[inquiry]

Scoring: MP

Board 6. Bidding Script: NS do not bid
Notes: This hand is difficult. East has to appreciate the value of the S9 and West the ST. To stop a D ruff, the defense has to start a trump, which will likely cost them a trump trick. At the worse, if EW lose two trumps and can't ruff a diamond, he can fall back on a D hook. A none trump lead against 4S, and the D ruff is sure, and this makes unless very unlucky in spades. Bidding is a little difficult. Some might well go 1♠ all pass. Others will open 1♠ and hear a forcing 1NT. Now a 3♠ bid is not forcing, and in all likelyhood WEST will pass. So that leaves either a 3♦ jump shift to clearly force, or a leap to 4♠ with a small prayer (given the broken suit). The easiest way to game might be if you have a 2§ rebid as opener as gazzilli to show huge hand, accompanied with a jump to 3♠ next. On that, West might have just enough to carry on to game.

Board six scores: 4S=10, 3N=7, 3S=4, 2H=3, 3H=2, 3C=1

---

Contracts reached
4S E 10
1S E 6
3S E 5
2S W 2
6N W 1
5C W 1
3H W 1
5C E 1


6N W mohitz/akjq
5C W olegru - driver733
5C E Codo-Fluffy
4S E zasanya/ravia6
4S E tylere / bid_em_up
4S E mbodell - javabean
4S E Flycycle/Wackojack
4S E East4Evil/sohcahtoa
4S E tlgoodwin/timg
4S E jlall/hanp
4S E karlson/threenobob
4S E rogerClee/cherdano
4S E elianna/awm
3S E CanadaGrl/Gerardo
3S E helene_t-agusaris
3S E gnasher/catch22
3S E peachy/lg62
3S E kristen33/jillybean
3H W lobowolf/bkjswan
2S W bluecalm/redds
2S W Hrothgar/Free
1S E kfay/jchiu
1S E Siegmund/MSchmahl
1S E ant590 - crayzeejim
1S E cascade kermit
1S E sallyally/joylson
1S E jdonn/gib
NA 0 j0i/gwnn
NA 0 Tomi2-JHDW
NA 0 Vampyr/Lamford

[Fluffy]

lol 5♣doesn't evenget a score, even when it made as the cards lied :/

[inquiry]

Fluffy, on Jul 26 2010, 03:53 AM, said:

lol 5♣doesn't evenget a score, even when it made as the cards lied :/

The actual NS hands are not relevant. it would have been better if we could have just put the EW hands in...but had to include some NS hands. And yes, the NS hands that were there were the ones from when the hand was acutally played.

[kfay]

Frankly, when I saw this hand I thought that any spade partial would be a decent score.

[Siegmund]

So did I ... thought the point of the hand was to stay out of the game, though I did see that 4S was liable to sneak home undeservedly.

Why is 3NT, virtually a no-chance contract most of the time, scoring well? If we "arent taking NS cards into account," I cant see 3NT getting more than 25%.

[kayin801]

Siegmund, on Jul 26 2010, 11:32 AM, said:

So did I ... thought the point of the hand was to stay out of the game, though I did see that 4S was liable to sneak home undeservedly.

Why is 3NT, virtually a no-chance contract most of the time, scoring well? If we "arent taking NS cards into account," I cant see 3NT getting more than 25%.

Where are N/S getting their tricks from? Especially if played in the E, 3NT looks like 5 spades, 2 hearts, and two aces to me before N/S can set anything up most of the time.

I thought this was a good hand for a big club... it let us show a sort of 3.5♠ rebid in our system.

[Cascade]

inquiry, on Jul 27 2010, 01:16 AM, said:

Fluffy, on Jul 26 2010, 03:53 AM, said:

lol 5♣doesn't evenget a score, even when it made as the cards lied :/

The actual NS hands are not relevant. it would have been better if we could have just put the EW hands in...but had to include some NS hands. And yes, the NS hands that were there were the ones from when the hand was acutally played.

I think you could do this in a partnership bidding table with opponent's bidding controlled by the host. I haven't actually tried with only NS hands specified. You may get some sort of mess in the created lin files like east having 26 cards or something.

[Fluffy]

inquiry, on Jul 26 2010, 01:16 PM, said:

Fluffy, on Jul 26 2010, 03:53 AM, said:

lol 5♣doesn't evenget a score, even when it made as the cards lied :/

The actual NS hands are not relevant. it would have been better if we could have just put the EW hands in...but had to include some NS hands. And yes, the NS hands that were there were the ones from when the hand was acutally played.

yeah I understand that its not a great contract, and its worse that spade partials, but if 2 pairs reached it, I thikn it deserves to be scored, even if yo uscore it with zero.

[bluecalm]

4♠ being 10 while 3♠ being 4 is strange.
It was supposed to be matchpoints. 4♠ aren't that super contract and the one which is unlikely to be reach by many matchpoint pairs while 3♠ beats all other partials and often games.

I was happy to be in ♠ partial after seeing our cards and it's still my contract of choice at mp's.

[Siegmund]

In reference to 3NT:

Quote

Where are N/S getting their tricks from? Especially if played in the E, 3NT looks like 5 spades, 2 hearts, and two aces to me before N/S can set anything up most of the time.

I was assuming it would always be in the West after 1NTF, with a diamond led; 75% of the time at least one honor will be with South, in which case you'll lose (at least) 3 diamonds and 2 spades if you try to set up spades.

3NTW, at any rate, should score worse than the making partscores, including 2H; 3NTE I am OK with beating the partscores.

All academic anyway since nobody in the field actually played 3NT.

[gnasher]

I wasn't at all happy to be in a spade partscore.

With double-dummy defence, 4♠ is just under 50%. However, that defence requires a trump lead from Qxx, Ax or xx whenever the diamond finesse is wrong. Nobody would lead from Qxx of trumps into a strong one-suiter, and a trump lead from Ax and xx isn't especially attractive either. On a diamond lead 4♠ is almost 100%; on a club or heart lead it's about 70%.

Furthermore, if we do get a trump lead we still have options in the later play: we have a choice of diamond finesses, or we might instead play to squeeze (or strip-squeeze) South.

The argument about spades beating other partscores also seems rather dubious. I can't even construct an auction to any non-spade partscore.

[cherdanno]

So did the standard auctions to 4S mostly go 1S 1N 4C 4S? (Our auction.) Or 3S rebid? Or 3D as Ben suggested?
I admit in real life it would never occur to me to stop short of game with the East hand, but maybe in a bidding contest the trick might be to stay low with a bad suit? (Of course if I had a method to show a very good 3S bid with a bad suit then I would, but in standard I don't see an alternative.)

Btw, I have to admit that I tanked as West over 4C - I was !sure! the problem was how to get to 6H in our 5-3 fit. But since there was no way of getting there anyway I just bid 4S

[JLOGIC]

How is 4S not an amazingly good contract? Does not compute.

[awm]

Agree that 4♠ is a good contract. It seems cold on a diamond lead. On a round suit lead, you can ruff a diamond and then basically play for spades 3-2. On a spade lead, you at least have the diamond finesse available, and your chances of picking up spades for no losers are somewhat higher than they'd otherwise be (not to mention a bunch of spade holdings in opening leader's hand seem to prohibit a spade lead, like Qxx for example).

I do think 3NT has been given way too high a score, especially if played by the west hand. However, no one actually bid 3NT so this is perhaps not relevant.

[Elianna]

inquiry, on Jul 25 2010, 08:42 PM, said:

The easiest way to game might be if you have a 2§ rebid as opener as gazzilli to show huge hand, accompanied with a jump to 3♠ next. On that, West might have just enough to carry on to game.

I don't know if there was another gazilli pair, but if you mean us, 3♠ was forcing after a 2♣ rebid.

[Wackojack]

1c (strong)-1d (0-7)
1s - 2c (nat)
3s - 4s
p
I was responder and when dummy was revealed I apologised for going 1 extra and gradually it sunk in that 4s was a good contract.

[gnasher]

After a non-forcing 1NT response, our opener attempted to show a forcing 3♠ rebid, but accidentally showed a strong invitation instead. I think a self-agreeing splinter of 4♣ would have been a better bid anyway.

What do you think responder should do opposite a strong invitation? That is, a 3♠ bid by someone who could have shown a 2.5♠ bid.

[JLOGIC]

gnasher, on Jul 27 2010, 05:56 AM, said:

After a non-forcing 1NT response, our opener attempted to show a forcing 3♠ rebid, but accidentally showed a strong invitation instead. I think a self-agreeing splinter of 4♣ would have been a better bid anyway.

What do you think responder should do opposite a strong invitation? That is, a 3♠ bid by someone who could have shown a 2.5♠ bid.

Clear pass? A 4 count with a stiff spade...sorry to be so simplistic but I am not accepting an invite with that.

We played a convention that is popular in USA:

1S 1N
3C

showing 5S4H, 5S+C, or single suited spades GF, so it was pretty easy. Honestly I wouldn't think it's ridiculous to pass 3S even though it's forcing when partner didn't open 2C, but I wouldn't do it (the ST is good, the K may be good, our stiff may be good...)

[inquiry]

First, about scoring. i came up with my scores BEFORE looking at the results. This explains the occassional thing like a score for 3NT when no one bid 3NT. Sometimes, i had to go back and figure out a score for something i thought wasn't possible.

i think we can agree 4♠ is the best contract on this one? Assuming we can, we are discussing the scores of other hands.

If 4♠ is best, and 10 out of 27 pairs bid it, what score do you think a partscore in spades should get? Surely it has to be below average. I thought a fair number of people would bid 4♠ and a few 3NT (wrong about that). 3NT also rates to make, there is double stoppers in each suit, and if spades behave, is that not 6♠, and three sure side tricks? I can't find anyone faulting a fairly good score for 3NT. In fact on somedays, it will outscore 4♠.

So unless someone has something I am overlooking the scores on this one are now set in stone.

PS. To Elianna, I don't know if there is another gazilli like pair in the contest, but I play Ritong 2♣ which is similar and would have taken that route. This explains the comments. I think justin's 3♣ treatment is interesting and worthy of consideration for excellently bid hand, along with your auction.

[Cascade]

We play some sort of Gazilli. Home grown but originally based on some notes I got from Chamaco on BBF. What has evolved seems to be almost the opposite of what Elianna plays in that invites go through 2♣ and a game force jumps immediately to 3♠. On this hand I would have had to decide whether the spades were good enough for 4♠ or to pass partner's 3NT over 3♠. She may well raise with stiff ten.