I agree completely with you rather than the Bot, Ken, given your understanding about 3 : If you had both Majors you might well double over 1 rather than overcalling (eg: 5431 shape). If you had the Clubs & Hearts covered, but only a tolerance (at best) for Diamonds, 3NT would be the obvious rebid. Bidding 3 here, therefore, might be a 4-card suit, but it's more likely to be showing a decent 3-card Heart holding and inferentially asking a question about Clubs.


One point, though: If you use Unassuming Cue Bids then 2 here would show either (1) an inv+ hand with Spade support or (2) any strong responding hand that wanted to create a forcing sequence. That gives a lot more room for exploration to find the right contract when Advancer has the hand the Bot actually had. Now 3 could be used for a different kind of hand entirely (eg: only mildly invitational with Diamonds and at least a decent Spade tolerance if not support, so a bit like a fit-showing jump-shift).


On frequency grounds alone, that seems to be to be getting better use out of the bids.

Another post about super-aggressive bidding and precipitate decisions about the Contract (I've switched the directions by 90 degrees)

EW Game, Dealer East

North
A1092
AQ6
J5
AK72

South
743
KJ92
AQ6
J105

All the participants in this match were playing 2/1. At the other table, the bidding was passed round to North, who opened 1 , South responded with a 2NT limit bid and North signed off in 3NT. 11 tricks. NEXT!

At our table South opened this hand with 1 and the bidding proceeded:

South     North
1          1
1NT         2
2          6
All Pass

Declarer found West with the Qxx, but the King was offside and there was no way to get rid of all of the losers, so 6 was -1. My point on this hand is this:

North's 2 New Minor Forcing isn't game-forcing as such. That gives North something of a problem over 2 , I concede, because 2NT and 3 will not be forcing (NMF is normally forcing to 2NT but no further, in my experience). I do feel the leap to 6 , however, is precipitous.

Most people are used to Minor suit openings potentially being less than 4-card length when you're playing any natural system that uses 5-card Majors. North here has assumed South has 4+ Clubs with no evidence to back it up. Although it's possible that South might pass 3 , I feel it's unlikely, fr the following reason:

• If North doesn't have 5-card Spades, they can't have 4-card Hearts (or they'd respond 1 over 1 ), so why are they using NMF?
• The only reason has to be that they have a strong responding hand and needed to create a forcing sequence.

For that reason, I feel that North should show the Club support, confident that Partner ought to be able to work this out. Now South simply rebids 3NT and we're all happy.

Natural bidding provides a wealth of opportunities for constructive bidding. If you are playing a system such as 2/1, Std American, or Acol, I feel that time spent considering situations like the above, and discussing them with regular partners, is time well spent. It's probably going to teach you more about bidding theory and be more productive and helpful in improving your partnership than spending half an hour agreeing to play McGruder's 2nd Variation on Extended Stayman (or whatever - you get the point).

I wish you all a very peaceful and joy-filled Christmas and all good things for the coming year. May your contracts always be fulfilled, your defences inexorable and your squeezes anaconda-style!

I must confess, the idea of bidding 2NT with that South hand would never remotely cross my mind. 3 would be my choice

(2 ) - 3 - 3
            4 - 4NT
            5 - 6

or

(2 ) - 3 - 3
            4 - 4NT
            5 - 6
            All Pass

or

(2 ) - 3 - 3
            4 - 5
            5 - 6
            All Pass

...seem like as good sequences as any others. 2NT shows your range, but misrepresents your shape. Even on the sequence you had with your Bot, 7 is just a complete nonsense bid given your failure to cue-bid 6 . Indeed, North should probably be bidding 6 over 5 rather than 6 , which is clearly a Grand Slam Force (since 6 commits you to 6 anyway and is therefore looking for 7 ).

There are, of course, limits to the AI side of Bridge Bots. "Style" is not something you can really discuss with or teach to a Bot, especially when it comes to areas such as cue-bidding.

Vijit, you are shown as a member of IAC on the IAC website, and your name is on the list of IAC Members on BBO itself. There is, as far as I am aware, no separate list of people who are members of IAC but who have somehow "fallen out of favour". There is a [very short] list of people who have been removed from IAC Membership for misconduct, but your name doesn't appear there (and you wouldn't be listed as a member in either of the above places if it did).

There is a list (largely disused now, I think) on the website of people who are not IAC Members and who are people we would prefer not to have in our tourneys, but that list dates from days when we routinely held tourneys open to anyone and your name definitely isn't on that list in any case.

I seem to remember that individual TD's using the Windows BBO Client can maintain a list of people who they don't want in their tourneys and upload it into the tourney when they're creating or editing the tourney, but that is their list, and nothing to do with IAC. That facility may be available with the Browser client - I don't know.

Where are you seeing your name "listed" as an enemy of IAC? It's certainly not on the website or on BBO itself (and you wouldn't have access to view any of those lists in any case).

1 - (1 ) - 1 would still show 5-card for me, because a double is still negative.

The difference for me is between
1 - (1 ) - 2 - (2 ) - X = Competitive Double where 3 is only competitive
and
1 - (No) - 1M - (??) - X = Support Double (or redouble).

On the other hand, I play Lebensohl in any natural competitive sequence at the 2-level, so in the first of those sequences I can differentiate between a fast 3 or 4 (pre-emptive, so more shape and less hcp), a slow 3 (competitive only) and the Competitive Double (genuinely invitational).

I can't remember who is was, exactly, but one of the Blue Team, I think once said something along the lines that Super-precision isn't particulary about getting to the best possible contract, but about getting to the best contract possible. Here, realistically, that's 6 . Getting to 7NT relies on North being in control of the bidding (which is pretty unlikely) and getting the information that South has AKxxx, AKQx and the Ace of Hearts. That's not impossible, of course, if NS's agreements are to cue-bid a single side-suit king over 5NT (and bid 6NT with 2 side-suit kings). That is a recognised variety of RKCB. The biggest problem is to engineer North to be in control.


OCP can identify the presence or absence of side-suit Jacks, but only when a 4-card or longer  suit is held. Finding holdings such as stiff QJ rather than stiff Qx takes up too much potential bidding space and will only be useful once in a blue moon.

My cynical side says that this is "double-dummy" bidding. The Bot knows 6 can (theoretically) be beaten, so he doesn't go there