PhantomSac

4th and inches at midfield, commentators don't know what to do. Even Jason Garrett insta sends out the offense, to which one commentator suggests the Cowboys are in "nothing to lose" mode, and another says no, he was thinking he has the best O-line in the game. Almost all coaches insta go for it in that spot now, as evidenced by one of the worst/most conservative coaches in the league doing so.

And keep in mind even an auction as innocent as 1C p 1D already has a lot of exceptions. For instance, let's say 1C could be short, does that change what you play? Does it matter if it's "could be short" as in only 4432, or "could be short" as in all balanced hands not in range of a NT opener open 1C, and a 1D opener is 5+ or 4441. Ofc all professional pairs will have agreements on this, I am of the opinion that if it's just 4432 it is effectively the same as a natural 1C, but if it's all balanced hands it will much more frequently have 2 clubs so you can change your agreements. So it is totally reasonable to play 1x p 1y where x is nebulous that 2x is natural, but now you give up having a michaels bid. But you need to remember if you change it there, and if you change it on all could be shorts. Some people also play 1D precision is 0+ instead of 2+, does that change anything? Does it change anything if they open 1C with 4441 and play other suits are 5+ (some people play this). Lets say you play 1C p 1D where 1C is nebulous that 2C is nat and 2D is michaels, does that supercede another rule like "overcalls of suits the bid artificially are natural" eg polish club 1C is nebulous but 1D is 0-7 any or nat, so which rule takes priority? Do you always have a michaels or do you sometimes give it up in situations like that. And speaking of exceptions and 4432, I play rusinow but not in situations where I'm leading a suit that dummy has shown 4+ of. However, one exception to that is even if they open 1D with 4432, and I lead a diamond, it is NOT rusinow. They haven't guaranteed 4+ but we treat it as such, it's an exception. I also don't play rusinow in suits partner has shown 4+ in, but you need an agreement about if partner has like made a takeout X of 1M, and you lead the other M, is this rusinow (I play yes). But if I have shown the suit also, eg I overcalled 1H and partner jump raised to 3H preemptively, I do play rusinow (even though partner showed 4...the :I always lead rusinow in the suit I have shown rule" supercedes the 4+ rule). Also back to 1C p 1D, a lot of people play 1C p 1N is 8-10 in which case I assume with 3334 and 6-7 they bid 1D over 1C. I have never seen anyone alert this, so does this make 1D an artificial bid for purposes of what 2C and 2D means (I play no, similar to 4432 opening 1C or 1D and that still showing 3+ or 4+ for the purposes of my agreements, if there is only one shape with a narrow range it is really the same thing as a 1D bid that guarantees 4+...but you need agreements). Anyways sorry for rambling but hopefully you see why even professional pairs sometimes have to be practical with exceptions in order to remember everything, especially when it comes to competitive bidding agreements where you are going to face a wide variety of systems/situations and you need agreements and meta agreements that cover all of them that are effective and something you can remember.

You have to be careful with making exceptions to your general rules for memory load reasons imo. Sometimes they are worthwhile enough that it must be done and you just have to remember, but IMO you want to do it as little as possible. No, it's not that hard to remember that 1C p 1D (natural system base), that you flip the rule of 1x p 1y 2x=cuebid and 2y=nat, but if you have an entire system where you are trying to optimize things with exceptions in tons of auctions, you will end up with 100 exceptions and I guarantee you are going to forget some of them sometimes. Even if you don't forget them your bidding is going to be worse because you will be focused more on "what do my bids mean" than "what bid should I make." Take this auction for example. In modern bridge already it rarely happens, people bypass diamonds for majors, and many people play transfer walsh or strong club anyways. If it does happen and I really have a 2m overcall, where are the majors? If partner has them he might well have overcalled. I am not saying it is impossible, but I do play a lot of bridge and cannot remember having this auction come up where I had a 2m overcall. Even if it did come up, I am more likely to have a 2C overcall than a 2D overcall but it's not 100 % so playing something arguably "inferior" is not a disaster. I would guess that flipping the rule here will gain me like 0.0001 imps a board or something, so it is not worth it to me to make this one of my exceptions to my rules. Compare that to this auction. I play over 1x DOUBLE 1Y, that 2X and 2Y are both cuebids showing a good hand with a corresponding other suit. BTW I think this is a good agreement since it allows you to jump with just trumps and not a classical 10 point hand or w/e. But anyways, 2x (the lower bid) should show the major IMO, basic theory is that we should save more room with the major. Ok that's great but on the specific auction 1C X 1H, it makes no sense for 2C to show spades and 2H to show diamonds, because 2C allows us to stop in 2D, and 2H still allows us to stop in 2S. One possible solution is to play that 2x is always the minor and 2y is always the major, but that is terrible on especially the auction 1m X 1S (now we have to force to the 3 level to show a good hand with the major which is not what we want to do, we'd rather be able to show a good hand with the major more aggressively cuz we're trying to get to GAME), the other possible solution is to not worry about it and be suboptimal on 1C X 1H, and stick to 2C spades and 2H diamonds, but to me it is important enough to play 2x=major unless it is the specific auction 1C X 1H. So here I'm willing to make an exception to my rule, but I promise you that every single time it goes 1x X 1y I have to go over it in my head (because I don't think of it as the exception is 1C X 1H, I think of it as "the exception is when we can stop at the 2 level in both suits"). And my partner messed this up when we first started playing it. So yeah I'm not against exceptions to rules, but I like them to be in auctions that come up somewhat frequently, and that solve a legitimate problem. I do think there is only so much memory space to remember exceptions to rules, everyone is different but tbh for me those are actually harder to remember than my basic structures/relays/agreements whatever. Another one that I have seen like 5 pairs (including myself lol) mess up is playing 2C over a 1C opener is natural, with 2D being michaels. Interestingly enough it seems like it's the 2D bid that people forget, I find it easy to remember 2C is natural over 1C, but with a weak jump overcall I have seen so many people overcall 2D without thinking about it lol. It's a mistake you only make once though so if you think it's a good agreement just roll with it and expect a forget one time and never again! tl;dr: I don't think it's practical to optimize every auction for memory reasons so I think you should only pick important ones to do so. YMMV.

I played for most of my life that all bids were natural after 1x p 1y. I switched a couple of years ago to 2x being michaels and have found that to be better. However, I think on 1c p 1D it makes a lot more sense to play 2D michaels and 2C natural, but I don't have that agreement with anyone

XYZ is terrible for GF hands, as per Cyberyeti

I'd go with 2D also

100 % this. If your options are 3N and 4N, and you have a way to raise the last bid suit (here 4D clearly is that), then 4N is quantitative.

This is not true when you go down multiple when you go down (as is often the case on a hand like this).

Pass

I thought only beginners equated "I am not 100 % sure what the right thing for partner to do is" with "I will play MIDDLE from 3 spots" lol. I mean yeah, that will solve your problems. Let's cut a baby in half also while we're at it because we aren't sure what to do.

Sometime people make mistakes. The Chinese team is inexperienced at the top level, they have made great strides and will be a force sooner rather than later, and they did very well in that BB. But sometimes the pressure and the moment can just get to you. I believe this east just did too much in this moment, and it's unfortunate that an entire country would be "very angry" with him for this, there is no doubt that the dude tried his best and just made a bad choice in the moment. I'm sure he will learn from it, and his country should applaud him and his team for doing very well in the RR and then almost beating USA in the knockout phase in a very long match. The future for China is very bright in bridge. And even though I think easts bid is very bad, he did buy unbelievably badly and his bid could have worked out.

4S is the very bad kind of bid that is rarely punished, but I don't know why it is not more common knowledge that with an opening hand you start with a cuebid then bid game (or if stronger than that you don't have to jump to game next). A 4S bid can be based on KJxxxxx xx x xxx for instance.

As wesley has said these hands are impossible because partner would not play the D7. I would have to think more seriously about it, but I have not been convinced by the arguments for a club shift. In particular I don't think any possible hand has been given where a club shift is correct (based on declarer playing correctly and partner signalling correctly). A club shift is certainly a very natural and intuitive play though, I doubt I would ever not do that IRL lol.

Kind of off topic but even if opener can still have 4 spades in this auction it is much better to play 4 level= coming in spades and 3S=I like my hand for diamonds. The point being with a known 4-4 spade fit you can afford to go past 3N but a lot of time with a diamond fit you can't.

Totally forgot about MisIry... nice to see you posting Ben, hope everything is well!

The COWBOYS would be 9-0 with Romo this year fwiw. Our defense has played so far above expectation that we have been in every game with Weeden/Cassel despite being able to score TOUCHDOWNS. Romo would really be a hall of famer if he had been on another team, been saying it forever but he's the only reason we have been an 8-8 team every year (except for last year), without him it's like when indy lost peyton, we cannot win a game. ETA: We lost by 9, 6, 7, 1, 7, 4 with CASSEL/WEEDEN. I repressed the PATS blowout, guess we'd be 8-1 lol.

On the other hand when did Carson Palmer become elite? Lol.

Hell no to Giants, they blow. Oak is legit if Carr is really this legit but it's more likely he's on a heater, guess time will tell. And the Vikings are legit imo, very good defense, ageless wonder of a running back, and bridgewater doesn't suck.

Ah the good old days. This wasn't even that long ago lol.

Bidding over 4C seems terrible

Pass is not an option lol, your hand is simply too strong despite the warning signs. I would bid 3N but X could easily work better obv.

True but it was posted on a discussion forum. It has never been the case that only I/A opinions were welcome on I/A, and novice opinions on novice etc. If it is being used for a ruling or something I'm sure jallerton will not count my opinion. I just think it must be for jallerton to be posing it since I think it is such an obvious double.

Both are insane

I think 5C is a good bid, it shows good trumps, no diamond control, and not much else. It is biasing when the title is "choice of games," since often partner is trying to get to 6C and holding AKQ of trumps might be useful to him. As far as choice of games: 5C is obviously a bad bid if we belong in 4 of either major. However, I thought about this a lot and I am never sitting for 4H with K9xxx. If partner is 4216, we almost definitely want to play 5C not 4H. Is it possible partner is 4225? It seems very unlikely unless he has a hand that is quite good (Where 6C might make in his mind) given that we have AKQ of clubs. Like would KQxx Ax xx JT9xx really bid this way? I doubt it, that hand would just bid 3N over 2H (though that hand is irrelevant as no game has any play). A hand like AKxx Ax xx JT9xx would have done well to bid this way on this hand, since 5C is easily the best spot. Even that hand, surely over 4C it will bid 4H on Ax and if we pass we are in easily the worst spot. Etc Etc. So I think I am only playing 5C and jumping there now is a very good description, if partner has AKxx Ax x xxxxxx and bids 6 we might win challenge the champs!

Yeah, this is a very reasonable treatment but you give up on a natural 3N bid with a hand like xxx xxx KQT KQTx which might be the right spot. Another option is to flag, but then you lose on cuebidding. I play precision so I never have slam tries here but it seems like the whole game try thing should be revamped in standard. If you have a slam try, you can make a natural slam try, otherwise bid 2N with a game try. With a max responder can just bid game. Game tries are rarely used anyways, if you have a game try hand you really don't want to give away much about your hand. If responder really has a marginal hand they can bid a natural(ish) suit over 2N and they have given away info (which I cringe at), but at least opener has given away nothing as declarer. It seems really bad that you might have to bid 3H as a game try, and then responder bids 4m as a cuebid for spades, and then RHO might double, LHO knows better what to lead, etc etc. But I digress. Edit: I see phil just suggested exactly what I suggested in my last line lol. Good call.