PeterAlan

Peter Randall IRL. The most recent occasion we met was in the first round of the Satellite Pairs final at the Autumn Congress, when Paul remarked to you before we started that I posted here under this name. Congratulations again on your win; we did not do well, but it wasn't this issue that let us down! Peter

Absolutely. It seems to me that systematic bidding is the hardest thing for beginners to learn - much harder than basic card play, for example - and it's much better to get them confident with a systematic approach as soon as possible, at the price of teaching a simplified system, rather than to bog them down with extra system complexity and reliance on judgment at too early a stage. Developing judgment is important, but to require it from day 1 can lead to difficulties that could be avoided with a more step-by-step approach. Indeed, but as I've said my experience has been that there have always been other priorities! Some day, we'll get good enough in other areas for this to be first priority for change. I wouldn't play Benji Acol either if wanting to play a relatively optimal system, but changing that can wait too. True. The standard comment, but of course only partially true. Fine, if your objective is to make the contract, but that may not be wholly the case: The Law often applies. This is one reason why bidding as my partner and I continue to choose to do does not lead to the end of the world as we know it.

I'm sceptical of the merits of our approach, but I don't regard it as our biggest problem :( ! I'd start with learning how better to avoid most of the frequent obvious mistakes that we continue to make. In the auction, we could usefully spend time on ensuring that we're always in agreement about some quite straightforward sequences (eg whether a bid is stopper-asking or not in such-and-such a category of sequence - as you'll remember!) We recognise that we have a lot of areas of our game that we need to improve substantially, but for a whole range of reasons we don't spend the time we should analysing / practising / studying rather than playing, and we have to prioritise. This detail of our system isn't a high priority, but I don't pretend that it's the best way to play.

Quite possibly me and my partner, Stephanie. I know that pre-alerts are not official EBU process, but exchanging information on basic system is, and it's always seemed simplest and most effective to sit down at the start of a 2-board round and say "Benji, weak NT, 4-card majors throughout, and please don't assume we have extra values if we happen to reverse". It's also in the "Other Aspects of System Which Opponents Should Note" section on the front of our EBU20B card - we're more scrupulous than most in having a clear, well-formatted, printed card. Having told opponents at the start of the round, we don't subsequently alert such bids if they then arise. As it happens, the EBU alert requirements are in the process of being clarified (insofar as draft minutes of the L&E Committee can be regarded as public clarification): My regular partner and I deliberately chose to play that way when we took up the game a few years ago, mainly because it allowed rather more simplicity and clarity to our bidding structure at a time when we were new to the duplicate game (we'd played enough rubber bridge, albeit of the kitchen sort, and read enough, to know what we were doing in eschewing standard reverses). We don't treat opener's change of suit as unconditionally forcing for one round, however, and we're not totally stupid about it - we pass a lot of 1NT responses rather than bid a second suit. We recognise that it's sub-optimal, but a few years in it's still not our top priority to tackle this aspect of our game. We play 90%+ of our bridge with each other, and our higher priorities have been ensuring that we're both developing other basic skills like counting the hand, signalling effectively, planning the right defence, choosing good opening leads, etc. In practice, it still seems to us that it's still not the weakest area of our game ( :( !). Yes, it's sometimes awkward that you're not sure of partner's high-card strength, but there are significant compensations in the clarity about shape. In particular, we know that the immediate re-bid of opener's suit always shows 6 cards, and this has left us able to bid a lot of 6-2 fits with confidence; the extra clarity about shape is also helpful when you're weighing up slam possibilities. The occasions when you get too high are often ones where you're -50/100 against 110 the other way, and you quite often pick up +120 for 2NT when 110 and not 130 / 140 proves to be the limit of the hand in a suit.

If required, I would rule in East's favour. What I would do as East might depend on the state of the match, and whether N/S have been pleasant opponents or otherwise. If declarer is this careless, I don't think it's wholly unreasonable to take advantage. It seems to me that interesting variants arise if S says "either" rather than "any" - intention then? if S says "any spade" - E/W are not able to designate the play in these circumstances, but Law 46B2 requires the lowest spade be played. Imagine a 3-card NT endgame position where N's ♠ were AQ2, E's were KJ10, and S led a ♠ up calling for "any spade".

England was still on the Julian calendar at the time of Newton's birth, when there was a 10 day difference from the Gregorian. So arguably today's the day to celebrate.

I believe the Al Roth story wasn't about any old club game - it was the 1955 Bermuda Bowl: They don't relate how it happened, though.

I've now had an e-mail back from Jannersten / Duplimate to say that bug is fixed in the current release.

Seems familiar - from the formatting (and the bug) it looks like it was produced with the Jannersten software I mentioned in #6 above. Jannersten certainly know about it (they acknowledged it to me in March), but their e-mail suggested it might be a while before it was fixed. I'll ask again, and post the answer here.

There are two sorts of inadmissible doubles / redoubles: those that wouldn't leave a sensible contract if they were passed out (this is the purpose of Law 19; they violate the Side A bids, Side B doubles, Side A redoubles structure), and those that would be meaningful but aren't allowed because they conflict with another obligation (typically to Pass). I think that this is a useful distinction to maintain, and that the present Laws would be OK if the details were tidied up - in particular (1) to deal with the conflict that arises between Laws 32 & 37 in a limited number of cases, and (2) to deal more clearly and sensibly with the type of situation that was the subject of the other thread. Your suggestion, like 11(A), essentially ignores the UI consequences of an inadmissible (re)double under (2), but seems practical. It can be very disruptive to events when situations arise that lead to lengthy attempts to resolve them at the table, and I'm all for straightforward resolution where possible and reasonably fair.

They probably shouldn't be based on the irregularities you cite, Vampyr, but, insofar as those clubs appear to reflect more diversity of practice than seems to apply where you play, it's quite appropriate to base English norms on that.

I really don't understand where you're going with this, Rik. The exchange started with barmar, you and Vampyr disagreed, you saying, as I quoted an assertion that Vampyr explicitly endorsed. I responded which at least should make clear that I don't accept your position, yet you're now twisting that back to the "opponents' expectation" viewpoint with If what you're now saying is that the opponents' expectations are limited to ("defined" by) what the bid means, then I'm prepared to agree with you, though I don't think it's helpful to insist on changing the viewpoint in this way ("What determines whether a bid is alertable?" "What the opponents expect it to mean." "What may the opponents expect it to mean?" "What it does in fact mean." When the OB goes directly from step 1 to step 4, how does it help to try to introduce steps 2 & 3?). If that's not what you're saying, then I have to say I don't understand what it can be. For me, and I assume c_corgi, it's quite straightforward. There is a relatively objective test - "what does a bid mean" - which, moreover, is what is written directly into the OB regulations. It is not helpful to try instead to reinterpret this as / replace this by the much more subjective "what might the opponents expect it to mean", not least because (1) the bidder can't be fully aware of the opponents' expectations are (indeed, may be oblivious to them), especially as (2) those expectations can vary from opponent to opponent (3) every opponent thinks (or appears from this thread to think!) that their expectations are the only possible ones, and, as a result, (4) it's much more difficult to apply in practice. And, to stress again (5) that's not what it says. Here we have a straightforward, natural bid of 2♠ which has the meaning "I have 4+ ♠s in my hand" and no more. Your, Vampyr's and many others' 2♠ bid, by contrast, means not only "I have 4+ ♠s in my hand" but also "I do not have 4♥s in my hand", an additional and secondary meaning that is totally unrelated to the natural intrinsics of a 2♠ bid. You wouldn't dream of alerting the second, yet get upset if the first is not alerted, all based on your "expectations"? I've said enough already on the sort of experience from which those expectations have been derived - it may well be deep, but it's also narrow, and it leads to this sort of absurd contrast. The Stayman announcement doesn't tell you whether it's promissory or not, and without asking you therefore have no idea in the auction of how many ♠s or ♥s might be in the Stayman bidder's hand. You're OK with that. Yet you're fixated with being alerted, in the topsy-turvy way I describe above, over this particular detail of the NT bidder's hand, where the answer is available for the price of a question. Get over it!

No, they're not (at least in EBU) - they're based on the meaning of the bid itself: Yes, opponents' expectations come into the picture, but this can not be wholly unqualified. For a start, one can only take into account opponents' expectations that one can reasonably anticipate (which is one of the problems in the case in point). What is the meaning of the 2♠ bid in this case? It shows 4+ ♠ and says nothing else. It has no further meaning, unexpected or otherwise. The difficulty arises because you expect it to have an additional meaning, unrelated to ♠, namely that it's denying 4+ ♥, and it doesn't. I'd have more sympathy if (as the OP trailed) we were talking about the alertability of a 2♥ response that specifically denied 4+♠, since that is part of the meaning of the bid. But both run into the issue of whether the practitioners can or do anticipate such expectations by their opponents, and in the case of many of those who don't play your way, and unlike MickyB in the OP, they just don't. You may play in a world where Stayman has come to have essentially a single, modern form which colours your perceptions - others don't, whether you choose to believe it or not.

Reviewing things, we may have been mildly at cross purposes: David clearly misunderstood that exchange, as he acknowledged in post 84. Let's not harp on about that: his central point has been that, whilst 2♥ might be the norm for what he calls "better" or more experienced players, in the generality of the EBU world people make all kinds of responses when they have both majors with all kinds of different reasons (or none) for doing so. He has said that he does so himself when playing with clients. This variety of responses is also, to some degree, what I have experienced, and I said so. This is what he said in the extract from his post 40 that you quoted in post 167. You said there that that was "simply wrong", and it was that response to that extract that I was replying to in 172, and also in 174, since you gave no reason to suppose that the last paragraph of your 173 was referring to anything else. You may have intended 167 to be referring specifically to a 2♠ response with both majors, but that's not how it read to me (I took your "It is unusual ..." as meaning a departure from a 2♥ response). Regarding your last point, I hadn't taken a Trappist vow of perpetual silence, but I didn't continue the thread at the time, nor when Vampyr made further challenging responses to me, and only did so when you re-opened it with what read to me as a similarly challenging reponse to David's post. It seems reasonable to come back when a poster new to the thread weighs in with as dogmatic a response as "You are simply wrong" to a position that I have backed. Absolutely.

Because you are denying his statement of his experience without any basis for doing so, beyond the fact that you don't share it. Others do, and that's relevant, and that was what I was saying when I remarked that Vampyr's experiences, like yours, were "not universal". You're just saying "Well I haven't seen it, so it can't happen anywhere", and when we say "Well we have" you respond "No, you haven't". No, he didn't. He said that neither it nor a number of alternative responses is "particularly unusual", which is not the same thing at all. That's your experience, and I'm not questioning it. It's evidently not his, and it's not mine. Please don't be so dismissive of experiences that don't wholly agree with yours, especially when you can't be bothered to read properly the posts that express them.

You are simply wrong. It is unusual, although I have seen it happen once, but that was Zia. I resisted the temptation to reply when Vampyr wrote: but since you're doing essentially the same to bluejak I'll do so now. If you can be bothered to read the earlier parts of the thread, you will see that I have never doubted the experiences of those who assert that bidding anything other than 2♥ would be extremely unusual where they play. I wish you would extend the same courtesy when those of us with different experiences remark that this is not universal, especially when we have taken the trouble to give some evidence to back what we say.

Pran, I'd prepared quite a lengthy reply, but cut it when the thought in my last sentence occured to me; I quickly posted what you quoted and went to the shower. Then I remembered the words "and all subsequent calls", which meant that if Law 36 was fully applied the route I was suggesting couldn't work, so came back to remove the post. Where does that leave us? If we apply Law 36 literally then we're left in complete limbo: we have an incomplete auction, waiting for a bid from E that will not now come, and a hand that's nevertheless been fully played out by the participants in a NT contract. As you say, this isn't practical and can't be the right answer. On the other hand, following my earlier hasty suggestion and forgetting about "and all subsequent calls" isn't really satisfactory either. What I had originally written (and was going to review before posting) was as follows; I've adapted it slightly in view of your remarks. Since calling the Director and sorting things out at the time didn't happen, there are a number of possibilities. First, and as the facts are apparently not in dispute: (Can we agree that this Law applies, without quibbling about the "called to rule" phrase? After all, the Director has the responsibility for rectifying "an error or irregularity of which he becomes aware in any manner" (Law 81C).) It's hard to see that the case is "clear" enough for B to apply, and it's impossible to wind the board back to any point where C might. Nor is A relevant, I think (but if you differ then the table result stands). So we're operating under D, Director's discretion applies and there's no single right answer. I note also that, if there were some dispute about facts, we have Second, I think that there is considerable scope for deciding to rule that the result should stand, especially as both sides have materially contributed to the problem. To start with the legal basis there's: There's also the practical matter that the players appear to have been happy with the contract and no-one's suggesting there were any other problems (from UI or MI for example). I'd be reluctant to give much weight to comparisons with results at the other tables if the players at this one had arrived where they did in the genuine belief that they were playing where they intended. If, on the other hand, the Director decides not to leave the table result undisturbed, then it seems to me that (s)he should if possible assign an adjusted score, reflecting the likely outcome(s) had the double and all subsequent calls been cancelled and the auction reverted to E, rather than cancel the board: Finally (for this post) I note that there seems to be a mild conflict between Law 32: which purports to cover all inadmissible doubles made out of rotation, and Law 37: Should the inadmissible (re)doubles referred in Law 32 be limited to those which are inadmissible because of Law 19?

Removed: hasty reply with flaw I've recognised.

You can certainly use the current version of the stand-alone Deep Finesse to get this information (use Modify / Modify Total Tricks), and as I remember (I've not got it installed any more) you could do the same with the original - it's just that the main interface only presents playable contracts. However, it's the underlying calculation "engine" that the analysers use, and I think it's always been possible to get the relevant information (the number of tricks available to each of the 4 possible declarers in each of the 5 denominations) from that.

Oh, I'm quite sure that you can throw a bit of CS / game theory at it and solve the problem that way. But if you're not well versed in that, and quite probably those who've written the software we see don't have that sort of background and have instead approached it in the kind of way I've described, then you'll come across the sort of traps that I've mentioned and may fall into one or more of them.

There are several different angles to this matter, and the comments that follow are probably not the complete picture, but may nevertheless add some light. I'd be very interested to see the hand that provoked the problem, and would be grateful if you are able to post it together with the corresponding DF table. First, this problem definitely exists and in several different forms - some further examples below. Second, and in answer to your last question, "HandPrint version 2.0.0" is a utility written by Kaj G Backas (http://www.sackab.fi/all_htm/KGB_main.htm) that takes a deal file in .dlm format, runs the Deep Finesse engine against the hands, gathers the makeable contract information, attempts to calculate the optimum result, and finally puts all this together (using the Ghostscript utility) in .pdf output form. This utility used to be bundled with the BOS software that came with Duplimate dealing machines; the current position is a bit different (see below). It may also be used with other dealing software / machines, but I have no information on that. More recent versions of the DupSoft dealing software that now comes with Duplimate machines differ from earlier versions in a number of respects: in particular (1) it builds in makeable contract analysis (now using Bo Haglund's double-dummy analyser rather than Deep Finesse), and (2) it uses its own Jannersten-written optimum result calculator to feed the hand print utility that's bundled (and which you call from the DupSoft menu structure). That Jannersten-written calculator had its own bugs - I saw it produce an optimum contract of 8♣X in a printout early this year (from the software version downloaded at about the same time - I don't have the version number handy). Because of this, I e-mailed both Jannersten and Kaj Backas about it - it was then that he told me that it was no longer his optimum contract analyser that Jannersten were using, and that theirs was still buggy. He also said that "My original handprint functions better, although i know that it is not perfect." As mattias says, the Jannersten software continues to be updated, and I haven't run my earlier problem hand through the latest version. There can also be other issues - you can use other dealing programs, such as DealMaster, with Duplimate machines, and they have their own facilities for producing handprints which, even when using Backas's utility, can introduce their own problems. For example, it's possible with several such set-ups to limit the analysis that's done to eliminate certain (lack of) trump fits, probably because it used to take up to 15 minutes or so to DF-analyse a typical 32 board set on the PCs typically used a few years ago. At the Northants Swiss Pairs 3 years ago, through a misunderstanding my partner and I ended in 6♠ with ♠AKQJx opposite a void (Ron Davis and his partner were the only others in this contract!). Trumps were 4-4, there were 6 ♦ tricks and ♥A outside, and no defence to the slam. We were astonished to see the hand analysis telling us that we couldn't make any ♠ contract; the reason was apparently that the analyser hadn't even looked at ♠ contracts our way. The conclusion I draw from all this is that the quality of the hand records you get will depend on what software has been used to produce it, and how old the version in use actually is. This is likely to remain the case for quite some time, until both all the software in use exists in a completely correct version and everyone producing hand records has updated to that software. It's actually not a trivial problem to determine the optimum contract in an algorithmic form that you can implement in software, because there are many traps for simple-minded approaches, quite apart from the obvious ones like N/S can make 4NT for 4/630, E/W have a 3/500 save in 5♣X, but N/S can then make 4/600 in 5♦. For example, you might, as a first stab, say "Let's start with the dealer, treat them as bidding the highest-scoring makeable contract at the corresponding level (ie taking 4NT as the opening bid if 4/630 is the highest making score played from that position), and work round the table in the obvious way to see if either side can improve their position." Then you realise that this won't do - suppose dealer can make 5♦, but no other game, but partner can make 4NT - so then you might try adapting the approach in such cases to start with something notional that doesn't out-bid partner's higher-scoring maximum positive score. Then you realise that there are hands that can make 3NT for both N/S and E/W, so you need to get the dealing side in first. But now let's suppose (and unless you can prove in advance that there isn't, that's what you have to do) that there's a hand where N as dealer can make just 2NT, yet both E and S can make 3NT as declarer, and so the optimum result is N playing 3NT-1. And so on ... Obviously there's a solution to this - these examples are off the top of my head, I haven't had occasion to try and work it out fully, and quite possibly someone will post the answer. But the point is that it's quite difficult, and I'm not surprised that those who have tried to implement an algorithm may not have got it 100% correct.

I agree with you on this - my experience of English club bridge over the last few years is that, whether they play 2nd or 4th from 4+ small, people will think it's "standard". This is particularly so if it's 4th, because those who play 2nd, whilst they know it's "standard" EBU, also probably know enough to realise that it's not universal, at least if they play outside London and the Home Counties. This sounds like just the same issue as we had in the recent Stayman-with-both-majors thread, namely more enlightened folk not realising that many people in many clubs still play what they learned 40 years ago. This can be especially true of whose convention card is quite likely to be in nothing like the current EBU20B format anyway. Yes, if you need to know you have to ask. In practice, this isn't as bad as it seems. In many cases (though you do this at your own risk) you don't even need to ask: you can tell that the follow-up question (whether neutral - "What do you lead from 4 small?" - or leading - "2nd from 4 small?") will be met with either bemusement or irritation, so you assume it's 4th highest from everything. And unless E/W are being particularly devious, you're evidently playing somewhere where it's regarded as "standard" to lead 4th highest from everything (whatever EBU may think) and you may not get a very sympathetic hearing if you go looking for an adjustment whatever the theoretical merits of your case. In fact, many players in English clubs, provincial ones anyway, don't in this particular regard play "standard leads" according to the defaults on the standard EBU convention card (EBU20B), and have paid no attention to that standard, as the state of their own CCs attests. In fact, it's your experience of just these sort of clues that tells you that there is a need to ask, and that, even if you know what "standard leads" should mean, your experience is not universally shared. Incidentally, the Orange Book warns against the use of "standard": Yes, "standard leads" is a very commonly used term, but both the user and the hearer need to beware of its use.

Before you go looking for a solution, I suggest you could do with a clearer definition of your problem. What do you have in mind by "some other distributional statistics"? Do you want to be able to interact with this analysis software, or just to be given more details? Etc ...

Disclaimer: The OP was posted in "Expert Class Bridge", so I've got to respond there, but nothing I'm about to say should be regarded as expert in any way :) ... in particular, I'm not about to offer any technical solutons to Jinksy's problem. Further information: I don't think Jinksy's mentioned that the hand arose at IMPs rather than MPs - in fact, in an English regional (mainly one county) teams-of-8 league match between one of the city's bridge club teams and a team representing its university bridge club. So fuddy-duddies vs juniors ... I gave the variant auction earlier on because I thought it might provide an initial, simpler way into Jinksy's more difficult problem. It was at our table; I held Jinksy's cards (S) and the auction proceeded with very much the same structure: (P) P (2♥) X ; (P) 2♠ (P) 6♠ All Pass. (I believe that essentially this also happened at the one other table that got to slam; the fourth stopped in game.) My thoughts on that, at the time and after the event, were: (1) As I indicated, our X of 2♥ doesn't give a very precise characterisation of S's hand - it shows 4+ ♠s and a hand that wants to get into the auction (thin opening upwards). Having said that, opposite a X that shows 4+ ♠ and an opening hand, I think there's a good case, vulnerable at teams, for bidding 4♠ and not just 3 on N's cards. (The 5th ♠'s a big card; think how much worse the hand could be.) We don't have elaborate continuations available for either N or S (we'd probably muddle or forget them). (2) I bid 6♠ as S partly because I felt that if two young E/Ws had nothing more enterprising to say at the vulnerability than an un-raised 2♥ then partner must have something in reserve. I know we have at least 9 trumps, and I'm prepared to assume that they're likely to play without loss; the ♣s are likely to be worth 4 tricks either through force or by an ruff in partner's hand; I'm pretty sure we're not missing both ♦A and ♦K in addition to the ♥, and partner's playing the hand, so if she has just ♦K x etc it's protected on opening lead; and such additional values as she has must be usefully placed in the red suits. Making the broad assumptions I did about the black suits, I can see 10 tricks in my hand and I'm prepared to play partner for the other 2 without keycard enquiries, which won't help me much with a final decision. Yes, I can find out whether partner has ♠Q (what I can't do is find out if partner has 5 ♠s as an alternative to ♠Q) and can enquire either about red Ks or the ♦KQ (but not both), but I'm not sure the extra information to me is worth the extra information to the defenders, so with all the above I judged to bid the small slam and leave it at that. (3) This route probably gives us the best chance of getting to 7, if partner argues that there's no reason to suppose I'm void in ♦s, so if I can bid 6 then she's got enough extra - in particular, ♦A - to go to the grand. I don't think we're at all likely to get there on a more scientific sequence but, as others have said, getting to slam is the important result and I don't think we should lose too much sleep over stopping at 6. In your case, the multi opening and the 13-15 balanced option for the double make the auction much less easy, in my opinion, than ours. In this context, I too would bid 3♠, but not 4, on the N cards. It's worth knowing whether W's pass of 2♦ X is saying anything specific or merely done in the knowledge that E has another bid, but, for obvious reasons, I have more sympathy than others here with your jump to 6♠, which seems a very pratical bid despite E/W arguably being perhaps less limited than at our table - it's interesting to see the various suggestions for more extensive methods, but at the table you didn't have them available to you. Similar comments apply to the possibility of N now bidding 7, but on your auction there's more reason to allow for, say, a possible ♦ void and ♥K x in S's hand, so settling for 6 seems natural enough.

I know the hand, and at another table E opened a weak 2♥ rather than a multi, doubled by S (no split ranges this time, but shows 4+ ♠; 3♥ is not an option for either S or, in response, for N) and W passed. Does anyone have further thoughts for this variant of the auction?