david_c

Yeah, LHO is your screenmate. This is relevant to MikeH's suggestion of what is going on - the 3NT bid was not alerted, and if you ask what it means you will get a shrug which says, "to play". Anyway, if you decide to double, what do you intend to do if LHO pulls to 4♣ and this is passed round to you again?

You're in 4♠ on the uncontested auction 1♦ - 1♠ - 1NT - 4♠. ♠ A9 ♥ J972 ♦ AJ976 ♣ J4 ♠ QT7632 ♥ AT ♦ 53 ♣ AQ6 Yes, partner's hand is a normal opening bid. You can blame me for that one :D Anyway, the lead is the ♣7. Plan the play. Not wanting to pre-empt your decision at trick one (if there is one), I have some hidden text for you - If you play the ♣J: If you play the ♣4:

IMPs, none vul, you hold as dealer: ♠ AKQ74 ♥ 82 ♦ AKT965 ♣ - You open 1♦, which promises 4 cards and is limited to about 18HCP. LHO (a real expert) overcalls 2♣, which is passed back to you. You bid 3♠. (OK?) LHO asks whether 3♠ promises a 6-5 hand (it does), and bids 3NT. This is passed back around to you. What do you do now?

All the more reason not to issue an AWMW. Really, the ruling is fine, but an AWMW seems harsh to me. The issue is what (if anything) is suggested by the hesitation, and I rate this as a close decision. I don't think that "Example 1" and "Example 2" are comparable, because in the crcumstances it's highly unlikely that the 3NT bidder was considering making a stronger bid. Clearly an appeal in "Example 2" would have no merit whatsoever. Of course, there are more possible reasons for the hesitation than just trying to evaluate the strength of the hand, which is why I agree with the ruling.

Seems a bit harsh. I read arrows' argument as being: 3NT in tempo = serious slam try 3NT after a hesitation = unsure as to whether it is worth a serious slam try If you agree with this then the sign-off should be disallowed. I don't think I do agree with this, but the argument seems to have merit at least. Unless the TD specifically addressed the question of what the hesitation suggests in his ruling, I'm surprised at the AWMW. Maybe arrows managed to rub the committee up the wrong way.

Yes, this is more like it. West is endplayed in the bidding. What is he supposed to do over 3♥? It's fair to say he knows what sort of hand North has, but how does that help him? Much as he would love to show his eight-card heart suit, he can't do this because his partner is likely to interpret a heart bid as a cue. Given the correct information, West would surely have bid hearts over 3♥ (or at least at some point before deciding to play in 4♠). Then we still don't know whether E/W would bid to slam, but we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Finally, you might look at E/W's actions over 5♣ and ask whether they were trying a double-shot. Well, no, that's ridiculous. What if they'd bid to 6♥ on a different layout and gone off? Would we also accuse them of a double-shot then? Certainly they know what is going on once North bids 5♣, but it gives them a problem which is too difficult to solve. I voted for "hard to say" because we weren't told what reasons were given for the ruling. But I think the adjustment is correct. North should also be given a lecture or penalty for the 5♣ bid.

5C is criminal. If the 2NT bid had been explained as both minors, then there's no way North would bid 5C. He might pass, or he might bid 4NT, or he might even bid 5D I suppose (though I think that's a lunatic bid), but definitely not 5C because that would suggest that his clubs were at least as good as his diamonds. So the only reason to bid 5C is to wake partner up. North is not allowed to use the fact that his partner needs waking up. North should probably pass. But if he thinks that it's clear to take another bid, then he must bid 4NT, not 5C.

I think Todd's point is a good one. FD works by looking at the bidding sequence and seeing whether is has any information about this sequence. In theory that's all you could ever ask for, because any bidding sequence can be given a meaning. But in practice there are some agreements which are impossible to describe to FD in this way. The algorithms for deciding what a bid means are just too complex. Let's take a WBF convention card for comparison. It has a number of sections, including (in no particular order): 1. A summary of the system, and "things the opponents should know". 2. Carding methods. 3. Opening bids and responses. 4. Defensive and competitive bidding. 5. Slam conventions. 6. Doubles. 7. "Other agreements". FD files currently have separate sections for (1) and (2). Everything else has to go in the "main" part of the file. This works excellently for (3). It's more problematic for (4) because you have to define what the opponents' bids mean, but still OK here. But it's fairly hopeless for (5), (6) and (7). IMO, the only way to solve this problem is to give our FD files separate sections for things like (5), (6) and (7), written essentially in plain text, which the opponents can look up if they want to. Then FD would not give specific information about each individual slam try sequence (say), but I think we have to accept that it's not possible to write a file which does this. (Sure, you could make it work adequately for some particular conventions, but I bet that whatever trick you use to do this, it can't be applied for other sorts of conventions.) Basically, as Todd says, make it work more like a convention card. You can keep the nice pop-up explanations for simple sequences like 1NT - (pass) - 2♣, but if the opponents want to know your agreements about a 4NT bid on the third round of a competitive auction, they have to look at your general notes (which would be readily available in some way).

Um, can I vote for more of the "adequate solvers" format instead? I thought that that was really interesting, being able to see how different pairs would bid a hand. Whereas, seeing how pairs would play a hand is not so interesting, as it's more a matter of right and wrong rather than style. Though, it would certainly be work well as a competition - you'd need to be very good bridge players to win it.

I think I agree with Richard on this one. It certainly would be nice if the software could cope with weighted scores. But here I would only give a very small weighting to 6NT going off, maybe 20% taking into account the benefit of the doubt given to the non-offending side. It could be even less. I think the best approximation to this on BBO is to let the result stand. That is, I would rule that 6NT going off is not a likely result. I don't like giving Ave+/Ave- on principle. Even more so here because it seems too generous.

That's a contradiction. No it's not. The point is that the damage was caused (partly / primarily) by the fact that North did not have a natural 1♣ opening. But this was not a hidden agreement, just a random bid from North.

I think it's more that the easiest system is "bid your best suit". That happens to imply bidding 4-card major suits, but it's still a different approach to "4-card majors". After a while, you hope that your intelligent beginners will come to understand why bidding your best suit first isn't always the best strategy.

Oh, I probably got it wrong, it was supposed to be about one point sounder than moscito for the unbalanced hands, or even a little more. I should have written (10)11-16 perhaps. Playing more constructive openings, I suppose you might want to use step 1 as a weak relay (ie. forcing NT type) rather than a strong relay. But no, I haven't really thought this through :rolleyes:

Indeed - South's 2♣ bid shows that they didn't think they were playing Polish Club. Actually I think 2♣ is a reasonable bid in a natural system. With a weak hand, it's often right to show your support then get out of the way. Playing four-card majors with a strong NT, 2♣ would be my choice as well.

Yes! I love this convention - a 2NT rebid showing a good hand with a 6-card suit. Even if you play a 2M rebid as forcing, the ability to show this sort of hand at once is extremely useful. Now all you need is a forcing diamond raise ...

Has anyone tried this? 1♣ = 11-13 balanced or any 17+ 1♦ = 10-16 with 4+ ♥s 1♥ = 10-16 with 4+ ♠s 1♠ = 10-16 with 4+ ♦s, no major 1NT = 14-16 balanced 2♣ = 10-16 with 6+ ♣s, no major It's intended to be less aggressive than "normal" moscito.

I don't like a 1♣ fert at all. It's not just that the opponents can play their normal system over it - if they know what they're doing they can actually do a lot better than that. And the supposed advantage, that you get an extra step when you make a strong pass, all but disappears if the opponents are sufficiently aggressive. Gerben's two-way pass is nice. Though again it gives the opponents a lot of options over the pass. My suspicion is that if you use it in second seat, well-prepared opponents will take you apart with pre-emption. It's probably sound in first seat.

Looking at your system, I think some of the similarities with Polish Club are quite striking. Like, the way that 1♦ and 1M opening bids are not completely unlimited. Or the fact that you are opening "strong 2NT" hands at the 1-level. Apart from the 1♦ opening on 4=4=3=2 shape, it looks to me more like a Polish system than a 2/1 variant. :P

It is a bit risky, but you're unlikely to suffer a large penalty very often. For one thing, it will only happen if opponents are canny enough to pass with good hands on the first round. And if you do happen to get doubled in 1NT, the fact that responder has denied a major makes it relatively easy to scramble for a fit at the 2-level. I don't think it's safe for opponents to double after 1♣:1♠,1NT:pass with a random balanced opening hand. At this stage, I would expect that the 17-19 option is almost as likely as the 11-13 option, perhaps more likely, despite the a priori probabilities. So, yes, the strong option does protect you from penalties. So I agree that it's more risky than the traditional Polish method, but if this is the worst thing about your system I don't think it's really a problem. Personally I wouldn't want to give up the 1♦ negative in Polish because it means that the 1M responses promise enough for game opposite the "strong club" variant. Whereas playing transfers, all your 1-level responses could be very weak, and it becomes more difficult for opener to sort out strong unbalanced hands. (Note that in awm's system these strong unbalanced hands don't exist, so transfers become more attractive.) As ever, it all depends on the rest of the system.

Yawn. I suppose there's not much point in trying to defend EBU regs here. Those of us who actually live in England already know that they work. The silly thing, if there is one, is that any agreement about (3♣) : 4♣ is alertable unless it's natural. You could argue that this should be changed so that cue-bids were not alertable, though personally I prefer the simplicity of the current arrangement. But what people are complaining about is the part of the regulations which says (in effect): If you believe your partner's bid is artificial, then you should alert even if you're not sure exactly what it means. This is not the silly part. It really isn't.

Right. I believe this is the main reason why we have this rule. Though in this particular case ...

:P Yeah, OK. This is what I do at the moment, unless partner wants to play something different. It's just that I've been wondering whether there is a more efficient meaning for the high card signal.

Sorry Roland, count is too complicated ;) Seriously, this is the problem: I tend to throw small cards at random and would therefore like a method where playing small cards carries no meaning. Yes I know it would be better if I could just concentrate, but I can't. Besides, if you're my partner, it's no good giving me count in an unremarkable side-suit, because there's no way I'm going to be able to count the hand out. If as you suggest there is no suit I want to signal for, then I have no problem: I just throw a boring small card, which carries exactly that meaning. The question is, what should a high card mean?

I'm not very good at signalling. I can just about stretch to working out what card to play on partner's lead. But later in the play I get preoccupied with other things, and generally I can't think of anything interesting to tell partner anyway. A typical thought process is something along these lines: "I think I have to throw a spade here: anything else could be a disaster. So I'll play the ♠3 ... no, wait a minute, we're playing Lavinthal, so that would ask for a club, wouldn't it? I do have the ♣K, but should I really be signalling that I have it? I'm not sure I actually want partner to play clubs, and besides, I don't want declarer to know what I've got. So maybe I should play a higher spade instead - I think partner already knows I can't have much interest in hearts. Ugh, no, I don't like this at all, maybe I should play a club, at least that gets the signalling right ... " Now if I was actually a competent defender I would know what to do in this sort of situation. But that's not going to be the case any time soon. So what I'd really like is a system of signals/discards which is suited to my temperament. The key feature required is this: Playing your lowest card in a suit says, "Partner, there's nothing in particular I want to tell you." That means, if you do want to send a message, you have to play a high card. The meaning of a high card (or high-low signal) is allowed to be reasonably complicated, as long as it's well defined. Example of a signal which is good in this respect: Smith Peters - a high card saying, "I really like the suit you led partner", whereas a low card says, "er, what happened at trick one? I've forgotten." So, is there a method that works this way? Here is one suggestion: when discarding, high card = "I much prefer one of the other suits to this one. (If there are two possible other suits, I think you can work out which one I like.)" low card = "I don't want to keep this card." low card, followed by a high card in the same suit = "I really like this suit but I couldn't afford to discard any other suit in order to tell you that." Any good? Can you do better?

It might be nice if we could insert standard terms into the "description" of a call in FD, in the same way as we can insert suit symbols and smileys into these forums posts. For example, instead of writing the description 12-14 HCP balanced we could start by typing in "12-14", then choose "HCP" from a menu, then choose "balanced" from another menu. The input would then look something like this: 12-14 {HCP} {balanced} but the output would not look any different to the normal version. The advantage of this is not so much that it speeds up the input (it probably doesn't), but rather: - People using FD/BBO in a different language could see these terms written in their own language. - The reader could have the option of clicking on a term to see a short explanation of what it means.