fuburules3

No suggestions, this one just made me chuckle. http://tinyurl.com/77vuljj 2C was a misclick.

You're right, I misread. Apologies to my partner!

I agree I probably deserve what I got, but need GIB be 55 in minors to bid like this? If so, perhaps 4S should indicate as much. I thought maybe 1=3=4=5 was a possibility.

I always need diamond right to make. Assuming it is right, I think I essentially played for 3-3 hearts. Your line I need club king right plus either hearts 3-3 or heart length with club length. Not sure what the exact percentage is/optimal line is, but I agree you can make double dummy. Over 4S it looks like we only have one stopper, so I'll need running tricks. My thinking was that if GIB is interested in a slam, my hand looks suit oriented. With shortness in spades, GIB must either have 3 card heart support, 6 clubs, or 5 diamonds, so we will always have a fit. With no heart fit, I was hoping GIB would bid longer minor. I agree I probably deserve what I get for bidding like this with GIB.

http://tinyurl.com/83kudtv It seems that GIB has a fairly normal 2♥ bid, but instead makes a negative double. I think I have noticed in the past that GIB's free bids at 2 level are much stronger than I would play them. Does GIB play a free bid is game forcing? It might be nice to know because it was a little unexpected that GIB had 5H here. Of course, passing 2SX is the winning bid here, but I've become wary of defending low level doubled partials playing with GIB . . .

I'm sure I could have bid this one better (or made final contract!), but 6NT here seems suboptimal after I bypass 4NT. http://tinyurl.com/6vrytog

http://tinyurl.com/7y2lqnm 5♠'s ostensibly shows 3- 8421 points, yet GIB has 13. I can see shading a little, but not this much.

http://tinyurl.com/7w5s4qw I don't really understand this one.

I would be interested to see someone try to convincingly beat Leo Lasota's GIB matchpoint average (60.35% over last month at the moment) over a statistically significant number of hands.

I think that it is not possible to stop anyone who is committed to cheating from doing so online. However, we can try to make it so that the average (or beginning) player who wants to be ethical, but may not know the rules that well does not unintentionally break a rule. Here a beginning player who does not know that you typically can't look at your convention card during the auction (I didn't realize this when I first started) may assume that it is ok because BBO lets you view your convention card (or partner's profile) during the auction. On the other hand, BBO is programmed so that you cannot see the previous tricks which makes it less likely that someone who didn't know the rules would think it was ok to write down the cards previously played (I imagine such a player would stand out anyway because they surely would play slowly).

Consider the this hand from an ACBL speedball. Partner is only an occasional partner and I remember that we have an agreement for 3D, but don't remember what it is. At the table I thought it was either 55 minors gf or natural invitational. Our actual agreement is that 3D shows both majors and disaster follows. My question is during the hand I noticed that I could have clicked on my posted convention card and read what our agreement is (and presumably no one would know). I can also click on my partner's profile and read the notes I've made there. My question is whether this is allowed? Certainly in live bridge I can't refer to my convention card during the auction, but here the software allows it when it surely would be easy to disable.

http://tinyurl.com/7nvehuw

I would play that you are not allowed to bid on here unless you think you have slam. A good explanation of how I would play it is given by FrancesHinden here: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/52418-3nt-overcall/ Not sure if you should bid on given this though (I don't think I would).

The postmortem was as follows: S was unsure if 4NT would be interpreted as quantitative (it wouldn't be keycard so N probably would get it right), thought that bidding 3S with KJ108 of hearts might miss the normal 3NT game and that 3NT would understate values. Playing no special kind of keycard (e.g. minorwood), 4NT over 3C should be quant (and to ask for keycards another sequence is needed?)? Over 4NT, N was worried there was only one heart stop and 6NT would not play well on a heart lead. S thought N was insane for bidding 6D with only 3 of them. N didn't disagree, but thought S should pull 6D with actual hand. The main reason I'm curious about the 3♥ versus 3♠ bids is that it seems like a much more common situation would be trying to find 3NT when both N and S have partial stoppers or right siding 3NT when S has something like Qx and N has something like Ax. We would not have been able to handle either situation.

[hv=pc=n&s=sq972hkjt8dakq8cq&n=sat8ha2d643cakj85&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1d2h3cp3hp3np4np6dppp]266|200[/hv] IMPS. 6D in the 4-3 fit was not the winning spot. What do you think of the bidding? Secondary questions: What does 3♥ versus 3♠ by S show in this sequence? What strength does N's 3NT show? How about 4NT? Over 4NT, what do N's bids at the 5/6 level show?

Would GIB make this hand playing IMPS? http://tinyurl.com/7oghh9w Sort of makes you want to open these 14 counts 1NT so GIB can't declare . . .

http://tinyurl.com/75yyurj This seems avoidable (I almost denied the Q knowing we could be off two aces, but that seemed like masterminding).

I don't quite understand your statistics. I'm willing to accept that it's possible that 3SX is the best contract, but it seems like when GIB passes a takeout double it makes quite often (this of course could be that I remember when it fails and not when it works).

http://tinyurl.com/7sbc4df

So would a lot/most people. The point is some players would downgrade some/all 4333 18 counts and open 1NT (deciding that their hand is only worth 17 points).

Perhaps I'm seeing complexity where there is none, but anyway . . . Suppose I have AJ9 ♠ in dummy opposite xxx in a no trump contract with plenty of entries. It is well-known that the best way to play this for two tricks is low to the nine and then low to the jack. I am interested in how I should change my initial plan based on what card LHO plays. A secondary question is what is the optimal strategy for LHO. Assume for simplicity that LHO has exactly 3 spades and that he has a holding where my play matters (either K10x,Q10x,KQx). There are 8 (equal probability ways) to be dealt (K/Q)10x and 4 (equal probability ways) to be dealt KQx. If he will always play an honor from KQx and never from (K/Q)10x then it is clear that if I see an honor on the first spade play, I should win the A and lead towards the jack and if I don't see an honor I should finesse the 9. On the other hand, if LHO will never play an honor from KQx and always from (K/Q)10x then I should adopt the opposite strategy. So how I play this combination when LHO plays an honor should definitely depend on how I think LHO will play his cards. Assume LHO adopts a strategy where he will play an honor from KQx A% of the time and an honor from K10x B%. So (still assuming LHO has a holding that matters) I will see an honor (A/3+2B/3)% and when I see an honor there is (A/3)/(A/3+2B/3) chance it will be from KQx and (2B/3)/(A/3+2B/3) change it will be from (K/Q)10x. This seems to suggest that if I see an honor, I should play LHO for KQx if 2A>B and for (K/Q)10x otherwise. This analysis does not even get into what I should do if I see a spot card or what the optimal strategy for LHO is. It would not be hard to do this, but these sort of calculations are not reasonable to do at the table and in the real world things are much more complicated. My question I guess is if I faced this (or a similar) situation at the table, how can I decide what to do in a reasonable amount of time? My best guess is that when LHO adopts his optimal strategy in a situation like this, then my strategy will frequently be to just go with the a priori odds (and if he deviates from his optimal strategy I can gain an edge if I notice).

http://tinyurl.com/769r7oa In general does 2S by GIB show a second place to play? I think this was a discussion of a recent bridge world panel and there was a strong suggestion that 2S in a place like this should show spades and a minor. What would a GIB do in my seat a) over 2SX b) over 2S if there were no x?

From kibitzing the JEC matches, it seems that their 1NT is something like 15-17 or 18 with a 4333 shape. I also believe Kit Woolsey has also suggested in one of his bridgewinners articles that if you always subtract one point for 4333 shape you won't be too far off. The point is at least some well-known experts do (at least in theory) downgrade (your hands aside).

I don't necessarily disagree, but it's not like GIB fields psyches or is capable of adjusting if you don't play by its card.

This was a bit weaker than expected for this vul: http://tinyurl.com/87a36vp