We wil play this where?

[kenberg]

Oliver put up a hand where the bidding was a bit exciting. Here is another, I was playing with the bots.


Vul against not, imps, dealer on your right opens 1 .
You hold:

KJT52
KJ5
KT5
QJ

Overcalling 1 seems right and you do. Pass on your right, partner bids 3



1     1    Pass   3
Pass      ?


Ok, we might want to hear about what 3 is. Bot tells you, it's just what you think. Natural, at most two spades, 14+ total points including distribution, forcing.

Well, maybe partner can stop clubs so you bid 3 . Seems right to me. Partner raises to 4 .

1     1    Pass   3
Pass    3    pass   4 (natural)
Pass    ?

This is a totally natural auction, I can see Charles Goren nodding in agreement, but still I have to choose. I chose (aka guessed) correctly and passed 4 . They can take the first 7 tricks in NT, they can take the first 3 in diamonds, but there are 10 tricks in the Moysian heart fit.

It worked, that's about all I claim.

http://tinyurl.com/y7ur3yap

Yes the bot claims that my 3 shows four hearts. Hate to argues with a bot, but that's not my view. We need to be able to get to 3NT on some hands. Not this one, but on some. Still I had to have some reason for bidding hearts and I am fine with his/her/its raise to 4 . Especially since it came in.

Happy New Year one and all.

 

[OliverC]

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.

[kenberg]

I thought a bit more about this after posting.
1      1       Pass    3

The full description the bots give is not really accurate. I'll get to that in a minute, first some toughts on what 3 should be.

One possible agreement. The 3   shows a strong hand that from responder's point of view can be played in diamonds or in NT.

Another possible agreement, along the lines you suggest: A strong hand that can be played in diamonds or NT, but possibly also in spades. So there is a spade tolerance.

Exactly how strong is strong? That could be discussed but I doubt that advancer will often have a hand where he wishes to force to game after the 1 overcall, except in the case where he has a spade fit. So in any agreement where it shows at most a spade tolerance it seems it should be at most a game invitational call. But maybe forcing for one round.

What is common in all of this is that playing in hearts has been ruled out.

The hand is interesting but maybe an anomaly. Looking at  all four hands I guess if we are going to play in game it needs to be in hearts.  We could probably re-arrange the cards to make 4 work. It's also true that if E shifts to his stiff diamond at trick 2 I had better be a good guesser. If trumps are 3-3 I can draw them and then lead the spade for my 10th trick. But they are actually 4-2 and that line would be a disaster. As near as I can see, if it starts with club to the A and a shift to the stiff diamond I have to win in hand,  cash the KJ of hearts, go to the board in diamonds since E now cannot ruff, and lead the spade. Realistically, I doubt that I would be doing that.

Back to what the bot says about 3 .

"2- ; twice rebiddable ; 14+ total points, forcing to 3 .  I altered this to just saying that the diamond bid was natural because that reflects what he actually has.  As I use language, "twice rebiddable" means the suit is suitable for bidding, then rebidding (once rebiddable) and then rebidding again (twice rebiddable). Clearly this is not what he has. I have seen this before with the bots, they claim "twice rebiddable" when I would call the suit "at most once rebiddable" or "rebiddable in a pinch", definitely not twice rebiddable. So I have learned to ignore that part of a bot description.

I have found that playing with the bots can lead to useful discussion with partners. I gave my hand to my f2f partner and asked how he would interpret the auction as we went along. He took 3 as a strong natural bid, he bid 3 over 3 ,  but then he corrected 4 to 5 . Actually pretty reasonable. If N actually has the twice rebidabble diamonds to go with his four hearts he probably has a stiff club. He has two clubs, but he has room for them because his diamonds are not of the length one might well expect.

Anyway, 4 bid and made was a good result. A bit iffy even for those who have discussed auctions.

[OliverC]

My whole point, Ken, is that if you are playing UCB's, any strong hand wishing to force to game, whether with Spade support or otherwise, will go via the UCB, because if Advancer doesn't support Opener's first suit at the 3-level or below on the 2nd round of bidding (ie a 3-level limit raise in Opener's suit), the sequence tends to be game-forcing:

(1 ) - 1 - 2 - 2 - Pass shows an invitational hand with Spades, but Overcaller declined the invitation with 2 .

(1 ) - 1 - 2 - 2 - 2 - Pass: 2 shows an invitational hand with Spades, but Overcaller declined the invitation with their Pass.

(1 ) - 1 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 4 : 2 showed the invitational hand with Spades and Overcaller accepted the invitation.

(1 ) - 1 - 2 - 2 - 2 is GF with good long Hearts (Advancer could bid 2 or 3 over 1 with weaker hands).

(1 ) - 1 - 2 - 2 - 2NT is Natural or Lebensohl depending on your style. If Natural, then this is probably a sequence you want to be non-forcing but invitational.

If you use UCB's like this, then any sequence that doesn't start with a UCB is, by definition, not forcing and not showing a strong hand, which broadens your scope considerably, in my view.

[kenberg]

In the hand the bot and I played, http://tinyurl.com/y7ur3yap,  I think that if I held the N hand I would probably just bid 2 . N has opening strength but he doesn't know much about South's strength based on a 1 level overcall. At any rate I would not, as N,  bid 3 , I think that overstates the suit. I would consider 2 if that does not promise a spade fit.  But this gets to just how strong the N hand would have to be for a UCB.  The hands make game, but only if the 4-3 heart fit is found and even then it is touch and go.  And S might have had a bit less for his 1 . Suppose N makes the UCB of 2 . What does S do?

It's a tough hand to bid no matter what you are playing, and it might well be a tough hand to play. If N is the declarer in 4   and E leads his stiff , good luck. It can be dome but will it be done? With 4 played S, and the first two tricks taking the AK of clubs, it suddenly became a much easier contract.

I think I favor UCBs, I have played them, but I am uncertain just how strong the hand has to be when it is as yet not clear where, if anywhere, the fit is.

[OliverC]

In the absence of a Spade fit, I'd say the North hand has to be at least as strong as it actually was, but a lot depends on your partnership style for overcalls. South's hand here ia a bit "quacky", but they're definitely good enough for a "decent" overcall. personally I think I would just bid 2 over 1 with the  North hand, intending to reverse into 3 over 2 (or anything else). That, of course, is another way to establish a GF sequence.

10 tricks in Hearts isn't completely straightforward, though. A Spade lead gives South their 10th trick, but on a Diamond lead, for example (or 2 Clubs followed by a Diamond switch), Declarer has to play exactly 2 rounds of trumps with the King and the Jack and then cross to Dummy in Diamonds and lead a Spade to establish their Spade trick before continuing. 3 rounds of trumps is no good, because now Declarer loses trump control when East takes their Ace and leads a Club. Not using the King and Jack to take the first 2 tricks likewise doesn't work, because a Club switch by East will promote a trump trick for Partner.

Bottom line is that lots of people will be off if they find 4 . 5 , 4 and 3NT are doomed from the off.

[kenberg]

In the OP I said "It worked, that's about all I claim. "  That's pretty much how I see it.

I think I mentioned that had E shifted to a at T2 I probably would have gone down. T1 was a small club to the A and I might well place the K with W, and thus work out that probably E had long clubs and shape since he opened on a 10 count, and I would probably assume the small was stiff (I am giving myself a lot of post-hoc credit here) but it is still a stretch to conclude that E wolds exactly 2 hearts.  If E is 3=3=1=6 then the winning line is to play three rounds of trump, ending in dummy, and then lead the spade.

I keep thinking there should be a thread on the theme of "It worked, that's about all I claim."

Here is a recent hand .

Matchpoints, white against red, dealer on your right passes.
You hold:
AKQ2
A
Q2
AQJ832

Pass    1    1!D  1!H
3        ?


I dunno, maybe 3 is enough but I bid 4 . Partner passed. Another successful Moysian, making with an overtrick,  for 92%.

http://tinyurl.com/ycksfx8k

Do I sometimes get these wrong? Of course, and more than just once in a blue moon! But i have a good hand so that's what I did. As the cards lie pard cannot even make 10 tricks in hearts if the opponents find their ruff: Diamond to the A and K, switch to the club, declarer lacks the transportation to draw trumps. He can cash the A and go to the board in spades to lead another heart. W wins and returns a , locking declarer in hand while W still holds a trump.

Again, it worked. I don't think my 4 was crazy, but it certainly could have gone wrong. In working out a hand I assume that my opponents are neither idiots nor geniuses, and I apply that to myself as well. We often have to just do what seems best. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

So I think it would be fun, and possibly useful, to have a collection of these "It worked, but that's all I claim" hands.







 

[OliverC]

Interesting: 3 would have been forcing in most systems (new suit at the 3-level) and so I would take 4 as a splinter (in Spades or Diamonds or a cue-bid, depending on Partnership style) agreeing Hearts.

[kenberg]

I was playing with the bots. Just think of me as  Robotman.
 
I just now looked at the explanation  of what the bots thought about my 4 .  It claims 4 shows rebiddable spades. I suppose they mean five. I can't imagine I would open 1 if I had six spades.

I usually don't look, until maybe later,  at the explanation of what the bots think. I am trying to get used to bot bidding and part of that is bidding w/o peeking at what they say the bid means. In really unfamiliar settings I take a look. As I recall I did not look here.

An interesting feature occurs to me. Even if the bot thinks I have five spades and passes with 2, I will be ok if it is Jx. Nobody seems to have five spades here so Jx will allow me to draw trump.

If the bot thinks I have one spade he might look at his three spades and wonder what on Earth is going on with all of this diamond bidding. But a splinter is a possibility.

[OliverC]

I wonder what the Bots would have thought of 3 and then 4 , then .


I wasn't suggesting that Bots would dream of 4 being a splinter, but see above: If you and they consider that 3 is forcing for one round, what is the difference (in their system) between an immediate 4 , and 3 and then 4 over whatever they bid?