[Jyrki_63]

Has anybody else noticed unusually slow play by GIB today? I just barely managed to complete a recent 25 minute 8 board tournament (luckily I had saved enough time early on). On late hands both GIB defenders were tanking on every other card. That's ok occasionally, but surely not at tricks 12 and 13 (yes, trick 13 took something like 15 seconds on one of the hands). Is there a load problem? Or is this something that only affects users like me, who are so used to the Windows client that...

I also want to share a hand from yesterday. Partnering GIB at MPs I dealt and held this moose: AKQ942,-,AKT9532,-. What do you open? If I held the red suits I might consider opening 1D, and rebid 6H (just for the heck of it), but I have the boss suit, so the opponents might not compete. No, this is a one-loser hand, and has decent play for a grand opposite a suitable yarborough so 2C it is (I should have known that GIB may have problems giving a preference...). GIB replies a positive 2H, so I sigh of relief in that I will likely get to show both suits. First the longer, so I rebid 3D. Then GIB surprises me with a leap to 6NT! Oh dear! So it has an opening bid. If it is at all balanced 7NT might have play. GIB has endplayed me into not showing my spades, and I do have two voids, so I suggest 7D.

This was not a success, because GIB held 75, AQJ963, 4, AKQ3, so there was an inescapable trump loser. The brave souls who had the sense to bid spades first, and managed to get a preference to 7S had their lucky day, because both spades and diamonds split 32, so one diamond ruff brought in all thirteen tricks. 6NT by GIB scored 50%, and was a better contract because often defenders allowed GIB to sluff the dealer's small spades on dummys high cards, so it only needed diamonds to play for one loser.

So while the leap to 6NT would be called "uncultured" in certain circles, I can't really blame GIB

[barmar]

In case you're curious, I asked GIB how it would bid your hand. It would open 1♦ and then jump shift to 2{SP] over the 1♥ response.

The interesting thing is that if you had bid that way, GIB would STILL have jumped to 6N.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2012-February-12, 18:06, said:

In case you're curious, I asked GIB how it would bid your hand. It would open 1♦...

Is this because he counts his hand as 22, not 23, total points?

[barmar]

Yes. In addition, GIB also wants at least 18 HCP to open 2♣. So to open 2♣ with a 7-6 hand requires something like akqxxx akqxxxx. And the rules for 1-level opening bids (and most other opening bids) don't allow simulations to override them.