[inquiry]

Thanks for the replies. I think anyone reading the wide range of options from Ron's "Pass over 2H is automatic", to Louis's direct leap to 4H's stating "being vulnerable I prefer a shot at 4H than missing the game" will marvel at the diverse responses for such a simple auction.

Ron and Luis both had one supporter (before my reply). In Ron’s case, it was Flytool, who is also in the pass camp, although fly paid homage to a 3D game try. While Misho was firmly in agreement with Luis. Misho felt the best shot was to give partner a choice between 3NT and 4H with a direct leap to 3NT, although he also gave a high score for immediate 4H. I have to say that, under the conditions of the problem, I fall squarely in with Luis and Misho (and anyone who read my reply to the initial problem on the rec.game.bridge site, would see why).

However, the vast majority of players neither passed, nor leaped to game. They instead choose a middle of the road game try. But the type of game tries varied a lot. Free ridiculed 2NT as a game try, but Raj took that as THE right bid, and Luis and Codo gave 2NT high marks (though didn't choose it). Misho also thought 2NT was the best game try if you don't leap to game. 2S got some modest support, except by Codo, who thought it was the right bid.And 3Ds, while getting the most overall votes, only Free gave it the highest score, and only one other potential bid was mentioned, where Free suggested the possibility of a 3C bid.

This diversity of answers, I think, show why this hand is an excellent problem. It is an excellent example of how condition of contest affect the auction. Luis alluded to this again and again in his logic for his 4H bid, and irg20 did a wonderful job of pulling in other aspects of the auction, like the fact that you are a passed hand. Here is my take on the hand. There are four specific bits of information that you must take into account before making your second bid (yes, I would have bid 1D with this hand too…but this is a hand from rgb). 1) You are passed hand, 2) Partner opened 3rd seat, 3) This is imps, and 4) you are vul. Each of these should play a role in formulating your reply.

First, partner opened third seat. If your partners don’t open occasionally light in third chair maybe you need a new partner. But, as Irg20 noted, the raise to 2H now has either extra values or surely 4 card support. With weak yuck, and three card support, partner will pass 1H. This implication is so strong, I don’t worry about partner having only 3 cards on this specific auction. I myself raise with 3 cards after 1m-1M often, but not nearly as often at all after a third seat opening as P-1m-1M-P is an option.

Second, this is imps and we are vulnerable. These two observations have a huge effect on my choice of bids. At MP with this hand, regardless of vul, I am with Ron Lei and Free’s evaluation of this hand, and I would pass. Under those conditions, as Ron say’s, the pass is automatic as there is no need to try to press to get to close games. But at imps, and particularly vulnerable at imps, pass simply is not an option for me. I have change my evaluation of the hand, it is just that I am willing to take more risk to stretch to someone questionable games. At imps, if I was not vulnerable, I would make a game try. Which game try depends a little upon style, but I rate 3D as the best try, followed by 2NT then 2S. HOWEVER, since we a vulnerable, I fall directly, squarely in the camp with Luis and Misho. There is no way I am going to risk playing a partscore with this hand at imps, being vul. Misho’s 3NT bid has a lot to say for it, good stoppers in the unbid suits and very weak heart suit. In all likelihood, partner will pull 3NT to 4H anyway when holding 4. But my bid of choice under these conditions is a direct leap to 4H.

   Inquiry   
Pass  0 Pass too risky at imps, especially vul
2S   20   At least they can’t make lead direct dbl
2N   50   Tell partner about side suit stuff
3D   70   Tell partner about good suit
3H   0   I play this as stop bid
3N   70   Good alternative to best bid
4C   -100   Some play splinter in partners suit, not me
4D   0   No slam interest so if fit jump, don’t use it
4H   100   The bid. Make it, vul at imps, what else?

[DJNeill]

Please Misho, systems geeks would love to know where to find the notes to NTC 2.50. Rado won't give it up.

Dan

[luis]

After a simulation of 128 hands meeting the conditions described
the results are:
3NT makes 17%
4h makes 42%

So while in 58% of the deals you only have a partscore in hearts you MUST bid 4h being vulnerable since 42% is just too much....

[inquiry]

Quote

After a simulation of 128 hands meeting the conditions described
the results are:
3NT makes 17%
4h makes 42%

So while in 58% of the deals you only have a partscore in hearts you MUST bid 4h being vulnerable since 42% is just too much....

The similution agrees with my gut feeling. However, remember, when this hand rebids 3NT, the partner doesn't have to pass. That is, take a look at all the hands and only stay in 3NT when the opener's hand would pass. The actual discrepancy will not be this large. But, again, I agree with 4H, not 3NT despite this comment. After all, partner will overevalute his club holding on many hands when you jump to 3NT.

[hrothgar]

One quick request:

If people are running simulations, it would be very useful if there could include a bit more information. At the very least, I'd like to understand:

What hand generator was being used
The definition for opener and responder's hands.
The definition for hands 3/4
How did the program estimate the best contract?

[irg20]

Thanks for the simulation results Luis. Please do post the conditions used. I shall assume that the simulations used some double dummy engine.

I would like to make a couple of observations.

If we admit that opener might only hold 3 card support in a hand of 14-15 points then we presumably want to offer a choice of games via some invitational sequence. No sequence is perfect and some of the time when game is available we won't reach it and some of the time we will reach the wrong game.

Furthermore the percentage of around 36% for vul game bidding at IMPs assumes that when we are in a game that doesn't make we are playing undoubled and we do not suffer multi-trick sets. In this auction both players are heavily limited (responder by his initial pass and opener by his failure to bid more than 2H) and games that do not make will suffer multi-tricks sets more frequently and these sets will be doubled more often than they otherwise might be.

These factors skew the percentages required to bid game to a significant extent.

As an aside I note that Bridge World reports seem to increasingly mention the 'game on every hand' mentality that some world-class players adopt. The success or otherwise of this pressure-cooker style of bridge for both top-level declarers and defenders seems to be a great bridge imponderable.

At top levels of competition is the gap between the standard of declarer play and defence greater or less than the gap found at lower levels. My feeling is that the gap should be less and so the 'game on every hand' mentality is more effective in the expert game only to the extent that the gap between opening leads and declarer play may be fairly constant over a variety of levels of bridge.

As I say, all rather imponderable, and as I am far from even considering my any sort of expert it would be interesting to hear what the expert community has to say. So, anyone with consistent last 16 team experience in NABC nationals, (selected) international representative honours in zonal events and of course world champions please speak up!

Best wishes to all,

Ian

[Free]

Simulations of 128 games is way too little. You should check more gifts to know a more exact percentage. And if you say 42% makes 4H and 17% makes 3NT, how much % of these deals make 4H AND 3NT? I guess it might be a 50-50 then.

Nevertheless, it's not because you make a game-TRY bid that you don't GET INTO game. And if you have 42% that you have no game, with bidding 4H or 3NT you just take no chance of stopping at the right level and score 'some' points. It's allways better to write +140 than -100. There are tools enough to find out the game-possibilities, so why don't you use them?

You run a simulation, but you don't say how many deals the gametry scores. I think that a gametry-bid gives overall better results, on some gifts it won't, but on others it will. You have 58% the right bid, with a gametry you maybe have a 70% the right level (or more). Simulations and results can be interpreted in very different ways, so only percentages of a simulation don't convince me.

But it seems that pass is wrong about half of the time. See me as an optimist, I think I'm 'realistic' optimist ;D

[the hog]

If the system you are playing makes you bid 1h instead of 1d then 2h must show 4 card support or I'd object the whole system as a complete nonsense.

I wonder what the Poles would say to having their beloved system referred to as "complete nonsense", let alone half of the Italian Team Lavazza who also play this style. I would like to point out that PC has been played and proven in international competition for more than 30 years. Of course you would prefer to have 4 cards to raise but the bridge god does not always deal you that hand.
In PC and in modern Italian systems Mafia style can be extreme and you would prefer to bid a 4 card M to even a 6/7 card m.

In case their is a comment that raises must show 4 card support, let me quote an example hand from Matula's book where he states that the only sensible re bid is to raise to 2H in the auction.
1C 1H 2H
on
xx
AQx
Axx
Kxxxx

It is also interesting that this MAFIA style of bidding is the lynchpin of Moscito opening bids.

Re Ben's last comment. This is correct, I just re checked it. 3H made 170 on the given defence. Ben, "Lightning fingers", beat me with my correction.

[inquiry]

Quote

Re the hand in question in this thread, posted on rgb, it is no great surprise that 4H was not a success.

I don't want to get in the middle of the can of worms on rather or not the raise can be on three cards (I FREQUENTLY raise with only 3)... but that is a matter of style. However, I must take exception to the RE: comment above that it is not a great surpise that 4H was not a success. To the contrary, 4H makes. For anyone interested, go to google groups rec.games.bridge and look for the two recent threads entitled:

"Your Opinion ?"
and "Re: Your Opinion ? THE FULL DEAL"

Ben

[rtewari]

On the current hand (as in the google site), it is touch and go on a small spade lead (underlead from ace). I think double dummy the defence will prevail. However, if instead of 9742 hearts the heart holding is 9762 (i.e. 6 of hearts swapped with 4 of hearts) the hand can be made.

[inquiry]

Double dummy. a low spade or a low club can set 4H's. The fact that 4 out of 5 people in 4H's made, and that almost all in 3Hs made 10 tricks is really beside the point. The actual hand, imho, is not as interesting as the question raised. After all, the opening hand was about as bad as it could be for the 2H raise. The question was what would people here bid given the condition of contest (vul at imps).

For those who don't read the rgb site, the opener held the following very minimum....

S-9xx
H-QJTx
D-Qx
C-AK9x

[rtewari]

It may be a minimum alright but it is full working minimum. What if diamond queen was spade queen ? It would have been a zero play contract then.

Even with the given hands, it is not such a hot game. You need diamond finesse and atleast one spade honour on your right(assuming you always guess the cards right) and most of the times a 3-2 heart break as well. My guess is that it will be somewhere around 25-30%.

A raise to 2H in this sequence does not promise extras. It just says that our LOTT level is 2 and makes it much difficult for opponents to find their fits for partial competitions. It will be quite sad if partner starts bidding game on all marginal hands. I think seeking partners opinion with some game try is the best approach. This hand we will not reach 4H but I guess it will be no hard feelings within the team which I guess matters more in the long run.