bluecalm

No, because the lead is clearly from AKxxx and if E started with Qxx xxx Jx AKxxx I am home by playing a club now but if she started with: xx xxx xx AKxxxx I need to finesse a spade. I hope, besides other things, to gain information on how often American "expert" playing on BBO leads 3/5th vs NT agreeing "sayc". I would really love to know if she just led her usual 3/5 or if she planned to trick me with 3♣ lead.

Still sucks. As the simplest example lead from xx is usually very attractive against 4M if your hand is weak and much less attractive if you hold majority of defensive assets. You will make mistakes like that all the time if you follow the chart. Seriously, can we just agree the idea is ridiculous and forget about it ?

I stated that but I didn't realize it at the time. They agreed "sayc". I thought everybody playing "sayc" leads 4th best. I believed in the lead and played for clubs 5-3 watching LHO cashing his 5 club tricks :( I have no idea if she tricked me with that lead or if she just lead "normal 3/5". Anyway I find your arguments very convincing and I think I made mistake trusting 1st lead while other inferences were available.

My reply was to dake50 for his trollish post, not to you. Again, I honestly don't know what could motivate them to advance this idea (and with such intellectually dishonest argumentation too as quoted by PrecisionL). If someone come to this forum and propose something similar they would be ridiculed in no time. Granovetters deserve the same and even more so as they writing could be taken seriously by some naive souls and thus do some damage.

I made a typo. E had J6 of diamonds. if E has 5 clubs throw in is 100% line. The problem is, he might have 6.

Random BBO opps. it seems they are advanced from hands played so far. They are pick-up partnership and all they agreed is "sayc". It's imps: [hv=pc=n&s=sj972hkqj43d52cj7&n=sakthatdk9743cqt6&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=ppp1np2ddpp2sp3nppp]266|200[/hv] My pass denied 3♥. First trick: 3♣, 7♣, 8♣, T♣ A♠, 4♠, 2♠, 6♠ I now run 5 hearts. W discarded: 2,6,9 of hearts and T,8 of diamonds (in that order) E discarded: 5,7,8 of hearts and 8,J of diamonds (in that order) So... throw in or spade finesse ?

I think it's matter of style. I think mandatory 2H is better style though :P I also think that if you don't have good structure after such 2H (ie. 2N relay and one answer showing min) then you are better off bidding 2S and 3H after 2N. Finding info about your range is very important in those 2/1 auctions. Anyway, what is: 1S - 2C 2S - 2N 3H for most people ? Probably some non existent or very rare hand, it would be better for them to bid in such way with 6-4 and min while bidding 2H first and showing 6th spade later shows extras. I find this argument silly. I mean, if we skip hearts in 1/1 auction then we are stuck in 1NT missing 4-4 hearts fit, it's obviously worse. Here we can skip hearts and have partner bid 2N/3H with hands with 4H so we won't miss anything while we can find info about range. Again I prefer always showing 5+-4+ majors but it requires good, detailed system to be playable imo.

My view is that on such hands 4S makes more often than 3N. Too often they just need one tempo to establish setting tricks while we have our 10 ready but lack the tempo. Anyway, I think his bid is reasonable and there shouldn't be much harm if we bid assuming 22-24balanced (or w/e the range)

I think all of them should be forcing. If I were to play not GF 2/1 I think: 1H - 2C 2H - 3H 1H - 2C 2H - 2N 1H - 2C X - 3C Should be the only non-forcing sequences.

I just recalled one of the great books I've read when I started playing bridge. Excerpt: "Among the traditions of teaching in bridge, none is less worthy than that which prescribes for opening leads an order of preference based upon the character of a player's holding in various suits (...) It is all quite ridiculous because every player of any experience and judgement knows that there are hundreds of times when these conventional preferences are no guide at all to the choice of the best lead (...) There is great scope for judgement in the choice of opening lead; to judge well, the player must attend to the bidding very carefully and in the light of this bidding and of his own holding must try to foresee what type of hand it is going to be" from "Reese on Play".

Very tough hand imo. I think this hand needs to be opened with 2C because if you open 1S you will have problems even after 2/1 (let alone 1N) because you will not do justice to this hand even jumping to invitational 4NT so basically you will be force to jam slams on many auctions which you don't want. Anyway I have no idea how sensible auction could look here. Even if you manage rkcb on diamonds at some point you are still not totally comfortable signing off in 6N from either side.

Ok, I see. We have new expert forum for people to defend ideas like robot leads. Awesome ! This only shows you have no clue how good players think about this game. You will never see anyone good saying things like: "well, I would lead this and this but now let's see if bidding suggest otherwise". In fact if you were to defend such reasoning you will instantly be seen as someone not very good no matter where this reasoning leads you to in particular deal.

But robot leads are neither good enough nor good way to teach someone. I mean.. it's like crippling beginners at the very start of their playing adventure. why not teach what is good instead: -try to imagine how the hand looks and how the play will likely go -think what's the best way to counter declarer's likely plan -think what minimum assets are needed in partner hands to make your plan work etc. Beginners will make mistakes in that process and so be it, they will learn from such mistakes fast. First time a beginner leads a trump after 1S - 2D - 2S - 4S auction just to see his side suit winners dissapear on diamonds it will be valuable lesson. Following the chart and "giving more weight to your hand than the bidding" is as counter productive and bad as you could get with bridge advice.

Isn't the main idea of transfer to be able to make wide ranging bid showing a suit thus allowing to stop in 3M, play in 4M or offer choice of games (as well as make slam try with 5M-4+m) ? I think "usual way to play them" caters for possibility of being able to play 3M. I saw some people play methods like accepting tranfer = support but those are very bad methods imo. Being able to top in 3M is huge after 2N, especially at MP's.

He is probably 22-24 balanced and thought 2N is too little. Nothing to be excited about, easy pass imo.

Yeah but it usually applies after high preempts when there is no space for other bidding, like: 1H - 3S - 5H or something. Here I don't really get why you would want to bid 5H when you had convenient 3D cuebid available to set hearts. In principle I agree though I think responder wants to be in 7 opposite 1 round diamond control and in 6 opposite 2nd round control.

Why would he be the captain ? He is the hand which describes itself, if anyone responder is the captain here but I don't really buy much into captain concept anyway. The problem is this: let's say opener has 6-1-4-2 distribution. If we assume he needs to break the relay with that hand he will hear 3N on either: 1-5-2-5 or 1-5-5-2 as bidding anything else could easily be disaster as opener doesn't know anything about minor suit distribution of responder. Now responder needs to know if we belong to 3N or in 5/6m and for that he needs to know opener's 2nd suit. In other words you need to convey information about spade fit at/below 3N level to make reasonable decisions and for that you can't break the relay after 2N.

I mean major suit 5 card openings. More or less you either want to preempt to four level or bid game to make with hands like 4card support + void or 5card support or stiff. Hands like Axxxx x xxxxx xx are strong enough to play in 4S facing 1S openers, that's why 1/3/5 tp adjustments for shortness in shorter (or equal) trump lenght seems better than 1/2/3. Also shortness is worth much more if you have 4+trumps to go with it. I am not sure how total point stuff adjust for that. Sayc is just bidding system, judgement is separate thing. Just adjust for shortness with shorter trump fragment more aggressively than fo shortness in opener hand and you will be fine. Also 4th trump and shotness is really powerful combination worth more than those factors separately. Also don' worry that much about precision, it's elusive target anyway. Try to learn some simple algorithm for estimating when the game makes (as you are apparently trying to do) and observe/ask when it works and when it doesn't. With time you won't need "tp's" and stuff like that and you will know when :)

The problem is that with this particular version of Gazilli if you break the realy by 3S then you don't know opener's 2nd suit which might be crucial piece of information if you hear 3N over your 3S. I think the bidding was reasonable up to 4S. Why N jumped to 5N now is mystery to me. He already said he has extras with two spades by bidding 4♦ imo. Passing 5N was probably panic mode thing unless you play 5N natural there which I doubt.

I don't know what this article is saying tbh. It seems like a lot of words, some random assertions, some contradictions, some faulty logic and no real point. My understanding of it is "follow the lead chart but not really". Why all the talk about weight to the bidding/hand when making a choice and why give the chart anyway is a mystery to me. Yes, you should discuss leads and make predictable choices. At the same time your choices should be efficient leads. How the chart and all that robot philosophy help with that is not explained nor implied. I don't think so either. He is either clueless or tries to sell some idea of his which seems completely bogus. I don't know which. What I know is that using honor chart for leads will make you weak player in no-time unless this chart is 50 pages long with chapters for common bidding situations but then you don't need a chart in the first place.

That might be in some parts of the world but for example you won't find a semi-decent player in my country who would want this double to be penalty and surely nobody would understand it as penalty without prior agreement. I mean, it's time to stop calling agreements from 40 years ago "standard" when 95%+ of good players play it as t/o.

As far as I know, nobody has answers to those questions and even elite players often play ridiculous games or 11 trick partscores especially those playing full range openings so do not worry about those details too much :) 1/3/5 is what I've learnt when I was learning bridge, it depends on when shortness is located. It's closer to 1/3/5 if it's with shorter trump fragment and 1/2/3 sounds right with longer trump fragment. Also about any hand with a void and 4 card support is worth a game and about any hand with stiff and 5 card support is worth a game so 1/2/3 surely undervalues those. You surealy don't want simple raise with with xxxxx x Axxx xxx but that is what simple 1/2/3 indicates.

I have no opinion on 1st one, other than it shows extras. On 2nd one I think t/o is better. 2♥ would be 4 hearts and a hand unwilling to leave opponents in 2H doubled, probably shapish minimum, something like xxxx KJxx Jxxx x. Imo to make those reopening doubles in such sequences you need a hand which is happy to play there if 1NT bidder has 4 decent trumps and pass.

Meh. You are all wrong and it will be obvious once computers are better than humans at bridge and could solve such problems leaving no doubts. I am writing this to quote myself in 10 years. Gl playing your puppets and transfers to 3N :)

My understanding of Acol is very shallow and comes from Kelsey books about cardplay but... why not bid 2N here ?