[inquiry]

Ok. here are two I witnessed today, Pclayton was at the table so his comments might be useful here as well. To avoid double dummy hand analysis, we will will only show one hand each time, with all the alerts etc.

First hand. You pass, your LHO opens 1S, partner bids 2H, you try a natural, NF 2NT, partner pulls to 3H, back to you.

[/ONEHAND]

Scoring: IMP

What does LOTT, FTL, and ZAR say?

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Second hand, you are third seat. After your partner passes, you overvall your RHO 1♥ bid with 2♦, partner, as a passed hand bids 2♠ which with three card support (see below) you pass. Your LHO wakes up now and bids 3♣ which gets passed back to you.

Scoring: IMP

What does LOTT, FTL, and ZAR say?

---

So your choice on this one is, pass and let them play 3C, rebid your diamonds, raise partner to 3S, or double I guess. What does ZAR, FTL, and LOTT say here? And what would be your choice?

[inquiry]

Here is another one.

Scoring: IMP

Partner opens 1C,
Next hand overcalls 1H
LHO bids a non-forcing 2D
Partner freely bids 2S (not playing Support X, so 3 or 4)

RHO passes
What does LOTT, FTL and ZAR say? And your bid is?

---

BTW, none of these three are tricks or difficult... just three hands to practice using the method of your choice, should you decide to give it a try.

[mikeh]

inquiry, on Jul 14 2006, 12:50 PM, said:

Ok. here are two I witnessed today, Pclayton was at the table so his comments might be useful here as well. To avoid double dummy hand analysis, we will will only show one hand each time, with all the alerts etc.

First hand. You pass, your LHO opens 1S, partner bids 2H, you try a natural, NF 2NT, partner pulls to 3H, back to you.

[/ONEHAND]

Scoring: IMP

What does LOTT, FTL, and ZAR say?

---

Second hand, you are third seat. After your partner passes, you overvall your RHO 1♥ bid with 2♦, partner, as a passed hand bids 2♠ which with three card support (see below) you pass. Your LHO wakes up now and bids 3♣ which gets passed back to you.

Scoring: IMP

What does LOTT, FTL, and ZAR say?

---

So your choice on this one is, pass and let them play 3C, rebid your diamonds, raise partner to 3S, or double I guess. What does ZAR, FTL, and LOTT say here?  And what would be your choice?

On 1, I don't use LOTT (and have not read FTL, but already know that LOTT is imperfect) for this kind of decision. And I don't pretend to know how to count Zar. So maybe my answer is irrelevant, but, as someone who routinely posts that the use of formulae is an obstacle, rather than a help, to learning how to play well, let's see what results my 'judgment' suggests.

I have described my hand to my partner. He has said that his hand is ill-suited to play in either 3N or 4♥, and that his hand suggests 3♥ rather than 2N. I have no extras: the 10♥ and the ♠9 are nice, but I hold no Aces and the ♠98 are not the same as 109, for example. I pass. Maybe I have missed game and, if so, maybe partner made the right bid, but I have to suspect that if game is on, then partner made an error: and I should not and will not bid in anticipation of an error.


On the second one, once again my ignorance of FTL and Zar renders my response of dubious value. I think that for LOTT purposes one can usefully assume that partner lacks 3♦s else he ought to bid in front of me. It is probable, but not certain, that he has 3♥...certainly it is most unlikely that LHO holds 3♥, but rho might well hold 6 or even a bad 7 and be unable to bid over 2♠. The most likely construction is that partner is 5=3=2=3 and that accordingly we hold a double fit and our hand is reasonably pure.. the ♣J is the only flaw.

The LOTT therefore suggests that there are approximately 18 total tricks, strongly suggesting that I compete. Which suit? Well, the main danger of competing is that opener has a good hand with, say, 4♠ and the AK of ♥... he may have a double available, knowing that we are on a 5-3 fit with minimal values and he has an easy path to a set. So I will bid 3♦, even tho that may be anti-positional in ♥. BTW, at the table, I would refer to LOTT as a check on what my instincts tell me: it can nudge me one way or the other on close decisions.

I will be interested to hear what the other valuation methods suggest... and to see how they accord with what passes (in my hands) for judgment.

[ArcLight]

Hand 1 -
Pard should have 6 hearts, and probably 1 Spade.
maybe 1=6=3-3 or 1=6=2-4

I think the Spade K = 0 with LHO bidding them and pard showing shortness.
We haev around 20 WP and a SST of 4. Im not ruffing anything.
3H is high enough.


Hand 2 -
We have the death holding in Hearts 3-3. Else LHO would have raised to 2.
Pard should have 5 Spades. With 6 and some points he'd bid a weak 2.

* - I assume pards 2S is not forcing, since he's a passed hand. I don't assume its a "fit raise". He bid to get us out of a bad contract.

Pard has a bunch of Clubs and is short diamonds.
5=3=1=4 ?
One thing the FTL website says is with fewer HCP you need more trumps to handle being forced.

I pass 3C.

[mike777]

1) Pass seems straight forward here.
2) 3D

I think pard will be 5=3=2=3
I do not think pard would bid 2s with a stiff D.
KQxxx...xxx...xx...Axx
or
KQxxx..Axx...xx...xxx

With a decent 4clubs he would X 3C.

[luke warm]

inquiry, on Jul 14 2006, 12:50 PM, said:

Scoring: IMP

What does LOTT, FTL, and ZAR say?

---

P (1S) 2H (P) 2NT (P) 3H (P)

here i'd discount my ♠K and pass... i also don't think my club honors are placed correctly, but i could be wrong

Quote

Scoring: IMP

What does LOTT, FTL, and ZAR say?

---

P (1H) 2D (P) 2S (P) P (3C) P (P)

and here i bid 3D... i think partner has 3 hearts and, probably, 3 clubs to go with his 5 spades... that leaves 2 diamonds and two 8 card fits... he can't be positive i hold 3 card spade support, but if my read is wrong (for example, if he does have 4 decent clubs and a stiff diamond) maybe my earlier pass of 2S will move him to 3

[inquiry]

inquiry, on Jul 14 2006, 12:50 PM, said:

First hand. You pass, your LHO opens 1S, partner bids 2H, you try a natural, NF 2NT, partner pulls to 3H, back to you.

Scoring: IMP

What does LOTT, FTL, and ZAR say?

---

First hand is, I think a no-brainer. But lets look at the three methods, and compare with both dogma and expert (mikeh) judgement.

ZAR - South has 10 hcp, 2 cp, 10 dp for 22. He will lose one for the Jx (well JT) of hearts for 21. When his partner overcalls at the two level in hearts, this is most often 6+, so assume 8 card H fit, he gets his point back for the heart JACK, and the theory is he gets an additional point for both the Jack and the ten of hearts too. That brings him from 21 to 24. However, counting JT as 3 points is a stretch without a fit, and the spade king on this auction is not carrying its full weight. So there should be a few point deduction. You told your partner you had around 23-24 points and short hearts. With major deduction of 2pt or so for the spade king ZAR clearly suggest pass.

LOTT - not much to go on. PArtner probably doensn't have seven hearts (no jump to game opposite 2NT) so you have 8 card fit. They might have a nine card spade fit, but 7 card is much more likely since your RHO didn't raise to 2S over 2H, you can expect partner to have one to three spades. They may have an 8 card minor fit, but looks about 16 total trumps, maybe 17. Not sure who can make what but the king in their suit is a red flag especially in the "wrong hand". LOTT suggest passing.

FTL - you can't count the short suit in your hand, since it is trumps, and your partner rates to have only a one suiter here, so the thought is partner is either 6322 or maybe 7222, but a strong 6 card suit and weak 4 card suit is still possible. I would estimate our "SST" at 4. What about working points. Is the spade king working? Probably not. But all the other points should be worknig, so we offer 7 wp. For partners opening bid, we assume a minimum (due to the weak response). This will be around 12 to 14 points. We will assume the middle of this range, and call it 13. 13 + 7 = 20. With SST, the base for tricks is 9, and with between 19-21 WP, FTL suggest no adjusment to the base. So pass is the suggested bid. But note, if partner has 6421, and same WP, FTL would suggest bidding on unless the singelton was in clubs (then your your 5HCP would not be working).

DOGMA - good old fashion, mom and pop bridge: You defined your hand with your 2NT bid on 1) distribution, and 2) Strength. Since you were a passed hand the stregth is even clearer. Youo are therefore the "mate" and partenr is the captain. PArtner said not 3NT, not 2NT,and not 4H. I want to play 3H. You have nothing unusal to over ride his decision.

Expert opinion - from mikeh was to pass.

So I think this one was easy,and everyone should arrive at the same conclusion. At the table, everyone had their bids, and pass was the winning call. But who knows. if you assume partner has a singleton for pulling 2NT, FTL would favor bidding game.

[inquiry]

inquiry, on Jul 14 2006, 12:50 PM, said:

Scoring: IMPS

P - 1H - 2D - P
2S - P - P - 3C
P - P - ?

---

So your choice on this one is, pass and let them play 3C, rebid your diamonds, raise partner to 3S, or double I guess. What does ZAR, FTL, and LOTT say here? And what would be your choice?

On this one, as others, before you can draw conclusion from LOTT or FTL or ZAR, you need to visualize what you know. Partner has at least five spades, but didn't open and didn't preempt. So 7S is surely out of the picture, and 6S is probably not that likely. PArtner didn't support your diamond overcall that is surely odds on to be 6+ suit, so he probably lacks 3 diamonds.

ZAR - you have 11 hcp, 4 cp, and 14 dp. Subtract one for the singleton Jack of clubs, brings total to 28 ZARS. In support of spades, you pick up one for the spade ace. There is some question about the singleton with three trumps only. Since you lack an excess trump, I would not count it. So you have 29 ZARS. With spades, partner would have opened with 25 ZARS, and he is unlikely to get an upgrade when yuo support him (he has promised 5S, so he can not count extra distribution unless he has the unlikely 6th spade). So his max is 24 ZARS, and is probably in the range of 20 to 24, say 22.5 on average. So you have a combined 51.5 ZARS. Close to game values (why did you pass 2S ZAR might ask?). Zar would suggest bidding on. But there is a bother, that ZAR doesn't cover here. What ever points you partner has is hearts will clearly be in the wrong hand. WEST surlly lacks heart legnth, and is weak with long clubs. I see no way to use ZAR from your side to evaluate that.

LOTT - We have an 8 card spade fit, they likely have 8 or 9 club fit. LOTT suggest 16.5 tricks. If they can make 3C, we are down one/two in 3S, if we can make 3S, they are down one/two in 3C. Is there any factor that might influence your bid? Yes, you are concerned about partners honors out side of spades. They will be in clubs or hearts and either of those will not be good for you. Those hcp in those suits represent lack of purity issues. To make matters worse, the heart honors will be under the gun, and we are vul. I think LOTT suggest passing and taking -110 or +50 rather than risk -100 or more (especially if West has diamond honors behind you for his first pass).

FTL - we have a fit (spades, ignore the legnth). Our hand contains 10 wp, and we have a singleton. Partner will have 8 to 11 points (he is a passed hand), but some of his points are surely in hearts or clubs and will not be working. Lets assume that he has three hcp in those two suits (a king, a queen and a jack), that will leave him with 8 WP, for a total for us of around, 18 WP. We have a singleton and a three card side suit, so SST can not be less than four. What about partner? He has (likely) five spades, and 2 or fewer diamonds, if he had only 1D he might have passed istned of encouraging us, so we will play him for something like 5332 or 5422. That give us an SST of 4, but in the later case, we have three short suits, so reducing it to an SST of 3. In fact, we will also have an SST of 3 if partner does have a singleton, so we will estimate SST of 3. With SST of 3, the base tricks is 10. With 16-18 wp, subtract one level. So FTL suggest we can win 9 trick in spades, like ZAR, it suggest bidding on.

DOGMA - patner didn;t open, I got 11 hcp, we shouldn't be in the auction at the three level, suggest pass.

Expert opinion - mikeh (he really is an expert), suggesting bidding on to the three level.

ZAR was the most agreesive, it would not have passed on the last round, FTL and expert opinion were both to bid on as well.

LOTT might suggest a cautious pass, but others could reach a different opinion on that issue. And DOGMA was clearly in favor or pass.

The winning action at the table was pass, since you are down two. To be fair, your partners biddign was not the best. He held KJxxxx Qxx void xxxx. clearly he should have passed 2D. That would have been doubled then he could run to 2S. But the actual result on the hand is irrelevant, the trick is to see what they different evalaution methods suggest.

[ArcLight]

Since when does FTL say to bid on in the 2nd hand?
It also says on the website that you can't count SSP at full value if you dont have many trump.
A couple of spade leads and your ruffing value of clubs is diminished.

You also need to think about that heart suit xxx. Pard also has xxx. Thats very easy to lose 3 quick tricks (AK ruff).

[mikeh]

inquiry, on Jul 14 2006, 03:21 PM, said:

The winning action at the table was pass, since you are down two. To be fair, your partners biddign was not the best. He held KJxxxx  Qxx  void  xxxx. clearly he should have passed 2D. That would have been doubled then he could run to 2S. But the actual result on the hand is irrelevant, the trick is to see what they different evalaution methods suggest.

This statement is, with all respect, absolute nonsense and this kind of argument is precisely why I still maintain that trying to play bridge by the use of formulae is counter-productive beyond the beginner/intermediate stage, where formulae are necessary evils.

To conclude that a judgment to bid is mistaken is ludicrous when the justification for that assessment is the fact that your partner made an error.

Now, had you given partner a cross-section of real 2♠ bids and then shown that on balance bidding on led to a poor result, I might (would) look closely at why and place that info in my databank of results.

But to state that bidding on was an error or that LOTT or Zar or an abacus would be a poor guide BECAUSE they suggest bidding and bidding works poorly is plain illogical.

Partner opens a strong 2N and I hold a balanced 19 count. The correct bid is 7N, but ... lo and behold, partner miscounted and opened on a 15 count. The result is down 1. And you use that result to argue that using the 4321 count in order to bid 7N reveals a flaw in the method, rather than a flaw in partner?

[inquiry]

mikeh, on Jul 14 2006, 07:01 PM, said:

inquiry, on Jul 14 2006, 03:21 PM, said:

The winning action at the table was pass, since you are down two. To be fair, your partners biddign was not the best. He held KJxxxx  Qxx  void  xxxx. clearly he should have passed 2D. That would have been doubled then he could run to 2S. But the actual result on the hand is irrelevant, the trick is to see what they different evalaution methods suggest.

This statement is, with all respect, absolute nonsense and this kind of argument is precisely why I still maintain that trying to play bridge by the use of formulae is counter-productive beyond the beginner/intermediate stage, where formulae are necessary evils.

To conclude that a judgment to bid is mistaken is ludicrous when the justification for that assessment is the fact that your partner made an error.

Now, had you given partner a cross-section of real 2♠ bids and then shown that on balance bidding on led to a poor result, I might (would) look closely at why and place that info in my databank of results.

But to state that bidding on was an error or that LOTT or Zar or an abacus would be a poor guide BECAUSE they suggest bidding and bidding works poorly is plain illogical.

Partner opens a strong 2N and I hold a balanced 19 count. The correct bid is 7N, but ... lo and behold, partner miscounted and opened on a 15 count. The result is down 1. And you use that result to argue that using the 4321 count in order to bid 7N reveals a flaw in the method, rather than a flaw in partner?

you took it the wrong way... your partner was "nuts", clearly bidding is the right bid. I merely added what happened at the table because people tend to ask later. I did not say "bidding was wrong" when I said what the "winning bid" was. Don't be so sensitive... I would bid with that hand too.. and after passing 2♠, I would have bid 3♦ just as you did, and argue it was the 100% correct bid.