fuburules3

and N discarded a club winner.

I think so. Earlier today I read a thread on bridgewinners.com where Kit Woolsey said exactly this (which is good enough for me). As I was bidding the hand, I suspected it would be unlikely that GIB knows this (and would pass) . . .

I *think* it is pretty standard to play that 3NT in this auction is a "bar" bid and opener is not allowed to bid again. http://tinyurl.com/72owzbs

I don't think this really proves Barmar wrong as probably lots of players would not open 1H (they just don't post here).

http://tinyurl.com/8yb59ny This seems suboptimal IMO.

I'm sure this has been discussed, but is using the 'stop card' required in the ACBL? I never use it because I thought if you ever use it, you should always use it (and I was not using it in constructive auctions with no interference). The fact that failure to use the stop card could get a procedural penalty in other jurisdictions makes me think maybe it is frowned upon in the ACBL too.

I don't quite understand 2♠. I think if I bid a minor suit now, it will be a cuebid. Since I don't see a sensible way to explore a minor suit slam now, I think I'll try 6NT.

At least E decided his hand wasn't good enough for a double.

Well at least one well-known expert thinks you would have to be practically brain dead to open this 3S (which is perhaps the reason this thread exists).

So is there any consensus on what the XX should mean in this auction? If it is just a general show of strength, what is the difference between 'XX' and 1NT? Does it make sense to use it to show a good spade suit and a desire to compete? SOS when you've opened a five card suit and opponents haven't tried to penalize you yet doesn't make much sense to me.

It is seeming more and more likely that I was wrong when I said I learned that the pass of the redouble was anything but a penalty pass (as I can't really imagine where I would have learned this).

Here is what I suspect is the first hand. It appears that if you eliminate clubs (while drawing trump) and exit a diamond you can force E to lead away from his K and make 450 (or perhaps if defense is not alert, you can just lead towards Q and hope E ducks). You can see what happened at other tables here (you can find this by typing your name in "myhands" on the bbo homepage).

I learned that the pass of the 'XX' just says I have no strong opinion on what suit we should play in and is NOT suggesting that 1SXX is a good place to play. Most of my partners believe that the pass of 'XX' is a penalty pass. Obviously these two views are not compatible. I'd be interested to hear what people think is the "best" way to play. It seems to me that you won't want to play 1SXX often enough to play this as penalty, but the argument I've heard saying it should be penalty is that otherwise opener can psyche an 'XX.'

Obviously depends on agreements. One way to play it is that a direct 2NT is 15-18 balanced (with a stopper) and stronger balanced hands double first. A direct 3NT is then a hand with a source of tricks and a stopper and partner should not bid without slam interest.

Won't GIB correct 6C/6D to 6S? Typically once GIB decides a suit is trump, it will not change its mind. This is why I think my best shot once I bid 3S and it raises to 4S is to just pass 4S.

These sort of auctions are endlessly frustrating with GIB. There is basically no way (it seems) to evaluate if you have stoppers. http://tinyurl.com/79l2x2h 3C apparently is not natural, but then 3S is rather than showing a stopper? I think it would be better if 3H were stopper asking in this auction (and in general when one suit has been shown). Finally, I think it makes no sense for 5D not to be to play. FWIW, I understand 3S and 5D are bad bids playing with GIB (and 4S is actually a good contract)

If I decide ZAR points are the method by which my partnership is going to evaluate things, am I still supposed to disclose (on my convention card and if opps ask) what my bids mean in usual HCP, or can I just alert a bid (as say) showing 30+ ZAR points?

Perhaps the admins would prefer this thread just die, but I am wondering if there are any available statistics on what matchpoint percentages the top robot players average (and whether there actually is a gain to strange bidding)? I occasionally have looked at Leo's averages (as a benchmark on how well you can do in these tourneys) and he seems to average a bit over 60% (61% over the last 30 days). I'd be curious to know the matchpoint average of a top expert playing robot tourney's bidding by the book (I believe Joshua Donn suggested on another site that he played a lot of robot tourneys bidding by the book, so perhaps with his permission someone could dig up his stats for one point of comparison). My own experience playing straightforward bridge is that my personal average (playing mostly the $.25 games as opposed to the possibly more difficult $1 ACBL ones) seems to be somewhere in the 55%-58% range. If we accept these numbers, then Leo has a 3-6% edge over me. Since Leo has won an NABC and I know from my live bridge results that I am far from a top expert, some of this edge surely comes from superior card play, which suggests that any edge gained from "creative" bidding is fairly minimal.

I think this is just part of the game when you play these sorts of tournaments and if you don't like that aspect, you shouldn't play robot tournaments. It seems like a huge stretch to call this "cheating" and I'm not even convinced it gives you a huge advantage. You can do very well in robot tourneys by just declaring well and bidding normally/reasonably.

Maybe this is only a "basic" robot problem, but it seems to be frequent: http://tinyurl.com/c67c4na and http://tinyurl.com/7ln82pk

Maybe posting this is beating a dead horse, but we should be able to avoid playing 6S on this one after I deny club control. http://tinyurl.com/6vp7ozr

It might be nice if X over 4C had more details. Does GIB take this as a negative double or just value showing? It took my bid out, so apparently it is not purely penalty. http://tinyurl.com/7zpksua

I just was cursing GIB today for leading from xxx instead of AQJxx against 3NT when I later went down when other GIB got in and led through my Kx. Seems like these things will only get noticed when they backfire (as there is no forum to compliment GIB when it does something right). My point is that of all the things GIB does, this doesn't bother me all that much as it sometimes works and it is not clearly wrong (as opposed to say bidding 3NT with no stopper and an 8 card major or not cashing AK when on lead against 6NT).

I understand that 3NT is bad period, but it would certainly be better if it were played by north. I just posted this one because it came up today and struck me as particularly bad (that we ended up playing with the lead coming through Kx).

It seems to happen semi-often with GIB where it is happy to play at a low level and then upgrades its hand and jumps to game after opps bid once more. Somehow this was a top anyway, but it just seems strange to bid like this. http://tinyurl.com/7df7dj8