Tcyk

The second double confuses me. If partner had a big hand with ♥s he would have bid them instead of the double. Why the second double? My guess is that the ♥ suit is weak but there are a lot of scattered values. Doubler needs ♥ honors and not much else to make game. You certainly have less than 8 HCP because you passed 1♠. With 2♥ honors, I would bid 4♥. I would probably forget to look at my ♦s unless I had the ace but then my hand would be too strong for the initial pass over 1♠. Oh my, there is another possible explanation. He is making a game try in ♥s but is willing to play to ♦s. If I don't have ♥ support, I must retreat to 4♦. With poor ♥s and good ♦s, I must bid 4♦. If I pass with that hand, I will never hear the end of it.

How is it wrong? if I have 7♠s and know my partner has at least 2 for the 1NT opening, the 9-card fit will probably be our best fit and I would strongly suspect the 2♠ bid only showed 4 ♠s or he psyched. They may be playing some convention like Frelling weak twos where 2♠ showed 6+ ♠s or 4+ ♠s and 5+ ♣s. I haven't played Automated Express Fun but normally, Texas transfers are still on after interference but other things like Jacoby Transfers are off.

That is an interesting question especially because I have been working on a similar system. The idea of course is that opening bids other than 1♣ promise an unbalanced hand. With 4=1=3=5 shape, the playing strength of your hand just went up. I think you should have bid 3♣. Your partner has no 4-card major so he has at least 7 cards in the minors. Worse case he could have 3=3=5=2 shape and you will have an 8-card fit in ♦s. A double at this level means "Do something intelligent." 2♠ is not reasonable because the 4-card hand would have to do any ruffing and you would very likely lose control. With ♥ controls and good minors, 2NT would probably be the best bid. Otherwise, partner should retreat to a minor. The double presents your partner with a difficult problem. The way I play the system is that the 1♣ opening could also be a 4-4-4-1 hand with a red singleton. I will have to do some work to decide the best use of a double in this type of auction.

I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all but you can assign conditional meanings to competitive bids or any bid for that matter. You can have defense against strong club and natural club in the same FDCC file. You enter the bid and then enter a meaning in the "Qualify" window in the lower left corner of the bid description window. I will add that this is how you run into the 1Mb limit to FDCC files. If you try to cover all the ins and outs the file quickly grows to become a humungus monster.

There are a number of errors in the FDCC for BBO Advanced. The worst of them occur after 3rd and 4th seat 1H (Dbl) 1S. It says 2D and 2H rebids by opener are reverses and it even says 3H is a splinter with 0 or 1 hearts. I also think the descriptions of the 1C and 1D opening bids give the impression that they are only made with balanced hands. I tried to correct the file in my computer and when I opened the file again, it had reverted back to the same errors. Someone even threatened to kick me out of the Intermediate Advanced Club because I mentioned these errors. My question is, "How do I correct an error in the BBO files?"

I hate it doing this automatically. I have to go back and delete the LIN file. Lin file will always have the limitation of how many times a board can be played, like 16 is a magic number or has this been changed? Dur to a computer crash, I have lost my favorite program and I forget the name to download it again. It is shareware. I liked the program so well that I actually paid for it. The name under the icon begins with 'C'. It loads and displays PBN files. It does double dummy analysis. You can move cards around in a what if scenario. You can bid the hands and add notes. It deals random and constrained hands. It will save the hands in PBN, PDF, and HTML formats. I am pretty sure I learned about the program via email. Backup, backup, backup. Anyway, I would sure appreciate it if someone could point me to obtaining another copy of the file. I love BBO and there software but I sometimes have a little different application. To tell the truth, my own programs create PBN files and I don't want to go back and rewrite them to create LIN files.

It is interesting that hundreds of very strong chess and backgammon engines have been written but every bridge playing program has what I consider to be sever limitations. I don't have Jack but do have Bridge Baron and GIB. I think GIB is better than Bridge Baron. I understand that GNU Backgammon played 1.5 million games against itself and modified its program to give the best results. It is reported to be world class strength. However, if you played 1.5 million bridge hands, you would have just scratched the service. I would not want to wait for the computer to play 1.5 million hands against itself. A hash table to hold the results would probably be too large for most computers to hold.

There are two programs that work together like magic. Either one by itself can be very useful. The first is Chat Assistant by Rodgerpf. It was designed for chatting on BBO and has provisions for canned messages. The other is OKScript. It was designed for use on another online bridge application. With OKScript and Chat Assistant, you can create drop-down menus with a very small footprint. The menus well send instructions to Chat Assistant which interfaces with the BBO software. It is uch easier to address BBO this way instead of trying to write programs that will click on a BBO button. I use the combination when directing a tournament. Canned messages save a lot of time. If you type as poorly as I do, they are life savers.

I have never been disappointed in any software I bought from BBO. Unfortunately, I lost one of my favorite programs due to a computer crash. I can't remember the name and have been unable to find it. I know the nae starts with a C. It is shareware and I liked it so well, I paid for it. It deals constrained and random hands. It does double dummy analysis. It reads pbn and BBO files. It lets you bid and modify hands. It saves hands in pdn, pdf, and html formates. It is fast and the display is very nice. I believe I first learned of it from an email. I sure would appreciate any help in finding the program.

I also have a problem when using the web-based program and I believe it is related to chat. I run Vista Home Edition on a dual-core quad-processor machine. I contacted BBO help and they gave me some useful suggestions but none of them worked. I believe the problem always occurs when I am typing in chat. The computer locks up and I can do nothing. I have to give it the three-finger salute (Ctrl-Alt-Delete) to leave the program. This happened recently when I was playing in a tournament. I was able to log back on using the software program before I was booted from the tournament. Because of this problem I feel that I can not use the Flash version. Chrles

1. Reisig 2. Fred 3. Uday 4. Rain 5. Inquiry

Takeout double with only 1 unbid suit seems a bit strange. I assume 2S was preemptive so a support double seems to be the proper call even with a near minimum hand. The preempt has done its job. You win some and you lose some.

It is a fact that the pair that bids 1NT first usually gets the best result. A search of a few million hands has proven this to be true. Your partner may have a stopper to go with yours. RHO may not lead a ♦ because you bid 1NT. If partner has a suit of his own, he will show it. It can't be wrong to show your NT shape and strength in a single bid. Double could be made with a minimum hand and a worthless doubleton in diamonds. You have never opened NT with a worthless doubleton?

I seem to recall that K-S used control showing responses to a strong 2♣ opening. Aces Scientific might have as well. (Obviously, both systems are a bit long of tooth) That is correct at least in Kaplan-Sheinwold Revisited: 2♦ = 0-3 points, If 3, not a king. 2♥ = 3-4 points, Not 2 kings or an ace. 2♠ = 2 controls, A=2, K=1 2NT = 3 kings 3♣ = 1 ace and 1 king 3♦ = 4 controls etc.

There are some really great answers to my post. I guess I am just old fashioned. The answer is to have a partnership agreement. Today I fell victim of this kind of bidding again. The auction went: 1S X(by partner) Pass 2H 2S 2NT ... and with 7 HCP including the king of spades, I raised him to 3NT ... down 3. I expected my partner to have 19-21 HCP. He had 12 and only two small hearts. He did have a spade stopper. His hand wasn't even good enough for an immediate 1NT call much less double and call NT. These are some bridge adages that I have learned. 1. Trust your partner. That includes never lying to your partner. 2. Support support. If you can support your partner, do so. 3. Bridge is a partnership game. Don't be a hand hog Both partners on these hands were pick-up partners with whom I had never played before. The first partner was from Norway and claimed to be an expert. The 2NT bidder was from Turkey and said he was an intermediate. I think I should probably modify my thinking just a little. Double and bid a NEW suit shows a hand with strength equivalent to a reverse. Double and raise partner is competitive. I still think double and NT should show 19-21 HCP and secure stoppers in the opponents suit. Double and cue bid still shows the monster hand.