badderzboy

Dealer N NV vs Vul I had this little hand when my partner opened 1NT (12-14) in North ♠98642 ♥6 ♦J6 ♣AK1094 What do u do? (i) Transfer to Spades and if not super accepted then pass? (ii) Transfer to Clubs via 2♠ then pass (iii) Transfer to Spades then bid something else? ( should be slam pursuing?) (iv) Stayman and if partner bids ♠ then jump to 4♠? (v) Pass I was completely stumped so passed but the hand has great shape? Thanks for advice Steve

Playing Benji Acol, 2♣ - 3NT 4NT - 5♥ 5NT - 6♦ 7NT (i) I'd open 2♣ showing ACOL 2 in an undisclosed suit (ii) partner would bid 3NT showing strong balanced reply 12+ (iii) I'd bid 4NT Blackwood (no suit agreed) (iv) 5♥ showing 2 A now I have only one loser (and poss Q♣) (v) 5NT and after 6♦ showing 1 King (vi) 7NT thank u very much :-) Steve

I hope that Ece & Steve do not leave not for poliitcal reasons / for a clash of personalities or even for a matter of honour. I don't know the reasons or issues but as we have a common love/addiction for this great game so please accept we won't all get on. The passions around this topic show how much everyone cares about all the players in BBO and how hurt we are two 'senior' players are leaving. The only "winners" are whomever caused the uproar and the losers are those of us not involved both for the clear help ECE & Steve have given others but also for the potential loss of other senior players who may feel that they would leave or play elsewhere as well. This would be tragic as BBO is the best place to play this challenging game online by a country mile and also a great place to learn to play by both watching the masters at work or by being taught and mentored here. BBO has grown by leaps and bounds and deserves to continue to do so and is a credit to Fred, Uday et al. I hope ECE & Steve reconsider even if they change their names and use an alias! so at least friends and colleagues can continue to help the rest of us. Steve

Sorry corrected now

Example Hand first :-) Playing against a weak NT you hold ♠ Axx ♥ AKJxxx ♦ Void ♣ Axxx Bidding goes P-1NT-X-2D (scramble 5+Ds 0-10pts)... (i) Do u agree with Dbl? Partner passes and holds ♠ KQx ♥ Qxxx ♦ Jxxxx ♣ Q What's your next bid? I suspect that a 3D cue-bid was the best bid rebid but also (i) what would 2H show here and is it forcing (ii) how should partner continue following your rebid (playing splinters as well)? 6H is sensible and 7 makes on 3-3 or better club split (ruff 4th Club with QH) but how do u get there? Any general tips on continuing the bidding after opps scramble from weak NT with a strong hand? Thx Steve

As a beginner / intermediate The replies should surely apply to best practice for a beginner. The 'rule' I've had drilled into me is open 1NT with a 5 card major if suit is poor i.e 1 of top 3 honours only because you really don;t want the 2H rebid as the next one and get left there with ptr holding 6pts and xx or worse in major... I know you guys are far better players and can get away with superior cards play but is there a more constructive answer. With the hand in question 1NT is the best I agree but with AKxxx of Spades would you give same answer? Steve

I wasn't sure about any of the %'s as we now have conditional probabilty introduced so the original %'s are irrelevant as . The only possible suit combinations that would show xx and xx into two rounds are :- (LHO, RHO) qxx xxx ,xxx qxx, qxxx xx, xx qxxx so I would place the odds of Q dropping at 50%? Steve

Fun hand to play I guess and DBL tells East how to play it? and also keeping quiet takes down contract as previously said... Opener has shown 7 ♥ with 3♥ opener and weak hand and then dbld♦ so we can place QJT in North? Given good honours in hearts for opening not likely to have anything else so finesse S for J♠ to guard against 4-0 break I won't have done it at the table as I can't think that quickly but is it reasonable logic? Steve

I think that making a simple statement of how you are going to play the hand is (i) polite (ii) prevents any unauthorised info to be recieved. The easiest way to do this on BBO is to reject any claim with no info immediately unless blatently obvious and ask the opp politely how he intends to make the hand explaining it may be laydown but in the real world you have to explain how anyway and online is just a logical extension of live bridge just manners are more abused. If the claim is incorrect then opp needs to reclaim with the adjusted number, playing the hand out is against the rules of the game is it not. One issue is you cannot type in a long explanation in the initial claim but can always explain better in CHAT. I as a rule of thumb add brief notes to any claim as a matter of courtesy even when obvious (like all masters or run H and last spade etc...)! The hand above should be -1 as it was possible and likely opp would lose a trick and he gained unauthorised info by the rejection as he COULD interpret it as he needs to finesse. Steve

As a relatively new player, counting was the hardest thing to learn and I got the hang of it by really concentrating on 1 hand usually where opps are declarer at first and counting everything spots, shape, pts etc (declarers shape/pts from bidding if poss) and then not trying so hard again that session to determine all and then in the next session to fully count 2 hands and gradually increase the number and stop my brain from numbing after 10 hands+. Suggested in a book by Ron Klinger I believe. I also found using the ASCII format in BBO helped me start counting much easier (including the last hand display) I've just returned from a trip where I played relaxed "holiday" bridge with a pretty inexperienced partner so no real pressure lol and found all of a sudden it was almost automatic to count and remember the hands and far less effort than it had been previously so I could concentrate on trying to play the hands better! The answer is practice and also setting reasonable goals and expectations for yourself in a session Good Luck Steve

Hi Ben, Can I ask what leads my opps play - does K♠ show or deny A which is relevant to his opening ? Also are we to assume 3♠ shows 7 spades 6-10 pts. Thanks Steve

As a beginner/intermediate, I find the hands and challenges very interesting and they lead to good pointers in approach/technique. Could I suggest that adv+ only post after a couple of days to allow beginners / intermediates to post their approach and subsequently to then receive helpful advice on how it should be done! When the solution is posted - it's too easy to peek before trying! Cheers Steve K

My view of the subject is there is nothing wrong in congratualting people on making an easy contract or because of bad defence making a difficult one. The rule of thumb I use is wdp or gtp when it's a straight forward hand OR opps make a mistake and is simply being polite. In the BIL I will always encourage partner or opps regardless of ease/difficulty of the contract because it is a friendly environment and people are learning to play. Use of stronger english like Vwdp or great defence opps with a tough hand well played or well defended ie when I really mean it. My partner and I will discuss afterwards hands well or badly played so we take the other comments with a pinch of salt.

As someone new to the game and relatively young at 35 I was attracted to playing bridge for a number of reasons. I played Whist with my parents as a child and so enjoyed playing cards and I also played Chess quite well but stopped when I got into competitive sport. During the last 15 years I have not seen anything to advertise the game either at University or externally and my interest tweaked as I enjoy cruising and attended a couple of ship lessons 18 months ago to see what it was all about and was advised to try LTPB by the lecturer and on a later trip advised to try to play online (BBO was recommended). I am now hooked to say the least and being a Brit play either ACOL or SAYC as required. BBO has been a revelation for me with the myriad of lessons available for beginners+ and opportunity to play and all for free! Indeed the best thing that could happen for bridge to promote it for younger people would be to tie get Yahoo/MSN Zone/Gameplay to use BBO instead of their software and this would introduce more people to the game in an environment where they could play and learn! I am also aware of the danger of people trying to spoil what is a superb place to play the game. In terms of the conventions arguement - Its a mute point for getting people to learn the game - the fewer conventions the better to start with. I sometimes feel people are inventing them not to improve their constructive bidding but to confuse as many opps as possible to improve their score not by superior play but by baffling the opps. If you're playing me you'll beat me by better play just bid simply to do it! I would think that for beginners / intermediates to play in a level playing field with fairly stringent controls can only be good and allow people to win by card play first and then as they improve - the next step is their own system / defences to play at the advanced / expert level. If this is ACBL's approach it should be condoned not criticised. Steve

On the following two hands how do you respond to FSF? 1) North holds :- S KQTxx H AQ98x D JTx C Void Bidding goes 1S-p-2D-p-2h-3c ? 2) North holds :- S KQ987 H AKxxx D ATx C void Bidding goes 1S-p-2D-p-2h-3c ? Cheers Steve

During play with my partner I have on a couple of occasions asked my partner for keycards in a suit that I don't want to play in but the info regarding that suit has been key in determining whether I can make slam or not. The examples have been where I have a solid 7 card suit but missing honours in one suit but have say Qxx in hearts and A's elsewhere. Bidding goes 2C-2D-2S-3H-4NT(KC ask in H's)-5x-6S Following the response I have bid the appropriate slam in my view... I'm aware that when I improve that 6x bids in a different suit can be played as control asks but we don't play that yet so my partner has passed the slam bid. As my partner is now aware that the keycard ask does NOT specify the slam suit in extreme situations do we need to disclose that to opps? or is the fact that RKCB is a keycard ask in the suit sufficient? Cheers Steve

Our opps bid 4NT in the following sequence as Unusual NT as they had 5-5 in minors as a sacrifice but their partner had bid 1S... 1H-1S-4H-4NT(alerted 5-5 in minors)... i)Should 4NT be Blackwood here? ii) Can you show 5-5 in minors in this sequence? My partner and I would always play this as RKCB but opps had a mare as the partner read as Blackwood and ended up in v.bad slam in 6S... The opps who are friends of ours asked me to post for expert input.. Cheers Steve

Thanks all for comments :-) The reason for the post was one to ask about how to evaluate a hand like this. Using strict point count it is 13 points but how does one differentitate between good and bad 13pt hands and for bad hands how far do you devalue them? As a beginner / intermediate I should open 1NT as my partner will always expect me to but I also looked at the hand and thought what do we need to actually make 1NT and the answer I came up with was my partner would push me beyond 1NT with those points and so we go down anyway! Cheers Steve

Thanks for all your comments :-) The 4NT was asking for KCs in hearts as the last bid suit and fortunately it was the suit that I was worried about. My partner and I cue-bid but first round controls then second and so in this case 2D-2H-3C-4C-5C -- now I have the choice of bidding 6C anyway and risk AK hearts away - clear that A is away or passing and pass would surely be the sensible choice. 4NT gives me a chance of finding either A or K hearts in one bid and if only one is missing then I'm in 6 or if both are missing then ptr will bid 5C and I can safely pass. It is a fluke in this hand that the neg response is 2H and so I can find out that way but if spades was the bad suit, clearly the option to cue-bid 1st or 2nd round control over a neg response is the correct way.. Thanks for the advice and time to discuss with ptr... PS I'd be happy as Larry with Spade lead as it is into AKJ and after running clubs I can still only lose the Heart Ace :-) Many thanks Steve

Oops, I updated hand after comment - guilty as originally charged

I play weak NT and received this lovely 13 count! Dealer S all NV South S AQJ H Qxx D Qxx C Q109x It has 13HCPs but I count it as 9 losers S-1 H-3 D-3 C-2 but do you? Would you open 1NT always irrespective of Vul or pass? K&R evaluates this hand as 11.00 Some expert advice on how to evaluate hands like this would be v/much appreciated. Thanks Steve

Playing Benji Acol - I had a rather interesting hand :-) All NV - Dealer W North Hand S 8 H K987 D QJ632 C J54 South S AKJ H Q3 D A C AKQ10932 p-p-p-2D (G/f 23+) - ptr bids 2H (neg 0-7 -) To make a club slam I need ptr to hold A or K of hearts and J clubs or clubs 3-x-x or J C not in hand with 4C's and poss spade finesse... ;) I was a little bold and bid 4NT :) (rkCB) as with 0 kc I pass 5c response and with any other I bid 6C... I was lucky :D and the slam is cold AH in West but is there a better more scientific way please? I thought of cue-bidding but I would get too high before I find K H and end up in 6 regardless? p-p-p-2D-2h-3c-4c-4d-5c-5d would u pass here ? -5h-6c Cheers Steve

None Vul Dealer N North S 4 H KQ8 D AQ7 C A108732 South S AQ2 H J1064 D K5 C Q964 Playing ACOL, Our bidding went 1C-1H-2D (5C/4D 16+) -2S(4SF) - 4H - 4NT - 5S - 6C and went a little awry in places I know but what is the best way? unfortunately KC is in East so down 1 but is 6C the right place to be??? Cheers Steve

Heart lead means you get one ruff but Diamond finesse covers the loss of the ruff in this layout... In fact makes on any lead I think?

The hands are as follows :- E/W Vul Dealer East N S Void H AQ1065432 D AJ C 1076 W Hand E Hand S AQ109654 J3 H Void 97 D K53 642 C 832 AQJ954 S holds S K872 H KJ8 D Q10987 C K E S W N p 1D 3S ? What should North bid here ? I bid 4H but is there a better bid? the auction then went... 4S P P 5H 5S P P ? Do you bid 6H, Dbl or pass to allow ptr to decide? 6H makes on anything but a diamond lead as you can ruff two clubs in dummy... Cheers Steve