Pathetic

Has anyone here ever made the finals of the world senior bowl?

I rest my case.

This is a pretty good litmus test of who the truly awful bridge posters across all the popular bridge sites are.

Anyone who is arguing that the trial was unfair or the doctors deserve to be heard or the process is biased should be put on ignore. You're welcome.

So played at the club tonight, and had the following hand come up:

Matchpoints, W/R

South deals and picks up:

AKQ
AKQJT9
Void
AKQJ

We get to 7HXX on the following auction:

7H-(x)-P-(p)
XX-AP

Opening lead 9 of diamonds

yeah relatively famous set up hand

I had someone try to set me up with this, but he ****ed up and had me dealing with wests hand. Didn't produce the desired result when I opened 1H

teehee, I'd have been all over that one

for some reason I hadn't seen that one before tonight.

Doomed to 6 tricks with a 0 loser hand lol

Mississippi Heart Hand

I'm new to PUG. Let see if you can do better than me...

IMPs NIL

(3H) X (P) ???

KT7 Q9 KJ94 AKT8...

not thrilled but

awkward hand lol

I think 4NT is an option
I have no idea what 4H would be, seems like a control at least, so I can't do that.

3NT is really really really tempting here and it might even be right, but it's the kind of bid I try not to make in team games because I don't want to have to explain it to my teammates when it doesn't work and I don't want them thinking about it

I think 4H, which should be nothing more than "pick a game" IMO, is a good bid and what I'd choose at the table, but if you do that you have to talk yourself into sitting for 4S

I started learning this game a few days ago so am really ignorant of how the game plays. I notice almost everything in this thread is talking about bidding and not the trick taking part of the game. Is this just because of the ease of posting a hand or is the auction the more interesting/skill part of the game?

The play of the hand is often just a simple math problem to determine probabilities of distributions. You can almost always come up with the "right" answer or at least get reasonably close without actually breaking down the actual probabilities. When you get familiar with playing a bridge hand, the right answer is usually obvious, or at least becomes obvious after analyzing the deal. There isn't much discussion available.

On the other hand, the auction requires judgment, which players derive from their own experiences or that they've learned from people who've written about their experiences. There are very few "right" answers in bidding -- you and I might look at the same hand and have wildly differing views about the best course of action -- and so bidding discussion is often livelier.

You and I can disagree about a bid and both be totally reasonable, but one of us is almost certainly wrong if we disagree about the play of the hand, if that makes sense. You can never prove that your bidding is better than someone else's.

However, discussion on a message board that focuses mostly on the auction should not reflect what should actually be important to you as you're learning the game. The play of the cards is FAR more important to becoming a good bridge player.

I'm sure I've said this before in this thread, but our good friend who is one of the best players in the world jokes that the bidding is just a formality before the real bridge starts or in other words that declarer play is where the money's at, but there's definitely a lot of truth to it.

Yeah most of the time when I screw up the play of the hand, I can go back and figure out precisely where I screwed up. But an error in the bidding might not be as clear.

brrrr is 100% right. But I'll add that just because the play of the hand is a solvable problem doesn't mean it's easy. The best declarers in the world are noticeably better than other top-100 players, because they see things at the table that other champions don't work out in real time, and occasionally not even when analyzing the hands afterward. Some plays are extraordinarily complex. And more relevantly, many aspects of the card play are hard enough to be far from obvious to a new or intermediate player, but reasonably learnable as you get better. There's been some discussion of such plays in the thread, but as brrrr said, the majority of posts wind up being about bidding because that's where the actual disagreements can reasonably happen.

On the hand partner held [J8xxx Ax AQx Qxx] so 3NT and 4S are the places to be although a 5-0 spade break doomed 4S on the actual hand.

as partner my preference in bidding would be

Pass >
3S >
Double

I do think pass vs 3S not automatic though, and I'm curious how experts would poll.

i really like double with that hand tbh

I dislike doubling with 5 spades, even though I mostly understand the rationale given the poor suit.

I agree with double. The hand is just unfortunate. As advancer I'd be flipping a coin between 4H (which is a punt IMO) and 3NT (because it's the last chance to get to it,and partner's strength will often include a spade honor; if not, let's hope spades are blocked). That suit quality combined with meh strength means it's not a 3S bid. And yes, I guess pass is ok too... Getting us to the same 4S contract.

I haven't analyzed it but my guess is that double dummy , 4S is still make able. In practice it won't be made. But it's still a decent place to be. Too bad the auctions that get to 3NT require one or the other member of the partnership to take a fairly deep position.

Preempts work.

Edit: advancer may actually be too strong for 3NT. Luckily, I think you also make 4NT.

dbl is fine with that hand. 5 bad spades and 3-card support in the minors.

w/w MPs

A T 4
8 7
T 9 5 4
A K Q 5

LHO deals.
(p)-1*-(1)-?

* Precision (promising 2+ diamonds, 11-15 hcp, the NT range at this vul is 10-12).

What's the best way to get to the right minor fit (or NT)?

Dunno for sure, but it probably starts with bidding 2S and seeing what partner does.

A fun bidding problem:

v/v, IMPs

Qxx
Axx
AKQ9x
Kx

opposite

Dealer
Kx
Kxxxx
J
AQxxx