mdietz39

Thank you for the answers. I agree the 2nd bid is stupid. How do you jump to a new suit without any knowledge of your partner's hand. And I agree the 2 Hearts bid is the one to do. If you double you allow the opponents to literally steal the acution with the 4 Spades bid. And that is the crux of my question. How do you know when to double or to bid a suit? I guess the answer is you don't, you just go with your instincts in this case. If West did not have 4 or 5 Spades then the double would be appropriate, when he has 5 Spades it is the wrong bid. Mike

I wish to thank all of you who have responded to my qustions. Your replys have been thought provoling and very informative. Thank you. This question has to do with which is proper, doing a takeout double or bidding a suit. I must forewarn you that hindsight has actually prompted the question. The auction (at a local club) was East bid 1 Spade and South had to answer. South's hand was: Spade 10; Heart K,J,9,5,2; Diamond A,J 9 3; Club A,K,6. Either a takeout double or a bid of 2 Hearts would have been proper. Which should she do? Also N/S was vulnerable and E/W was not. Here is the hindsight. West also had 5 Spades and North had 5 Hearts. East had 10 HCP (opened very light, 2 doubletons), South 16 HCP, West 6 HCP, North 8 HCP. There were three types of possible auctions done at the club. 1. 1S - Dbl - 4S - P - P - P 2. 1S - Dbl - 4S - 5H - P - P - P (just conjecture as to the 5H bid since no 4 Heart bid is shown by the results) 3. 1S - 2H - 3S - 4H - 4S - 5H - P - P - P Double Dummy shows E/W can make 3 Spades, N/S can make 5 Hearts. In the club (0 - over 5,000 master points) 3 did auction 1, 0 did auction 2, and 14 did auction 3. One further caveat, about 6 pairs scored 100 which could be down 2 on E/W or down 1 on N/S. This seems to indicate that South sould not takeout double but bid the suit. I know number 3 occurred because that is what we did. Two questions: How does one decide to ignore the 4S bid after the takeout double and bid 5 Hearts? How does one decide not to do a takeout double instead of bidding a suit? Thank you very much for any discussion about this. Mike

Our local club has three stratified games daily, 199's, 0 - 2,000, and 0 to unlimited. We are currently in the 199's with very few points. The environment in that room is noisy and mildly chaotic. When we have asked some of the regulars why they do not go into the "Big Room" they say the players in there are not friendly. We take that to mean they want to have a social experience while playing bridge, conversations, gossip, etc. We are currently earning some points and so our ability has improved. I decided to see if there was some way I could determine if we could at least not make a fool of ourselves by going into the middle group, 0 - 2,000, where the lowest strata is 0 - 300 points. We are not even close to that level of points. They use the same boards in all three groups so I can compare our playing to those in the big rooms. Here is what I do. I compare our scores with those of the top A, B, and C strata players in each of the two "big" sections. It is as if there is a seven table game. I do compute the match points for the session(s) and compare our percentages to those from the big sections. It appears we are able to compete with the C strata and occasionaly with the B strata. Often we would be the top or at least 2nd in the strata. My question is this a reasonable way to determine if we can play at the higher level of expertise? Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you Mike

I am wondering why the opponents of someone who gets a poor result should get the top award. Team A E/W gets 0 match points because they scored only 90 when 980 was possible. But because team A N/S has a score of -90 they get top board while the other N/S pairs with scores of -980 get bottom board. Does not seem fair to me. Mike

Except I took this example from our local club pairs game of a couple of weeks ago. We were one of the middle N/S pairs so it did not affect us. However I took the results of the games and removed this one board. It changed the master points allotments because it removed E/W pair top board which allowed another pair of E/W to get points. And it was not an isolated situation. In the 24 boards there was this one and seven other boards with the same type of anomaly except those seven did not involve a slam, only partial and game scores. In fact the example I used was not quite the way I said in my earlier message. The N/S pair did not bid 3 and make 6, they bid a minor and made 2. DD and Deep Finesse both state only 1 Club is available. Since they scored 90 I do not know if they bid 1 and made 2 or bid and make 2. If it was the first case then not only did N/S bid incorrectly but E/W also defended badly. And yet they got the top board. Mike

I have a question about an anomaly in duplicate pairs match point scoring. Assume Double Dummy indicates that a specific board allows N/S to reach 6 Hearts. This is also verified by Deep Finesse. We have 6 tables playing, nobody vulnerable. N/S pair 1 bids and makes 6 Hearts N/S pairs 2, 3, 4, 5 bid 4 Hearts and makes 6 Hearts N/S pair 6 bids 3 Hearts and makes 6 Hearts Assume that E/W have too few HCP to enter the bidding at all. Also assume the leads, plays, tricks, rounds are identical on all 6 tables. N/S pair 1 scores 980, pairs 2, 3, 4, 5 each score 480, and pair 6 scores 230. They respectively receive match points of 5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, and 0. E/W scoring will then be E/W pair 6 gets -230, pairs 5, 4, 3, 2 each score -480, and pair 1 scores -980. They respectively receive match points of 5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, and 0 Notice that because N/S pair 6 bid incorrectly they received a bottom but E/W pair 6 gets the top board. Also N/S pair 1 bid correctly and received a to board while E/W pair 1 gets a bottom. It appears that E/W pair 6 benefits greatly because of the mistake of N/S pair 6 even though E/W 6 did nothing different from any of the other E/W pairs. Remember the only difference in the round was the difference in bidding by N/S. At the same time E/W pair 1 is penalized greatly for having bid and played correctly. It seems to me that the proper tactic in bidding is to not overcall, especially if it is obvious your opponents are going to get the auction. Do not try to raise them to a higher level but allow them to get the auction at the lowest possible level. That way when they score, your negative score will be less than the scores of those on your side of the table and thereby you will receive more match points. Will somebody please explain this to me? Thank you Mike

My wife and I were playing in a duplicate pairs game at the local club. On one board the auction had cone 1 Diamond - 2 Diamonds - 4 Diamonds - ???. I should pull the 5 Diamonds bid from the box, Double Dummy later showed that 5 Diamonds was completely possible. Instead I pulled the 5 Clubs card, laid it down, and there were then three passes. We then all placed the cards back in our bidding boxes. When the person recording the auction announced the bid as 5 Clubs, South, I said but I bid 5 Diamonds. The opponents and my partner all agreed that I had pulled the 5 Clubs card. Should we have called the director? We played it at 5 Clubs and I went down 4. I guess my question is at what point is a bid finalized? And in this case it was very obvious the bidding was in Diamonds and not Clubs, Clubs had not been mentioned at any time in the auction. Thank you in advance for any suggestions and enlightment on this. Mike

Thank you all so much for all this information and clarafication. It has settled the confusion I had of the wording of relay. Of course it has added several new words but that is the process of learning. Again thank you all for you time and attention to this to the benefit of a complete stranger and beginner. Mike

I am relatively new to the game. In reading about conventions, allowed and not allowed by ACBL, I find that "Relay Systems" are not allowed. And then I find that Stayman, Blackwood, Gerger, etc., are all replay bids. I am confused. Would somebody please explain to me why the bids are allowed but there is a general rule that they are not allowed? Thank you Mike

I am new to BBO. When I am either playing or kibitzing there are several buttons on the screen for which I can find no explanation in the help. What does NS CC or EW CC mean? I was playing and the host left. All of a sudden I am assigned host. I think I had played a total of three hands on BBO. What were my responsibilities and should I pass the host on to somebody else? I assume the redeal is an option to skip the deal. The Undo is to allow somebody to change their bid? And who has the power to authorize the action? I assume red means vulnerable. Thank you for your time and attention to these questions.