GiB bidding

[allfail]

Hi there,

 

I believe lots of people share my feelings about this issue. As you can see I spent my time often on GIB robot best hands. While this is quite a good way to relax for me (and yes averagely I am winning), sometimes the bidding of GiB is really annoying and the strategy becomes doldging this kind of situation. For one thing obvious I know that GiB likes to treat our double as forcing so I have to really double check before I double a contract. Another problem around double is that GiB tends to let opponent play at 4/3 level major doubled with no particular strength even heart length. I checked in these situations GiB understands my bid as at least strength, not panalty. It seems to happen when the bidding goes like (2H)-X-(3H)-p;(p)-X-(p)-? or even (4H)-X-(p)-? I understand there's evaluation involved but I can't see how gib can determine that panalty in these situations win more.

 

Anyway, the point of this post is something else since I didn't encounter those situations today but they worth mentioning anyway. Let's see what happens today:

 

Board 5, NS vulnerable

 

GiB opp me opp

p 1C 1D X

2D 2H 3D 3H

5D p p p

 

GiB's hand is x Qxxx 9xx KJxxx.

What would you figure my hand look like?

 

Let me tell you what GiB thought. He think 3D shows twice rebiddable D and 17-18p.

And I believe you guessed right, my hand is Kxxx A AQxxx xxx, I think typical of this bid. I think what happens is that here's a glitch that GiB does not realize we are in a competitive auction situation. Otherwise this interpretation makes no bridge sense whatsoever. I can avoid this disaster by checking the meaning of my bid before hand, but for this bid... do you really expect your partner to interpret any other way?

 

The next thing came up at Board 13:

GiB Me

1D 2D

2H 3C

3D 5D

6D

Now let me describe my understanding of the bidding. GiB says 2H promises 15p and force to 2N and 3D does not promise much. I take that 3D is a minimum bid and is nonforcing. Therefore my 5D is signing off, at least to play. Frankly speaking, what else can I do if I want to play 5D?

Now the explanation on my bid surprises me a bit because it says 17p and up. Well, maybe it is not too bad since that's about the range for facing a minimum to play 5D.

Now GiB raises it to 6. Maybe it is a plausible move? Let's see his hand:

 

S KTxx H Kxxx D KQJxx C--

 

Well, this is not the hand I would bid 6D. He has a void in partner's suit and parter's S and H rates to be 3-1, 3-2, or 2-2. It is only good if parter have both the S and H aces, which is not likely (Otherwise partner may bid 2S instead of 3C.) Given parter 3 aces not in clubs the contract looks good but it's not made yet. But the bottomline is, if 5D means partner wants to play 5D, I don't see how you can bid 6D with this. Maybe if you are trailing with 40 imps deficit and 8 boards I guess... Oh, and my hand is

 

S Jx H Ax D T9xx C AKxxx

 

It may look not-so-terrible in the aftermath, but I would like to share my feeling at the moment: it is just downright upsetting to play a stupid contract bid by your partner when you can have an easy +50/+600 but instead gettingget -400/-100, as if it's a game swing done by partner. And even the worse part is, you don't know how to avoid it. In the first board I can just pass but I really hate not to have the chance to compete. In the second one I don't know. He can bid 3NT I would be happy; but if he chose to bid 3D he should let me play in 5D.