Huibertus

The problem being master points account for high age rather then skills.

On a different forum I've been accused of cheating, dropping a stiff K offside with 7 cards in the suit missing. Those accusers were just very poor players who didn't have a clue I just pulled of a show up squeeze and therefor I KNEW the fines was not on, and just was lucky the K was stiff all along, my only chance worked out. That's the story you'll see time and time again when not everybody has the same level of play.

There is no squeeze. You ducked a heart so there is no heart threat. The spade threat will be protected by East, the Diamond threat by west, so neither will have a discarding problem on the squeeze card. You'll be down if EW are able understand squeeze defense. Unfortunately they are not and if you play it like you suggest the West will err and throw away two diamonds on the clubs which is one too many, a clear Bridge Master programming error. What East should do for instance is develop a diamond trick. So instead of cashing his clubs, every time you give him a club switch to diamonds.

I managed to play hand 1 of day 2. After that it no longer loads, i consistently get the "an error has occurred table closing message".

What I would find far more interesting is an explanation on how to change settings in order to receive push messaging faster in order to prevent being kicked out of tournaments even before the screen has updated with the first hand. This happens to me quite often and it does have a TCR impact. Also I get the will be replaced in about XX seconds far faster then one would expect if the decission time indeed is 30 seconds.

Everybody rougly gets to defend half of the hands and gets to declare a quarter. So consider yourself lucky with a long low HCP period. You get to practice defense which is twice as important as declarer play. It will likely pay of.

[i have discover4ed a pattern of imbalance) If that is the case surely you can share the pattern, other can verify it, and if you are right, you'll have found a bug in the random hand generator. In that case you should be awarded life long free premium membership. Until this reward is published I don't believe you. I believe that you don't realize that randomness does include long periods of below average strength hand for a few unhappy pairs out of loads of pairs, just as it does in real life.

Good post. Just to add a couple of suggestions'{Lead high. e.g. K from KQx) I'd say Lead th K if you want partner to unblock i.e. KQTXX and lead the Q asking partner to encourage holding the J (or A or K). [Holding the ace with the king vs suit: lead whatever your agreement is for AKx, lead the opposite with AK doubleton] I suggest to lead the A from an even number of cards, and the K from an odd number, asking partner to signal if an even or odd number of tricks can be cashed. And an extra exception; If you've agreed to lead low from Honor 3rd and you suspect the dummy holds the opps honors in the same suit, consider to lead high regardless, and the 2nd highest after retaining the lead. And of course the mirror of this... If you've agreed to lead high from Honor 3rd and you suspect the leader holds the opps honors in the same suit, consider to lead low regardless.

Yes, double by East means ♠, you have to have this agreement in order to prevent exactly this baby psych to work against you. Just to add, it should mean "I WANTED to bid that" not "I HAD to bid that", a subtle difference. Apart from that, what's wrong with W? Did he know North was going to psych and did he assume he was going to defend 1♠ doubled? There is no other excuse for him not to bid 1♠ himself. And then the final pass of E? How in the world can one not raise with that hand when you think partner has a strong hand (should realy be even stronger then the actual hand) and lots of spades (otherwise E would not have passed 3♠)?

Given it indeed is matchpoint, I don't think this line is silly at all! But yes, for those that mostly play for imps (myself included) it feels odd. Come to think of it, I think this is the percentage play in Matchpoints, which is what that game is all about... Surely you have a better chance then 50% of outscoring the Imps-safe play, so it'll pay off in the long run.

Ok, well, that doesn't change anything about what I wrote. w whould have no choice but to take the second, setting up 2 ♠ for heart discards, You'll see E has more then a singleton ♠, so now it seems to make sense to play for ♦ 2-2 or drop of the Q, and there no longer is a need for a ♣ finess.

Just a value bid. Checking for 2 missing keycards after calculating the partnershipo has the values isn't programmed I guess, the programmers don't play Bridge afterall.

Hence the "or AKXXX" in my reply.

Well, the point of the hand to me is to make yourself stop wondering. W had a singleton K, maybe KX (less likely) or AKXXX. And you need to find out who is short in order to work out who is likely longer in ♦, my guess is W has singleton K, but it cannot harm to test as the number of reds in each suit in dummy make it quite unlikely you can ruff two ♥ without losing a trump so it looks like you need a spade trick anyway and W ruffing your loser won't harm.

I'd play a ♠ first. If W wins and continues a Spade at least I can overruff whatever E ruffs with without losing a trump trick later on and will play the remaining ♦ to be 2-1. If W is void of ♠ hé is not going to ruff this loser, and will play him for any 3 ♦ later on, planning to discard two ♥ on a ♣ and a ♠ after drawing trumps. If W has another ♠ and E the Ace, Ruffing the 3rd round with the Ace and plan to pick up the Q 3rd of ♦ by pinning the 9 still needing the ♣ finess later on for a ♥ discard. BtW I strongly disagree with 5♦. This is a perfectly normal 3♦ rebid if 2♦ promisses 5, if it promisses 4 this is a 2♠ rebid.

Unless you play lebensohl over reverse, 2♦ is a game force, if you play lebensohl over reverse you have not bid 2NT over 2♦ making the situation game forcing, 4♣ is not a game (except for some stupid bots). So, yes.

I now notice hand 3 is asking about the other sides bidden. Well following a two-suited overcall you need 4 bids, INV+ in partners suit, INV+ in your own suit (the 4th), Just bidding in partners suit (that ahs to be 3♠ here, just bidding your own suit 3♣here. 4 in partners or your own suit is natural, non slam going. This hand you have to sell as INV+ in partners suit as that is what you have. That would be 3♥ in my book.

I now notice hand 3 is asking about the other sides bidden. Well following a two-suited overcall you need 4 bids, INV+ in partners suit, INV+ in your own suit (the 4th), Just bidding in partners suit (that ahs to be 3♠ here, just bidding your own suit 3♣here. 4 in partners or your own suit is natural, non slam going. This hand you have to sell as INV+ in partners suit as that is what you have. That would be 3♥ in my book.

"Partner thought I was too strong to preempt." There is no definitive answer to this question. It all depends on the agreed partnership's style for Preempts. First hand, NV-agaist VUL, this would be too much within my prefered style, but I have seen good, succesfull partnerships being succesfull with a very conservative preempting style that would allow for 3♠ on this hand. Hand two, I agree with your partner. This is 3♣, it is either functioning as pre-balancing making sure partner does not ballance with 3♠, or it will help to find the appropriate ♣/NT game, or a good save. By the way, you should not be in this position, N should preempt in ♥. Making it almost impossible for E/W to find the right save and forcing N/S to guess on the 5 level. Hand 3. Same thing as hand 1. It's partnership style. 2♠ for the reds is possible IF you agree 7 losers is allowed. I would advise against 7 losers, in my book that is just too much. Hand 4. Don't worry, nothing wrong with this, just a matter of bad luck. Bidding went fine, and 4♠ will make more often than not, meaning is is excelent in IMP's and good enough in Matchpoints.

I'm not conviced about testing the ♠. Yes ducking a heart in both hands is the right play. However there are more chances then the Q♠ drop. The long ♥ could be in the same hand as the Q 4th ♠ or any 5+card ♠, or the long ♥ could be in the same hand as a potential 5+card ♣. So there is squeeze potential. Depending on what they led and played after winning a heart, you have to check if you still have a ♠ or ♣ entry and lead the final ♦ squeeze card from the other hand, and for that to work you must have cashed the top ♥s first. There also are some minute double and triple squeeze chances. So, concede a ♥, cash ♥s and after that, depending on entries, cash top ♠s (thus addin ♠Q drop succes to the ♣/♥ squeeze) or top ♣ you don't need as an entry and finally cash ♦s finishing in the hand opposite the ♠ or ♣ threat. Of course the ♠/♥ squeeze is positional so only works against W, the ♣/♥ squeeze would work against both E and W. Not sure of the overall exact percentages but my feeling is allowing for a squeeze is slightly better then just the drop of ♠ Q.

You must be clearvoyant? I would never open 1 NT on a hand that is too strong for 1 NT and is unbalanced. But if I'd know East had this and would bid like this, OK i might consider it! As for the East, well, what can you say...

The name of a system that applies to uncontested auctions, not relevant to the question. Should 2♦ be forcing? That is a matter of partnership preference. Playing with bots it is. Regardless of the system you play for uncontested auction, together with leads and signals this is one of three questions that MUST be answered for any casual partnership before play commences. It's unlikely other questions are more important (i.e. Blackwood v. RCKB is likely not relevant to a single session of play as it doesn't pop up that often.) My personal preference is it is forcing. However I recongize there are valid pro's for playing it non-forcing in matchpoints (not in IMPS). But I don't want to have a different set of agreements for Imps and matchpoint, too much baggage to carry around...

There ALWAYS is a better use for 4♣, including as a response to NT openings.

Of course you report this. Apart from that, what is 3♥? Looks to me partner found a way to see your hand and guessed 3♦ is -110 and 3 ♥ -100 and gets angry you were unaware of what's going on?

Two guidelines; 1. Have a mechanism to describe you hand when partner asks. For instance, in case you want to keep it simple 2M - 2NT, 3♣ Extra length (discuss what subsequent bidding would mean) 2M - 2NT, 3♦ Extra strength 2M - 2NT, 3M Neither 2M - 2NT, 3OM, Both 2M - 2NT, 3NT AKQXXX 2. Don't get mad. 5card balanced might be OK NV-vs-VUL 3rd seat, but accept that sometimes it costs too...