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I realize that a big advantage of psycho suction is that if they double then pass suddenly becomes an option, but if they pass, do you ever choose to pass, and if so when? Andy

I prefer not to use 2NT as a relay to 3C and instead to have two ways to bid an invitational 2NT: 2C 2D 2NT, which shows 4 card support for partner's minor (or rather, is open to partner correcting to 3m) and 2NT direct, which doesn't (or rather, which isn't open to partner correcting). Then I use 3C as a signoff (hands that would bid a GF 3C are forced to start with 2D). Note that we also have the sequence 2C 2D 3m which shows a less notrumpy invite with support (basically always with 5+m). This is very nice when partner opens 1C and it's unclear whether partner has only 3 clubs. At imps you really should be playing most 4-4 minor fits that don't make it to game in 3m, and at matchpoints probably a fair number as well. When partner opens 1D, you know he's not 4-4-3-2 (else he'd raise), so this is less necessary and perhaps gives up too much, but the help in evaluating your hand for the purposes of deciding whether to accept is nice, as is to some extent help in deciding what partscore to play (perhaps this is more important at matchpoints since you already know partner has 4 diamonds). Andy

The thing is that it does cramp their style when the auction goes 1C X blah 2H and the one clubber needs to find a bid starting at 2H. The main point of suction (at least at the 1-level) to me is that you're giving advancer a shot to bump the auction before it gets back to opener. (Perhaps there are better methods with this specific design criterion, but suction seems decent at it.) I don't have a huge amount of experience playing either method, but I tend to prefer reasonable lead-directing bids in general to random obstruction. Here, though, I've been trying suction out and it does seem give my (reasonably competent) opponents a problems fairly often (in my rather limited experience with it). As for Justin's comments about psycho-suction and the opponents' specific defenses: these comments (about it going X P P etc) are most relevant for the higher bids, not the 1-level overcalls. Also, I agree that 2C = clubs and X = majors or clubs is a bit silly -- perhaps X should just be majors, but the above stuff about the 1-level overcalls was the main point of my post. Andy [edited for bizarre spelling mistake]

Ok, so is KJ98x KJxx x 7xx a double of 1♣ playing your style of suction (ignoring the psycho-suction comment for the moment)? I agree that 4-4's and junky 5-4's shouldn't be bidding. Andy

You need to add how often you raise on 3 cards and how often you bid 1NT on a singleton (i.e. your take on the 1-3-4-5 hand shape discussion). If you don't raise on 3 often and you don't ever have a stiff, I'll bid 2S. If you do raise on 3 often, but can't have a stiff, it's a bit murky but I think I'll pass. If you can have a stiff, it's an easy pass. Andy

I play suction vs Strong 1C (and over 1C-1D) with most partners currently. This is: bids = single-suited with the next suit up, or two-suited with the next two suits (e.g. 1♠ = ♣ or both ♦ & ♥) NT = a non-touching two-suiter -- i.e. ♣&♥ or ♦&♠ X is the same as though you'd bid the suit you doubled (so 1C X = ♦ or both ♥&♠) With most partners I play this only at the lowest level (i.e. 2C+ are natural over 1C and 2D+ are natural over 1C-1D), though I've played it "all the way up" with some partners. This isn't really the issue in this post -- it's mostly the (more frequent) 1-level overcalls I'm interested in. These 1-level overcalls allow us to jamb the auction with a pass/correct bid at the two-level frequently, which often gives the big clubbers unhappy guesses (and has the benefit that they're not sure that partner's first bid is actually our suit). I worry, though, about the information we're giving the opponents. The problem is that it's not only information about overcaller's hand that is divulged -- it's information about advancer's hand too: advancer often bids a fragment, and if e.g. the auction goes 1C X P 2S, it's known that advancer has both spades and clubs. This seems very useful to the opponents, especially when they end up in the suit advancer has bid as a fragment and can e.g. finesse partner for the Queen. Maybe they were going to do this anyways once I overcall in some combination of suits that were not that suit, though, but that might argue for not getting into the auction as overcaller very much either. Also, even if they usually finesse partner for side-suit values when I make one of these overcalls, partner's response will help them figure out the relative lengths of my side suits -- perhaps even giving them the entire distribution in some cases, which must be quite useful. Any thoughts on this? Andy

Yes, there's no defense if declarer doesn't pitch a club. His club holding in hand was AKxxx (partner had QJ10). He must've missed the squeeze possibility early on and the fact that he might at some point be short on hand entries. Of course, he must've known that 4+ diamonds were behind dummy, so tossing the club instead was sort of silly (but this was a late night online hand, so silly things happen). The problem seemed a fun "take advantage of declarer's mistake" sort of problem. Should I modify such problems next time -- e.g. give dummy a stiff club from the start somehow? I suppose declarer could have AQ10xxx (AQJxxx or AKxxxx & he should've just played on clubs from hand). Then, though, he should read me for 5-4-1-3 and hope to drop some honor from partner's hand. I guess trying to sneak through to dummy to get a finesse isn't more of a mistake than pitching the club, though. Andy

The answer (hidden text):

Partner does indeed show an odd number of diamonds. (I should have included this, as it is not strictly implied: we're quite happy to raise to the 2 level with 3 cards or the 3 level with 4 cards when partner has the single-suited hand type.) If you've decided what to play to this first trick, read on (hidden text): Andy

I'd love to get a result-by-result printout (ie how many times does ♥6 set 2 tricks? give up 3 overtricks? etc), but I don't have this capability. Jack seems only to play IMPs (or total points really). I think Jack includes all balanced hands in its 1N openers, but I'm not actually privy to that information. I also can't make it include all 4333's in its 3NT bids. Best, Andy

Thanks for the interesting points. The two most important ones seem to be: 1) On a heart lead, declarer may play for hearts 4-4 instead of taking a finesse and go down 2) When the other table is in a different contract, overtricks matter less (or not at all) compared to setting It's hard to think about these and know how large these effects are, but they're well-taken. The second suggests that one should try a double dummy analysis of how often the contract makes on different leads and see how they stack up then. I don't have that capability with Jack but will look around for a program that can do this for me (I really dislike the "expected total points" output). I'm a fan of overtricks, so I'm not so convinced that they're worth so much less than the amount the total points analysis values them (note that they're already undervalued compared to imps playing the same contract at total points), but your 6NT example is good -- certainly a heart is worse then. The first gets at something impossible to get around given double dummy analysis, as you note. Running the sort of test Hrothgar thought I ran (ie having Jack play the hands instead of using double dummy analysis) might help here, but Jack isn't going to be the greatest card player. Some combination of this and the double-dummy analysis (with % making) could be quite good though. I'm not sure I'd give up on the spade lead yet, but I do see some of the things the heart lead has going for it that aren't captured by the analysis using Jack. Andy

Here's a defense problem against 3NT: [hv=d=w&v=n&n=sq643h107dq10854c63&w=skj985hkj54d7c742]266|200|Scoring: Imps[/hv] Bidding: W N E S P P P 1C X 1D 2H 3NT P P P 1C = precision (16+ unbal, 17+ bal) X = ♦ or (♥+♠) (suction) 1D = very bad hand (0-4 or so I think) 2H = pass/correct (partner really only goes to the 2-level with 4 in our style) Lead: ♥4. So far, your ♥4 has gone to partner's ♥8, ducked. Partner continues ♥Q, ducked, and then another heart, declarer winning ♥A and discarding a club from dummy. Declarer now plays off ♦AK (you discard a low spade on the second) and leads a low spade from hand. What now?[hv=d=w&v=n&n=sq643h107dq10854c63&w=skj985hkj54d7c742]266|200|Scoring: Imps[/hv]

The definition of the 3N bid is in my first post (top of page 2 of this topic) and is very reasonable, I think. The definition of 1N is simply 15-17 balanced. Perhaps this affects things slightly but I really doubt it's a significant factor here (but who knows, I could be wrong). 1N-3N situations are amongst the easiest to model and I think the data can be quite relevant in such situations. The analysis is double dummy (this is a much more important point than the above I feel). I'm fully aware of the limitations of this analysis, but at least it's clear what it is. I find it fairly interesting that a spade is a better double dummy lead here (assuming you accept the definitions of the bids). Maybe this is an unfair context to put the discussion in, but I'd suggest that if you think a heart is a better lead than a spade that you should really think about and try to explain why one of the following is true (for the sake of discussion & figuring out which is better, not for my sake or because you're required to do so, etc): 1) a spade is better than a heart at double dummy, but for these [insert various reasons/factors here] reasons, a heart lead is better than double dummy analysis would suggest when compared to a spade lead. 2) against mom & pop, a spade lead is better than a heart lead, but against experts who don't evaluate their hands rigidly and who bid 1N off-shape sometimes, a heart lead has these [insert reasons] advantages over a spade lead. I understand that everyone likes their own judgement, but this doesn't seem to be the sort of hand where our experience is really going to give us good data. We'll recall a couple of hands where leads from the 3-card suit are better pretty strongly -- "wasn't that weird" -- and forget the slightly greater number of times that the spade lead worked perhaps. (If you find this "model" of how so many people came to believe a heart lead is better unrealistic, I'm not actually claiming that it's true -- just putting it up as a type of possibility.) Andy

It wasn't manual at all. Jack has a built in "analyze this situation" button which will deal out 1000 deals consistent with the bidding (and play, though there hadn't been any at this point) and display the expected total point score for each action --i.e. it takes each action on each of the 1000 deals and (using the double dummy result of each lead) averages the total points achieved. This is rather different from having Jack play all the hands -- double dummy is of course quite different. I don't have an easy way of doing what you suggest (it would be very nice to be able to do that though). This feature seems to be one that Jack uses internally to decide how to proceed in various situations (such as bidding "judgement" problems, opening lead problems, much of the play). I haven't really looked around, but I'd be very interested in programs that can do this with more user input (it only uses its definitions for the bids) and also which display the number of times each result was achieved as opposed to the irritating averaging going on. It has no (built-in at least) ability to run tests to see if the results are statistically significant, but I will say that the results rarely change by more than 5 total points from around deal 200 on (you see the results change as it deals more hands -- it takes a minute or two total). One can also run it several times and see if you get roughly the same answer. Here are the results of another run in case that's interesting: ♠2 = -387.3 ♥6 = -397.2 ♦10 = -403.6 ♥Q = -406.4 ♣J = -414.8 I would give another few runs, but it seems to have a random number seeding issue and keeps giving the same results [even if i restart the program]. I've rebooted my computer since my previous post which has apparently reset it, but it'd be an annoyance to do this several times. In any case, these results are fairly close to the original ones and hopefully give you an idea of the accuracy. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know. Andy

This convention (Ghestem is another name I think) has a long history of such problems. It's generally advised that one does not play it for this reason :P. That said, if you play 3♦ opposite a 3♣ preempt (if you can never preempt 3♣, consider 3♥ over 3♦ or some such) as NF (ie just an attempt to improve the contract) then you should pass. If, more likely, you play it as forcing, you should bid something -- 4♣ probably, though you should consider whether 3NT and 4♦ are logical alternatives. Note that if you bid 4♣, partner, who as yet has no UI, is allowed to decide that you misbid and pass -- unless you "looked surprised" or some such and gave it away (though perhaps if you forget this convention often and partner knows it this won't be allowed as it suggests a hidden partnership understanding, sort of like psychic controls, but this point is a bit subtle and I'm not so sure). Probably for the sake of your partnership, though, partner should decide that 4♣ is showing a fragment or shortness (whichever is your style) in a big 5-5 hand, else you'll be worried that partner will pass when you have this hand! With 3 hearts, you're certainly supposed to raise -- perhaps to 3♥, but if you have a nice hand with 3 hearts and a singleton, a splinter (to 3♠ or 4♣) is probably a logical alternative (assuming you play splinters -- if not, then 3♥ is fine). This (the splinter) might be taking it a bit too far practically speaking, but it's probably the correct thing to do strictly speaking. [Edit: I assumed you meant that partner's alert woke you up. If nothing strange has gone on to remind you that you play Flannery -- for example if you were playing online and opps talked privately to partner -- then you're well within your rights to realize it if it's your own realization. Then you may bid as you wish, but you should try not to give UI to partner through long hesitations or some such to suggest that you bid poorly and have a problem now. Of course, 2♦-2♥-3♦ is an impossible Flannery auction, so partner shouldn't have any problems.] Andy

Given the range of errors from mis-guesses etc, that just tells you that 3NT is making whatever you lead.... so isn't enormously helpful! As these things go, this 10 point difference is fairly significant. Notice that the ♣J is only 12 points worse than ♦10, even though this seems to be a much worse lead (at least to me). If the only possible results were -430 or +50 (I choose -430 because 397 is frightfully near 400), this 10 point difference would translate to beating the contract 8.9% of the time instead of 6.8% of the time. (This is a silly hack computation, but I apologize for the fact that Jack has silly output.) Also, it seems to me that the spade lead needn't erase declarer's guess more frequently than the heart lead away from Qxx. Maybe that's so, and I certainly favor thinking over rigidly accepting the output of flawed simulations, but it's at least rather interesting that the spade lead beats 3N more often than the heart lead double dummy, especially given that the vast majority of the responses favor the heart lead. The majority of responses favor the heart lead because they think it's more likely to set, but will often blow a trick. Perhaps this is true (even double-dummy), but then the 1 imp or so we're gaining by leading the spade is worth more in the long run (accepting the above double-dummy analysis) because at total points you should be even more likely to go for the set than at imps. If people still believe the heart lead is best, perhaps it'd be useful for them to think about and explain why a heart lead is likely to have/preserve a larger gain for the defense over pure double-dummy play than a spade lead. Andy

The correct/ethical thing to do is to assume that your partner is bidding in response to what you thought your bid meant. You must not use the UI (unauthorized information) that your partner believes your bid means something other than what you meant it to mean, and in fact if you have several logical alternatives for subsequent actions, you may not choose one that is suggested over another by this UI. (This is all in ACBL-land; I don't know about other jurisdictions, but suspect it's largely the same.) For example, say you have one of the following 3 hands: a ) 4 J107 A98 AQJ652 b ) AJ104 7 98 AQJ652 c ) J104 K7 98 AQJ652 The bidding is: 1NT* 2C** P 2S P ? * = 12-14 ** = you meant it as natural, your partner alerted it (and you now remember you play it as Landy, showing the majors) Partner's 2S bid in response to Landy merely means he prefers to play 2S over 2H. If in response to a natural 2C bid, 2S shows a spade suit. a ) You have two logical alternatives: 3C and Pass. 3C is clearly suggested by the UI, so you must pass. If you have agreements that e.g. 2D by you would be natural and 1NT 2D P 2S would be forcing, then Pass is presumably no longer a logical alternative and you can bid 3C (though you should again consider whether there are other logical alternatives, such as 2NT, and whether they are suggested by the UI). You should be warned, however, that unless you have documented notes to this effect (or e.g. notes stating that advances to overcalls are always forcing) the director and any appeals committee should find your statement that this is how you play to be "self serving." (Unless the agreement that 2S is forcing here is totally standard.) b ) Opposite a natural 2S bid, you have an easy 4S raise. Even if you think 3S is a logical alternative, being more conservative in your raise is clearly suggested by the UI and thus (since 4S is also a logical alternative) you must bid 4S. c ) This hand should probably raise to 3S. Hope this helps! Andy [edited to get rid of the "b )" = :P thing]

I put this hand in Jack and had it simulate 1000 deals. This is double dummy, of course, so we lose interesting info like when we have erased guesses for declarer which do show up often as Chamaco's simulation suggests. (Does anyone know simulators that have some limited ability to correct for "guesses" like this -- e.g. deciding a 2-way finesse makes half the time? Perhaps GIB or Jack does this to some extent -- it seems they would need to know something about 2-way finesses for their play engines.) Also, the output is expected (i.e. average) total points, which means it's only really relelvant for imps. Again, I repeat my request for suggestions for a better simulator (more user configurable, with output giving the number of times each result was achieved for each lead would be great). Jack's definition of 3NT is: 1) 9 hcp, a 5-7 card minor, no 4+ card major [edited] 2) 10-13 hcp, no 8+ card minor, no 4+ card major 3) 14-15 hcp, no 6+ card minor, no 4+ card major Expected total points (opps non-vulnerable): ♠2 = -388.8 ♥6 = -397.4 ♦10 = -403.4 ♥Q = -407.0 ♣J = -415.5 For those who know something about Jack, I have adjusted ♥Q to the correct double dummy value (Jack originally gave -417.0) -- Jack docks systemically incorrect leads 10 points to help itself decide which lead to make -- i.e. it makes the "incorrect" lead from a suit if its expected total point score is more than 10 points better, which is interesting & reasonable, but not of interest to us right now, though I guess we should note that the ♥Q lead could cause partner to go wrong. Of course, the ♥6 lead could cause partner to go wrong too. I led low from ♦A52 against 3NT recently (it was the unbid suit), hitting partner's ♦K8xxx and he had no entries and had a very tough decision of whether to duck when ♦10x showed up in dummy. If anyone wants to comment on this, does anyone advocate leading the ♦5 from my holding for some reason (even though we play standard leads vs NT), or does anyone advocate systemically leading 2nd from 3 systemically vs NT, so ♦5 would be the systemic lead? (Of course, tell me why too.) Andy

If West can rise with ♥Q or ♥J, this line fails. Andy

I'm fairly certain I can't make if hearts are 4-1. If hearts are 3-2 (one way or the other) there's the issue of either letting East score 2 low ruffs and the spade K (in addition to their heart trick) or driving out some spades early but then losing control, but there are solutions in certain cases: I'll assume diamonds are 5-3 (i.e. 5 with West). I need something like 3 hearts with East or the combination of 3 hearts and the club Ace with West. (Or ♥QJ to fall doubleton of course.) I cash ♥AK and play a third heart. Say West wins. Then I need ♣A with West. If West returns a low club, I rise with the K, tossing a heart, and I lose just 2 hearts and a spade. If West returns ♣A, I can duck (tossing a heart) and if another club is returned, I again lose only 3 tricks. If a diamond is returned, this strips East's last diamond, I ruff, and play spades until East wins and must return a spade (then my heart wins) or a club (then my club K wins). If West returns a diamond, then this similarly strips East of his last diamond. I ruff with the ♠10 to prepare to overruff my ♠4 with dummy's ♠6. I play a heart pitching a club and East must ruff or it's easy. He returns a club or it's easy (drive out spades) and now I ruff with the ♠J and exit my last heart, pitching dummy's last club (if he doesn't ruff this, I exit spade 4 for the endplay in spades). He ruffs and must return a club... which I then ruff low in hand and with the 6 on the board to set up my trump coup, on the board at trick 12. :) If East has the third heart, everything works the same way, but this time I don't care who has ♣A. Nice problem! Andy

Why not clubs & hearts? What would the auction 1C 4S 4N p 5D p 5H show. Clubs and hearts or a strong 4H bid. You can't have it both ways but your way is certainly a reasonable way to play it, and I would like to have it if I picked up --- KQxxxx Kxx Kxxx, but with that hand I would just bid 5C and take my chances playing my way. So would you also play that e.g. (4S) 4N (here you're second seat) doesn't include clubs+hearts? This would seem like a bigger loss to me. (If you don't, I'm impressed with the specificity of your agreements.) The way I've played these auctions is that if you want to show a good 5H bid, you can try to by bidding 4N, and then you get to if pard bids 5C (else pard just doesn't know whether you have C+H or H). I suppose things could go poorly if there's further bidding by the opponents, but this doesn't seem like such a big deal. ---------------- Perhaps some combination of 4N..5N, 4N..5S, 5N, and 5S can help here if you want to go and bid 6H but want to keep 6C in the picture. I admit, I don't really see something perfect, but perhaps over 5S partner only bids 6C with a rather nice suit (and usually bids 5N)? 5S sounds like a raise, though, I guess, so this is probably wrong. Any thoughts? Andy

Why not clubs & hearts? Also, I don't know how to run real simulations, but I put the first hand into Jack and asked it to "Analyze this position" (it generates 1000 possible hands and double dummy analyzes them I think) and it spat out: (annoyingly enough it computes "expected total points") 4S = -354 5D = -502 5C = -542 (by opps, presumably their expected score:) 4H = 209 [ie our expected score is -209, I think] 5H = -285 6H = -958 It presumably assumes your contracts will be doubled when they fail by several tricks (and hopefully always uses 4Hx? more on this below). I don't think this is so accurate, though -- e.g. its displayed definition of partner's double was "hcp=14+" (perhaps it uses a more accurate definition internally for the calculations). (If you care, its displayed definition of 4H was 7-9 playing tricks, 7+ hearts, 3-13 hcp.) I worry, though, that it's correcting afterwards for 4H being doubled or something: its conclusion from this analysis was "Jack's intention: 4S" even though pass seems indicated by the numbers. One should also of course note that something like "the better of 5C and 5D" should be calculated -- Jack can apparently take such things into consideration when coming up with its "intention" but I don't know whether it knows about a 4NT bid. Does anyone have suggestions for better simulators (e.g. which give more than "expected total points" and allow user definitions -- and which preferably could deal with "5C or 5D" type questions)? Andy (For what it's worth, I'm probably a passer on the first hand and a 5H bidder on the second.)

Do you play multi-landy (= woolsey except for the double) vs NT? I'm amused that your entire two-bid structure is a 1NT defense (let me know if you start opening 1N for penalties or as a 5+-card minor plus a 4-card major anytime soon) ;). Actually, this brings up something: do you use 2♦ in response to the Ekrens 2♣ to ask for opener's better major (i.e. where opener can only respond 2♥ or 2♠)? This is how I (and most other people) play Landy, and it seems a really good idea here. You'll have plenty of room to find out more about partner's exact shape and strength with a 2NT follow-up, so no need to ever bid above 2♠... and that way you gain the extra safety of opener choosing the suit when responder is 2-2 or 3-3. A slightly related suggestion: I'm suspicious of the 4-4 Ekrens and would prefer it to be 5-4 (one way or the other). If this is the case, you'll actually feel ok bidding this 2♦ ask when 2-2 as you'll end up in a 5-2, whereas if partner can be 4-4, I'll be tempted to pass 2♣ or some such depending on my holdings in the minors. I've never really played Ekrens, though, and perhaps the point is to just play those 4-2 fits when that's your fate and hope the rest of the times make up for it. Andy

Typically, 4NT in situations like this means "two suits" or "two places to play" (sort of a super "unusual 2NT" if you haven't seen this sort of thing before) so here it's presumably be a diamond-heart two-suiter (good 5-5 at least). In any case, it shouldn't be Blackwood, which is much less useful than some type of takeout. We also have 5♣ here, which we won't usually, for example if auction had simply started (4♠) 4NT -- where 4NT is typically "some two-suiter" (some play it as takeout if they play optional/penalty doubles of 4♠, and some may play that it's just minors, and would bid 5♦ on 4-1-5-3 distribution, whereas if you played it as any two-suiter you'd have to bid 5♣ so you find a fit when partner has hearts and clubs). It's possible that having 5♣ here has an effect on the meaning of 4NT (for example, one could be longer in one of the suits and the other roughly equal or longer in the other suit), but this "3♣ P 4♠ ?" is a strange sequence to have an actual agreement on unless you play very good general methods. I'd guess that 5♣ shows slam interest, but whether it should be taken as 5-5 or whether advancer should cater to single-suiters (e.g. bidding 5♦ if you wouldn't accept a slam try opposite a good 5♦ bid), I have no idea. Neither meaning will have an effect on 4NT, and I really shouldn't be rambling about this here I suppose... retroactively ignore this paragraph if you so desire. Andy

The data are of course very interesting, but things are a bit more subtle. The 7222 has a higher degree of safety than the 5440 hand (and can thus open lighter in the "how often do we make game" metric). After you find a fit, everything changes, but I'd suggest that (to some extent) upgrading when you find a fit is better than having to downgrade when you don't find one. Not that "safety" should be the sole factor either -- what I'm suggesting is that both "how often game" and "safety" factor into your openings (read: initial valuation?). Andy