Fairly cool hand, for one that looks simple to start with.

Writing up hands like that reminds me that i think I could write a decent bridge book. I know, it's all been done before, but it's fun to do and I think (hope?) I make myself clear.

Always nice to get a refresher on endplays, then butcher one right at the end with 150 kibs. Ugh

lol. hand?

ps - seeing them over and over will make you better at them, even if you have to take your licks with 150 kibs.

edit: yeah i guess you should get that right. South opened! Always frustrating to have that happen with a bunch of kibs watching, but we've all done dumber things.

Yeah just a case of not stopping to think for a half second after working so hard to set up the end play. Still down 10 IMPs against 2 world class players after 20 hands ain't too bad. I can actually block the number of kibs from my mind during the play, but when I screw up it does make it worse.

Partner screwed up bad once when he didn't raise me to 4H with xxxx/Kxx//QJTxxx when I preempted 3H in 3rd seat. Not only was 4H cold, but opps then balanced and found the cold 4S. I guess against normal opps pass is fine, but they were far too likely to balance imo. Damn.

I've been reading Mike Lawrence's Bridgeclues website almost daily. Most of the time it only takes a minute or two, but it's fun when you disagree with him, or when your system deviates.

Take, for example, today's bidding hands:

North
KT4
94
KQJ93
AT2

South
AQ8732
KQ7
A8
83

The auction given is (south deals, opps silent):
1 - 2 (GF)
2 - 4

and the point of the bidding exercise is that North erred by jumping to 4. You need to give partner a chance to explore for slam. I think courtesy-cuebidding (without necessarily serious slam interest) is great; sure it helps the defense, but it's awfully satisfying finding 25-28 hcp slams that are ice cold, or at least that are odds-on.

The proposed auction, then, is:
1 - 2 (GF)
2 - 3
4 - 5
6 - pass

which I also disagree with. N/S should be playing "Last Train to Clarksville" or "Last Train" or "LTTC". Here, the bid below 4M shows extra stuff but still allows us to stop in 4M.

Example:
1 - 2 (GF)
2 - 3
4 - 4 (LTTC)
With 2 dead or worse in clubs, there is no slam here, so north can comfortably bid 4. Bidding 4, then, must promise "stuff" in clubs and indicate a willingness to go on if south has stuff in hearts. [Of course, with stuff in hearts here, north can still bid 4 and continue over 4 if his hand dictates, but this seems unlikely.] South, then, holding KQx in hearts, can bid on.
4NT - 5 (2 keycards without the Q)
6 - pass

Then 5 can be reserved for something as useful: voidwood (exclusion RKC). So now if the hands are instead:

North
KT4
K432
KQJ932
void

North
AQ8732
A65
A8
84

the auction can now be
1 - 2
2 - 4 (splinter)
4 - 5 (voidwood, with the meta-agreement that there are no cuebids at the 5-level in an auction with no interference)
5 (0/3) - 5 ( Q?)
6 (yes, no side K) - 7 (yahtzee!)

Without this agreement, the auction may get a bit muddled:
1 - 2
2 - 4 (splinter)
4 - 4 (N must show the heart control)
what would you do as south here? I'm guessing 4N.
4NT - 6 (1 keycard with a useful void in clubs)
now what? Are you sure N has running diamonds? My guess is no.
6 - ? Now as N are you sure we have the HA and not the club A? Are you even comfortable having bid 6C now? What if a heart comes through at T1? Hopefully P has at least the Q. I don't think you can reach this grand so easily.

Probably the main point of this whole thing is that reading/analyzing a lot of hands is a good thing, and when you do, think about your system and how you'd handle certain situations. What if you change the hands slightly? etc.

By the way, Fred Gitelman wrote a great article on improving your 2/1 system. It comes in 3 parts (part 2 is LTTC), and it can be found here.

Even better (IMO), if you're convinced that 3 set trump and that 3NT isn't a playable contract here:

1S - 2D (GF)
2S - 3S
3NT! - 4C
4D - 4S
4NT! - 5D
6S

where both 3NT and 4NT are sort of DI - type bids, asking for cuebidding from partner. Here, it works wonderfully. You lose Blackwood, but when you're in the midst of a cuebidding sequence that frequently isn't a big loss.

was going to post about wyman's 6s hand but after writing up a post i checked dwetzel's and i had the same line, so meh

well done, then.

I've never seen last train used with such a strict agreement about control bids above the game level; I need to think about it. I'll say that even without last train, Lawrence's sample auction on the first hand is not one I love, as I believe responder should bid five diamonds, not five clubs, after hearing the 4D control bid from opener. That control bid is always the ace (the first control bid in partner's suit should never be shortness — you can [sometimes] show that after the suit has been bypassed), so responder's hand is now huge, with slam depending only on the heart holding plus good trumps. This may make it harder to find the grand, I guess, so I may be wrong.

The voidwood agreement looks like a useful one but I can imagine it going wrong that the table a lot. Without it, after the 6C response to RKC opener should never sign off in 6S, and any further move he makes will get the partnership to the grand as responder will know that anything his partner wants, he has.



Edit: Never mind about 5D at responder's third call — on review I realize that will confuse partner. 5C is fine.

Using 3NT for this kind of thing is powerful, but again, partnerships can go wrong with it pretty easily. I also hate giving up on 3NT, though if you're ever going to, this is the kind of auction to do it on.

I'd like to work out this kind of agreement with someone, but it runs so counter to what most players do these days that it's tough even finding someone with whom to work on it. But I'd be more comfortable playing around with 3NT non-natural after major suit agreement in GF auctions than with wyman's proposed set of agreements, because the likelihood of mistakes seems lower.

I'll note that losing your Blackwood-type bid is fine when the issue is side suit control, but bad when it's trump quality — it takes planning to ensure that you investigate that properly.

Take the quizzes HERE and post your points.

They are not too hard, but neither are they a piece of cake. I slipped up once and made 68.

A pretty cool site alltogether.

I'll pretty much agree with everything you said (though, there are times when the trump quality issue can work itself out, especially when one partner or the other has limited their hand -- and if they haven't, why are you messing around anyway? -- but I concur that it's a drawback).

The biggest benefit is that it's a relatively simple agreement (well, at least giving up 4NT as Blackwood is): "Have we cuebid yet? If yes, it's not Blackwood; if no, it is." (Giving up 3NT is somewhat tougher, but a fairly simple "if we've unambiguously agreed a major suit, we can't play 3NT" solves 98% of the problem situations and gives up 3NT when it's right roughly 2% of the time and you weren't stopping there anyway. The one bugaboo is in that word "unambiguously", of course.)

It also helps a great deal with dealing with ambiguity of cuebidding second round controls versus first round controls, which is something I've always struggled with (and have seen lead to many accidents).

My wife/partner and I sort of developed this style after watching teammates (very good players and a pretty practiced partnership who spent a LOT of time on their bidding) try to introduce more and more situations where some sort of Blackwood or substitute Blackwood or minorwood or exclusion six-keycard somethingorother would apply (wherein they had about fifty ways to Blackwood and maybe one way to cuebid) -- and I swear to God we had I think five consecutive post-session dinners or car rides home where we had to listen to what new accident developed (fortunately, some of these accidents were in pair games), we sort of decided that that wasn't the way to go. Especially when we usually got to the point in the conversation of:

"well, why didn't you just cuebid 4D instead, then partner can take control?"
"Because that would have been minorwood for diamonds." (This would usually be in auctions like 1S-2D, 2S-3S, mind you.)
"Oh. Well, that seems silly."

That's my "expert" (ha!) tip for intermediate players: learn when NOT to use Blackwood. (This actually goes for all conventions, but that's the really really obvious one.)

I clearly remember my first lesson on stripping the hand and throwing an opponent in to give you a free finesse or a ruff/sluff. It was some hand at my first junior bridge camp where you had ATx vs KJx and a trump loser and everything else was strip-able in 6M. I remember thinking "zomg this is so cool" because it was something i was unfamiliar with.

But yeah, after you see enough of them, it becomes automatic. I knew as soon as i read "I think there are some beginners in here" and then "No interference, you reach 6S." that the solution was "strip the hand then endplay someone" without even seeing the cards.

Dwetzel and I gonna start a table in 5 or so. Just if anyone is out there and interested.

in

My bbo name is SRFC1901

Atak might be interested when he's done his reveal. Who knows.

Have to grab some food, and take a minor break from the computer — that was nearly a four hour process. If you're still around later I'll probably find you.

So, I played in a club game yesterday, and had one hand that's really tilting me. (I think there are 25 tables in play, if that makes any difference).

LHO opens a strong 2

RHO has:
Q 9 4
7
A K Q J 9 8 6
T 9

They somehow only reach 4, and make 5 when the hearts don't split 3-3, the diamonds don't split 3-2, and a diamond lead kills their entry to the board. Any other lead makes 6, I'm pretty sure.

Our -450 ended up getting a 0 on this board. So, literally everyone must have been in a heart slam going down, or something. 7 is also a laydown, but apparently nobody likes to bid minor slams anyways.

Is picking a trump suit of AKQxxx across x better than AKQJxxx across x at matchpoints if the former is a major and the latter a minor, when going for a slam?

Hard to answer that as a general thing, but I think we can say that if the hand with AKQxxx (opposite x) has no outside entries playing in any other suit is likely to get a bad score, while if it has out side entries than playing in a stronger suit is likely to be good. The major versus minor thing depends on too many other factors and in any case there's little reason to believe either player here made a carefully-considered decision based on good assumptions about both suits, but often you do stop in a major suit game when you're pretty sure a minor is "better" in that you have a higher trick expectation. Often when the hands are strong you're likely, though not certain, to lose the same number of tricks regardless of (reasonable) trump suit.

Stopping in 4H on this hand, when a 2C opener was apparently insisting on hearts, looks pretty odd, though, as responder should value his hand as being huge — the spade queen will often be an entry (if it's needed) opposite a 2C opener. If I heard something like 2C — 3D; 3H — 4D; 4H and I had 7½ likely tricks I would not stop (though I'm not sure what I'd do). Doesn't mean I'd drive to slam, but I'd be playing opener for at least seven very good hearts and three key cards, so the five level will usually be safe. But maybe this partnership knew something about its 2C openers that I don't know.

I'll wager your table bid some sort of god-awful waiting 2D bid (waiting for what, I don't know) and let opener get the tempo of bidding their suit first, and then opener with a stiff diamond assumed that their partner couldn't have seven solid.

It's a bad bid on balance, but I'm pretty sure whoever perpetrated stopping in 4H there will give you back the MPs on another day.

It's interesting to consider what hands opener could have that include AKQxxx of hearts, and the problem he would have had after 2C — 3D (which we know is the right call unless you're playing control-showing bids); 3H — 4D (which is responder's likely rebid). With a stiff diamond, or heaven forfend a void, he'd have a hell of a problem.

2C sequences are hard when someone has good diamonds.

e.g., with AJx AKQxxx x AKx, what does he do? (notice this hand will make only 4H opposite the given dummy when ops lead a diamond and hearts go 4–2, but will also make 7D, so he may have had something like this).

2c 3d 3h 4d 4h 6d seems normal

the more I look, the more I like 4D as a response. Yes, it's ridiculously space consuming, but if we'd bid 3S over 2C with this hand with the spades and diamonds reversed (and we should), I don't see anything wrong with a very space consuming but perfectly descriptive bid.

7654
A97
QT76
K6

IMPs w/w I deal auction goes

P-P-2C-3H
P-P-X-P

So what should I do now? I guess since pass sets up a GF I could just bid 3S. What would 4H show? Anyone daring to leave it in?