beowulf

A bit of bad luck, but also I think 1NT is wrong on the East hand. Yes, it is a balanced 16-count, and yes, you have weak hearts, and yes, you have three spades (so if partner transfers to spades while holding three hearts you won't be in the wrong major). BUT, opening 1NT with a five-card major should still (IMO) show a hand that is notrump-oriented. You have all your values outside of clubs. The actual result wasn't all that surprising. Also, if you play Puppet Stayman because you frequently open 1NT with a 5-card major, then why not invoke it to find out.

There's nothing inconsistent with NFBs and FSJs. I play them both. NFBs are good when you have a competitive hand with a decent suit. As noted elsewhere this hand simply doubles and awaits developments. The most likely game here is 3NT, although 6♣ is still possible. I doubt if they will be preempting in hearts but if they do we will be well placed to whack them. There are times when negative free bids are not the perfect system for a hand, just as there are times when a forcing response is not best. Personally, I like to be able to compete more. Playing the hand when it's right is often worth about the same number of IMPs as a game bonus might be.

The problem is that partner can't have anything (RHO was willing to sit for 3NT) so whether we can set 4SX depends on how many of our high cards are cashing. What makes you think it will be off three? Of course, we can't necessarily set 3NT either (we have exactly four top tricks). Still, I think we'd be a wimp to pass so like everyone else I will double and hope to set 4SX. We will wish we had passed though when they score up 590 or even 690.

I think BBO could do a lot better in this area. Here's what I'd really like to see: you click on a (pairs) tournament and up comes the dialog box as now, but with a list of all your friends who are available to play in this tournament from which you can select. [Currently, it will pre-select someone you've clicked on]. If, by chance, one of your friends has already registered at the partnership desk for that tournament, it could be so marked. The problem with the current setup is that you can click on a friends name, invite him or her to play and then wait for a response until it times out [it might be possible to cancel -- I'm not sure]. If that player has already signed up to play in the same tournament (or any upcoming conflicting tournament), you are just wasting your time with the invitation. And people who are already signed up often go away from the keyboard knowing that they have so many minutes before the first hand. And, while they can politely decline with an explanation that they are booked to play in a tournament, it's not so very easy -- and in any case the system already knows this. So they are disturbed for no good reason.

You made what amounts to a cooperative double, asking partner to pass with a good holding in ♦ otherwise to bid. At this level, a good holding is probably KQTx or similar. Certainly not three cards. And definitely not while holding four of the unbid major. OTOH, you should only double (IMO) cooperatively when nothing else is reasonable. Here you had lots of reasonable options: 2♠ (the popular vote), 3♦, some number of hearts, etc. You could even have raised clubs if you were so inclined. So, both of you acted injudiciously and it sounds like you got a very bad result because of that.

True enough about the thirteen tricks, though if he'd found out I had ♠K and ♦Q by bidding 5♥ it would have helped. But my main point is that a hand that has jump-shifted must have at least one ace and 99% will have three or more key-cards.

Yesterday in an ACBL robot tournament (#72) I made a Soloway Jump Shift. My robot partner then launched into RKCB and discovered that I had 0 or 3 "aces" (obviously, I had 3). But the robot tried to sign off just in case I had made a jump shift without any aces. The problem is that I didn't know how many aces my robot partner had. I bid 6NT and got a good board (83%). But 7NT would have been somewhat better (98%). I held: ♠AQT ♥8 ♦AKQJ972 ♣J8. Robot held: ♠KJ85 ♥AJ652 ♦53 ♣A6 Complete auction: 1♥ p 3♦ p 4♣ p 4♦ p 4NT p 5♣ p 5♦ p 6NT p p p. Is it possible to teach the robots this kind of deduction?

I'm surprised that nobody has commented on the identities of your illustrious opponents who, by the way, are regular partners and play a very aggressive style of preempts. Your LHO is a many-time World Champion and your RHO is a very fine player. Having said that, North should have doubled (but i understand that you hadn't discussed this). You would still probably do no better than getting another 50 points though. You just ran into a buzz saw :( [Later] It wasn't at all obvious from reading this on the BBO TODAY news feed that this was a JEC match (I had mistakenly assumed it was a random matchup in a tournament or whatever). Of course your opponents were illustrious. You didn't need me to point that out.

What, pray tell, is wrong with double? I don't want it to be takeout. I want it to be for penalties, which it should be (opponent has bid 1NT in competition). I know we aren't guaranteed to set the contract (if, for example, opener has 6 or more good clubs) but I think that 9 times out of 10 we will beat any score that we could make in our own contract.

Sometimes when I'm feeling especially masochistic I sign up for one of the ACBL individual tournaments on the hour. The standard of the opponents is so widely varying that you never know who you're up against. My suggestion is that the tournament should be organized along Swiss lines. The top four players after each round play each other, and so on down the list (trying to avoid having you play against/with repeats as much as reasonably possible). This way, if you do well (or get lucky) in the first round, you will tend to be playing with better players in the subsequent round(s). As it is, you can be having a great individual tournament only to draw a really hopeless partner and go crashing down to average or below. Of course, if you do badly in the first round, you will probably spend the rest of the tournament playing with those who just learned the game today (or play that way). Ideally, even the first round could be seeded according to some measure of ability (I'm BBO has it even if it's not public). I think this would make the individuals a lot more enjoyable for all.

I'm with wank. Believe your partner not your opponents. Get new teammates :)

As others have said - just bid normally and involve your partner. Partner has shown a decent hand and you have 8 points. There's no reason to curl up and die. Your side has 19 hcp, theirs 21. So it's not at all clear that they "own" the hand, especially when you have the spades. If partner gets to raise your spades, as he likely will, you will know that you have an eight-card spade fit and, in all probability, an eight-card club fit. Having a double fit like that should make you want to bid (or pass), not double. It's true that you have a surprise in hearts and a trump lead might be a successful defense but double is speculative. It will be a tough decision over 5♦ but, having described your hand well, partner will be in a much better position to make a decision over 5♦ than you. With Qx in diamonds he's unlikely to want to bid 5♠ (which could be down too many) but will also know that they might easily make 5♦, given that you couldn't overcall the 1♥ bid. If your side does end up in 5♠X, you might easily win a few imps if you are able to hold the damage to down two.

I'm entirely in agreement with the non-doublers. I think doubling voluntarily bid games, especially minor suit games, is bad bridge unless you have some real surprise for declarer. Even then it may be a bad idea if your double gives up the surprise element. The probability of success required for bidding a vulnerable game, assuming that the result is either making or down one undoubled is 37.5% (i.e. 3/8) not 35%. But in reality, it's a little more complex than that. Let's assume that your opposite number at the other table is faced with the exact same decision that you are but does not double. And for now, let's assume that if you do double you won't actually help declarer make his contract. So, if you double and they are down 1, you will gain 3 imps. If you're wrong and they make, you will lose 4 imps. Those are the two most likely outcomes and you need to be 57% sure of being right to gain in the long run. But there are actually some more bad things (and good things) that can happen. If they go down 2 you will win 7 imps over your more timid opponent. That's nice. However, if they make an overtrick, you will lose 8 imps. What if they redouble? Maybe one or other of the opponents at your table was conscious of having underbid earlier (perhaps not so likely here) and is regretting that he didn't try for 6. 5DXX+1 will cost you 13 imps. And it could be worse. If they are making an overtrick and your teammates are actually in 6D making, you were slated to win 13 by going quietly. But now, if they do redouble, you are going to lose an imp, for a swing of 14! Even if they neglect to redouble, you're still turning 13 into 9 (a net loss of 4).

We can be a bit parochial over here. Most of the rest of the world (i.e. not ACBL-land) scores 2 or a win, 1 for a tie otherwise zero when scoring matchpoint events (including BAM). That's all very well for ACBL events but is confusing for vugraphs of events run by the WBF (or anything "over there"). Could an option be added to allow "international" style scoring for these events?

I don't have a lot of experience with the 18-board robot tournaments because I usually don't have time to play them. But occasionally, I do. However, the timing is completely different from the 12-board tournaments in that you're expected to finish in a reasonable amount of time. My problem is that I'm not used to that and I take advantage of the long time available for the 12-board tournaments by getting on with other jobs, answering the phone, whatever. So, it comes as a shock to find myself on the last board of an 18-board tournament and suddenly I'm out of time - and as far as the tournament is concerned I was never even in it. Would it be possible to post a warning, say after 14 boards have been played and the player needs to speed up? Or perhaps any time that a player falls behind schedule by more than say one minute. I realize this isn't a big deal - I could pay more attention to the clock myself. But it would be a nice courtesy.

I've been playing Namyats with various partners for many years. Theoretically, I love the convention. Trouble is, I don't think I've ever had a good result after bidding 4♣ or 4♦, not to mention losing the 3NT to show a solid suit.

Great thread! The following agreement isn't strange on the same scale as some of the other entries, but I played against a pair a few months ago where they had the following auction: 1♦ - 1♠ - 1NT - 2♥ - 2♠ - 4♠. I asked if 2♥ had been forcing and was told that it was. What's more (4♠ made, by the way), they didn't seem to think this agreement was at all unusual. What do you all think?

This is not a new idea. I suggested it many years ago in the early days of OKBridge. I'm sure others have suggested it. While screens at face-to-face bridge tournaments are the exception and require considerable investment in extra equipment and increased effort on the part of the players, the use of "logical screens" on BBO would appear to be simplicity itself: During the auction, a player should see the calls of his partner and right-hand-opponent simultaneously. If a player loses network communication (hasn't made a call and can't be pinged - or has been inactive for too long), the same indication of inactivity as now can be shown. But normal hesitations would not be visible to a player's partner, thus eliminating any concerns of unauthorized information. I'm not suggesting that BITs are a frequent occurrence in BBO-land, but this easy-to-implement method would eliminate them entirely.

Given the skill that my robot partners usually display when handling the dummy, I am very much in favor of this change!

Here's a situation that crops up frequently. I am away from my computer or not paying attention and a friend chats to say "want to play?" or whatever. I of course don't see it and ignore it. Five minutes or so later, I see it and try to respond. That person is now playing a robot (or other) tournament and I can't chat. That I understand. I can also understand why you wouldn't want me to send an internal mail message for immediate delivery (we might be cheating!). But couldn't the mail server simply hold the message until the tournament was finished. That way, I could send my apologies and suggest playing when he/she is finished without me having to watch to see if the tournament was over. Simple, right?

Indeed, it is very frustrating waiting for players to finish Robot Duplicates who are many boards behind (i.e. they have gone to sleep, keeled over and gone to meet their maker, or other distraction). If you haven't played a card for a while, the software could suggest resigning (just like it suggests logging out when you haven't done anything for a while). If you're really still there thinking about a suit combination, you could click and be back. Otherwise, let's get rid of the players who have given up.

Putting aside all this talk of "OS", there are a couple of observations to make. First, why would you want to have an agreement that X and "pull" shows 18-22 hcp? That means there are going to be quite a lot of hands that you can't reasonably show otherwise, such as ♠AKJxxx ♥Qxxx ♦Ax ♣x over a minor opening (wouldn't this be worth a double, followed by spades if partner bids the other minor?). Second, the opponents have only 16 hcp (so neither of them can possibly have "extras") yet they bailed you out after your 2♥ call (that was nice of them). Thirdly, you have a three loser hand! As noted elsewhere, you can make game across from a flat Yarborough! A possible, if non-scientific, sequence might be double, then cuebid spades, then bid 6♦. Your partner should be getting the message about that time. With no A of his own, and better diamonds than hearts, he can happily pass.

I'm surprised that nobody has seen fit to mention the principle of equal level conversion in regard to this hand. If you and your partner have an agreement about ELC (which needs to be declared of course) then this hand can make a take-out double and correct 2C to 2D showing a red two-suiter. The 15 hcp somewhat make up for the poor shape. Without such an agreement, the double is a calculated risk. At white on red, it probably won't cost a lot -- if you partner has a good hand and clubs then 3NT may be on. I don't think it is "horrendous", although I wouldn't have doubled with that hand myself (unless I had an ELC agreement). The rest of the carpings about software, simulations, etc. are very hard to follow. Plain statements of opinion would be nice -- instead of sarcasm, sarcastic answers to supposed sarcasm, etc.