semeai

I suppose it was reminding you that you held all the keycards.

And yet nobody does this. Also, it would be most common to look at the level section for an assessment of the player's level. Sorry, I didn't intend it as snide. I meant this all as a serious suggestion and think it would be better than the current situation. I agree with your assessment of the situation at various levels. Perhaps crypto-expert wasn't the right thing to say, but it sounded fun, and has some degree of truth in that some if not many advanced are experts in relation to the typical "expert". :)

How about allowing a "custom" option, which lets you put in your own text? Then those who want to could use "tournament player" or "good enough" or anything else. If it's all self-selected anyways, I don't see how this would be harming anything. Think of it as a "private" rating but with a bit of useful explanation. In fact, I think whatever is put would be much more telling than any of the predefined ranks. This seems better than promoting the use of advanced as a sort of crypto-expert anyway.

Oh dear. I guess the top players I've seen averages for mostly play the ACBL robot game, which maybe has a better field. Also, I suppose you'd be more motivated, plus none of the players whose averages I've seen are Bermuda Bowl representatives. Still, a 60% running average would be impressive. What were you thinking, 63%, 65%?

See this link on Jeff Goldsmith's site.

Some good data. Both sets work out to a standard deviation of 27% for a single board. I've seen top players with long term averages in the 58 or 59 range. Neat. Over 100 roborebates or robodups I compute that with standard deviations like mgoetze, you'd need to beat the other guy by around 2% to achieve statistical significance ("95% confidence") that you're the better robodup player. Of course if you both play the same events there'd be a more sensitive test for significance. Statistical significance is probably not what you're going for, but I thought I'd throw that out there. This would be neat to see. Maybe you should have side bets on whether you can break 60%?

This shouldn't be unplayable. Imagine you didn't play weak jump shifts. Spade hands up to 9/10 bid 1S..2S almost always. Now instead just have them bid 2S immediately. This only loses a bit versus standard without weak jump shifts, as e.g. the latter has the ability to reevaluate weak versus invitational after hearing opener's rebid. Of course, Frances's 4-8 and 9-12 numbers sound better if you're just using 1S..2S as inv now. You could instead use 1S..2S as something artificial and bid 3S with 11-12. For example in that bridgewinners thread I link above Josh Donn suggests 1S..2S as a lower 4th suit forcing (much better than 3C as 4th suit forcing) and claims to have played something like that.

You can reasonably get in the vicinity of slam with 1H-1S;2D-3C;4N-?, but South will expect two spade losers opposite a singleton. With instead 1H-1S;2D-3S, we'd at the least need North to go past 4S to have a chance I think. If 3S is invitational, that seems unlikely. This is more likely if we can get to a similar state with 3S forcing. Given that the original post seemed to encourage going out on a limb and also trying aguahombre's suggestion of changing methods (that wasn't a suggestion you say?): There was recently a suggestion by Josh Donn in a comment to this post at bridgewinners to use 1H-1S;2D-2S as 4th suit forcing (using 1H-2S for hands that would normally bid this way). Then there's the possibility of 1H-1S;2D-2S;2N-3S;4C-4S;5D-6S if we've decided North will go to the 5-level. More fancifully, how about 1H-1S;2D-2S;2N-3S;5H-6S, where 5H is a Bluhmer. I think I've now committed every sin possible in a "bid this to slam" post. If you happen to play 1H-1S;2D-3S forcing, maybe one of these last two sequences without the 2S;2N bit is possible. I doubt these are good judgment on North's part with just stiff Ace of spades.

I think this hand is closer to a 2NT rebid than a 2NT opening. Zar points isn't a system. It's a hand evaluation method. This hand has a stiff Ace and its 5 card suit is poor. It's a point or two worse than most hands with the same distribution and high cards. Using K&R (because it cares about high card placement): This hand is 18.5. If you swap the heart J9 with the club AQ it's 19.5. If you instead swap the spade A with a low heart, it's 20.6 (or 20.35 if you swap it with the heart 9). That said, if you subtract, say, two zars, it still is in your putative 2NT range in terms of Zar points, though on the low end. However, this hand evaluates negatively with a spade fit, and as for a heart fit, you'd find out about that before rebidding 2NT, so we should assume you don't have one. That deals with 2 out of 3 of the most likely strains, and Zar points probably overstate the value of distribution and aces at notrump without a fit.

I would want more facts. What are the hands? First I would want to show the players their hands and try to reconstruct the bidding by asking them what they bid in turn. If that doesn't lead anywhere, looking at the hands without their help may be useful. It sounds like a short auction. I fear south pulled out the 5H card and thought he'd pulled out the 4H card, and then all passed. A jump to 5H sounds memorable, though. I would ask the other three if any of them remember a jump to 5H.

How should you bid over 1C-1D;1S-1N;2D? What is forcing? One of Matula's examples is the sequence 1C-1D;1H-1N;2D, 5-4 reds either way, and he mentions that 2S (which he strangely calls "the fourth-suit") is an artificial force thereafter. Here with 1C-1D;1S-1N;2D it seems less likely you'd still play 2H as an artificial force: maybe it's needed for a random 5 card suit in a weak hand.

Your options: 1) Open 1D instead. 2) Rebid 1S. 3) Rebid 1NT. 4) Rebid 3D. Each of these is potentially correct on some 3-1-5-4 19-count. Here I think given that I have the ♥Q, I'll just rebid 1NT. Item (2) is less terrible than it sounds. Many play this as only promising 3 with the 12-14 balanced hand (it depends what you bid with 3-2 in the majors and 12-14), so partner is unlikely to hang you. The downside is that you may play a 3-3 fit (or, rarely, worse) opposite a broke partner. Added: On the actual hand, given that you bid 1S, I think you should follow-up with 2D, not 3NT. This shows the strong type, ostensibly 5-4 either way in spades and diamonds.

It's invitational in SAYC. See the system booklet, page 4, under "subsequent bidding by responder." There they have the example 1H-1S;2D-2N/3D/3H/3S, 11-12 points, inviting game. In some versions of Standard American, notably Pavlicek's (see here) it is played as forcing. This auction and the choice of invitational or forcing is similar in basically all "natural" systems. Basically, without special agreements it depends on how you play fourth suit forcing. If 4sf is forcing 1-round and you agree that bidding it and then rebidding spades is invitational then the jump is forcing. If 4sf is forcing to game, you bid it and then rebid spades with a game forcing hand, so the jump is how to bid the invitational hand. This isn't ideal, so there are some solutions/special agreements hinted at by others: 1a) Make 1H-2S (and 1x-2y, y>x) 6-10, i.e. a hand that traditionally would rebid 2S. Then there's never a need to bid 2S weak, so it can be invitational (or used for other fancier purposes). Then the jump to 3S is forcing, and bidding 4sf then spades shows less certainty about spades being trump and/or less slam interest. 1b) Make 1H-2S intermediate. Similarly this removes the invitational hand from the 4sf or jump rebid picture. 2a) In auctions like 1H-1S;2D (as opposed to 1H-1S;2C), you'd need to go all the way to 3C to bid 4sf, so putting invitational hands in 4sf isn't very playable. That suggests playing 3S as invitational. There are artificial fixes though, such as in this recent comment by Brad Moss at bridgewinners to this post: 2b) There are other things to play than 4sf, such as what the hog mentions, in some auctions. Sometimes there's enough space to keep something xyz-like so you can have an artificial bid for both your invitational and your forcing hands. For example, you could play 1H-1S;2C-2D as a puppet to 2H for invitational hands or a weak heart preference and 2H as artificial and game forcing. Then 3S should be game forcing and pure, as you've again found a home for the invitational hand. Martens suggests such things: see this post by inquiry.

Funny. That hand could be the basis for a ♦J's story as in Right Through the Pack.

Thanks. A decent way to play, it sounds. on e.g. Gavin Wolpert's blog http://bridgepro.blogspot.com/2007/03/two-way-new-minor-forcing.html he has 3m show 5-5 I assume, and uses steps over 2N-3C to show 5M-4m or 4M-5m with high or low shortness. You could put some of these together or inside 2D, but you are giving up something. This sounds decent. You're gaining the 3N bid or the frivolous bid, depending on your original preference. The gain of the step for the 5-5 hands will be more significant, perhaps. For example, over 1C-1S;1N;3C = 5-5 spades diamonds 3D: modest hand with diamond support 3S: agrees hearts (3N now friv/ser) Cue: good hand with diamond support 3N: suggests notrump Alternatively, use 3D and 3H as diamond support with concentration in clubs and hearts respectively, getting you both "concentration" bids below 3NT. I'm not sure it's worth losing the definition in slam tries & choice of games with partner's minor, though.

This sounds interesting. You lose a bit of differentiation with the club slam tries for an extra step with the other slam tries. If you're going to give up 3C for artificial gadgets, you might find other uses, though. A random one that sounds ill-advised but also appealing: a slam points or control points ask, with some sort of scanning to follow, for hands not caring about distribution (you could instead do a full relay after 2D, but you won't find out about high cards this low). Right. You have to play a style where the max with 2 hearts doesn't bid above 3H, though. For example, there's the natural-but-wasteful style of bidding 2M/2N with a min and 3M/3N with a max over 1C-1H;1N-2D (here with 1D as the opener, you can bid 2D/2M or 2N/3M). Do you always bid 3m with a max with 2 hearts in that auction, either artificially ot ostensibly natually? There's also 1m-1H;1N-2om;3S to worry about if you bypass 4 spades.

I don't play ACOL, but wouldn't you just bid 1M-2m;2M on 5 card major balanced 12-14 counts that you decided not to open 1NT, make sure to open 1NT on all 4 card major balanced 12-14 counts, and rebid 2NT with strong balanced hands? I would think you're already bidding 2M in that sequence on any minimum with a 5 card major that doesn't have a 4 card suit between m and M to bid, so there's no hope of having 2M show 6.

This is also reasonable, though sometimes cuebidding will be harder when opener has 2 hearts and a max (depending a bit on how you play NMF). I suspect though that Phil plays 2-way, which, as is the trend these days, does not find out whether opener has a min/max with a game force unless/until you use something like serious/frivolous 3NT (or make a general/quantitative slam try, etc). The other option would be 2D and then 3H, which would show 6 but keep 3NT in the picture and/or show concerns about suit quality if you bid on. I suppose there's also 2C then 4H which must just be a mild slam try, though I've never seen it defined. Neither of these is so attractive with this hand, as you want to know both whether partner has a club control and whether he has enough stuff. If you don't play serious/frivolous over the direct 3H, maybe the 2C..4H route is interesting here.

There's been much discussion of 4♦ versus 4♥, but not much discussion of: (assuming this is still relevant, i.e. that 4♥ was enforced and partner's desire to bid 4♦ is UI) If pass of 5♣ is really impossible, wouldn't partner know that too? Maybe he's trying to use it to get to play 5♣ but not redoubled. I feel like if you want to argue strongly that your partnership always uses the strict meanings of bids according to your system notes, and that the pass really is spiral scan, with partner certain of the small slam and hoping to get to a grand (win 6 vs 5♣xx if you get to the grand, lose 2 if you get to the small and make 6, lose 6 if you get to the small and make 7), you can be allowed to make your normal spiral scan response. If you want to argue that it's impossible partner wants to spiral scan, I think pass is a logical alternative. I can't see an incorrect spiral scan response being allowed over the normal one in the first case or over pass in the second case.

If you click on them and don't own them, it asks for confirmation before charging you I believe, so you can just go around clicking on everything to find out if you're willing to click "no" over and over in purchase confirmation boxes.

This was discussed recently in http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/47200-1nt-strong-openings-with-5-cards-in-a-major-suit/ (much of it is about strong no-trumps, but toward the end weak no-trumps and things relevant to both are discussed) There gwnn posted a link to this post by Frances describing how to deal with the 1NT rebid over 1H-1S being 12-17: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/13308-1h1s-1n-revisited/page__p__127994#entry127994

Awesome, and surely correct!

Another more boring possibility: 4S E +1 on a heart lead. Maybe the auction was P P 1C 2N; 3H P 4S AP Getting a good -9 undoubled contract for NS seems tough, as usually East will double. I wonder about something ridiculous like 3S P 4S 5S; AP, but that requires it to be so late night that North fell asleep (or was assuming the opponents were psyching and partner was in on it?) in addition to South bidding crazily.

It seems that 3H sets the trump suit and just about demands a cuebid, so partner's 3S was normal. What would 3NT over 3S have meant? If you play serious/frivolous 3NT, I think it should apply here (by a general rule, and just because here you have other ways to offer choice of games). Then with frivolous, I suppose you may have a frivolous 3NT bid in the context of the auction. It gives the auction a nice tempo too: partner can cuebid 4C after which you can bid 4D or drive to slam if partner's "serious" cuebid over your mild slam try suggests enough. With serious, your 4D bid would then not demand that partner cuebid with a club control. I hope it's not resulting to think this way. Partner needs, say, 4 cover cards (out of ♠K ♥K ♦A ♣AK) or 3 cover cards plus something else. If you don't play serious/frivolous, it's not saying much but I'll say it was one of 1) partner did too much with 5C, 2) partner's 5C bid was close and you just can't win 'em all, 3) 3H really demands cuebids and your hand could've considered another route.

It seems like changing 1♠ to 2♠ creates problems for the opponents if they repeat the 2NT bid. How should they take 3♣ themselves? If one player guesses it's still Stayman but the other thinks it's choosing clubs, are they entitled to redress? Also, if advancer bids 3♣ and the opponents ask about the 3♣ bid, what should be said? Maybe from a strategic point of view it would have been better to change the bid to 3♣ with moderate values (and pass with a light unusual 2NT)? There you just have to decide whether 3♦ is forcing.