thepossum

Here is the traveller for the hand The traveller The top/most common/I assume expert?? level contract was 6S but you had to bid it. Some went for 6NT

I don't understand your problem I put up a hand that fails to reach slam as a quant That is the subject of the thread I'm sick of people picking fights on this site Occasionally let's have some fun and be nice Life is full of irritations and stress. Relax please I will spoil the game and say you needed to bid 6nt with only 30 points Sadly many of us bid 4 If you are lucky you may make an overtrick You could also bid 6spades.

I don't understand your problem I put up a hand that fails to reach slam as a quant That is the subject of the thread

You will probably get a pass with a Quant - depending on your partner and how they value their hand of course :) They may head to a slam but who knows You will get two key cards with Blackwood

OK what system do you want me to tell you the next bid in :) You will get a forcing bid in spades after a weak NT

Maybe a decent start. It is MPs though :) But I can't really offer advice on how to best bid it :) You will get 3S next which means 3-5 spades and maximum :)

:) Also the configure your card bot :)

[hv=pc=n&s=sqthakt653dat96c8&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=p1hp2h2s]133|200[/hv] At this point I could choose (I thought) between 3H or 3D as continuation 3D being stronger than 3H obviously After bidding 3D West starts to compete (via a double) and you end up in a more costly contract After bidding 3H West passes and you are in the least costly contract It seems back to front logic. Just unlucky perhaps Was 3D wrong with that hand?

With respect to why I said it, every time on this forum I asked for places to play relaxed casual Bridge I get directed to places full of teachers and mentors looking to teach you stuff. Not what I am interested in I keep think, in desperation, of sitting in a pub or a coffee shop or a park with a pack of cards on the off-chance :( "What are you doing? That looks like Bridge. Wow haven't played for years. Can we join in" :) About 5 -10 years ago (I forget) I tried to join in a casual fun looking game in a pub. Sadly they had 4 :( What are the chances of randomly bumping into 3 fun friendly casual reasonably competent Bridge players who will happily play some simple system that everyone understands :) Happened to me once on a long train journey. Remarkable few days :)

These are the times I need to keep my anti-social traits to myself

I found this an interesting hand recently, in light of the above conversation. Sadly I didn't go with my instincts and went Quant [hv=pc=n&s=saq742hatdaj9ckt5&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=1n(12-14)p]133|200[/hv] We are playing some variant of Acol. You don't have Gerber Sorry its MPs

Its difficult to do a lot of stuff in this system. What's new?

Sorry. I figure the defenders would show up to defend the indefensible There is no defence for going to 6H however you look at it sorry. Basic argument and logic Why keep doing it. If Texas doesnt mean any interest in Slam you sign off or respond below 5H If Texas does mean slam interest I am entitled to ask There is no defence for that bid I will keep arguing and pointing out the rubbish I ran the Sim with only two keys from North, 6 hearts and 10 points 2 Aces gives me almost a certain slam 1 Ace and a King gives me roughly Possum level gamble of a slam I ignored voids. It is not up to North to make that call and any decent control asking system would have stopped in 5 Sorry. Morning rant over with. Sorry. As you were :)

Sorry. I figure the defenders would show up to defend the indefensible There is no defence for going to 6H however you look at it sorry. Basic argument and logic

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|thepossum,~~M52482,~~M52480,~~M52481|md|1SK852HA64DAKQ7CQT,SAT943H87D964CKJ7,SHKQJT53DJ532C654,SQJ76H92DT8CA9832|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%207|mb|1N|an|notrump%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2015-|mb|P|mb|4D!|an|Texas%20--%206+%20!H;%2010+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|4N|an|Blackwood%20(H)%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2017%20HCP;%2018%20total%20poi|mb|P|mb|6H|an|Odd%20number%20of%20keycards.%20Void%20above%20H%20--%206+%20!H;%2010+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|CA|pc|CT|pc|C7|pc|C4|pc|C8|pc|CQ|pc|CK|pc|C5|pc|SA|pc|H3|pc|S7|pc|S2|mc|11|]400|300[/hv] I am sorry but if you have 0 or 1 keycards and 7 points, firstly your voids are irrelevant (to me) and secondly you do not have the right to make the call in Blackwood I don't care what the Sims say I am not prepared to tolerate any defence I did not exaggerate my hand at all and I was the one asking That was a wonderful 5H hand and it cost me a tourney I apologise for raising this specific systemic gripe yet again EDIT I will add further. The keycard was not even an Ace EDIT 2 I will go even further the the general point is that with 0 or 1 you do not push above 5 - that's how most people play - I believe some clever people even designed it that way. They could have made it the other way around but they didn't EDIT 3 The other wonderful thing about that response is that it wonderfully wrongsides everything too. Sad EDIT 4 People will say. Well I had no right to ask the question. With that hand EDIT 5 Sorry for all the edits. I have checked other SW and other system (Acol) and bidding it more sysetmically (eg opening 1D) and the difference appears to be in the usage of Blackwood in 2/1. Sorry subtle difference between Keycard and RKCB in their system :( But my gripe stands that it is rubbish bidding. I ran a little Sim and despite the void its only Game. Maybe its not the Sim. Some stupid piece of bidding logic in code perhaps or on a spec somewhere. In defence of Sims and my bidding chance of Slam from North is not good but worth a Texas. Chance of slam from South is good enough to ask. I know people use Texas differently. Some with no interest in Slam and some with possible Slam interest. Well I was expressing possible slam interest too.

I have no problem encouraging the use of quants if your partner can do basic addition Sadly some of us have partners that use inadequate DD sims to choose a bid, and ignore basic control checks :) I have found Gerber useful on a few occasions but if the auction allows would prefer to use Blackwood EDIT Can anyone advise why some so deride Gerber as to never find a time to use it?

Out of curiosity I ran a small analysis and made some graphs. Totally unnecessary of course But I reckon whatever the stats based on points alone may show, checking controls is useful too

Not like a Jacoby transfer. How do you transfer to hearts for example I don't think Gib implements it properly anyway but whose version would they implement

I've been referring to this What I used to use as Acol It has added excitement to the BBO experience, has it not I am waiting for the Precision Bot EDIT Just checked my second ACOL (sorry Acol) attempt - which shows how remarkable statistics on 8 hands can be I should post one particularly sad hand - not for me - but for all these other people who made a perfectly reasonable bid In fact here it is. Not an unreasonable bid anyway and not deserving of its fate. 4+ HCPs apparently [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&lin=pn%7CSouth%2CRobot%2CRobot%2CRobot%7Cst%7C%7Cmd%7C2SJ86HKJ865DAQ4CA8%2CSKQ5H9DKJ9762CJ74%2CS432HAQT743DCT965%2CSAT97H2DT853CKQ32%7Csv%7C0%7Cah%7CBoard%208%7Cmb%7C2D%7Can%7C1%2B%21C%3B%206%21D%3B%20HCP%205-10%3B%20weak%20hand%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C3D%7Can%7C2%2B%21D%3B%20HCP%20No%20indication%3B%20fit%20in%20%21D%7Cmb%7C3H%7Can%7C6%2B%21H%3B%20HCP%204%2B%3B%20natural%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C6H%7Can%7C2%2B%21H%3B%20HCP%2017-%3B%20to%20play%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cmc%7C9%7C]400|300[/hv]

Excitement plus. Looking forward to using it :)

Has anyone ever extended Gerber to Queens 6C etc Difference between 1 and 2 out against you could be important You may even have to finesse a Jack

Gerber anyone :) I just made 7 with 35. It works It needed a finesse of a Queen of course Its possible a better player may have known or setup the situation for the Queen to be onside, but not me :) Living dangerously can be fun sometimes

I think almost every time I had had this bid I have ended up in the wrong contract - usually an underpowered slam :) It leaves so much unknown. You think jump to game is the safe and weaker option but no I appreciate hearts is fairly safe game but what is wrong with diamonds? How do you know you can go for hearts or No trumps in general with that bid? It says invite but to what - I assumed diamonds :) Those who tried blackwood discovered that North assumed it was diamonds :) [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|thepossum,~Mwest,~Mnorth,~Meast|md|4SJ7HAKQJ92DQ943CJ,SQT2H7653DCKQ8642,SAK9HTDKJT852C975,S86543H84DA76CAT3|sv|n|rh||ah|Board%202|mb|P|mb|1H|an|Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!H;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|3D|an|Invite%20--%206+%20!D;%202-%20!H;%203-%20!S;%209-11%20HCP;%20!DQ|mb|P|mb|5D|an|2+%20!D;%205+%20!H;%2020-21%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|6D|an|6+%20!D;%202-%20!H;%203-%20!S;%2011-%20HCP;%20!DQ;%2012+%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|S4|pc|SJ|pc|SQ|pc|SA|pc|HT|pc|H4|pc|HA|pc|H7|pc|HK|pc|H6|pc|C5|pc|H8|pc|S7|pc|S2|pc|SK|pc|S8|pc|S9|pc|S6|pc|CJ|pc|ST|pc|C8|pc|C9|pc|C3|pc|D3|mc|11|]400|300[/hv] EDIT I ran it through a practice table and the South bot passed. Strange that I and every other table in my section saw a heart or diamond game. If you bid 4D it gets passed out. You can see my problem now :) Some tables even saw possible slams and tried to stop too late. One table really impressed me by passing the 5H response to Blackwood. Final note, no matter how hard I try I cannot get to 5 diamonds despite the invite except briefly in passing as you can see.

There is something lacking so far. I seem to be able to find the right contracts (most of the time) from previous knowledge of how to bid rather than the descriptions Missed one clear game because I couldn't find the bid. All a bit weird so far Sadly in the absence of a nice handy "as you go" annotation tool I will have forgotten most of the problems this time tomorrow

Thx for the tip. I had a play :) It felt weird after years of GiB 2/1 - not that different but different enough Getting used to the different hours will be weird too - different part of the world is it?