RedSpawn

Just because you don't open hands with at most 4 losers as 2♣ is your prerogative. I know a game holding hand when I see one. I recognize the uniform. If I have no more than 4 losers in my hand....2 ♣ it is. However, let's do the arithmetic: The hand has 18 points raw + 3 length points for 7 card diamond suit + 1 quality point for diamond suit having 3 of 5 honors ... 18+3+1=22 HCP adjusted...looks like a 2 ♣ open once you conduct a full hand evaluation and move beyond raw HCP. So let's keep in mind I have used LTC and a full hand evaluation to justify my opening bid. Also, west should slow his roll as he has two worthless singletons and should refrain from demanding a slam unless his misshapen hand issues can be adequately resolved.

Yes. East should be first to bid. From an Losing Trick perspective, he has exactly 4 losers in his hand. As such he has a royal hand and must sound the trumpets. roll out the carpet, and open up 2 ♣ to put his partner on official notice that he has a potential barn burner that warrants an game ending contract. West has 10 points and a well defined club suit....his spade suit is not strong enough for a mention yet since it is not headed by KJXX. West must respond 3♣and east bids 3nt final.

Very late to this one. I co-sign rh's comment. As advancing bridge players we must remember that the artificial 2♣ hands wear many different uniforms and come in various shapes and sizes. From an LTC perspective, this hand has 3 losing tricks coming from hearts. Since you have a hand with less than 4 losers, it is incumbent on you to sound the trumpets and roll out the red carpet and open your royal 2♣ hand. You must put your partner on official notice that you have a potential barn burner. Bid your strength and then your length and let nature take its course.

1) Assuming South plays disciplined weak twos from 1st seat, no I don't agree with North's initial pass. If my partner plays a disciplined weak two, I should respond 2NT. Why? Because the hand presented contains 14 HCP raw + 1 length point for clubs + 1 point for four undervalued aces and 10s. The 10♥ has value for hand evaluation purposes due to my partner's open. This hands rates as a 16 point hand. 2) Bid 2NT.

Amen! I completely co-sign this approach.

Dear Humpty Dumpty, That must be a beautiful partnership where you can never be mistaken since you are the sole arbiter of the meaning of all the bids you make. LEGAL DISCLAIMER: All bids are void where prohibited and good for a limited time only. Certain bids can only be used in participating auctions. Some restrictions may apply. All bid's meanings are subject to change without notice. And the opener makes no express or implied warranties about the accuracy, reliability, or applicability of said bids. Use at your own risk. That level of freedom and ambiguity in a bridge auction can be both a blessing and a curse. Best wishes to you and your underpaid, hardworking partner! -Alice

I respectfully disagree. Bridge is war and it behooves me to adequately equip my partner for battle where possible. We may attack (declare) or we may defend. I don't know how the auction will end from 1st seat. Since the question says I am dealer and in 1st seat and nonvulnerable, I want to make a bid that represents our assets well and also prepares my partner for a sound opening lead should we have to defend. I may say my preference is aggressive preempts and if my partner agrees to that upfront, cool. ... then my partner is equipped at the point of style agreement. But these "undisciplined" preempts cut both ways....you get 1st strike in the auction and get to make your statement crisply and quickly. However, your partner has to unpack your bid and figure out is it plain vanilla or is it the aggressive preempt. Navigating that question means he has another decision point where he could make a bidding/interpretation error. Also, I believe there are times that the element of surprise in the auction may benefit the partnership but I personally don't think it should be predicated on knowingly writing a personal check drawn on insufficient funds.

Amen! Can you imagine the puzzled look on your partner's face if he gets the chance to lead hearts but the opposition holds the A,K, & Q ♥ and are sluffing losers over your bid suit? The optics of that situation are not good and partner may be justified in giving you a menacing "side-eye". And reminding your partner that you said WEAK 3 will not adequately address his utter disappointment and shock.

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I co-sign Silver bull's analysis. Opening weak 3 on #1 is just putting your partner between a rock in a hard place. And IMHO, #1 is just so messy from the poor ♥ suit quality and the ♠ side suit and the non-working honor singletons that any benefit you gain from being the 1st to open is offset by the highly defective nature of this hand and the bidding space you have potentially robbed from your partner. PASS is the most descriptive bid for #1 -- nothing noteworthy to report. #2 I would pass. Though a complete hand evaluation places this hand at 12 total points and I may open 1 ♥, I really like this hand's defensive values. I want to hear more about what my opposition and partner have to say about their hands. If partner opens his hand, then I upgrade mine and compete aggressively. If the opposition open theirs, I might have just the right resources to upset any game contract bids they pursue. #3 A conundrum. It is a preadolescent hand, not a full blown 1 ♥ adult opener and is too strong defensively to be classified as weak 3 ♥. I say Pass but I can see someone making the case for a 2 ♥ bid. I see now that the PASS button is becoming an obsolete auction item. If we get a highly defective, ill-fitting hand from the dealer that doesn't conform to our normal bidding schema, just force fit it somewhere with an opening bid and let partner and the opposition sort out its intended meaning. The PASS button used to be reserved expressly for at least some of these conditions ....no more it seems.

[hv=pc=n&w=s54h96dt53cat8752&e=sakqha75dakj4ckq3]266|100[/hv] I completely co-sign GrahamJson's analysis here. The 2♣ open followed by a 3NT bid accurately describes East's hand. However, it is mandatory that West unapologetically upgrades his hand and pursues a slam. West has 3 undervalued aces and 10s and no overvalued queens and jacks (which is worth an extra point) and also has 2 length points for a 6 card ♣ suit. That means his hand is now worth 4 + 1 + 2 = 7 adjusted points. East has announced a 26 points balanced hand with the 2♣ + 3NT bidding sequence so the total assets should rate at 26 + 7 = 33 points = Slam try. West must tow the line and bid past 3NT with a transfer to clubs via 4♠. Hand evaluation with requisite upgrades/downgrades is critical to this delicate slam bidding process.

I agree with wank. This hand has great auction "agitation" features and North and South are off to a head start. The heart suit has top choice honors and the diamond suit has respectable stoppers and a spade void is perfect to make this an excellent offense hand. Since my partner has already passed, my role and goal at this point is to disrupt the auction, and put a quick halt to the opponent's sharing of intelligence while parking my partnership's assets in a relatively safe spot. For that reason, I would bid 4♥ to communicate where asset values and suit length are to my partner and to indicate a hand with nice shape. A 3 ♥ bid, while nice and true, is not disruptive enough to North and South's game plan. Now, if the opposition bids 4 spade. I have to be very realistic about the tools in my toolkit. 4NT is typically reserved for minor suit sacrifices where you are 5/5 in the minors and have both length and decent suit quality in the minors. The 4NT bid doesn't necessarily take 5 ♥ out of play. Look at West's hand very carefully. He doesn't have length in the minor suits and the suit quality of clubs is virtually nonexistent. He has 4 "baby" clubs and 3 diamonds.... so the tool West is planning to use does not apply to his hand's condition. If you need a wrench for the job, you should not pull out a hammer and expect productivity. He should pass 4 spades to see if his partner has the moxie to bid 5 ♥. IMHO, West does not have the goods alone to imperil the partnership at the 5 level and he certainly doesn't have the goods or values to launch a 4NT investigation. It puts his partner in a very awkward situation. Retire the Superman cape at 4 ♥ and save the Lois Lane rescue for another day with a better hand.

I regret I did not read this in its entirety early on. Jennifer and her teacher are right. You can tell the measure of a gentleman by the way he treats the women around him. I am not sure why Jennifer was maligned and ridiculed for having a dissenting vote (not agreeing to 4 hearts), but when I reread these strings, I see she was spot on. This forum wasn't really about a passionate bridge discussion and building each other up as players even when we disagree. That's what camaraderie is. Ah yes, this forum appears to be about sizing people up, tearing them apart and establishing who's top dog. It appears to be about arbitrarily determining who's " good" versus who's "bad" versus who's real versus who's fake according to each other's expert opinion. I am assuming Jennifer didn't make the cut according to the experts here, so she got what she had coming. No woman deserved the kind of treatment she received in this forum. Even if you think she somehow sullied your reputation, it did not warrant the cliquish attack and rebuke she received. Gentlemen are held to a higher standard to our ladies even in the BBF. We should know better and do better because we are gentlemen. As I write this, I guarantee you that 100% of the gentlemanly men here did not even apologize to this lady after she signed off on this forum topic. You don't have to when you have a heart of stone and don't care about other people and the human condition. I find it ironic that everyone championed Jeff's 4 ♥ vote but very few here demonstrate his world class humility, camaraderie, professionalism, and sportsmanship. And if you do, it certainly wasn't demonstrated in this forum on this topic to various users--especially Jennifer. The air was rife with condescension from almost everyone--man and woman, seasoned veteran forum members and newcomers (and me)--when our votes didn't match. Jennifer was just one of the first casualties. If you are a gentleman who plays bridge, you respect people at the table and in the forum--especially the women. It's that simple. I'm sure Jeff would agree. If I somehow offended any of the ladies here on the forum I apologize upfront. I apologized to MsJennifer on behalf of the men here because she may never get an apology from her attackers. That's what we're supposed to do when we don't defend their honor from cruel, malicious attacks. I should have acted promptly when I saw the dog-eat-dog mentality. I, and a host of other gentlemen, failed to act. We neither condemned nor repudiated this type of behavior. I wish all of you the very best and good luck in your games.

More delaying and tag teaming. Less addressing of topic #108 and #106 that was posted way before 110.

So who said Jeff was one of the runners from tables on BBO? Are you linking the runners of bad preemptive bids on BBo to Jeff simply because he voted 4♥. Please do not misapply my quote like that. To be fair there were a lot of passes on the poll but from people that were alleged by MrAce to be fair or less than good players. Also, keep in miund that I am willing to take at face value with no proof that the poll was done with absolutely no lead-ins, no baiting or interference and conducted in complete objectivity when said "favor" was called in for Jeff to vote on the hand. Interesting leap of faith I am doing here considering what I have seen on this forum so far. There is a lot of cliquish behavior. Everyone on this site seems on the up and up and beyond reproach.

No analysis of 106 and 108. Hmmm.

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Obvious and irrelevant. So says you and your wrestling tag team homeboy. Thanks for the "analysis" and feedback. I am glad BBO deemed both of you the arbiter of all things relevant and sufficient for public consumption. I know why the numbers in 106 and 108 were left alone so far and the ones in 110 weren't. I know why you refuse to comment on them as vociferously as 110 but it has naught to do with relevancy. I am waiting for others to tell me that the statistics in 106 and 108 are categorically wrong and provide the correct ones. And for freaking sakes, I am not asking for the probability of the hand I already have which is 1.00. You know full well that is not what I am asking. So to throw that answer in my face as an appeasement....is inadequate. The fact that john u and sfi once again appear as tag teamers is laughable and as official consignors of each other's narrative....predictable. I don't see the analysis on 106 and 108 yet....hmmm. What I see is the same cavalier dismissiveness others have come to expect. I eagerly await an analysis of 106 and 108 as detailed as 110. Thanks.

When someone addresses post #106 and #108 regarding expected frequency of suit patterns versus probability of a hand, I will address this one. Johnny you have been reading all of the posts and #106 and #108 has been up there well before you pounced on #110, which I expected. Again, you and several others have never even addressed the tables and or figures in post #106 and #108. One person has suggested I was asking, what is the probability of my having the hand I already have which is 1.00. Wow! Are we going there tonight? I wonder why you skipped over postings #106 and #108. Are they grossly wrong. Are they just plain dumb? If so, where. Why isn't that one being attacked for it's rudimentary calculation of the probability of getting a certain hand? I am assuming you read them before #110. JohnU and JonnyQuest both responded to post #110 before #106 or #108. Let the record show I even posted all of JonnyQuests posting in #106 but still got no response. Makes you wonder are they waiting for something. . .

Actually it is closer to 10% and the probability gets larger if someone else on the board has an unmentioned 7 card or 8 card suit. Could get as large as 20%. You could dismiss 20% and I am okay with that. I have seen larger occurrences dismissed.

Here was my original poorly worded question in quotes: "What is the likelihood of your receiving 9♠, T98765432♥, Q3♦, 9♣ in the 1st place?" The technical answer to this question is: 1 out of 635,013,559,600. What is the likelihood of my receiving AKQJT98765432♥? 1 out of 635,013,559,600. For each player, each hand you get has equal occurrence. But that is not what I meant by this question. The more pointed question is: What is the expected frequency of getting a 9-2-1-1 hand pattern of total hands available? Answer: 0.00018% what is the expected frequency of getting a 9 card suit? Answer: 0.0037% What is the expected frequency of getting a 7 card suit? Answer: 3.53% What is the expected frequency of getting a 5 card suit? Answer: 44.34% Notice how the expected frequency is getting exponentially smaller as the suit pattern(s) requested gets larger? Please read the tables and start with acbl. We are arguing over semantics. "Among the 39 possible hand patterns, 5 hand patterns comprise 70 percent of the total possible hands." So the expected frequency for higher suit hand count shapes is lower! Each hand I get has equal occurrence that is 1/635,013,559,600; however, the expected frequency of my getting a 9-2-1-1 hand shape is not the same as a 4-3-3-3 OR 4-4-3-2 or a 5 card suit or a 7 card suit or a 13 card suit. There are only 4 combinations of a 13 card suit so the expected frequency of 13-0-0-0 must be lower than 9-2-1-1. That is how math works with combinations! Don't argue with me, argue with the expected frequency of the hand patterns shown in all of the tables below. As I request for longer and longer suits patterns, the expected frequency of said hand pattern gets exponentially smaller until I request the grandaddy of them all the 13-0-0-0. Each hand has equal occurrence of showing up in my position. However, varying hand patterns do NOT have the same expected frequency in the population of total hands available. http://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/teachers/celebritylessons/handpatternsrevised.pdf http://www.durangobill.com/BrSuitStats.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_bridge_probabilities http://www.bridgehands.com/P/Probability_Hand_Distribution.htm http://www.bridgeguys.com/Conventions/mathematical_tables.html

JonnyQuest, when you actually take your lips off of poisoned darts and respond to my posts, I might have a shred of respect for you. You haven't responded about the nit-picking of semantics of "likelihood" versus "expected frequency" when everyone knows I was talking about the expected frequency and/or likelihood of getting a 9-2-1-1 hand shape versus other hand shapes. No, RedSpawn, we honestly thought you meant the likelihood of getting that hand which is 1 / 635,013,559,600 and is the exact same chance as getting any other hand of any other shape which is 1 / 635,013,559,600. <_< So I have to go back and then say "expected frequency of getting a 9 card suit" which is one and the "expected frequency of getting a 9-2-1-1 shape hand" which is the other. I then present the mathematical probabilities tables showing the expected frequency of the various hand patterns. The tables show that the expected frequency of getting 9-2-1-1 shape or 9-card or 8 card or 7 card suits is exponentially lower than the common 4-4-3-2 and 4-3-3-3 hand shapes. No response from Vampyr or you. No, "that's crazy. That's absurd." Nothing. . . Interesting. I don't hear anything because the mathematical table of expected frequencies of hand shapes doesn't serve your interests. Ah! You were never posting to have an intellectual discussion about bridge, you were posting for self-aggrandizement. That's why you really don't do or say anything until Vampyr, MrAce, and others have done all of the real legwork for you. So shady. <_< This is why I can respect and disagree with MrAce and Vampyr, but have to give you a side eye. How difficult it must be for you to sit in the background and not respond to any posts yet hurl nothing but insults and crafty witticisms at opportune moments. It comes as no shock that you joined the poisoned dart bandwagon when you see the fruit of someone else's sweat equity (e.g. Bridgewinner voting poll conducted by Mr. Ace with input from Jeff and called in through a favor.) Ding! So obvious.

No worries and thank you for the vote breakdown. We have a right to disagree, that is what makes bridge great. Again, I could see a 2♥ or maybe a stretch to 3♥, but I just can't sign on board to a direct 4♥ open. And we were in the throes of heated discussion over 4♥, not 3♥ or 2♥. 2♥ is beyond a safe bet. You have 9 cards and 4 trump missing. Even if the trump does a remote 4-0-0 split unfavorably, you have 5 tricks plus an expectation of 2 tricks partner = 7 tricks versus a contract of 8 tricks. Except for the errant poisoned dart throwing, the poll was fun.