rhm

I think after the ♥Q lead there is no layout where you can not make the hand double dummy on the sensible assumption that West must have the ♠Q. (Whether East controls the third round of spades is not important.) Assume West to hold the ♥J. (If you decide to play East for the jack you have to play differently but the play is trivial) Win the ♥K and simply run all your ♣ When you play the last ♣ the position is as follows: dummy ♠AK6 ♥A74 ♦T ♣ -- declarer ♠J8 ♥T5 ♦A3 ♣7 West has to come down first to 6 cards. If West has kept less than 3 cards in ♥, simply discard the ♠6 from dummy. Play a ♥ to the ace and if the jack does not drop, establish the fourth heart in dummy. So West has to keep 3 cards in ♥. He must hold at least ♠Qx or else you have 3 tricks in ♠. Dummy now discards the ♦ten. Now cash the ♦ ace, and West will be down to J98 in ♥ and Qx in ♠, while you discard the ♥4 from dummy. Now play the ♠8. West can not unblock or again you have 3 ♠ tricks. Now throw him in with the ♠jack. Granted you have to take a position on the ♥jack and you need to read the end position carefully, e.g. ♥ could be 3-3 all the time, but I see no defense and playing all your ♣ immediately will put West under a lot of pressure. Rainer Herrmann

Since 2NT seems obvious to some I will pass. After all 2♦ is not forcing. We do not have a fit, neither do I like my honor structure. In notrump communication will likely be a problem. Rainer Herrmann

I do not like North's second pass (except playing total points), though it could obviously have been right. Having not over called immediately, 3♣ should show such a hand, not some sort of fit. Rainer Herrmann

Fair enough. But then tell us how do you handle stronger hands? Say the same hand but with the ♠ace instead of the ♠5. What do you do over 2♥? play a forcing Pass? 3♦ may not promise extras, but neither does it deny it in my opinion. Given that East-West may well have game in the majors, North-South should not have done too badly, buying the contract in 4♦. Rainer Herrmann

I have not said so. Just because West could also be 2=2=6=3 does not mean he will be. Everybody opens 3=2=5=3 with 1NT. Non vulnerable I can see someone rebidding 3♦ with AKQTx, though it would be more indicated with 6 cards in ♦. Anyway nige1 layout 2263 works only because West has precisely ♠KT and whether declarer discards ♦ or ♥ on the top ♣ does not matter in this layout. Both lines work here. Rainer Herrmann

[hv=pc=n&s=saq9765hk4dj9532c&w=sk43h32dakqt4cqj2&n=sj82hjt98d7cak875&e=sthaq765d86ct9643]399|300[/hv] Assume the layout is like the above. To win 4♠ you need to discard 2 ♦s on the top ♣s. You intend to take the ♥ finesse and ruff 2 ♦s in dummy. You loose a trick in each suit except in ♣. Now change West ♠ to ♠ KTx and give East a low ♠. Suddenly you can not ruff 2 ♦ without giving West 2 trump tricks. You now need to discard your 2 ♥s and play a cross ruff, which works because East can not over ruff the dummy. You loose 2 trumps and a ♦. I do not see how to choose between these two lines. It is true that a priori it is twice as likely that West has the ♠ ten. But this assumes that West, when holding the ♠ ten, has made a mistake after the opening lead. With the ♠ ten West could have beaten the contract by switching to ♥ at trick two to let East play a trump through declarer. Rainer Herrmann

Reminds me of a story I read somewhere years ago. Declarer, an expert, went down in a contract because dummy overbid. In the postmortem dummy explained: " I had to show you my 3 kings" upon which the expert replied "But why could you not wait till you put your hand down." Rainer Herrmann

Oh yes now I understand. If you were serious you would have bid 3♣. Your 3 ♥ bid is just a courtesy raise, which is almost never accepted unless over-caller has a super maximum. Besides it is so much more fun to go down in 3♥ after a courtesy raise when you might have had a fighting chance in 2♥. Rainer Herrmann

What about speaking English for a change and calling both 3♥ bids raises, but one of these raises is a sign-off while the other one is invitational to 4♥? Rainer Herrmann

Your answer shows that you do not know what a computer simulation is, neither do you seem to have a clue about statistics. To do meaningful simulations, which can claim to be representative, means to use sample sizes to reduce the margin of error, which are that large, that you can not possibly check the results on all deals by hand, because the effort is just too high. That's what computers are for. I said I generated 1000 deals to keep the margin of error small. If I would have checked carefully every single deal by hand I would still be looking at them However, on every simulation I check a few deals whether I would in deed have over-called 2♥ or open 2♣ to prove that my assumptions are reasonable. From many runs I know by now that I can trust the randomness of my (commercial) software and the double dummy analysis of deep finesse. AWM claimed to have done a simulation. Different to me he did not specify his assumptions, he did not say how many deals he generated and looked at. This is very dubious to start with. Since he claimed he looked at them by hand, hopefully carefully, it can not have been many for the reasons above. This method is far more subjective and biased than large sample double dummy analysis by software. Even if his analysis by hand is correct, which is difficult to accomplish, and the few deals have been generated randomly according to the specifications, the margin of error will still be high. Rainer Herrmann

I have not manipulated my assumptions in any way to prove my point, not least because I am not interested in winning the argument, but whether my judgment is right or not. In the past I have done many simulations which showed I was either too optimistic or pessimistic and this is always enlightening. I think I have learned something from them. However, my observation on this forum is, no matter what simulation you do, the ones whose judgment is in conflict with the results of the simulation will always find some silly arguments or use arguments long refuted to claim the results of the simulation is void or meaningless. It is a fact of life that most people will rather doubt the facts than change their mind. Rainer Herrmann

2♠ I don't think a rebid of 4♥ is this hand. I will go with the tactical underbid of 2♠. It seems to me sufficiently remote that the bidding will die in 2♠. Besides, if partner has weak ♠, there may be no game. Whoever moves, I will next bid 3♥ (it's odds on that partner will not pass 3♥), followed by 4♥ if possible, and partner should be in a good position to choose the final contract. Opponents may have a cheap save, but I do not think they will take it, particularly if they feel, they have pushed us. Both passed already twice. Rainer Herrmann

The East hand in the simulation was set to what is the actual one on the OP. Sorry if that was not clear. Rainer Herrmann

Basically gnasher said what I said. You are splitting hairs not him. And to cite you "I don't have reliable statistics to back this up, unfortunately, but it is my impression from vugraph and other kibitzing" that 3♥ is rarely passed after an overcall of 2♥ has been raised. If anything an estimate of 50% is on the conservative side. Nobody likes to stop in 3♥. It is rather similar to a raise of 1NT to 2NT. Otherwise a raise would hardly make sense, since you risk going down with infrequent gains. It comes down to the following philosophy Do you invite heavy and accept often or do you invite weakly and accept infrequently. The first philosophy misses a few games but has few minus scores. The second may miss fewer game (not clear, because the ♥ raise is wide ranging) but what is certain it will incur many more minus scores . Rainer Herrmann

True of course, but the mistake you are making is that you seem to assume anything can give you back the one level. Nothing can. The precision 2♣ opening has a lot of drawbacks, but it also has serious preemptive value, which a 1♣ opening does not. A raise of an overcall from 2♥ to 3♥ is not the same as from 1♥ to 2♥. Raising to the three level risks going down, where 2♥ might have made. So raising 2♥ to 3♥ is essentially a calculated risk between missing game and going down in 3♥. I would certainly not raise with all hands, which raise from 1♥ to 2♥. A raise from 2♥ to 3♥ is closer to something between a single raise and a limit raise. Also whether a cue bid of 3♣ should be reserved for stronger ♥ support can be argued. For example should a new suit by advancer, e.g 2♠, be forcing? Lawrence recommends no. If not how do you force and how do you aim at 3NT? Rainer Herrmann

Have a a look at http://crystalwebsite.tripod.com/double_dummy_accurate.htm To cite from this site: "The most important general finding is that double dummy analysis is very accurate as compared to actual play from OKBridge." For 4 level contracts in trump suits the actual declarer made 9.84 tricks and the double dummy result was 9.85 tricks (based overall on 30 million plays). So there was no declarer advantage in actual play for 4♥ contracts. Rainer Herrmann

I am not sure what you are aiming at. Are you claiming that a ♥ raise is preemptive and non-invitational or do you like splitting hairs? There may be a difference in strength between a cuebid of 3♣ and a ♥ raise, but there is no doubt that absent of some very special agreements anyone at the table would consider a raise of an over-call of 2♥ to 3♥ as an invitation to 4♥. Call it what you like. This is a discussion group on Bridge not on semantics. If you and 655321 claim that you would rarely accept a 3 ♥ "raise", fine. But this means, you will still turn a lot of pluses in minus scores or small minus scores in larger ones. Let's do the mathematics based on the simulation. The best you can theoretically do is You accept in exactly 29.5% of all cases, where you make game. You would still have 382 minus scores instead of 116 and the minus score on the 116 deals would be larger. But in practice even if you accept in the correct frequency here, you will do much worse and miss many games and reach many, which will go down and on some of these you will get doubled. Is there really a net gain? Rainer Herrmann

The slam is hard to bid. However, I would not stay in 3NT with the West hand when East did not bid notrump directly. The double of 3♠ was stupid and served no purpose for North-South. In a well oiled partnership, East might rebid 3♦, which should be forcing for one round, instead of 3♠. The bidding might go (1♠) DBL-2♥ 3♣--3♦ 3♥--3♠ 4♦--4♠ 6♦ West has given a good description of his hand and over 4♦ East can see that all his values are working and makes a slam try with 4♠. West of course accepts. Rainer Herrmann

No, I can not with 1000 deals. But double dummy works both ways. Declarer also does not play double dummy. The end result is that these errors tend to cancel each others. Tests have shown that double dummy result come close to average results at the table. At 3NT declarer makes slightly more often than double dummy suggests and in grand slams the defense does slightly better. No, of course not. I prefer simulation with typical 1000 deals to get statistical valid results. (variation is reasonably small) The drawback is that you can only look at samples but not at every deal and analyze it. The double dummy analyzer(deep finesse) just tells me how many tricks in hearts I get on each deal. For my analysis I simply assumed that West would accept in 50% of the deals and exhibit excellent judgment and would not accept, unless there were at least 9 tricks available to declarer in ♥ and would always accept, when there were more. My experience is that most player accept invitations on many more hands. No I kept the simulation simple and I can refine it. But if you have 6 of your 13 cards in ♥ and 9-10 HCP only in very few deals will your suit be anything less than Qxxxxx. I can rerun my simulation, but I doubt it makes a difference No, but will you and partner know, when to prefer to stay in 3NT, when West holds a six or seven card ♥ suit? No. I kept it simple, there will be few deals were partner will have 4 cards in ♠ besides 6 cards in hearts. My analysis assumed simply that partner would bid 4 ♥ on 50% of the random deals and that he would always accept when there are 10 tricks or more available and never accept, if 3♥ would already go down. In other words my analysis assumed partner would exhibit perfect judgment. The results in practice will be less good for the inviter. Double dummy results work both ways. Perfect defense and perfect declarer play. For example declarer always finds a trump queen. Checks have shown that these assumption are wrong of course, but tend to cancel each others and double dummy results come very close to what will happen on average in practice, when a board is played a number of times (except for grand slams). I am open, I did not try to make assumptions so that the simulation results would support my assessment. I was interested in an unbiased outcome. I can change or refine any of my assumptions and rerun the simulation. Rainer Herrmann

If you do a simulation, you have to make some assumptions. I can change any of them or refine them and repeat the simulation. Tell me what you consider unrealistic. No big deal. The assumption that a typical Bridge player would accept in about 50% seems realistic if not conservative to me. Many accept, unless dead minimum for their previous call, that is in many more cases than 50%. In fact I myself belong to the invite heavy, accept often school Rainer Herrmann

The modern 2♥ overcall is wide ranging and I do not doubt that game will be worthwhile if West is top of the range or very suitable for a high level contract. Trouble is, that this is less likely than West being at the low end for an overcall. I decided to do a simulation, with fairly favorable assumptions about West (e.g. always more than 5 cards in ♥): South: Precision club opener as described 11-16 HCP, either at least 6 cards in ♣ or 5 cards in ♣ and a 4 card major. West: No 5 card ♠ suit, either 6 cards in ♥ and 10 to 17 HCP or 7 cards in ♥ and 10 to 15 HCP. But otherwise West could be very distributional. North: Less than 4 cards in ♣ (no raise), no further restrictions 1000 random deals, double dummy results with West declarer in a ♥ contract: 4♥ (or more) would make on 295 deals or 29.5% 3♥ would make on 618 deals or 61.8% 2♥ would make on 884 deals or 88.4% Your chances to make game is around 30%, but of course West will not always guess right when to accept the invitation, not least because some games depend on a favorable layout of the North South cards. Meanwhile your chances to get a positive score drops from close to 90% to less than 60%, again because West will not always know when not to accept, not least because of an unfavorable layout of the North South cards. If you assume that West will accept an invitation of 3♥ in half the cases (most players tend to accept more frequently), the best you can do in theory is 295 games bid and made 205 times you go down in game 500 times you stop in 3♥, of which 118 times 3♥ makes 382 times you will go down in 3♥ So bidding on would mean you bid 295 games but you will get a minus score 587 times instead of 116 times, that is 471 more minus scores and on the remaining 116 minus deals you go down more, which also means you are much more likely to get doubled. This is theory, the practical decision will likely be worse. I guess bidding 3♥ looks okay, but even vulnerable, it does not look to me a favorite over Pass. Pass by East is certainly not ridiculous. I still maintain it to be prudent. Rainer Herrmann

I pass, but I do not like your methods. I want to be able to play 2♠, if partner does not fit ♠. Rainer Herrmann

My standards are not higher, they are different. The West hand is a good example, how a direct overcall at the two level should not look like. An overcall at the two level should show a reasonable six card suit, preferably with shortage in opener's suit. From time to time I will overcall at the two level with a good 5 card suit, if I am unbalanced or short in opponents suit or if I have extra strength. But being balanced, having a mediocre 5 card suit and Qxx in opener's known long suit and being vulnerable, where is the point? If West had the ♥ queen and the ♣ace instead of the ♣ queen and the ♥ ace, I might still refrain from overcalling but the hand would be substantially better. With regard to East, it is a matter of judgement and you may disagree with me. The 2♣ opening has effectively preempted you. If the ♥ overcall had been at the one level you would be in a far more comfortable position. You now have to decide what is the bigger risk: Pass and miss game or continue and turn a plus score into a minus. From East's perspective, is West likely short in ♣, when you hold ♣Tx there and North did not raise ♣? Give West a six card ♥ suit (and West may have overcalled on a 5 card suit) and a minimum opening bid, how likely is it, that you will miss a good game. Even if you do have an eight card fit, the fact that South has shown a long ♣ suit, makes it more likely that ♥s may be behind overcaller and not break well. East is missing first round control in every suit and second round controls in two. The East hand would be better with the ♥queen and the ♠ king instead of the ♠ queen and the ♥ king. I said I can understand a 3♥ bid by East. But to me the danger signs are clearly visible and Pass looks more prudent. I am well aware that from time to time I will miss game. However, even vulnerable, where it is closer, letting it go at 2♥ will show a handsome profit in the long run . Rainer Herrmann

This is interesting since I feel the oppsite. We do not know the vulnerability here. I myself have no particular high requirements for an overcall, but overcalling 2♥ with at best a mediocre 5 card suit, a balanced hand (weak notrump range) and Qxx in opener's six card suit (The ♣Q most likely being worthless on offense), is asking for trouble. You have at least a nine card fit with your RHO. Is it really difficult to see what will happen should LHO have a couple of points opposite a limited opener and a singleton ♣? Besides going for a number, there will be nothing on for them. Meanwhile how good are your game chances when there are at best around 11-15 HCP to be shared between LHO and your partner? Sure, not zero. After all partner could have ♥ support, could have most of the outstanding points and could be short in ♣. But my guess is, chances, that all of this will happen, will be a single percentage figure and then partner may reopen. Going for a big number is at least 3 times more likely here against seasoned opponents. Now let's look at advancer's hand. He has a doubleton in opponents suit, the worst holding you can have for game chances, in particular when ♣ were not raised and ♣Tx does not bode well for 3NT either. I can understand 3♥, because game in ♥ could be on, if partner has an (unusual) good hand for his overcall. But for my money I take the plus and pass, particularly non vulnerable. This hand will likely turn out to be disappointment in a high level contract. Too often you will go minus if you continue with this aceless semi balanced rubbish beyond the two level. But cuebidding with this stuff at the 3 level without a known fit, is not just a tad too weak. This again is simply asking for trouble. Of course overcaller should have passed over the silly double of 3♣, but I do not like my chances in any contract beyond 3♣. Rainer Herrmann

True but this is not the issue. The issue is, whether to stay in 3♣ doubled when partner bids 3♣. You can not correct to 3♦ since partner may then "correct" to ♥. I think the options are to pass or to bid 3♦. I prefer 3♦. Rainer Herrmann