[inquiry]

♦lr: West   ♠ A54  
Vul: Both   ♥ AJ973  
           ♦ 76    
♠ T96       ♣ K74       ♠ 2  
♥ KQ86                  ♥ 542  
♦ JT52                  ♦ AQ984  
♣ J8        ♠ KQJ873    ♣ 9532  
           ♥ T  
           ♦ K3    
           ♣ AQT6  

#1
West   North  East   South  
Pass   Pass   Pass   1♠  
Pass   2♥     Pass   3♠  
Pass   6♠     Pass   Pass  
Pass  
#2
West   North  East   South  
Pass   Pass   Pass   1♠  
Pass   2♥     Pass   2♠  
Pass   4♠     Pass   4NT    
Pass   5♥     Pass   6♠  
Pass   Pass   Pass  
#3
West   North  East   South  
Pass   Pass   Pass   4♠  
Pass   6♠     Pass   Pass  
Pass  
#4
West   North  East   South  
Pass   1♥     Pass   2♠  
Pass   3♠     Pass   4NT    
Pass   5♥     Pass   6♠  
Pass   Pass   Pass  
#5
West   North  East   South  
Pass   1♥     Pass   1♠  
Pass   1NT    Pass   2♣  
Pass   2♠     Pass   4NT    
Pass   5♥     Pass   6♠  
Pass   Pass   Pass  
#6
West   North  East   South  
Pass   1♥     Pass   1♠  
Pass   2♠     Pass   4NT    
Pass   5♥     Pass   6♠  
Pass   Pass   Pass  
#7
West   North  East   South  
Pass   1♥     Pass   1♠  
Pass   1NT    Pass   3♠  
Pass   4♠     Pass   4NT    
Pass   5♥     Pass   6♠  
Pass   Pass   Pass  
#8
West   North  East   South  
Pass   1♥     Pass   1♠  
Pass   1NT    Pass   4NT    
Pass   5♥     Pass   6♠  
Pass   Pass   Pass  
#9
West   North  East   South    
Pass   Pass   Pass   1♠  
Pass   2♥     Pass   3♠  
Pass   6♠     Pass   Pass  
Pass  
#10
West   North  East   South    
Pass   1♥    Pass   1NT*  
Pass   2♠     Pass   3♣  
Pass   4♠     Pass   4NT  
Pass   5♥     Pass   6♠  
Pass   Pass   Pass  

*5+♠s


BTW, i grabbed all these auctions from one hand set from Bridgebrowser...someone asked if this could be done. I didn;'t think so, but I was wrong... i found it when I looked.

[han]

Frankly, I'm getting tired of the bridgebrowser adds. As for the bridge question, my auction would start with 1H-1S-2S-2NT-3C, where 2NT is an ask and 3C shows a 3-card raise with a club fragment (not forcing). I imagine that that would lead to slam.

[pclayton]

I like 4 and 10. I'm not sure why 2 is added into these as a combo platter.

North is a mandatory opener and a mandatory raise of 1♠ (or 2♠).

I think in a good field, you'd have most of the auctions start 1♥ - 1♠ - 2♠ and they would diverge from there.

[cjames]

han, on Mar 10 2008, 11:51 AM, said:

Frankly, I'm getting tired of the bridgebrowser adds.

Me too.

My auction would go:
1♥-1♠
1NT -2♦(GF)
2♠-3♠(SI ♠)
4♣-4♦
4♥-4NT
5♥-6♠

[MFA]

My own: 1♥-1♠, 2♠-3♣, 4♠-4NT
3♣ is a trialbid with 5 spades. If p signs off in 3♠, I'll try one more time with 4♣.

6 (1♥-1♠, 2♠-4NT)
is not unreasonable.

I can't see myself start in any other way than 1♥-1♠, 2♠ since a direct 2♠ would be WJS.

[awm]

I like auction 10 the best, assuming that 1NT alerted showed 5+♠.

Auctions 4, 5, and 6 all seem reasonable to me. It does seem like keycard was bid a bit prematurely (no harm in cuebidding for a round first, and it might help) but the south hand is fairly suited to bidding keycard in any case so it's not too awful.

Auction 7 seems like north really should cuebid over 3♠ (assuming it's forcing) and south should pass 4♠ given the non-cue. Auction 8, the 4nt call really should be quantitative and therefore seems like a weird choice.

The rest of the auctions seem to involve passing the north hand in first seat (this is quite a good twelve-count and passing is awful).

[gnasher]

This slam is sufficiently close to 50% that I don't really care whether I'm in it or not.

I dislike all of the auctions offered by the original poster, and I like those suggested by Han and cjames. Any auction that doesn't identify the club mesh is awful. Who would want to play a slam opposite A54 AKJ97 76 742 or A54 KJ973 A6 742 ?

My own auction would probably be:
  1♥       1♠
  2♠       3♣
  3NT(1) 4♣
  4♥       4♠
  5♣       6♠

(1) 3NT says "I accept the game try", and leaves room for opener to make a slam try if that's what he had in mind. Why doesn't everyone play this?

[Cascade]

I like four and six best.

We would have a weak NT auction.

I don't understand the multiple passes with the north hand.

[han]

gnasher, on Mar 10 2008, 12:46 PM, said:

(1) 3NT says "I accept the game try", and leaves room for opener to make a slam try if that's what he had in mind. Why doesn't everyone play this?

I play that 3NT is a suggestion to play there in auctions like this. On this particular hand it is probably a 4-3-3-3 hand with xxx in clubs; it is more common if responder bids 3D or 3H.

[gnasher]

han, on Mar 10 2008, 09:41 PM, said:

gnasher, on Mar 10 2008, 12:46 PM, said:

(1) 3NT says "I accept the game try", and leaves room for opener to make a slam try if that's what he had in mind.  Why doesn't everyone play this?

I play that 3NT is a suggestion to play there in auctions like this. On this particular hand it is probably a 4-3-3-3 hand with xxx in clubs; it is more common if responder bids 3D or 3H.

Indeed. A useful side effect of playing 3NT the way I do is that it discourages people from bidding game when they have poor shape and no fitting honour in the game try suit.

[dicklont]

#5 for me. although I would add some cuebidding

1H - 1S
1N - 2C (checkback stayman)
2S - 3S (bidding is now mancheforcing)
4C - 4D (mixed cuebidding, kings and aces)
4H - 4N
5H - 6S

[mikeh]

I liked none of the auctions.

Few, if any, modern experts would pass the North hand, so that eliminates all of those auctions.

I don't like number 10, despite Justin's praise of it. Admittedly, slam is only marginally safer from the S seat, but it is safer.. imagine trump 2-2 and the clubs behaving.... cold from South, down on a diamond lead if played by north if the diamond is offside...

BTW, I echo the objection to BB ads... while I commend Stephen Pickett for the work and wish him well in his efforts to make money while affording a service to bridge players, I really don't think that BB, used in this way, offers much constructive help to us. But I have ranted often on this topic (including on another current thread) so will stop riding this hobbyhorse now.

[gnasher]

mikeh, on Mar 11 2008, 12:25 AM, said:

I don't like number 10, despite Justin's praise of it. Admittedly, slam is only marginally safer from the S seat, but it is safer.. imagine trump 2-2 and the clubs behaving.... cold from South, down on a diamond lead if played by north if the diamond is offside...

With trumps 2-2 you don't need clubs behaving - hearts 4-3 is also sufficient, as long as you remember to ruff a heart before drawing trumps.

6S from the wrong side is in the low forties. It needs DA right and one of:
- trumps 2-2 (~ 40%)
- clubs coming in (~ a further 30%)
- the same hand having three trumps and four clubs (a bit less less than a further 15%)

Played from the right side it's about 50%, I think.
Edit: that assumes a lead that gives nothing away. It's probably better than that in practice because of the chance of a minor-suit lead.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2008-March-10, 18:07

[sfbp]

han, on Mar 10 2008, 08:51 AM, said:

Frankly, I'm getting tired of the bridgebrowser adds. As for the bridge question, my auction would start with 1H-1S-2S-2NT-3C, where 2NT is an ask and 3C shows a 3-card raise with a club fragment (not forcing). I imagine that that would lead to slam.

I don't really see this as an ad for BRBR.

Perhaps you are being a little over sensitive? (I know, I have been there, done that).

People spout a lot of nonsense about what the best bid is which frequently removed from reality, witness the 3H-5H debate i watched some weeks ago. If you dislike having your preconceptions disturbed by the facts......

Cheers

Stephen

[cherdano]

Lol Stephen, search through Ben's posts in the last couple of months and st all of them are either a pitch for BridgeBrowser (or maybe Homebase).

I really think BrBr has it's uses but I don't think the way you and Ben are presenting it here in the forum is helpful anymore.

I don't remember the 3H-5H thread you are referring to, can you post a pointer to the thread?

[han]

The only thing these bridgebrowser threads have been good for is that now I know how to spell the word ad. The hand is interesting but the bridgebrowser search adds (trying two d's here) nothing.

[sfbp]

mikeh, on Mar 10 2008, 03:25 PM, said:

BTW, I echo the objection to BB ads... while I commend Stephen Pickett for the work and wish him well in his efforts to make money while affording a service to bridge players, I really don't think that BB, used in this way, offers much constructive help to us. But I have ranted often on this topic (including on another current thread) so will stop riding this hobbyhorse now.

Nice to be damned by faint praise. I guess noone makes money out of anything to do with bridge....

But I actually don't see anything ranting or offensive in your other post (I went and looked at it, and it seems perfectly reasonable - and reasoned).

I don't think I will ever make money on the scale the pro's do. Fred warned me this many years ago. So far I am 7 years, over $6,000 cash out of pocket, and many many hours of completely unpaid programming. Call it persistence. We had a few nibbles from pro teams, any one of which might have made me rich(or at least repay my investment). But they all so far have preconceived ideas just like yours, that only studying high quality bridge by high quality players will ever yield anything in this endeavour. Good players (especially pros) have to play against a lot of bad players, and make a lot of "bad" bids in the process, too, as I am sure you would admit.

Without all the bad players there would be no tournaments, right?

But I do take offence that you attempt to rubbish (in this thread) something that was offered for free that you chose not to investigate. I cannot speak for Ben, but I feel sure he posted those auctions because they raise interesting questions which normally are quite hard to capture. Sure, the ability to produce these are a great advertisement for BRBR.... if they weren't, I guess you might have said so using factual reasoning? As I know you are very good at doing.

Maybe we should meet at a sectional or regional one of these days - you might be surprised how nice I am face to face. At least that's what someone told me a few years ago after a flame war where the person concerned thought I was some sort of monster.

Cheers

Stephen

[sfbp]

cherdano, on Mar 10 2008, 09:18 PM, said:

Lol Stephen, search through Ben's posts in the last couple of months and st all of them are either a pitch for BridgeBrowser (or maybe Homebase).

I really think BrBr has it's uses but I don't think the way you and Ben are presenting it here in the forum is helpful anymore.

I don't remember the 3H-5H thread you are referring to, can you post a pointer to the thread?

http://forums.bridge...showtopic=23302