BBO Discussion Forums: Slam missing two keycards? - BBO Discussion Forums

Cyberyeti, on 2019-July-19, 05:04, said:

LOL. In my neck of the woods, a result merchant is somebody who wants to get to a poor, terrible, or impossible to bid contract just because it happens to make, either because of a lucky lie of the cards, or the actual defense. If somebody is honest, they will know whether they are result merchants or not. You could call result merchants excessively optimistic if you want if that sounds better. Some of my favorite bridge partners can be result merchants at times.

As far as selectively quoting OP, reread the original post (somebody quoted it) and OP wanted to bid a slam if partner has the trump ace, without finding out about the trump jack (of course, partner did have the trump jack so slam made).

johnu, on 2019-July-27, 02:22, said:

We clearly never read the same post:

How do people feel about the best ways to progress with this.
We have a total of 32+ points and despite my hand being flat few enough losers to consider slam in spades or NT. I wasnt sure how to progress and bid Blackwood immediately
How would you evaluate this hand and chances of slam and what do you think are the best ways to bid and the best chance contract.

These are not "I wanna bid slam because it makes", they are "should I bid slam ?"

It was definitely one that got away

Is the only mis-step in the post.

Cyberyeti, on 2019-July-27, 02:31, said:

OP wrote

Quote

Translation just for you - I want to bid slam on at best a finesse - Note no mention of finding out about spade jack.

Quote

I don't know what you are reading but that's what I would call textbook result merchant analysis. It it an insulting term? IMO, not really. Just a common shorthand description.

Sadly, this seems to have degenerated into a flame war, for no good reason.

The question at hand is, do you want to be in slam off two keycards? NO. Winning at bridge is a probability thing. If you make the choice that gives you the best chance of winning on every hand, then in the long run, you will win. Avoid the choices that are low probability. Winning bridge is simple in theory, though seemingly harder in practice.

So what are the odds here? I won't even get into the question of whether an immediate 4NT was right or wrong (or even what variety of Blackwood it would be.) It told you what you need to appreciate. ONE keycard. There are 3 keycards you do not know about, the !SA, !SK, !CA.

If partner has the spade king, then you are missing two aces. If partner has the club ace, then you are missing the top two trumps. Only if partner has the spade ace, do you have a chance, and then not even always. For example, give partner a hand like this:

A98xx
KJTx
J
QTx

If you can drop the spade king singleton, then the other hand will have JTx in spades, so a sure trump trick for them, no matter what you do.

The point is, if partner has only one keycard here, then the odds of slam being successful are roughly 16.7%, at best. That is, partner will have the right keycard (the spade ace) only 1/3 of the time, and even then, slam will at best be on a finesse. Avoid 17% slams.

That slam did make is not relevant. You just shrug your shoulders and accept it, wishing you had a pair of side-focal glasses, so you could know when to bid those slams. (Mine are on back-order at the optometrist.)

Finally, the question of whether you should blast a 4NT ask over 1!S. I'd say it was not the end of the world, but that usually it is best to go slowly with good hands. Here that means to start with 2NT, if it shows a game forcing spade raise with 4+ trumps. You might be able to learn something useful from partner. So use slow, cooperative bidding on the biggest hands. Bidding is a partnership thing. (That is advice I have admittedly in the past failed too often to heed.)

thepossum, on 2019-July-18, 00:32, said:

One of the purposes of cue bids is also to receive information as to what Aces DOESN'T hold. This is also very useful information also. As for the auction I would suggest this: 1 ♠ - 2 NT (Jacoby) - 3 ♦ (shortness) - 3 ♥ (Cue bid) - 4 ♥ (Cue bid) (King of hearts since you have already cue bid hearts this shows 2nd round control) AND also denies 1st round control of ♣ and ♦ through a negative connotation that it was not cuebid. At this point, assuming that partner has their first round opener you can actually place most of their high card points. At this point, you know that you do not have a grand slam for example with this theoretical hand AKxxx, Kxx x Axxx. So know you can ask for key cards;

4 NT (key card ask) - 5 ♦(1 or 4 - which you know to be 1) at best, slam is on a finesse and at worst you are missing 2 aces which you know will cash. Do you bid slam hoping that partner has the Ace of ♠ AND that the King is finessable? The answer to that is no.

There are some hands that expert bidders, and declarers will get a bad score on compared to other players of lesser experience. This is usually when players take a very high percentage line on the hand and the low percentage line that the less experienced player uses because that the only one that they have experience in. ex. Finesse instead of an endplay. On your example board, bidding logically and getting the correct information will keep you out of this slam will get you a bad board on this particular hand against the less experienced player. You will gain points on the next 3 hands on average of this type that they make the incorrect percentage slam decision.


The only exception to bid slam on this hand is if you are playing MP's and are deliberately "shooting" for a swing score after you have correctly analysed previous boards and have correctly analysed that you need a swing top on this board for a good overall score. Please do not try this technique if you are not an expert in declarer play, bidding AND bidding of your partnership and the other partnerships that you are playing against. Also you should able to correctly estimate to a high degree of probability of the time how well you are doing in the middle of the set of boards.


Good luck.

I really don't understand why cyber is so bent out of shape about John's comments. While repeatedly saying John was being overly selective in quoting the OP, he omitted (until late in his posts) the part where the OP laments that 'this was one that definitely got away'.

No user of the English language could construe that as anything other than an expression that he did not reach the slam that happened to make. Inferentially one can see that he wanted to be in slam if the missing keycards were the club A and spade King, but not if he was off the spade AK or both black Aces.

It would be a legitimate issue were the OP to hold the QJ10x in spades, where the slam is basically a 50-50 proposition. If one were willing to toss the coin, then, yes, it would certainly be important to know whether one was embarking upon a contract that has play or a no-hope contract, off 2 cashing tricks.

But, as John repeatedly and correctly pointed out, slam off the spade K and club Ace can never be better than 50% and will often be worse, perhaps much worse. Imagine opener with Axxxx in spades. Sure, this is a bad opening hand, but we've all (I assume) made borderline opening bids, especially with spades. Now, even a stiff K is no good!

More likely is AJxxx. Now we need stiff or doubleton King onside...far less than 50%.

In short, the OP, as is common for him, is either (successfully) trolling or is revealing himself as incapable of even basic visualization....resorting to the 'if it made, I should have bid it' school, aka result merchanting.

Why I suspect, and have long suspected, trolling is the way the OP responds to the slightest criticism, no matter how well-informed, or constructive. Criticize the content of his posts, and he slams one for ad hominin attacks, and hurls outrageous insults in response to the perceived slight. Heck, it's almost as if his OP's were crafted to attract criticism to which he can then let fly with his invective. Hmm....troll, anyone?


I must admit that by now I take a perverse pleasure in prodding him every now and then. Plus, of course, if I am incorrect, then maybe he'll write something constructive in response. Anybody here willing to bet that way? LOL.

Let me make a bold prediction: the OP will be posting an attack on me shortly. Stay tuned

One suggestion I can give thepossum is to consider the bids made by the pairs who arrived at slam (i. e. if instead of using such an essential bidding they had the opportunity to explore the partner's hand) as well as the type of players (if strong ones the percentages to bid it are fewer than those).

mikeh, on 2019-July-29, 14:49, said:

Who’s buying popcorns for the rest of us?