G-Bear

Discarding and signaling in a suit to which you are following suit are two different animals. They are not the same thing. So there is no conflict between Revolving Discards and your partnership agreed signals for attitude or count or suit preference when following suit. Signaling and discarding are two different pieces of a defensive strategy. Even if you play Lavinthal discards, you still play standard, UDCA, Odd/Even, or whatever type of signals partnership agrees to. You don't use Lavinthal for suit preference when returning a suit for partner to ruff or when signaling in a suit to which you are following suit and you certainly don't worry about it if you play Revolving either.

A better question is why did it bid 2♠ with only a 4-card suit over your reverse. Why not bid 3NT, take a preference to 3♦ or cue-bid clubs if it wouldn't bid NT? I would have taken the 4♣ bid to be showing a control in clubs, which it obviously didn't have. Playing in 5♠ is a crime when the hand is cold for 6♦.

I doubt if GIB considers what the opening lead means depending on the auction. Maybe an expert player would consider the implications of the opening lead vs the bidding, but not GIB.

Good point. I wonder what the opposing GIBs would have done?

Playing ACBL MP Robot Tournament I made a penalty double of opps 3♥ bid and GIB not only pulled the penalty double, but jumped to game in spades, which had no play. According to the meaning of the double (biddable hearts) after I had already shown limit raise values and the North GIB also had the opps ♥K, why would the GIB pull the double. We would have been +800 if the North GIB had made its usual lead of the singleton ♥K Tourney 7243-1289589301

[hv=pc=n&s=sjhkt8dakq632ct54&w=s8532ha62d75cak82&n=sakq4h974dj4cqj63&e=st976hqj53dt98c97&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=p1ddrp2dppp]399|300[/hv] This was played in an ACBL MP Robot tournament. How can GIB pass my 2♦ bid with 13 HCP? I'm in 2♦+1 while 3NT+1 is cold as the cards lie. The redouble should promise at least one more bid by North.

It took your 3♠ as 19+ points, nothing about distribution. With a total partnership holding of 27+ HCP, GIB doubled for penalty assuming that opps were never going to make 4♠ with only 13 HCP. Look at what GIB takes your bid to mean by letting your mouse hover over the bid before you click on it if you are not sure. Click on your 3♠ bid in bradley's hand diagram above to see.

I have run into the same situation several times. And you are correct about the NT opening bids. I checked the hand results after one ACBL Robot tourney and found out that the best score on one hand was where the human South opened 2NT with a singleton ♦Q while most of the field was opening with 1♥. True, the hand had the required HCP for 2NT, but with a 5-card major and singleton Q, opening 2NT just goes against good bridge.

Good point. Last night bidding at my table was 1♣-1♥-4♥ all pass and at some other tables it was 1♣-1♥-4♦(splinter)-4♥ all pass. Same opening trump lead by the East GIB, but the GIB playing the hand played at my table making 4 and at other tables played differently making 5. So I got a poor score.

[hv=n=sh543dak98ckqj963&s=sak10xhaxdqxxxcaxx]133|200|[/hv] I think the bidding could have gone: W N E S 1N 2♥ 2♠ P 2N P 3♦ P 3♥ P 3♠ P 4N P 5♠ P 6♣ If your 3♦ is a cue bid (and a slam try), then partner should have cooperated and cue bid the ♥A. Then you could have cue bid ♠s. Holding both the ♠AK, partner would know you must be void and can now use RKCB to check for controls and bid the slam.

More important than whether to open 1♠ or 2♣ is "What are your partnership agreements, understandings and style? What does your partner expect if you open 2♣? My vote is for 1♠, which promises a 5-card suit and 12-21 points which is exactly what you have after you downgrade the hand. The downgrades (IMHO) include: 1. Singleton ♣A (I don't like singleton aces until I know more about pard's hand) 2. ♥QJx which are overvalued unless partner has something in hearts (if the QJ were in the spade or diamond suit I would like the hand a lot better) 3. Not a very strong spade suit for a 2♣ bid