coyot

Partner is marked with a spade void, therefore we have at least 25 of the outstanding HCP in remaining suits. I would close my eyes and bid 6♣ (expecting partner to bid 7 with something extra). If I were sure that 4NT would be asking for four aces and club king, it would be a possibility, but I don't see how would I find out about the red queens that would seem to be necessary for the grand... So just bid 6♣, expecting to find partner with 0346 or similar shape. 55 is out of question because he would definitely start with the higher suit . Not sure how would be behave with 0445, but I think that 4♠ would be the most appropriate bid by then (showing the shortness and letting me to pick a minor as I'm definitely not interested in his four hearts, not having doubled negatively).

Ja se timhle ridim taky - s vyjimkou pripadu, kdy je muj list dostatecne silny na to, abych pri jakekoliv reakci partnera chtel hrat mans. Tj. 1♦-1♠-2♥ - F1, ted partner cokoliv rekne a moje 3♥ vydrazi mych 11 karet PLUS silu listu. Pokud mam v 6-5 s max 1ZZ v kazde dlouhe barve, imho to tak musim drazit, mam tu mans skoro z ruky. I kdyz bych asi udelal vyjimku s KQJ v obou barvach, to uz je z hlediska ztraty trumfove kontroly trochu nebezpecny list, nemam zadne pridavne sance na to, ze neco zajimaveho vypadne... Jasne, ze je to napruzene, ale v situaci, kdy mi ke splneni manse staci od partnera jedna uzitecna karta do mych barev nebo nejake to eso, nemam nastroje, jak se na dotycnou kartu zeptat - takze proste zavru oci a zopakuju revers :P, klidne i na ctvrtem stupni...

All you need is a good sound editor that can batch-process the files. Select them all and have them muted to i.e. 20% of volume :) But, yes, it's a pain and it would certainly be welcome if a general volume control were somewhere in the application.

Bid 4♣ and pass whatever partner says. I'm not really afraid of getting a bad score. If there is enough strength behind me to double 4 of anything, we're most likely defending against 3NT that is likely to make as all missing club values are in front of the preempt. Of course, if partner has KJx in clubs and another king on the side, perfectly average hand in strength, that's a pity :)... but if his 7 points are good ones, the game has chances worth trying.

Jasne, vynos je evidentne ze strany pred tema pikama, takze vime, ze krale ma east... pak ten plan s trefovym snapem vypada celkem bezpecne... Eso pikovy, dve velky kara (shodim trefy), nasledne dve velky trefy, snapnu trefu velkou srdci, snapnu piku malou srdci, snapnu karu velkou srdci a dotrumfuju. Splnim vzdycky, kdyz budou srdce 3-2 a kara 5-3.

Asi zalezi hlavne na tom, jak hrajeme zasah 1♥. Pokud s 45xx dam pobidkove kontra a 2♣ opravuju do srdci jako same-level-preference, tak by ted kontra melo vylucovat pikovy ctyrlist a tudiz si predstavuju silnou kartu a nabidkove. Pokud same level preference nehrajeme, tak spis pobidkove - tech bodu nemusi byt tolik, primerka by mohla stacit.

2♣. The fear of this being passed all around is pretty much nil. When I rebid 3♠ later, partner will know that I have a reasonably good hand with club values and he might even bid a marginal game.

1) 3♣. I don't want to push too far - somewhere, there's a LOT of spade cards missing in this deal. Partner might well be the one that has a strong spade-based hand. If that is the case, I want to have some room to show him I don't really like spades, but give him the room to play 4♠ anyway. Imagine the auction (our side only) - x-3♣-3♠-4♣-4♠. Now partner KNOWS I don't like his spades and he's saying don't worry. My hand is then good enough to pass. If I bid 4♣ directly, I might have a problem after 4♠ - should I pass? Are his spades really that good? Or should I bid 5♣? 2) pass. I have some sharp values, even a chance for diamond ruff, but I still don't know how good my partner's hand is... for all I know, he might have a powerhouse with club support. Give him Axx-x-AKxxx-KQxx and he'll bid the same way... so I'll let him decide.

Don't need much for the slam? You need a whole lot to make 5♥ :P. You're looking at 9 losers :-). LHO has promised long spades, nothing else. This increases the likelihood of RHO having most of the values your side is missing. I would gladly pass 4♠x and hope that partner can get 3 tricks along with my diamond ace. Even 5♥ might be a stretch if p has anything less than AKx in hearts. Typically Kjx(x) - meaning 2 hearts and one spade off right from the start :). What is his most likely shape? balanced, 2-3 spades. No ruffing power whatsoever (probably will need all his trumps to draw trumps, they're likely to be 6331.) If he has any decent 2-suiter, he'll bid 4NT - then 5♥ might be a good contract.

This is funny... you probably haven't realised that there are also smalled and poorer countries and smaller and poorer clubs. We're the biggest club in the biggest town in our country and the attendance for our Sunday afternoon (social) bridge events is between 5 and 12 tables. That certainly does not justify wear and tear on the dealing machine, which costs about about 2500 entry fees for this event :P. We're using pre-dealt hands for any big or long-run events. We own one of the three or four dealing machines in the country (with about 15 bridge clubs in here). To answer mr1303: writing down the lay of cards on the traveller may be pretty useful, especially if the field is composed of: - pairs that tend to analyze each board - pairs where dummies smoke a lot, therefore leaving the table, the declarer having to play the dummy. These two are the most common causes of mislaid cards and having the traveller with the distribution saves the TD a whole lot of investigation when trying to restore the hand :)

I think it would be much easier to implement Butler than to have the hands played by 16 more pairs - looking from the GUI perspective. Those 16 results almost fit on the screen - and using 12 of them (after scratching two extremes on each end from the average) should be pretty OK. Sure, playing each board 32 times would be possibly even better, but, then, with 32 tables, the likelihood of some moron claiming 7NTxx-13 is much bigger... In my experience with online bridge, on almost every board you will see one or two overbidders, which means that with 32 tables, you'd probably see three or four of them. Butler eliminates this problem and I think that 12 results are a good basis for comparison. (It will surely completely eliminate the occasional pairs who hone their virtual egos by combined-hands bidding and doubledummy playing using ICQ or Skype).

Perhaps 2♥-x-4♥-4♠-5♦-5♠-6♥. Certainly no reason to bid 5♥ with north, certainly not before I get any indication about WHICH suit the opps have their superfit in. Yes, partner COULD easily have 3-6-1-3 shape. We have 12 hearts, why not them having 11-12 diamonds? Spade ruffs are not guaranteed, so I'll bid what I think I can make (losing one spade and two clubs). When opps bid either 4♠ or 5♣, partner MUST bid 5♦ with this kind of hand - and then I know that the short suits are not duplicated between us and the hands fit together well. Partner could be a little surprised that I bid slam when I was content with game :-), but certainly better than when I bid a slam blindly and go down.

Am I the only one here who sees the spade suit quality as more important in heart contract than the other way? Give partner something like x-KQ10xxx-xxx-Kxx or the like. How many tricks does THIS hand contribute to your spade contract? Compare with AKQxxx an ace and the heart jack that you contribute to the heart contract. The probabilities of various spade lengths in your partner's hand are in favor of bidding 4♥. Given the game state and the position, partner's hearts should be pretty nice and he'll appreciate 3-4 quick tricks, especially with the guaranteed diamond entry. Entries to hearts may be pretty questionable, with the stronger of opps behind that hand - what are you going to do with your 5 losers if partner fails to come up with AKQ in hearts?

This is not exactly true. The O/E discard scheme follows the following rules: 1) A 6 is not a signal unless it seems VERY likely it is the lowest/highest. 2) The priority of discards according to the "level" of encouraging is: - low odd in preferred suit - high odd in preferred suit - even in another suit. Also, high-odd followed by low-odd CANCELS the discouraging signal. So, if you're in a discard position and you don't really want to encourage into any suit, try: 1) Looking for a 6 :-) 2) Looking for an even card that would encourage into obviously non-wanted suit 3) Looking for high-odd (9 is best) that can be followed by low-odd. This really is the GOOD thing about the O/E signalling scheme - compared to classic Lavinthal you have a few more choices and distinctions in signalling.

Hmm, I would guess that blame should be split 50:50. Why bid 3NT undiscussed and presume that it is slam-going? 5♣ would most likely do the trick - and certainly would not be passed :lol:. I mean, partner anyway statistically rates to have 4 clubs - and if they're small ones, you should have most of the remaining HCP together, so he would bid the slam. Yes, there is the risk of him having AKQ in clubs and losing 3 heart tricks from the very start, but that would need extremly bad lie of cards. From the other side of the table, passing 3NT with a small doubleton in diamonds is a crime as well. And, I would certainly prefer bidding stayman with 5-4. Here, discovering BOTH major suits and playing in 6♥ would be nice.

Agree. In 2nd place, partner's preempt has 50% of preempting you and 50% of preempting the opponents, which is one more reason for a good preempt. Noone I know would bid red vs. white for 3 down. I would expect partner to have something like AQ10xxx or KQ10xxx in hearts and some good side values (i.e. KQ or QJx). Of course it could turn out a disaster if you have 9card spade fit, the heart suit is far from solid and they hit you with diamond lead, but it's worth the risk, and certainly better than telling opps about your spades first :D

1♥ camp. I do not consider treating 6 diamonds as 5 diamonds if my hand is not good enough to bid as reverse. I don't think that with 14- HCP, I would miss some good contract just because partner thought that I only had 5-5 in the red suits. Keep 1♦ with 2 hearts bids in store to show GOOD hands (14HCP in the two suits minimum). So far I had no major distaster with this approach.

jj, a vypada to, ze jina moznost FAKT neni ;-)

In a tournament, I reject a bad claim AND call the director. It is of no use to just reject the claim and then let the board be finished. The only problem is that some directors don't know the rules properly :P - once this happenned to me, I called a director and he just said "finish the board" by which time the declarer realized there was something wrong and played it safe :P

No vida, sice jsem nenasadil tak zodpovedny a systematicky pristup, ale seknul jsem se jen o desetinu procenta :P Ale je hezke videt, ze hrat rovnou dvojity impas je druha nejlepsi moznost. Kazdopadne Culbertson rulez :P (kdyz mas devitku :D))

Nerikam, ze je to narocny :-), 1♦ bych otevrel taky... jen jsem zkousel, jestli zareaguje nekdo z mladejch a nezkusenejch...

1) I would bid plain 2♥. I don't know who has all the spades on this board, but bidding a two-suiter and forcing player to 3rd level could turn out to be a bit costly. After 2♥, I can still introduce clubs later if it seems that partner has some values. 2) Double here would show more values and less shape than I have - bud 2NT happily and if the opportunity arises, bid clubs at 4th level, maybe even fifth if they bid game confidently and partner does not double with his likely heart stack.

Seeing the 2♣-2♦-4♥ sequence to show 11 tricks, this is a no brainer. I'm just Club and Heart ace off the grand :). The only problem with this opening would be partner pushing me to a bad slam with his useless spade values, which means that I would still try to open this hand 1♥. 3♦ later is GF, so no problem here. With my spade shortness, I'm fairly certain that the auction will NOT end in 1♥ :). Either partner scrapes together 1♠ or weak 2♠ or the opps will reopen with their spades :)

No problem with 4♦. I will either be able to ruff out enough diamonds or establish clubs and draw trump to make the game - and this is my last good chance to show the void. Sure, partner might give me 4405 instead of 2407, but no bid can be perfect. After that, he'll RKCB, hear 5♥ from me (2 aces without the queen) and by that time, he should try the grand. From his point of view: If I have 6 clubs with AQ, he has 4 sure discards (unblock club king, cross by diamond ruff, ruff a club, draw trumps and pitch 3 spades and one diamond on the clubs that now pull against 4:2 break. If I have 7 clubs to the ace, 1 ruff will be enough with clubs breaking 3:2, with 4-1 break it is still possible with hearts 2:2 for sure. And if I happen to have 5 clubs only, the likelihood of me having something extra (like spade king or solid clubs) is pretty good.

Hmm, z dalky to vypada na toho, jak se jmenuje... Culbertsona :) Zahraju damu... kdyz ji sebere kral za, impasuju kluka. Dva zdvihy odevzam pouze pri deleni: KJxxx Jxxx-K x-KJxx xxx-KJ xx-KJx Neuspech: 3.9% za 5:0 (3.9) 14%*0.2 za 1:4 se singl kralem (2.8%) 14%*0.6 za 1:4 s obema figurama za (8.4%) 34%*0.4 za 3:2 (dubl kral) *0.25 (kluk u dubl krale) (3.4%) 34%*0.6 za 2:3 (treti kral) *0.5 (kluk u krale) = (10.2%). Celkem mi to vychazi 28.7% na neuspech tohohle zahrani. Impas do devitky je urcite horsi. Dalsi mozne zahrani je bouchnout esem a pak malou k desitce. Pri 5:0, kdyz obrance s KJ nenaskoci, dopadnu stejne pri 4:1 s KJxx se nic nemeni (akorat to bude na druhe strane). Jeste chytnu tu variantu Jxxx-K (at je kral kdekoliv), takze o 2.8% lepsi. KJx-xx davam dva zdvihy jako predtim za xx-KJx, jeste davam dva zdvihy v pripade Jx-Kxx (34%*0.4 kluk v dublu * 0.75 kral naproti) (10.2%), naproti tomu nedam dva zdvihy pri moznosti xxx-KJ (3.4%). Takze tahle metoda mi vychazi oproti puvodnim 28.7% + 10.2 - 3.4 -2.8, takze 32.7 na neuspech... (Vsechno samozrejme vychazi z toho, ze souperi NEMARKUJI pocet a prihazuji v tempu). Takze bych hral damu kolem stolu a kdyz nepodrzi, impas na kluka. Zapomnel jsem na nejakou pravdepodobnost? Nebo na nejakou lepsi moznost?