Trumpace

Weird. I thought this was about some squeeze :angry: :P :lol:

What is Barometer?

One thing which KenRex seems to forget is the case when we fail on both hands. Agreed, failing on both hands is ~27% and if those are the only two hands, the strategy is sound for not losing on those boards. But having only two such hands is not always the case. If you try to apply the strategy more: Look at boards in pairs, On the first take the anti-percentage line. If it wins, play the precentage line on the second, else take the anti-percentage on the second is losing in the long run, which is probably so in the case of a 256 board match. i.e. we can show that if p1 and p2 (0 < p1, p2 < 1/2) are the anti-percentage probabilities then in a BAM match, the expected number of points is < 0 for the above strategy. (same was shown by the other Ken for the p1 = p2 = 0.48 case) Now this negative expectation manifesting itself in the match itself, is another question. For the 48% case, of a small slam, consider a match which has 3 such pairs (i.e 6 hands in 3 pairs) We have 0.2704 pbt of losing 2 points. 0.2496 pbt of breaking even and 0.48 pbt of gaining 1 point. In a run of 3 such chances that we lose at least one such run is 0.61. And if we lose even one such pair, we can do no better than break even. For larger runs, the chances seem to becomes even worse. For runs of 1 or 2 (ie two small slam hands or 4) we have > 50% chances of break even. So for shorter matches (but not too short), this seems like a sound strategy if you are the underdog. In a 256 board match or longer, how many such hands do you expect?

BBO online. LHO bids 1H, partner overcalls 4NT and RHO passes. To you. What is 4NT? Blackwood? Minors? What? Is there any obvious/standard treatment in "SAYC"?

*smacks head*

Looks like a reasonable slam to me. Without the club lead, the odds are pretty good. With the club lead, the odds are reasonable for a vul slam.

Well done! But, not sure if there was really a squeeze. South can discard the Club Ten on the Diamond 9. North after winning must return a heart. Interesting hand, btw. After winning the diamond North has to return a heart. Any other return and you make it. Change the hearts a bit, and you have a genuine squeeze, say, the HQ was in dummy.

This is about the big deal/small deal feature, in which that table size can be one of two sizes (changed by clicking the button with the partially filled squares at the bottom). I have my setting to big deal. When i browse the BBO standard bidding pages, the setting is automatically set to small deal. I have to change it back to big deal each time...

Does anyone even play there? Everytime I looked, there was not one soul. The relaxed club on the other hand has around 30-40 players these days...

Lately, I have noticed too many tables in MBC with hosts who just leave the table hanging... players come, make bids wait a few min for the host to respond before realising what has happened. Once or twice is ok, but encountering such tables again and again is annoying. Can we have an option for players other than the host to boot the host?

An expert defender will always bare the King. If you hold on to 1 heart and Kx of spades declarer cannot go wrong _if_ he has a count on the heart suit - he throws you in with a heart and makes whoever has the SK. If you hold on to 2 hearts and one spade declarer is left guessing whether you started with the SK and bared it, or the king was right all along. _If_ declarer gets a count, which he won't if his RHO does not discard a heart. no? In fact an interesting aspect seems to be that RHO needs to hold onto his second heart (if he has it :)), which puts pressure on him too... and probably makes it right to play for the drop. Anyway, I am no expert, so please free to be pedantic.

Why do you assume stuff. Maybe Jlall is planning on writing a computer program to play bridge. Maybe he felt his way through the table with both hands and felt nothing. You never know. I find these kind of comments pretty condescending... See -- that is the problem with bridge programs that play bridge. The extra element of the game is hard to program. Agreed, but that is not point. The point is someone comes to the forum asking for a directed and specific question and people respond with "no info", "without that info i hate this question" etc. In a way, though, you are doing the right thing in that you do point out how odds could change based on table feel/bidding, which is good to know for any bridge player. If this was a beginner/int forum, I wouldn't have made any comments.

If you do decide LHO holds the K and if it is hard for declarer to read the end position (bare K vs Kx) shouldn't an expert LHO be using a mixed strategy? The question then becomes, what % of the time should declarer play for bare K vs endplay.

Do you have a textbook for this? I think you should look that up for the followed notation. Anyway, Im f, if stands for image is the set of vectors y, such that there is a vector x for which f(x) = y. The usual definition for A+B i have seen is: if A and B are two vector spaces, then A + B = { a + b | a \in A, b \in B } It could also be Union of Im f and Ker f, but in that case it might not make much sense to talk about a basis, as it might not be a vector space. Hope that helps. Good luck with your exam.

This hand occured on BBO. [hv=d=w&v=b&n=sqj8h43dqcak97643&s=sat9ha9dakjt962cj]133|200|Scoring: IMP Lead ♥K[/hv] You reach 6NT (don't ask how) after west preempts with a 4H bid in the opening seat. Both sides are vul and scoring is IMP. What is your plan?

What is the point of playing bridge? Even in the real world.. lol B) To quote Fermat (was it Fermat?), "What use is a new born baby?"

Why do you assume stuff. Maybe Jlall is planning on writing a computer program to play bridge. Maybe he felt his way through the table with both hands and felt nothing. You never know. I find these kind of comments pretty condescending...

Why can't leading a club hurt? Imagine declarer is 6-3-2-2 with Ax diamonds and Ax clubs. If you return a club after ruffing with the 3, declarer wins in hand with ♣A, spade up. You win with Q and return a club. declarer wins in dummy with K, cashes club Q to discard a diamond. (Partner cannot ruff as he is out of spades). Diamond to A. Now all declarer has left in hand is spades with the KT against your A9...

For no particular reason... Suppose North and South are online pickup partners who play different systems but are under the impression that partner is playing the same system. Assuming the bidding systems of your choice for North and South construct a N/S hand where 7NT has 60+% (or any reasonable figure) chances of making and N/S manage to reach it inspite of the differences in systems. The more different the bidding systems, the better.

Declarer played East's hearts to be QT on seeing the T drop on the A?

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=sak532hak874d32c8&s=s876h53dakckqjt97]133|200|Scoring: Rubber lead ♦J[/hv] West was dealer and prempted with a 2♦ call. You are south and you reach 6NT. Plan the play on ♦J lead. ADV/+ please hide your answers and please avoid responding too early. (Beginners, do not attempt. If you do attempt and get it without any help, you show a lot of promise, or you underestimate yourself :rolleyes: ) If you are stuck: HINT: : Note: this is meant as a puzzle hand, so please don't argue if it is really intermediate or not. I think as a puzzle, it is best suited here.

plan: win ♦K. Try ♣K, if it wins continue with ♦4.

Looks like we have 3 tricks. ♠A, ♦A and ♣K. The fourth can only come from diamonds. Also, we need to take out tricks quick. Declarer likely has ten tricks. (seven hearts, ♣A, ruff in dummy and ♠K). We must make our tricks before declarer gets a chance to cash the ♠K. Also, we need partner to lead diamonds in case declarer has the K. So low club it is. Hope partner wins with the ♣Q and returns ♦Q.

Be my guest :) About iii) do you want to consider intervention by opponents too?

Even experts (Roland :P ) can land into bad slams... :) lol. As an aside, if partner had the ♠K instead of ♣K would 6♠ be a decent contract? How would one reach it? and in case it is a decent contract, how would one stay out of the slam when partner has the ♣K instead of ♠K?