PhantomSac

I love bidding game but this is an easy pass. Even vul at imps -- partner is also a good player who is vul at imps and realizes that. We have a near complete minimum, even if we open almost all 5332 11s, our hand is 1 point better than minimum, that is not enough.

I really think you should rethink that. What is our purpose of wanting to bid 4M with a good hand? Presumably it is to preempt them. When we have a really good hand we are exploiting that they have to guess a lot, they have to double with just points since we might have quite a weak hand, and then they will often be forced to pass (or guess to bid on when it's wrong and they're going for a number). When I have a good hand I love bidding 4M with the plan to rip them if they bid, or make some 790s if they don't. I view it as a logical way to exploit their need to guess at such a high level. Normally we can't do this because we might have a slam, but if partner is a passed hand obviously that is less likely, and if they open the bidding I view it as a huge winner to try and exploit them this way since a slam becomes quite unlikely when one opp has an opening hand. Of course it is possible but it's just really unlikely. However if you bid 4C showing a good 4M bid, they don't have to X 4M with their random 10 count, or even their 8 count with a stiff in your major. They can just X 4M getting their values off their chest, and then pass it out happily, especially when you have advertised a strong 4M bid. I think you are eliminating the best part of bidding 4M with a good hand for the very infrequent upside of getting to slam.

I have played both natural and 6-6 majors (ok maybe w/r you do it with some kind of pure 6-5 lol). I have heard of good 4M overcall but really hate that (why would I want to tell them whether I had a good 4M overcall? I understand namyats or variants of that since we might well have a slam but when they open I prefer to just preempt them and not worry about slam). FWIW I prefer lots and lots of majors over natural, but I would probably prefer to play natural over 1C with all balanced hand types of systems (not that I would ever have this agreement, it is too uncommon to care enough and risk an accident).

On 2+2, the biggest poker forum online, a guy posted that he bet the equivalent of 10 bucks on it for fun before the WC. Pretty epic. I think he only got 150:1 though.

I would lead... my 4th best club!

I was looking into putting a large bet on a tie for this reason (both teams are incentivized heavily to tie), but the market seems to have adjusted a lot for this factor, the odds of a tie are significantly higher than they would have been if this had been game 1. I don't really know anything about soccer, what are peoples opinions of how much of a factor this will be to the German team?

You are being too double dummy. A lot of the upside of bidding 5H on hands like that is that people misjudge, they don't know the full hand. Do you think north would pass 5H with 3 spades and a heart void and no defense? It would never happen. Even though 5H is a loser at double dummy, it is a winner at single dummy. I'm not saying that makes 5H the right bid, I'm just saying that is one upside when everyone is guessing, they definitely guess wrong sometimes and/or fail to double you when it's right etc etc.

I'd be pretty damn tempted to bid a slam if partner reopened X lol. There is enough points that we are off 2 aces (AQ KQ KQ, Q KQJ AKQ), but even in those cases sometimes partner will have the spade void for us, and a lot of times we just won't be off 2 things. I could see partner passing 5H with many hands that make slam cold (x AQxx KQxx Axxx being the perfecta). I guess it matters how light he is expected to reopen with short spades, the lighter that is the more hands he will have where slam won't make, and the more hands he will accept a slam try on where slam is good. I wouldn't want to hang partner for making a good choice to reopen X aggressively, so if that was his style I would just bid 5H.

BTW, on 6 do we agree that 2D then 2N is NF and not showing a bigger hand than a direct 2N, but just showing a flexible hand in case partner wants to pull it? That is probably the correct technical way to bid but I hate doing that against a precision 1D lol, one of the biggest downsides of precision diamond is when your partner is on lead... if the opps have made it sound like they have good diamonds you will rarely lead one.

9 and 4 look quite tough, hand 9 is so bad having 4 jacks that it just seems too light for a cuebid, and I don't want Rainer to say I have no bidding judgement ;) Maybe a compromise with 2H is in order (I'm still not passing, sry). But maybe not, no idea. Hands like hand 4 always confuse me, it is so prime and the finesses rate to be on that I feel like we don't need that much for game, it's a much stronger hand than say hand 7 where I would bid 3H. But how high can we really force it? And there is some chance we belong in spades if partner 3 hearts. Not sure. 2/5/7 look like easy 3H bids. 8 seems like an easy 2D bid. 1 I would bid 2C despite earlier discussion regarding 4315 typically bidding 2D, with 5 solid clubs I am not worried about partner passing me with a stiff, it might be bad but it should at least be ok. I expect 2C to more often than not be the best partial if partner passes, and if we have a game partner will keep bidding. 3, meh I wish they played precision on this one since then it's an easy 1N, but I'd still bid 1N here just, feels right. 6, I am happy they play precision and I will make the value bid of 2N. IMO vs precision if you X and bid 2N they will often try some lead other than a diamond.

Isn't 2H often 5-4 in the majors? If so, passing over 3D to "suggest a min" with 6-5 feels quite wrong, but I have never played these methods. I expect I would always want to be in a game if partner bid 2N and I was 6-5. I would also like to let my partner know that I had extreme shape if there is going to be further competition, maybe 4D over 3D?

What is the idea here, if you have a 1 suiter you have to be strong enough to bid 3C? What about a shape like 4216 (or is that close enough to 4315?). I think cuebidding is fine with this shape, you miss out on playing in 2C but playing in a 4-3 heart fit at the 2 level with a strong hand is usually fine (insert rainer comment about a 3-3 heart fit not being fine!). I want to be able to double with 1 suited in clubs or with 4S + C and play in 2C without partner bidding on with a stiff personally. Rainer, how do you go from this: to this: in one post? The first quote is ridiculous, the 2nd thing you said directly condradicts that and is (almost) what everyone else plays. I agree that rebidding your suit and bidding 2N are non forcing and others are forcing. I agree that if you bid a new suit and partner preferences to your first suit that is non forcing (obviously not possible in this auction but 1C X p 1H p 2C p 2D p 2H for instance). That is a far cry from the cuebid showing GAME IN HAND. You have arbitrarily decided 19 points is the cutoff for hands that are not GAME IN HAND, why? You cannot pass 1H with 18 points as you have suggested, you could easily be missing a game. Since you have no agreed that Xing and cuebidding does not promise GAME IN HAND, it is fine to do that when you have a hand that might still have game but has no other bid, that is the normal meaning of the cuebid even though partner might have a yarborough! You are not forcing to game, you are forcing to the 2 level. Bidding 1S on a 4 card suit or 1N with no stopper because you have arbitrarily made the cutoff 19 points instead of 18 points does not seem like a very good method, and it is definitely not normal. You are very perturbed by the possibility of having to rebid a 3 card suit. You are the guy who says hands that have a stiff major over 1N and 1 or both minors and a GF hand almost never comes up. Well this is a scenario that rarely comes up also. What is your suggested solution, you want to be able to bid 2N over the cuebid with a 1 count to solve this problem? But how have you solved it? Now you make your 2N range extremely wide and partner has to guess whether to bid game or not when he does not have the GAME IN HAND hand type (btw if he has the game in hand hand type, he will bid again over 2M and you can then show your stopper so it is irrelevant). And you have to bid 3N with a lot of hands since 2N does not show anything. The rest of the world just rebids 2M and takes their lumps so that 2N can be constructive and partner will not have to guess whether to bid game or not. This is a perfectly sound/fine way to play the vast majority of the time when you have a FOUR card suit (I would rather play 2M in a 4-3 than 2N anyways, even if 2N didn't promise anything). You are being blinded by having only 3 hearts in your hand. There is overlap in a hand that had the strength to bid 1N originally but has a four card major (and thus responded the major). Those are the hands that want to bid 3N. I would say if you have no bid for a 17 or 18 count that has doubled and it has to pass, that is unplayable. Yes, partner might have zero points but they also might have 7 or 8 or maybe 9 points. They might also have less points and more shape that provides a game.

1N ideally shows a stronger hand. I think the range just gets wider depending on what suit was opened, 1S X p 1N has the widest range and 1C X p 1N has the most narrow range. This hand is def not good enough to bid 1N directly, you would want at least 7 points. If you can bid 1N on any hand from 5 to 11 points, it is too wide. Even if you have to jump to 2N with 11, 5-10 is a pretty unmanageable range that you want to avoid.

Surely partner is well within his rights to cuebid with an 18 count? Or a 4315 17 count. And I don't know what you guys would do with a 4324 17 count but cuebidding seems like the only option so that's what most people seem to do (the other alternative is 2H I guess which has it's own drawbacks, I'd rather just be 1 point light for the cuebid than make the same bid I'd make with a 4414 15 count which is a totally different hand type). 2N seems just right here. It's not like 2N is not constructive, with nothing we would bid 2H. I would say the point ranges are something like 0-4 2H, 5-6 2N, and 7-9 3N. Ofc if you had a good 4 count or a hand with only 3 hearts you might bid 2N.

Why on earth would you double with no tricks? Your RHO leapt to a grand slam and you have zero honors in the opponents suits and no length either. How many are you expecting to beat them lol. If partner has lots of minor suit tricks I'm sure he'll figure out to double. If you are going to save you should save with 7D IMO to involve spades since spades could be a lot better if partner has only 3 hearts, it sounds like he might not have that many clubs/diamonds which would leave him with some spades! Saving is probably a reasonable thing to do, it rates to be cheap if partner is actually short in clubs but my general strategy is to just pass in spots like this, everyone is guessing a little bit and I hope I can beat them. As far as what to lead, it is between a trump or a heart. A heart is possible only if you think they might be the types to be trying to bluff you into saving or out of a heart lead, after all who would ever lead a heart on this auction? I mean, I dunno what the 7C bid could be unless he thinks dummy is hitting with a heart void, he might be gambling with 4 small hearts or something on either a non heart lead or a void in dummy, I might well lead a heart at the table if my opp was a somewhat tricky guy. Maybe I should just save :) It could be an expensive save though if someone really does have a heart void. The more I think about it the more I think it is unlikely either of them is really void in hearts so I'm leading a heart and calling the bluff.

Also if it goes 4S 4N p ? What do you bid? If partner has clubs you want to bid a slam but if they have the reds you don't (?) So maybe bidding 5D is right, you trade playing 5D opposite the minors (but if partner has the minors they probably have a good save in any number of spades, and compared to bidding 5C you will still play a making game if they don't save), but you get to 6C opposite C+H.

I had a dream that this hand went 4S X p 5C p 6C p 7C

As strongly as I feel about a diamond being right at imps, I feel equally so about a diamond being wrong at MP. If you don't want to use your time and energy thinking about the right action then why play bridge? I admit I would lead a heart not a spade at MP and maybe that's wrong but a diamond clearly frequently blows a trick that you are not going to recover (as you have little hope for an entry). That's death at MP.

So much this lol. 3C is just really awful, we have an ace and a king and 2 jacks, I agree with the poster who said x xxx JTxx KQJTx is fine, but you need an exceptional hand to preempt on a 5 card suit even third seat vul and this hand is not close to it. 1C is fine also to me, I don't think theres much between 1C and pass. The lighter you open in first the better 1C becomes.

Good luck to y'all!

I was definitely wrong about this since we have the ten of spades, it makes it almost impossible partner will have a double, and also since we have 6 HCP. That said I have actually seen this auction twice in my last ten tournaments, once by my partner and once by my opp, both world class players. I will admit it has almost no relevance when we have this particular hand and I was wrong, sorry. That said, I think your analysis of "it rarely goes 1N p 3N X and it often goes 1N P 3N AP" is faulty, it is also rare we are beating them on a spade lead (or any lead) on 1N P 3N, we must consider the hands where a spade lead will beat it, and how many of those partner would have doubled. If partner is doubling .5 % of the time overall, but on all of those he wants a spade lead and a spade lead beats it, that would elminate 5 of the 125 hands where a spade lead is right according to your simulation which is something. That said given that we have the ST and 6 HCP it is unlikely that is the case so I withdraw that argument. This however I am just going to say shows that you are consistently not bidding well, or at least bidding abnormally, assuming you are implying you don't use that bid rather than that it never comes up. I do not know the last time I saw a good player bid 1N 3N with a singleton in a major at imps. Why play methods where you can show every hand that has a singleton in a major if you are going to not show it? It strikes me as completely gambling for little gain to not show it, any hand with a stiff in a major could obviously belong in 5m or 4M and people who claim they don't want to "give away the lead" are just masterminding in my opinion, if the opponents have a long and strong major between them they are very likely to lead it on 1N 3N anyways, and if they don't have length/strength there you're going to get to 3N anyways since partner will bid it. Even if you do not show your singletons ever I do not think that is a majority action and I think it is likely to be statistically relevant that you chose to include those hands. As far as I can tell you allowed 5-5 in the minors, 6/7 card minors and short majors, and (13)(54) hand types. Those hand types combined do come up every single tournament that I play, they are not some irrelevant thing. And of course including them will favor leading spades over diamonds.

If your lead blows a trick 16.5% of the time double dummy that does not mean you lose an overtrick imp 16.5 % of the time. A funny thing happens at imps when you lead your long/good suit, once it is set up people often start cashing out. This is one flaw in double dummy analysis. But even with your very flawed simulation that is completely biased towards the passive lead (much like Bird), gaining 11 imps 2.4 % of the time is worth .264 imps, compared to gaining 1 imp 16.5 % of the time which is worth .165 imps, so you gain .1 imps a board by leading a diamond vs a spade. This is completely convincing to me that a diamond is much better given your simulation parameters.

As usual with these double dummy simulations, do any of you discount the hands that partner will double 3N with? Definitely some of the hands that a spade binks partner will X 3N or possibly have doubled 3N. Likewise, Rainer has the 3N bidder as "not necessarily balanced." That's great but I do not remember the last time a good player bid 1N 3N with a small singleton in a major, let alone with a void. Maybe in the old days, but nowadays most people play something at least like transferring to a minor and bidding 3M as short, or 1N 3M short, etc. Those hands should be excluded. Finally, in the real world partner will often fail to find a killing diamond shift if he gets in. I realize double dummy analysis cannot do anything about this but there is something to be said for leading your good 5 card suit making the defense easier. But really not excluding partner having a double of 3N, and not excluding 1N 3N bids that have a stiff major are pretty inexcusable when doing analysis like this, and even failing to do that shows that the diamond lead will more likely beat it. Forget about real world considerations like sometimes accidents happen if you lead the spade 8 and can run diamonds later (eg partner having A A in the pointed, not likely but just to illustrate, good luck getting the D shift 100 % of the time on your spade lead), or sometimes you will set up diamonds and they will need to guess the hearts which they always will double dummy, or they will need to pick up your partners club holding with a deep finesse, etc (hint: setting up a long suit is a big threat that is less big in double dummy analysis), or the fact that a spade lead will sometimes blow the suit in real life but seems passive to a double dummy analysis, a diamond is STILL more likely to beat it according to this analysis!

A spade at imps? Do you guys actually lead like this? What kind of convoluted thinking makes you believe that a SPADE is the most likely lead to set 3NT? It's just absolutely absurd I'm sorry.

In general, I think people pass way too seldom in this auction. That said, I think passing is a bad choice in this auction. It does depend on how wild the opps are, if they will often have a 5 card suit w/r opp a passed hand, pass has a lot more going for it (especially if they play that style but also always raise with 3!). There are opps like that for sure, if I had no read I would look at how old they are/how many conventions they played. If they will usually have 6, I think that our hand is good for 3N if partner has a hand that will bid again over 3C (and we will often beat them 100 or 300 in that spot, depending on the level of club fit), our hand is good for a club slam if partner has a stiff heart and a club fit (not that unlikely if they rate to have 6 hearts), and we rate to make a partscore if partner is passing 3C (and even if we don't they will def be in the game to make 2H X). It is not really a matter of sometimes not beating 2H X, which is possible, but I think beating them too few if we make a game or a slam is a real possibility, and if they are close to making 2H X, we have a very respectable 3C partscore to play. Sometimes hands like this happen where 3N is down in the diamond suit since clubs aren't running and they have no hearts to lead and we are crushing them since partner has 3 hearts and dummy is void, no doubt, but I think in totality passing is a bad choice. In general when your hearts are headed by the ace and have no other honors I am weary of passing, it increases our offensive potential and is not as good on defense as something like KJT9 (also 4 points with the T9 of hearts). Also with a 6 card suit we will usually play a reasonable partscore or game, so passing has less upside compared to a hand like 2434 which people tend to pass less often with even though you should pass more often.