junyi_zhu

I am sorry, but the only good books I know of on this subject were written more than 50 years ago. Probably for some they would still be interesting to read, but the game has changed so much since then that I expect most non-experts reading such books (if they could even find a copy) would end up becoming confused. I see most of today's books about bidding as analogous to those spam-like ads "work part time from your home and earn $100,000+ per year!" or "eat all the chocolate you want and never gain any weight!". Most modern books on bidding I have seen are nothing but hype and what they are hyping is some bidding system or collection of conventions that will "improve your results by 10% without you having to learn the basics!". Here is what I would suggest: Don't give a great deal of consious thought to this subject in your first few years of serious play. Learn a simple bidding system and only the few conventions that are so popular that they have essentially become part of "standard bidding" (unfortunately there are now quite a few conventions that fall into this category). Keep your mind uncluttered with conventions that you don't really understand and play as many hands as possible, ideally with either a keen regular partner who is at roughly the same level as you or with a much better player who understands that it will help you more to spend your time discussing concepts like "a jump shift is forcing to game but a reverse is not" rather than the latest flavor of modified DONT. Your brain is a remarkable machine. You will learn a lot of what is important by osmosis, especially if you manage to avoid distractions (like trying to come up with the best possible scheme of rescues when the 10-12 1NT opening that you shouldn't be using get doubled). If you can afford to hire a professional player to be your partner or to give you online lessons (or whatever) you should do so, but do not hire anyone unless they are highly recommended by a person you trust and respect. If the pro or teacher starts by telling you that you must learn to play "4 of our minor is always 1430 Keycard Blackwood with specialized followups to the trump Queen ask" then find someone else - this person is trying to sell you snake oil. After each session you play you should think about the hands and talk them over with your partner. If your partner is at the same level as you, try to make friends with an experienced player who is willing to discuss the hands you are not sure about (and who is the type of player whose idea of good advice does not involve teaching you that you would not have had a problem if you used his preferred variety of Extended 2-way Reverse Drury). If you are fortunate enough to have access to an experienced player who is willing to help you, do not waste this opportunity by asking him questions that are designed to boost your ego (by trying to convince him/her to agree that your disaster on a particular hand was your partner's fault for example). LISTEN to your expert friend/teacher even if you disagree with him or her. Then THINK about it later. Do not get defensive when you are told that one of your bids was horrible. Instead try to understand what went wrong with your thinking process so that you can learn from your mistakes. Once you get to the point that you consider yourself to be solid intermediate player (this should take 2 or 3 years of hard work) you should buy a subscription to The Bridge World magazine (and if you have friend who has a collection of back issues try to borrow them). Each month this magazine has a feature called The Master Solvers' Club. Read it and think about what you read. Re-read it and think about what you read. You may find the other features of this magazine to be interesting as well, but it is fine if you read only The Master Solvers's Club in each issue. This will help you to learn things like: 1) That bidding is not just an exercise in language, it is also an exercise in logic 2) How strong players apply logic to solve unfamiliar problems 3) The axioms that form the basis of this logic (which are "the basic principles of bidding theory" that I referred to in an earlier post) 4) You will also learn plenty about the language aspects of bidding, but most of these lessons will not involve learning the names and mechanics of new conventions. 5) That bidding situations in which the "right" answer is not at all clear are far from rare, regardless of how well you play. This will also help you to improve your bidding judgment. Good bidding judgment is largely a function of experience. Reading what a bunch of good players have to say about a bunch of interesting bidding problems allows you to benefit from their vast experience without having to experience the same hands yourself. Keep in mind that in many ways "learning the basics of bidding theory" is similar to things like "learning the basics of probability theory" or "learning the mechanics of compound squeezes" - these are all just parts of the game. On any given hand any given part of the game is unlikely to matter. You can survive (and you can certainly enjoy bridge) without learning such things. All players are better at some parts of the game than others. For most parts of the game it is not necessary to be highly proficient in order to achieve reasonable results at the table. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com One of the reasons you see a lot of conventions is due to the awarding structure of duplicate bridge. 50 years ago, bridge is more like Poker, people may get famous and rich if they play high stake rubber bridge. Now bridge players can only get famous at bridge tournaments, which usually are in the format of duplicate. Again, due to the horrible structure of those tournaments, there is no money prize involved, so it's impossible to truly become an independent professional player. One has to be hired by the rich to be "professional". That kind of professional in my opinion is very different from the professionals in Poker. It's kind of a pet, a toy of the rich. They hire you just because they want to get famous or have an unrealistic ego that they believe that they can be world champion and therefore the best players if they hire 5 top players or play with a top player. To get famous and attract such kind of client, one has to win some tournaments. So now, the tournaments are the tools to get famous in the bridge world for ambitious players. And you may participate a lot of tournaments and shine a few times. Since the registration fee to attend those tournaments is rather low and you get no return in prize if you win, the tournament structure now favors those who play a highly variant game to get famous. And nobody would care how many times you have lost and how sever your loss is. They only see how good you ever placed in a tournament. If one plays in such a style in money prized tournaments for living, he should go broke fairly soon. However, he can get quite famous in bridge. So overall, bridge is not a game format to award overall effectiveness any more like the old rubber bridge. That's also the key difference between bridge and poker. In my observation, professional poker players actually work much more harder than professional bridge players to improve their game. Also, that's why bridge is a hopeless game comparing with Poker if the current awarding structure keeps. It is indeed very similar with the awarding structure on Wall street. If you are a trader and make a lot of money on a year, you get a huge bonus. If you lose a lot of money, you don't return your bonus. And nobody would care what a risky position you have put yourself in when you make that much money to get the bonus. The only difference is that on Wall street, traders manage others' money and in bridge, the registration fee can be ignored and you make no money prize even if you win. Therefore, bridge players tend to play differently and invent conventions that may allow them to have a shot in big tournaments, even if those conventions may not be profitable ones in long runs cause bridge isn't a profitable game at all. One day, my wife asked me, "why do you go to those tournaments and burn money?" "why don't you only play money bridge at bbo, since it's the only profitable game format in bridge", I found that those questions are difficult to answer.

I pass, too many Qs and Js for a 4th seat opening. facing an average 7-8 HCP, this hand doesn't play very well. If I have one more spade, I'd open for sure. You are missing 28, so partner's average is 9.33. In addition RHO passed in 3rd seat, so partner's average is probably pretty close to 10. I am not saying partner's average HCP is 7-8. I am saying facing a normal "average" 7-8 HCP with one ace or two kings, this hand doesn't play very well. Especially because your main suit is club, which can be killed by diamonds, hearts and spades, and you may not be able to show your 5 card club suit when your opp find their major suit. Also, if both sides have 9 card fit, you will be most likely in clubs and you actually don't have much defensive value against 3S/H/D, cause you have CKQ in your 9 card fit. So basically if both sides have a 8 card fit, you can be out bid by them, if both sides have a 9 card fit, you don't have much defense. Even changing the club suit to diamond may improve your situation significantly.

I pass, too many Qs and Js for a 4th seat opening. facing an average 7-8 HCP, this hand doesn't play very well. If I have one more spade, I'd open for sure.

Well, it's often a matter of over calling style. With a regular partner with quite sound overcalling style(about one J less than the minimum opening for a minimum overcall), I would double with a spade void with a hand that I think I can open 2C. I would double with a heart void with independent spade suits and about 19 HCP for the minimum. Of course, this is mostly due to our sound overcalling style. If the overcalling style is loose, I may have to double with some weaker hands. Also, if you hold something like: AKQxxxxx - Axx xx, you can probably bid 4C over 1C to show a good hand to play in H or S.

What are you talking about? You lose 1 diamond and 1 spade and if the heart hook is on you lose 1 heart. So you are on a finesse through the opening bidder. Anyways I posted this because I read it in a match report of a flight B GNT match involving hrothgar and barmar. Barmar thought the author was harsh towards the players, so I read the whole writeup. He described bidding 4S on these cards irrationally exuberant lol. I thought it was a good bid. Well, sometimes one can improve his bidding more if he doesn't read those reports at all...

It's clear to bid 4S with a rational partner. However, I have seen a lot of players bidding 3S with 3 spades and mediocre hands(or even some pretty good hands, but not good enough for a super accept type auction). So if you know your partner likes overbidding, it's OK to pass.

What does this have to do with anything? That's not what they were doing. What they were doing is, physically, unnatural. Try to hold the cards with your fingers spread wide, or one finger only behind the cards, as the pictures show they did. It's noticeably uncomfortable. playing in front of a computer actually kills all the discussions above. Yet, bridge isn't managed by players who enjoy playing this way.

It's usually a good idea to equip a gadget in one's system to set up a trump and force to game at 3 level or lower. Certainly the standard treatment in North America is quite bad.

There are many players quitting in the middle of the hand when their opps declare a game or slam. I think one easy solution is just to allow his opp to play out the hand and replacing that empty seat with gib. This is certainly a huge improvement of the current situation. IMO, it's very easy to implement. And it denies the unjustified advantage by those who quit intentionally in the middle of the hand.

They use the same program, but the program may generate very different random distributions which can lead to different bidding or playing decisions. It's not a surprise to me at all, cause in my old day's testing, gib really gives very different bidding and playing decisions for the same deal, some can be as extreme as passing 6 vs. raising 6 to 7....

2S improves your prospect of finding 2S as a partial. For game and slam bidding, 1NT is better, cause the 1NT rebid keeps the bidding very low and you have more space to describe your hand if you play two way checkbacks. If you bid 2S, you still may have some problems in the future. Suppose you play 2NT over 2S as an inquiry, it is still not easy to design the relay steps to distinguish the hand with 3 card support, a singleton or with a weak doubleton somewhere, maximum or minimum. So generally, if you play a team game with a partner who plays two way checkbacks, 1NT is slightly better. If you play MP with a partner who doesn't play many conventions, 2S is slightly better.

north can probably double 3D to show a hand that is good enough to raise to 3D, but not good enough to bid 4D. Now over partner's double, north really should bid at least 4D, and 5D is not bad but unlucky IMO.

This sequence looks very gib, and it's impossible in my 2/1, cause we use 2S to show minimum. Well, gib may bid like this with AKxxx Kx Kxx xxx....

I can't force them. What if they quit after , say, 1 ? You can implement a feature to enforce both players to deposit a certain amount of money before each hand (or every 4 hands ) (or each rubber if you want to implement a rubber bridge). So when one player quits in the middle of the hand (or rubber), gib would finish that hand for the guy who leaves and the other player and bbo would share the deposit. This also solves the problem of frequent quitting when strong opp declares a game or a slam, cause strong opp would declare better than gib does. Also, this is really a simple method to implement a fair rubber bridge, which would attract more players and penalize those frequent quitters and offers bbo profit from them. Of course, the amount of the deposit should be tested to have a effect to penalize the quitters, but not to penalize too heavily against those unlucky players who occasionally disconnect from internet.

Well, you can save some space if you bid 1S and your partner bids 1NT, then you can bid 2C which relays to 2D and show your H support and invitational value at two level, which is a big gain. So overall, it's still better to bid 1S IMO.

I probably know what's going on. In Gib's simulations, even if it discards a winner, there is usually a squeeze in side suits for gib to make the contract. So git discards the club winner. However, gib never understands that bridge is a single dummy problem, not a double dummy problem, so it can never guess correctly every time. Actually a simple solution is not only to solve the current problem of the hands that are randomly generated, but also to solve the double dummy problem once a certain play is likely to be chosen, like the play of discarding the winner, then gib would generate more hands and sees the mistake in that certain play and throw it away. However, this simple approach would cost more computation time. To make myself clear, let me give an example, in gib's mind, the two way finesse is 100%, cause gib plays a double dummy problem according to the hands it generated, but in real life, the chance is 50%, so gib should generate more hands once a certain finesse is taken, then it would understand that a two way finesse is not guaranteed.

I am also very interested in bot duplicated IMP or MP for money bridge.

4C should be a cuebid with D as trumps. 4NT should be natural and invitational.

South should move over 2NT, without gadget, south can guess to bid 3NT or 4H. With gadgets, he can bid 3D as transfer then correct 3H to 3NT to show his hand.

1 and 3 are clear doubles for me and I would bid 1H with 2. Pass is worse than double for 2 IMO. Basically, when you have opening values and have a reasonable choice to bid and you don't, you make a huge mistake. When you have opening values and have a slight offshape bid to choose, you make a small mistake. Those who pass with any one hand of them would exert huge pressure on partner and it's often impossible to construct any constructive sequences once you pass.

for those who don't play inverted minor raises with 4 card major(s), 1D 1H 2S 3D 4C(cuebid, 4S+6D shape with C control, without C control, you can bid 4D) 4H(rkc) 4S(4KC) 5H(we have all kc) 5S(SK) 7D here, with 4-5 in S+D, usually opener shouldn't bypass 3NT. Also, if you play 2NT to show weaker hands（not leb), 3D should show extra, then 4C can be bid safely bid.

if you really like science, you can do this: 1D 1H 2S: artificial, relay to 2N: 2N: relayed 3D: one suiter, gf. other bids, natural gf and natural S. 1D 1S 2H: 2S: relayed. 3D: natural, gf. 2N: true reverse, minimum. 3x: tends to be natural and true reverse. similarly, you can play 1C 1x 2x+1 or 1C 1x 2D to include gf one suiter.

There are a few big problems of gib bidding. 1: once opps set up an invitational or better sequence, gib thinks that overcalls show a hand with 25 points or more. 2: once your side has bid a game and opps sac, gib thinks double showing extra and tend to bid more. This can be very very expensive. Cause if you don't double, gib wouldn't double with a defensive oriented hand as well and they may go down quietly for 3 or more tricks and if you double, gib would likely to pull. 3: when you have passed for many times and later double opp's high level contract, gib still thinks they are takeout. 4: when gib isn't sure about a double, it rarely stays and tends to pull the double. I think the reverse would serve much better. When gib isn't sure if a double is takeout or not, it's for penalty. 5: Gib doesn't often allow competitive bids. For example: 1C 1H 2C 2H 3C: gib thinks it shows extra and is invitational. 6: When gib finds your side has 25 points or more, it just doubles opp's high level contract, no matter what. This can also be very expensive, cause often, it's right to bid a suit or to pass and leave the decision to partner. 7: Gib rarely make pure penalty doubles at high level, no matter how many aces and trump tricks it holds. I sometimes see gib defending 6NT or even 7NT with two aces and still no double. This is actually one of the biggest problems of gib bidding, cause when gib holds a lot of points, the results tend to be very weak, especially against aggressive players, cause gib tend not to double those overbids, even when they are guaranteed down two and no where to run. 8: If possible, a shape counting signal would make the defensive play a lot joyful. Now the defensive carding is a big mass and as I said before, wbridge5 implemented a couting signal in first 7 tricks which is proved to be a huge edge to its success. It could be a lot of programming to implement attitude signals, but counting should be relatively quite easy and straight forward. Let me post a few more bidding problems. 1 in direct seat, gib often fails to overcall 1NT which is in the right range. 2 in balancing seat, the definition of 1NT is wrong. 1C 1H p p 1N: gib thinks it shows a minimum balanced hand and hands with 18-19 would be forced to pass. 3 1C p p 2H: gib take this 2H as unlimited, but would pass partner's 2H with a lot of intermediate hands. 4 the overcalls at two or three levels by gib are generally too weak. This is also a big problem. Basically, gib thinks it can overcall with an opener, which often is wrong, especially after a passed partner with a very weak 5 card suit and balanced hand. 5 I don't know whether you have fixed it or not. In old versions, gib's bidding after 1NT 2M is completely wrong. It takes 2NT as invitational instead of asking for the minor suit. 6 Gib tends to sac when white and when it founds a 8 card fit at four level. That's also a big problem. Basically, gib assumes their game is always cold which just can't be right at the table. My suggestion is the reverse, gib should sac only when it thinks the contract in its own direction is quite good, most likely down one or down two. In money bridge, down -3 and doubled vs. 620 isn't a big deal at all. but -500 vs. +100 or +200 is a big deal. 7 gib tends to ignore the power of distribution. I have seen gib pass 1D 4H x with a hand like: AJTxx x AKQxxx x, which turns out to be very expensive.

There are a few big problems of gib bidding. 1: once opps set up an invitational or better sequence, gib thinks that overcalls show a hand with 25 points or more. 2: once your side has bid a game and opps sac, gib thinks double showing extra and tend to bid more. This can be very very expensive. Cause if you don't double, gib wouldn't double with a defensive oriented hand as well and they may go down quietly for 3 or more tricks and if you double, gib would likely to pull. 3: when you have passed for many times and later double opp's high level contract, gib still thinks they are takeout. 4: when gib isn't sure about a double, it rarely stays and tends to pull the double. I think the reverse would serve much better. When gib isn't sure if a double is takeout or not, it's for penalty. 5: Gib doesn't often allow competitive bids. For example: 1C 1H 2C 2H 3C: gib thinks it shows extra and is invitational. 6: When gib finds your side has 25 points or more, it just doubles opp's high level contract, no matter what. This can also be very expensive, cause often, it's right to bid a suit or to pass and leave the decision to partner. 7: Gib rarely make pure penalty doubles at high level, no matter how many aces and trump tricks it holds. I sometimes see gib defending 6NT or even 7NT with two aces and still no double. This is actually one of the biggest problems of gib bidding, cause when gib holds a lot of points, the results tend to be very weak, especially against aggressive players, cause gib tend not to double those overbids, even when they are guaranteed down two and no where to run. 8: If possible, a shape counting signal would make the defensive play a lot joyful. Now the defensive carding is a big mass and as I said before, wbridge5 implemented a couting signal in first 7 tricks which is proved to be a huge edge to its success. It could be a lot of programming to implement attitude signals, but counting should be relatively quite easy and straight forward.

Thanks Junyi, but Uday deserves most of the credit. He is the one that made all of the actual programming changes. I was mostly involved in providing additional bridge expertise (Uday won't admit it but he has plenty of his own) and helping with testing. The 5NT thing is problematic. We were not entirely happy with our "solution" and likely we will revisit this at some point. In the interest of avoiding further delays to today's release we decided to stop trying (for now at least) to get this right. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Another old problem is the range of raising to 6NT. Here comes this hand: KTxxx QTx Jxx Tx my hand is Ax AKx AKQxx KQx, certainly it has some plays, but my hand can certainly be weaker. Gib still thinks his hand is strong enough to push to 6NT after my 3NT opening, which shows 25-27. That means a lot of bad 6NT could be reached. In old versions, basically gib thinks 31 HCP is enough to push to 6NT it seems.