[mike777]

Winstonm, on Jan 2 2006, 01:51 AM, said:

mike777, on Jan 1 2006, 10:29 PM, said:

Pass

I think I have a chance to beat this 500 at imps so I will pass.
Want them to know early I am willing to double them in case they, as many do, play very junky preempts.

Is partner compelled to reopen?

Jxx, xx, KJx, AQJxx.

Pass, with a hand that has two constructive bids, takes a rather large risk that the undertricks will be added in 50 point increments, does it not? And if he does have a hand to reopen, won't that hand have at least 3 spades - and if not 3 spades then a powerful minor suit hand that risks mising slam?

Pass seems an awfully deep position to me.

Winston

If partner is compelled to open on that junk in first seat unfav vul. then YES, compelled to reopen.

"How little you know about the age you live in if you think that honey is sweeter than cash in hand."

Ovid

[Chamaco]

mike777, on Jan 2 2006, 01:59 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 2 2006, 01:51 AM, said:

mike777, on Jan 1 2006, 10:29 PM, said:

Pass

I think I have a chance to beat this 500 at imps so I will pass.
Want them to know early I am willing to double them in case they, as many do, play very junky preempts.

Is partner compelled to reopen?

Jxx, xx, KJx, AQJxx.

Pass, with a hand that has two constructive bids, takes a rather large risk that the undertricks will be added in 50 point increments, does it not? And if he does have a hand to reopen, won't that hand have at least 3 spades - and if not 3 spades then a powerful minor suit hand that risks mising slam?

Pass seems an awfully deep position to me.

Winston

If partner is compelled to open on that junk in first seat unfav vul. then YES, compelled to reopen.

"How little you know about the age you live in if you think that honey is sweeter than cash in hand."

Ovid

There's been a thread (about 1.5 months ago) right about this topic, e.g. should a min opener be obliged to reopen at the three-level with shortness in opps preempt suit, or should it guarantee a non-minimum opener.

It seems the opinions varied a lot among BBO posters, so it really seems a matter of partnership style.

[Al_U_Card]

I am in the "it's obvious" category. Pard can have ANY opening bid. You have an opening hand with 3, count 'em, 3 H stops. Bidding 3NT is not speculation, it is describing your hand.

Bidding 3S is speculating that pard has a fit and that the S will not break too badly (wait a sec, maybe the 3H bidder is short in S? what a concept....) and when pard hasn't got S and no H stop, he must bid 4C? What is 4NT by you then?

Pass is even more of a gamble, as it allows the preempt to do its job.......

The added bonus is when pard holds a great hand, you will have described yours and he can make the slam move that gets you to the right spot.

[whereagles]

joker_gib, on Jan 2 2006, 12:57 PM, said:

whereagles, on Jan 2 2006, 12:54 PM, said:

Pard, who is short in hearts and spades

Could you tell me why partner is short in ♠ ?

Alain

Because you have 5 of them.

This is of course no guarantee pard won't have 3 or 4 spades, but at this stage in the auction you have to gamble on pard having 2 or 3 spades (you can't expect pard to bid 3NT over 3♠ with 2 spades and a heart singleton - a very likely hand), and, looking at your nr. of spades, 2 spades in pard seems more likely than 3.

[toothbrush]

I believe i choose for 3NT. This makes it easy for partner, and probably is the best contract. It's a fact that these preempts NV vs V are very effective.

[joker_gib]

whereagles, on Jan 2 2006, 04:25 PM, said:

This is of course no guarantee pard won't have 3 or 4 spades, but at this stage in the auction you have to gamble on pard having 2 or 3 spades (you can't expect pard to bid 3NT over 3♠ with 2 spades and a heart singleton - a very likely hand), and, looking at your nr. of spades, 2 spades in pard seems more likely than 3.

Partner doesn't have ♥ so partner having 3♠ is far more likely than only 2, sry !

3 NT can be OK but you will often miss a slam at these colours when the preempts are wild.

I will still bid 3♠ and if I hear a minor maybe try to suggest to play 4NT without cue bidding in ♥


Alain

[whereagles]

joker_gib, on Jan 2 2006, 04:07 PM, said:

Partner doesn't have ♥ so partner having 3♠ is far more likely than only 2, sry !

Well, let's say I disagree with this claim I would like to have some numbers to back me up, but unfortunately I don't have time to calculate odds.

I'll be willing to accept your numbers if you care to come up with some of that. But until I see mathematical evidence pard is more much likely to hold 3 spades than 2, I stand by 3NT


UPDATE: actually, I generated 32 hands on Pavlicek's dealer. The average number of spades in pard was 1,5.

[Winstonm]

Scoring: IMP

---

This was the full hand. The contract was 3N. A heart was not led.

Winston

[kenberg]

whereagles, on Jan 2 2006, 11:38 AM, said:

joker_gib, on Jan 2 2006, 04:07 PM, said:

Partner doesn't have ♥ so partner having 3♠ is far more likely than only 2, sry !

Well, let's say I disagree with this claim I would like to have some numbers to back me up, but unfortunately I don't have time to calculate odds.

I'll be willing to accept your numbers if you care to come up with some of that. But until I see mathematical evidence pard is more much likely to hold 3 spades than 2, I stand by 3NT


UPDATE: actually, I generated 32 hands on Pavlicek's dealer. The average number of spades in pard was 1,5.

I suppose a lot depends on what sort of assumtions you place into a simulation. Suppose you stipulate that partner cannot have more than 2 hearts (not quite a sure thing at this vulnerability, although QJxxxx is too adventurous for me) . Giving him two spades and two hearts gives him, with the bidding, 5+ clubs. Perfectly reasonable. Giving him 3 spades may also give him 5+ clubs, assuming that he would not open 1C with 4-4 in the majors (this assumption is more reasonable with some players than with others). With 5-5 in the minors, I trust he would open 1D. It appears that partner has five clubs. Some players might, at least sometime, open 1D holding four diamonds and five clubs, so this might argue in favor of opener being 3-2-3-5 rather than 2-2-4-5. On the other hand (we need several other hands here) nothing prevents opener from having six clubs, and on this auction it wouldn't surprise me. As is often the case, it's hard to bring pure mathematics to bear on this since there are so many uncertain inferences from the bidding.

It seems to me that partner may well not have three spades, that 3NT may be better even when he does have three spades, and bidding three spades will produce chaos (in the bridge sense not the mathematical sense) whenever partner lacks three spades. I stick with my 3NT, and wait with baited breath for the correct (and obvious?) choice.

Ken

[kenberg]

I was concentrating on the two versus three spade problem before, but of course a 4-2-3-4 or 4-1-3-5 shape in partner's hand is consistent with the bidding as well. I think it would be difficult to run a simulation that combined mathematics with bridge here, but probably 3 or 4 spades will happen significantly more often than 2 or fewer spades. Which is not to say I have changed my stubborn mind. I still bid NT. This would be even more difficult to simulate, but I think 3NT will make significantly more often than 4S.

[Winstonm]

A couple of points to make here based on an unscientific but interesting run of simulations:

Point 1: Giving North 3-7 clubs and 0-1 heart, two simulations showed there would be a slightly greater chance of him holding 3S or 4S than fewer, but it was very close. On two simulations it came out 18/16 and 17/15 in favor of holding 3 or 4 spades.

Point 2: However, the even greater chance is that North holds 3 or more diamonds, which is actually the crux of this hand - more clear thinking it would seem - are we thinking about the right problem? - as the crux of the matter is not whether or not there is a spade fit but can we stop diamonds in 3N. Simulation showed that with 0-1 hearts and 3-7 clubs, there was a 30/2 likelihood that opener has at least 3 diamonds. If opener has at least 3 diamonds, it seems that 3N would be the better contract.

Simple? Not really.

Winston

[mike777]

One needs to fully consider pass as an option to get a complete picture. Not including in the analysis less than fully optimal results would be an error.

Getting +500 at unfav vul at imps need not be losing bridge.

If you open any random 12-13 hcp balanced hand in first seat with few honors and tricks I assume you have ways to compensate for this style.

[kenberg]

I don't see how N can have three clubs and one heart, or even three clubs and two hearts. With 4-2-4-3 he would, I hope, open 1D and with 3-2-5-3 he certainly would. I think a number of hands from such a simulation, perhaps including 3-2-4-4 hands, need to be kicked on the grounds they would not have been opened 1C.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on Jan 2 2006, 06:42 PM, said:

I don't see how N can have three clubs and one heart, or even three clubs and two hearts. With 4-2-4-3 he would, I hope, open 1D and  with 3-2-5-3 he certainly would. I think a number of hands from such a simulation, perhaps including 3-2-4-4 hands, need to be kicked on the grounds they would not have been opened 1C.

Right on. I didn't even look at that...was just counting diamonds as I was in a hurry.


Interesting side question: what would you bid if partner had opened 1D?

Does this change your thinking holding xx in clubs?

Winston

[mike777]

I fail to see how a simulation can help in this case. RHO has psyched. Looking at your hand you have a strong guess that this is the case. There can be very few hands where partner has her bid and RHO has hers.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on Jan 2 2006, 06:52 PM, said:

kenberg, on Jan 2 2006, 06:42 PM, said:

I don't see how N can have three clubs and one heart, or even three clubs and two hearts. With 4-2-4-3 he would, I hope, open 1D and  with 3-2-5-3 he certainly would. I think a number of hands from such a simulation, perhaps including 3-2-4-4 hands, need to be kicked on the grounds they would not have been opened 1C.

Right on. I didn't even look at that...was just counting diamonds as I was in a hurry.


Interesting side question: what would you bid if partner had opened 1D?

Does this change your thinking holding xx in clubs?

Winston

Since 3-3 in the minors is ruled out, and assuming 4-4 hands are opened 1D, it seems that with a 1D opening, a 3H call, and S with the two clubs, S could depend more on opener to have some clubs since he could be holding the 4-4.

IF we assume 4-1-4-4 hands are opened 1D then, on the original auction, we can figure that unless opener has two hearts he must have five clubs, lessening by a bit his chance for three diamonds. It's a bit convoluted. He should have two hearts about 25% of the time (each of the two available hearts being about 50-50 to be either N or W) and even then he could well have five clubs. So playing opener for 5+ clubs sounds right.

I think I will forego the calculation of the probabilities. I'm retired.

As to it being a psych, I'm not sure where this hand arose but I have noticed that on BBO players bid a lot. I really don't view six to the QJ as entirely out of the question. Crazy yes, but not out of the question. Probably best to decide on a response assuming seven to the QJ however.

Anyway, I bid 3NT because I think it is right to bid 3NT. All this math stuff comes later.

[kenberg]

Just after making my comment about lots of bidding on BBO I was kibitzing a game. First hand opened 2D on Txxxxx and third hand raised to 3D on the stiff 8. Fourth hand, looking at AKQx, bid 3NT.

4th hand was Garozzo.




Ken

[mike777]

kenberg, on Jan 2 2006, 10:50 PM, said:

Just after making my comment about lots of bidding on BBO I was kibitzing a game. First hand opened 2D on Txxxxx and third  hand raised to 3D on the stiff 8. Fourth hand, looking at AKQx, bid 3NT.

4th hand was Garozzo.




Ken

no choice, x would be takeout or general values.,,,not akqx of d

If partner could not x over 2d unlikely to over 3d

[FrancesHinden]

kenberg, on Jan 3 2006, 04:50 AM, said:

Just after making my comment about lots of bidding on BBO I was kibitzing a game. First hand opened 2D on Txxxxx and third hand raised to 3D on the stiff 8. Fourth hand, looking at AKQx, bid 3NT.

4th hand was Garozzo.

Suppose you are Garozzo playing on BBO. Forget what your hand actually is, but in general would you prefer to

a) make a take-out double?
or
become declarer?

Tricky one...