[luis]

mike777, on Feb 21 2006, 12:02 AM, said:

luis, on Feb 20 2006, 06:11 PM, said:

For the bidding I think his distribution has to be 2-4-2-5, at least that is in my view the most expected shape he can have for the bidding. He might have something like:
Jx
AJxx
xx
KQJxx

or

xx
AJxx
xx
KQJxx

or

Jx
AT8x
Qx
KQJTx

I would bid 6NT because if there is a problem in clubs or hearts  the contract is not inmediately down, since there will be squeeze chances. If I choose to play in clubs or hearts instead I commit myself to find a good trump break and since there's nothing to ruff at all I think that 6NT will bring most chances to our side.

I do not understand bidding 4H with any of these hands. When do you bid 3H? I assume your opening one bid promised some values? Are all of these a mandatory opening bid let alone a jump to 4h in Fred's system?

Because you don't play to miss the vulnerable games, pd made a game-try so if you open light you are only supossed to reject the try on a very very bad hand such as:

xxx
Axxx
QJx
KQx

A hand with 5 good clubs and 4 card support in hearts should accept a try regardless of the strength.
That is what I think may be wrong for Fred-Brad style.

Luis

[kenrexford]

In my humble opinion, the ONLY reason for a bash bid here (remember, why did Brad not cuebid) is to avoid a damaging lead. Isolation of diamonds as weak encourages a diamond lead, which may be bad. This leads to the 1435 conclusion.

Of course, the counter to all of this is that such a bash isolates diamonds as much as cuebidding. This is one objection I have to not making cooperative cuebids. The bash theory often isolates the problem you are trying to hide as much as actually bidding around the problem, if the opponents are good.

This assessment, of course, is VERY subject to the theory that 4H isolates diamond weakness. If 4H does not logically lead to this conclusion, then my diamond leads against this auction are unfounded. Hence, I am either doubly right or doubly wrong. LOL! However, Fred's actual hand suggests that this was, indeed, the correct analysis.

With, say, 2425, without any pointed values and no club King and no heart Queen, 4H does seem insane. A moysian try is more plausible. Even worse is 4414, as there would be no rational reason for hiding the diamond feature.

[Walddk]

luis, on Feb 21 2006, 03:01 AM, said:

mike777, on Feb 21 2006, 12:02 AM, said:

luis, on Feb 20 2006, 06:11 PM, said:

For the bidding I think his distribution has to be 2-4-2-5, at least that is in my view the most expected shape he can have for the bidding. He might have something like:
Jx
AJxx
xx
KQJxx

or

xx
AJxx
xx
KQJxx

or

Jx
AT8x
Qx
KQJTx

I would bid 6NT because if there is a problem in clubs or hearts  the contract is not inmediately down, since there will be squeeze chances. If I choose to play in clubs or hearts instead I commit myself to find a good trump break and since there's nothing to ruff at all I think that 6NT will bring most chances to our side.

I do not understand bidding 4H with any of these hands. When do you bid 3H? I assume your opening one bid promised some values? Are all of these a mandatory opening bid let alone a jump to 4h in Fred's system?

Because you don't play to miss the vulnerable games, pd made a game-try so if you open light you are only supossed to reject the try on a very very bad hand such as:

xxx
Axxx
QJx
KQx

A hand with 5 good clubs and 4 card support in hearts should accept a try regardless of the strength.
That is what I think may be wrong for Fred-Brad style.

Luis

I agree with Luis. Another way of thinking when you are asked how good your hand is within the minimum range:

1) What is my holding in the trial suit?
2) Do I have aces and kings, or quacks?
3) What is my shape? Could it have been worse?
4) Which format is it, MP or IMPs?
5) What is the vulnerability?

You need to ask yourself all those questions before deciding if you have a minimum-mininum or maximum-minimum.

3433 with 3 small spades is the worst possible, so we can rule that out. We can also discard all hands with 3-card heart support. Those hands would not insist on hearts. A leap to game should deny a singleton, because it takes all room away in case responder is slam going.

All this will lead to the conclusion that opener is 2425 and max-min. Since the subsequent auction reveals that he doesn't have ♥Q, his club suit must be very good. His point count should be 13-14, possibly even 15 with:

♠ Jx
♥ AJxx
♦ QJ
♣ KQJxx

In an ideal world he also has ♣10, but that is probably too much to ask. ♦Qx is more likely than QJ because he might have opened 1NT on 15 and this shape in order to avoid a rebid problem after 1♣ - 1♠.

I am sure Fred gave this a lot of thought before deciding what to do over 5♥. I am waiting (im)patiently to see what he did, but I think you can read between the lines that 6NT was what he came out of the tank with.

Question 3: How do you play as declarer?

Fred must have had the problem, not Brad.

Roland

[Echognome]

I agree that responder is most likely to be 2=4=2=5. Could responded not also be 3=4=2=4?

I imagine I'd bid the same way with:

♠JTx
♥JTxx
♦Qx
♣AKQx

[benlessard]

Ive assume 2s as help-suit game try but i think youre are right its advanced natural (esp since Fred bid 2s with AKQx instead of bidding 3c with 3 little) therefore a stiff is a minus and 4h should show . 2425 shapes.

We need to know if 3 clubs could be bid with a minimum with solid clubs but i dont think so.

As for the Q♦ or the ♠J its depend on how light they open and how light they bid game instead of bidding 3 wich is probably very light in both case.


Ben

[fred]

Good job by a lot of you for coming about as close as possible to figuring this one out and for selecting the same final contract (6NT) that I did. Special congrats to Echoname for thinking of a viable hand for partner that did not even occur to me until I was on an airplane on the way home (but I agree with Jlall that this hand is not very likely). Roland gets a star as well for suggesting Brad's actual spade holding (which I also admit is not very likely).

Partner's actually hand was:

♠109
♥AJ8x
♦Qx
♣KQJxx

Of course this did not have to be his exact hand. In retrospect perhaps I was overbidding somewhat in my original post when I suggested that it was possible to figure out almost exactly what Brad was dealt. I also agree that this problem is a lot easier to "solve" if you are familiar with Brad's style - something that I obviously have a lot more knowledge of than anyone else.

Now that I have thought about it some more, what is really cool about this hand is that you can figure out that it is very likely that Brad was dealt the KQJxx. Situations like this are extremely rare when you play a natural system.

He certainly could have been 1435, but in this case he would have sound high card values, because this distribution presents "rebid problems" for us (because rebidding 2♣ shows a 6-card suit in our system). We rebid 1NT over 1♠ with such hands. Probably I should have mention this in my original post (sorry).

Since rebidding 1NT with a singleton is not exactly an appealling prospect, we prefer to Pass marginal opening bids with hands that contain this pattern. This makes it less likely that 6♣ is right because Brad would Pass some of the 1435 hands with Jxx or (especially) xxx of diamonds.

In any case, at the table my mental simulation of the few hands that were possible for Brad suggested that 6♣ would occasionally be better than 6NT, but that it was more likely that 6NT was better. The actual hand that Brad held is a good example. Still, well done by many of you for even considering 6♣.

So enough with the bidding. You get a diamond lead against 6NT. How do you play?

There are a lot of possible variations based on how the defenders cards could be distributed and how they might play so this is not exactly a great play problem in its current form (or in any form for that matter). I suggest that you don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out and describe all of these variations.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[luis]

Well let's see:
Club to the K is of course a given, then enter dummy again with a spade and lead another club, if clubs are 3-2 then I can play the safety play in hearts for 12. If clubs happen to be 4-1 then I only have 2 club tricks so I need 4 hearts then heart to dummy and finesse the Jack, then I need the spade+clubs squeeze.

Luis

[42]

Hi!
I know I interrupt a bit the process here but I would like to say that I really, really ♥love♥ this thread! The various ways of thinking and working out what is going on without complicated conventional stuff are very interesting. After the last BBP I did not dare to express myself here but I found my solution
I hope for more of this! Fred, can I get an autograph in Verona? Perhaps I will wear a fan t-shirt
Caren

[cherdano]

luis, on Feb 21 2006, 06:11 PM, said:

Well let's see:
Club to the K is of course a given, then enter dummy again with a spade and lead another club, if clubs are 3-2 then I can play the safety play in hearts for 12. If clubs happen to be 4-1 then I only have 2 club tricks so I need 4 hearts then heart to dummy and finesse the Jack, then I need the spade+clubs squeeze.

Luis

I don't know a safety play in hearts for no loser...

Assuming clubs break 3-2, we will certainly play for the drop in one major, and then take the finesse, or play for a drop/squeeze in the other major.

My immediate guess is to start with spades. If I then know LHO is guarding the suit, I will play for the squeeze (which is essentially a free finesse with the bonus of picking up ♥Qx offside). If I know RHO is guarding the suit, then the heart finesse seems better.

It seems the only close case is what to do when both follow to 3 rounds of spades. It looks to me that the squeeze is better.

Arend

[joshs]

Well club to the K, Heart to the K club up. If clubs are 3-2 and the heart Q hadn't already fallen, you then want to combine chances in spades and hearts. The Spade J will come down 3/7 of 62% + 2/7 of 30% +1/7 of 7%=36%. The heart Q will come down 40% of 68% (the 4-1 case with a stiff Q is already eliminated) =27%, so at this point you should cash the clubs, pitching hearts (maybe there is a major suit squeeeze) then cash spades, and take the heart finesse if the SJ doesn't come down.

If clubs are 4-1 offside, you need both major suits to come in. It seems right to take both finesse's (am I vul? I don't really want to go down 5 vul but the difference between down 3 and down 5 will probably not be that many imps...). If they already won the club ace, I am going after hearts first, in case the 4'th heart squeezes the player with the long clubs in clubs and spades.

If clubs are 4-1 onside, I should cross in spades and lead the 3'rd club, they win the ace and clear diamonds. Now I am in the wrong hand to cash clubs before spades, so just have to give up on the squeeze and cash the spades and then take a heart hook if needed (LHO can't have 4 hearts, 4 spades, 4 clubs and 2+diamonds).


Well thats my initial thought...
Josh

[mikeh]

It seems right to go after ♣ immediately, but when (if) the first ♣ holds, how do we get back to our hand?

Assume we get 4♣: that gets us 11 winners, and the count will be rectified so a major suit squeeze will operate against either defender holding the ♥Q and 4+♠, plus the chances of a natural drop in either major.

Let's assume a ♠ back to hand and a ♣ up.

If RHO shows out, I'd cross again in ♠ and lead my last ♣.

LHO has to win then or next time and plays a ♦ back. I am in my hand and the only entry to dummy is in ♥. I had better cash my last top ♠, throwing a ♥ from dummy.

Assume the ♠J did not drop (if it did, I have 12 tricks.... if I had to play a 4th ♣ from dummy to drive out the A, I pitched a low ♥, not the ♠8.

Now I have reduced to:

     void
     AJx
     void
     x


     8
     K9x
     void
     void

and am in my hand.

In this scenario, with ♣ being 4-1, rho being short, I will play for RHO being squeezed in the majors: I cross to the ♥A and cash my ♣.


If the ♣ were 1-4, then I have only 2 ♣ tricks and need 8 major suit winners.

RHO wins the 2nd ♣... and clears ♦. Cash the ♥K, in case of stiff Q offside. Hook the J and run the ♠10.

I admit that I have not thought through this last scenario: too busy to spend the time right now. For one thing, there may be variations depending on when or if rho wins his ♣.

[Walddk]

joshs, on Feb 21 2006, 05:40 PM, said:

Well club to the K, Heart to the K club up. If clubs are 3-2 and the heart Q hadn't already fallen, you then want to combine chances in spades and hearts. The Spade J will come down 3/7 of 62% + 2/7 of 30% +1/7 of 7%=36%. The heart Q will come down 40% of 68% (the 4-1 case with a stiff Q is already eliminated) =27%, so at this point you should cash the clubs, pitching hearts (maybe there is a major suit squeeeze) then cash spades, and take the heart finesse if the SJ doesn't come down.

You are playing against world class/expert players, remember. Say LHO wins ♣A (both following) and exits with a heart through your AJ. Then what? Besides, what if RHO follows with the 10 when you enter your hand with a heart to your king. They are quite capable of doing that from 10x if that is his holding.

As far as I can see you assume that a diamond comes back. We don't know if that will happen.

Roland

[pclayton]

fred, on Feb 21 2006, 07:54 AM, said:

Good job by a lot of you for coming about as close as possible to figuring this one out and for selecting the same final contract (6NT) that I did. Special congrats to Echoname for thinking of a viable hand for partner that did not even occur to me until I was on an airplane on the way home (but I agree with Jlall that this hand is not very likely). Roland gets a star as well for suggesting Brad's actual spade holding (which I also admit is not very likely).

Partner's actually hand was:

♠109
♥AJ8x
♦Qx
♣KQJxx

Of course this did not have to be his exact hand. In retrospect perhaps I was overbidding somewhat in my original post when I suggested that it was possible to figure out almost exactly what Brad was dealt. I also agree that this problem is a lot easier to "solve" if you are familiar with Brad's style - something that I obviously have a lot more knowledge of than anyone else.

Now that I have thought about it some more, what is really cool about this hand is that you can figure out that it is very likely that Brad was dealt the KQJxx. Situations like this are extremely rare when you play a natural system.

He certainly could have been 1435, but in this case he would have sound high card values, because this distribution presents "rebid problems" for us (because rebidding 2♣ shows a 6-card suit in our system). We rebid 1NT over 1♠ with such hands. Probably I should have mention this in my original post (sorry).

Since rebidding 1NT with a singleton is not exactly an appealling prospect, we prefer to Pass marginal opening bids with hands that contain this pattern. This makes it less likely that 6♣ is right because Brad would Pass some of the 1435 hands with Jxx or (especially) xxx of diamonds.

In any case, at the table my mental simulation of the few hands that were possible for Brad suggested that 6♣ would occasionally be better than 6NT, but that it was more likely that 6NT was better. The actual hand that Brad held is a good example. Still, well done by many of you for even considering 6♣.

So enough with the bidding. You get a diamond lead against 6NT. How do you play?

There are a lot of possible variations based on how the defenders cards could be distributed and how they might play so this is not exactly a great play problem in its current form (or in any form for that matter). I suggest that you don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out and describe all of these variations.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Fred:

I would think that in your cue bidding system (assuming you still play along the same lines as your previous articles) that Brad's hand could rebid 4♣, which should be a game accept with 4 trump and a good club suit (2 of the top 3 honors).

Conversely, I would think that a jump to 4♥ should deny such a strong club holding.

[cherdano]

joshs, on Feb 21 2006, 06:40 PM, said:

Well club to the K, Heart to the K club up. If clubs are 3-2 and the heart Q hadn't already fallen, you then want to combine chances in spades and hearts. The Spade J will come down 3/7 of 62% + 2/7 of 30% +1/7 of 7%=36%. The heart Q will come down 40% of 68% (the 4-1 case with a stiff Q is already eliminated) =27%, so at this point you should cash the clubs, pitching hearts (maybe there is a major suit squeeeze) then cash spades, and take the heart finesse if the SJ doesn't come down.

You mention the squeeze, but you forget it in your percentage computation. Playing for the drops will work whenever ♠J and ♥Q are in the same hand.

Arend

[mikeh]

I forgot to mention that if ♣ are 3-2, several scenarios arise.

If the A is doubleton, I preserve communication to the board in the suit, but if not, my only entry will be in ♥. Furthermore, as Roland pointed out, LHO might win the ♣ A at some point and play a ♥ (which is why, in my first post I posed the question of how to return to hand after the 1st ♣, and chose a ♠).

If LHO leads a ♥, I can duck because of my 9, and that gives me an extra chance: however, LHO is unlikely to do that because my holding is unknown and he might be giving away a 2-way finesse even when he holds xx or xxx.

Assume ♦ are cleared. If I still have a ♣ entry, I run the ♣, pitching two ♥s. I am in essence playing for some combination of the ♠J dropping, the ♥Q being doubleton or a major suit squeeze: I think these chances are far greater than a simple major suit finesse.

If I do not have a ♣ entry, I am more awkwardly placed. I cash the ♥K and then cross to the ♥A to run my ♣ winners, pitching ♥. This preserves all of the options of the above play: but it was important to unblock the ♥K.

If RHO wins the ♣ and returns a ♠, then I rise.

Note that if ♣ are 4-1 and RHO wins the 1st ♣ and returns a ♠, I have lost the chance to hook the ♠ and will need a miracle to make.

If ♣ are 3-2 and RHO wins and returns a ♠, then if I have a ♣ entry to dummy, I cash my top ♠ winners and go to dummy in ♣ to run the ♣, pitching ♥s.

If I have no ♣ entry and RHO returns a ♠, I am in a pickle, because I lack communication.

So I cash the top ♠, hoping the J drops and if it does not, I take the percentage play in the ♥ suit: K and low to the J.

[joshs]

Walddk, on Feb 21 2006, 11:53 AM, said:

joshs, on Feb 21 2006, 05:40 PM, said:

Well club to the K, Heart to the K club up. If clubs are 3-2 and the heart Q hadn't already fallen, you then want to combine chances in spades and hearts. The Spade J will come down 3/7 of 62% + 2/7 of 30% +1/7 of 7%=36%. The heart Q will come down 40% of 68% (the 4-1 case with a stiff Q is already eliminated) =27%, so at this point you should cash the clubs, pitching hearts (maybe there is a major suit squeeeze) then cash spades, and take the heart finesse if the SJ doesn't come down.

You are playing against world class/expert players, remember. Say LHO wins ♣A (both following) and exits with a heart through your AJ. Then what? Besides, what if RHO follows with the 10 when you enter your hand with a heart to your king. They are quite capable of doing that from 10x if that is his holding.

As far as I can see you assume that a diamond comes back. We don't know if that will happen.

Roland

A valid point, but if a heart comes back I am taking a hook. The position is more psychological than technical, since LHO cant see my spade 8, and can't break up any squeezes by a heart return, all they can do is prevent me from cashing spades first before hearts and they CANT know that that line will produce 12 tricks (well maybe if they have 2345 of spades and are sure I have 4 spades for my 2S bid). I can't know for sure, but I think a defender is much more likely to return a heart while holding the heart Q than not holding it.

My reason to cross in hearts first and not in spades, is because I may need to take 2 hooks if clubs are really bad. But its close whether the improvement from 36% to 50% in spades for that case may not be worth the slight additional risk posed by clubs breaking, club A onside, and the defense deciding to switch to hearts as you suggest. If it was likely that I would get a heart switch, it might swing the odds slightly toward crossing in spades first instead of hearts.

Lets see. 34% of the club positions will be 3-2 with the club A on. Let p=probability of getting a heart switch when you were going to make it, and let q=probability of getting a heart switch when you were going down a bunch. Probably, q is close to 0.

Crossing in spades instead of hearts costs you:7% on the 4-1 break ofside (14% in spades * 50% in hearts since you need both to work). So its bad 7%*14%=1%.

(At this point in the calculation I am already sure Roland is correct, but lets continue anyway)

Combining chances in spades and hearts is worth 18% (68% vs 50%) in the club 3-2 with A onside cases. So the probability cost is 34%*18%*p=6.5%*p So if p is bigger than about 1 in 7, you should cross in spades first. OK, I think p is probably 20% or so. Well there is not that big a difference between the lines, but roland has convinced me that crossing in spades first is probably better. Now if I cross first in spades, and they return a diamond, I can't cash hearts first and then take the spade hook because of the blocked suit, so I would still have to use the cash spades and then take a heart hook line.

Hmm, personally on these hands, one (potentially readable) hesitation by a defender is worth 5% in a probability calulation or so....

[fred]

At the table the first round of clubs held and I chose to return to my hand in spades. RHO won the second round of clubs as LHO discarded a diamond.

RHO returned a spade.

What now?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[luis]

Seems that you have to play low and finesse for the sJ since the squeeze is ruined after the spade return. Then herart to dummy cash the spades and finesse in hearts hope the heart Q is onside with hearts 3-2 and the sJ is onside too.
Sort of 50% since the heart position is always needed

Luis

[han]

No Luis, you have 3 spades, 3 diamonds and 2 clubs, so if the hearts come in then you don't need the spade finesse.

Still thinking about my answer Fred..