bluecalm

Just don't pass, lol. It seems like 5 level contract is making often enough and they won't go down too much in 4S (or even somehow make it). I bid 4N hoping it has "pick your long suit" implications.

You post very difficult hands. It's another post I open and have no idea what to do :) My instinct is that 3NT is better than passing but I am not sure at all about it. Btw, I think 4NT should be natural but our hand is not nearly strong enough for the bid.

The idea is that whatever edge you might have in close situations in bidding is lower than your cardplay edge. For example if it goes: 1NT pass ? and you have borderline hand between say invite and 3NT and you very fine judgement tells you it's better to bash game but most of the field is in 1/2NT then even if the game makes say 53% of the time you only collect 53% from the hand while being where the field is could allow you to score much more exploiting their weak defense. In general I believe good players have bigger edge in cardplay than in bidding judgement so going "with the field" in such situations is quite important (assuming you can predict what the field does). That might well be true I admit. My argument is based on assumption that you can predict what fields does as OP seems to imply.

Well, at least I was right about it being close according to the poll :) I passed, and it was worth +1400. Partner had: AKTx Tx AKx AK8x so even grand was making (it wasn't a good grand though) with 6C being a laydown. I polled some of my friends and most chooses 3NT. My partner agreed with a pass but wasn't sure about it. At other table the bidding went: 2H pass pass 2NT pass 3NT pass... so it was 12 for our side but admittedly it was random bbo "expert" opposition so their actions don' mean anything ;) As to 4NT we agreed it should be minors after initial pass but it would be natural by unpassed hand.

This is a bit off-topic I think and minor point but at least where I live deciding if something is or isn't LA is costly (you have to find players of similar level for a poll) while deciding if UI suggests given action is either done by TD alone or after some consultations if he is not sure but it's usually much simpler issue and it's decided before the poll to decide what is and isn't LA is run. Procedures may vary though and I think it really doesn't matter, TD should just do whatever leads to resolving the problem faster. I think this is very good point. Players, however good and experienced they might be, are almost never unbiased, often lack full understanding of bridge laws and almost always lack experience with difficult cases.

It's logical equivalent, isn't it ? It's also less efficient as you need to know what UI suggests anyway and if it suggests nothing then you don't need to bother about determining LA'a. As I said ,this is cute but it doesn't matter. What matters is if players of similar strength in his position would seriously consider continuing a heart without UI (or however it's exactly spelled now). It would be very useful to know what signal to Qh meant and what would Rodwell play from JTxx. It's really sad that there is information that "low heart wasn't attitude for J" but there is no information what was it and what exact agreement they have here.

This is write-up from one of the most important tournaments in the world. TD's around the world will read it hoping to learn things. As much as I want to believe the write-up doesn't illustrate what really happened during committee session I am not very hopeful. After all if you know all the information what would you choose to put in the write-up: meaningful stuff or some randomish information loosely related to final decision? I have read quite a bit of summaries from appeals released in US and I was usually very impressed by them. They were clear, conclusions were clear and facts presented were meaningful. Here we don't see anything like that. I understand the committee job isn't an easy one and that resulting summary might not be perfect but I believe your defending them here on principle of: "things are difficult, we can't judge easily" instead of relating to what was actually written. I mean if they put peanut butter recipe in the write-up we could still apply your arguments to defend it...

We (or at least I) don't. However we (or at least I) expect to read about this meaningful information in published appeal, instead what we have is total confusion and lack of crucial information. I am not convinced they got it wrong, but they got the write-up terribly wrong which suggests their decision making process was flawed even if they somehow lucked out into correct verdict which, again, is impossible to say without knowing about crucial stuff you mention and which is missing from the write-up.

The committee sound completely confused imo. The ruling should go like this: a)was there UI ? There was of course, long huddle transmits information about partner having a problem; this information is not authorized by bridge rules. b)does UI clearly suggested some actions ? To be established but just because Meckstroth claimed he didn't notice something or small heart wasn't "attitude for J" (lol) shouldn't be even considered here. If low heart wasn't attitude for J what was it then ? What would Rodwell play from JTxx ? Would he have any choice ? If not, then UI suggests discontinuing hearts c)Is continuing hearts LA here ? Again, the answer to this questions is the same as the answer to similar question: "Would at least some players at level similar to Meckstroth at least consider continuing hearts?". If the answer is yes, then continuing hearts is LA. What Meckstroth planned to do before, what he claims he noticed etc. has no bearing what so over here. The question is if having his agreements in this spot (apparently none) would other players consider continuing hearts after seeing a small one. It's cute that Meckstroth wanted to be tricky and played a Q from KQ but what was he claims his reason for doing that was doesn't matter here. Meanwhile in the rulling there are a lot of meaningless information (what he claims he intended to do, why Rodwell thought for so long etc.), lack of meaningful information (what his agreements are for spots like that) and general fail at getting even point a) right. Thanks god. Too many "law experts" and too few people with reading comprehension and logical reasoning skills ;)

I just hope they got it confused only in the write-up or they really shouldn't be doing the job. Anyway, the verdict doesn't look that bad to me I can certainly see some justification for it but the explanation dissapoints greatly.

And here we can see the appeals: http://usbf.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=986&Itemid=397 This: confirms that the committee doesn't know what they are doing. It doesn't matter for existence of UI what E planned to do yet it's given as a reason. Deeply disappointing explanation imo.

It depends what 3H meant. If 3H was game forcing and you play standard agreement that double is penalty in forcing pass situations then pass is LA. If 3H was invite (or invite+) or similar then pass shouldn't be forcing and dbl is just extras/nice hand in which case passing is not LA imo. Btw I have my doubts if break in tempo clearly suggests bidding on here but that would probably be ruled because of "instant doubles are for penalty" mentality common among directors.

Playing 3D as hearts, 3H as spades and 3S as stopper ask is virtually standard after 3C ! Oh wait...

I added alerts now, just hover your mouse over bids nad it will show all alerts extracted from vugraph files. Some of them are random, some of them are useful, it's all vugraph operators actually inserted. Fantunes: http://www.qfpost.com/file/d?g=gp7BpPzsP Meckwell: http://www.qfpost.com/file/d?g=J3OIdW1U9 They are usually used for people to auto explain their bids on BBO but they also could be used for describing system in easy to browse way. It's like browsable tree. For example if you want to know what hands Meckwell had for say: 1C - 1S 2H sequence you just go there and see: "2hands, xxx yyy" where xxx and yyy are actual hands they had for 2H bid. Yup but still could be fun browsing what elite players did in say: 1C - 3S - ? sequence and instantly see what cards they had for 4C/4D/4H etc. I will think about it. One more, Lauria Versce + Sementa - Duboin in one (they play the same system) with alerts included: http://www.qfpost.com/file/d?g=RxZXlnohN

So I got bored yesterday and started coding it, turned out to be quite simple. I just feed it .lin files, hero pair and get full browsable FD card with actual hands for every sequence popping out if you hover on the bids. It's early version so you are welcome to tell me what kind of info I should add (one thing is to dig out alerts from .lin files and put them in descriptions, this one is a priority) If you want to see similar FD's for other pairs than Lauria-Versace please post here. I combined 1/2 seat bids and 3/4 seat bids togetehr to make it more clear and easier to browse. Also for now it only works for constructive bidding, I don't know if FD cards works for competitive bidding. If you are a programmer and want to see the source you can PM me (it's in Python). It will be available on github one day when I stop being lazy and put there ;) FD card for Lauria-Versace: http://www.qfpost.com/file/d?g=pVugYTBUs Btw, one problem with that is that there is a lot of trash in vugraph arcvhies and many operators just insert final contract if they lose track of the bidding so it's not 100% reliable btu if you wanna see how Gazilli works for example it's quite good.

I don't see anything. Just in case he somehow has diamonds and really weak hand I play Ac and a c hoping for two kings in partner's hand.

[hv=pc=n&w=shak7dqjt32cj7632&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=3hppdp]133|200[/hv] It's imps.

Well, in 4card majors context it makes much more sense. I have no idea about the details but I expressed my somewhat strong opinion on the matter assuming 5card majors context.

Partner will reopen often anyway. As to those sequences there was some debate as to: 1N - p - p - dbl (t/o, major fits, 10+hcp) p - 2H - dbl With one very strong polish player/theorist advocating penalty here as one can bid 2S with 4 spades (first pass denied 5 spades). I think he got it wrong and it should be t/o (for example 6-7pc and 3-2-4-4) but it's probably the only close sequence of the kind and all other doubles should be t/o's.

2C redoubled is quite common because of people aggressively doubling stayman or checkback. Other than that I think 3N and 4M got to be close.

What about 4-4-2-3 ? Say: xxxx AKxx Qx xxx ? Still, you lose hearts if it goes something like: 1C - 1S - 2C - 3S Because now you need a double for extras and 4-4 heart fit is lost forever.

That argument doesn't contradict what I said. Most people are bad at bridge so just because "many people play it" doesn't mean that "nobody good plays it" doesn't hold true :) Again it comes down to definition of good. I meant players who compete at highest international level. There is literally no one (at least no one regularly appearing in big events late stages) who passes say: xxx AKxx Kx xxxx if it goes: 1C - 1S - ? Passing is just weak bridge if opponents have any aggression in them you will regularly miss very good heart games. If you bid 2C it's equally bad for the same reason (your not good enough to double later at 3 level). Same goes for weakier hands, say: xxx AKxx xx xxxx and two level.

It comes down to what 'expert' means but this is very bad agreement and nobody good at this game plays it these days.

Good point :) Apparently this simple logic eludes some "experts"...

I concede that it might be the way to go. I am still not convinced somehow, mainly because if there is an edge in this approach it's much smaller than what you get if you just land in the same contract than other table(s). With perfect players though I think the chances are that you are right. I wait for the day when computers could play at strong human level so we can just feed million hands like that to them and see if pass or 2C is better here.