TimG

I'm surprised the players can voluntarily back up the auction. And, don't think the director should have presented it as an option and thus put east in a more difficult situation. I think that the director and this post somewhat unfairly put the onus on east to do the "right thing" when really there is nothing wrong with not allowing a change.

We have to bid. We could easily have game. Or at least a making partscore. Giving up because we don't have a perfect bid is a sure way to get bulldozed in the long run imo. I don't think this reasoning is quite right. We don't bid every time we could have game (I'm not sure what % you would put with "easily"). And, it is possible to go plus when defending.

Does anyone from the US actually care? I think that this event is a bigger deal outside the US.

Kind of funny that you choose double and then say "bid".

I'm not at all confident that a diamond lead would be best for the opponents, I have no problem bidding 2N.

I think that we could be +200 or +300 defending 2S with some regularity. And, that the opponents will be able to double us in 3N with some frequency when it is going down a couple of tricks. So, the usual "we can make 3N 40%-50% of the time" reasoning doesn't quite work. I would pass.

Isn't there a pretty good chance of going plus if we pass? I know there is no vulnerable game bonus for that, but it seems to me a better option than the all-in-one-basket 2♥ approach.

Count me amongst the passers who lead the ♦A. I think I would have tried 2♠ instead of 4♠ at the table (lacking any special gadgetry).

This seems to be a common train of thought (with which I agree). But, at the same time, not everyone has the same bridge goals. Some people think it is more fun to duff along with unusual methods than to slowly reach mediocrity (or better) through focusing on fundamentals. If the extra fun in system design and tinkering keeps them coming back, that's great. As something of an aside: It seems to me that whether you are playing something rather standard or something unusual, it is a worthwhile exercise to write and maintain a set of system notes.

Perhaps my question should have been more plainly: do you have special agreements about how to proceed after a stopper-ambiguous 1NT advance? Regardless, what do you do now?

Duplicate, sorry. Got the error screen after the first. Could a moderator delete this one?

♠AQ5 ♥J63 ♦K76 ♣9854 You are in 2nd seat, vul v nv. The auction starts: P-P-1♥-DBL P-1N-P-2♥ P-? I think 1N would win the forum vote as advancer's best option after the takeout double. Intervenor has read the forums, too, and knows to check for a real stopper before bidding 3N. What do you do now?

I think you want to filter out hands that will obviously accept an invite from partner (or that will obviously move over a single raise). It doesn't really matter how often game will make on those hands because you're getting there anyway.

You are right, my sim does not take into account the possibility that the opponents will compete over 2H. (Or, as Art asks, whether they will be more or less likely to compete over 2H, 3H or 4H.) I was mostly trying to look at how good the hand was -- as I said, my initial reaction was that this is basically a balanced 10 count even with the 5th trump. I think I have convinced myself that I was wrong, whether or not the opponents are considered. I added the IMP analysis because the normal "bid game when it is X%" analysis generally takes into account only making partscore, making game and game down one and I wanted to know if the down 2 or 3 and failing partscore significantly affected things.

I think that the limit raise camp (and the drive to game camp) are over valuing the 5th trump in a balanced hand. So, I broke out the double dummy sim. When opener is 5♥332 with 11-14 HCP, there are 8 or fewer tricks in hearts 32%, 9 tricks 45% and 10+ tricks 23%. When the 11 point hands are eliminated, there are 8 or fewer tricks available 23% of the time. When opener is 5♥431 with 11-14 HCP, there are 8 or fewer tricks in hearts 11%, 9 tricks 30% and 10+ tricks 59% of the time. Eliminate the 11 point hands and there are 8 or fewer tricks available 7% of the time. When opener is 5♥332 or 5♥431 with 11-14 HCP, there are 8 or fewer tricks in hearts 23%, 9 tricks 39% and 10+ tricks 38% of the time. Eliminate the 11 point hands and there are 8 or fewer tricks available 16% of the time. To compare a limit raise to a single raise, suppose opener is 5332 and accepts a limit raise whenever he has 14 HCP (game here is 47% -- with 13 HCP game is only 28%) otherwise declines. Suppose also, that at the other table, responder makes a single raise and opener always passes. We end up -1.1 IMPs per board when opener is 11-14 and -0.5 IMPs per board when opener is 12-14. Now do the same thing, but assume opener is 5431. This time, we want to accept the limit raise whenever opener has 12 (game is 54%), 13 (game is 71%) or 14 (game is 80%). Now we're +3 IMPs/board when opener is 11-14 and +4.7 IMPs/board when opener is 12-14. When the 5431 & 5332 hands are combined*, we want to accept game when opener has 13 (game is 46%) or 14 (game is 63%), but not when he has 12 (game is 33%) or 11 (game is 19%). Here we end up +0.25 IMPs/board when opener is 11-14 and +1.1 IMPs/board when opener is 12-14. So, seems like those who want to treat this as a limit raise are correct. * This is not 1000 5332 hands plus 1000 5431 hands, but rather 1000 hands that are either 5431 or 5332. It's actually 5332 about 55% and 5431 about 45% of the time. The IMPs/board figures could be improved up by accepting with 5332 14 counts and 5431 12-14 counts, but the way I set up the sim, I could not separate these from the combined group. Since the sim suggests treating this as a limit raise even with this handicap, I'm not going to rewrite the sim to separate them out. What about just bidding game? In the combined group, always bidding game is -0.1 IMPs/board with 11-14 and +1.2 IMPs/board when opener is 12-14. When opener is 12-14, that's almost identical to the limit raise approach (but remember the limit raise approach is artificially low). It seems to me that whether blasting game or involving partner is the right approach may depend upon how sound your opening bids are. If you open most 5332 11 counts with five hearts, perhaps the limit raise is correct; if you pass a lot of 5332 11 counts with 5 hearts, then just bidding game may be just as good as (or better than) a limit raise.

Isn't a Bergen raise followed by a game bid "getting to game somehow"? Might there be some advantage to making the limit raise? For instance, opener may be better placed after 1H-(P)-3m-(4S) than after 1H-(P)-4H-(4S), especially if the direct 4H lacks the definition of "no defensive trick" or some such. Of course, the flip side is that the opponents might be better placed after 1H-(P)-4H if 4H is less well defined. EDIT: To be clear, if the is no 3N gadget and my only limit raise is 3H, I agree 100% that it is better to bid game mis-descriptively than to stop short of game if you think your hand is worth game.

Marshall Miles wrote a book called "Defensive Signals" that I am 100% sure discusses this very topic. I think this is a direct quote: "Any honor you play when not necessary to win or promote a trick guarantees the honor below it and denies the honor immediately above it." I've found the book very useful for summarizing these basic carding situations and discussing some lesser known "rules" that may be common amongst experts. Tim

Traditionally, wouldn't you be Mrs. John Jones? Not, Mrs. Jane Jones.

Make yourself a web page and then put the link in your profile.

I'm really surprised. The people who take free bridge lessons at he local library are not the same people who will pay for bridge lessons. But, they might turn into people who will pay for bridge lessons (or people who will eventually find their way into a bridge club). If I was making some money from teaching bridge lessons, I would welcome the guy doing the free job at the library. I'd expect those that stuck with the lesson series and took some interest in the game to find their way to my lessons (or into my club) before long.

Bumping this just in case...is there a way to insert a comment into a FD file?

Do it.

Haven't millions of catholic school students been faced with this over the years?

I did look over the site and even looked up the IAC tournament times. The team game series is on the weekends, which I understand makes it easier to schedule for teams from multiple time zones, but really isn't convenient for me. I'd like to be able to play weekday evenings (east coast US). I do not mean this as a complaint, just an explanation of why it didn't fit my needs. I may join and try to make one of the Monday 01:20 GMT games (though they are listed as 01:00 in one place and 01:20 elsewhere). The website is not clear on how long these tourneys are, how many rounds, how many boards, and under what format and time constraints.