bluecalm

[hv=pc=n&n=sjthkt832dk85cak9&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=1hp2cp2hp3dp4cp4dp4hp4sdpprp]133|200[/hv] 2H is mandatory in Polish style (2N would be 15-17). After 3D the agreements end (it was pick-up partnership). 4D was a cuebid, no kickbacks and other stuff like that in this part of the world :) Do you like my bidding so far ? What now ? I am interested in going a bit deeper here so I would like to discuss what would you do without double after 4S, what possible hands partner have and what kind of values he expects. I would really like to understand this position because as it turned out we had fundamental misunderstanding here so I would appreciate a bit more detailed answers than usual "X, wtp" (which I think are valuable nevertheless :)).

I thought it's very close but I passed thinking that I sometimes go down in 3 and I am not vulnerable. Partner had: KJ98 876 A542 64 and the game made because of 2-2 hearts.

Partner had: J AKT764 A97 KQT and the auction continued: 4D - 4NT 5D - 6H pass one down as Q♥ was offside. 6S was a laydown thanks to stiff J. Thanks all for comments I am still unsure what to do though.

No agreements other than 2/1. Partner is relatively unknown but from what I've played with him he seems to be very good. Still we played like 50 hands together so far so no sophisticated agreements here. [hv=pc=n&w=skqt8732hj3dca743&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=1h2d2sp3hp]133|200[/hv] IMPs. What do I do here ?

First time partnership, no agreements at all although partner is star player on BBO. [hv=pc=n&w=s74hkqj953d6ckq98&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=pp1h1n2hp]133|200[/hv] Do I invite here ? If not what is minimum improvement to this hand to make it an invite ? If yes do you consider it clear ?

Intuively I feel that hands on BBO are flatter than hands I play live (also generated by computer but i don't know which program). Is there any resource about BBO random generator ? I am just curios, I am aware that probably my intuition is just wrong about it but I would like to see what kind of generator BBO is using and if it is good.

This is silly but I understand you couldn't resist the temptation to troll a bit :) KQxxxx Ax xxx Ax - game will be great opposite xx, terrible opposite xxx. It will be clear from partner's perspective if he has say Axx Kxxx xx xxxx while it wouldn't be so cleara to accept any other game try. Furthermore there is hope to play 3NT opposite KJx/KQx/AJx etc. of diamonds which again would be far from clear opposite other game try.

I like it to be xxx(x) in their suit. I was introduced to this treatment some time ago by a friend and I love it. It's also quite frequent. The idea is to avoid hopeless contracts with 3-4 cards facing 3 cards in partner's hand.

The problem is that you want to calculate probability by dividing: (interesting layouts) / (all possible layouts) If you don't know the whole suit distribution there is a problem with this though because you don't know how often you get given layout. If they have Q65432 in clubs and followed with 3 and 2 you are tempted to assume that now say: Q65 - 4 and Q64 - 5 have the same probability (times number of combinations in side suits) but it's not the case. It's not the case because maybe your opponents never discard a 2 from Q652 and then Q65 is not possible at all. Or maybe they do that only rarely. You can't know for sure and without that knowledge you can't determine what probability of Q65 is. What you could do is to say how probable Q652 was before they played any cards to that suit or how probable Q65 is now if you know for sure their strategy of following suit. For example if they always follow with the lowest card available then your reasoning in OP is valid (assuming you take into consideration only layouts consistent with that). Finally you can assume they always follow with random low (as in not significant for trick taking) card. If you go through calculations you will find out that probabilities don't change at all. Once you write that down and understand you will see that's where restricted choice principle comes from :)

Those hands are very rare. Another thing is that they contain 4-4 in majors which makes for example: 1C - 1M 2M still 4 cards as it always is in Polish club. I feel you take the worst of both worlds (polish 1C promising balanced hand and standard 1C) by introducing some of those hands into 1C but not all. It makes some simple situation awkward, say: 1C - 1D 1M - 2D or negative free bids with 5 cards. It cripples 1D opening but you still have sucky 2C there for (4-1)-3-5 hands. I don't like it but some good Polish players do that so it's playabale I am sure.

What is 4NT in such auctions ?

Surely so. In what sense ? That 2C should promise 6 ? It would be completely different system then, you can't do that in pc. I don't think space consumption argument is valid at all. What about (3-4)-1-5 or (4-2)-2-5 ? People open 2C with those shapes too. It's sometimes nice to do it with xx AQxx xx AKTxx or something. Also what about constructive bidding in sequences: 1D - 2C ? In pc you have simple natural bidding with 2D promising 5 and 2H/2S being reverses. You need some artificial scheme with 1D being 3+. I mean, maybe precision is better than pc but those are completely different systems and that change would ruin it imo. People play pc because it's simple, natural and easy to use and having natural and descriptive 1D opening is part of it.

Depends on level of trust you have. 2♦ means 4 of them so if partner didn't cash the diamond it should mean diamonds don't cash. 4-6-1-2 is not very likely and neither is 4-7-1-1 but they are possible. I am sure if we made such play with my semi regular pd we would agree E made a mistake and if W cashed diamonds nevertheless we would call it "damage control approach" (which is what we call the way of playing when you go with apriori odds and not with what partner is doing).

Italian pairs (all using Mexican/2C for 18-19bal) open 4-4-4-1's with 1C unless it's exactly 4-4-4-1♣ then they open 1D.

Interesting. Author/title ?

Well, my judgement might be off here. I just have this experience of passing here (in polish club contest but it's similar) and it always turning up badly. Either we made something (3m, 3N, 2N) or 2NT was -50/100 while 2S was -110. I am not very confident about it but it seems to me partner has something (5 card minor, enough to win 3NT, enough to win 2N or lose for less than 2S) often enough to make bidding a better option. Unfortunately I have nothing to support that other than experience on small sample size and intuition so I stay open minded about it. It would be nice to hear from more players.

Imo passing with say AQx KQx AKJx xxx is a bad idea here and I would want to bid 2N, especially if we are vul.

Nope. Interestingly Italians playing this opening (Lauria - Versace, Sementa - Duboin) and similar one (Bocchi - Madala) do open 2N with 5M-3-3-2 inspite of playing a system which could easily accommodate those hands in 1M openings. They must think it's good for some reason. I wonder what: 1D - 1S - p - 2S 2N should be The possibilities are: a)good diamonds, S stopper b)5-4 minors c)a or b There was a hand in recent Italian championship where Madala bid that with Qx Ax AQxxx AKxx and got 4C response from Tx Jxx Kxx J98xx but it still doesn't answer my question what would he bid with say: Axx x AKJxxx AJx.

1)Competition: Now 1m openings are natural (with the exception of 12-14 with clubs) so any further action means opener has unbalanced hand with natural suit. For example: 1C - 4S - p p dbl = clubs are natural now 1C - 1S - dbl - 3S dbl = real clubs, not 18-19 balanced. 2)improved constructive bidding: 1C - 1S 2N = natural invite with 6+clubs 3C = 7 clubs I think 1) is huge gain over standard. Bidding after 2D itself isn't that bad either as it's easy to acoomodate for all the 2 suiters below game. The drawback, as mentioned is that you sometimes play too high in a partscore but imo, especialy at IMPs this opening is very good. As to matchpoints I have my doubts but a team consisting of 2 pairs (+ a sponsor pair) playing this opening won two last Reisingers so it's probably playable :)

Imo partner will almost never bid 4d himself. We usually have 6diamonds and weakish hand here and it's hard to imagine him having anything suitable to go to 4 levelewith.

I know, odd question as it seems BBO is moving away from .lin readers. I still love the old client though and I write many scripts to produce .lin files out of vugraph hands. It would be very useful if there was a way to rotate given hand. Say there is |pn| tag and then the cards/vulnerability/dealer follows as usual but then (or before) there is something which says: "present it rotated by 90 degrees". I am digging through old Deal of The Week .lins to find it but so far no success. Anybody, pls ? :)

I am pretty sure most players in my country would take it as splinter and wouldn't even consider other options. That being said I agree that it shouldn't be splinter.

Nice collection. Rodwell Files is very nice. Huge introductionary/basic part and then even advanced part is easy to grasp and contains a lot of useful and practical stuff. Highly recommended :) I also remember this old Kelsey book which got me started in bridge. "Countdown to better bridge" I believe was the title. I've read it 10 years ago when I was first learning the game so I don't remember much other than being impressed. As to Kelsey I also think "Killing defence" is remarkably good and 2nd part ("More...") is great as well but much more difficult. I would stay away from books about bidding. People are generally very bad at writing those and I am yet to see one which doesn't contain a lot of very bad advice and/or information. There is one I would like to recommend: "Win the Bermuda Bowl with Me" by Meckstroth/Smith. It's not bidding or cardplay book specifically, more like collection of hands with nice commentary but it contains a lot of practical advice and hey, the hands are real hands played by the best partnership in the history. I think attitude to bidding which Meckstroth demonstrates in it will do more good for your game than all other bidding books possibly could.

My feeling is that opening 1NT is inferior style, however very surprisingly (to me !) Pavlicek's numbers show that to be true only for hands with spades and reverse for hands with hearts. He also has quite a sample: http://www.rpbridge.net/9x13.htm http://www.rpbridge.net/9x14.htm It might well be that people suck at bidding with those hands and especially so after 1H or maybe preempting spades out of bidding is in fact that important. Anyway I plan to run this query on my db later and include only reasonable players (ie top ones) in the search to see if that confirms Pavlicek's results.

This is very interesting imo. I like this idea and intuitively I feel it may work better than standard approach.