bid_em_up

Why not? What else can you possibly be using the bid for?

Who was it that said, "Never play me for a certain hand. I won't have it"? Kaplan? Kay? Partner also may hold x xxx xx KQJxxxx and look how much fun you are about to have....... This auction and hand pattern scream the hand is a likely misfit. Partner is quite capable of bidding 4S on his own if opener passes at this point. To bid 4S, says three things to me: 1) Partner, I dont trust you enough to do the right thing if I pass. 2) Man, I really like playing the hand and pass just isnt in my vocabulary. After all, I am 6/5, so I will bid even though 4S is a total misdescription of my hand. Partner doesnt need to know that I have a second 5 card suit. 3) I am such a poor defender, I can't stand to pass and find out if we can at least go plus on this hand. Maybe scoring even more than our game.

Sometimes playing assign the blame is a moot point. To me, there can only be ONE mistake in an auction. After that, everything else is based off the original mistake and cannot carry any "blame". The question really should be, what is the worst bid in the auction? I think if your 2/1 methods allow for the opening of weakish 6/5 hands in 1st/2nd seats, then partner must absolutely pass 4H. To bid 4S here should confirm a much better opener. North should also be expecting a misfit by looking at his hand and the 1N response. So the blame lies with North for bidding 4S. Pass is clear cut, imo. His hand certainly hasnt gotten any better at this point.

Well, without knowing what the opening lead is, it would appear that a good general plan would be a dummy reversal of sorts by ruffing 3 diamonds in hand, cashing the spade A, pitch 2 hearts on the clubs, and just lose 2 high spades and a diamond.

Ben, Yes, I called the yellow to the table. Why? No alerts on any bid, and no rational bridge explanation that I could think of for the bidding sequence. I was unsure of methods to report this type thing and called the yellow to the table to determine what steps (if any) I should take next. The yellow said he would notate the hand elsewhere (in the yellow's recording system, I would assume), so I wasnt going to waste more of abuse@bbo.com time by reporting it a second time. I deliberately posted this without any player info so that hopefully the post would not be deleted since the hand (and therefore, the players in question) would be almost impossible to identify unless you happened to be at the table at the time (I know that at least one other forum poster besides the yellow was present when this occured). Hopefully, they will not reveal who the players were either, making deletion unnecessary. However, I also dont like accusing anyone of such misgivings without stronger evidence and/or knowledge. I do not know what was said between the yellow and South. I also wanted to learn if it is possible that these bids had ANY possible rationale behind them in an appararently random partnership. I dont think there is, but I could be mistaken. Both Richard and Phil have offered at least some explanation for the 3N bid, even though it is not a call that I would ever consider making at the table. Bad bidding on both players parts could also account for some of this. I have not been able to actually review other auctions and/or play by South at this time, since I cannot read lin files when at work. From some of the results I have seen listed, I suspect that there are several other hands that need closer review.. This led me to check both North's and South's scores over the last two months. Norths overall averages would give me no cause for concern, but come on, be realistic......you know who the players are, look at South's results. 1.67 Imps over 360 hands with 95 different partners? 2.22 Imps over 125 hands with 32 different partners? And yes, he may have played more than 5 hands with several of those partners, but still.....I dont have bridgebrowser available to me to check the number of actual hands played with each partner, I am simply doing a visual count and inspection of hands via the myhands viewer and noting the fact that the player in question does not have anything close to what would appear to be a REGULAR partnership that might explain this sort of discrepancy. The maximum number of hands with any partner that I can see appears to be 17 or 18 tops, and in the majority of instances, it appears to be fewer than 10 boards with the average being about 6-8. I dont know of anyone who could pick up that many random BBO partners and be able to successfully maintain that sort of IMP score over that many boards. Do you? In reality, South doesnt appear to be playing anywhere other than the MBC, so tournament results arent being affected by this sort of thing, so it doesnt concern me or alarm me all that much. I just fail to understand the need that anyone would have to do this quite so blatantly when there is absolutely nothing to gain. Is there any real reason to report hands of this nature? If so, what are the proper methods to do so? Call a yellow to table if one is available (as I did)? Send it to abuse@bbo.com? Seriously, I dont recall ever seeing any information posted on the site regarding this sort of issue. The good thing is that due to the great job all of you do, I also have never actually encountered a hand of this nature. :)

[hv=n=skxhxdj1098653caxx&s=sa8xxxhaqxdkqckxx]133|200|vul vs. not IMP [/hv] Ok, so I was kibbing a star friend of mine last night, and in first seat, he (as East) preempts 3♥. E/W were silent after that. The following auction ensues: (3♥)-x-p-? After some hesitation, North finds a 3N bid?! and the auction continues: 3N-p-? Now its South's turn to hesitate, and he finally finds what bid? You got it, 4♦ !?!? Then the auction continued: 4♦-5♦-6♦ The star asks after hand is over, whats 3N to which south replies, "my pard has strong hand". He then asked why 4♦ if making a move off of 3N instead of 4♣, to which he never got an answer...... Now, does it affect your vote if I also add that for the last month, South has played with 95 different partners for 360 boards and has a 1.67 IMP rating? And the month before that he played with 32 different partners and had a 2.22 IMP rating over 125 boards? South also never appears to play with the same person more than once, so no regular partnerships, and usually only plays 1-5 boards with the same partner. So...... Is it just me? Is it blatantly obvious South is, ummm, well, you know? Is South the Worlds Best Player? Or are there logical explanations/bridge logic that I am missing regarding these bids?

If you don't overcall 3♥ I think you have stopped playing the game I know as bridge. Roland And I think bidding 3♥ here opposite a passed hand is just asking for trouble. Oh well. To each their own.

Ah, this explains a lot - I have been including singletons and voids as 'features' :) Feature ask is meant to be used to determine if the weak 2 bidder has an outside entry to their hand for NT play, in case a trick must be lost in their suit. Therefore, its an Ace, or a King, possibly a queen (but most players that I am aware of do not show a queen as a feature). Voids and singletons are useless in NT, so you dont show them. :)

This hand is not too weak to double and then bid hearts, imo. The fact that you have both majors would make me inclined to X at the table, IN CASE partner happens to have 4 spades. This is likely to be the only way you will find out that he does.

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I dont see how anyone could consider that 3♣ in this auction is not forcing. Partner has made a free bid (over 1♥) and you have introduced a new suit at the 3 level when you could have passed 2♥ or raised to 2♠. How can it not be forcing to at least 3♦?

Yes, Fred. Ty, Fred. Get back to work, Fred. :P (Sry, I couldnt resist).

Mike, This probably has to do with where you are located more than anything (and I do not know where you live, so it is a generic statement). Since I have lived mainly in major metropolitan areas, it has not been unusual for there to be split games (Novice and open) at the major bridge clubs in these areas. Of course, there were other games also (like the one that my first teacher ran in her home, once a week) where the pairs were usually the same pairs every week; they may have had a convention card, but for the most part, were clueless regarding any 'system', if that makes sense. And yes, these pairs would go to sectionals, regionals and even nationals.....still just as clueless, but having fun all the way. :)

I think it is more akin to a one section club game where the beginners, intermdiates, advanced and experts are all tossed in together. And since the lower levels will almost always outnumber the upper levels, the game becomes disproportionately weighted. Many club games will have beginner/intermediate games that are run seperately from the open games. In these games, the open game field be fairly decent, but once combined with the beginners and intermediates, the field becomes a monstrosity. And, I dont believe that the majority of pairs in the online games are reasonable, nor are they decent. There are relatively few decent pairs actually playing from what I have experienced. There may be many good players playing together, but very few good pairs who have actually spent much time working on system agreements, carding agreements, etc. I think that there are quite a few good pairs playing online... However, the best players rarely play in open tournaments or pickup games in the main lobby. Rather, they arrange set games or team mathces against one another. Gresham's Law in action... Isnt that what I said? Oh, excuse me....rephrase "And, I dont believe that the majority of pairs in the online TOURNAMENT games are reasonable, nor are they decent. That better? Sorry, in the context it was written, I thought it was apparent that I was referring specifically to tournament games without actually having to spell it out. :P

How hard can it be to add the choice for "Dont Want to play with this person"? I would suggest red for their color, but it would conflict with disconnect color....Any other suggestions for color? Blue, maybe? It appears that many of us really would like to be able to distinguish between people we would prefer not to play with, and people that we would wish to totally avoid. As long as we're on the subject, can the names show up in color on a tournament or team game invitation, so that a player can choose to decline the team match based on who is playing at a glance? Most times, a team match invitation is issued and I dont look at who is actually playing, only to find myself seated vs. an opponent that I normally would not play against.

I think it is more akin to a one section club game where the beginners, intermdiates, advanced and experts are all tossed in together. And since the lower levels will almost always outnumber the upper levels, the game becomes disproportionately weighted. Many club games will have beginner/intermediate games that are run seperately from the open games. In these games, the open game field be fairly decent, but once combined with the beginners and intermediates, the field becomes a monstrosity. And, I dont believe that the majority of pairs in the online games are reasonable, nor are they decent. There are relatively few decent pairs actually playing from what I have experienced. There may be many good players playing together, but very few good pairs who have actually spent much time working on system agreements, carding agreements, etc.

You dont lead the 10 from K109x? Partner should put up the Q in this case....however since you led the 10 from J109x, its unlikely to matter if he does. :)

I think if you are playing IMP's, you should lead the heart K and get one trick established immediately. Now hopefully either partner can win a trick or the black suit breaks will cause declarer to go down. Right or wrong, I have found that when defending slams, it pays over the long run to go ahead and establish a trick whenever I can. (If I was defending 3N at imps, I would be more inclined to lead the club J). At MP's, the club J is slightly more attractive. but given the fact that dummy failed to use stayman (most likely, no four card major) makes me a little more inclined to still lead the heart K. Flip a coin, its that close, imo.

I see no reason to do anything other than to continue to bid the hand naturally with 3♣. I am not certain that I really want to play this hand in spades at this point, as you will be forced to ruff immediately with a spade honor, and think that I will be better placed later in the auction by describing my hand naturally.

You must have me confused with someone else. I don't go to partnership desks, if it can be helped. I'd rather go back home and enjoy my day playing on BBO, than to sit thru two miserable sessions. ;) And as you stated, it is much easier to weed thru compatible partners f2f, than it is to look at profiles and randomly pick someone to play with. Actually, eBridge ran the games at those times because those were the only time slots available in their tournament schedules where they could work the games in and find a director. Or, at least, this is what I was told by their management at the time. And believe it or not, the time zone really didnt have a lot of bearing on games scheduling. Just like BBO, it was a multi-national site, and they had games that ran pretty much 24 hours a day. (First morning 12 bd tournament was at 5 am EST, last 12 bd tournament of 'day' was 2 am EST). There were many foreign players in all of these games, so the East coast/West coast was really a non-issue. It was mainly the lack of players willing to commit to a three hour game.

Something sounds funny about the initial rant, I'm just not sure what...... Your friend is using your PC to log into BBO? Does your "friend" have his own ISP on your PC? If not, why does your "friend" have these frequent disconnect problems and yet you claim that you don't? If you're both using the same PC and same ISP, wouldn't you both be prone to frequent disconnects? Banning only your friends IP address is a futile solution. The purpose behind a ban is to make a user aware that certain behaviors (booting people frequently, leaving in middle of hands frequently, being abusive to others which results in their booting a player from their table frequently) is unacceptable on BBO. If your "friend" behaves in a boorish manner on his PC, why would his behavior change on yours? He is more apt to continue the same behavior, therefore his USER ID is also banned, not only his IP address (if I had to guess). It is also possible that any IP address that he has ever logged in from is also banned. The idea is this person needs to take a break from BBO until they correct their behavior. And a 42% disconnect rate is a little high to be blaming an ISP, imo. However, I will conceed that is 42% only over 14 hands or so, which puzzles me. Ben/Uday, over what time period (and frequency) does the software automatically institute a ban? If, the facts are as they are stated, this does not seem unreasonable for a person to have connection problems and not be able to return in time to finish a given hand. I could see a high rate such as this over a period of 12-20 boards, given that the person is trying to get back. 42% of 100 boards would be an entirely different matter, though.

no. you can't combine signals. If you play the 8 it can never be readable, you might have 98 doubleton. You just give the clearest count card possible, and then give suit preference. Aha, thanks.

This is one of my huge pet peeves. No matter what kind of signaling you play, never play the 6, unless you think the 9 can cost a trick. I see the point behind this also....the 9 is easier to read as an upcoming High/Lo (udca) than the 6 is.....but, if you can read either card.... Say the holding was 982, wouldnt you want the 1st card played to be SP, not the 2nd? Seriously, there is a reason I dont play UDCA. :) Its this kinda stuff that I havent bothered to learn the intricacies of to make it worthwhile for me to play them.

Ok, I dont play udca, but I dont see how the 5 can be suit preference for clubs. (other than he could have played the 6 instead...ok....i see it but) Given partners heart holding of 965, he had two choices of which card to play at trick one. Either the 9 or the 6, right? So why isnt the first card played the suit preference? Seems to me it may be important to be able to switch immediately on occasion, instead of having to lead 2nd round of my suit to see partners next card..... Or is it a common treatment in UDCA to play the highest first and the second card shows SP? Is this even allowable under carding methods? (I didnt think combination signals were legal.) If you normally play it this way, I am curious, do you disclose it? Regardless of the answers to the above, I think if I am going to lead a club, leading the club Q has to be better than a small one. Declarer rates to have the K, but maybe we can create a later entry to partners hand via the J if it is needed later. We also prevent partner from doing something silly, like playing the 10 from K10x and letting declarer win a trick holding Jxx. (I have had partners do this before when underleading in this situation). :)