[inquiry]

Scoring: MP

Board 7. Bidding Script: South opens 1♦. north will jump to 3♦ if possible. After this NS are out of the auction.

Notes: This is a hand were many people in the real world bid to slam. After West makes a takeout double of 1♦, one might imagine slam. In fact, on a ♦ lead, you are just one
pitch short of making 6♠.

4♠=10, 5♣=2, slams=0

---

Forum bidders had no problem with this. In the real world, the diamond bidders were more aggressive and stole more room than I gave in the problem.

4S = 26
3S = 1

Rather than list everyone, there was only one pair not in 4♠, that was
helene_t-agusaris

[JavaBean]

Can 4♠ really be worth 10 out of 12 matchpoints, if over 95% of forum goers bid it? I'd think maybe we get 8, not that it will matter to anyone but helene.

[Fluffy]

agree with javabean we get at most 6, helene gets 0.

funny that opponents go to the 5 level only with 9 trumps, but when they hold elvel, oh boy they get scared.

[Mbodell]

Well, if in the real world much of the field goes to slam then we deserve more than 6 and Helen deserves more than 1, so maybe 8 for 4♠ and 2 for 3♠? Not that 8 and 2 is any different than 6 and 0 given the relative scores.

[TimG]

Mbodell, on Jul 26 2010, 11:44 AM, said:

Well, if in the real world much of the field goes to slam

27 BBO forum pairs isn't reflective of the real world?

[cherdanno]

I appeal, 5♠ should be worth 9

[Wackojack]

Bidding went:
1♦-x-3♦-x (responsive?)
4♦-p-4♠- p
all pass
I was critical of my partner's assumed responsive double but now I am not so sure.

[gnasher]

I am critical of your partner's assumed responsive double, and I will remain sure.

The risk of its being passed out is significant, and I can't see what it hopes to gain. On the actual auction, he found out that you ostensibly had extras, but he still didn't make a slam try.

[inquiry]

This hand turned out to be uninteresting. Like I said when it was originally played in a field of 57, slam was bid a lot of times -- it true, that NS bidding then was more fierce than the 1-3 given here. I didn't take that into account.

As for the scores, since everyone bid the same (well except for one), it really doesn't matter. If you want to be pragmatic, 6 or 7 for game is fine. However, i am not going to change the scores as it just makes busy work for me, as there is no real difference in changing them to the overall result., other than helene_t would gain 4 imps on the field average. There is some logic to that, as her zero is more painful than it might otherwise be given the field averaged so much more than normal, but as usual, I will resist logic.