MattieShoe

I've never played OTB duplicate so I'd never have asked such a question, but if I was going to, I'd ask about a hypothetical, impossible holding rather than a possibly real one. If it were me asking the quesiton, you could have intuited that I held the 9. This is the sort of situation that makes me glad I don't play OTB duplicate.

If you've already got partner's point count and we're ignoring distributional considerations, is there anything wrong with using points rather than LTC? 25/29/33/37 for 3/2/1/0 losers right?

I wasn't saying I was right. The purpose for posting was to figure out where my logic is flawed :-) Your logic makes perfect sense -- I appreciate the feedback.

Doesn't it depend on the shape of your hand? Opposite 7510 probably gets a wildly different answer than opposite 4333...

Interesting... I ended up leading Q♣ and I figured it'd be the most popular lead, but I was tempted to lead T♥ or 2♠, both unpopular choices. A♦ would have been my 4th choice, and I didn't even consider a low ♣. T♥ - Declarer is weak in hearts, so we may finesse dummy. If partner has AQ over KJ, could allow declarer to make a mistake by trumping small on 3rd heart trick, or force him to burn a higher trump. 2♠ would simply be to pull trump from the board to prevent ruffing a loser in the short hand... With long hearts on the board, he could have singleton ♣ or ♦. Plus partner is likely void in trump, or perhaps a singleton. On this particular hand, board had AJ♥ and partner KQ♥, but declarer was void. They had AKT♣ and KQ♦ as well, a 7-2 fit in ♠ (partner was void) and didn't need trump on the board for ruffing, so it didn't matter. Low ♣ would have allowed them 3 ♣ tricks instead of 2, but wouldn't change final score (the ♣ could be sluffed on A♥, and he had too many diamonds to avoid losing A♦)

[hv=d=w&v=e&s=sk752ht4datcqj853]133|100|Scoring: IMP (P) P (1♠) P (2♥) P (3♠) P (4♠) P (P) P[/hv] What do you lead? Not some sort of tricksy hand resulting in a big point swing -- the contract should make cold no matter what is led, and in fact should score the exact same with 12 of the 13 leads. I'm just trying to figure out the thought process behind selecting a lead in suit contracts, not so much the lead itself on this particular hand. Or to put it another way... How would you rank your potential leads in this situation, and more importantly, why?

No one laughed the last time this was posted. I suppose that in the modern climate, it is necessary to spell things out. It didn't make that statement for laughs, although I am glad that at least one other BBOer feels the same way I do. Using Suck as a pejorative is an implicit (or explicit) anti-gay insult. I object. Really? It would never occur to me to make that connection, and nobody I know, straight or otherwise, would draw that inference. Then again, I was an adult before I figured out "gypped" refers to gypsies. I think many Americans aren't aware of the origin of that one. I can't think of a handy one-syllable word that could take the place of "suck" to mean "perform badly". Is there one?

I play 2NT as 20-21 so no, I wouldn't open that as 2NT. In addition to being short on points, QJ doubleton is ugly. After 1♣ - 1♦, I jumpshift to 2NT. Partner now knows points and shape, and can bid 3NT or explore slam. Assuming the JS indicates 18 points and partner already indicated 6+, partner should almost never be passing.

I agree that he showed more points than he had to double then name a suit. I think he should have just overcalled 2♣, not doubled. I didn't bid 3NT because if he reall had 17+ with good clubs, we might have 6♣. Plus I wasn't thrilled with hearts -- LHO has a fistful and is sitting over me almost surely with A/K and higher spots. I realize the advice offered is general, not specific to this exact hand, but since I already did it, I thought I'd share the results. I ran the hand through a double-dummy solver -- They could make 2♥ or 2♠, we could make 1NT, 3♦, or 4♣. 5♣ makes on 12 of the 13 potential leads -- a small diamond could have sunk us. 3NT could make if West led a spade, but with 6 hearts AJT9, unlikely to happen :-) I appreciate the help you guys have given me. In the future, I will seriously consider 1NT in situations like this so partner knows we have some points to back him up.

Hmm... That was kind of the way I was thinking, but it felt wrong to pass when partner and I have the majority of the points. When partner bid 3♣ after his double, I assumed he had a hand too strong for an overcall and the double was to indicate points rather than shape/support. But then adding up points, I came up with more than there are in the deck. So I bid 4♣ to invite figuring if it was opponents lying, he'd take it to 5 and if he didn't really have a monster, he'd pass. I was shocked when I saw he had 10HCP after going to 5♣. More shocked when I realized it could make :-) So maybe we were just absurdly lucky rather than terrible bidding confusing opponents...

Well, if it was easier at least a few people would be near perfect - then it would be boring. Nick I agree -- I love that Bridge is a blend of several skills. There's always something to improve upon, new ideas to try. And the incomplete information and luck aspects makes it always challenging, no matter who you're playing or how good or bad you are.

[hv=d=s&v=b&s=sk6hq7543da73cq76]133|100|Scoring: IMP P (1♥) X (1♠) ?[/hv] Another hand I feel like I screwed up repeatedly, confusing my opponents until I ended up with a top. I think this was my first screwup -- I impulsively passed when the intervening bid got me off the hook on the takeout double since my opps bid my long suit... I'm guessing that was terrible given the number of points I have. Should I have doubled again, or bid 1NT, or something else? What would double or 1NT indicate? How many cards would 2♣/♦ indicate? The whole auction ended up like this: P (1♥) X (1♠) P (2♥) 3♣ (P) 4♣ (P) 5♣ (P) P (X) P (P) P Partner had a 6 card club suit with KT9, AQx♠, a void in hearts, and Jxxx♦. Lost only the ace of trump and a diamond trick.

At www.politicalcompass.org they might call you something like (0 +/- 1, -3 +/- 1). See this thread for an entertaining forum discussion of this topic. Your prediction was spot-on. -0.25 (moderate), -3.13 (libertarian) I think I'm a bit more "right" on the economic scale than the test indicates though. Most of the questions had to do with regulating free markets in a black-and-white context. I think of it as something to be avoided if possible, but may be necessary.

Usually I find the opening lead in NT to be obvious, but leading into a suit contract, I have a much tougher time. Can any of you recommend a resource that breaks down some basic guidelines?

I noticed this as well. It occurred to me that the reason may be the lack of a rating system.

Mainly because I play for fun, not money. I'm never going to be a pro and that's totally okay with me. I still want to improve, though :rolleyes: I think my biggest weakness is paying attention to other players carding signals during play and incorporating that into plans.

I play in the relaxed room with lots of beginners and novices, and as dummy, I'll occasionally tell partner they can claim.... I generally wait until they're sitting there with the only 2 trump left in their hand and defender is agonizing over which card to throw because he thinks it's a squeeze. I realize it's not technically correct to tell partner that, but playing with new players... Some don't know about the claim button, or they're afraid that using it might seem peremptory or rude. Of course, the opposite is true. So I'm trying to politely ease them into etiquette rather than to give them some information they don't have. I've seen kibitzers tell the table to claim, which is horrible. I apologize to the good players kind enough to allow kibitzers to watch their games -- Most of us wouldn't dream of doing such a thing.

Thanks for the advice. I've never actually used an SOS redouble, but I imagine it'll happen sooner or later.

It's just the very last sentence that bugs me. A skeleton from millions of years after the split looks more human than expected, therefore the common ancestor must look more human and less like a chimp? They may be totally right, but I think it'd have to be based on more evidence than the article mentions. Why wouldn't it suggest that the human branch evolved more dramatically in the missing million plus years? Given the similarities between chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and gibbons, I'd think the simpler explanation would be that we've changed more significantly physically than they have in the last several million years. I'm not in the field or anything... The last sentence just seems to be jumping to a conclusion. I know the "chimps/bonobos split off from us" could sound a bit wrong but it's so much less wordy. :-) I guess it's possible to have parallel evolution via repressed genes expressing at a later date, but... Well, with tails. All monkeys have em, all apes don't. I suppose it's possible that at the time of the splits among apes, they had them and then they all lost them at a later date, but it seems much more likely that they lost them before the split. On the other hand, given billions of years of evolution, all sorts of unlikely things have happened. Whales and hippos being so closely related still sort of boggles my mind.

A bit of a tangent, but is anybody else tired of the republican/democrat dichotomy thing? I'm fiscally conservative (what republicans claim to be anyway...) but socially permissive (what democrats claim to be anyway...) Now I suppose the closest label for that would be libertarian, but because all reasonably moderate voters are subsumed by democrat/republican, those identifying themselves as libertarian are generally much more extreme than me. So what do you call somebody like me, fairly moderate with sizable objections to both parties? I like to call it "sane", but I'm sure some would disagree :D

I love how everybody gives different advice with such confidence. Makes me feel better when I think, "I have no idea what the right bid is here..." :) I'm not a good player by any stretch but I'd bid 2♠ based on the "bid what you think you can make" principle. 3♠ looks nice as a defensive bid given such terrible cards for defending, but I'm chicken.

I was pondering the standard SOS sequence: 1♣ (P) P (X) P (P) XX And I was wondering, how would you interpret this? 1♣ (X) P (P) XX (P) ? I'd assume East has long clubs when he passes the takeout dobule, so I was wondering if a redouble in this situation should be interpreted as sort of an inverse SOS...

I took your post to mean that 3NT is a bad bid because there may be a heart fit. I think a potential heart fit doesn't make 3NT a bad bid because partner already knows about heart fit and can correct. I think 3NT may be the wrong bid because of xx in spades. Partner's 2NT instead of 1♠ strongly suggests to me that partner doesn't have 4 spades, which would make NT a risky proposition. I apologize if I misinterpreted your meaning. I guess we agree for the same reasons, all the better :) I wasn't trying to imply that all intermediate players play hands as well as all advanced players... I meant this: Take a specific self-rated "intermediate" player who plays hands equally well as a specific self-rated "advanced" player. I think there's good number of these because we all self-rate differently. I think the most obvious difference between these two players will usually be in the number of conventions they use. I could still be wrong there, but that's been my experience. For what it's worth, I'm self-rated as intermediate Declarer: +0.33 IMPs on average Defense: +0.61 IMPs on average It's impossible to separate bidding from play, but for me at least, I think my defense is not terrible. The biggest defensive failure of intermediate players I've noticed has been knowing when to play passively on defense. A lot of us fishies tend to take all their winners and make book, thereby setting up 9-10 cold tricks for the opposition. It's so obvious in the post-mortem but impulse control holding on to those aces can be tough! :) I still lack the self control required to NOT lead an ace against a small slam bid. Okay okay, "SA" then :-) I didn't know whether people would even know what I meant if I said that. Again, my apologies for any confusion I might have caused.

You're absolutely right, my bad. I was using SAYC to mean the underlying bidding system, stripped of conventions other than blackwood and stayman (which even newbies seem to all use). In both SAYC and Goren, WITHOUT the Jacoby 2NT convention, 2NT response is 13-15 HCP balanced. However, under SAYC, a 2NT response to 1 of a major opening is supposed to be Jacoby 2NT convention. I said SAYC because if I said "natural", some people would assume I meant 11-12 invitational and some would assume 13-15 GF'ish. :)

First instinct was: take with A♥ unblock ♠ low trump to the board lead low ♠ and trump low trump to board run KQx♠ sluffing three losers But that has problems with a 3-1 or 4-0 split in diamonds or a horrific spade split... There must be something better...