Jlall

Agreement is specific to an auction, meta agreement is just a general agreement that covers auctions that are not specifically agreed on imo. Meta agreements are needed because it is not practical to have an agreement for every single auction. One common meta agreement is "If it's unclear whether a bid is forcing or not, it is." This at least allows you to make a forcing bid even if you haven't discussed it as being forcing. Another one that Fred seems to like is "If it is unclear whether a bid is natural or not, it is natural." This allows you to have some idea whether or not a bid is a cue or natural in an auction that your partnership has not discussed.

Definitely not Do you mean that it's definitely not forcing, or you definitely don't have a [meta-]agreement about whether it's forcing? I meant my meta agreement is that it is definitely not forcing heh. I would hate to have that agreement since I will pass t/o Xs with 6 reasonable cards in their suit and nothing (or at the 2+ level I'll pass with 5 reasonable cards of their suit and nothing). Of course usually I won't have nothing at all, but I would still need quite a good hand to want to be in a force, and at low levels I don't think there's that much to be gained from being in a force.

Definitely not

You can use them by UPH for the same reasons (and more reasons actually).

Well I visualize this far worse scenario: LHO is 1714 (with 4 small clubs) and decides to overcall 5♥. RHO is 2560 and raises. Now when we bid 7♠ and RHO doubles LHO will get the lead right, which he otherwise wouldn't have. :) Why did LHO pass with 1714 w/r first seat? Why did RHO pass with 2560 w/r 3rd seat?

4D has denied a club control, else partner would bid 4C. I would offer 4H as a choice to play there. That is especially important in this auction where 4M is natural over 4D, and 4N is keycard. AKJxx xx QJxx Jx one time?

Meh this kind of 3 suiter will always be a problem in SAYC. You are too strong for 1m, but if you open 2C you have no way to show this type of hand. So your options are 2C then 2N with a small stiff in a major (yuck), 1m hoping to catch up later even though you will inevitably be forced to guess (sigh), or 2C then 2H on AK9x (yuck!) When you give this as a "how to bid these 2 hands" type thing, people can always pick the option that will get you to the right contract, but in reality if you pick one you will always lose on certain sets of hands with partner, it is just a flaw in the system. On this hand it is not clear to me how good 6C actually is anyways, but I could see it going 2C 2D 2N 3C 3H 4N 5C 6C if playing with myself.

I would just bid 1H. I have spades so I'm not concerned with preempting them at all. I am more worried about playing 3H-1 when I could have played 2H than I am about the opps bidding 4 of a minor. 4H seems lol, we need a ton for game and we're playing MP, why just decide to go minus a huge portion of the time in 4th seat when we usually get to game by opening 1H anyways?

:) I don't particularly want to bid 4♣; I'm just too scared to pass 3♥. I'm not exactly rich in defensive values. I even accept the premise of the "Law" that when 3♥ is making 4♣ is likely to go more off, but I'm hoping that when that's the situation they won't double us. Even if we don't get doubled, surely we rate to go down 2 in 3H or 4C. If our expectation is -200, then -470 is not such a huge disaster in hopes of getting +100 (we risk 270 points to gain 300). Red/white is a weird game imo. I disagree with you that partner cannot be 3613 and is more likely 3505. For 3613 he could obviously bid 3H now, but if he had a hand with bad hearts and something like AKx ATxxxx x AKx I think Xing again would be better. Couldn't 3H now sound like 2614, or at least better hearts/more offense/less defense? If you think partner usually bids 2H with 4-2 in the majors, then partner will usually have 5 spades or a stiff heart, and if hes 4144 you can get a big number Xing again, and if hes 4135 4C will be better than 4H in a bad 6-1 (partner might correct to 4C but I think he might try to play a 6-1, especially with stiff honor). 3505 seems really unlikely given our hand just because the opponents do not sound like they have 10 diamonds. They are w/r and passed 2D. If RHO had 7 diamonds he might have bid 3D over the X, and if LHO had 4 diamonds he would probably bid over 2D, especially given how weak we are (meaning we know he has some values). But yeah I think if you think you beat 3D X a trick even 2/3rds of the time you will gain a lot by passing (sometimes you are going -300 if you bid, sometimes they can X and you go -500/800 anyways), since going plus is very valuable compared to going minus in vul undertricks, and -470 is not as horrible as it sounds. I think given how strong partner's hand rates to be, we definitely rate to beat 3D enough of the time to go for it. Side question, if you do pass, what do you lead?

Okay time to release some calculation methods why do you think 7♠ is the at the right odds? Given that partner is 1/3 to hold the ♣Q. How do you dredge up the remaining %age points to get it up to the 70+% you need? If he doesn't have the CQ he could have 5 clubs, or he could have 4 clubs in which case the queen rates to drop, or he could have a doubleton club and 3+ spades to the jack in which case we can ruff out clubs, or he could have 2 clubs and 2 spades to the jack in which case we can make on Qx of clubs or 3-3 clubs, or he could have 3 clubs and the spade jack (and maybe the club ten) in which case we can finesse a club, or he could just have 3 clubs and the Qx drops, or he could have 2 clubs and 2 spades and we get 3-3 clubs or he could have a stiff club and 3+trumps, etc etc Not to mention that a significant portion of the time 7S is down 6S will also be down which means you need less %age than usual.

penalty obviously

Maybe you are playing too much online and haven't played against live donks enough? With enough 5-6-way raised/capped pots, the average pots can get large enough that it can be overcome. Maybe for only $4/hr though rather than $6. But it is silly to fight against that for too long when the $6-12 game w/ $5 flat rake isn't all that much tougher. $2-4 kind of disappeared around here a couple years ago anyway, $3-6 is the lowest now ($4 rake). Yeah I have no live low limit experience, and only a little at Commerce and Bellagio, so I guess I could be underestimating your max potential winrate. $4/hr does sound like what others have said so far...beatable but not worth it heh.

Maybe this was not clear but I was never suggesting not raising pre with AA, I was saying that in doing so you are acknowledging that you are playing vs people who will not later know in, say, a hand like this, that your entire range is now AA and nothing else. Ergo putting them on quads because they "know" you have AA and are playing perfectly against you is a big mistake. $4 flat rake seems pretty lol, I don't see how anyone could possibly beat that. Vegas rake seems better, but you still have to have a massive winrate to overcome that kind of rake.

Then I would try to use my superior bridge skill/knowledge/intellect combined with my friend's (aka the forums) collective knowledge and wisdom to initiate a debate after which I would have a better idea of which A, B, and C were. Isn't this the case for every bridge situation?

I don't see what the argument is here. This position is consistent, someone who claims all the tricks after a finesse wins when they don't actually have all the tricks is assuming the finesse is on and claiming so. If the finesse is off then you go down because you did not consider this possibility.

Raising the turn is pretty lol...

Sure, but there is another school of thought that says if you aren't sure what is best, then doing what worked best last time will have you do the best overall. I.e., if you have 3 actions and A will be best 40% of the time, B best 35% of the time and C best 25% of the time then you'll end up doing A 40% of the time, B 35% of the time, and C 25% of the time and thus you'll do the better thing more often. I would rather do the one that works 40 % 100 % of the time.

If they claimed all the tricks at this point I would force them to hook the spade again and go down if the SK is off obviously. They are claiming based on the spade hook being on; they have not foreseen the possibility that RHO has ducked. They certainly do not get the benefit of running their winners first and doing a showup squeeze, even if clubs were 3-3 they would not get to do this, because they think the SK must be on it would not be irrational to cater to the possibility that it's off.

I mean it wouldn't surprise me if the best player in the world did not have a positive winrate after rake+tip. So basically I mean it literally, although Jeremy seems to have searched 2+2 for this already so if they say it is beatable but not worth it I'm sure they're right.

lol

Even online, the HU games are not really beatable until 3/6 because the rake is too high, and online rakes are much better than live rakes. Of course online HU is much tougher than live full ring at the same stakes, but generally your winrate HU is going to have a higher possible cap than in FR. Josh please report back when you get the numbers, assuming your winrate is something like a massive 6BB per 100 hands, we can see what your winrate would be after rake and tip etc and how beatable the game is.

haha, lets just say if you showed a sample of 10k LHE hands, you would get laughed off the planet for thinking that is a meaningful sample. Obviously playing live you can pretty much never get a sample size large enough to know your true winrate, but 6 hours of live play is maybe a few minutes online, fwiw. Also 40 bets is not much of a swing, you can easily go on 500 BB downswings as a winning player (obviously depending on your true winrate). Not to be like "lol live players" but they really have no idea about sample size/variance/etc because they cannot play enough hands.

hmm, I think the opposite is true. If we announce that we have 4 spades and didn't make a negative double, our max seems lower than hands where we have a doubleton heart and didn't bid over 2D. For instance: Kxxx xx xxx KQxx would make a negative X. Kxx xx xxxx KQxx would pass 2D (and then bid 2H). So our max for pass then 2S is lower than our max for pass then 2H.

Anyone know what the rake is for live 2/4 limit hold em? I told jdonn I suspected it was so high that the game was unbeatable by even the best player in the world, and I wonder if that's true. The rake + tip can just completely overwhelm even a huge bigbet/100 winrate if it is too high, which it probably is in order for the games to be worth it for a casino to run.

1D 1S 2C 2H 3S 4D 4H 4N 5C 5H 5N 7D would work, not sure how realistic it is.