Mbodell

I'd bid 4. But it is close at mp.

Wow, I thought it was closer to 2♣ 2/1 gf than 2♠. Out of curiosity, holding the shape 3=1=3=6 and the majors the same, what is the minimum in the minors you'd make a 3 card limit raise, and what's the minimum you'd 2/1 f2f?

How about: 2♣-2♥ 3♦-4♠ 5♣-5♥ 7♦ The heart positive followed by spade splinter for diamonds gets most of the hand over I think. There is some chance East has 4 clubs (1534 is possible even if the splinter is usually 4 card support), but it isn't that likely (unless 0544 which is fine) and east could have the K or QJ with finesse on and some outside chance hearts may setup for pitches as extra outs. A cue of hearts over game after the positive must be the A.

Apologies that mobile client doesn't have hand/bidding widget (if anyone could edit it that would be great). I also couldn't do a poll from my mobile client. Anyways, here are the hands: All red at matchpoints in a 2 session A/X regional pairs at nationals, rotated south deals. South: KQJ432 Q AQ5 873 West: A95 K963 J976 A6 North: 876 2 K82 KQ9542 East: T AJT8754 T43 JT 1♠ P 1NT (semi-forcing) 3♥ 3♠ 4♥ 4♠ P P 5♥ P P P Lead ♤K, down 2 for 200. On North's first bid 3♧ and 3♡ would both be natural, invitational 6+ in the suit bid and no spade fit. 3♤ would have promised 4 cards. 2♧ would have been game forcing, so 1nt is the system bid. But it was then hard to sort out x them or compete to 5♠.

I'd pass. If we have a small slam, we may still be able to get -4. While we very likely have a game, -2 seems just as likely.

I seriously doubt it, but it isn't completely unreasonable. As in, there is logic to it, and cutting off the dummy from a good suit is frequently the sneaky right sort of thing to do. Is that more likely than a club winner needing to be cashed now? Unlikely, partners lead is consistent with Kxx of clubs, and that seems more likely to me.

To play many games there is also a free go computer program at igowin (made by a bridge player). The author of this also makes one of the strongest computer go programs (Many Faces of Go, multiple time world computer GO champion). The free versions are a free windows version and also a free tutorial/beginner iOS version. The AI adjusts to your ability, and you can start the 9x9 matches with a 5 stone handicap, and as you learn and win have the handicap shrink. It is relatively easy to understand what an eye is, what a ladder and net is, etc. but once you have some idea of that, try playing games and see what happens. At least that seems reasonable to me, but I have very little go skill myself, so who knows.

What does GOSH mean here? Is that saying it means this suit (in the power double).

You also need to think what if the opponent plays the T from Tx. On some holdings you have to worry what if holding the QT they play the Q too. Note there are other lines too like the double finesse line that also picks up stiff T off.

You can get slightly better if you play for either stiff K of club or stiff or doubleton K of hearts, no? If you choose to try the heart dropping you get the extra chance of a cover or hitch when playing the J up, although not against reasonable players who should have heard shortness and looked at the board :).

Fortunately in 1430 for hearts the first hand is 1 key card and I'll bid on (explore for 7 settle for 6), the second is 0 key cards (the spade K isn't a heart keycard) so I'll sign off. I might miss Kxx xxxx xxx KQJ.

I double and pass 4♣ if partner bids it, but I'll raise 4♦. I expect that a fair amount of the time I'll hear 4♥, and a fair amount of the time I'll hear a pass from partner (I'd pass as partner if I held WesleyC's hand). I don't like 3nt, I think I'm stopping spades only once, not able to hold off to cut the opponents off, and unlikely to run 9 tricks.

Shouldn't 3♥ be a reasonable call? I'd think it could be a cue for diamonds or a punt towards 3nt, if you remove a 3nt over that to 4♣ will you not have cued both controls and shown support for diamonds? I know it may matter how often diamonds are faked here, and how much the 4+♦ is really 4 plus, but this seems a pretty good hand opposite a GF JS. Something like Axxxx Ax AKxx Kx woud be a minimum hand for the auction that would be favored to make 6♦.

Agree about the main points re: alerts obviously, but the hand actually happened online in a private tournament (Tuesday Lilypad game) but against people whom I know from playing a fair bit both in person and in this weekly online game. Also, for those of you who think West could/should bid on. What would you expect bids to mean? Is 4nt obviously keycard (seems likely to me although 19 balanced with xx of spades might want to try natural, but probably too thin)? Are new suits at the 5 level a cue bid, or revealing a single suited power double in this suit?

Assuming you play natural long suit game tries then: 1♠-2♠ 3♥-4♥ 4nt-5♣(you probably should play 6kc here, but assuming you just do normal 1430 for ♥) 5♠-5nt (for me 5♠ should show all the key cards + Q asking for K since it is the 2nd non-trump step, others might have different agreements especially with the 1♠ opener, but this is convenient as 5nt here can show the ♠K) 7♥ If you know spade support, K of spade, heart support, A of club and accept of a game try you know that 13 is very near guaranteed.

Yes. Good timing from Grant.

I re-ran a version with no restrictions on partner (I.e., pretend they would never double even with AQJxxxx of clubs). The results were what you'd expect, mostly the same or slightly worse for everything except a little better for club leads now. So now dimaonds are best, then club T/9, then top spade. The results were still super tight.

IMP pairs. [hv=pc=n&s=sj96hjt7dj98cq952&w=sq83hk963dakq72ca&n=s5hq542dt54ck8743&e=sakt742ha8d63cjt6&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1d(precision)dp4sppp]399|300[/hv] No other pair faced opponent bidding and half ended in 6♠ making 7 and half in 7♠ so 4♠+3 was -12.5 IMP (and perhaps contributed to the overly aggressive action that produced a -870 on the next board for another -12.5 IMP).

MP at the club. [hv=pc=n&s=saq4hkq53dkq842ck&w=s98h72d63cqt96542&n=sj653ha98dajt9caj&e=skt72hjt64d75c873&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=3cppdp4sppp]399|300[/hv] The table result of 4♠+1 scored 1 MP, half the pairs were in the good single dummy 6NT spot (all but 1 making 7), 1 in 7NT, 1 in 6♦, 1 in 4nt, and 1 in 6♠-1.

I see, is this how folks get such stellar reputations?

So far I've seen an opponent do this to me exactly once. And ironically enough despite them doing it utterly smoothly I played them for J9xx and was right!

This suggested line doesn't work out that well when someone has Axx of hearts and a 4th club. Now they can hold up the A to the 3rd round and if you pull trump fully play the club leaving you trapped in the S hand with no way to N. If you see the 3-0 split on trick 1 and end up in dummy I think you now have to take a finesse and play for E to have either the spade K or diamond Q. It might be better, rather than eliminating clubs, to play diamond A then ruff a diamond then attack hearts. You still get put to the guess if E wins A and plays spade, but you set yourself up to try for Q-third of diamond before falling back on spade finesse if that doesn't happen. There are some unlikely squeeze lines as well, but I don't think they are going to be as good as a finesse.

For some results, here was how the MSC voted: There are only 11 votes from bbf at the time of this voting, but 6 are for the diamond, 2 each for top spade and club T/9, and 1 for the 2 of spade, none for the top scoring 4th best spade. For best lead DD bbf forum have 8 votes for diamonds, 2 for clubs, and 1 for low spade. For 2nd best DD lead it is very split with 3 for low heart and 2 each for top spade, 4th best spade, diamond, and club T/9. When I simmed this, the results were extremely close. Close enough that I ran the results 100,000 times rather than the usual 10,000 times just to cut down on the sample error (the other errors - like differing assumptions about the hands, and the difference between SD and DD - no doubt dwarf the sample error, but wanted to make sure. As always simulation code available for inspection). The results were: I originally thought based on a small sample run that top spade would be best, and indeed it leads to the set slighlty more often than diamond (about 1 in 2000 hands more), but when you look at the imps, the diamond lead ends up leading to the fewest tricks and hence is actually the lead that averages the best IMP score. However it is extremely close as usually the difference in leads is measured in .25 or .3 imp between best and second best. Here it is less than .1 IMP. And in fact the spread from best to worst lead here, leaving out the major "hero" lead and minor "hero" lead of ♣K and ♥J is just around .25 IMP. Even the disaster lead like the club K is less than a 1 IMP loss, usually the disaster leads are more like 1.5 IMP losses. You might think it is because we set it so rarely, but actually 20-25% is pretty reasonably frequent. And in the July problem we set the hand more like 5-10% but the imp differences were still quite large. So really I think it is because the leads are so similar in their results with only 2% really between any lead outside the top honors (and even the ♥J is only an extra 0.5% make and about .15 IMP worse than low heart). Interesting that the general readers lean so strongly for the double dummy best lead, while the panel plurality favors the beginners rule of "4th from longest" and splits nearly 2:1 in favor of some spade.

I agree with Wesley, 5h is quite a bit less likely (nearly 0) because of the 4 card suit on our left and the 2NT bidder on our right having at least 2 and we have 3. 5c is possible, but I think with 5 good clubs a X might have happened, although maybe not with just AQ222 which is very likely good enough opposite our KT9.

I don't think you are alone. I feel somewhat the same in that it is one thing to spend time on a hobby/pass time that is "just a game" it is another to spend time on a hobby/pass time that is "just a corrupt game". And I've heard from quite a few folks that they assume bridge at the top is much more like Lance Armstrong era top cycling (essentially nearly everyone cheating) than just a couple of bad apples (I doubt this, but I also doubt everyone who cheats is caught). That said, I'm still looking forward to Denver nationals and am cautiously optimistic that we (bridge players world wide) can work through this.