luis

Nice analysis Ben, my concerns at the table were: Dbl: I really, really don't like doubling with voids, I expect my pd to use the law and count 1 trump in my hand if they are going to play. 4NT: Sounds like I have a powerful one-suited hand wanting to ask for aces and then bid 6 or seven. What would you do with x, Kx, AKQJxx, KQJx ? I don't know what is the best option but I slightly prefer 4NT to double, double might describe a balanced hand with good values, a hand that can stand a penalty pass of 4sx. Doubles of 4s bids by opps should have a strong tendency to be for penalties since you do have 4NT as a takeout. Wanna guess what did I bid at the table?

You have: -, Kxx, AQ98xx, Axxx Everybody vulnerable. You open 1d and the bidding goes: 1d 3s x 4s ? Your bid? I'll post later what I did at the table (please don't do that at home)

I'm stunned! I can't believe the funny ideas there're with this hand :-) Open 1nt, rebid a minor, open 1c, etc. I would never have thought this was a problem, open 1d and then rebid 1 spade, very simple. I'm not saying the other approaches to this hand are wrong, but they are weird to me and I wouldn't like see my pd waste his imagination in this hand... "There will be many problems in this session to be solved, just try not to create new ones or we'll be more tired than the field for the last boards"

I'd bid 1h, 1h shouldn't promise a 5 card suit here and I have a good hand for a 1nt or 2c rebid by pd. I want to let him know that I have some values so we can fight a partscore. They will be in 2 spades soon and I want to know if we can compete to 3c or 3h inmediately. I wouldn't like thinking about bidding this hand later if I can bid 1h now.

I play that redouble is either a forcing-game one-suited hand or a hand with two 4+ card suits excluding pd's suit (penalty oriented). Another useful treatment I play is that after 1M-dbl all bids but xx are transfers, example 1nt -> 2c, 2d->2d, etc. A transfer can be made to pass with a weak hand or to bid again with a good hand (INV+). A transfer to opener's suit is used as a constructive raise while the direct raise is weak. Luis

I don't think you can bid 6s over the 5d bid, what are you going to do with the club loser? The key is declarer's 4th bid, if he bids 5d showing 1st and 2nd round control in diammonds (a void) then you will play 5s :-( However if he decides that after 4c and 5c the cQ is the key to the hand he can rebid 6c over 6c and then you can play 6s or 7s if pd has a heart void. I think that after 4c and 5c opener may find the 6c bid. I don't know....

I don't think you can get to slam here, you will know the hA is missing and then what are you going to do with the club loser? You need exactly the cQ to win 6, it's very difficult. The only way I can see is playing the old-fashioned "feature ask" 2h - 2n 3c - 3s 4s - 6s Or: 2h - 2s 3s - 4c 4d - 5c 6c - 6s But I'm not sure that any of those auctions is likely.

Tips for counting declarer's distribution. *) Don't rely in bids from obfuscated or inexperienced players, sometimes they just bid the wrong thing. If you are playing against good players then pay a lot of attention to the bidding, there's a lot of information to get from the auction to help you count the hand. *) When a player announces a balanced hand assume any 4432. It's the most likely pattern, only when a 4432 hand can't be possible try to find if declarer has a 5332 or 4333 hand. *) If a player has a balanced hand and shows up with a five card suit then try to find the doubleton and you have the whole distribution of the hand: 5332. *) After 1c-1h or 1d-1h if declarer doesn't rebid 1s assume he doesn't have 4 spades. If he does rebid 4 spades then he should also have at least 4 clubs. *) After 1m-1M;2NT declarer can have a concealed four card suit in the other major. *) When declarer opens 1d and shows up with 3 diammonds assume he is exactly 4-4-3-2. *) Work on assumption until proven otherwise, assume a 2 level preempt shows a six-card suit, a 3 level preempt a 7 card suit and a 4 level preempt an 8 card suit. *) You can get more inferences about what the opponents didn't bid rather than what they did. If a player opens 3d and they play 2d as Flannery then he probably has a 6 card diammond suit. If 2d is a weak two then 3d should show a 7 card suit. If a player opens 1sp and over 2d redeclares 2 spades he doesn't have a 4 card heart suit. Pay a lot of attention about what they didn't bid. *) When your pd leads and dummy comes down add the number of cards you have in each suit to the number of cards in dummy, substract that from 13 and try to guess how the remainder cards are distributed between declarer and pd based on the bidding. *) When redeclaring a suit declarer usually shows a 6 card suit if he skips more than 2 bids. Example: 1h-1s;2h (skips 1nt,2c,2d). If not then declarer can have a 5 card suit or 6 card suit (1h-2c;2h) *) A 1nt response to 1h or 1s doesn't mean responder has a balanced hand, he can have a weak distributional hand without support for pd's major. *) If playing 2/1 a rebid of 2M after 1M-2m can show a 5 card suit more frequently than playing SAYC.

Why not give the info to the opps? Because it's part of the game to sort what unagreed bids are :-) When you bid 4h you are trusting your pd will get this should be a two suiter, if your opps can't figure out what the bid is you are not supossed to tell them., They may imagine this shows a 4-1-4-4 or something like that.... and it MAY be! If asked you should only say "undiscussed" or "to be interpreted" and you may add "I can't remember a similar bid so no data folks". If you say "should be a two suiter with spades" you are giving too much info away and as you mention you risk getting into trouble for MI. IMHO playing online you should alert any bid that would have been alerted playing "f2f" bridge with screens. Playing with screens you also self alert (and you alert your pd's bids too) playing online is a subset of playing with screens where you only need to alert your bids. I wouldn't have alerted my 4h bid with screens and if asked I would have casted a very intimidating look to my screenmate :-). Some days ago a player left a table after I refused 3 times to describe the meaning of a double in a competitive auction with a first time pd. I know many players will say "takeout" or "penalty" inmediately but since my pd wouldn't know why do my opps have the right to know what I have? Do you want to raise but you don't want to raise if the double is for penalties? It's up to you! Of course this only applies to uinagreed bids and as I said before even implicit agreements by partnership experience shuold be alerted and properly disclosed. A story fron a national tournament (top-players): N - E - S - W 1c - 1h - p - p x - xx - p - p p North asked west the meaining of the redouble (screens in use) and west said "it is supossed to score better than 1h just doubled" The result: +1020 for EW :-)

"Does he do this because he knows I know he knows?" :-) If you can be so kind I'd like to ask you a question that you may answer based on your international experience. How do you handle this sort of "bluff, double bluff, triple bluff" situations.... Take for example this situation,assuming the Tx falsecard is a play that all expert players will know. Do you change the way you play the suit? Or do you just play the Ace trying to get a doubleton Hx knowing you can be a victim of the falsecard? If I have HT it can be easy to play the ten knowing declarer will finesse then thinking I've just falsecarded.... 8-) this can drive you crazy....

I'm sorry seems like I can't make my point clear. If your "style" suggests 1h-p-2h-(4h) is a two suiter then you should alert and your pd should alert the bid because you have an agreement even if its not written. With one of my reg pds I used to bid some "strange" 3NTs with distributional two suiters ,example 1s-(3nt), he correctly alerted all those bids as "can be natural or can be a two suiter, we have bid 3n before with a freak 2 suiter". Experience is one valid form of an implicit agreement. If you never played with pd and your first hand is the one I presented there's nothing to alert and many players would alert because playing online they can just tell the opps they bid 4h as a two suiter, this in my opinion is wrong. All agreements implicit or explicit should be disclosed to your opponents but that doesn't mean that you have to disclose all your bids letting your opps know what you have.

[quote author=fred link=board=6;threadid=577;start=0#msg3326 Consider this: 2nd hand should play the 8 from 108x and the 10(!) from 108 doubleton. Does this change your calculations at all? Hi Fred, I don't think this changes the play for 3 tricks. Does it?

Trying to recover your thread (my proposal) Are you interested in tips to count and discover delclarers distribution? I wrote an article some years ago, I can try to find it and post it if you want.

I super-disagree if you have not discussed the bid with your pd and then you don't have an agreement you don't have to alert the bid. Unless you want to make this game easier for your opps. Example: From a hand I played: 1h - pass - 2h - 4h (no agreement of course) I bid 4h with 6 spades and 5 clubs. If you think you have to alert 4h and say (Spades and a minor) then you are wrong, you will be giving info to your opps that your pd doesn't have. IMHO you have to alert anything that your pd should have alerted playing normal bridge. Do you think your pd will alert 4h and when asked say "no idea". Nah. So 4h doesn't need an alert.

This is exactly what I was trying to prevent. If 2s is undiscussed you don't have to alert it, you are telling the opps that 2s may not show a real spade suit and making things easier for them. Do you alert ALL your "undiscussed" bids? I'm sure you don't then don't alert this 2s just because you don't have a real suit. This is very common in players without much experience they are asked about a bid they did online and they answer what they have.

I played 2h as Ekren because I was tired of playing 2d in a 5-1 fit :-) for some reason every time I opened 2d my pd held 2-2-5-4. It's a good convention but you can hate it if you are unlucky, I remember opening 2h with Kxxx, Axxxx, xxx, x and it went 2h - p -2s - p - p - x - p - p - p. Result: -800. It's a treatment that can backfire a lot. If you prepare well against a 2d Ekren opening you can set-up many trap sequences to get them in 2h or 2s doubled for a good result. A 2h version should be more safe but look what happened to me :-) A defense agains 2d that was used by some danish players was: Pass = A takeout double of one major or a weak hand or 15-17 balanced with stoppers. x = A penalty double in one of the majors. This allows the defense to penalize 2h or 2s if any of the defenders have a penalty double of the major suit that responder chooses. Maybe there're better defenses but if the opps are agressive this approach seems to be fine.

Hi, I want to introduce a convention deviced by Jeff Rubens called TSAR (third suit alternative relay) and described here: http://www.bridgeworld.com/default.asp?d=e...ica&f=TSAR.html The idea is to have a good understanding with your pd after the auction starts 1m-1M; 2m This is a very frequent and popular problem that is not well handled in SAYC and 2/1. My simplification of TSAR is called STSAR (Simplified TSAR). Responder rebids after 1m-1M;2m are: 2M = Signoff with 5+ cards in the major and a weak hand. 3M = INV with 5+ hands in the major 2N = INV missfit in the minor. Opener can pass or show stoppers or bid 3m. 3m = Quasi-forcing game with fit in the minor. Forcing up to 3NT or 4m. Show stoppers now. New suit: INV and natural (non-forcing but invitational) Relay: Forcing to game After the forcing to game relay opener bids: 2NT = 6322 or ?-?-6-4 then 3c= relay: 3d=3om; 3h=3h; 3s=3s; 3nt=?-?-6-4 3c = 6331 or 7330 then 3d= relay: 3h=short h; 3s=short s; 3n=short om then relay = ask if shortage is singleton or void 1st step = singleton; 2nd step = void 3d ,3h, 3s = 7+ diammonds and 3 cards in OM/h/s 3nt = 7222 4m = 8+ cards in diammonds and no 3 card suit 8221 or any freakish After 1c-1h;2c the 2d relay allows 2h and 2s but to make what you have to remember simple we just don't use those bids and start responses to the GF relay always in 2NT. Partnerships with good memory are invited to take profit from the bidding space available and move the responses 1 or 2 levels down if they want so 2h is a 2nt response 2 steps below etc.... As you can see there's not a lot to remember and what you have to remember is very intuitive and it can improve your bidding a lot. It solves a lot of problems. Hope you like it. Luis.

Low towards the jack is the correct play for 2 tricks (94.34%)

When a player requests to join I think it may be easy to present more than one reject button such as "reject-no reason" "reject-table is full" "reject-enter a reason" The player then gets a "your request was rejected because the table was already full" or "your request was rejected" or "your request was rejected XXXXX" can be displayed to the player. Bah maybe this is silly.

Even better, forcing pass systems are in my opnion easier to defend than LOBs. IMO they were banned because they were considered "satanic" :-) Somehow players were getting good results with those systems and others complained "we don't want to study and we can't win anymore!, please do something" Do you know any good pairs using a FPS in actual competition?

The idea of this thread is to post no so well know suit plays as we see them appearing in BBO hands or Vugraph broadcasts. From Vugraph: a) J642 and A973 How do you play the suit for 3 tricks? Answer: Lead the 7, if the T appears then cover with the J and play the Ace next. If the ten does not appear then play low if the K or Q appears then cash the Ace. If the K or Q appears when you play the 7 then run the J trying to pin the T. You win 3 tricks if either opp has KQ doubleton or if south has QT or KT Your percentage of success is 10.17% And this is not the correct play if you need only 2 tricks. Pls feel free to post other no well know suit plays if you see them! Luis.

4 hearts is statistically better at MPs. You have more chances to take 10 tricks in hearts than in NT with that hand and if you take 10 tricks in NT you may take 11 tricks in hearts easily. You can construct as many hands as you want where 4h is worst than 3nt but there are far more hands where 4h is better than 3nt. Try it using any dealing program. Deal or simulate as many hands as you want and check how many tricks do you take in hearts and in NT. I'm sure the simulation will answer the question. Judgement is just the ability to simulate using your head.

What kind of forcing pass system are you pleying? Regres? Be careful forcing pass systems are not allowed unless playing online.

1 over 1 is forcing.

I agree, it's a nice hand to check the "use and abuse" of the fancy checkbackers, new minor forcing and others. After pd limited his hand I think the only sensible option is 4h. A slam may be playable in about 10% of the hands so no need to further investigations and why ask for 3 hearts if you have KQJTx ?. IDEA: Can we create a "master BBO solvers" forum where only the moderator can post? Then the moderator can post a monthly set of say... 8 bidding problems and receive answers/comments from BBOF users by private messaging. The moderator should be in charge of collecting the answers from panelists and BBO posters and then publish a monthly report with the comments, rates for each bid, etc..... The moderator can be "rotated" each month to relieve a poor guy from the hard work each month. Panelists can be Fred, and other well known stars in the BBO community. The winner each month can win some software from BBO (or a t-shirt or something) and be invited as a panelist for the next month.... What do you think?