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What is the extra step used for over the 1C,1D bids? (It must be something really good, or you should just move 1H down to 1C and not skip a step with your major suit transfers -- not to be a spoil sport in this strong heart discussion :) , but just pointing this out as this is apparently a real suggestion for something to play.) Andy

I'm not a TD, but seems like an easy no adjustment. Andy

I'd like to play hands (with a foursome) from a .lin file (e.g. instant mp games that I've converted to .lin from Richard Pavlicek's site or old vugraph hands). Are there easy ways to do this? As far as I know, my options are: 1) Use a teaching table. Then, if I'm host, I'll see all the hands or I'll need to find a fifth to host (who will also send each new hand when appropriate). 2) Use a total points table, and separate the hands into different .lin files, one for each hand (when using a total points table, it seems only capable of handling one hand at a time). 3) Possibly (I'm not sure about this) set up a tournament (with only one table) and use prepared deals, and be a playing director. This last option, if possible, sounds the most desirable of the three (of course, if there's an easier way I'm missing, please let me know). I haven't run tournaments before -- could I become a director to do this? Thanks, Andy [Edit: actually, I seem to be wrong about total points and it doesn't seem to do single deals even. Re-edit: I'm not sure about this actually, as I thought it worked at some point, but maybe only when 4 people were sitting at the table, though I could be misremembering]

You are not exactly wrong, but I think that you are missing something. If you always play high then the percentage play for declarer is to come back to hand and play low to the nine. So you also always lose with this hand. There's something to be said for this practical approach. We presume everyone will put in the 9 if you play low (assuming they don't know something about your habits), but if you play high, there will be some who won't expect that from H10x(x..) and will play for KQx(x..). Andy

Reading Justin's recent blog entry on psyching led me to wonder how one should practice psyches (for your benefit, not partner's of course). Doing this with a regular partner seems like a bad idea for obvious reasons, and finding random partners online and then psyching seems rather unfriendly (and also, one's random opponents will probably be less capable of dealing with them than your desired opposition). Also, any organized attempt to practice psyches will presumably let the cat out of the bag (say I'm playing a bunch of boards with people who I know won't mind and then I psyche on 1/4 of them -- clearly they'll get the idea). Any ideas? Perhaps wanting to practice psyches is silly, but it seems like some experience is good if you're thinking of wheeling one out in any important setting. Andy

I don't have much experience playing Muiderberg, but I'm happy bidding it (ie 2S) on this hand if I am playing it. I plan to act as though I have a normal Muiderberg 2S bid (ie presumably not bid more on my own) later on in the auction. Hopefully my methods allow partner to ask something about my suit lengths, but even if not, I'm still bidding it. I have no idea regarding frelling twos (as I understand it the candidate bids, other than pass, are 2D showing 4+D + 4+M and 2S showing 6+S or 4+S & 5+C). I'd have to know something about the follow-ups to know whether it's a good idea to bid 2D (I suspect it isn't, but I'm no proponent of frelling twos anyways). This hand is rather more interesting playing standard. I don't have any theory regarding these hands and both 2S and pass (hoping to bid michaels later) are reasonable. If I opened 2S, I wouldn't be tempted to bid again due to my poor suit quality (in both suits). Andy

Hopefully I don't use whether partner alerts or not in my next bid!

This isn't getting so many replies, so I'll get to the crux of the issue: We can be fairly certain spades are: Q10962 7 KJ54 A83 around the table. In this suit combination, sometimes it's good to play low and sometimes it's good to play the J. How do we decide which is which, and which situation are we in now? The rest of the defense is of some interest as well. A hint for the bonus question: partner should have ♥A for his 2♣ bid, and let's say declarer is going to misguess hearts. Andy

Supposing we know how many cards everyone has in the suit (namely that partner doesn't have only one or two), and that our goal is to prevent declarer from taking two tricks in the suit, any percentage of the time works, you just have to make sure that your percentage with KQx(x..) is "close enough" (it doesn't have to be that close) so that declarer can't win more often than when you have the 10 plus an honor (or KQ tight, of course). For example, if you play the Queen 40% of the time from Q10x(x..) and you play high (let's say half the time K, half the time Q when you do do it for simplicity) from KQx(x..) more than 80% of the time, then when you play the Queen on the first round, declarer does best to play you for KQx(x..) (and when you play low, declarer plays best to play you for H10x(x..)), getting more than his fair share. Basically to see this, one can observe that if you play low always, declarer's best play is to pick up H10x(x..), and similarly if you play high always, and you're never giving anything away (because partner has more than 2 cards, so we're not telling declarer to play for KQ tight when we play low if we e.g. always played high with an honor). Things change if declarer could have only two small and this is a trump contract and we'd like a trick in this suit when we have KQx(x..). Then we need to weigh this concern against the concern of playing high with Q10x(x..) when partner has the stiff King (and also against the concern of telegraphing KQ tight by playing high too often) since we're apparently assuming we don't know the distribution. If we always play high with KQx(x..), half the time K, half the time Q, then we'll need to play high from Q10x(x..) 50% of the time or more. How important these two situations are relative to each other presumably depends on context. Andy

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=sq10962hkj1075dq52c&e=skj54hq3dakjckq85]266|200|Scoring: IMP P P 1♣ P 2♣* 3♣** X 3♠ P P X P P P[/hv] 2♣ was inverted (limit raise in clubs) and 3♣ was spades and another (and also rather insane). This is in a sectional swiss against inexpert opponents. Partner leads ♠7 and declarer calls for ♠2. Your play. Bonus question: how many tricks do you expect your side to take?

The fact that you play 2/1 shouldn't really be relevant here. The standard agreement is that after an overcall like this, you revert to "1950's standard" style where most of partner's bids are NF after your 2H bid (partner bids 2S to set up a force, so 3D immed is NF, but 2S..3D is F). That said, 2H does promise some values, something like 10+ (it's possible to stretch with a great suit). This hand isn't quite good enough (it's close though), and so you double first and then bid hearts, which is the standard way to show a long heart suit in a hand not good enough for 2H. In this particular situation, there's no harm in this (you've promised 4 hearts, then when you bid again you're just showing more) and so basically everyone plays this way. Some other auctions are more controversial: 1D (2C) X. Can this be done with a long heart suit or a long spade suit in a hand not good enough to bid 2M? The usual suggestion is that it is ok, but partner isn't really supposed to cater to it, so you should be ok correcting partner's jump bid in the other major to your major at whatever level. Some find this frightening with hearts (it's easier to outbid partner when you have spades) and only do it with long spades. 1H (1S) X. Can this be a long minor? Most would want to have at least 3 cards in the other minor to do this, and probably only with diamonds, not clubs, basically because you're ok whatever happens: if partner bids clubs at a low level, you correct to diamonds, and if partner jumps to 5C or some such, you probably just pass. Andy

Am I correct in interpreting this as saying that GIB bid this 7-6 reds hand by first psyching 3S and then correcting to 4C? Other than this being totally insane, this is surprising since I've never actually seen GIB psych (it distorts a lot and often doesn't have quite what it says it has, but I've never seen an out-and-out psych). Andy

I'm not sure who your "always has 13 HCP" partner is B) but yes, of course this method is clearer at imps. I intended it for both, but who knows. Andy

I admit swapping the two gives you issues on KJTx Axx x JTxxx, in that you're just no longer allowed to double 3D. I'm not so horrified by this, and would just bid 3H in your auctions. My point is that I think it's worse to commit to doubling or competing on the flat hand KJTx Axx xxx JTx, and being able to redouble and then pass is a bigger gain on this hand than the lack of doubling 3D on the previous hand. I of course don't really know which is more valuable, but this is my current feeling. Andy [edit: added "3D" to a sentence from which it had mysteriously disappeared]

This is a rather cramped situation. I play 3S forcing here and wouldn't be sure what to do with this hand. Do you also play 3S forcing and simply think this hand is worth forcing on (given the lack of space), or do you play 3S NF, and if so, what's your rule for when such bids are NF? ------------------------------ I was a teammate in this match, so I'm not going to comment, but the bidding was also of interest at our table. What's your bid/plan over (1C) 1H (P) 1S; (P) ? (You play 1S as NF Constructive, and anything else relevant as "standard" for a 2/1 partnership.) Andy

I agree with the general principle that hands that can double specific suits should xx immediately, and random flattish hands should pass then x, but it seems inappropriate here: with your flat hand, you're not certain you want to double them or compete. In such situations (ie when your strength is limited?), it seems best to swap the two. I guess which is better depends on how aggressive you are, and you do lose something doing it this way certainly. If you like the defensive prospects of the 2nd hand enough, you can xx and then x if they bid one of your suits (suggesting at least 1 more diamond than you have unfortunately). Note that swapping the two is "natural," for what it's worth. Andy

Are you basically just adding clubs to X as a "common abuse" (i.e. if pard bids 2D asking for a major, you'll bid 3C), or are you doing away with 5C-4M hands in the double (so pard always bids 2C, unless strong [edit: or with a long suit himself])? Andy

I don't share your philosophy with respect to what double shows here, but I think of doubles of weak notrumps as "values" instead of "penalty" and only expect 14/15+. As for the lead, I like ♦J. It's safe (either partner has an honor, in which case we've done well, or I haven't blown anything as it's only tripleton) and, I think, the most promising lead I have as well. I don't know what the rest of our system over 1NT is, but if double doesn't tend to contain hands with one or both majors, then I'm more likely to be hitting partner's suit too than if I led one of those. Andy

A question: what is East allowed to know about this explanation? Is East supposed to believe it's a double of a natural 2D bid? That doesn't really work, but knowing that the opps have doubled your natural 2D bid as "penalty for one or both majors" is certainly odd. Andy

One isn't supposed to give artificial scores when the board is successfully played out. 3D is clearly using the UI. One doesn't "roll-back" the auction after calls that use UI -- one allows the board to be played instead of deciding mid-hand whether UI was used. Raising to 3H is certainly a logical alternative (and some might bid 4H!), and South will sometimes double this, so 3Hx-2 for both sides is my ruling. Andy

I agree. Up here in Berkeley, it was quite unpopular, but largely because it was seen as a Republican power grab since it was "off-cycle" (the next redistricting is scheduled for 2010 I think) and the Democrats are currently in power. I thought rejecting it for this reason was short-sighted and so I supported it, but many friends didn't for only this reason. I suspect (read: hope) that if it comes up again, but with a 2010 start, then it'll have a better chance. Andy

1. If you play that you always redouble (or bid) with a good hand, then this is either a: Some random 8-9 taking a crack at 1N. Note that a random 8-9 won't ever have a good suit, as 1S or 2m would be appropriate, so this doesn't make much sense. b: Takeout for the minors. If your partnership defaults to "what it sounds like" as opposed to "what it should be" then (a) is probably the answer. Some people play pass..X in these auctions as similar to pass..X in auctions where the opps show a 2-suiter (e.g. 1H 2N P 3C; P P X) -- i.e. a generally defensive hand as opposed to a hand that actually actively desires to penalize certain suits, which doubles/redoubles initially (and some people play the reverse, too, I think). If you're one of these, that's what it is -- i.e. a 10+ flattish hand. If I'm playing with a pickup partner, I assume the latter as partner shouldn't be trying confusing things. 2. This is a balancing notrump, (10)11-14 or so. Since partner's already passed and this is imps, I'd expect 13-14 most of the time for this particular auction, but you're never going to game, so if you feel like doing it with less, that's fine. Andy [edited to get rid of b ) = smiley problem and add an extra comment]

Skipping 1S is certainly odd, but 4S here is a good club raise, as it can't be anything else (and this is indeed what partner has). I imagine partner thought 5D was a response to straight blackwood, or possibly was attempting to cuebid diamonds (note that 4D over 4C is natural and so partner didn't "skip" a diamond cuebid earlier; also, 4S is not a spade cuebid supporting clubs, but just a general good club raise since it is the only "cuebid" available). Andy

That happens in f2f money bridge, why shouldn't it happen in BBO? This is true, but a nice variant to have sometime in the future might be imped money bridge, which exists, though less frequently I think, f2f as well. Andy

I think not, but if he really failed to ruff untill he had only trumps left then I guess it should make. Keep running clubs keeping your ♥ then overuff and cross ruff your tricks. Once he didn't ruff the 4th club, you can make by pitching diamonds on the 3rd and 4th clubs and then pitch another diamond on the 5th club if RHO ruffs high w/ J or 9 (then end up cashing DA, ruffing a heart high, and picking up trumps) but overruff if RHO ruffs small (then cash DA, ruff a heart high, and uppercut with another club to score Q8 over J9x). [As for the main question, there's no obvious error -- just a fun hand to discuss afterwards.] Andy