Jlall

1N and a heart.

If I played weak jump overcalls I would bid 3D on the first one, but usually don't play that. If partner has a diamond fit our hand has huge potential, and it's nice to mess them up a bit. On the second one I would bid 4D hoping to bid keycard over a 4M response from partner and get to 7 sensibly if possible or stay out of 6.

The three best pairs are not necessarily the best team. /thread

?! I was gonna mock josh but then I saw your post... wow. I would pass and think its not even close and would bet a simulation backed it up even if I spotted you .5 imps for the declaring bonus. edit LOL I tghought it went p 3C ? and you were overcalling 3N hahaha

Yeah the big reason to play penalty doubles over weak NT is not so that you can get a penalty, its so that you can differentiate between sound overcalls and light ones so that you can bid game effectively.

Better to congratulate yourself for your braveness when partner instead turns up with ♠KQJx, ♥-,♦Axxx,♣AJxxx I prefer to fight it out at 5♠, if necessary. Rainer Herrmann Partner has minimums way more than he has maximums!

Congratulate partner on his brave double with KJxx x Kxxx Axxx to get us to a vul game we would otherwise have missed.

Obv when I said "least" I meant to write "most" in this context (otherwise the 2 parts of the sentence make no sense at all).

If partner doubles on an auction where we often have 0 tricks and almost certainly have at least 1 (ie when we preempt), I bet we usually beat it!

Thx all, had a fun birthday in Portugal

I agree. yep

Pass, partner is a good favorite to be 5512 and he will lead his stiff D etc. Our hand is garb on offense. Of course if he is 5521 I will prob regret it.

1H-1N 5+ spades 1H-1S-1N 4 spades

Yeah this seems good but if RHO exits a low diamond you are supposed to pop king I think. Depends on their level etc, but I would expect them to generally shift to the queen if they had it and they're good (though if they know you will pop king they should shift to low from queen empty in case you have KT since you should pop K then also... blah blah).

Aren't you missing the entries to strip the red suits if you do this? Like if the DJ loses to the queen they play a heart you duck they play a heart you win and ruff a red card and you still have one red card left.

I agree with this in general very much (people bid 1N with support too often), but this hand seems like an exception where you should bid 1N even with 4 card support. However that leads to a disaster on this hand so maybe 2D is right after all. Support with support!

SJ is all day, you set up a spade trick possibly, set up a tap possibly, take away an option immediately before he can decide what to do (dummy with AQ, him with a stiff), and more importantly you have NO OTHER POSSIBLE LEAD!

I have the nuts of all time, how can this not be cold?

You cannot be serious that you passed a 1S opener with this hand? That is one of the worst things I've ever seen. Just bid 2H!

I see that playing pro is making you a lot less confrontational when expressing your views - what happened to the old Justin who would start off with, Jane, you ignorant slut!? :P Because it's not that horrible to X first, you may get to a 4H game you miss by passing and doubling. I mean you do have NINE POINTS so normally you would double, they just suck. I try to respond with the appropriate level of hate/like for a bid.

Dunno, seems lazy we could still have 7 easily. Partner's pass is forcing so he could have a reasonable hand. 5H followed by 6S seems better, if partner bids 7 over that it must be good.

Hate to be "that guy" but we have TEN POINTS!

Obviously there are many reasons pairs may score this way, and I'd rather not speculate on it except to say that it seems likely such pairs "change tactics" (either intentionally or for psychological reasons) when it seems like their session is going well or poorly. Certainly their board results are not likely to be independent random trials. My point is just that there are high-variance pairs, who frequently have sessions which are either much better or much worse than whatever their expected score is. In fact I can think of many such pairs! Isn't entirely likely that they correctly start swinging when they are having a bad game early on? Maybe they play normal when they are getting 60+, or they started bad and swang and made it back, but when they get 40 it's them starting bad with normal things and then swinging and it doesn't work. This is completely normal in pairs imo. I don't understand why it's expected that they start playing some -EV high variance style to begin with to achieve this.

For instance on the last hand, transferring and splintering easily allows you the chance to use better judgement than the field, even if it's normal. It's a great chance to win the board with +EV bidding with lots of info by getting to a good slam or avoiding a bad slam. You might even get to 6N. You might even get to 3N if you transfer and splinter and partner bids 3N and you pass. You might get to a normal contract and win a swing with good card play when you have lots more info to work with. Etc etc. Just hoping to get lucky by blasting 3N or blasting slam is just not that good. Even if your opps are awesome, this is your hand and they're passing so who cares, it's your board to win or lose. Save the swing bids/plays to later when you have an edge.

The amazing thing about these threads is people act like they know that some abnormal action is very slightly -EV so they should go for the higher variance. If you get some situation where this is possible it might be right to go for it, but doing things like bidding 1S are horribly -EV imo. It's just very bad and people are acting like its pretty close. Maybe if you aren't that great you aren't good enough to judge what is the best action, what is the next best action, how close in EV they are, what the field rates to do, etc etc. Also if it's a pair game you can start out by not swinging and then at the end do it if you need to. Maybe you start out doing normal stuff, get some gifts, and have a good game. If you start having a bad game you can change strategies. You don't have to adopt an all or nothing strategy on high variance -EV stuff. I think swinging on board 1 is always going to be bad. Also, I hate to say it but bidding is not that important in winning at MP. MP is all about making all your tricks etc. Your biggest edges are always going to be in the play, not some random bidding scenarios. A lot of swing positions come up late in the play where you have a ton of info and can back your judgement and be huge +EV. If you just do random stuff before that you lose that possibility. Bidding is so overrated in MP it's amazing to me. I know this might be a controversial view, but I really believe it to be true. Get to normal contracts and create some edge in the play. Learn how to do that and you'll win a lot in MP. -Jlall, never won a national MP pairs.