rogerclee

If USA1 and USA2 both make it out of the round robin, when are they forced to play each other? Edit: Seems like the semifinals. Bermuda Bowl: Losing QF: Bulgaria, Israel, Poland, Netherlands (edited) Losing SF: USA2, Sweden Losing Final: USA1 Winner: Italy Venice Cup: Losing QF: Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden Losing SF: China, USA2 Losing Final: USA1 Winner: France Senior Bowl: Losing QF: Australia, Bulgaria, Italy, USA1 Losing SF: Denmark, Netherlands Losing Final: USA2 Winner: Poland

I don't think there is much you can do. First of all, nv, 2DXX= is 560 2DXX+1 is 760 so it's not a total disaster if you can somehow hold them to making 2 (lose 4) or 3 (lose 8) against 3N. Trying to run to something is not very smart, you are vulnerable and can easily go for a giant number.

I would also force to 7.

Seems like an easy pass, there is no way partner can have either all three heart honors or two top heart honors and the DA to me. It doesn't matter if the 5 level is safe if the 6 level sucks.

First of all I wouldn't pass, since all pass is more likely than it seems at first glance and obviously rates to be a disaster, and even if it doesn't we have nightmare bidding problems like 2H P 4H 5D back to us, where we would have given anything to have mentioned spades earlier, or even 2H P 4H X and now we have no idea how many spades we can make. 3S and 4S both seem like significant overbids/misdescriptions of my hand. I guess I have to settle for 2S and see what happens.

First of all, my (bridge) analysis had nothing to do with your (non bridge-related) post, so this is nothing but gibberish to me. Instead, I will make three observations: 1) You have now made three posts in this thread without any bridge content whatsoever. I had made two posts in this thread, both thoroughly analyzing questions asked by the original poster. 2) You assumed Hanoi had some weird ulterior motive for posting this hand. Maybe you don't realize that Hanoi is very passionate about bridge, and as a result, he volunteers his time to be the Venezuelan national junior bridge team coach. I have talked to Hanoi in real life on many occasions and it is obvious to me how enthusiastic he is about bridge and that he wants to be the best possible coach he can. However, I think he would admit that he is not a top player, so it is valuable to him to seek advice from others about bridge decisions that are unclear to him, in order to more effectively coach his team. That was the point of this thread, not anything stupid like you assumed. 3) I didn't want to needle you again, since you are not really worth my time, but it actually brings me some satisfaction that you were so perturbed by my one liner that you felt the need to post about it not once, but twice, on two separate days, without any additional prodding by me. Your post (as usual) was very annoying to me because you attacked someone you know nothing about, who I know for a fact to be a nice guy who would never post something just to bash his teammates. Maybe you didn't know this, but then again, I guess you didn't care. All your posts are basically either boring/useless/repeating others or just outright dumb. I hope you stick to the first type, because the second type is very annoying to read! Do me a favor and link me (via private message) to a single strong, coherent, bridge-related analysis you have made anywhere on these forums at any time and I am happy to apologize. If you are unable to do this, then...guess I was right!

You mean jdeegan made a pointless post in an attempt to teach the forums a thing or two about bridge? No way!

lol I just realized I know this hand! Anyway on this auction, HQ to the ace is normal, and then east should bang down the DK to see if they can get a diamond ruff. When west signals either 9 or 2 depending on their signals (denying a doubleton), east has a problem. For now east should assume they have no trump trick, since if they do 4S is certainly down. Assume declarer has 3 clubs for now, since it's basically known he doesn't have 2, so assume south is 6223 (5323 would not give west a 4H bid). This gives our partner 2533 shape. If south has AKxxxx xx ?x ?xx then our partner has really stretched to bid 4H, but I think the declarer's minor suit holdings of Jx xxx is way more likely than xx Qxx (in the second case no squeeze will materialize and we should beat them 1 on passive defense), since the second hand gives partner a paltry xx QJxxx Jxx xxx for his 4H bid, something even I wouldn't do, while xx QJxxx xxx Qxx is a reasonableish stretch. Switching to a club also has the benefit of getting this another opposite the first minor suit holding. If declarer has 4 clubs a club switch can gain (AKxxx xx Jx xxxx) or lose (AKxxx xx Jx Qxxx). These would give partner xxx QJxxx xxx, and either xx or Qx in clubs. Both of these seem like totally filthy 4H bids to me, but Qx is more likely to me--anyway both of these cases are very unlikely. One last case is a hand like AKxxxx x Jx Qxxx, now it is really bad to shift to a club. In the end all of the analysis past the first is pretty tertiary, we have to concern ourselves with the very likely possibility that declarer has AKxxxx xx Jx xxx, this is the most important relevant holding, and we must shift to a club now to beat them. Overall the club switch seems right to me, since on top of this a club switch will always get either 1 or 2 extra defensive tricks when partner has the CQ. On the auction that I saw it was way more obvious to shift to a club.

First of all, I thought everyone knew Vampyr was just a hopeless troll, though I thought it was polite of Hanoi to reply anyway. NS bid their hands normally, IMO. As for the EW hands, to me bidding 4H is just bridge and I wouldn't consider any other call. You are favorable and want to push them into a decision of whether to bid 4S immediately (they usually will). Giving north the ability to bid a noncommital 3S is a huge error, especially since we have scattered values and can expect to beat 4S when we have pushed them into it (as opposed to when they were going to bid it freely anyway). Occasionally we are so lucky that our partner can double 4S! That's what happened on this hand, and too often I see people bidding 5 over 4 or 5 over 5 on these auctions when they shouldn't. A singleton spade does not mean you should forget how much defense you also have. Remember that they bid 4S under a lot of pressure, even though they could be cold they are usually down when you have this much defense, since it's normal practice to bid 4S over 4H if you haven't shown support yet. Put in another way, north's range of hands that would bid 4S is really wide, just pay off to them having a distributional freak hand with huge support and collect your number when they just have a random hand with 4 spades. As a side note, my preference is to fitjump frequently on this auction--as a consequence, 4H has a tendency to be bid on a balanced hand. I find that this style makes these kinds of decisions (double, bid, or pass once they inevitably bid 4S over 4H) much easier.

You haven't played enough bridge if this is the worst bid you've ever seen.

Just bid according to your style, way too much energy is wasted on hands like this. It's either a 3H bid in your style or it isn't. This is not really an issue of judgment, just of staying within your system parameters. I'm sure that there is not a huge difference between the two styles.

3H is really poor to me. It seems like conventional wisdom is to make 3H extremely wide ranging and to have 4H show basically 8.5 tricks in hand. I don't know why this is the case, and we can easily expect to make 4H opposite a lot of random 8 counts without 3 hearts, so why not just bid what you think you can make?

I hate passing on (a), if LHO has 7 spades you're basically gambling on partner having all three aces, in which case we are easily in slam territory. All of this seems like a bad gamble to me. Unfortunately 3S X P 4S is a terrible auction for your side, it's not like it shows a 4324 18 count. Consequently you are not very likely to get good information from this approach. Still, thank god we're r/w so partner should be reasonably heavy. This gives us enough to bid past 3N in my opinion. In the end I'll start with 4S and see what happens, but probably will end up offering 6C and be willing to play 6H or 6N if it comes to it.

Just an idea, does anyone play that both x and 2D are diamond raises that could be 3 cards, but one is more defensive than the other? Seems good to me.

Yes, that's right phil_20686, well done. The correct sequence is to cash two spades seeing the break, and then 3 rounds of diamonds to see what happens. If RHO follows to all 3 rounds, then playing LHO for 4144 is indicated. On the actual hand, RHO pitches on the 3rd round, so LHO shows up with 4153, and it is percentage to play him for 9xx of clubs. Now you advance the club jack and see east cover, so you win the ace, cross back in spades, and play the club ten. RHO must cover, and now LHO with the master club has no profitable pitch when you play a heart up.

Reading old bridge articles, I came upon a really pretty hand. See if you can figure it out, I did not. [hv=pc=n&s=s97542h852da7ca32&n=sakqhak3dkqj3cjt8&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=2hppdp3sp4hp5cp6sppp]266|200[/hv] LHO leads the 4 of hearts. You win and cash two rounds of spades, RHO pitching a heart on the second spade.

Exactly, this auction is not like 1N-2H; 2S-3N at all, this sequence shows basically all hands with 5 spades, not 4 hearts, and no slam interest. Passing is a pretty wild and bad gamble to me, it's a lot to just say that you can't take one more trick in spades than NT on this hand. As a general rule I almost always convert 3N to 4M on this auction with 3 card support. On top of that if your partner didn't want you to convert 3N to 4M he could bid stayman or just 3N instead of transferring. To me this is a big additional inference not to pass.

1) CA seems automatic, either it wins immediately or we switch intelligently. 2) King of spades seems most flexible, since I might be able to shift to a club or a trump if that looks right, and leading something else risks losing a spade trick if we have one. My second choice is a club, not a trump. 3) This is pretty hard, a heart lead is risky when we have this much strength, but I think we have to try it. The queen of clubs could easily be right and I don't have any problem with it. A spade is not very reasonable, way too much downside.

Why are you reading the forums? Eric Rodwell just wrote 400 pages about cardplay.

KT QJT9x xx KT9x Q97x Ax AKxxx Qx North deals, IMPs P-1N 2D-2H 3C-3D 3N-P LHO gives it a quick low spade lead and the ten holds, RHO playing the upside down 8.

Inside the package, Waldo was so transfixed with excitement that he could barely breathe. His skin felt prickly from the heat, and he could feel his heart beating in his throat. It would be soon. Sheila stood quite upright and walked around to the other side of the package. Then she sank down to her knees, grasped the cutter by both handles, took a deep breath, and plunged the long blade through the middle of the package, through the masking tape, through the cardboard, through the cushioning and (thud) right through the center of Waldo Jeffers' head, which split slightly and caused little rhythmic arcs of red to pulsate gently in the morning sun.

1) If you are an expert bridge player, it's very hard to make a bidding mistake that has no/little chance of working. However, it's still quite easy to make a play mistake that has no/very little chance of working. It's much more valuable to stop making the second kind of mistake than the first, since the second kind of mistake is much more damaging on average. If you think the first kind of mistake comes up way more frequently, it is probably because you are disproportionately bad at bidding and good at cardplay, or you are so bad at cardplay that you fail to recognize your cardplay mistakes. 2) At all except the very highest levels of play (late rounds of open world championships), cardplay is more important. Bidding is only more important at that level because the level of cardplay is already so high. 3) The level of cardplay in a routine bracket 1 regional event (supposedly "expert" level) is very low.

LHO had Qxx AQxxx Qxx Qx.

The old school bridge players like to have a good suit or a good hand. I am happy to just have either a reasonable suit or a reasonable hand, but here I don't have either, so I would just pass.

Just a story, recently in a live bridge game I was dealt Axxx AKQTxxxxx void void. I opened 1H and my partner responded 2D, and we couldn't make game in any strain.