hotShot

Partner showed a strong hand with ♠ and I have 4card support and shortage in opps suit. I would bid 3♠, and i would have bid it over 2♠.

Have you tried the the output produced by Cascades LinConverter?

Values that could be of interest: % of bid contracts made % of doubled contracts made % of doubled opps but they made big numbers here might show "solid bidding style" declarer play: % of the possible tricks made in bid contracts with reference to the double dummy result for the bid contract. Example: You play 2♥, dd solver says you can make 9 tricks and you got only 8 or perhaps you got 10. defense: % of possible defense tricks taken compared with dd solver result. Example: Opps play 2♥, dd solver says you can make 5 tricks and you got only 4 or perhaps you got 6. sacrifices over opps game/slam: Opps bid game/slam and your side played: % of sac's that made a good score If you opps have a low number here you should X them more often.

I would understand that you want me to pick a minor, but i don't understand why you want to bid at all. It is far from certain that they make 4♥ and it's very likely, that you are going down more than 3 in red.

The weight of a freak result out of 16 is 1:15. The weight of a freak result out of 32 is 1:31. So the effect of the freak score is only half of what it was. So using more results would definitely be an improvement. These links won't work forever, but they show the effect. A traveler with 55 results, the average 2♠ contract gets 0 IMPs. A traveler with only 12 results The average 4♥ contract gets -1.3 IMPs generating a difference of 2.6 IMPs.

If you play a team match and both tables play the same contract with the same number of tricks, both sides get 0 IMP's. There is some sort of justice and beauty in this form of scoring, this justice is lost when using crossIMPS. CrossIMPs have the same sort of injustice that MP's have, you get a score that significantly depends on seating and the skill of players competing at different tables. If you take the above board into the MBC and get 16 scores, although N/S and E/W played best possible, usually one side gets + imps and the other side - imps. Which side you are on, depends only on your seating relative to pair responsible for the eccentric score. Of cause this noise, matters less if you play enough boards. BBO tourneys are way to short for this, and in the MBC there are often more than 1 or 2 strange results. In a tourney you get about +-0.5 IMP's/board randomly, so playing an 8 board tourney you will usually win or loose about 1-2 imp to this randomness. The inaccuracy of this form of scoring means that in tourney results all positions in the midfield are completely random. Even among the winners and the loosers, the actual lineup of the top positions could just depend on seating.

Al it is a server issue, not a client one. You defined what FF should do, when it gets the mimetype "application/bbolin" from the server. But if the server is not prepared to do that, the default mimetype is text/html. This is why you see the listing. My hosting provider supports, the ".htaccess" file, chickens provider does not. I know that you have a different provider than both of us, and they (freenet) offer hosting with and without this feature. If you hosting provider is not supporting this, but you can use e.g. PHP-scripts, than it is possible to write a short PHP-script that will deliver the lin-file setting the mimetype manualy.

The idea would be to to use a weighted average. BBO XIMPS are: Sum of all IMPs / (number of scores -1) If you use (16 scores / board): If your score ranks 3-14 Sum of IMPs( position 3-14) / 10 + weight * (Sum of IMPs (Position 1-2, 15-16) / 4 ) If your score ranks 1-2 or 15-16: (Sum of IMPs (Position 1-2, 15-16) / 3 ) + another_weight * ( Sum of IMPs( position 3-14) / 11) Now you select "weight" and "another_weight" in a way that the scores add up correctly.

I think this is a very interesting subject. Very useful to find out areas where improvement seems most effective. Does your partnership e.g. bid enough games? Obviously if your partnership makes 100% of the games bid, your not bidding enough, if you make less than 40% you obviously bid to many. But what is the best ratio and what is the ratio of the best? I always find it useful to look at MP and Butler score of a board. If the MP score is bad but the IMP score is small, you missed a trick and should work on declarer play or defense. if you MP score is bad and the IMP score is bad too, your bidding might be the problem. @ winkle These are some interesting parameters. Thank you for this constructive post. @Arend The number of deals may be small, but this just means that you need to use e.g. Poisson-methods to calculate the std deviation. It will be bigger and you will need to be more careful interpreting the data.

just ".htaccess" nothing more and nothing less Unix filenames starting with '.' are not displayed by default when you list the files of a directory. They are often used for configuration files.

Try to put a file named: ".htaccess" containing the following line: AddType application/bbolin .lin into the directory containing the lin files or the document root directory of your server. If you have a real "hosting package" and not just some sort of homepage and your provider is using apache, this should work.

This is not a matter of HTML code! If i pick up a local .lin file and drop it to an empty firefox window, i'm asked what to do with it and i can define to start the BBO-Software with it.

Holding ♥AK yourself, partner has to have outside values, if he did not preempt with a 3 count. But we would need 2 Kings or singles from partner and that information can only be gained bidding slow. With the strong hand you hold, how can opps interfere ? 5♥ is not a good bid, but perfectly legal. If bad bidding or play where illegal everybody would be banned sooner or later. ;)

2♥ would show at least tolerance in the unbid suits, so my bid is 3♣.

You are wrong here. A lot of species have adapted to very narrow environmental conditions. There are e.g. fish that put there eggs on the sea ground, needing a specific water depth and temperature range. Rising the sea level or warmer water will kill them. The sturgeon is about to leave the north sea, because it is to warm. But further north the water depth does not fit his needs, so it is just a matter of time until we loose that species too. There is no doubt that some species will survive, but most won't be able to adapt at the speed that chances will take place.

The logical choice is that it is natural (3 cards), because responder showed 4+♠'s while he can have much more. If it is not natural, it is showing a control. On the way to game or more, this can be a useful information, that allows partner to evaluate his ♠ holding. Kx [space] [space] [space] [space]AQJTx [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] AKJxxx [space] [space]Txx Axxx [space] [space] [space]Kx x [space] [space] [space] [space] xx

Does you SO allow variations of bids depending on position? Around here at Club level this is not allowed.

south [space]west [space] north [space] [space] east 1[di] [space] [space] [space]3[cl] [space] [space] [space]X [space] [space] [space] pass 3[he] [space] [space] [space]pass [space] 4[cl] [space] [space] [space] pass 4[di] [space] [space] [space]pass .... North X is definitely not promising 16 HCP with his X. South 3♥ is not unnecessary limited, because it is not sure that north has 4 ♥! In this hand north holds 4♥ and 3 ♠, but this could be different. 4♣ is forcing showing strength and it is unlimited. South has a minimum opener 12 HCP with 3442 distribution. What limits did 3♥ set, knowing there might be no fit? Would you bypass 3NT without a know fit? I think that 3♥ could show hands from 12-16 HCP, and maybe even stronger, because opps took the whole 1 and 2 level from the bidding and south has to save bidding space. But after 4♣ it is time for south announce the minimum character of his hand.

Why should North stop in 4♥, when south showed ♦ control and North has ♠ control to show?

North has 16 HCP shortness in only 2 ♣ and the K♣ seems well placed. With combined minimum of 28+ +1, a double fit in the red suits and only 2 looser in the side suits - north definitely has to make a slam try. Unless there is a clear sign off from opener. Now 3♥ may be limited in HCP, but what about shape? With 2452 or 1453 shape from opener slam will make without extra strength from opener. The 3♥ limit might even include an additional Q. The main reason this contract is down, is that N and S have identical distribution pattern and both have minimum for their bids. If 4♣ is a mild slam try, than south has to sign off with 4♥ and 4♦ is an overbid, because it is accepting the slam invitation. Both players had an active part in this mess and each of then should take half the blame.

Opening 2♥ in 4th seat, can hardly be a preempt, because pass would have had a much better preemptive effect. So partner made a nonsense bid and if he's not stupid, he wanted me to get a message. So I would assume that partner wanted to show a "minimum opener" with 6♥'s that can be sold as maximum weak 2, but has more playing strength than a regular weak 2. Obviously he expected opps to enter the auction over a 1♥ bid. So I expect a more unbalanced hand as usual. As expected by partner opps entered the auction with 3♠ and if that's what he expected, than he's short in ♠. Why can RHO bid 3♠ now and could not preempt 2♠ earlier and why did he jump to 3♠ over partners "preempt"? Obviously RHO had the wrong shape for 2♠ and is 2 suited. This means that we probably have a double fit. So i think that I would bid 4♥ (if i trust partner a lot i might bid 4♦).

3♣ will show (6)7 ♣'s and you hold another 3, so your partner can hardly hold a balanced hand and you will need maximum values from partner to get anywhere. You need to score plus and 3♣ might make, so I go for 3♦.

You hold 12 HCP and opener showed 11-15. So you know where 23-27 HCP are placed. Your partner has (13-17) / 2 = 6.5 - 8.5 HCP on average. Assume you pass, what strength does your partner need to enter the auction? A 2 level-contract will usually make or won't loose more than 1-2 tricks, if you have 18+ HCP and a fit. So if you hold 12 HCP like this hand, most of the times you and your partner have a combined strength of 18-23 (which you have on average) you risk a bad score because you let opps play their fit on the lowest level. Additionally you do not even get help to find the best lead for your side. @jtfanclub Knowing that we have the majority of points a lot of times, why should I change my bidding style? So I'll take some dbled down and gain some dbled made or with overtricks. On the long run, bidding is the winning strategie (with suitable points and distributions).

:) 13-15 is a bit more than a preempt and the given hand is not minimum. :D

Of cause this is a style question, but i see people overcall 5 card suits with 10+ HCP on the 2 level all the time. Bidding weak 2 with 5 cards got popular too and that would mean less HCP that this hand has. Your holding is good enough for partner playing your suit. So there are a lot of argument to simply bid 2♣ with this hand. Taking bidding space form precision players, is an additional argument to enter the auction. So if you partnership would bid 2♣ over any 1 level SAYC or 2/1 opening, you should overcall now. If your style is different and you won't overcall with this hand, than don't. The most important thing here is to stay consistent.