smerriman

2 days to go. When originally posting the thread, I accidentally forgot to add the #nofeed tag which ensures the post doesn't show up in the BBO news feed. I edited it in but it was there for 2 days, thus all of the new names you'll see. Last time this occurred (event 7 or so), a lot of people registered but never returned to the forum and ended up dropping out, messing everything up. To ensure this doesn't happen again, newcomers who correctly registered were PMed 4 days ago to confirm they'll be returning to the forum to participate. None of them have responded yet, but will give them up until just after the deadline to check in, otherwise I might need to exclude them.

Neither is forcing. But it's pretty rare that I'd pass with the first one - I'd raise to 2♥ with a minimum and 4 card support, so would expect responder to have a minimum with 3 hearts and preference for a 4-3 fit over 1NT or 2♣. Responder needs to jump to 3♠ to force with the second.

If you have a 6 card suit and all you need to do is find out about keycards then you can Texas transfer then bid 4NT. With a 5 card suit, it makes no sense to transfer then ask for aces. If that's all you need to know - which is extremely rare - then you bid 4♣ directly over 1NT. There's no point in transferring first as partner's 2♠ response doesn't tell you anything at all, and you're captain so partner doesn't need to know about your spades. If you have a 5 card suit and want to know if partner has 3 card support before looking for slam, you can transfer and bid 4NT (quant), a new suit, or 5NT (pick a slam). For me 4♣ after a transfer is a self splinter, showing 6 spades and club shortness. After a super accept all further bids would be slam seeking in that suit, including Blackwood. After Stayman, if partner has 4 card support for you, then standard is for 3 of the other major to be artificial (it can't possibly be natural), confirming the fit and showing slam interest. If partner responds 2♦ and you had bid Stayman with 5-4 in the majors, then you can bid Smolen (jump to 3 in your 4 card suit to promise 5 in the other) to see if partner has support. If you had bid Stayman with 6-4 in the majors, you can jump to 4M-1 as a delayed Texas transfer. In other cases you normally have a quantitative followup, or can just bid a minor to continue forcing if you have a long minor.

Once in a while, just for sanity's sake, can you post some examples of hands where you scored 100% for doing not much? It surely must happen a reasonable amount of the time, given how insane all of the other players seem to be..

Wow. 49 different results for one board must be some kind of record.. Just for reference, if you do start with 1♥, you can follow up with 2♦ as fourth suit forcing. GIB will bid 2♥ to show its 3 card support, after which you can follow up with a forcing 3♣. Of course, GIB will now bid 3♥ to deny a diamond stopper (???), after which your 5♣ will end the auction and leave you in a contract that can only be made double dummy. (How you can make 5♣ double dummy is actually quite interesting in itself too..) Amusingly, if you redouble and pull GIB's double of 1♠ to 2♥, GIB will happily jump to 3NT which promises a 15 count.

Seems like a normal auction to me. - 3♥ might have just been looking for a no trump stopper with 4 spades, so North can't do anything else, and South has no idea about the singleton heart and perfect fitting cards.

There is no minor suit squeeze, as the opponents can safely throw diamonds - an extra diamond winner doesn't help you at all.

Off-shape doubles are one of several well-known long-term issues with GIB - it has never been able to bid them correctly.

They're randomly dealt, then automatically bid with "advanced" robots.

I made a BW poll. Currently 10-8 in favor of pass (my vote excluded).

An interesting concept, but feels like it'd just remove all aspects of skill and end up pure luck based. It'd also make cheating impossible to detect, and therefore rampant.

How do you know partner has exactly 5 spades? There's a fairly good chance he'll rebid 2♠ (or 3♠, or 4♠) over 1NT, and I have an awful hand of quacks. Or he might have a strong hand and you'll end up in an extremely poor game contract like here. Or if he is weaker and happens to have 5 we'll probably be in a 4-3 diamond fit, but a level higher. Maybe others would bid 1NT (and I'm often wrong) but I'll take my chances in 1♠. You're not even vulnerable so I'm not sure where the lovely penalties are coming from undoubled..

I would have passed 1♠ too.. While I would have been in 3NT after a 2NT opening, it's extremely lucky that it's making. If I had to choose between 1♠ and 3NT just looking at the North/South hands, I'd definitely choose 1♠.

Agree with everything you wrote. Question to ponder though - in this auction, when three suits have been bid naturally, opener has a stopper in the 4th (well, opener should, no idea what these opps were doing), and partner could have doubled 2♦, is it possible that leading a spade through dummy is actually the normal lead, rather than into one of opener's suits?

There are three hand types where you can use Soloway: a) single suited b) strong balanced c) support for partner With b) and c) all you need is a good 5 card suit (eg 2 of top 3 honors) - along with slam interest, of course. It's only a) where you need a long, strong, suit. But as usual, at this point in the auction, we've left the realm of real bridge and moved onto gaming the robots, since no human would bid 4NT without a clue of how to proceed. I'd recommend just ignoring grands altogether when playing with GIB, as you'll never be able to find them accurately.

Do you mean 3♦? There are a couple of ways to play Soloway but as I understood it, both versions use 3♣ as showing support but denying shortage (with new suits showing support and shortage, since they can no longer be natural). But none of this is relevant when West bids 4♦, after which I guess I'm doubling.

I definitely wouldn't double, if that's what you mean. It asks for a spade lead, but it looks like partner is broke and you have no expectation of taking 5 tricks even with a spade lead.

For me a raise to 2 is capped at a bad 10. Anything more starts with a cuebid (and it's commonly played that this promises support).

3♣ isn't a jump cuebid. It's a normal cuebid - limit raise or better. A jump cuebid of 4♣ would be a splinter.

Just agree to lead low from three small (if it's not one you raised to show 3 already). That's easily the most popular approach (MUD typically considered the worst) in terms of helping you read partner's count on the suit.

4-1 trump breaks are too hard for me. I'll just win ♣K, ♠AK and hope the trumps break 3-2. Then we can just play ♥AK hearts and pick up everything instantly except West having 5 or 6 hearts, in which case we can fall back to the diamond finesse and still make. (♣K instead of ♣A needed in case East ruffs the second heart).

Registration has closed. Pools will be announced within the next day or two. Let's do another one of these. IMPs, best-hand, with registration closing Friday 22nd, 11:59pm Eastern Time. Register via the poll above.

Agreed; to alter P_Marlowe's conclusion, having shown serious slam interest the auction was the best it could possibly go, so 4S can't be a signoff; it's asking opener to continue with something and that something must be trumps. mw64ahw also seems to have twice missed the fact opener has *denied* a strong hand.

Why does he want to show his 4 hearts? He knows you don't have 4 hearts or enough for game, so he can pass.

Nevermind, I've just realised I'm making no sense at all :) Was thinking cashing the high club would let me see dummy to help pinpoint where partner's entry is in case the opps have 9 quick tricks. But if declarer has Qxxx then we can't cash out anyway. Ignore everything I wrote :)