semeai

Not only is every possible bid flawed, our hand is good for defending. I pass. If I were to act over 2D, I might choose double over 2S. For those of us for whom this doesn't make everything clear, I went to check and this means it's the King (though upon looking it up, Heer itself apparently is Man/Mister like the German Herr).

Yes, though if the South hand had AQ10x of diamonds (AQ9x is also interesting) instead of AJ10x of diamonds, my original numbers would be right even though the "back of the envelope" would be what you had above. Really, the "back of the envelope" calculation for the problem hand should include the 75% chance that K,Q are split or with West as part of the endplay line when South has AJ10x, so the 34% I got is somewhat more than you'd expect without taking into account the good breaks.

Do look at my edit: I made a bridge error (the math was okay). The strip is foiled when the East hand has KQ of diamonds and isn't itself stripped. This eats away at a huge amount of the line's percentage, actually.

Nigel's line, giving a slight chance of endplay, is very good. Your basic numbers should give the right idea for these lines, but strange things can happen when distributions are so constrained, so let's double check. Line A: Nigel's line. Line B: Nigel's line up to the diamond finesse, but cash your last heart and club winners first. The most favorable case for Line B will be when spades were 4-2, so from now on I'll restrict to this. A minor addendum to Nigel's line is that if spades are 4-2 and East pitches a club and a heart on the spades, and then both follow to two rounds of hearts and clubs, then you go for Line B is now more interesting which is now 100%. In general, you should watch East's discards on those two spades (and whether they were slow) and think about what distributions he'd make those discards with and/or have a problem with. This gets complex to think about comprehensively, so let's ignore East's discards for our math check. After spades are 4-2 and both follow to two rounds of hearts & clubs, possible distributions for West are (writing x2 when you get another distribution by swapping hearts & clubs); 4252, 4504 x 2 4333, 4243 x 2 4522 x 2, 4513 x 2, 4432 x 2, 4423 x 2, 4414 The first row you're 100% with line A or line B. The second row you're 100% roughly 75% with line B and on the double hook for line A. The third row you need KQ onside for see below (worse than just KQ onside) for line B and you need the double hook for line A. It should be fairly clear by now line A is going to win out, as roughly 75% of rows 2 and 3 is going to be better than 100% roughly 75% of row 2 and a bit more roughly 25% of row 3, even though the distributions in row 2 are typically more likely than those in row 3. Still, we got this far, so let's keep going. Start with 4333 for West. Then East is 2434. Ignoring spades, there are (7 choose 3) = 7c3 = 35 ways to distribute the hearts, 7c3 = 35 ways to distribute the clubs, and 6c3 = 20 ways to distribute the diamonds, for a total of 35*35*20. Line B wins on all of these. Line A misses on 4 of the diamond distributions (KQx with West, for 4 choices of x), so gets 35*35*16 of them. Continuing this analysis for each of the cases (computations omitted), I find (ignoring spades as we already know them) that out of 146216 cases, Line A wins on 123284 of them and Line B wins on 87318 50176 of them. That is, after you find spades 4-2 and at least 2 cards in each opponent's hand in hearts and clubs, Line A is 84% and Line B is 60% 34%. Added: What I had wasn't right. Line B isn't 25% for KQ onside for 4504 x 2 or row 3. When KQ onside for these you make on all the 4414-2353 hands for West-East because East is certainly stripped now too. On the others, it depends what East discarded, but East can defeat you. Also, the hands row 2 you're not 100% on, because if East has KQ of diamonds and has kept an outside card (always possible on these) you're again set. This makes it roughly 75% for these.

Though we've taken the tangent much too far: Strangely, the clever men of Oxford also say late 15th for curtail, both in my "Shorter OED" and, separately, online I will say that for curtal (one ell) my Shorter OED gives L15 for short-barrelled cannon but E16 for animal with docked tail and L16 for adj form of curtail

The auction was 1NT-3NT, so there's the assumption that responder didn't bid Stayman (or anything else besides 3NT).

Do you mean European pairs only?

Yes, definitely good, and the right way to do it. I applaud his post. In defense of my laziness: As gwnn notes, hrothgar's original post was unconstrained: it used randperm(52), etc at the time. In addition, he had no output at that point, so I just intended to add numbers. At least the ratio p(16hcp) : (18hcp), roughly 2:1, is similar in the constrained and unconstrained data!

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif Some nice wordplay and coincidence here. Synonym discussion, again from Merriam-Webster: Anyways, sorry for butting in; I have no legal opinion on the semantics here. Added: All right, I do have a legal opinion, if an unlearned one. If you show someone (oops! looks like showing your cards is option 2) tell someone about (maybe this is verboten, but enough with my trying to fix this example) your AQ lying over their KJ in order to speed up their guess, you're not attempting to deprive play of any sort of completeness or adequacy, you're just trying to reduce the duration. Fancier cases as discussed in this thread I abstain from.

Not quite. Merriam-Webster has: So the root meaning is in fact shortened, not ended.

Sounds good, though I'm not up for generating them myself. If someone wants to dump 100 hands I'd be happy to try my hand at at least some of them. If others want to analyze some portion too, we could distribute the work.

Admittedly it's not gaussian, but gwnn's post gets the essential point across. Kudos for the quick code, though; I'm all for actual data over heuristics. Alternatively, you can just go to wikipedia: p(16 hcp) = .0331 p(17 hcp) = .0236 p(18 hcp) = .0161 So 16 hcp is more than twice as likely as 18. Of course, these numbers will change a bit for balanced hands instead of all hands, but presumably not too much. Added: Impressively, Pavlicek gets it without simulating.

I'm sure someone's done simulations, but I don't know the results. Certainly your last phrase is how I'd think about the declining number. Note that double-dummy results apparently favor the defense slightly (i.e. declarer typically does a bit better), if taken before the opening lead. See that thread by bluecalm that awm cited in the long bidding vs play thread. In any case, this hand is worth more than 7 given that 10 and all those 9's in 4 card suits with other honors. In fact, K&R gives it 8.4.

They're even teaching beginners these days that game is good on 25 points: I watched a youtube clip of Andrew Robson's "Play Modern Bridge," a series introducing rank beginners to the game it seems, and he was teaching that 25 points meant game (in NT or a major). Link to his channel (see "Clip1").

Is 5♠ forcing?

I seem to have gone a bit overboard yesterday. Everything I said made sense if the auction had been 1D (P) 1H (2S) P (P) Where inverting double and 2NT seems fine & interesting. But on the actual auction double is needed as takeout as I can be 5-1-3-4 in addition to 4-1-3-5. I'd double with both (bidding 2NT over 2S with the latter as partner has only 2 spades then).My guess then is that Helene separates these two types into double and 2NT and has no systemic bid for natural 2NT hands (other than slight under/overbidding). Or maybe I should stop guessing.

I decided I'd do it without one, so I didn't ask. NT can play reasonably when RHO has no outside entries, which will happen some percentage of the time. I didn't think of 2H, though, which is probably a better bid. My reasoning on bidding instead of passing as above is still the same if my reopening calibration is right, but perhaps it isn't.

1C-2C 3C This seems fine. What would completing the transfer show for you? I'll assume it means 3+ diamonds. ---3D Have to shape out. Now some judgement comes in. 3H or 3NT Partner would probably bid 3H with 4-6 even, so 3H is more just showing concentration in hearts and doubt about spades for now. Also, a moysian in hearts could be good if partner's spades are weak. 3NT may not be great with just stiff A of diamonds. 3NT is also good, for those not as fond of delicate auctions. More judgement now. Could plow ahead in diamonds with 4D, or maybe bid/pass 3NT at mp, though I'd probably still bid on. Over 4D, opener is minimum, but DA is good now. I'd likely just bid 5D but cueing 4H if previously bid 3NT or 4S if previously bid 3H (not 4H, which is perhaps natural). If you cue, you get to 6D I suppose. Summary: 1C-2C 3C-3D 3N-4D 4H-6D or 1C-2C 3C-3D 3N-4D 5D (or variants with 3H instead, and 4S cue instead in 1st auction)

Well, the Q showed the J or shortness ("standard leads" other than the K), so it would have problems too. Maybe you're suggesting playing the Q shows the K or the J or shortness. Is this a reasonable way to play?

Well, how about: 2N - 3C 3D - 3S 4C - 4D Is this a cue (or last train) or a retransfer? For that matter, what is 4C here? It's the only available cue that leaves room for a retransfer. Maybe it's (second-to-) last train, if 2N bidder has the right to bid such a thing.

Thanks. I didn't mean to come off as a stodge who always plays 2nt as natural. It seemed unclear to me how to have a rule that wasn't somehow very specific that allowed the inversion of double and 2nt on that auction. Maybe what's more surprising to me is the cards double than the 2nt for takeout. In any case, I think we play similarly here, but maybe with slightly different rules: 1D (1S) P (2S) P (P) 2N This isn't natural because I can't have a natural notrump hand (I'd have bid 1NT, or have done something). I'd have to think whether my "I can't have a natural notrump hand" rule and your "passed last round" rule ever differ. I have a takeout double available here too, though, so 2NT suggests 2 places to play in this case. Sorry, not thinking. Double is penalty here as I didn't double last round. 1D (1S) P (2S) X (P) 2N Here I often do have the same rule that 2NT isn't natural over a double of 2M, but I'd call 2NT "scrambling" instead of "takeout," though I suppose you must mean the same thing as I do.

I would double with this. I suppose you would double with my natural 2nt hand, though, so touché to me. Added: Likely your treatment is technically better, especially given that I'm over the 2H bidder here. I'd have a hard time coming up for a rule for when (my takeout) double and (natural) 2nt should be inverted like this into a cards double and takeoutish 2nt. Do you (or others who play this way) have a succinct rule for this? Perhaps your default for double in some broad category is cards (if so, what's your rule for that, if you have one?), and takeout is the bonus that the availability of 2nt gives you. I think of the natural 2nt as the bonus and takeout as the default.

This is natural, i.e. an invitational notrump hand with a stopper in hearts. You could certainly agree otherwise. Some can't bid 2nt naturally in any competitive auction (or maybe any auction?!). Good/bad 2nt (i.e. lebensohl) would be useful here, for example. That said, natural is in fact also useful.

Thanks, two nice points. What are the main guesses? dummy declarer J9x opposite Axx J8x opposite Axx Jxx opposite A9x Jxx opposite A8x Others? I assume this is # times set out of 1000? They have (scaled to 1000): 5♠ - 231 T♥ - 250 2♦ - 193 Q♣ - 232 Given this it seems their simulation raises to game more aggressively than yours. They show an example hand (not this one) in which dummy is QJx xx Jx K10xxxx, so they're not religious point counters. I'm not sure how this affects things. I suppose it makes passive leads better, but that's not the issue on this hand. I was wondering about the singleton question myself, as 3M or even 3x showing a singleton is popular.

David Bird and Taf Anthias have a nice article in the Thursday Euro Open bulletin on lead simulations for the auction 1NT-3NT. (They also say they have a book on leads against notrump coming out soon.) One of the surprises for me: When leading from KQxx, the King is better than low by a fair margin at both imps and matchpoints when the suit is a major. In a minor suit, K or low are roughly equal. Moreover, when this is a major, it's often the best lead. This is especially disturbing as I've played before that the King at notrump requests count or unblock while playing the rest of the honor leads standard. With those agreements, I wouldn't be able to lead the K or Q systemically. Have others played this or was I just crazy? Here are their lead problems for you to try, with brief comments on their results in a hidden comment (see the bulletin article for discussion). The auction has always been 1NT-3NT, and 1NT is 15-17. You may give imp and mp answers. I hope nobody minds my quoting them for discussion. Presumably it's fair use in any case. Several of them seem controversial (surely intended on their part). Edited: Previously #0 was #1 and I left off #1 but the answer was to the current #1! 0. J86 95 KQ72 KJ72 1. KQ72 KJ72 J86 95 2. A8 KQ82 KJ53 853 3. Q965 104 K82 QJ102 4. Q6 K5 10873 J10432 5. K105 A5 1086532 84 If you disagree with their answers, some reasoning on why their lead is worse single dummy would be welcome.