smerriman

I could understand 3♣ if you consider this hand strong enough to GF (though I'd still bid 2♥ either way), but you said earlier you'd bid 2N lebensohl. So what's the downside of bidding 2♥? If you were going to end up in 3♣ through lebensohl, you'll still end up there when you don't have a heart fit.. And if partner *does* have a double fit with hearts and clubs, you'll be in a making game you were otherwise going to miss. To me 2NT leb denies 5 hearts. As for the OP.. you need to play a system where you have an artificial negative, otherwise you really have no hope with reverses.

If you're playing lebensohl rather than ingberman, 3♣ *can* be passed, since 2♠ is only a one round force.

Haven't you reminded us many times that at your club, 4♣ is always ace-asking? :)

This turned out much easier than expected :) Now we can rebid 3♦ to show exactly this type of hand.

Start with 1♣ and plan to rebid diamonds until partner gets the picture. If it comes back to me at 4M then I'll bid 4N.

That's not a Grosvenor - ducking with the queen is often a good play in that situation.

Opener didn't have clubs controlled in your 'why can't opener have' hand. They can't have that hand because they would know to sign off after responder skipped 4♣, not continue with 4♥.

By my vacant spaces calculations after the 6-0 diamond split, I get: 15% chance of East holding Kxxx 10% chance of East holding xxx 17% chance of East holding Kx So the latter two seem much more likely (and that's before multiplying by the fact you need East to have many more specific cards in the 4-0 version vs just the heart king in the others, or the fact East would likely prefer leading a low club to a heart with the 4-0 hand).

Not at a teaching table unless you just upload a full hand that happens to have that in one suit. But you could just provide them a link to a handviewer URL to open in a new tab - the format is straightforward: https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?n=sat95&s=sqj4

You must be new* here ;) There's no 'likely' about it, it's clearcut like almost every other post here, and almost every single one is followed up by a sarcastic reply from johnu :) * well, newly returned, anyway.

Can't this be an ordinary hand like: [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|,,,|md|3SQ6HAQ52DJT5CAJ84,SAK842HT3DA83CK52,SJHK74DQ976CQ9763,ST9753HJ986DK42CT|sv|o|rh||ah|Board%200|]400|300[/hv] where the opponents might not even gone past 2♣? (3♣ at best.) I would bid 4♠, but definitely not higher - there's just too many ways 5♠ can lose.

This is really a moot point, as whatever terminology you use to describe 4NT, you're still asking partner to pick a minor.

Is this basic GIB or advanced? Basic can do no more than count points so could never bid grand with this few. The ability to imagine what partner holds and "count tricks" is precisely what advanced GIB was built for. I would be extremely surprised if it did not bid 7.

GIB just seems to play cards at random these days. The third 100% losing play (no matter the distribution, even if North did hold the diamond ace) that I've seen recently.

Basic GIB bids the same in both. Advanced GIB will occasionally run simulations to decide if it should stray from the 'normal' bid; it will decide based on comparing scores from double dummy outcomes, so these can differ depending on scoring method.

You can use the bidding table found in the Practice section. GIB can be placed in as many seats as you like (no cost), and if you tap the menu icon and go to Deal source, you can input constraints on the deals (usually via the advanced tab). But as I described in the other thread, what it's doing is pretty well known, and I've already done this analysis other times this bug has been commented on in the past; it bids cheaper minor both when it's appropriate, and when it has a natural bid in that suit. The latter is a bug, but bugs haven't been worked on for many years now. Example code for the advanced tab that shows this bug in action: condition hcp(south)>=23 and spades(south)>=6 and spades(north)<3 and clubs(north)>=5 and hcp(north)>=5 It'll throw in 2NT for some hands, and 3♣ for others; you can figure out the exact point range and shapes if you like, but there's not much you can do about it as its partner.

No, nor robot daylongs. Only tournaments where disconnecting actually negatively affects other people at the table.

It's meant to say no spade loser, I expect. Loser probably filtered out as a bad word ;)

For the play:

Based on all of the other times I've seen this bug come up, the explanation seems rather simple; GIB would have been programmed to bid a natural 3♣ when it had values and a club suit; then cheaper minor was introduced, without removing that rule. So it now bids it with both hands, which is totally broken. The problem is, how would you fix it - cheaper minor isn't a great convention and makes further bidding very hard with hands like these. Easiest way would be to switch GIB to an immediate negative 2♥ - that would result in a lot more logical continuations that would be easier for a robot to understand. You probably could have escaped safely here even without showing a balanced hand; if GIB truly did have a very weak hand as it promised, you don't want to be in 3NT; your 3♦ bid says forcing to 3♠, so you could have bid a much safer 3♠ over 3♥. It's hard to argue with the last 6NT bid, given 3NT promised values for game opposite a 0 count. [edit]I take it back. If you bid 3♠, GIB will pull out another one of its huge flaws, jump straight to Blackwood and put you in 6♠.

Splinters make the following hands trivial to bid to game and slam respectively. What would your auctions be? [hv=?s=SQJ76HA73D2CKJ876&n=SAK982H62DK653CA2&d=N&a=1SP]290|220[/hv] [hv=?s=SQJ76HA73D2CKJ876&n=SAK982HK2D7653CA2&d=N&a=1SP]290|220[/hv]

Are kings worth 4 points in your system? :)

Well, it was specified in the 3rd reply, so there wasn't much point asking after that ;)

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?s=ST5HQTDAK6543CK62&d=w&a=1DD1H]200|300[/hv] How do you proceed here? (IMPs, if that matters, though if it does, MPs too :) )

<snip mistake of mine> Aargh, I've made this mistake before. I've had it drilled into my head that down 2 is something to avoid at all costs at this vulnerability, but you're right; it's actually only a small loss at IMPs. And the gain of when it makes far outweighs that. So I've changed my mind (of course, too late).