Vilgan

True. first poll I think I've posted. scoring is matchpoints The side bidding 2 spades is vulnerable, the other side is not. From what I understand, the partnership has an agreement that 2 NT here is the minors.

The auction goes: 1♣ - P - 1♠ - P 2♠ - P - P - ? I thought this one was obvious but it caused a major disagreement at the table. Your hand is: Kx x T98xx KJT9x Your bid? Edit: didn't realize codes didn't work in the poll questions itself. [CL ] = clubs and [DI ] = diamonds.

This seems way too complex to ever be quantifiable. Suppose 1 line is technically 2% better, is that the correct decision? What if there are inferences that can be made that suggest the other line is the one that is actually correct? Also, table feel can frequently sway a decision significantly more than a slight superiority of percentages. I agree with the other poster.. this is one thing that bridge master excels at. You can polish your skills and figure out the technically superior choice every time. However, knowing the technically correct play does not guarantee superior performance at the bridge table. There is a lot more to bridge than just wrong/right decisions and knowing %'s. Then again.. maybe I'm missing the point of this <_< Eric

Played pretty horribly Friday, but one of the commentators mentioned during the hand that we should have made a shape ask to explore slam possibilities. The auction began 2♣ (precision) 2♦ (artificial, plz further define your hand) 2♥ (also have 4 hearts) ? This is where one of the people who was commenting on vugraph said the north hand should make some kind of shape query to find out if my partner had a singleton. What is a good follow-up agreement to have that sets hearts as trump and asks for shortness? Currently we just sort of bid naturally, our slam bidding after a 2♣ opener is not the best. My hand was something like xx A9xxx ATxx AJ and the lack of anything in spades made me cash out at 4 hearts when partner has a singleton spade and we made 6. Thanks for any helpful pointers :huh: Eric (edited to fix hand to actual holding)

Huh? Of what possible relevance can that be? Over calling a good 4 card suit has almost always been the correct choice for me, and there is no need to pretend to be at Mike's level. Saying you need to be a high level player who puts some time in to play something like relay precision might make sense, but a sensible general scheme like over calling a nice 4 card suit makes sense for anyone. Besides, the 4-3 can frequently be the best place to play a game contract or... in rare circumstances... a slam contract (and pray for the 4-2 or better break :P). Nothing new here I guess, was just astounded to see a comment like that in these forums. Eric

Heh similar story to Josh's, except it was done intentionally. RHO had been bitching at LHO significantly for the last two boards. On 3rd and final board, they end up in 6 spades and dummy hits with ATxxxx. When pulling the trump suit, lefty played a small spade, partner followed, LHO thought for a bit and called for the T and my hand pitched (being void). He then called for the A and dropped partner's sole remaining spade.. the jack. RHO nearly had a stroke on the spot (they'd already lost a side suit ace) but he did shut up.

I play 10-13 NT's, and the NT is only partly preemptive. It is also great in that it describes your hand quickly to your partner so they can start doing things. Opening the NT here makes it harder for the opps to find spades, but it also makes it harder for your side to judge what strain to compete in if it becomes a partscore battle. If you have a system that can show the 4 hearts AND the 5 diamonds I would do that rather than open 1 NT. You have a suit oriented hand (aces) with shape. If describing the shape is going to be difficult if you get a spade overcall, I would open 1 NT. Hardly an expert.. but been playing weak NT's a while. G'luck :D Eric

Guess I'm too young/optimistic, but it seems like partner could have many hands that would decline a 4H slam invite where slam is cold, many more where it has play, and some where we'd be opening ourselves up. Exclusion seems a bit overly committal, okay now that I know partner has 0 aces.. what do I do now? Even if he has 1.. I can't really blast to 7 even knowing that. So it seems like the 4♥ and then 5♥ approach works best. If they have anything at all they'll go (assuming your not prone to overbidding) and if not, we'll stop in 5♠. Every once in a while.. 5♠ won't make, but there are soooooo many ways slam can make here it seems tragic to stop in 4♠ without even trying. Eric

I'm kind of looking forward to this. Hoping to play against lots of people who play multi, so we can get used to defending against it. Eric

Heard a lot of things I find rather questionable at the online ACBL tournaments... is this actually accurate? "You must prealert strange carding such as UDCA or odd/even discards". Huh? Since when is that "strange", and why would it need to be pre alerted. Convention cards work here just like in f2f. After a director is called: "You should have pre alerted the fact you have variable NT ranges." Huh? recurring theme here... if its not required in f2f bridge, why do we suddenly have to pre alert fairly common things like this? (All NT openers were alerted correctly). I questioned the director as to why it would require a pre alert and got no response. "This is not the place for strange methods like precision. This is a GCC ONLY event." This happened a few months back actually. Is there any actual fact/basis to any of the above comments? Maybe I'm a bit biased because it seems like they never do anything other than sub people in. Just seems like a lot of things are invented because they feel like it, not because it is correct. Eric

Had an interesting auction when filling it at a 0-50 game tonight. Auction went: P - 1 NT - X - XX 1♥ - P (1) - P - X (2) P - 1♠ - p - 1 NT all pass 1: passed before realizing it was insufficient, thus accepting the 1H call 2: meant as penalty So the question after the auction was: whose lead is it now? North bid 1NT first, but south then bid 1NT himself (rather than raising NT). The direction (my gf, very new at this tbh) said south's 1NT replaced the 1NT bid by north so therefore it was west's turn to lead. Neither of us had a good idea where to look for the law.. and nobody was too worried about it anyways. After the fact though, whose lead is it really after the above auction? If you know, do you happen to know which law or whatever clarifies it? Was a bit interesting, and I was hoping to learn *for sure* for future reference as I hadn't seen this come up before. Thanks! Eric

I played this with one of my partners. With us, and with everyone else I know who plays it.. it was always referred to as a fragment bid. 1NT 3H = 3 spades, 1 heart, 5/4 in minors. Eric

heh, in my experience.. those rating themselves advanced are usually much more accurate in their self rating than those rating themselves expert. It might be a bit inflated, but frequently the self rated "advanced" are stronger than the self rated "experts". It seems like advanced= know what I'm doing, have learned a lot, sometimes play very well, have done well in some f2f events. expert = anything from someone who thinks 1nt 2c is natural to a damn good player. Eric

Was about a year ago that someone really beat into me that you don't splinter with strong hands (after we missed a slam). Thus.. as many people mentioned, way too strong for a splinter. However, I'd expect partner to have some super long spade suit, and a void in clubs or diamonds for his leaping 6 spade bid. Anything else could be bid a bit more scientifically. Eric

hrmm... not sure if I agree. slam makes opposite a variety of very light holdings. For example, give partner: xxxx Tx xx Kxxxx and 6 hearts is good if diamonds go 3/2 or xxxx xx xxx Kxxx and 6 diamonds makes if 2/2 or KQ onside 3/1 or xxxx Tx xxx Kxxx and 6 diamonds is a near lock or xxxx xx xxx xxxx makes 6 diamonds as long as diamonds are 2/2 and hearts 4/2 or better Not saying all roads lead to slam, but there are a TON of 2-3 hcp point hands that partner could have and make 6 of a red suit a favorite to make.

What would you open (3rd seat), and what would you plan to bid after interference on: void AKQJx AJT98x AT I decided to open 1♦. I had some problems now when the auction went 2♠ P 3♠. I tried 5♥, hoping partner would pick a red suit at the 6 level. She did prefer hearts, but chose not to bid 6 on xx Txxxx xx Qxxx. What would the common interpretation of that 5♥ bid have been, and given that interpretation, does it call for a raise to 6? Otherwise, what is a better way to bid the hand? If I open 1♥, I don't have any problems forcing the auction to the 6 level (can bid 6♦ whenever I want). However, I could get a preference back to hearts if partner holds 3 small in both.. while the hand will be less painful in diamonds. Also, if partner has 2 small in both red suits.. 6 could be too high. Alternatively, I could open 2 clubs... then bid 4NT over 3 spades. If partner bids clubs, I can correct to diamonds which (I believe) should show a strong 2 suiter in the reds. However, will either of us be able to bid 6 on the given auction? Its also a bit riskier with her playing hearts as well since a club lead through me is more likely imo (Obviously not worried about spades). Anyways, would appreciate advice on opening and agreements for the followup bids. Not exactly an obvious slam that the whole field was in, but would like to deal with this situation better in the future. Eric

I would never consider 6 NT on that hand. Partner is at least 5/5.. good chance of 6/5 to bid like that. I might cue bid 4H instead of bidding 6 clubs. Good to make it to a slam :huh: To be honest.. with the 6/6 hand, if my partner suddenly leapt to 6 clubs when I've promised nowhere near the AKxxxx x void AKxxxx monster that I do have... I'm going to be very tempted to bid 7. All I really need from partner is the heart A, 3 trump (although 4 should be very likely) and reasonable breaks in the black suits. With 4 trump (more likely) I can handle many of the nasty break possibilities. Eric

First 6/6 I've picked up in a while, with a fun auction and result. More of an issue as to what to bid with LHO cards, as he had to make the guess blind on the 5 level. I opened 1♦ in first seat with: -void- Q AT8xxx AQTxxx Auction then proceeded to go: 1♦ 1NT P 2♥(xfer) 5♣ ?? His hand was: KQJx AKx Qxx Jxx What would you do with this hand everybody white? You have at least a 9 card fit (actually a 10 card fit).. but no roughing value. You also have no idea how strong partner is. He chose to bid 5♠, at which time which I doubled and it got passed out. partner tabled her singleton club, I won my queen, A, returned a small one for a rough, got my A of diamonds (RHO had the stiff J).. exited Q hearts, and she eventually got her jack of hearts at the end. It seems rather rare that the hand with 24 HCP and a 10 card spade fit can't come close to making anything, whereas the 16 HCP 9 card fit easily makes 5♦. He was annoyed at himself for bidding 5 spades... but imo.. even flat it still takes some serious restraint to let the opps play 5♦ undoubled. Okay not any serious cool "omg how do you play this crazy squeeze" hand, but was kind of a fun shape vs HCP + spades hand. Eric

Hrmm... MP at unfavorable I'm going to be very tempted to just open 6 spades, to prevent the opps from finding out that they might have a good save in the minors. Going to be hard to bid the hand scientifically, and nothing sucks more than having a beautiful auction.. confirming you should be in 6 spades, and then the opps save at 7 of a minor. At imps or at equal/favorable vuln, I'll start with 1H, planning to reverse into spades. It gives me more time to describe strength/shape (no need to leap to 3 level). Also, if partner bids hearts at any point I can leap to 5♦ for exclusion. I do play 1430 over exclusion, but if partner has 0.. I'm okay with being in spades :P This hand does make me think that perhaps 3014 over exclusion might be worth considering tho. If 1♥ is passed out, I'll want to cry.. but RHO should have a 5 card minor and therefore have an easy balance. Also if RHO balances with 1NT, I'll feel really good about the HK being onside for 6 spades assuming I can ever hit his hand :P Eric

sort of a bump cause this was a cool thread till it got off task with a debate about a specific book. Sooooo... books I have read recently (lot of books rather than an in depth review of 1): Matchpoints, by Kit Woolsey: A. Very very useful book, and was especially helpful to me as I have started moving from being an imps player to also being able to play matchpoints well. It is well written, interesting, and had a lot of valuable information for the right target audience (prob about intermediatish). Worth buying/reading imo. I Fought the Law by somebody: One of the most useless books I have ever read. It spends a lot of time attacking the LoTT, acts like this is revolutionary, but really doesn't actually have much to say as a book. The law is not perfect!! oh my god. I think everyone in today's world knows that the LoTT is a guideline only, to assist in judging competitive auctions. Maybe its just because I read this book in 2007 rather than back when it was first published, but imo this book was a complete waste of time and I would not recommend it to any bridge player. How the Experts Win at Bridge: A very fun and interesting read. Probably (again) best for intermediates, but I think people at all skill levels can appreciate it and get something out of it. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has not read it, regardless of skill level. Competitive Bidding in the 21st Century: Fairly useless. I made it 3/4 of the way through the book and didn't find much new. This book could be summed up with about one sentence: "Bid more aggressively". Other than pages and pages of examples suggesting you bid more (although it does caution against bidding more on certain types of auctions), this book didn't have much to it. The Weak NoTrump: How to Play it, How to Play Against it: As mentioned in a different thread, I found this book to be fairly useless for a serious player interested in playing a weak NT. It is good for a novice who wants to try out a weak NT and has no real idea how to start, but it lacks on useful information.. and also makes some (imo) very bad suggestions. The hardest (again, imo) of weak NTs... bidding after you open 1m with a strong NT and there is competition is completely ignored in the book. The Modern Losing Trick Count: VERY useful book. I'd consider this book to be an essential part of any bridge library. It outlined the entire concept of losing trick count, how to use it, how not to use it, and it also had some other cool stuff to improve your bidding. Its not easy to read cover to cover, but it is extremely useful and should be read by all bridge players at some point as they start to cross from novice to intermediate or beyond. Bridge Squeezes for Everyone: VERY good squeeze book. Was the main tool I used to learn what squeezes were, how to pull them off, etc etc. Its a book I will go back and periodically reread, as it is very well written and a VERY good book on squeezes. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn about squeezes or improve their knowledge on recognition and execution of squeeze opportunities. Anyways, might not be the most in depth of reviews.. but thought I'd add to the voice of books to read. This thread was pretty helpful when I was looking for books to read and figured it deserved a bump. Eric

Hrmm, guess the reason I'm debating it being natural is that (at least for us) it is not possible for responder to have an invitational hand opposite that sequence. P (max of 10) 1♦ 1♥ 1NT (11-13 balanced) So at this point, game is not possible.. and hence having a bid which is invitational seems completely pointless. Especially with precision, 2♣ might be the best spot. For example, if opener is 3244 in shape and responder has 1525 shape.. best spot would be 2 clubs. It should still promise 5 hearts, but it does seem like it ought to be passable or 2♣ becomes impossible to find. Granted, this is a systemic thing.. since we open all 11's and play a 14-16 NT (when vulnerable at least). Maybe not a great discussion point, was just curious if some people played NMF but only by an unpassed hand.. which it sounds like at least a couple do.

Playing precision and 14-16 NT, is a new minor still NMF by a passed hand, or simply natural (and hence passable). Had the following auction come up with opps silent: P - 1♦ - 1♥ - 1NT - 2♣ It seems like the 2♣ bid (by a passed hand) should be natural. If you have 5 and are like 5/3/3/2, you should just pass in case you push the partnership too high. With 6 you can rebid your suit. With 5 hearts and say... 4-5 clubs, you can bid 2♣, which can be passed, pulled back to diamonds, or pulled back to hearts. My partner and I hadn't discussed it, but are leaning towards NMF only being biddable by unpassed hands. Just thought I would see if others do this as well, since it wasn't mentioned in description of NMF I looked up earlier. Thanks for any insight :) Eric

Own opinion here, although I think its fairly standard: 1a: game, since you don't have texas available to go directly to 4 spades. promises 6 spades. 1b: slam interest in spades. May only have 6 spades, but good chance of 7+ 2a: keycard in spades probably. no real way to differentiate between keycard and invitational hands w/o texas. 2b: invitational, opener may pass, bid 5 spades, 6 spades, or 6 NT. 3a: keycard in spades, the texas and 4 NT followup sets spades as trump Eric

I agree with this, I also bought and read it, and felt after reading that I wish I hadn't bought it... I play the micro NT with my main partner and weak NT with my girlfriend, and so went ahead and read through the Weak NT book. I did not gain one single bit of useful information from this book. The things it suggests are either so blatantly obvious that a novice should know, or (imo) are frequently flawed. A few things that I personally disliked about the book: The suggested runout. While DONT is easy for people to remember... especially since some already play it against NT, its not (imo) an ideal runout. No mention of dealing with auctions where you have a strong NT but get interference after you open 1 of a minor. When to bid, when not to bid, etc. This is the most complex part of playing weak NT's (imo) and it was COMPLETELY ignored in the book. Suggesting systems on over 1NT X P is rather poor judgement imo. There are some who do this, but as someone who plays a weak NT a lot, I LOVE it when I see opps who do this. Now they can't escape to a minor short of the 3 level. Anyways.. obviously a lot of opinion stuff so YMMV, but just thought I'd add my voice to those that thought this book was useless. Eric

Hrmm... as a sidenote we were not allowed to make any argument. What happened was: director made a ruling, informed us that we may appeal if we wish. We indicated a desire to appeal. The director filled out our names on a form, and asked the person who lead the spade to sign his name in a certain spot showing his desire to appeal the ruling. The form was taken away. Later that evening we were informed of the committee's decision. We did not see the committee, were not offered a chance to meet with the committee, and were not (as far as I can tell) offered a chance to make any case whatsoever. If there was a time when we were supposed to fill out our exact disagreement with the ruling, it was explained or offered to us. The decision was based completely on the spade lead and apparently the opponents written description what happened. Not trying to say "omg, our appeal should have been granted", since I misunderstood the difference between logical alternative and logically equal. However, this time when we were supposed to "make that argument" did not exist.