msheald

It is a daylong, so no results till tomorrow. I suspect declarer played the queen of hearts on the first trick. If so, nothing wrong with that or with Gib's switch to a different suit on the second trick. It would just help me understand how Gib plays, both as a partner and as ops. Best regards. Mike

Hello! I think I'm missing something about robot play. Just curious. On this free day-long, when the 6 spades deal is pre-dealt, pre-bid, and the computer has the first lead, how can folks get 73% to my 27%? The robots take the first 3 tricks cold, so declarer is automatically down 2. I suppose declarer could play the queen of hearts on the first trick and that might cause anyone with under 5 master points to not lead the king of hearts on the second trick. However, should he lead the king and declarer plays another heart, a third heart lead probable for partner to possibly trump would be likely. Are other folks playing a different card distribution at 6 spades, perhaps to prevent forms of cheating? Or is there something in the lead algorithm that allows the robot to lead differently with different players even though everything is otherwise the same? Best regards. Mike https://tinyurl.com/2gmxdlxa

Thank you, all. My apologies. I was South. I did not catch that the hand viewer reversed the positions. Best regards. Mike

Hello! On a recent hand, I bid a support double, which was confirmed as such under the bid description. I presumed that this meant that the robot played support doubles? When robot rebid its suit, I was expecting 5 cards, and I was surprised to see 4 middling cards when the dummy laid down. Did I misinterpret its follow-up spade and NT bids? Of did my rebid of spades mean something different to the robot other than that I wanted to play in spades? Does the robot play support doubles? Best regards. Mike https://tinyurl.com/2f3kwcr5

Thank you for your note. Yes, I can see that as a take out double. Same concern though - a 5 clubs cue bid forces slam and preempts game, and I do not think north's hand is good enough to warrant that. Best regards. Mike

Hello! Thank you for your replies. I appreciate them. Sorry - the diagram reversed north and south, which I did not notice when I first posted it. This is a rather advanced discussion. As an intermediate player, I defer to my advanced colleagues if my reasoning is in error. I've put in bold my major points since the post is long. Basically, I feel that north's hand is too weak to bid 5 clubs cue bid over a penalty double since that forces slam. I preface my discussion with three points. First, this was a free game, so the robots were basic rather than advanced. Second, in my opinion, GIB (especially intermediate GIB) makes strange bids on occasion, and I, as the human player, have to take that into account when interpreting unexpected bids. And third, that all the human partner's I've had with play take out doubles through 3 spades and double for penalty over that. I considered my double in south carefully - gambling for penalty, but I like to gamble from time to time, even though robot deals tend to make those double unlikely to be good bids in my experience. Still, that adds spice to the game and helps me to learn. After north's initial pass, I figured it for 8 to 10 points, maybe up to 12 - enough to make a penalty double gamble worthwhile without the risk of trying to explore game that might not be there, or bidding the wrong game. I understood that north's 5 clubs bid was likely a cue bid. North cannot have a club suit since I have 4 and west likely has 8 of them. Additionally, a 5 club cue bid makes south bid at the 5 level and eliminates the possibility of a major suit game try, and so, likely represented a slam try. For me, considering the most likely card distributions, a game is more likely than a slam, so why would north prevent a game try when it had passed initially? I was left with a puzzling discrepancy. If north had 17+ points that would suggest a slam try (or a highly distributional hand), I would have expected something other than a pass at its first bid opportunity. After the 5 clubs cue bid, North should expect south to respond in spades as a natural bid since north only has to of them. With the lack of bidding space, cue bid responses by south become problematic, though doable with partnership agreement. North will not want to play in spades since south would have bid them if he had a good spade suit over the 4 clubs bid. As a result, 5 clubs likely means playing at the 6 level in hearts or diamonds. So, north would expect south to bid 5 spades (in the absence of cue bids), and north should expect to respond 6 diamonds (why go to 6 hearts since would require 7 diamonds by south if south does not have a heart fit? Additionally, south would still ask why north did not bid 4 hearts directly over 4 clubs if it had a good heart suit) and hope that south corrects to hearts if he does not have diamonds. As a result, since a 5 clubs bid would imply a slam try by north and, as south, if I had been expecting north to have a good enough hand in order to try for slam, I would not have expected north to pass over 4 clubs opening. A difficult bid for north, to be sure, since a double at that level would be for penalty. But that is the nature of bidding over preempts. That is why 5 clubs did not make any sense to me. For me, there were other ways to bid that would have been much less risky if north had the cards to support a slam try. In summary, I agree that north's cue bid of 5 clubs is a slam try, or rather, would result in a contract at the 6-level, which north should have anticipated when cue bidding clubs. However, in my opinion, if north had re-evaluated its hand after its initial pass and wanted to explore slam rather than game after a penalty double by south, I think a different cue bid at the 4 level would have been less risky and allowed more time to explore the best contract. (Any bid over a penalty double at the 4 level should be interpreted as a cue bid after an initial pass by that partner, in my opinion, as long as partnership agreement is that any double over 3 spades is for penalty.) So, I concluded that 5 clubs cue bid was too unusual for my taste and not something that I would have expected a human partner to do, so I passed and conceded 13 tricks and went onto the next hand. Thank you again for your consideration, comments, and teaching. I appreciate them. Best regards. Mike

No, GIB. I just passed and conceded 13 ricks when GIB did this. https://tinyurl.com/2oa63ust Mike

https://tinyurl.com/2qw92bhy I always thought a splinter by opener was a 4 diamond bid over partner's 1 level response, and a 3 diamond bid (1C-1S-3D) was natural showing a big hand and a good second suit in diamonds. See https://www.bridgebum.com/splinters.php. I guess robots play splinters differently that I do! Best regards. Mike

Thanks!

I'm just an intermediate player, so I defer to those with more experience, but I would think that the lead of singleton King of trumps may give up a trick. Declarers will typically conclude that they have to finesse for it, which would give defenders a trick since playing for the drop of the king as a singleton King of trump would be a very unlikely card distribution and declarer would have a low board most of the time playing for such a drop. Leading the king eliminates such a problem for declarer. Again, there may be another reason for defenders to lead a singleton King of Trumps, and I look forward to more experienced players chiming in. Best regards. Mike

Thank you, all, I appreciate the comments. Mike

Hello! This type of bidding seems to occur relatively frequently with me, so I do not understand GIB's logic and how to avoid it. GIB is a passed hand and in response to a my raise of my overcall (often non-vulnerable vs. vulnerable), GIB feels the need to jump to game. What might have been a reasonable sacrifice becomes a bottom board. If this were my human partner, I would explain that if he/she did not feel he/she could respond initially, he/she should not have responded after that. Why does GIB do this? Best regards. Mike https://tinyurl.com/2p4ny6ep

GIB does not double well. Op robot opened one diamond. 2 spade overcall by me and negative double by ops robot with my robot partner passed. Next thing I know, my partner robot doubled during each of the next two rounds - the first showing 4 HCP and the next 5 HCP, according to the bid description, showing 4 piddling hearts to the 10! I passed everything after my initial overcall. Robots don't seem to realize that a partner's pass is a very descriptive bid Somehow, if the hand was worth a pass over op robots negative double, I doubt that it was worth two doubles during the following two rounds. Mike

Hello! I agree. Another rude encounter. This is especially puzzling to me when it occurs in a free, 6-deal game when one has a different partner each hand. If such players cannot control themselves in such a game, I shudder to think how they act in other games! To be fair to the other player, I was likely more aggressive than I should have been given the deal and never having played together, but that does not excuse abuse. I put all such players on my ignore list and then reported them to BBO. It does not seem to help - a lot of abusive players out there. I used to just put them on my "ignore " list, but now I also report them to BBO in the hope that BBO might give them effective feedback so that such players might start to learn to control their comments and make BBO a pleasant experience for all of us. I like the idea of minimizing the chat window in such games since I would likely never play with the same partner in the future. Best regards. Mike

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Hello! Is it permissible to use a negative double after a weak 2 bid? My partner and I played an unusual hand. He opened a weak 2 spades bid. His LHO overcalled 3 hearts. I had 1-1-6-5 distribution. I used a negative double and hoped he would choose his best minor. He thought my bid was for penalty and left it in. We went down for a bottom board, while the hand actually made 4 clubs or 5 diamonds since since he had 6-1-3-3 distribution. He thought that it might be better to bid a suit rather than use a negative double since a negative double takes away the use of a penalty double. As responder, I thought that there would be an increased chance of bidding a suit that he was short in, especially since I would have had to bid it at the 4 level. So, there are pros/cons each way. We are discussing whether to use negative doubles in the case of overcall by ops of a weak 2 opening. I wanted to get folks opinions about the pros/cons of using it in such a way. Thank you and best regards. Mike

Hello! Thank you for your note. I think part of the problem comes from me not asking him at the time what the bid meant and what the expected point count and card length were. That way, there would not have been any misunderstanding about the bridge. When in doubt, ASK! That was my mistake, and I take ownership of my responsibility. I am puzzled about some of the comments, though. I am not claiming that I was cheated, but I was asking for folks' opinion of alert procedure in this situation for my own edification/education. As I noted above, I'll be more careful in asking about bid meanings in any situation that might seem a bit out of place. To clarify - unusual bids are called psych bids, and they are allowed infrequently in bridge. If a person does something unusual too often, that person can/should be reported to the Director since ops are ALWAYS entitle to know what a bid means (except for psych bids, which, by definition, do not mean what they seem to mean and are designed to deliberately mislead the opponents). Are folks are saying that this person's bid is unusual and should be classified as a psych bid? In that case, then I agree. There would be no expectation of alert. The only caveat is that a person who uses psych bids should be followed, and if he/she frequently uses psych bids, then that would require adjudication by the Director. That was one reason I asked the Director to be involved. If this person had a history of frequent use of psych bids, then adjudication by the Director would have been warranted. If it is being said that this bid was usual and customary, then I am asking for folks to weigh in - would enough people do a similar bid such that it would not be considered unusual or a psych bid? That is how preempts that do not need to be alerted get established - enough people play them with general agreement so that alerts are not needed. Unusual preempts would still need to be alerted since opponents are ALWAYS entitled to know what a bid means, and in BBO it is the bidder who alerts. I have been taught that bid categories are narrow. Either a bid is usual and customary, in which case it does not need to be alerted; unusual and with partnership agreement, in which case it needs to be alerted; unusual and obviously a sacrifice, in which case it does not need to be alerted; or a psych bid that does not have partnership agreement, in which case in does not need to be alerted since it would be considered a rare event. Please note that I am not including mistakes or weird bids here. We all do those from time to time, and usually the penalty for doing so is in the play of the hand. However, in those situations where a violation of the bid rules occurs when a mistake was made, penalties are applied by Director, even if the team suffered a poor board based on that play. Thank you for your comments. I can see that there are some differences of opinion about the need for alerting, and I appreciate the guidance. Best regards. Mike

Thank you for your note. I appreciate the input. It was a BBO ACBL tournament, Neither side was vulnerable. It is a question of when the level of aggressiveness exceeds ACBL standards for alerting. In BBO, the 4H bidder would be the one to alert the bid for ops, and his partner would not have seen the alert. Technically, we were entitled to know as much about the bid as the ops did and as much as the 4H bidder did. In this case, we did not because we assumed the 4H overcall was standard when it was actually significantly weaker than that. Upon review, it seemed like a bid whose aggressiveness exceeded ACBL standards. I realize that I might be wrong about the how. And if updated ACBL guidance is available, I would appreciate seeing that for my own education. I was using the following guidance. " PART I: NATURAL CALLS Most natural calls do not require Alerts. If the call promises about the expected strength and shape, no Alert is necessary. Treatments that show unusual strength or shape should be Alerted. As to length, ACBL accepts as NATURAL any offer to play in a suit for the first time that shows: (1)Three or more cards in a minor suit. (2) Four or more cards in a major suit. (3) Four or more cards for an overcall in a suit at the one level. (4) Five or more cards for a weak two-bid. (5) Six or more cards for a three-level preempt." If this guidance has changed, I would appreciate guidance so that I can "grow up." So the question is, would most people make a 4-level overcall in the second seat with the described hand? If not, then I think the bid should have been alerted. I do not think sacrifices need to be alerted. So, if this would be considered a sacrifice, it would not need to be alerted. However, typically sacrifices occur later in the bidding sequence and there is not doubt about that, which gives the opposing time an opportunity to rationally consider a double. Thank you again for your guidance. Best regards. Mike

Hello! In a game today, I opened 1 Diamond and my left hand op overcalled 4 Hearts. Everyone passed, and he went down 1 At the end of the game, it turned out he had 10 HCP with 6 hearts to the King and Queen, with 4 diamonds to the queen, 3 spades to the king, and a void in clubs. It turns out, it made 6 clubs our way (I had 5 diamonds and 4 clubs, and partner had 6 clubs) It seemed like 2 Hearts was the appropriate overcall. I asked the director about it, and he said it was a legal overcall. When I reviewed ACBL rules, it looked like it should have been alerted or been considered a psych bid. "NOTE: Partnerships whose systems include extremely aggressive methods, such as frequent use of four-card overcalls at the two level or higher, weak two-bids with bad five-card suits, or three-level preempts with bad six-card and/or most five-card suits must pre-Alert the opponents before the round begins." This was a 4-level preempt. A 3-level (3-heart bid) preempt would not have been alertable from my reading of the above. I think a sacrifice would have been fine at 4 hearts after partner bid/passed. However, I think ACBL guidance indicates that an alert should have been made or that it be considered a psych bid? What do you think? Best regards. Mike

Thank you! Mike

Hello! Just curious. It seems that robots do not lead from top of nothing on defense. I've had a number of hands where defending robots lead from bottom of a tripleton (or doubleton). Recently, for example, the robot led 3 spot from 8,5,3. This does not seem standard, especially when there is not other bidding information upon which to decide to lead the high card or low card. Is this a common lead for robots? Best regards. Mike

Thank you! Mike

Hello! In order to improve my play with robots, I was curious about scores of a recent day-long 8-hand free robot game, so I brought up the scores of the player with the highest score so that I might understand how he scored 85% overall. I am confused about the scores, and I would appreciate help understanding how percentile rank is calculated. On the first board, he bid 3NT, making 3 with a score of 400 point, ranking 92.16% I bid 3NT making 4 for 430 points, and my rank was 79.21% On board 6, he bid 2 spades, making 3 for 130 points and ranking 70.1% I bid 2 spades makes 3 for 130 points and ranking 59.94%. I am not sure why my percentile was so much less than his since it appears that I was as good as or better than his scores on these two hands. It looks like I am not interpreting the results and/or percentiles correctly, and I would appreciate guidance. Best regards. Mike

Thank you! That helps me understand the diagram/schematics. Mike

True. A 1NT bid by me would have been a better call since I had two stoppers in ops opener, so my double was an incorrect bid in this situation. I had a brain freeze! That happens to me at times at the end of a game. Thank you for clarifying that both partners see an opposing player's explanation (I presume that his partner would not.) Best regards. Mike