smerriman

Really need some more info on how your 2♣ bid works. If it's forcing, why not play it as some form of Gazzilli - which of course changes all of the answers.

[hv=handviewer.html?n=S432HQJT9D32CAQJT&s=SKQHA8765DAQCK432&d=s&a=1HP3HP4DP4HPPP&p=SJS2SASQC5]400|300[/hv] If the king of hearts is onside, the trump finesse scores 100% over the safety play. That alone makes it the right play at MPs, since East's clear singleton club makes it more than 50% that he has the king. [Edit] Well, that is, unless East holding Kx(xx) would think there is no purpose in leading a singleton club, since West can never get in to give him a ruff anyway unless holding a singleton trump ace, in which case South may not have made a slam try. But then if that's enough to convince you to not take the finesse, then maybe they would lead the club after all as a double-bluff. Heh. I always manage to find a way to complicate things :)

Happily, all remaining results do not affect the rankings. Round 2 has been added to the spreadsheet: https://www.dropbox.com/s/haf0b22we318ixt/Event%2023.xlsx?dl=0 The top 4 at the end will play head to head semifinals + a final. The deadline for round 2 is Thursday December 2, 11:59pm Eastern time.

You could argue that there are two ways of bidding in both sequences: 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♥ forces the auction higher higher than 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♦. 1♠ - 2♦ - 3♣ forces the auction higher than 1♣ - 1♦ - 1♠. So it's not far fetched to see that 'reverse' can be used in both cases to refer to reversing the order from one that allows a cheap response to one that does not, thus showing a better hand. I wouldn't call it a reverse myself, but I don't they are as dissimilar as some are making out.

I've always found playing 500 that misere ruins the game for everyone. I would expect to be even more true in bridge. It just doesn't balance well with the concept of trick taking.

Neither Tatylia nor sampahk have been responding to messages. I'm very much hoping they'll show up soon or Group C may turn into a bit of a disaster :(

This is typical GIB logic. Given it defends double dummy, it "cannot hurt" to play low, since on the next trick you "know" to put him in with the club ace. It can't distinguish playing low from high.

I'll add an extra question to this; what is the OP's suggestion if responder's hand *does* fit? That is, with the original hand the OP proposed (KTxxx-xx-Qxxx-xx) you'll get a diamond raise over 3♦, but the OP mentioned wanting to be in 4♥. Are you correcting 4♦ to 4♥, ostensibly showing a strong hand in hearts that may well have faked a jump shift into a 3 card diamond suit? If the plan is to bid 4♥ in all circumstances, perhaps 4♥ instead of showing diamonds at all would have worked better.

How would you suggest doing that? Take any daylong tournament, and look at the top 50 people who will by definition have unusually high results. Is that because they all cheated, or simply because they were the lucky ones this time? In the simplest case, get a friend to play the boards and send you them via email. It would be trivial to play these in a way that would get you a good score while being 100% undetectable. If applied to something like the Zenith daylong where you get $BB rewards, I could use this to play 'reasonable' bridge - standing up even to analysis of my actions - to guarantee a profit. Would make a mockery of the whole thing. I agree it's not ideal, but trying to identify culprits is not a better solution. This was one idea I had.

You missed the minus sign that appeared after the numbers; meaning 11 *or less* HCP. Which could be 0. Of course, that is still far too big a range; cheaper minor is meant to show a very bad hand. In saying that, GIB has numerous bugs (eg sometimes it does bid cheaper minor with a good hand with clubs because it hasn't been programmed to know what else to do), and its description will not always match its hand. The flip side is that everyone else in the tournament is in the same position. In this case though, the robot got the bid right.

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:8eff71f3.4043.11ec.b879.0cc47a39aeb4-1636341944&u=smerriman&v3b=web&v3v=5.9.4 smerriman 25 - 5 billyfung2

That site is actually contradictory since the example it gives fails the definition it gives.

If partner passes 2♦, they'll probably be something like a minimum 5134 shape, in which case I'm happy to play there.

I was going to say - if an advanced robot chose to bid 2♥, maybe this is one of those scenarios where simulations would show the robot is actually right despite the fact it looks completely insane to humans (where the extra 50 points you lose by going down one more in 3♦ is balanced out by some gains when you find a heart fit). But then I saw 2♥ is actually basic GIB's book bid; it adds 3 points for the valuable diamond void :(

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:02624293.3e7c.11ec.b879.0cc47a39aeb4-1636146287&u=smerriman&v3b=web&v3v=5.9.4 smerriman 19 - 5 shuba

It's a feature. Each board is only served to a limited number of players (eg 40, depends on the type of daylong). That way you can't log in under a different username and achieve a perfect score the second time. It means you can get appropriate comparisons for each board, though it does mean your position in the *overall* leaderboard is somewhat arbitrary - you may be served lots of flat boards where you have no hope of scoring more than 50-60%, while someone else may get the swingy ones and score 90%s.

That's fine by me if you're both happy with that.

Nah, I agree, most of the time it's completely irrelevant which version you play. Sometimes the additional info you get from one works out better than the other, but I guess that's why they're both playable. Stephen Tu's note about the 2NT rebid does make sense though as a subtle swing towards the shape method.

To be fair, you did quote the OPs whole post which specifically asked about both 2 level and 3 level, so it looked like your response was about both too :) Your example hands for the 2 level auction probably isn't a good one: After 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♠ - 3♠, responder knows you have a 4-4 spade fit but nothing else. After 1♥ - 2♣ - 2♥ - 2♠ - 3♠, responder knows you have a 4-4 spade fit and that you couldn't bid 2♠ the first time. So if these were the hands, you'd be in a better position playing the latter version. It's other hands where the shape showing ones can leave you better off.

I think we just have a different definition of standard, that's all - not necessarily best or even most common, just what I would assume opposite a new partner if we hadn't discussed it. (And what I expect most results would come up with if I searched for 'slam interest after Stayman' in the forums / Google).

2♠ as agreeing hearts is definitely not standard. If in doubt, Bridge World Standard is a good reference, where experts agreed on:

This question comes up quite regularly and you'll get lots of strong opinions both ways. There'll be more well-thought-out opinions than mine, but my very basic one is: Reversing to the 3 level like 1♠ - 2♥ - 3♣ shows extras for me, as if it's wide ranging, responder won't know whether to go past 3NT or not. Reversing into 2M shows some extras for me, as if we don't have extras, we're still going to have room to find out about a 4-4 fit on the next round. (This is how Bridge World Standard play it). The exception is 1♦ - 2♣ - 2M which can be made on a minimum as it's quite a different scenario.

I agree with the general belief. But if you would splinter with AKJx x Ax AQxxxx, then it's somewhat illogical to avoid splintering with AKJx K Ax AQxxxx just because you now have a king instead of an x. Only if you have a much better way of showing that hand.

If you were presented the same hand but with a small heart instead of the king, would you consider splintering? (Does the king then make this worse?)

I'll rephrase my response then to say that the programmers don't appear capable of doing it either :) Tiny bug fixes for the existing robot haven't been made for years. My point was that something like this isn't possible for the current robot due to the way it works, so one that understands human alerts would have to be an entirely new robot altogether - slightly harder than the already-too-hard tiny bug fixes.