kjpod

[hv=pc=n&s=skq853h62d87caq73&w=shqj983dj96542c64&n=sa974h54dktckj985&e=sjt62hakt7daq3ct2&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p1d(Precision%20diamond)dr1hp4hppdppp]399|300[/hv] From a just-completed speedball game. North led a trump, making 7. East's 4H is, of course, both completely ridiculous and exactly what E-W can be 98% certain of making looking at both their hands. Yes, it's been reported, but hands like this just take the fun out of playing on this site. I'm starting to understand why the robot games, warts and all, have gotten so popular lately.

Last hand of a virtual club game, we were cruising along as E-W when... (see the bidding notes) [hv=pc=n&s=saqj9ha3dakq97cq4&w=st832hk754dt32cj6&n=s764hqjdj865ckt97&e=sk5ht9862d4ca8532&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=pp2cp2dp2np3np4s(%22I%20have%20four%20spades.%22)p4n(%22I...%20don't%20care.%20I%20want%20to%20play%20notrump.%22)p5c(%22I%20have%20three%20keycards.%22)p5h(%22What%20are%20you%20doing%20partner%3F%20Please%2C%20please%20sign%20off%20in%205NT.%22)p6d(%22I%20have%20the%20queen%20of%20spades%20and%20king%20of%20diamonds.%22)pp(%22I%20give%20up.%20Oh%20wait,%20I%20have%20to%20play%20this.%22)p]399|300[/hv] This was an open game with a 0-750 game underneath so in theory the absolute novices should be nowhere to be found. A heart lead results in justice but East, wanting to see the board that inspired such insanity in the bidding, laid down the club ace. The hand could no longer be beaten, and needless to say, nobody else was in slam.

On the last hand of and up-and-down club (matchpoint) game where you still have hopes of a scratch, you get this lovely hand at favorable vulnerability. ♠ 109763 ♥ 1062 ♦ 832 ♣ 43 Playing a simple form of Precision, partner opens 1♣. RHO bids 1♥. Pass back around to partner who reopens 1NT, which shows 18-19 balanced by your agreements. RHO persists with 2♥. Do you compete with 2♠ or do you stay out of it? If you pass, it's not over. Partner, known to get creative at times, reopens yet again with 2NT. This time RHO passes. Do you transfer to spades now, or do you keep silent? Or do you think of something else?

[hv=pc=n&s=sajt532hkdaqt32c6&w=skq864haj72dct432&n=s97h653dkj98765c7&e=shqt984d4cakqj985&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=pp1c1sdp3h4d4h4s]399|300|I paid $40 for this...[/hv] The NABC Robot Individual is a rude place to find a glitch in the robot logic. I know there's often reason to apply a false preference on a doubleton to avoid raising the level of the auction, but voluntarily taking such a preference, and suppressing SEVEN-card support in the bargain seems... a bit much.

Section imbalance is a thing that happens a lot in the larger events on BBO. That's something you get used to. But sometimes it just gets ridiculous. I thought my partner and I were unlucky to fail to scratch after finishing 14th out of 70 pairs. But then we saw what happened to the pair ahead of us in our section. A Flight C pair finished 7th overall, out of 70 pairs, and scored no masterpoints for the effort. I'm sure the rules are the ACBLs and not BBOs but this is just absurd. I checked and there were 24 pairs seeded into Flight C in the event, as you'd expect mathematically. All 22 other Flight C pairs in the other sections scored lower than this pair.

Nicely done. Maybe this was too hard to work out in the time constraints of BBO. For the record, the S-W hands: [hv=pc=n&s=sak87652hkdat93ck&w=st3hat876432d5ca3]266|200|Not the ideal 4H opener maybe but far from the craziest thing ever.[/hv]

Curious hand came up the other night: [hv=pc=n&n=sj9hq5dq876ct8765&e=sq4hj9dkj42cqj942&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=4hpp4sppp]266|200|IMPs scoring[/hv] Partner leads the ♦5. Plan the defense if: a) Dummy plays the ♦6. b) Dummy plays the ♦Q.

I'll start with the good. The new suggested alert process of entering an explanation AND clicking the alert button, rather than relying on the entered explanation to generate the alert, has pretty much halted the problem of opponents not seeing my alerts and then calling the director on me for failing to alert. So step forward for progress there. The new process, however, still seems to have a few needling issues. Now, whenever I alert a bid by the new process, and especially when it's my Precision 1C opener or the 1D response, there is at least a 50/50 chance I will promptly get an alert box asking me for an explanation of the bid I just entered an explanation for. Yes, I can just click OK and re-send the explanation, twice if (as is often the case) necessary, but it gets annoying since the bids are at the bottom of the screen and I have to go all the way to the top of the screen to click off the request. I have to conclude from this that hovering over the bid for the explanation (as opposed to clicking) is just not natural behavior for a large proportion of BBO players. So, unless players can be taught otherwise, my suggestion is this: if a bid is properly alerted, with an explanation and the alert button clicked, the first click by a player on the bid will just display the bid and not prompt the alerter for another explanation. And instead, two clicks would send the prompt, to cover the case where the explanation is considered insufficient.

More and more often lately I've had opponents chide me for not alerting bids that I absolutely did alert. I've even occasionally had to have the director step in and confirm that yes, I did self-alert. Many other times I've had requests for explanation on bids I just alerted. Is this something anyone else has run into, alerts apparently not showing up properly for the opponents? It's obviously something that's hard to monitor for but it's happened too many times for me to think it's just unobservant opponents.

Thanks for all the replies. At the table I bid 2♥ like everyone else in this thread, but now that I have some time to think of it, perhaps that was the wrong idea. The failure of the Garbage Stayman auction to find a major suit fit means the opponents may be in trouble. Ideally, East should be 4-4-5-0 for this auction, but what if East fudged and bid on 4-4-4-1, only to catch West with the dreaded 3-3-2-5 shape? Furthermore, if partner is intended for takeout -- takeout to what? East has shown length in every suit but clubs. And as one posted pointed out, if he had just clubs, he could have double 2♣, or he could be 3♣ later. I will withhold the actual hands because the auction was aberrant in several ways, but I thought the abstract problem was of interest.

[hv=pc=n&w=s652hqt53da86cj53&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1np2cp2dppdp]133|200[/hv] Matchpoint scoring. 1NT is 13-15. Speedball, so quick, what's going on and what's your call?

[hv=pc=n&w=s6hak74dak9643cat&e=sakj873hj85dqcq83&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=1dp1sp2hp2sp3dp3hp4hp4sp5cp5hp6hppp]266|200[/hv] Swiss teams. 2♠ was forcing and implied more than minimum. Comment by the players about their own bids: 4♥: "Yes it's a 4-3 fit but may be better than 3NT if partner is empty in clubs." 4♠: "I really haven't shown my hand's true strength yet." 6♥: "If my partner can make a move towards slam, I can hardly refuse given all my controls." Contract wasn't hopeless but needed a bit more luck than was available. Who should have found the green card in their bidding box first?

[hv=pc=n&s=sa6hk743dat752c85&n=sk9hq5d9863cakj74]133|200|3NT by South. IMPs. Lead: ♠Q. Plan the play. Neither the diamond ace nor club ace turn up anything unexpected.[/hv]

[hv=pc=n&s=s87hqjt4dj87ct643&w=skqt65ha2dk3ck952&n=s32h9765dq962ca87&e=saj94hk83dat54cqj&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=p1np2hp3sp6nppp]399|300[/hv] In one of the pairs events at the Gatlinburg MABC this week, most E-W pairs bid to a spade contract, either game or slam, and quietly made 12 tricks. Seemingly a dull hand, but at a few adventurous tables where West decided to grab for a top board by bidding 6NT, the play became interesting. South led the queen of hearts, won on the board, and declarer led a club, ducked. Crossing back to dummy with a spade, declarer led another club off the board, and this time North took the ace. (Ducking again would have complicated matters, but I see no reasonable alternative for declarer but to cross back to the board, take a guess in clubs and hope to be able to fall back on the actual line of play if it goes wrong.) North returned a heart, East won and ran spades leaving this five card ending: ♥9 ♦Q962♠Q ♦K3 ♣K9 ...... ♥8 ♦AT54 ♥T ♦J8 ♣T6 When declarer cashes the last spade (throwing a diamond from hand), North gets the dubious honor of deciding which defender will get squeezed. If North throws a heart, that will expose South to a three-suit squeeze, as a diamond pitch will allow declarer to pick up the diamonds via a finesse later. If North throws a diamond instead, allowing South to throw a heart, this will only put off the deadly moment, as when declarer cashes the king of clubs now North will be caught in a positional squeeze. As a practical matter, the heart pitch is a slightly better option for North, as it leaves a faint hope that declarer might make a mistake at the end and play for the drop in diamonds instead.

Thanks for the clarification.