smerriman

You're forgetting you bid 3♠. You're right in that bidding 2♠ shows a good suit, with at most one missing honor (amongst other things). But after partner doesn't raise spades to show the other honor, bidding 3♠ confirms a solid suit, as per all of the posts + links above. If you had a splinter, GIB would know, because you would have bid it! Eg, Karen Walker's site:

Hooray! 17th time lucky :) Thanks all for participating.

Was referring to http://www.kultcamp-rieneck.de which appears regularly maintained. But perhaps that's not the website you said you run for your bridge district.

The logic is simple, yes. Was saying the time spent integrating it in the way mentioned (running a check after every trick, accounting for it in the UI, and changing the whole claim logic) is rather a pointless use of time. But pilowsky is clearly only interested in antagonizing now.

I just visited the site linked at the bottom of your profile. It immediately stored three cookies on my computer, due to your use of Google Analytics. Can you please get rid of all tracking on your website? Why on earth would you put a file on my PC?!

3♦ by opener has already denied a 5 card major.

It's just normal puppet Stayman, so yes it does. If you had one four card major and diamonds, you'd bid three of the other major over 3♦, then can show a minor over 3NT.

Because this doesn't solve the problem. Next time you're in a far more likely scenario where you have AK2 of trumps, and one opponent has the 3. You can't possibly build a system to allow an automatic claim here. Spending all of the time required to build a feature to continually check you're guaranteed to not lose a trick therefore doesn't seem worthwhile, if the aim is to deal with opponents not playing.

If it were a 'stolen bid' does that mean if you had passed, 2N would still have been the minors? Surely that would have been alertable too, as it's definitely unusual (more ways than one). Let alone an alertable double as a stolen alertable bid.

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:99c4660d.ef54.11e9.a085.0cc47a39aeb4-1571148224&u=smerriman smerriman 13 - 29 broze I was expecting a double digit swing on board 7.. though not my way!

Basic GIB does everything the same except pulls to 4♦ instead of 7. Guessing some bytes were lost midstream somewhere (like on very rare occasions where I've seen GIB bid as if it had its RHO's hand - including describing the bid as a 'raise' etc)

If you're going to go that route, an immediate 3♠ might be better - I play it as showing 13(54), but at least you've shown 3 hearts specifically.

smerriman vs broze, first two sets: 13 - 30 40 - 0 https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:15accc45.ed96.11e9.a085.0cc47a39aeb4-1570956447&u=smerriman https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:fbebaa9b.ee57.11e9.a085.0cc47a39aeb4-1571039726&u=smerriman

Semifinals are: icycookie vs gordontd broze vs smerriman As usual, 4x16 challenges. Let's aim for a week for the semifinals, and a week for the final. zzmiy has been disqualified and will be banned from the next challenge event. After round 2 started, he played no less than 12 16-board IMP challenges against GIB, losing 10, tieing 1, and winning 1; the score reported in this thread (the 11th of the 12 challenges played, date-wise) was the one winning score. Have sent a PM asking for an explanation, but I can't imagine any that would overturn this decision.

See message above - will let you know once the semis are confirmed tomorrow, but please do not start these yet.

The basic logic: - GIB deals a certain number of hands at random, "consistent" with the bidding and play so far - for each one, it calculates the best card to play, double dummy - it then plays the card that has the best average result If the bidding/play is identical up to that point, the random seed is equivalent and it will deal the same hands, and end with the same result. If things aren't identical, a different set of random hands would have been dealt, which can give a different result.

I've added in a couple of scores for earlier challenges that had gone unreported. That just leaves icycookie vs broze to determine the final makeup of the top 4. However, please do not start the semifinals until prompted, as there may be a pending change to the results.

Restricted choice only applies when the cards are *equals*, and the person playing the honor could have played the other one with exactly the same outcome. It doesn't apply at all to this situation.

You missed the words "every time you don't have it" in my post. With more than 3 cards in their suit, 'no desire to defend'? What are you going to do, pass 2NT? :) With 3 cards in your minor (or length in their minor), and 3+ cards in your major, you'll be playing in the minor while everyone else who overcalled the major will be in the better major fit.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you bid 2N and I have support for one major, what do I bid? If I bid the major (or cue-bid their suit), we're forced to the 4 level every time you don't have it. So instead I probably have to give up on ever finding the major fit, which makes the original overcall pointless.

The key is to not play the DA (thus why you need to end in West). If North shows out on the ace, you're down - but by leading low the first time, if North shows out you can lead back to the 8, forcing another high card out of South.

3♠ is a cuebid of the opponents' suit; it can't be natural (and can't be 3 card support given the lack of a 2♠ cue or 3♥ raise the first time).

It's a bit like saying "I don't play reverses". They're just a part of bidding, you can choose not to make them, but there isn't really an alternative.

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:87d706b4.e620.11e9.ab16.0cc47a39aeb4-1570136300&u=smerriman smerriman 25 - 19 stephen tu

FYI, partner can't see anything you type in the alert box. Only the opponents.