joshs

Judging from a bunch of master solver club hands the auctions: 1X-(1Y)-1N and 1X-(1Y)-2N Are suppossed to be balanced/semibalanced hands (most importantly provide 2 card support for partner's suit). Its funny that when these unbalanced hands comes up, you actually see the vote exactly split between an initial pass and an initial NT bid, with the initial NT bidders admitting they are off shape but prefer to show the values immediately. I guess half the voters secretely do not like the treatment that free NT bids are suppossed to show tolerance for partner's suit. Personally, I am from the pass and wait school on these hand types. Yes on rare occasion the opps play in their 5-0 fit at the 1 level when you can make 3N. On the other hand since a different suit is being led, you may not have that suit well taken care of.... I just don't like accelerating the auction on a misfit hand. You often can take less tricks than your point count indicates on these misfits. Another example auction: (1C)-1H-(1S)-1N I think that the 1N bidder should just about always have 2 hearts. The main reason to bid NT yourself, instead of passing and defending is to encourage partner to compete the hand on a weak but distributional hand, or try for game on a strong and distributional hand. Beating the opps to NT is only a minor part of the reason to bid (say white vs white).

LOL. The good news was that if you bid 2S the auction would have gone: P-P-2S-P-P-3S(I have a stopper, bid 3N with a long running suit)-P-3N B)

Facenating. I thought pass and 4N were the only options. Bidding a 3 card spade suit at the 4 level strikes me as silly, unless you were paid by the opponents or somehow wanted a minus score. The main question is what 4N means. I think its both minors with longer diamonds. 5C shows a 5 card suit. If someone wants to convince me that 4N is natural, then I am all ears... Also its possible that if you never open 1D with 4D and 5C, that 4N would show 6-4 and 5C might only be 5-4. If my partner will truely pass 4H with Hxx in hearts and a 12 count and will only x with shortness or lots of transferable values (i.e. its really for takeout), then I will bid 4N (I have such partners). Otherwise I am passing. I actually prefer the style where x really is takeout oriented...

Careful generalizing that way! The first two people I gave this problem to (both 'stars') each gave a different plan than any of your three. One passed then made a big jump in clubs (he wanted to double then big jump in clubs but was worried something like 1♣ x 2♦ 4♠ p ? would leave him no such option.) The other one overcalled 1♥, a choice that I find curious but I can see why he did it. FWIW, if you are going to blast, I think 5♣ is at least five times more likely to make than 3NT, even given that it's two tricks higher. You have two small singletons opposite a partner known to be weak, and no reason to assume a club lead from LHO who is short in the suit into the 2+ opening bid. 5 times more likely?? Since my instinct was that 3N was more likely to make (maybe not double dummy), I would be curious to see a simulation. Where exactly are the 2 small hearts going to go in 5C? So marshall overcalled 1H. Thats typical for him, but not for most everyone else... As to 1C-P-1S-P 2S-5C I don't understand why you wouldn't bid 3S here instead of 5C. Its not long strong diamonds, or a big red suiter or 5H and 5C since you could have bid the first time with any of those... On other auctions you will have to bid clubs (or x 1N) having passed the first time.

1. Opener gets most of the blame. Yes responder coulkd have made a stronger splinter (its right on the bubble) north has an easy last train bid... 2. I am a passer. 4D could be a 800 phantom, x could lead to 2 overtricks, since its not our hand I am not that willing to invest imps into the slight chance that it can help us go plus. 3. I guess I pass. You don't get rich from red/white saves, although maybe no one will know you are saving. 4. Can I get to slam? 1C-x-1H-1S 2C-3C(its unclear what a jump in hearts is, since 2H is natural, I think jumps should be splinters, but why do this to partner? since he may think that it just shows a great suit)-P-3S 4D-P-4H-P 4N-P-5D(1)-P 6S 5. 2N is a 2N bid on values (about 11 HCP) usually with 5 spades but not much in the spade suit and probably not balanced. I expect something like: JTxxx KQx AJxx x

I think there are three plans: Plan a: Pass then After 1S-2S bid 3S, but after other autions you may be stuck Plan b: Immediate 3N Plan c: Immediate 5C I think none of these will result in a scientific auction, where you can diagnosis weakness opposite one of your stiffs (or know that you can cover your slow heart losers in 5C) Since I don't think I can get more info, I don't want the opps to get more info, so I will just blast 3N.

This is one of the reasons that I don't really like opening 1C on 4432 shape, rasing partner suddenly has risk. Having said that I will bid normally here, since the 2 card holding is pretty rare. Its very close between 2C and 2S. I would probably opt for 2C but I don't feel strongly about it. I don't really want to play 2N opposite a 12-13 balanced hand with only a single spade stopper...

Let me invent a method: First: 2D-2S Forces 2N then Normal methods except 2S then 3H is INV with spades. 2D-2H: Forces 2S then 2N Shows Clubs Weak or Strong (4 level rebid) OR an INV 5-5 with clubs and a higher (3 level rebid) 3C Shows Diamonds weak or Strong OR an INV 5-5 with diamonds and a major 3D Shows 6S and 4H INV 3H Shows 5S and 5H INV 3S Choice between 4S and 3N And Direct 2N or higher: 2N Distributional 1 suited Slam Try 3C Asks partner to x-fer into his suit (3S=C), next bid shows shortage 3C INV Bid 3N with a good fit 3D INV Bid 3N with a good fit 3H 4144 GFing 3S 1444 GFing There are many possible alternate schemes. Perhaps concentrating on showing singletons instead of all the invites?

Boye and Ish have been playing together for 2 years are part of Rita Shugart's team.

Well Fantunes play weak x-fer responses to their 1C opening followed by some multi-meaning bids (or are they relays?), I think, since their english is not that good, I had trouble completely understanding their 1C-1D-1H auction when I played them in the Open BAM in denver.

ROFL. We designate you, master of leads out of turn.

Keep in mind that this event has serious system restrictions, so some pairs can't play there normal methods.

I agree that the auction 1m-jump shift is less successful on OKB than on BBO. I do not agree that weak jump shifts are less successful on OKB than on BBO. Sadly Stephen, you don't seem to understand the difference between those two statements.....

This summer in chicago, we will go to my favorite pizza place- Pizzeria Due at Wabash and Ontario.

A good way of giving a method exposure is to first let it be played for longer matches (especially swiss teams) and then as people become "less scared of it" allow it for pairs movements. I expect this to be a natural process, as long as methods are approved for swiss teams. If things are only allowed only in the top flights of KO's they will never get enough exposure for people in the rank and file to be able to say "oh x-fer opening bids, lets play the suggested defense" and move on in pairs movements. Also, players are less likely to want to start playing the methods if they can't play them very often. Its a lot of work to have 2 fundamentally different systems (this is very different from a convention like a multi which can be inserted into your system, here your whole system goes out the window without x-fer opening bids). This is a triple wammy, since less people will play the methods AND they get less exposure AND you can play them in few events, so few new players will want to play the methods or be comfortable playing against the methods....

Well I know why that is. If you agree to play the OKB 2/1 convention card (possibly the most commonly played system on okb) you have agreed to play strong jump shifts. The most frequent disaster I saw over the years of playing on okb was the auction 1m-P-2M-All pass when responder correctly had a strong jump shift and opener thought it was a weak jump shift. Then there are all the auctions where opener strained to keep the bidding alive over 2M just in case it was a strong jump shift. Both players not playing the same agreements always results in bad results.

Actually I think its takeout, at least moderate extras. But as with most other x's you can make some offshape x's if you are strong enough to bid again and can handle the auction. In the auction 1C-P-1S-2H P-P-x I would expect a minimum of about a 9 count here, with takeout shape. Maybe an 8 count will do with a singleton in hearts.

I did not try swapping the natural overcall and the michaels bid with the 2000 hands. I think I thought briefly about it but decided that it was riskier and I didn't really want to change the meaning of any bids that you could have made over a natural opener, in order to keep the defense as simple as possible. It does merit a study, since the michaels hand may be more frequent than the natural overcall, especially over the 1H opening which denies holding 4 hearts. And yes, my original suggested defense to 1C-P-1H(spades) was x=hearts 1S=a hand that would have xed 1C-P-1S 2H=Weak 2 in hearts x then freebid of 2H=Intermediate 1N,2C,2S=However you play them over 1C-P-1S This is basically what most people play except some people prefer: 2H=Intermediate with hearts x then freebid of 2H=Strong with Hearts Again, I haven't actually done a study of this auction either....

I am offended. Pizza should be givenly freely to all, and not as part of a capitalistic reward system. :blink:

I will re-submit my defenses one of these days. I am just still sore about what happened the first time around, both from the time and effort I put into this, and from being very unhappy from a process standpoint about what happened to my friends. As to natural over the x-fer openings. I believe these results were partially TOSR specific artifacts. We open 1D showing hearts even with a much longer side suit. AKQJxx xxxx xx x is a 1D opening showing hearts. If you can't show hearts directly here, your next chance will be at the 3 level (since opener will rebid 2S with this hand), and you need both a great suit and good strength to make that bid. Hands like xx AQJxx AQxx xx get totally shut out. Lets just say, Ira Rubin would be proud of our opening major suit bids (he loved opening suits of quality at least as good as 2345). This really was not that big of a deal at mps, but at imps the occasional bid swings associated with stealing the opps major were more important than some of the swings you saw from other methods. Again, because of the canape nature of our opening bids, certain hand types for the opps, like 4 in the other major and 6 in a minor, were a bit less common than they were over a natural 5 card major opening bid, and they only worked better than a takeout x or natural overcall some of the time. I really don't remember the exact statistics here, just that these really didn't seem to happen very much. I actually didn't do a detailed study of the best defense to x-fers over 1C when I submitted a defense for that (the obvious one). Here your major suit length is slightly higher than in tosr for the x-fer opener, but since your strength is lower on average your suit quality is probably worse on average. A natural overcall, and 2 suited x is a reasonable defense, I just haven't studied it in any detail. Neither have I studied any 2 suited defense. Some results will depend on how many balanced hand types are put into the 1C opening.

Up the creek with no paddle you mean?

Jan Thanks for your post, I can't speak about Moscito, but the current incarnation of TOSR was modified from some methods that were played downunder by me so that a. it coforms to the letter and spirit of the mid-chart b. so that unusual auctions either fit into the category of 1. Strong Auctions (Game Invivational or better, and the game Invitational auctions become natural at the second round of the auction) 2. Isomorphic (in an obvious way) to a general chart auction with a natural opening I actually put a great deal of time into this project. Time which it turns out I should have put into my career or other things since the ACBL made it all a waste of my time. I also put extensive time into developing good defenses. I looked at well over 2000 hands (5 years ago) for each opening bid and investigated a number of meanings for the interveners bids. When results were close, I selected the easier/more natural sounding defense. It may interest people to know that over the 1D and 1H x-fer opening bid (showing 4+ hearts and 4+ spades) the best uses for x and the 1 level "cue bid" were a. x=natural, e/g the suit xed and the cue-bid is the takeout x b. x=the takeout x, and the cue-bid = sound hand with 5+ cards in opener's suit! All other uses for the extra bid (including 12-14 balanced, or a raptor hand etc) were inferior to these two. My orginal submission to the ACBL actually included the 12-14 balanced defense as an alternate defense because people seem to like these sorts of things over multi, but personally I found that despite occuring very often it didn't gain much when it did occur. You also have to play a lot of responsive type x's on the second round of the auction to make this effective at all. Defenses a and b were about equal at imps (over 1D b was slightly better, and over 1H a was slightly better). Defense a was better at mps. I decided that since later x's of ART bids in the middle of a relay sequence should be natural, that there was a strong reason to be consistant and use defense a since the principle "x's of ART bids show the suit xed" is easy for people to understand, to use defense a as the main suggested defense. Having said that, I discovered that playing 1S(minors)-x as spades was enough inferior to playing it as takeout for the majors that I made an exception in that case. Otherwise with the sort of hands that would x a natural 1 of a minor opening (or a precision 1D bid) you had to commit to the 2 level, or pass. (I think I might have included the natural x as an alternate defense, I can't remember) Further in the wierd auctions like: 1D(H)-P-2C(weak and not forcing) I discovered that playing x as a 3 suited takeout was much better than playing it as a two suited takeout, so thats the suggested defense. I am sure many other system designers did not go to the effort that I did, but I did go to this effort....

We are cool, just talking bridge bro :-) It's a pitty my name is not Josh, otherwise we can form a club of Joshes and rule the world, imagine you Jdonn and me... Well Josh-Josh-Luis already form a cool team. I think we need a second Luis, and then play as a team :)

That is correct. In some auctions (1C-1H-3C or 1S-1N-3S where you count your points and you length and strength in partner's suit your hand evaluation is not as precise as after 1N-4N or 1C-1S-3D(mini-splinter) when you know whichs cards are working and which aren't. But its still esentially a quantitative evaluation. I honestly think most auctions in bridge involve the answering the question, do I have a better hand for partner than what I have shown previously, and if so, how much better.... BTW Luis, I apologize for the tone of my previous post. I am writing from work, and often trying to get in a quick post between work assignments, and sometimes just blurt something quickly, perhaps in frusteration that I haven't been getting my point across. On a final matter, I e-mailed my regular partner (Marc Umeno) and at least we were in sink on what bids meant. It doesn't mean we are right, but its good to be in sink with your partners. :P He said over 1C-P-1D-3D "3h,3s, 4c, 3nt are natural; 4d is a heart raise or a good hand with a lot of clubs, X is cards". OK he could have said more, like how strong 3S is for instance. I suspect we would be in sink there also, but let me find out... Hey Fred, with Brad does 4D agree hearts, or can it be a moose with Clubs as well?

No opener doesn't want to play 4C he wants to be able to invite game on a hand the would have opened 1C and rebid 3C (a very common hand). That player doesn't want to play 3C either. He wants to invite a game without forcing to game. So you are giving him the choice between overbidding by 2 levels or selling out? I don't believe in invitations when pd doesn't have the information he needs to take an educated decision. If 4♣ is an invitation when is pd supossed to pass and when is he supossed to bid 5 ? Maybe he flips a coin or something? Invitations may be fine when you ask pd to pass or accept based on some criteria, I hte general invitations, pd will always bid game when in doubts and since he will always be in doubt in this auction then the 4♣ bid becomes forcing. Luis Thats nice. And somehow you flip a coin on the auction 1N-4N and occasionally get it right? Apology for sarcastic tone found 2 posts down... :P