I don't think (without having worked it out for sure) that he needs to play the 9 from all holdings, but he should probably do so some of the time, e.g., from Q9x and 9x. Declarer can't pick up stiff 9 once he's started toward his hand, but his approach loses to 98 (which restricted choice says happens half as often as Q9, assuming your partner is not a novice). If your partner will never play the 9 unless it's his lowest card, and declarer has the ten, then his play was correct — unless partner will sometimes false card a 9. But how often he should make this falsecard is not clear to me.

Now that I think about it, maybe this works: it doesn't matter (on the second round) what partner does with Q9x as declarer can no longer pick that up, so he's just trading off 98, Q9, and 9x. Given that 98 and Q9 are equally common and half the time he's playing the 9 from 98, while 9x is twice as common (95 and 92) and playing for the drop loses against 98, 95, and 92, in fact he should usually take the hook, without partner even having to falsecard from 95 and 92. It is if partner neglects to randomize with 98 that he needs to compensate by falsecarding with the 9x holdings.

However, there's still the first round. If a 9 from your father always means Q9 or stiff 9, and he can no longer pick up stiff 9, then he needs to take a first round hook when the 9 appears. But that, too, is partially solved by throwing in 9 from half of the 98s... except it's not enough, as it's still right for declarer to take the hook. He needs to be playing as many 9s from doubetons without the queen as from Q9, wish means throwing in either half of the 92s or ¼ of the {92, 95}s.

This could be wrong, of course.

At the table, I would rarely falsecard from 9x because the 9 is too likely to matter; I would definitely randomize from 98. Luckily, it looks to me like a merely occasional falsecard from 9x is enough to keep a good declarer honest here.

Damn, it is wrong — declarer should play for the drop if partner randomizes from 98 and never falsecards from 9x. Assuming that randomization from 98 is going to happen (in practice, the best way to play) partner definitely needs to play the 9 from 9x at least one quarter of the time. But I think any more often might be a problem when you have the queen, so best to leave declarer in equipoise.

Interesting. Give partner a queen-seventh of clubs and a random jack or ten, and defending 3D you're going –130 or –150. In four clubs you're likely to be down 2, occasionally doubled but if you could get away with it you'd win the board (OK at matchpoints, terrible risk at IMPs, and partner shouldn't be trying it). In notrump you'll usually go down 1 against normal defense and will occasionally even make it, but it could be much worse if they run hearts and then knock out your spade. But one nice thing about 3NT is that it will rarely be doubled, so in theory this is a decent risk against non-expert opponents at matchpoints.

But of course, you should have passed with this hand (flat fifteen counts are icky notrump hands, and should not be included in notrump overcalls), so when partner hears a natural 2NT he expects somewhat more (16–19), and if holding something like Tx Jxx x QJxxxxx (or maybe even with a 3=3=0=7) he should try 3NT, as clubs will run often enough to make it worth a go and sometimes, as in this case (slightly modified), it may even be a profitable and difficult-to-double sacrifice.

Do you guys ever play online or just talk about interesting hands itt?

We used to get an occasional online game among thread regulars, including even a couple of team games, but I think it hasn't happened much in a while. (I don't know for sure because I've been unavailable all summer.)

I was just on BBO 30 seconds ago...

Love to play.

We should have a game some evening. (See, I'm back now.)

Good night for folks this week? (I'm assuming tonight isn't so good.)

i'll play but i dont know the by the book response bids or anything. I usually just bid what feels right.

This will tilt whoever you play with. Bridge has two parts, and unless you're involved in partnership bidding, you're only playing half the game (some might argue that you're not even doing that).

That doesn't mean we won't play with you, of course, but if you want to continue to get games, you should make some effort to learn a system. I'll recommend some vanilla flavor 2/1, but it's your call, really.

Hopefully this post doesn't come off as unnecessarily harsh. It's meant to convey the importance of strong bidding! Bridge is a partnership game, and if I'm your partner and you are making unilateral decisions, well, I guess I'm not needed...

I guess I dont fully understand the importance of using one of those systems. Doesnt it give your opponents the same info it gives your partner?

If you bid differently each hand based on your hand and cues from your partner rather than a premeditated system cant you disguise your hand better which helps when you end up playing the hand out?


Taking the opposite view, if my opponents also bid then I know what each of them hold and can play the hand out optimally knowing when to finesse and things like that rather than having to guess which one of them might have a certain card.

Yes, but the importance of reaching the right contract: e.g. the right game or the right slam (picking the correct strain), or staying out of a game or slam when it is low probability, cannot be overstated.

And the number of choices you have in bidding is vastly less than the number of possible hands you can hold. The information is always imperfect, even when it's abundant. The defense also may preempt, eating up your bidding room, etc.

I'd encourage you to explore one versus the other, but there is a reason why current conventional wisdom involves some system.

CDL, once upon a time your view held sway, and bidding by feel was the method of many (but not all) of the best players in the world. But by about fifty years ago it had become clear to nearly everyone that to win in serious competition (i.e., against someone as good as or better than you) it was necessary to have solid bidding agreements.

A continuing question since then has been where the optimal point is — just how structured and artificial is the ideal system? Many theorists think that even a system that looks sort of natural, but is highly structured, will have no chance in the long run, in theory at least, against a completely artificial system, but complexity and artificiality are costly in terms of effort and the probability of one partner forgetting an agreement, so the result isn't in.

The way most of us bid there is still considerable room for judgment (particularly in competitive auctions), but Wyman is correct that we all expect, correctly imo, an effort to learn a bidding system.

[Note carefully that effort to learn ≠ knowledge of — we're all quite friendly about different skill and knowledge levels.]

Once upon a time (read:10 years ago) I knew the basic stuff (or what I was told was basic, but might have been part of an uncommon system) such as a short club, asking for aces, when to jump to game and a few other things, but I think I have forgotten most of that since then as I havent played in many years.

Now that fall has come, I'll be on BBO more.

Brag:

Played 2 sessions today at the club. First and First. Two different partners. I am leading the Mini McKinney at my club for my bracket (100-200)

67% and 63%

well done

Baller, don't forget us when you're famous

The best part is that you had 2 different partners, I think part of being a good player is that you can play with many different people/styles and still do well. Great job.

Very nice

Mini McKinney is cool, they give you a nice keychain like thing for winning. Ace of clubs is just a lame piece of paper. First year when I was 0-5, I was up against some guy who ended 3rd in the country.

lol never won AoC because im not good at MPs and I play almost exclusively team games at regionals/sectionals.

my (former , junior) swiss team was all in different brackets and we all won district MMs a few years in a row. Was pretty funny. I will not 3-peat this year since I havent played a club game since May Wouldn't matter anyway with the new district.

Might go play in a local game tomorrow. My luck it will be 4 tables of lols. I don't even care really. I just want to get some ATT bridge in and really focus on my counting hands out, locating high cards, etc. I feel like that stuff slips when I only play online, cause I can't do it fast enough for the pace online anyway.

Yeah I play a lot of clubs, but never get much chances to travel. Lock for aoc this year, but a good 25 behing for the mckinney.

Hey guys, I'll probably have some more time to play now that my schedule is becoming clearer. Let's get a POG game going again.

I was looking at the myACBL site to see where I was for Mini McKinney, and my masterpoint total for the year is about 110. However, I don't show up on the rankings for my unit or district Is this normal?

If you haven't paid your dues they will take your name off the list until you do so. Not really a big deal, I am always 1 month late lol. Not sure if this is what's happening in your case but it always is for me.

It says my dues are paid through 5/2011. I originally thought it was because of that, but I don't really know

That's too bad, in a way. The canadian rookie/master is a trophy, and a plaque for winning your district. In a way, that's much easier to win than MM or AoC.

Oh damn you all are talking about district, I was only talking about unit. Looks like I actually have a decent shot at district AoC, only 6 behind right now. Only 170 behind for Mini mckinney. Yeah I have 52 for AoC and 66 for McKinney. Need to play more tourneys ...