[surelyours]

See the annotation of Robot's DBL, it illustrates almost the very opposite situation.

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Is he starting his randomizing since the bidding stage？

[ahydra]

By the looks of it North upgraded his hand to a balanced 19 (quite some upgrade!)? Or was it confused by the shape?

ahydra

[surelyours]

ahydra, on 2014-February-10, 05:36, said:

By the looks of it North upgraded his hand to a balanced 19 (quite some upgrade!)? Or was it confused by the shape?

ahydra

Thank you!
I guess you havenot clicked on the "X", there shows the interpretation of it -- "takeout dbl,2-C,3-5D,3-4H,3-4S,12+ total points"

[1eyedjack]

surelyours, on 2014-February-10, 06:02, said:

Thank you!
I guess you havenot clicked on the "X", there shows the interpretation of it -- "takeout dbl,2-C,3-5D,3-4H,3-4S,12+ total points"

The description is incomplete. Maybe there is not enough room. It should say something like "normal takeout double if minimum, or balanced NT overcall too strong for immediate 1N, or strong jump overcall in an unspecified suit". GIB certainly plays it this way (although it will stretch to overcall with the single-suited hand I think, with which policy I agree). But it does mean that with extras he need not have 3+ in all side suits.

[Bbradley62]

I see two (related) questions here:
(1) what should GIB's description be for a takeout double?
(2) what should be bid/called with the North hand over 1♣?

Edit: I'd probably overcall 1N, but I could see that not being a popular answer.

This post has been edited by Bbradley62: 2014-February-10, 10:10

[1eyedjack]

In the style of Nige1 (but by no means certainly his choices):

1H = 10
1N = 7
Pass = 5
X = 3

1N scores quite highly purely because there are 3 GIBs at the table.

[ahydra]

I'd much rather bid 1NT with that than overcall a 4-card suit. There are certain 5431 hands where 1NT is about the only sensible call, I think this is one of them.

As for the description of TOX, isn't GIB meant to show the lowest common denominator of all possible hands? Hence the description should really just be "12+ total points", since it could have anything from AKx Qxxx Kxxx xx to AKQJ109 x x AKQJ10.

ahydra

[iandayre]

I agree with the ranking of the various calls though I would give double a negative score if I could. No call other than 1H would have occurred to me. When I was an up-and-coming player back in the 1980's I read dozens of bridge books, but none improved my results as much as Mike Lawrence on Overcalls.

[surelyours]

iandayre, on 2014-February-11, 19:11, said:

Mike Lawrence on Overcalls.

Thank you!

[surelyours]

1eyedjack, on 2014-February-10, 07:51, said:

The description is incomplete. Maybe there is not enough room. It should say something like "normal takeout double if minimum, or balanced NT overcall too strong for immediate 1N, or strong jump overcall in an unspecified suit". GIB certainly plays it this way (although it will stretch to overcall with the single-suited hand I think, with which policy I agree). But it does mean that with extras he need not have 3+ in all side suits.

Thank you!