CSGibson

Yeah, the two winning positions are if they have a singleton trump Q, or if they have KQ tight. If the former, you must play out your diamonds, using them as faux trump to get rid of the ruff potential, if the latter you must put another trump on the table. Looking at the opening lead, it looks like Versace was missing the AKQJ of hearts, and we know his spades aren't great either, so he might have just been doubling to warn against the 5 level (not sure if they are in a forcing pass situation), or because he has KQ tight and an ace. Restricted choice argues one way, the bidding the other. Partner did very well, I thought, to get it right; I'm pretty sure I would have talked myself into the losing line.

No! This is incorrect by a lot! non-forcing means that your NT does not include invitational hands. Semi-forcing means that it does. They are not the same.

I strongly prefer forcing NT in context of a 2/1 system. Just because opener is balanced, it doesn't mean that 1N should be played on all contracts where responder has to bid it, this allows responder to actually play in his long suit opposite a balanced hand.

[hv=pc=n&s=skthdaq2cajt97653&n=sqj953h72dkt983c8&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1c2c(Majors)p4h5cdppp]266|200[/hv] This was the decisive last hand, BBO Forums down by 3, Versace on your left, JEC on your right. Opening lead is the T♥ to the J♥ and ruffed, and you play the A♣, getting the Q♣, 8♣, and 2♣. What line do you take now?

Since you will more frequently lead aces when declarer has preempted, a common expert corollary to the A from AK agreement is that it is off against preempts, or other situations where an ace might be a common lead, like at the 5 level and higher, and in partner's bid suit.

Partner's double does not prohibit you from bidding, traditionally it just says that W does not have 1st round control of hearts/and/or is not inviting 7. I think your hand is good enough that you ought to consider bidding 7.

Congratulations Atul!

Setting: A loudmouth who has an inability to shut up, and who just got done criticizing your previous day's partner for giving lessons to his new partner for the day. He is playing in a partnership where he is a much weaker player. Partner and I are playing 2/1, and have the auction as follows (at teams, unfavorable vulnerability) (P)-1♠-(P)-2♦ (X)-P-(3♣)-P (P)-X all pass. Dummy comes down with: [hv=pc=n&n=s852h742dkj42c852]133|100[/hv] After this goes for 1700 (declarer making no clear errors), the doubler asks his partner why she bid 3♣ after all he had done was make a lead directing double, saying that it was a horrible bid on her part, and blaming her for the result. The other table was in 3N making 6 for 690 (takes two of three finesses to make 6N on 30 combined HCP).

Evaluating bridge players based on BBOskill may make you feel good, but it is really pointless and the height of idiocy to make that your primary evaluation of other players on that wildly inaccurate site. I've read Zel and Helene - they are good, thoughtful players. I suspect that you are not based on the way you come across in the forums - people who call names instead of bringing forth intelligent ideas are usually doing so because they cannot bring forth intelligent ideas.

You are being very argumentative here to imply that the wall does not refer to the side of a physical structure in such an authoritative tone. I'm under 40, social media savvy to some degree and familiar with a facebook "wall", and I completely understood what Barry was talking about. Were you honestly confused, or being deliberately obtuse?

To get a sense of what the ruling and process for the ruling would be when presented a similar case, as done in the OP, and to share what I think is an interesting situation that the director staff did not immediatly know how to resolve with this group as an interesting problem. My thought is that the OP should be treated as 100% fact, and that if you need extraneous information, you would ask for it, same as a director presented the case at the table would. The fact that this scenerio closely mirrors an actual situation I experienced at the table is irrelevent to the ruling IMO.

I don't think its completely relevent as to whether you can give an accurate ruling as to what actually happened at the table - the director won't consult you, and the ruling has already happened. Mostly I was wondering what would be the ruling on the facts as presented, and what other facts you would seek out before making a ruling. Only when the integrity of the facts were questioned did I add the other stuff to illustrate that this is not a steamrolling of opponents or anything like that, so much as a curiousity question. Perhaps even responding to that post was a mistake, as it distracts from the main point, but I wanted to re-route this a bit to actually discussing the case, not debating the OP's accuracy.

The facts as stated in the OP are not in dispute - both teams agreed to what occurred at the table, and the explanations given. What I have not stated, but which is also true, is that while the director was taking the statements, he at one point told the NT opener that he had twice opened with singletons and had similar auctions exposing the singletons while playing against him. Also, the previous day friends of mine had also played against the pair, and had the auction against them of 1D-1S, P* where the pass was alerted as having psyched 1D. This is a known action pair, and this was not the first recorder filled out against them for similar activity, as it transpires - if anything I had deliberately smoothed my own perspective out of the OP to try and put the NT opener in the best possible light.

[hv=pc=n&s=skqt962hqjt6dkck9&w=sj753h975daq42cj5&n=sahak8dj9875caqt7&e=s84h432dt63c86432&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=1n(16-18)p2h(transfer)p2n(Singleton%20ace%20of%20spades)p3hp4hp4np5d(1%20or%204)p6hppp]399|300[/hv] ACBL, 20 point VP swiss. The lead was the ace of diamonds, and south soon wrapped up 6 hearts. Before the lead, the alerts were explained, and S carefully explained that 2N showed a singleton spade, probably the Ace. After the hand, it was pointed out by E-W that it is illegal in ACBL land to have an agreement that revealed a singleton by the 1N opener, and the 1N opener disagreed, and while doing so confirmed that 2N would only be bid with a singleton spade. The director was then called. When the director arrived, N-S agreed with the facts as presented, but then indicated that it wasn't really their agreement that 2N showed a singleton - the S player indicated that this auction had last come up 3 years ago and that the N player had a singleton ace then. Everyone at the table is very experienced. At the other table, the pair bidding found their way to 6N, off 1, on a start of 1♦-1♠-2N What is the correct ruling, and what is the correct procedure to follow to determine a ruling?

I had decided to let it be - I tried to keep the thread headed in a useful direction for me and not on these stupid tangential points, but one admonishment is all I had in me.

Not the point of this thread. The point of this thread is how to measure the effects of preempts against top level competition.

This is mostly about how to approach the problem that was given to me, and using data to formulate a strategy about what is most effective in preemptive bidding, and when.

My own first thoughts are below: 1. How many matches would you want to examine before you would think the results were meaningful? How many preempts? I imagine that I would want to catalogue at least 200 preempts, not only to make the results meaningful, but also to examine the circumstances around the preempt and cataloguing those, so we can tell in what circumstances their preempts were effective and in what circumstances they were not. 2. Would you want to find a way to factor in the effect of the preempts on other hands - that is on either Woolsey and Stewarts bidding on other hands or on the opponents bidding or play on other hands? If so, how would you do it? I might catalogue Woolsey/Stewart's overall imp expectation per hand, then calculate the imp expectation on hands where they preempt, and imp expectation on hands where they don't preempt, and see how they vary. Speculation as to why they vary might be interesting. I might also break it up into hands they defended vs declared when they did and did not preempt. 3. To what extent if any would you factor in the opinion Kit has often expressed that these bids have been a significant winner over time? I don't think I would give much credence to the view that Woolsey espouses, in lieu of actual data. Though if Woolsey actually said in what way he thinks these bids win, that might give additional criteria by which to evaluate the preempts. 4. What do you think of the methodology? Would you suggest any changes or some other approach? As I mentioned earlier, I think the far more relevant criteria would be to catalogue the circumstances surrounding the preempt - are they playing against an ambiguous opening like a precision 1D/1C opening, for example, which is notoriously better to preempt against do to the less defined nature of the bid, or against Canape where the opponents may now be preempted out of showing their longest suit at a safe level; how far off is the preempt from a "normal" preempt, and in what way does it vary. I would also want a control pair, someone who is more mainstream in their preempts, but has experienced a similar level of success to Stewart-Woolsey. Perhaps Boyd-Robinson (I'm not sure of their preempting style, we didn't play against them when we beat that team)? I would also like to examine the volatility of the results - what I mean by that is the number of imps churned out per board when they preempt vs when they don't, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. Another consideration is whether the preempt was attempted at the other table. If it was, then why was the result different at the two tables? 5. What would you expect the results to show? How different would you think they would be if you considered the effect of the preempts against weaker national level pairs? What about against stronger ones? I really have no idea what to expect. I suspect that the effect of preempts against weaker national players to be more effective, but I also expect that the effect of non-preempts also to be more effective against weaker national players. Perhaps that points to a match-by-match comparison of preempt expected value vs non-preempt expected value. 6. Finally, what do you think are the biggest and most frequent gains Stewart and Woolsey realize on their preempts? What about the biggest and most frequent losses they suffer? I expect that Woolsey and Stewart realize the biggest and most frequent gains from exploiting their opponents when they are ripe for preempts, just like everyone else. I suppose they probably have frequent gains from inferences in the bidding and defense when they have not preempted, since they have eliminated quite a few more hands to play for. I expect their biggest and most frequent losses to occur when they have preempted and it is their hand, or they run into a stack behind them.

I got this e-mail recently, and I thought I'd throw it out to the forums: Chris, Some time ago, you and I had a discussion about the effectiveness of aggressive, variable preempts. In as much as you were on the opposite side from me, I think you are in a good position to comment on a methodology of studying the effectiveness of preempts. What are your thoughts on the following possible study. Look at Kit Woolsey and Fred Steward, a pretty strong nationally-rated pair who preempt as frequently as they can, on both good hands and bad hands, and who believe their overall results from undisciplined preempts are excellent. Consider a study of the results of their preempts in national KO's that examines only their results after they preempt at the 2 or 3 level against very good but not fabulous opponents [say round 32 and better of national KO's but omitting client pairs]. Compute all imps they win or lose against the result at the other table on their preempts. Weed nothing out even if there appears to be some kind of anomaly. Here are my questions: 1. How many matches would you want to examine before you would think the results were meaningful? How many preempts? 2. Would you want to find a way to factor in the effect of the preempts on other hands - that is on either Woolsey and Stewarts bidding on other hands or on the opponents bidding or play on other hands? If so, how would you do it? 3. To what extent if any would you factor in the opinion Kit has often expressed that these bids have been a significant winner over time? 4. What do you think of the methodology? Would you suggest any changes or some other approach? 5. What would you expect the results to show? How different would you think they would be if you considered the effect of the preempts against weaker national level pairs? What about against stronger ones? 6. Finally, what do you think are the biggest and most frequent gains Stewart and Woolsey realize on their preempts? What about the biggest and most frequent losses they suffer? I am asking you these questions only for perspective. I don't plan to renew our discussion though if you like, I would be willing to share a summary of my results. Thanks for your thoughts.

I may have been a bit over the top, but again, I don't see evidence of sensible system agreements so I don't want to assume them. Just as a side FYI, I strongly favor a transfer-style precision, with 1N being a heart positive (1S as balanced or clubs), as I feel that wrongsides far fewer contracts on average, even if there are a few circumstances where it does wind up wrong-siding.

I don't want to give them a sensible precision agreement because they have already wrong-sided the NT, so I assume that they don't have them. I don't think the 4H as splinter interpretation makes sense if 2S would be forcing with 4 spades, and I don't think that the 4H to play interpretation makes sense unless they didn't have a way of showing a single-suiter over 1N - what the hell are they doing staymaning, they can just bid their heart suit and get a NT reply, a raise, or a "superaccept" cue-bid response. I also don't think this is a reasonable question without additional information.

It depends on the rest of your structure. Was partner able to show a heart single-suiter over 1N, for example? What would other calls have meant as follow-ups to 2♥? Without knowing what other options were available, its impossible to determine what 4♥ should be. If I were in this situation, I would logic out what other hand types are available, how partner might have bid with those hand types, and assign a different meaning to 4 hearts if possible.

They did not ask, but 5N confirmed all keycards.

The short side is playing the spades, it would ride to your king.

[hv=pc=n&s=sajhqt5dat9653cak&n=sk9852hk984dk4cq9&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1sp2dp2hp2np3np4nppp]266|200[/hv] You, of course, receive a club lead (the 6 if it matters). How do you try for 10 tricks?