKDK98CKT764&wn=Robot&nn=Robot&n=SKJT876HA97DQJCQ3&en=Robot&d=n&v=o&b=1&a=1S%28Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%29P4H!%28Splinter%20--%201-%20!H%3B%204+%20!S%3B%2013-16%20total%20points%29P4S%285+%20!S%3B%2011+%20HCP%3B%2012-16%20total%20points%29P4N%28Blackwood%20%5BS%5D%20--%201-%20!H%3B%204+%20!S%3B%2016+%20HCP%3B%2016-%20total%20points%29P5S%28Two%20or%20five%20key%20cards%3B%20queen%20--%205+%20!S%3B%2011+%20HCP%3B%20!SQ%3B%2012-16%20total%20points%29P&c=12]400|300[/hv] I got a bit confused when Gib bid my queen. What was it trying to tell me? (I believe this was in one of the birthday tournaments, whichever version of Gib was used in those.)

I'm going to go back to being a lurker after this post, but lycier's posts are too infuriating to ignore. Then why does everything you post imply the complete opposite? What Gib does in other hands is 100% irrelevant to whether the behaviour on this hand was a bug or not. What Gib does in other hands is 100% irrelevant to whether the behaviour on this hand was a bug or not. This is the definition of a bug. What Gib does in other hands is 100% irrelevant to whether the behaviour on this hand was a bug or not. The fact it was clearly the wrong bid and contradictory to its own description makes it strange and a bug. The fact Gib is smart in general is 100% irrelevant to whether this is a bug or not. These are not opinions that you can agree/disagree with. These are facts based on the definition of a bug. If you disagree, you do not understand the definition of a bug. Back to lurking.

After the diamond lead and declarer plays a heart, South must win and underlead the AKQ, which was what ahydra was saying.

So why did you go against this in your explanation? Michaels is something listed on a convention card. Your explanation was basically that you expected your partner to not know what it meant - in which case, you definitely shouldn't have bid it to mean Michaels.

After a strong 1NT opening bid and 2NT response, all bridge teaching material will tell you the same thing - accept with a maximum 17 points, pass with a minimum 15 points, and use your judgement with 16 points. Yet nobody seems to go beyond that and actually explain what you're meant to be judging. With a completely balanced hand, there doesn't seem to be too much to judge on. Accept always because you don't want to miss out on game and trust your own card play skills? Start counting 9s and 10s? Add extra points for aces which are undervalued and Qs and Js which are overvalued? Is it better for the points to be spread out, or concentrated?

I guess it depends on the level of bridge. a) Good players shouldn't bid such a slam very often. If they did, be very happy with the undoubled penalty. b) The rules about what to lead are pretty straightforward. c,d,e) If the opponents are making a small slam despite losing an unexpected trick, they should have been bidding the grand slam.

Hm, the conflicting advice continues. So far I'm strong enough to reverse, but not strong enough to bid 3♦ :) Does that mean equivalently, Vampyr, you wouldn't add a long-suit point for a 5 card major when opening, because the opening bid itself shows 5 of that major? I haven't heard of that logic before in anything I've read on point counts.

[hv=pc=n&w=sqj93h63d7cajt842&e=s85hak74dakj853c6&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=ppp1dp1sp3dp3nppp]266|200[/hv] I was East, playing SAYC, IMPS. After 3NT failed miserably, the following conversation occurred: W: You do not have the points to jump in diamonds. E: I have 17 points. W: I only count 15. E: 15 HCP, plus 2 for the 6 card diamond suit. W: Those points are worthless if diamonds are not trumps, you cannot count them. Especially when I passed initially; you must bid 2!d. The most difficult part of discussions like this is you're never sure whether your partner is correct or has no clue at all, especially when your partner has specified their skill as 'Advanced' or 'Expert' (in my experience usually this has no correlation with skill). To me 3!d seems like an obvious bid, and whether partner has passed or not has nothing to do with it. PS - can someone point me to a thread explaining how to insert a hand diagram from a hand played within BBO? I found one from a couple of years ago but the instructions didn't appear to work very well, so I recreated this manually via the hand editor button.

When viewing past hands in BBO, or opening a .lin file, I often want to step forward one card at a time, rather than one trick at a time. For example, when using the GIB feature, I often want to see which cards one person can play to a trick without changing the optimal result. As soon as I click the forward arrow, it plays out the whole trick, so I'm only able to do so for the leader to the trick. Is there any way to do this?