Information-exchange

[42]

Hi!

Recently I was kibbing a trainingsmatch of 4 female starplayers, among them Sabine Auken and Daniela von Arnim. Their opps had a bidding sequence (I forgot the details but they aren't important for this topic) which led to an unsatisfying result because Sabine and Dani knew enough now to find easily the best defense. After that hand the main point of the discussion was that often an accurate exchange of informations tells opponents too much about the hand. I had thought about that before. What is your opinion? When do you just bid a contract because you "feel" it will be right, when do you prefer to rely on your perfect system?

:blink: Caren

[Al_U_Card]

I like to use the "fatal flaw" approach.

 

When considering how to continue, I try to determine if there exists a fatal flaw that must be found to stop us from making the contract that I want to get to. If there is then use science. If there is not then bid what you think you can make.

[whereagles]

My philosophy is to bid the final contract when

 

1. The level and strain are clear.

2. The odds that there's a better contract are too small.

3. There might be a better contract, but I don't have the means to find out.

4. Any further move risks misunderstanding.

 

Otherwise I just keep bidding, asking stuff to pard or responding to his questions.

[Echognome]

Read the first couple chapters of Skid Simon's Design for Bidding. It discusses these issues in great detail. I believe it's where we get the distinction between "best possible result" and "best result possible". He also discusses various notions of par on a board. Worth a read if you can get your hands on a copy of this classic book.

 

I think the "science" versus "bashing" debate can be had for certain hands. It is hard to judge what is "right" without discussing a particular hand. I've certainly had hands where I've had to decide whether to make a further inquiry in case we have a magic fit or to just settle for game and try to keep opponents in the dark.

 

If you read Meckstroth's book, he says quite a few times that their style is to just make the practical bid rather than look for the perfect hand from partner (if indeed it would require the perfect hand).

 

So, I can just say that the tradeoff is there and you have to really learn to judge on a hand by hand basis.

[Guest Jlall]

This is an extemely complicated question, and I'm not sure how to quantify any of it. Some thoughts...

 

-Some hands you KNOW the lead is critical. On these type of hands, be more apt to bash instead of bidding scientifically and giving a lot of information away.

 

-If you ever "know" where you are going to play, bid it. For instance, partner passes and RHO opens 1C. If I had AKJxxxx x AQTx x, I would bid a simple 4S. This is where I'm always going to play. It's true slam may make, but to try and find it (via starting with a X or 1S) you give up way more than you gain.

 

-Often when you have a "game try" hand, it might me best to just bid game. Experts have been doing this for a while in auctions like 1S p 2S. It's almost common to bid 4S now with a wide variety of 5-5 hands or some 5431 16 count or so. Making the game try can give you the information you need to stay out of a bad game sometimes, but it also gives the opponents information on how to defend.

 

Figuring out when to bash and when to bid scientifically requires a huge amount of judgement, and is probably one of the hardest things in bidding.

[luis]

The problem of a gun is that it can point to both directions....

 

My view is that if you play a relay system where you can find all the information you can about a hand you should use it to full extension. The principle is that as long as you need to get information to determine the best strain/level you should be asking. For example if you think 4♠ is your most likely result but if pd has some cards that he could have you might be cold in 6♠ and you have the way to ask you should do it.

 

This will cost in the hands where you end in a pedrestrian contract and the opponents can use the information to defend double dummy and defeat the contract.

This will win in the hands where you find a contract impossible to find by your opponents.

This will be neutral when your opponents could find the same contract you found or when your pedrestrian contract is not in danger due to the information you gave.

 

That is the basic of a relay/scientific system, if you are going to bash because you think you have to hide information then better play natural methods.

 

That is my view.

Luis

[awm]

It's sometimes possible to get the best of both here. The general approach is to let dummy answer the questions, and keep opener's asking bids as ambiguous as possible.

 

In fact, I've gotten some very good results playing relay methods when we can get the relaying hand to declare. Since relayer's hand is almost completely unknown, it can be tough to lead and defend against a relay auction even though dummy is a known quantity.

 

Perhaps a simpler example is Kokish game tries over raises: 1♠-P-2♠-P-2NT asking "where are your values partner?" This reveals basically nothing about opener's hand except that "he has a game try" and is somewhat tougher to lead against than a natural help-suit try.

[mikeh]

I agree with both awm and justin. I used to play a relay method that was specifically designed to maximize the chances that responder would be declarer: it was rare for opener to declare in a denomination other than the suit he opened in. This led to a great deal of information being given by dummy: often times the opps would ask at the end of a ten or 12 bid auction: what's going on? The answer would be: opener's shape is exactly.... and he has this number of controls and these specific Queens and (usually) something about one but not both of the A/K of this suit etc... and declarer wants to the hand in this contract... dummy knows nothing more than that.

 

But when playing non-relay, make the practical bid. This underlies a common practice of not inviting 3N after a 1N opening bid: just bid game.

 

Especially if you use 2N as artificial, there is a tendency to use the sequence 2♣ followed by 2N as invitational to 3N: the problem is that opener's response to 2♣ is revealing to the opps and useless to responder (assuming he was not looking for a major) and then when opener accepts the invite, he has given even more info to the defence: allowing them, during the play, to draw compelling inferences as to distribution and the location of missing hcp.

 

So unless you really need the requested info, resist the temptation to have a pretty auctin and just blast away: but have the ability to have the pretty auction when you need it.

 

How do you tell which is which? Practice B)

[luke warm]

When do you just bid a contract because you "feel" it will be right ...

always... in the context of a limit opening system (most big club systems), or other limit bids (1nt, for example), just gather as much info as needed and bid to whatever level/strain seems appropriate

 

when do you prefer to rely on your perfect system?

always, when the correct level/strain can't be ascertained quickly or when slam is envisioned

[mikestar]

When do you just bid a contract because you "feel" it will be right ...

always... in the context of a limit opening system (most big club systems), or other limit bids (1nt, for example), just gather as much info as needed and bid to whatever level/strain seems appropriate

 

when do you prefer to rely on your perfect system?

always, when the correct level/strain can't be ascertained quickly or when slam is envisioned

Right on the money. This is the biggest advantage of limited opening systems--it is possible for responder to know that he wants to be in game but slam is remote after a suit opening. So our unrevealing 1NT-3NT auctions are supplemented by even more unrevealing 1M-4M auctions. Does responder have a balanced 13 count with fair trumps a small doubleton somewhere or does he have five trumps, a void, and no points whatever? Opener doesn't need to know and opponents get to guess at the five level--blindly, because the major fit might be only 8 cards on the strong hand--LOTT is no help. So with decent values, a long minor and void in the enemy major, which will it be: pass and miss a slam when responder is weak with long spades, or bid and get whacked when their HCP based game is going down because the trumps are 5-0?