zhasbeen

Stephen, Merriman; what am I missing? I based my comments on the bidding sequence in the diagram, 1S-P-1NT-2NT. The 2NT shows 17-18 hcp, and invites 3NT. I looked at the square 7 and said it was a clear pass, and later tempered it, saying that I wasn't sure what top players would do vulnerable at imps. It still looks like a clear pass at MP. I'm not following the definitions discussion (obviously). I just checked the 2NT definition to confirm that it was the 17-18 invite that I would normally assume. The one answer I still haven't gotten is if you would pass the invitation or bid again. Assuming that you would pass at MP, I am curious if you bid again vulnerable at imps. Jim "zhasbeen"

So, does this mean you'd accept 2NT invitation with this flat 7, or would you pass?

Even playing new suit NF I don't think it justifies passing with a singleton in my suit. How can the strong possibility of playing in a 6-card fit be a good decision? I'm not a fan of the overcall either, but I have to admit we would have gotten in worse trouble if he hadn't passed. Maybe he got a tip from the boys.

Here is yet another instance where GIB just passes when he doesn’t know what else to do. I realize that he just overcalled, but should he really pass in this situation? If the hand is that weak, then maybe he shouldn’t be overcalling red vs white (I know, it’s in the help notes that GIB doesn’t pay attention to vulnerability). Also, I’m open to second guessing of my bid. I thought of 2C but that would show more heart support. No-trump looks out with no diamond stopper. Would this be the spot for jump cue of 3C? I should have tested by clicking 3C and running cursor over definition. This actually worked out well for me, but I don’t like these passes and I’m sure I’m not the only one. This action has many different forms. My club play is a little weird, but I had my sights on 2 club tricks and no more. I thought this was best way in case west had a stiff. Once in the dummy I’d do my poor man’s trump coup with diamonds. http://tinyurl.com/y8v74o7m [hv=pc=n&s=saq963ha4dt7caj62&w=skj87h93dakj65ct7&n=s2hkt752dq983ck43&e=st54hqj86d42cq985&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=1d1hp1sppp]399|300[/hv]

I just had another one this morning when GIB passed when he didn't know what else to do. This is high up on the list of needed fixes. I will post it in a few minutes. It will be something like "GIB passes again"

These one-line auction descriptions have always confused me. I like em just the way they are in bidding box, with all the passes and S-W-N-E heading. Even though it can take a few more lines it is well worth the trouble.

common vrock - you gotta pass; not even close. If I was in your seat I'd be hoping I could make 2 before I ever saw the dummy. You were a bit unlucky, however. Not a typical dummy GIB laid down, and Murphy's law was in full force. I swear I only looked at your hand and the bidding before I typed first 2 sentences. Edit Addition to first reply above: The more I look at GIB hand, the more interesting it becomes. He has 5 bad spot cards to go with his ace of spaces, no 2nd suit, and 18 hcp. Yet another variation of hand with 6 card major and no convenient rebid. You stand a good chance of never finding a spade fit, and you don't have a 2nd suit. I might rebid 2C with his hand as lesser of evils, but I guess 2NT is as good as anything. Spades aren't good enough for jump rebid to 3 and hand is too strong for 2. I would pass with your hand, but "not even close" might be a little harsh. At vulnerable imps there might be some good players who would take a shot. Otherwise it's more of a clear pass--at least to me is. As far as you looking for hearts, it wouldn't cross my mind. I would think GIB would have bid them if he had 4, but you never know. Lets have some more opinions.

I expressed my opinion and thought I made some good points. Who knows, I might start overcalling lighter. I’ve already relaxed my takeout double requirements, e.g. 3-3-2-5, and opened a few no trumps with 2 doubletons. You are a strong player, and I acknowledge that. That said, I believe that if you play in the robot tournaments as I do, I should not be discounted lightly. I’m talking about the 12-board ACBL tournaments with 1 human and 3 robots. MP% and IMPS are determined by how the humans do playing the same hands with the same robots. The most you can win in a single tournament is .90 master points and I average .42 per. In 578 tournaments I have 106 wins, and finished in the top 3 in 44.5% of them. They average 25 tables. That means I make up 4% of the average field and win 18.3% of the time. I must be doing something right. What does it prove? That I’m good at robot tournaments. Nothing more, nothing less. I make some of the ghastliest plays you’ve ever seen, but have a good sense of logic and can make some nice plays that not all players would find when I can hold it together for an hour without spacing out. On the topic of overcalls, I tend to let the bots take most of the chances when it comes to balancing and light overcalls, although I’ll get in there sometimes. They are actually pretty decent at deciding when and when not to compete to 3 level. One thing I’ve noticed is that they often make a simple raise of a major with 4 trumps, but will complete to 3-level if opponents come in. If I do it I’m liable to end up in 4 or 5, maybe doubled. Whining and complaining aside, the bots and I get along ok.

Amazing isn't it, that we didn't hear a peep out of him considering some of the hands he jumps in there with? Pretty freaky place this robot world.

This one got a genuine LOL out of me. Man, oh man; what a scary world we live in.

Interesting; didn't know that. Will add to card on off chance it would ever come up again. "I do agree it is stupid there are 2 ways to show 25-27 though." If that's stupid, how about driving to slam with 22-24 and dropping the other 2 at 3NT? With either of the first 2 options you'v done everything you can to describe your hand but are not even given a chance at reaching slam. No problem if you show a lesser hand. The only advantage of showing of showing 25-27 is that you can't be dropped at 2. I haven't filed the bug report yet but will.

Don't play rubber, but don't care for the bid at MP or IMPS. While it could work out on some hands, I'm so sure that I'd want the suit lead. More importantly, however, if partner makes a habit of overcalling on hands like this he could become hard to play with. I would always be wondering, "what's he got this time?" Should I lead his suit, should I bid or just keep quiet? There would be too wide a range for what he might have for his overcall. Granted, with the vulnerability as it was partner would be more prepared for a weaker hand. Maybe not so bad with passed partner at that vulnerability, but I wouldn't do it in this case.

The only players that got to NT slam on this hand opened 2C and rebid 2NT, showing 22-24 hcp. Two players got to diamond slam buy opening 2C, then launching into Blackwood after 2D response. One player got to 7 by opening 2C, rebidding 2NT, then exploring spade fit. The 6 players who opened 3NT showing 25-27 hcp got to play it there. If you look at the hand you will see that it has 28 hcp. I reasoned that if 2C-2D-2N showed 22-24 and opening 3NT shows 25-27, that 2C-2D-3NT would show more than 27 Hcp. I was also left in game and was the only player to bid it that way. The definition says 25-27, same as opening 3NT. I'm done trying to get handviewer and tinyurl in sync. I took the hv bracket thing, tinyurl link from hand records, and the www.bridgebase line and tried to past them between hv brackets. Nuthin' doing. I don't mind doing the manual handviewer at all, and just pasting tinyurl above it. It's only takes a mouse click to see the play-by-play and definitions. While I'm at it, I've tried everything to claim hands. I tried waiting after I'd won a trick and card still lying on the table, to claim. I get the popup asking me to confirm that I want to concede the rest of of the tricks, even if I have 6 cards left that are AKQ, AKQ. An exaggeration of course, but it's almost that extreme. http://tinyurl.com/y7s7rncv [hv=pc=n&s=sakq6hakdaq5caq72&w=s7hqjt98542d7c843&n=st942h3dkt9842ct6&e=sj853h76dj63ckj95&d=s&v=0&b=7&a=2cp2dp3nppp]399|300[/hv]

What can you say? Sometimes it boggles the mind. I wonder when that upgrade is coming.

This from about 5 posts up: "First of all, we need to assume that you are bringing in the diamond suit. If that didn't work, the squeeze would be *only remaining option. That would be another discussion." zhasbeen, good friend of Travis Bickle

Are you talking to me? Travis Bickle...I mean Jim, aka "zhasbeen"

First of all, we need to assume that you are bringing in the diamond suit. If that didn't work, the squeeze would be *only remaining option. That would be another discussion. So, now were are looking for an extra heart trick to go with your assumed 5 diamonds, 2 spades, and 2 clubs. Win the club with king and run the 9 of hearts. If it holds, it's game over. You've made your slam. If north covers with Q or J, cross back to dummy's king of spades and lead small to the 10. That's it. If the 10 holds or south wins you have your 3 heart tricks(the 10 and 8 are equals since you've already played the nine.) No squeeze and no worry about entries as long we assume diamonds are coming in.

You can do better without seeing any squeezes. You know how to take 5 diamonds, 2 clubs, and 2 spades. Now all you need to do is figure out a way to add one more heart trick to the ace-king you already have. It's there. Just keeping studying the diagram until you find a way that works.

I never played it, but some of the players in the clubs I went to did. I started with Goren and played it for a couple years, but the transition from it to 2/1 is very hazy. Although the Goren years were more than 40 years ago, there have been only about 8-9 years when I played regularly. That was in the late 80’s and early 90’s. By then I was playing 2/1 but hardly remember anything about the transition. However, I do remember many of the partners and other players from the clubs. The Bergen versions began in 90’s when I moved to where I am now. I thought it was the coolest thing to come down the pike. Although it doesn’t have the following it had then, I was surprised to see many people are still playing it. Do you play in the clubs at all?

Why do you need a squeeze if you make 3 heart tricks? Won't you have 2 spades, 3 hearts, 5 diamonds, 2 clubs? For certain you can do it with no squeeze and current lie of cards. Just win ace of clubs and lead a heart to 9, or you could take 2 heart finesses first and hold off playing diamonds. You could also make it with split heart honors and no squeeze but would need to hold off on diamonds if north were to cover the first attempt to run the heart through. Without 5 diamond tricks there is no hope anyway. With 4-2 or worse in hearts with both QJ offside you'd need a squeeze.

I would add that you make sure points are concentrated in long suits for borderline hands. I wouldn't add a stiff queen to get to 20.

I hear you on the “getting to know partner”. I’m open to changing my NT requirements, but will probably stick with what I’ve been doing a little longer, while keeping closer track of how it works over time. I generally don’t let the results on a given hand have too much of an effect. However, there’s one call I’ve stuck to stubbornly; the rule of 20. It has worked great in live play but I almost always get a bad board when a deal is passed out here. Starting the next time it comes up, I’m not going to pass out a hand. I average 60.5% per round in ABCL robot tournaments, so it doesn’t make sense to keep settling for average or below without putting up a fight. After 551 tournaments it’s time for a change. As a rule we old people don’t like change.

"This is kind of antiquated thinking. Requiring stoppers in all suits for NT openers went out the window many decades ago. People found out that it's more effective to just open 1nt on average." Ok, Stephen. Give the old man a break. I've opened more 1NT's without a stopper in all suits than I can count, sometimes even 2 suits, e.g. AKQx xxx KQJ xxx. In fact, I'm pretty sure I open one that looked something like that within past 2 days. Here's what I said: "I can imagine opening 1NT with my hand, but if I’m going to do it with 2 doubletons I want at least Kx in each of them. If I were to make an exception with Jx or Qx it would be with a strong 6-card minor and 2-2-3 in the other suits." I'm capable of getting a little wild at times...ha,ha. I know about tinyurl files now, but had trouble combining them with the the diagram you just posted the last time I fooled around with it. I'll get around to it before long. Notice that for this last one I didn't include the east-west hands. I wonder if it's not better that way when you are looking for comments about the bidding. That way there's no bias based on the hands we can see. I don't know; I have mixed feelings and I'm not seeing anyone else post that way.

This is only a distant cousin but I only had to go a couple folders deep out of dozens. I should have more before long: [hv=pc=n&s=saq854hakdqt42ca3&n=s62ht842dk986c875&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=p1s3cpp3dp3sppp]266|200[/hv]

“With your spades and diamonds reversed you definitely should not support on 2.” After getting to know GIB better I would not show delayed support with Jx, although there could be some hands where there would be no better choice. In this case I was not shocked to see 5 spades come down, but I gasped when I saw all those hearts. I looked back and forth at the bidding chart and our hands to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Btw, most pairs did find hearts. They either opened 1NT with my hand or the auction went 1C – P – 1S –P 2H – P – 2S – P 2NT – P – 3H – P 4H – all pass I can imagine opening 1NT with my hand, but if I’m going to do it with 2 doubletons I want at least Kx in each of them. If I were to make an exception with Jx or Qx it would be with a strong 6-card minor and 2-2-3 in the other suits. The sequences starting with 1C as shown above are totally foreign to my way of thinking. How can you rebid 2NT off that auction with Jx of diamonds? There’s nothing more I can say about the way GIB bid it. “Does GIB actually do this? I tested on a bidding table, it bid 2D.” I’ll try to be better about making comments without an hv picture to back it up. Until recently I kept only screen captures. Is the bidding table you use available on BBO? Have there been instances of when you played that contradicted the bidding table? Either way I’d be interested in checking it out. “Please post the actual hand so we know what you are talking about. “ Same response as first 2 sentences of last. I still might be able to find something that I can type out manually, but from now on I won’t make statements without pictures to back them up before posting.