BunnyGo

This hand came up in the recent Cleveland regional Sunday swiss:[hv=pc=n&s=sq43hak763da5cj75&n=sk86hq852d832cak4]133|200[/hv] The contract was 4 hearts. At one table (with a diamond lead) declarer won the ace, pulled 3 rounds of trump and exited a diamond won by LHO. A club was returned, and the declarer correctly spurned the finesse by playing A and K of clubs, ruffing a diamond, and when the Q of clubs didn't appear exited a club. When the Q of clubs was with the A of spades the declarer made. The question is: if the RHO had won the first diamond exit and led a club, should the finesse be spurned or not? If the Jack is inserted and loses, one can still play clubs, ruff out diamonds and exit a club--but the opponents may be able to unblock (if clubs are 4-3) and arrange the non A of spades hand to be on lead. Any thoughts?

Out of curiosity, what would 4NT be over partners double? FWIW, I think the pass is far and away my first choice too.

It depends on what count I have on the opponents hands. But with no other information 3-2 diamonds is greater than 50%.

Ditto. The opening is bad. The rebid is worse. Just pass 1 spade, WTP?

The point is that when you play with GIB you don't get to discuss the system, it tells you what you're playing. Whether you agree or not, your bid was not blackwood (whether anyone would agree or not). So while you could (should?) suggest that the GIB system be changed, you cannot reasonably say that it passed your forcing bid because within the system you and your partner (GIB) agreed on the bid was not forcing.

I agree with awm. I think after the 6 Diamond bid, it should be clear to south that they have a 10 card fit, a club suit worth a lot of tricks no heart losers, and partner just asked about the diamond king (or showed the A, either way the king is a lot!). I'd almost bypass the 6 heart bid and just bid 7 spades. I think that having bid 6 hearts he should pull to 7 spades.

Agreed, but my option (3) can be viewed as filling this option. The two 1800 people are assigned the 1800 prize. The first two 1600 players will make more by getting the 1600 prize, but then the last person gets the most by taking "1/2 of each". This works better with 6 people (2 in 1800, 4 in 1600). Say that we do your assignment. Then the 4th 1600 player would actually do best by getting the 1800 prize. But this has a disappointing lack of symmetry.

It seems to me that the players under 1600 should get at least as much money as those between 1600 and 1800 (they should be penalized for having a lower ranking?) With this in mind, there seem a few reasonable ways of dividing up the money: 1) All of them divide up the 1800 prize money, and someone else gets the 1600 prize money. 2) All of them divide up the 1800 prize money, and the three under 1600 also divide up the 1600 prize money. 3) All 5 people get $40. I think that Aberlour10's suggestion unfairly penalizes the players with ranking below 1600--they were eligible for both prizes, and should get the maximum award, not the minimum.

Yeah, and it's not as if there isn't a board entry in diamonds (and diamond ruffs). I have not been able to construct a double dummy situation where this club play is the single best line.

This is because the advice GIB gave you was double dummy, and the GIB that played the hand had to do it single dummy.

I'm more disturbed by the way it didn't try to drop the king of clubs and didn't try to finesse against the king of clubs. It strikes me that there is no simulation where the line it took could have been better.

At least it's correct about the "game forcing" part.

I dunno, maybe an initial bid of 3 hearts, which partner hopefully won't think is a splinter, and instead realize you are stuck for a bid.

What does "very light third hand openers" allow? Does this mean you can open less than 8 points if you say so, or is 8 points "very light"?

Ah, the "typo" was that the picture had South to the right of the dummy and this was confusing me.

There must be some typos in the play (if nothing else J of hearts at trick 1), it's making it a bit hard to follow.

I'd like to request that it be possible to choose that tables score against double dummy par. I expect this may require no small amount of work to have GIB calculate double dummy par and display it in the results when the hand is over. But then for hand comparisons you get compared to that instead of other tables. Is this a possible update?

Yes, I want to compare against double dummy par results. There are some hands where this will lead to strange results (lose 11 IMPs because you were in the 95% 3nt and not the 2% slam which happens to work). In general, I think that comparing to par is more interesting (or at least something to try). Maybe you'll notice that you lose on average in part score battles...then you'll learn that you can push harder than you have been. It's of course not perfect, but I think if nothing else it is an interesting (and possibly illuminating) way of scoring.

Since it's in his book, I was wondering if it would be possible for BBO to allow a new method of table scoring: that of IMPs against par. I think this would be something I'd prefer since it would not only tell me what par was, but would provide scores for my table which didn't depend on 16 random BBO tables (which can produce wild scores). Is this possible in the next upgrade?

I think he is now correct.

agree.

[hv=pc=n&s=saq862haq7dkt6c72&n=sjt73hkt65d752cjt&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1c1s3c3sp4sppp]266|200|Defense takes two clubs, and then west leads the Qoeen of diamonds to east's Ace. East then leads another diamond.[/hv] The question is: how should one play this hand at different vulnerabilities and scorings? The actual hand was played vulnerable at IMP KOs (no VP conversion) but please feel free to answer as many different scenarios as you think necessary. At the table, I decided to try and play to make, so I won the diamond and cashed the Ace of spades, which ended up down 2. Should I have played for down 1? Edit: In response to Inquiry's query: The first club was won by East, who led a club back to West (K and A).

This hand came up in a team game. Not exactly sure how to get this correct (besides the wonder of hindsight). Was it just unlucky, or is there blame to be assigned? Link to the Hand

80% North, 20% South. South has made a game forcing 2♦ cuebid (not necessarily showing heart support) and then followed by bidding 3♥ instead of blasting to 4; North should not pass this sequence but just bid 4♥ himself. I think that South should probably just bid 4 hearts himself, but it isn't completely unreasonable that north could have the K of hearts and spades and then 6 is a decent bet.

For us, X is negative in this auction. 4D is diamonds. Which double is negative, if you had doubled 4♦ or if you double 4♠?