[Walddk]

luis, on Jan 27 2006, 10:35 PM, said:

I'm not interested at all in any agreements I'm interested in what would you do without agreements.

Luis

I can't play bridge without agreements. Can you? Guessing is not my kind of game. "Guessing" actually exists (invented in Denmark). It's a fun game, but it has nothing to do with bridge.

Roland

[luis]

Walddk, on Jan 27 2006, 09:39 PM, said:

luis, on Jan 27 2006, 10:35 PM, said:

I'm not interested at all in any agreements I'm interested in what would you do without agreements.

Luis

I can't play bridge without agreements. Can you? Guessing is not my kind of game. "Guessing" actually exists (invented in Denmark). It's a fun game, but it has nothing to do with bridge.

Roland

Imagine you are lurking around in a bridge club you are asked to play a duplicate team match with a player you just can't say no. Unfortunately the match is just starting so your pd just says "BBO-advanced and std carding and the rest just use judgement ok?" you start saying something about not being able to play without agreements specially about 3♠ overcalls over 1 of a minor but the cards are dealt, pd opens 1♣, rho overcalls 3♠ and you have the hand of the problem. Now what? Do you raise from the chair and abandon the game?

Cmon Roland, you may not like this problem and I may not like others but please accept the conditions and follow the rules. If you think you can never play with a player without an agreement about this very specific position you can always abstain. In fact if your vote was based in agreements that the conditions clearly say we don't have you should ask your vote to be nullified since you are voting a different problem.

Luis

[Walddk]

Then I would bid 6♥ with a shrug. Punting is probably best, and if it's not, I'll apologise afterwards when we go down with 7♣ or 7♦ rigid.

Roland

[hrothgar]

My understanding is that these polls are (in part) intended to help extend the set of agreements comprising BBO Advanced.

I see nothing wrong with players imposing their own agreements regarding undefined bids so long as they believe that these should "obviously" be incorporated as part of the system.

[luke warm]

i doubled to complete my sweep

[42]

luke warm, on Jan 27 2006, 11:59 PM, said:

i doubled to complete my sweep

...me too...

[luis]

hrothgar, on Jan 27 2006, 10:58 PM, said:

My understanding is that these polls are (in part) intended to help extend the set of agreements comprising BBO Advanced.

I see nothing wrong with players imposing their own agreements regarding undefined bids so long as they believe that these should "obviously" be incorporated as part of the system.

Except that it completely ruins the purpose of the poll. Doesn't it?
Let's agree 4NT here shows 0-6-3-4 with 8 controls.
I bid 4NT showing my hand and pd will decide.


Scoring:
4NT 100 (if it shows this hand)
4s 100 (if you agree 4s shows this hand)
5s 100 (if you agree 5s shows this hand)
double 100 (if you agree X shows this hand)
Bids that don't work for this hand 0
Intelligent bids not imposing an agreement we don't have: priceless

[hrothgar]

luis, on Jan 28 2006, 04:27 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Jan 27 2006, 10:58 PM, said:

My understanding is that these polls are (in part) intended to help extend the set of agreements comprising BBO Advanced. 

I see nothing wrong with players imposing their own agreements regarding undefined bids so long as they believe that these should "obviously" be incorporated as part of the system.

Except that it completely ruins the purpose of the poll. Doesn't it?

At the end of the day, we need to decide on the purpose of these polls

I like to believe that the primary purpose is to improve the system rather than to score well.

[Double !]

hrothgar, on Jan 27 2006, 02:20 PM, said:

BPO-007F: Double

I HATE this bid. If partner converts for penalties were headed for a zero. Balanced against this, all my other options are worse. The lowest unambiguously forcing bid that I have available is 4S and this burns an amazing amount fo bidding space. Equally significant, the vulnerability suggests that partner may very well decide to bid 3NT holding Spades. As Al Roth famously said, "if I can survive this bid, I'll be well positioned"

omg
i chose double for essentially the same reasons that were listed above. And I, too, hated the bid,...but if I can just get through this round.

actually, my hope is that P rebids clubs. If so, I have a friend named josephine for my partner to meet.

DHL

[mike777]

I find these polls hugely entertaining and informative.
Assuming we are playing with a pick up expert partner and our system discussion is "BBO Advanced" and nothing else.

I am shocked and surprised how many very good players would take 4nt as some takeout on this auction and 5nt as pick a slam. I can only assume they are shocked by my taking 4nt as rkc for clubs and 5nt as gsf.

If we cannot agree on what 4nt and 5nt means in a preemptive auction how can we hope to play in any pickup game on BBO?

Btw I would add playing BWS I would have made the same assumptions of RKC and GSF. This assumption may be very very wrong, ouch!

[luis]

hrothgar, on Jan 28 2006, 01:38 AM, said:

luis, on Jan 28 2006, 04:27 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Jan 27 2006, 10:58 PM, said:

My understanding is that these polls are (in part) intended to help extend the set of agreements comprising BBO Advanced. 

I see nothing wrong with players imposing their own agreements regarding undefined bids so long as they believe that these should "obviously" be incorporated as part of the system.

Except that it completely ruins the purpose of the poll. Doesn't it?

At the end of the day, we need to decide on the purpose of these polls

I like to believe that the primary purpose is to improve the system rather than to score well.

The purpose is not to score well
And I really hope is not to improve the system, then all the problems are almost meaningless.

The purpose of this poll is to see how the experts bid in some difficult bidding situations with the minimum tools that a natural system like bbo-advanced offers. The idea is to see how each expert uses his judgement to determine what each bid will mean and which one will probably trigger the better outcome.

[han]

I agree with that.

[HeartA]

I agree with luis, too. I don't think we need too detailed BBO system.

[Free]

Great hand for a colour coup!

I doubled, but I don't like it...

[Dwingo]

HeartA, on Jan 28 2006, 10:47 AM, said:

I agree with luis, too.  I don't think we need too detailed BBO system.

I beg to differ here. If my memory serves me right, before Ben started these polls there was mention by Ben that these polls will help define BBO Advanced better. I remember Fred also mentioning in one of the posts that he was not able to spend t ime in the area of common system definitions and we was quite pleased that these polls would help evolve some consensus in the expert community.

Now, I surely like to hear and see how an expert uses his judgement in these tight situations where the system does not come to his help. All the same I like to see how specific system agreements could have helped them overcome these situations. And if there is consensus among the expert about these treatments and if these are incorporated in the evolving BBO Advanced, all the more better.

After all we all learn a lot from reading these posts and the more meat is there to BBO Advanced, the better will be our understanding in a pick up partnership and to reduce the judgement element.

It is not as though, one is at the expense of the other.
Now if anyone tells me that they dont need a detailed BBO system is either not familiar with the fiascos of pick up partnership or his/her bidding judgement is always right under whatever circumstances. I find this hard to believe.

[whereagles]

Walddk, on Jan 27 2006, 09:03 PM, said:

Use 4NT for something better, like two possibly three places to play.

Hum.. isn't that what double is for?

[whereagles]

Walddk, on Jan 27 2006, 09:52 PM, said:

Then I would bid 6♥ with a shrug.

Now we're talking

Actually, look at your hand. What is the hand-type pard more likely to have? I would bet that he will have the 12-14 balanced hand with clubs as best minor like 80% of the time. Opposite that hand I think 6♥ is a reasonable guess and a prefectly acceptable practical bid, given that other bids might very well generate misunderstandings on a casual partnership.

[FrancesHinden]

mikeh, on Jan 27 2006, 09:12 PM, said:

If 4♠ sets ♣, and 4N is keycard over 3♠, and 5N is GSF, what is 5♠??? I'd worry it was exclusion.

But maybe if you bid 5♠ and then convert 6♣ to 6♥, partner can visualize your hand?? I would admire any partnership that got that right

Yes.... we decided to try somthing similar: 4S and convert 5C to 6H.

In a random BBO pick-up partnership I would expect 4NT to be RKCB, 5NT to be GSF, 5S to be a spade void (possibly exclusion, but only because so many people here seem to like exclusion: I wouldn't think it was with Justin ). I don't think the system really has a call for this hand - the systemic call is double, but that goes wrong when partner passes on most weak NTs.

We play 4NT as natural (before you laugh, try and decide how else you can bid a natural 4NT bid: if you double and partner bids (say) 4H, 4NT is now RKCB in hearts....)

[inquiry]

More entertaining than seeing what the expert panel votes on these hands, is seeing them discuss the hands in the thread itself. This one was particularily fun to read. Now to the answers they sent to me. 4♠ was the clear winner. Reisig voted for it, without comments again. Fred however handles the 4♠ shows club support but can play in 6♥ question nicely. I think you should reread some of the earlier discussion in this thread and then read Fred's reply below. Note also fred's careful comments about not following 4♠ up with a 5♥ "cue-bid". Here are what the other panelist had to say about their 4♠ choice.

Fred 4♠ - The hardest problem of the set in my view. As with problem E, slam may be hopeless, but it would be most impractical to play this hand below the 6-level. The primary message of 4♠ is a slam try in clubs, but if my next bid is hearts then partner should know that I was always planning on playing in that suit. If partner signs off in 5♣ I will jump to 6♥ next (as opposed to torturing him with another cuebid). This should give him some rights to bid 7, but in reality that is never going to happen. If he jumps to 6♣ over 4♠ I will raise to 7♣ and expect him to make it. A reasonable altnernative is to bid 5♠ as "exclusion keycard blackwood" and guess what trump suit to play in at the 7-level if partner shows the AK of clubs (I would guess hearts)."

Agreeing with Fred in virtually all aspects was Frances and Jeffrey . They explained their choice of 4♠ as: Although we have a 'take-out double' shape, we can't double as it's too likely to end the auction.

We had a debate about the meanings of various spade and NT bids and came to the following conclusions:

• 4♠ = good club raise, strong slam try
  
• 5♠ = spade void, looking for grand in clubs
  
• 6♠ = well, we'd like it to show this hand, asking partner to pick a suit at the 7-level. But we're concerned that it actually should be (or could be) natural. Yes, possibly you would double first then bid spades with spades (certainly at rubber when you are probably playing double as penalties....) but we can't face the pain of playing in our 3-0 fit at the 6-level.
  
• 4NT = I'm afraid this is another one we play as natural. I'm not sure BBO-Advanced has defined it.
  
• 5NT = sounds to us like grand slam force in clubs. Yes, you could bid 4S then 5NT, so perhaps it should be 'pick a suit'. In fact, perhaps it should be this hand - but another one we don't want to risk.

So we're bidding 4♠ now. If partner bids 4NT (sign-off) or 5♣ (also a sign-off on a different type of hand) we shall bid 6♥ and he should get the message. If he bids 6♣ we shall raise. The ability to jump to 6♥ over a club sign-off has persuaded us to follow this route. In our style, if partner has 4 diamonds he has 5 clubs so we aren't worried about missing a diamond fit. This is a good example of why it helps to have a solid agreement on what to open with 4-4 in the minors.

ng 4♠ Grand slam is in the picture. I will bid hearts next time. 5H will be forcing after 5C, so no need to hurry

Beto: 4♠. No way to stop here. Over 5♣ i will bid 5NT asking partner to pick a slam. If he bids 5♦/♥ i will bid 5♠ trying to reach grand.

Luis: 4♠, I was tempted to bid 5NT but then I won't know if I have to play 7♣ or 7♥ and guessing the trump suit at the 7 level is not my idea of healthy bidding. The idea of 4♠ is to see if pd can bid 5♣ if he can then I will bid 5NT and be happy to play 6 or 7 clubs knowing we do have a real club suit. When pd can't bid 5♣ he will probably bid 4NT I will bid 6♥ over 4NT and won't blame pd if he can't bid 7 but I guess he will know he has to bid the grand with AK of diamonds and 2 or 3 cards in hearts.

Joker_Gib took Fred's second option of using exclusion blackwood: 5♠ Maybe optimistic but it should show a monstruous hand and the ♠ void. Partner has probably the rest of working HCP's for his opening so "where do we play seven, partner ?"

MikeH 6♥. I have to guess here and my choices appear to be 4N keycard in ♣ or a direct 6♥. The problem with 4NT is that the answer won't help. I will find out about keycards if partner holds 3 but will be guessing if he holds 2 and, more importantly, I will have no idea as to his shape. If he is (for example) 2=2=3=6, then we should play in ♣, maybe at the 7 level. If he is 4=3=3=3, we should play in ♥. I cannot find out enough, so I blast to what rates to be a decent spot, if not the best.

Roland came up with a unique option. 4NT. No, it's not Blackwood and it doesn't show club support. I have 4S available with a powerhouse and clubs. 4NT will normally be two places to play. Anything is possible here, and clubs could still be the best strain. The problem with 4NT here is Frances says it is natural, MikeH says is is for keycards in clubs, and here Roland suggest it is two places to play. I have to admit, I would think it would be natural and slam try.

Scores:
4♠ = 100 (6 votes)
5♠ = 60 (1 vote)
6♥ = 50 (1 vote)
4NT = 30 (1 vote)

And in closing, Frances asked this question of the moderator. p.s. Chicago? Since when has chicago been shown on BBO Vugraph?

All I can say is that at the time I put this problem in the set, Chicago Bears were still in the playoff hunt. Go Bears... uhps, too late on that one.

[han]

This is a very difficult hand for a poll, because the right answer depends very much on the agreements, and it is clear that BBO doesn't have any agreements for this situation.

I like the response by Frances and Jeffrey, who reject several options because they are not sure what the bids are. I think that this is common for difficult hands that actually occur at the bridge table (at least for me). There often are often undiscussed bids that could/should show exactly what you have, but if you have a reasonable unambiguous alternative then you don't risk it.