bluecalm

The objection is that if they bid something at 3 level (or even 2level) your partner is never able to compete because you can have any suit. Probably playing double as one major (which is quite silly) is much better than playing double as any one suiter.

I agree. 4H. It must be close contest between DONT and CAPP for the worst agreement ever to make it as popular convention. Seriously DONT play it.

K♦ and only one ♠ minor honour in E hand is reasonable chance. For example if West has : AQxx Ax xxx Qxxx We can win in dummy, finesse spades win any return. Play K♠. Win any return. Ruff spade. Finesse ♦. Go back to hand with ♦ or ♣. Draw trumps. We score 2♠ (ruff and T), 4♥, 2♦, 2♣ = 10. We can even win if W has : Axxx Ax xxx QJxx This time we need to finesse ♦ first. Then play ♠ to 8 (or overtake ♠ honor). E will be able to play 3rd ♥ but we will score 2 natural ♠ tricks. This line is superior because it wins with 1st layout too. So overall : I win in dummy, finesse ♦, then I play spade and overtake in hand planning to play spades on every opportunity.

Hi, I think system played by Lauria-Versace is thing of beauty. Basics are very simple and natural and most bids can be guessed on general grounds. It cointains some relay sequences though when it's needed. One of them is Gazilli: 1♠ - 1TN 2♣ (natural, or any 17+) Now 2♦ is usual relay (any 8+) but the answers are somewhat misterious to me. It's different scheme than the one used in Ambra (2♥ = any 5-4, 2♠ = weakish 5-4♣) etc. They answer 2♥ with weak hand with 4♣ and 2NT with gf balanced hand (they never open 1♥/1♠ on 5-3-3-2 15-17 with 5M). No I wonder how they bid 5-4 shapes and what do they do with 15pc and 5-3-3-2. Any help regarding this scheme (or other sequences after Gazilli in their system) is welcome :) Take care :)

Isn't 2♣ enough in Fantunes ?

Too powerful for 4♥ imo. I open 1♥ hoping to rebid 4♥ if I get a chance.

I pass with your hand. Pass from N is ridiculous at any form of scoring.

I think SAYC is both worse and more difficult to play. No world class pair play anythng similar to SAYC but many plays some sort of 2/1 (especially 1♣ 2+, 1♦ 4+ minor openings). I would say go with 2/1 or anything reasonable (precision/polish club etc.). Avoid SAYC at all costs.

We play that way in most cases (low = please play K and next, usually xx, sometimes Qxx if we are sure it's the best defence) but in situations where declarer preempted or showed two suiter we feel count is more important most of the time. Example hand : [hv=d=s&v=n&n=sakq3h72dq942ct72&w=st82h54dakt3cq983]266|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] Biding goes : 4♥ - pass - pass - pass We lead A♦. Now it's important to distinguish 3 and 4 as well as 2 and 4. Solution of always dropping the highest (which is very good in other situations) just doesn't do it here I believe.

Thanks much :) English is not much native language. I have just learnt it from the Internet :) Well.. what about a hand where someone bids hopeless game and win on 3 finesses ? +13, other pair -13. Unfair ! What about grand slam on pure guess of a queen. You guess, +14. Other table played reasonable 6NT and got -14 (or whatever). Unfair ! There many examples of that I am sure you saw more of them than me :) In the long run we hope luck will all even out... (it won't but it will matter less and less with many hands played although it will be on average bigger in absolute terms). This is our hope with both duplicate scoring and scoring against minimax...

Looks encouraging (for me:) ). Would it be possible for you to provide script/tools (even if they are commercial). I would love to check some matchups like : Meckwell versus Lauria-Versace etc. Looks like minimax is quite reasonable from that sample and good thing about it is that you don't need any other pairs to see who played better (just a lot of hands). Yes :). It seems unjust but... The most obvious measure of who is better at bridge is to just choose : score = total points won. Unfortunately this way you would need thousands (ten of thousands ?) of hands to have something you can rely on. Here comes modern scoring. Instead of just counting total points won you compare total points won to what other people won on this board. This is much more valuable but still you need many hands to see who is better. Butler scoring is based on this idea. Unfortunately when major tournaments goes to playoff stage butler is no longer reliable because you don't have enough scores from other tables. My idea is that maybe comparing to minimax isn't that far away from butler scores and thus can be used as reliable measure of who plays better if you don't have any other (or not enough) scores to compare. Of course there are "unjust" deals if you use this measure but there are also unjust deals if you play for total points. Even at imps there are many unjust deals (if one pair plays your 7NT they get +17imps, and other pair gets - 17imps). It's all about variance (how many hands you need to get close to expected value). Both total points and comparing against minimax are objective (pair with better expected value in both of them is better at bridge) and pair who scores better in the long run is just the better pair. My hope is that variance in "compare to minimax" is much less than in "count total points won".

Yeah sure. It can be. My problem is how to distinguish 2 from 4. There is no solution I believe to cases you gave. (edited and removed nonsense i wrote). Sometimes we need to know if another trick is cashing. Basically if declarer preempted or showed two suiter (9+cards overall) we give count to an A. Now the problem is how to give the count in most clear way. Unfortunately it's often difficult to say if declarer is say 5-3-1-4 or 5-1-3-4 because both layouts are plausible.

I was wondering what's the best method to give count using udca carding from 4 cards. There is often a problem on the first trick (but also to declarer play but this is rare) to distringuish xx from xxxx. I tried to do simple analysis comparing 2 methods (pitching the lowest, pitching 2nd lowest from xxxx). Here is simple example: Dummy --->>>>> QJ4 We-> AK532 We lead A and partner gives count (let's say it's obvious that he should give count or that it's our agreement). His possible holdings are: xx : 67, 68, 69, 6T, 78, 79, 7T, 89, 8T, 9T (10combos) xxxx: 6789, 678T, 679T, 689T, 789T (5 combos) 1)Partner always pitches the lowest: We will for sure now about xx seeing an 8 or a 9. Only 3 combos. We also have a shot to know for sure if partner plays a 7 and declarer doesn't pitch the 6 but other card (possible 3 combos) 2)Partner always pitches the 2nd lowest: Here comes the problems beacause it depends what declarer pitches. We will know for sure seeing a 6 (4combos). We will also know for sure if partner pitches a 7 and declarer lazily plays a 6 (3combos). If partner pitches an 8 it again depends on what declarer plays (this time he needs to play a low card). 9 is again clear. So overall we will instantly know about 4 possible doubletons and have a shot to know about 7 more if declarer doesn't falsecard correctly (against our method). From this simple example it seems that pitching 2nd lowest from 4 cards is superior. Thoughts ? Any other ideas about giving count signals using UDCA ? (I've heard about something like only playing the lowest from xx or xxxxx etc.). Any comments appreciated :huh:

I was in "1♠ wtp?" camp but after generating some layouts I am not that sure anymore. It seems that double will place as in better suit most of the time. 1♠ leads to some passouts and some inferior♠ partscores. On the other hand after double we often land in ♦ fit instead of ♠ fit which is disaster at MP's. I think double makes sense at IMPs. I am not sure if I can make myself to produce it though.

It won't be any easier if they write a book about specific situation. If it were easy to "judge the correct view" they wouldn't have different views... at least if they are world class players. I admit though that I like 'explanations' they are nice to read and it's nice to see what factors are the most important for good players. I am just defending all those "wtp, lol, 3nt" answers because I find them very valuable.

Maybe partner has a t/o double with xxxx/xxxxx of spades and many points ? xxxx A AKQx KQxx xxxxx x AKQx AKQx He couldn't act over 1NT because t/o double would promise ♥ fit what he is suppose to do now being almost sure we have profitable 3level (or even 5level) contract ? If you say 2NT, then what about : xxxx AKQx x AKQx ?

I am not saying that explanations are always useless. What I am saying is that they are useless most of the time because most of the time all the relevant factors are pretty obvious for everybody and it all comes down to decide which are more important. When world class player says : "LOL, 4H" and my intution is : "pass". I see that I can probably revealuate. It's also very valuable to know that this world class player consider this decision as obvious. Those two pieces of information are much more valuable for me than 95% of "explanations" I see on forums, books, articles, speeches etc. When I am writing the "explanation" I try to picture what I am considering important factors and I am hoping that someone better than me comes to my thread and says: "lol, 3NT obv" so at least I know my evaluation in the best case a bit too optimistic/pessimistic and more probably simply wrong.

That's what I am suggesting: using scores at the table and compare them to minimaxes. The pair who beats minimax by more points/imps than other pair in the long is the better pair. Of course this measure can have a lot of variance and you need to play a lot of hands for it be reliable. I have no idea how many. It would be nice to see how for example Lauria-Versace fares against Meckwell using this measure.

Sometimes explanation just doesn't contribute anything. Arguments for different options are pretty clear and it all comes down to which factor is most important in given situation. You can only know it from experience and intuition (and sometimes some simulations may help though they are imperfect). "Obvious 4H" from world class player is worth more than thousand words of explanation from aspiring "expert". When I wrote the "explanation" I am usually hoping that better players here will correct me and say : "you overvalue this and undervalue this". That's the chance to improve for me.

For me: 1.2NT 2.dbl 3.pass 4.pass I am not particularly unhappy about any of the above. I am not sure about 3 at all though because I have no experience at all playing those openings. Partner may well be 3-2-2-6 or 4-3-2-4 (or 5-2-3-3). I will win a lot doubling in the former case and lose a lot (probably) doubling in the latter.

Yes.

I think that comparing scores of given partnership to minimax scores is better measure of how well this pair play than butler scores (although probably it has more variance). Do you know if anybody did statistical work of comparing top parterships from top events using scores against minimax as the measure ? I am very interested to see if butler winners would be on the top as well and how big the difference would be.

Why "preempt" ? Why not think about 2M openings as just weak openings with 6card majors ? Not as "preempts". Going through generated hadns I think 2♠ works best. This is why I open it. I don't care at all about beauty points.

The problem is we don't know what features are good and what are bad. Some simuls suggests that 5 card suits are overrated when it comes to playing in NT. For example I run simple simul. Given hand opposite 7-8hcp balanced without 8card major fit, then I run this hand: KQ9 A83 KJ8 KQ84 with same constraints. The 2nd hand makes 3nt significantly more often btu no one would dream of calling it anything more than "normal" 18hcp. HCP seems to be very accurate for NT contracts much less so for suit contracts. Choosing the best opening bid seems to be very difficult task which I believe no human can solve at the table with any reasonable accuracy. My intuition say: 1NT because : a)interfering over 1NT is hard, finding any possible game very hard b)leading to strong hand is difficult c)I would rather say I have balanced hand with 15-17hcp than bid clubs saying nothing usefl to partner and quite a lot to opponents (lead D, don't lead C) I see too many +'s of opening 1NT and I don't believe I can accurately upgrade anything but the most obvious cases.

Be careful... you may get what you wish for... Partner reopens with dbl and you ?