Quantumcat

Here's a line I would do at the table, probably wrong, needs hearts 3-2 and diamonds 2-2 or honour singleton (otherwise have to manage entries): Win in south, play ace and 2 small hearts (except cover the ten, would rather West got the lead so he can't play clubs!). Win spade return, diamond to ace, diamond, if spade returned ruff in dummy and discard a club, play diamonds discarding clubs till somebody ruffs, then win club return with ace, 2 of hearts to the 7, discard any remaining losers on the diamonds. You can probably manage entries better by not playing ♥A right away, but then there is a danger of someone getting a diamond ruff, and I'm not sure how much better playing for honours split is than 2-2 or honour singleton, whether it is worth any risk (I'm not sure exactly how much the risk is, either). Edit: I thought there might be a problem if East has 3 diamonds, wins the 3rd round and tries drawing a trump and playing a club, but can just win and ruff a club to dummy, and there's no more trumps out so can run the rest of the diamonds. If he doesn't draw a trump, then can still win the club and ruff to dummy and start running the diamonds, then there is still a trump to get back with if he ruffs and plays a club. So, I think my instinctive line is solid, as long as the diamonds don't break x-KQx and the hearts are also 3-2.

For me double is still a support double (just a stronger hand than if you are only forcing to the 2-level), and 3♣ is an overbid (I would expect at least an independent 15-count), not to mention when they bid 4♠ then partner with five or six hearts and a good hand is not going to know what to do. If he doubles, you won't know whether to take it out or not. He might be expecting that you have short hearts and will be disappointed when his AK do not cash, or he might have four hearts and four good spades in which case you definitely do not want to take it out, or something in between. There is no danger in support doubling at this level, since if he has only four hearts and a bad hand, his default action will be to bid 3♣ (if you have a strong hand there will be more bidding, so he's not worried if he has only two or three clubs), which you can pass. Most likely he'll have some ten or eleven count with five hearts and he will just bid 4♥ on his next bid. I am not as strong in HCP as I promised but the singleton spade and nice side suit should make up the difference. My philosophy is to support with support whenever humanly possible, and not give your partner the chance to make a bad bid if you can avoid it.

If you had the same hand but king of diamonds instead of king of clubs, and swapped ♥Q with the ♠K, wouldn't you have a pretty good shot at slam? That's a 12-count.

When I said it is good that GIB opens 2♥ in 4th seat, I was more thinking of comparing that to him opening 1♥, then the opps bidding 1♠ 2♠

Quite often GIB comes up with things that were obviously hard-coded in by someone who isn't too good at bridge. For instance sometimes you bid something like 1♦ then rebid 1♠ then 2♠, and the explanation for 2♠ is 5+ diamonds 4+ spades, instead of 6+ diamonds 5+ spades. And GIB acts like he believes this explanation, refusing to play in spades when he has three of them. Weak twos in fourth seat is probably another example. However, it might have been put there on purpose by people who play robot races - when you pass your balanced 14 count, you'll be quite happy when GIB bids 2♥ - he'll probably make it and he stopped the opponents from bidding their spades, so you get to watch GIB play fast for +110 instead of spending 2 minutes trying to defend for +50.

Usually if you make a forcing invitation bid, then bid game anyway, then you were actually inviting to slam.

I voted for double in the first case, it's fun to annoy the director :rolleyes:

It's not a free gift. It's there so people can try out tourneys and decide if they want to start spending money on them. Do you think free samples at supermarkets are fabulous free gifts too? I was only pointing out that I wasn't asking BBO to cook up the whole contents of the shop and serve a free banquet to all passers-by.

Another factor is if you don't bid, then partner will be very disappointed when his ♣A does not cash. I have been told it's not a good idea to let pard defend if we have a nine-card or longer fit that he doesn't know about.

The 3NT rebid sounds like it holds a lot of queens and jacks etc. Not aces and kings. I would have though it might be something like: ♠J2 ♥Q2 ♦KJT8 ♣AQT87

The reason is probably if you had the last stopper you could bid NT, or something at the 4-level if you had slam in mind.

Possibly GIB N showed a good hand by not bidding 2♠ himself (if forced to a certain contract, bidding it immediately shows the worst possible hand). GIB N is thinking that if you knew there was game opposite the most minimum of his "good hand"s then you would have bid game yourself, so feels safe passing your invitational 3♠.

Perhaps in GIB's simulations the only hand you can have for hand 2 is 6 clubs and 4 spades, whereas in hand 1 6 clubs and 5 spades is also a possibility, which skews him toward choosing 4♠. I don't really know I'm only guessing :-)

Ockham's razor - the obvious easy lead is the suit our partner said he preferred. That's what he expects us to lead. Note on the hand I gave his pard might hold the ace of diamonds anyway. Actually with his leap to 6♠ instead of blackwood the hand might be something like: North: ♠AT942 ♥- ♦6 ♣AK97642 South: ♠KQJ62 ♥Q86 ♦753 ♣QJ

I'm not sure what's standard, but I have the agreement that bids show values when there's three unbid suits, or two if the opponensts have not bid or have only bid one suit; and bids are asking when the opponents have bid two suits (and we have the other two). Not sure I understand all the benefits but my partner has told me that's what we do :-) So the first auction, 3♥ shows values. In the second, 3♥ shows heart values, denies spade values (otherwise you'd bid 3NT). In the third, 2♥ might just be showing values in hearts, or possibly a second suit if responder is strong and is hoping to find a 4-4 fit instead of a 5-3 one. We also have the agreement, if the auction starts getting slammy, that bids at the 3-level or lower like the above just show values rather than a cue-bid (and actual cue-bids start at the 4-level). I have found this agreement really useful - for instance you have a side-suit AQ62 and will have 13 tricks if pard has KJ. You can't use 5NT because you have a singleton and the king in that suit would not help. However earlier in the auction he skipped this suit to show values in a higher one. So you know he does not have the KJ and can settle nicely in 6.

Sorry! It's obvious now if we are on lead we must have been the ones to bid over 1♦. I should check my facts before posting in future :-(

Will there at least be a choice? I would rather play all the hands in matchpoint duplicate, but in robot races part of the strategy is manipulating GIB. If you don't let GIB declare then robot races will suddenly become boring.

Partner couldn't come up with a takeout double or a 2♦ overcall, even though he should really have the shape for one of those. I reckon this is a hand where both sides can make at the 4-level but not the 5-level. They probably have the slight majority of the points, say 21-23 (since pard did not bid, and there was no try for slam or 3NT), but we have better shape, and both sides can make at the 4-level but not the 5-level. So I'll pass and try and defend well.

If a heart was the killing lead, partner might have overcalled 1♥.

They already heard we have a void, and are not worried. They probably hold the ace of hearts or a void, since they seem quite sure we can't give our partner the lead with the obvious heart. So I'll hope partner has the king of diamonds, and lead the nine, then he's going to give me a club ruff. Maybe the hand is like this: North: ♠AJT2 ♥A2 ♦5 ♣AJT982 South: ♠KQ764 ♥3 ♦762 ♣KQ65

In these forums there should the a little "plus" button for funny posts as well as good bridge ones. Then you could do searches for posts that people thought were funny. This one is a prime example.

Note it is total points, not HCP. Pre-empts often have the same number of total points as an opening hand has HCP. E.g. GIB might think ♠8 ♥64 ♦KQJ6542 ♣J72 has 7 HCP but 11 total points. If you use losing trick count you have probably also noticed pre-empts have the same number of losers as an opening bid too. So the hand mentioned is probably what GIB is thinking of for a 3♦ bid.

The only reason you would want to stop in 4-minor after a gameforce bid is if you have exactly 25-26 not-good HCP, so you are JUST short of the values for eleven tricks in trumps. Not very likely. Your auction sounded like East had slam interest and West was going along with it but perhaps didn't have enough keycards to Blackwood.

Your comments are confusing. GIB can't play out of turn, and it is impossible to look at other people's tables to cheat so I don't know why you need a director. If I wanted to play with other people I would just play with my regular partner at a normal table. Maybe we aren't talking about the same thing. I enjoy robot races and bingo, but fighting for the free ones is exhausting, and the $1 ones detract from the enjoyment since you can't lose too often. I want to be able to pay $5 - $20/month and play as often as I want, with nothing being at stake.

Sorry, I only meant people you don't know the history of. I admire many times more older bridge players than young ones. It's just that I know all the young ones, so I know what sorts of habits they have and who taught them, but can't make any such assumptions about people I don't know. I did advise the guy to ask his partner rather than make any assumptions. As for things being standard in different places - fair point, things like natural vs. standard count, or weak NT vs. strong NT, are just as good as each other and which one is right only depends on your location. But sometimes something is just better than the alternative. It's normal at my club and surrounding ones to double an opening bid with just an opening hand, if they have a take-out shape it is purely coincidental. However when my partner (he is way better than me) gets asked his opinion on how to bid a hand better, he won't take into account this prevailing habit, he will still give proper bridge advice. I'm only trying to give what I believe to be good bridge advice, not taking into account what habits people have.