[kenberg]

Not only am I heavily outvoted, it also turns out I am wrong. Well!

[ucrman]

I used Bridge Buff to generate hands for the above auction, and these were the results for 20 deals.

13 had both 5H and 4S making
2 had 5H down and 4S making
3 had 5H making and 4S down
2 had both 5H and 4S down

I voted for 5H.

[mike777]

As a nonexpert here, just what am I allowed to know about the opp agreements and understandings in how they preempt when unfav vul? What questions should I ask or is it just clear to double here and not say a thing?

In this deal the opp had only 9 spades and 5 hearts at unfav, is this common enough, twice in a year, to be told that is how they preempt?

[jdonn]

ucrman, on Apr 9 2007, 06:45 PM, said:

I used Bridge Buff to generate hands for the above auction, and these were the results for 20 deals.

13 had both 5H and 4S making
2 had 5H down and 4S making
3 had 5H making and 4S down
2 had both 5H and 4S down

I voted for 5H.

I have a very strong feeling you made the conditions for the 4♥ bid too stringent. What were your constraints?

[ucrman]

I had no constraints. I actually used Visual Deal which is part of Bridge Buff. I just gave the auction and inserted the hand above as East. Bridge Buff decided the other hands.

In a recent team event, I held QJ,AJ98,AJ10764,7
None Vul
The bidding went 1C-3S-5C - I doubled and it made. 5S goes down 1 or 2.

[mike777]

ucrman, on Apr 9 2007, 10:02 PM, said:

I had no constraints. I actually used Visual Deal which is part of Bridge Buff. I just gave the auction and inserted the hand above as East. Bridge Buff decided the other hands.

In a recent team event, I held QJ,AJ98,AJ10764,7
None Vul
The bidding went 1C-3S-5C - I doubled and it made. 5S goes down 1 or 2.

Thanks for info/feedback. Very interesting.

[marcD]

Know i am late to the party but for me the dbl is clear cut. What is less clear is the 4H bid. The offensive efensive ratio is not good so the overcall is at best marginal

[paulg]

mike777, on Apr 10 2007, 12:52 AM, said:

As a nonexpert here, just what am I allowed to know about the opp agreements and understandings in how they preempt when unfav vul? What questions should I ask or is it just clear to double here and not say a thing?

In this deal the opp had only 9 spades and 5 hearts at unfav, is this common enough, twice in a year, to be told that is how they preempt?

Hi Mike,

You are certainly entitled to know their pre-empting agreements and style.

However it can be difficult to extract this information on-line due to language, differing national standards (what is normal?) and expectations for the level of the player (an "expert" would know). Describing pre-empts is not a science, so you will rarely get something like "7+♠, 3 of the 5 honours" .. it is more likely that you will see "6+♠, 0-11 HCP" if you really push.

In general I believe Europeans have a more flexible style in this area than the North Americans and will pre-empt with a wider variety of hands. Knowing this suggests that double is even more likely to be the right call.

I'm sure if I posted the hand as a poll (♠A10xxxxx ♥x ♦Qxx ♣Kx) then a minority would actually open 3♠ but most would not be surprised if someone did.

Edit: I should have added that it was opened 3♠ in the other room, by one of the (European) posters in this thread

Hope this helps,

Paul

This post has been edited by cardsharp: 2007-April-10, 02:21

[mike777]

ya ya ya

Let me give you a simple example....3s= 7 playing tricks at unfav vul and denies outside ace or k.......Is that helpful?

second example.....3s at unfav vul=random...your guess is as good as mine..even though Iplay with this guy for years we have no partnership understanding or agreements...ya ya ya right? In any case i raise my random partner to 4s at unfav vul....


Does this seem suspect to only us nonexpert players....?????

[jchiu]

cardsharp, on Apr 10 2007, 08:16 AM, said:

I'm sure if I posted the hand as a poll (♠A10xxxxx ♥x ♦Qxx ♣Kx) then a minority would actually open 3♠ but most would not be surprised if someone did.

Edit: I should have added that it was opened 3♠ in the other room, by one of the (European) posters in this thread

I was actually expecting much more than a minority to open 3♠ on this hand, since the American contingent has a much sounder preempting style. However, I don't think any of us require six and a half playing tricks anymore.

[FrancesHinden]

mike777, on Apr 9 2007, 03:09 PM, said:

Hmm the opp are at unfav vul yes and only have 9 spades but bid to the 4 level? I am reading this correctly? You said they were competent.

Looks as if 4S their way was on the spade finesse. Hardly "incompetent" to bid a vulnerable game on a finesse.

[kenberg]

mike777, on Apr 9 2007, 06:52 PM, said:

As a nonexpert here, just what am I allowed to know about the opp agreements and understandings in how they preempt when unfav vul? What questions should I ask or is it just clear to double here and not say a thing?

In this deal the opp had only 9 spades and 5 hearts at unfav, is this common enough, twice in a year, to be told that is how they preempt?

A fair question. I think it depends on the game. Suppose I am playing in an an online acbl tourney with, say, a partner that I play with roughly once a week. I have sucha partner. What is our preempting style?

Let's make it specific. Would she open 3S vul on ♠A10xxxxx ♥x ♦Qxx ♣Kx ?

I don't know. I probably wouldn't. I think she might. I am not sure. Is she obligated, as a self-alert, to explain more to the opponents about her bidding than I know? If she and I sat down to actually hammer out agreements, we probably couldn't play together because I know from experience we see things differently. But we do play. She does things her way, I do things my way, it more or less works. I don't mean we have different conventional meanings, we don't. But she opens 2H vul on hands where I would not consider such a call.

If you are playing against a professional pair in a nationally rated event, it's different. They are supposed to have agreements, and they are supposed to tell you what they are. Of course I willing give information to opponents about our conventional agreements. For example, if I am about to lead a coded 9 or ten at trick 1, I message them that it shows 0 or 2 and then lead it. But if in the middle of a hand I lead a 9 and they ask me to explain it, I tell them it seemed to me to be the right lead at the time. In this case at hand, the agreement, such as it is, would probably be that one person thought this to be a 3S opening and the other thought his hand worth 4S. I'm fine with that.

It's true that I expected the hands to produce more than 18 total tricks, hence my unloved 5H bid. I've been wrong before. Probably I will be again sometime. My partners, if they stick around, learn to live with this.

[mikeh]

ucrman, on Apr 9 2007, 10:02 PM, said:

I had no constraints.  I actually used Visual Deal which is part of Bridge Buff.  I just gave the auction and inserted the hand above as East.  Bridge Buff decided the other hands.

In a recent team event, I held QJ,AJ98,AJ10764,7
None Vul
The bidding went 1C-3S-5C - I doubled and it made.  5S goes down 1 or 2.

I have not used Bridge Buff, but I am familiar with simulations, and I suspect that you, in essence, used Bridge Buffs constraints...which I strongly suspect were far different from those used by most good players.... to me it is extremely counter-intuitive that both sides make 11 tricks so frequently in a small sample. I am willing to bet that almost all of your deals had the opps with 10-11 spades, as an example.

[whereagles]

I think it was cherdano who once pointed out to a known misconception in conditioned probability theory which led to LARGE ERRORS in simulations with constraints.

To trust Bridge Buff results, you have to make sure it is generating hands in the correct manner. As mikeh, I also find it strange that 11 tricks are there most of the time.