bluecalm

I think polish leads are superior to standard and solve also those problems (as well as many others). Those are: A = AK K = KQ Q = QJ or AQJ J = HJTx or JTx T = Tx or HT9x 9 = T9+ 2nd from xxx+ and Hxx, 4th from Hxxx+ and low from xx (including 9x but not Hx) I am yet to see one hand where playing "strong ten" is superior to those but the ones when it helps declarer are plentiful (cause imo you really want to play J from HJTx and JTx)

I have noticed that especially American players lead too aggressively. I even remember that Lawrence in one his books wrote that leading from xxx is usually terrible preferring active leads from honors. This is wrong and modern players lead more passively, especially ones from Europe. There is probably also some space vs leading vs NT contracts for leads from short suits instead classical 4th best, especially if your 4card suit is minor. Those are difficult to assess though because even if leading low 6 ♥ from Q42 63 K942 9532 might be the best double dummy it will often make the subsequent defense more difficult. One more example in defense is playing to force the declarer classically thought as the most effective defense but not having that much significance in practice. For example from A7 8765 54 KT854 and 1NT opener on your right it's right to lead 5♦ or A♠ after both stayman and transfer auctions "classical" advice is to lead low club trying to establish your own suit and force opponents (trump lead is close 3rd and club is clearly the worst choice). Moving A♠ to ♥ doesn't change anything.

I always though that "classical way" is to lead an honor if you have a nine, use your judgement when you have an eight and lead low when you have something smaller. I am yet to find anything to convince me it's not right.

I can see it working like this: 8 players sign in for amount x to duplicate. There is an option for one player to pay for some other players. They play 2 tables in rotating pairs. Let's say every player play with every other player 2 hands or 4 hands depending no how long they want it to be. The winner takes 70% of money, the 2nd place 30% or w/e. That could be adjustable. The system is posted by duplicate maker and all players plays it. There is cheating and stuff is basic problem but I don't think it's a problem. There should be big red warning: "Only play with players you know and trust and only for amounts you don't care losing". One requirement should be to post your full name in profile. What would great is a feature when you can pay BBO to verify your identity. Let's say you pay 25$ or w/e and send documents like on poker sites. Once you have your name verified it's said in your profile "verified name". That would be great opportunity to either have fun among friends or for some players to pay for the opportunity to play with better ones.

Both of them for not discussing their system obviously or one of them if it was discussed but forgotten.

I pass vs "good opponents" then again I rarely play vs people who I consider being "good". Once that happen though I would for sure pass as if they are not insane they are not going for 500 there and my double can help them making this or run to some better contract.

Yeah, I always give full explanations when asked. I also know that if they keep asking they are weak players. Nothing wrong with it. I don't like to play vs weak players online because it's not enjoyable for me. Sometimes unfortunately when there are no other games available I play in "expert teammatches" where people fancying themselves as experts still don't know what multi or polish club is. I get annoyed then, but still give explanations, what else could I do :( Of course If I played in random game in main room I wouldn't even use words like "multi" or "polish club" expecting full well that 99% of players there are recreational types who treat the game as pure hobby and never were serious about it. That's fine of course but then again that's the reason I don't play in random main room games :) It's not only about 1♣ opener they keep asking about every follow up like 1♣ - 1♥ even though they are not alerted. I mean, polish club is natural system with few gadgets, if you play a lot online and have advanced+ in your profile you should really feel some obligation to educate yourself about the most common systems and conventions in use.

For some people "multi" in their pet variation is so natural that they can't imagine someone not knowing what it is. Just assume it's weak two in either major and bid accordingly. I would also be annoyed if someone keeps asking about meaning of stayman, transfer or weak two opener in online play even though there 100's variations of those and they are entitled to know which kind we are using. If I play vs someone who don't know what multi is then well, I would also prefer to play vs someone else because there is a lot of correlation between level of play and knowing what multi is and how to defend vs it. I remember that when I started playing bridge I kept asking about "better minor" as it was (and still is) so bizarre convention to me that I wanted people to explain what exactly they do with various minor suit configurations, as most of them didn't ever think about it they were annoyed by my questions. One other example is "polish club". When I explain my 1C opener ar "polish club" I expect my opponent to know what it is. It's very popular system and they could frankly google it instead of clicking my bid and make me write the lengthy explanations . I know they are either very weak players, morons or just people who seek ways to annoy me so I am instantly unhappy as I don't want to be in online game with neither of those types.

Always overcall with 5 ♠ and 4♥ as you can often bid hearts cheaply later but after doubling you lose your chances for 5-3 spade fit forever. With 5♥ - 4♠ the situation is more tricky and some people like doubling with that more often, imo they are wrong (but not by much) and you will not do too badly if you always choose to overcall your 5 card major maybe with exceptions of hands like AKQx 76532 Axx x when it should be right to double.

I sometimes like to make simulations for such problems to see if double dummy results reflects common knowledge about obvious situations. Results of my simulation (with very simplistic assumptions about the bidding): Card which leads to the most tricks for defense (out of 1000 hands): 9♠ - 733 J♥ - 892 4♥ - 893 (!?) 9♦ - 783 2♦ - 793 A♣ - 670 2♣ - 688 sure enough :)

I think that maybe 3♦ should already promise some half stopper. If he has completely empty diamonds he should've preffered raising spades with two of them, I mean he may have AKQ and AKQ in round suits but it's still not enough for GF so with Hx of spades he could've raised and with Qx(x)/Txxx of diamonds he would bid 3♦. I am bidding 3NT as I don't want partner to visualize Kxxxx KQx xx xxx and going for heart game.

I see, thanks, so Jack analysis gives similar results to my double dummy analysis afterall.

Could you elaborate on it ? expected score comparing to what and for which side ? What those numbers mean ?

Hmmm ? 97 QJT54 A65 765 7♠ - 120 Q♥ - 219 5♥ - 203 A♦ - 89 x♦ - 81 x♣ 107 Why it matters: a)high h is better: 1)they have A9 to K8xx and not enough tricks on the side 2)K9x in dummy, Axx in partner's hand x2 3)They have 9x to AK8 or AK9 to xx x2 4)They haev AK97 to xxx in hearts but not enough tricks on the side b)low h is better 1)partner has Kx and they have A9xx in one hand (Ax to K9xx) x6 2)K9 in partner's hand, they have Axxx Admittedly it's very close. If we substitute T with a 9 still Q wins slightly. If we substitute T with an 8 then low is already better.

Hmm, it seem that Jack's simuls gives different results than double dummy simuls. Any idea why it should be the case ? How good is Jack in defence, signalling etc ? Or maybe you gave numbers of how often 3NT makes instead of how often it fails because the results seems to reversed of what I would except.

Here you go: First, let's assume 3NT bidder has 9-14hcp without singleton major or 4+ card major unless he is 4-3-3-3 or his major singleton is at least a Q. All the hands are simulated on 1000 hands sample. Numbers listed are numbers of times given lead defeats 3NT. 1)Your hand: 8♠ - 114 K♥ - 213 3/7♥ - 162 3♦ - 89 2♣ - 105 2)85 KQT73 8743 52 8♠ - 123 K♥ - 182 3/7♥ - 161 3♦ - 94 2♣ - 87 Which should end the discussion about side entries in double dummy play. I went through simulated hands to see why K♥ is better than a low one without side entry: a)K better: 1)they had J5 to A98 and after cashing two hearts we switch to establish more tricks while low heart gives away both trick and a tempo x2 2)partner had xxxx of hearts and decl Ax to Jx (AJ second in one hand) x2 3)AJ second in dummy; xxx in partner's hand 4)Ax in dummy, Jxx in declarer's hand; if he wins, partner will play heart through if he doesn't we just establish hearts x2 5)Jx 2n in dummy, Axxx in declarer's hand; he needs to duck once and then we have a chance to find a killing switch x2 6)similar to 5) but AJx in declarer's hand 7)they had hearts xxx to AJ8x but still they don't have 9 tricks after Kh, low gives 9th one b)low better: 1)partner has Ax of hearts x4 Those are from hands when it mattered (from 250 hand sample; I didn't have a patience to go through all 1000). It seems that the only gain of leading low is hoping for Ax in partner's hand while there are numerous ways Kh could be better than the low one.

2NT - 3NT Next board imo.

What a day, I agree wit the hog !

Yes, this is retarded. +/- may work on very technical forums where people are usually trained in logic and following rules (ie Stack Overflow) but in forums like this people will just upvote things they agree with and down vote things they don't agree with which in effect will cause some members to stop posting things they know other people won't like which is exactly what we don't want. We could have 2 step system: all the down/up votes are public. Then if some moron downvotes someone else because he doesn't agree with what is posted he would earn downvotes for his stupid down voting :)

I am completely serious. I think people should be allowed to think to mislead. They aren't according to laws though so of course trying to break rules of the game to take advantage is unethical. I just happen to think the rules of the game should be different but I certainly can see a point of them being as they are now.

There is a player in Poland, quite successful one who is known for his unethical play. He literally does everything to win. Starting from always suggesting that he took more tricks that he in fact did counting on mistake by opponents ending at some hardcore cheating. I don't want to start discussion about what to do with people like that but I would like to present two amusing masterpieces of his: 1) Our hero plays 3NT, and has something like: xxx Kx AJx QJx in dummy to: xx Axx KQxx KTxxx in hand. The lead is small heart and it's immediately clear that the contract will need some serious help from opponents. Our hero asks for K of ♥ from dummy and when opponent follow low he also follows and... waits... After about 1 minute of this impatient opponent asks "it's your turn, you know ?", "Oh, sorry, I took the trick ?". THen he plays clubs and opponents, once in with A♣ tried to cash hearts - fully deserved overtrick :-) 2) Our hero play in 6♦, hands are something like: x AKx 9xxx KQJxx in dummy to: xxx Qx AQTxx Axx in hand Opponents lead A of ♠ and much to his dismay our hero - having excellent eyesight - saw KJ second in his LHO hand. It seems that there is no hope but not for truly imaginative player. He ruffs the 2nd spade plays low diamond from dummy and seeing low from RHO exclaimed : "All hope in a finesse!" and banged down the A♦ (!!) of diamonds. Naturally opponent tried to take the trick with K[diaomonds]. Now it was enough to find an explanation for playing diamonds from top again ;) This effort was worth another top of course. There was a lot of discussion about those displays in polish community but the fact is this player continues to play ;) Beware !

The law is the law and some people say it's made according to "spirit of the game". I really don't get why people aren't allowed to think whenever they please to mislead opponents. I think some very fuzzy logic were used to make those laws, probably the same one which dictated system regulations :)

Can't prove it but imo you lose significantly with such hands even if it's only for lead directing double but there is also thing about them not leading into your 5card major. YEAHBUT you get 3-1 or 1-3 majors and at least 4pc once every 40 times your partner opens 2NT and out of those 40 times he will have 5card major opposite your fragment about one time in ten (if my simulations are correct, might be not big enough sample cause those hands are rare and it's taking forever). So once every 400 hands you gain from it. Do you think that giving them 399 chances to double your puppet or not leading into your 5card major when it hits shortness will not make up for this ? :) Imo people rarely think in terms of frequency and effectivness and they like conventions which looks pretty and cover esoteric hands. The same situation is after 1NT opener. At imps it's profitable to bash 3NT with many 5M-3-3-2 and 4M-4-3-2 hands but nobody is doing it (yet) cause the tools for assessing those plays aren't widely available and people are risk aversed and they are scared of opponents running their suit when 9 trump major game was available.

Bleh, maybe you guys are right and I am biased by knowing actual layout where doubler had powerful black 2 suiter and about 21hcp which made 4♠ comfortable and 3♥ making or going one down, can't remember now.

I didn't know about this up/down voting feature before and I don't care as I think it's silly on internet forum but you get my first and probably last upvote ever for this ;)