often it's just not clear

[kenberg]

Lesson hands often show that something is clear. I think that when playing it is often not clear. I will give one example out of many.

White against red, imp scoring, 8 board match, playing with the bots, you hold:

: Q5432
: QT4
: KT
: A62

Rho deals and passes. The auction goes

Pass - Pass - Pass - 1
1    1   -  3     X 
Pass - Pass - 3 - Pass
Pass - ?   



Some might have opened this 11 point hand 1 on the first round, in which case the subsequent auction would have gone very differently. Not necessarily better, but different. But I passed first round, and here we are.  Some of the bids were natural, some not. The explanatins:

1   natural

1 , you see the hand, seems normal. It showed five spades, bid over 1 . 

3 : Mixed raise in : 4+ hearts, 7-9 total points, forcing to 3 .

 X:    Rebiddable clubs including the KQ ]I assume it also could be including the AK but I have the A, so including the AK, 11-21 hcps (so not very precise about strength) [Not a support X at the 3 level]

I presume that when partner passed the 3 this narrows the range considerably, we are not in a forcing auction.

So: What to do? The options seem to be:

X, for penalties I should think
Pass, we play 3
4   Passable
Or you could try 3NT. Seems like we have a running club suit.

Is the right choice at all clear? Does it matter that this is imps rather than matchpoints?

And if you pass, or if you double 3 , what will you be leading?

Myself, I do not see this as clear except that at  imps, I think X is out. You get 200 instead 100 if you set 3 one trick, but you get -730 instead of -140 if 3 makes. So at imps I think it is between Pass and 4 , or perhaps a very daring 3NT.  . But at matchpoints surely a double might be right. 4 making is +130, beating 3 off one for +100, but +200 beats both of those.

Consider LOTT: They surely hold 9+ hearts, we might well hold 9 clubs. If 9 in both suits  LOTT says that the number of tricks in hearts plus the number of tricks in clubs adds to 18. If both 3 and 3 make then 4 is off one, better than letting them play 3 making.  If we can make 4 then that's better than letting them play 3 off one, but doubling is even better.

My main point is that I don't think it is clear. And I don't think any conventional agreement would have made it clear. A fun hand I think.

Note: Looking at the hands, I don't think anyone did anything weird.  Bots sometimes go off track. Not as often as some claim, but sometimes they do.  Not here, I think. So if you look at this as a human auction, that will be about right.

[wackojack]

My thoughts:
partner opens 1   in 4th and then doubles 3  .  This suggest that she has an unbalanced hand and unless she had 3 spades, must have more than a min opener.  It does look like the opps have a 9 card  fit.  If so partner has a singleton  .  Possible distributions then:  3136, 2146.  Or maybe opps only have an 8 card  fit.  Then 2236 giving opps an 8 card fit in both the red suits.
3N could be on if partner has perfect cards like Ax, J, Axxx, KQJxxx but that looks very unlikely.  More likely Ax, J, Qxxx, KQJxxx just worth a 4th in hand open.  Here 4!c is the limit and 4 wont make. I reject the possibility of partner having 3136 distribution because she would next bid 3  rather than double 3  .

So I vote for 4 and at MP double if opps compete to 4 .   

[kenberg]

That's a pretty good reading. I also bid 4 which, somewhat to my surprise, made exactly. 3 would have been off 1. Even at mps I don't think I would double 3 . 

Now 3NT is sort of peculiar.
Here is partner's hand, not so far from what you were thinking:

: AJ
: 6
: 9876
: KQJ543


Your left hand opponent leads a from 9532.   These are bots so, when the hand was played in 3 the bot led a fourth best 2. Surely this is wrong, he has already shown four hearts on the auction, he needs to make it clear that he is leading from spots. I think the 9, but I imagine the 5 would suffice.

A thinking bot would look at the AJ in dummy, recall the spade bid you had made and see no future in spades. But his partner did show some values with the 3 call so maybe there are three tricks in , and in fact there are since you hold KT tight So it should go down, I think. Oddly, at those tables where your hand opened 1 the bots got it right and set 3NT. At the tables where the auction went as I describe it, and where then your hand bid 3NT, it made.

So 3NT can be set, sometimes was set, and I think should be set. But wasn't always set.

Since clubs are 2-2, the 3 goes down, but I wouldn't want any serious money riding on it.

http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&lin=st%7C%7Cmd%7C4SQ5432HQT4DKTCA62%2CSKT96H9532DAJ2CT9%2CSAJH6D9876CKQJ543%2CS87HAKJ87DQ543C87%7Csv%7CE%7Cah%7CBoard%206%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C1C%7Can%7CMinor%20suit%20opening%20--%203%2B%20%21C%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%7Cmb%7C1H%7Can%7COne-level%20overcall%20--%205%2B%20%21H%3B%208-11%20HCP%3B%209-12%20total%20points%7Cmb%7C1S%7Can%7CFree%20bid%20--%205%2B%20%21S%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%206-12%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%7Cmb%7C3C%7Can%7CMixed%20raise%20--%204%2B%20%21H%3B%207-9%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20to%203H%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7C11-21%20HCP%3B%20rebiddable%20%21C%3B%20%21CKQ%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C3H%7Can%7C4%2B%20%21H%3B%207-9%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4C%7Can%7C3%2B%20%21C%3B%205%2B%20%21S%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%206-12%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CSK%7C

[jcreech]

With my luck, RHO would overcall with AKxx7, the lead would be the same deuce.  RHO wins the ace, returns the 7, and I guess to insert the 10.  The jack wins, and they run the first five hearts.

Admittedly, I do not double enough.  And this is not a hand where I would double  3 .  I would think 3 was going down, but I would not double, partly because it would advertise my holding and that may be enough for the contract to make.

I also would not raise to 4 .  I can see the 6 tricks, but just cannot see where my cards would take us from a likely plus, to a bigger plus.  The K may be worth a trick, and the shortness in may be worth a trick, but it does not sound like partner has a fit with spades, the 5432 do not look to be cards that will grow up, and my hand is likely to be short of entries.

I could visualize the shortness in partner, but not enough fitting cards to keep a likely plus from dipping into a minus by competing.  I fail this lesson and make the wimpy Pass.

[kenberg]

Keeping with the title of the thread, sometimes it just isn't clear. And I can imagine this being a hand where imps/mps matters. At least at imps, pass is reasonable, quite possibly best in the long run, and I very much considered it.

I mentioned LOTT  in the original post. Let's look at it a little more. Sometimes LOTT is shortened to "If you have 9 trump bid to the 3 level" but the real LOTT says that you add the trumps NS holds in their suit to the number of trumps EW holds in their suit and that total is "often" the same as the number of tricks NS could take in their contract plus the number of tricks EW can take in theirs. Here it goes 9(clubs) plus 9 (hearts) =18 so there "should" be 18 total tricks.  Thus, if we believe this, if 3 is off 1 then 4 makes while if 3 makes 4 is off 1 and we are non-vul.

There are some problems with LOTT.


The most obvious problem is that it is far from always correct.  The club where I play is hooked up with The Common Game and they post the hands afterward, noting whether LOTT holds and if not, how far off is it. On average it is probably about right, sometimes it over-estimates the number of tricks, sometimes it underestimates the total number, but that can be an issue.

Also, LOTT calculates the total number of tricks played double dummy with optimal play by all. Yeah, well, ....

And then there is the question of whether we know the total number of trump. On this auction, surely Rho has at least 5 and left Lho has at least 4.  So they have at least 9. As to , no doubt partner has long but are we sure he has 6?

So there is a LOTT of room for error in applying LOTT (couldn't resist the pun).  Still, at least at mps, I think I would go with it and assume 18 total tricks. At imps, it probably is aggressive and a pass is very reasonable. 

I got a modest increase in my imp score for +130 instead of the +100 I get by passing.  The good score comes from +400 for bidding and making the 3NT that was beatable. As mentioned,  when the hand was opened 1 they reached 3NT and that was beaten. So it was the 3NTbidderswho swung the scores. I really think it should have been beaten.  Of course I have an interest in that happening.

As I recall, Kit Woolsey has a really good section on applying LOTT in his book on Matchpoints. At that scoring it really matters that 130>100. And that 200>130.

[wackojack]

I think we can rely on partner having a 6 card  suit.  We must also think about the rule of 15.  It is obvious that partner must be disobeying the rule of 15 for the reason that there are not enough points in the pack for your 11 points + opps overcall and mixed raise support.  (Opps absolute min 10+8 =18)  Added to your 11 = 29.  So it appears that partner opens with a maximum of 11HCP.  We can almost rule out partner having 3 spades as partner would more likely raise spades than rebid clubs.  So perhaps partner is making up for his falling short of the rule of 15 with a 5HP in spades.   

So if we give partner a 2146 distribution then we have partner's precise hand. 

East's distribution will be either, 2551 or 2542.  This makes West's distribution either 4423 or 4432.  So as South you can see that EW in a 3  contract will lose 2 clubs, 2 spades 1 heart and possibly 1 diamond.  Whereas in 4 , you will lose 1 heart, 2 diamonds and maybe 1 spade.  My money would be on making  a 4 contract. 

And yes LoTT works on this hand.  I find it a very good guide. 

[kenberg]

Just for amusement I brought up the sheet from a recent common game. It posts 25 hands and, if I counted right, LOTT is off on 19 of them.

http://thecommongame.com/ClubWebHost/231282/190430A.html

Here is board 1, for example:


                       ♠J753
                       ♥K8632
                       ♦J6
                      ♣Q6

♠82                                             ♠AKT64
♥AQ4                                           ♥7
♦AQT73                                       ♦K42
♣J83                                            ♣AT54

                       ♠Q9
                       ♥JT95
                       ♦985
                      ♣K972





EW have an 8 card fit in and NS have a 9 card fit in so LOTT predicts 8+9=17 total tricks. EW can take 12 tricks in and NS can take 6 tricks in , there are 12+6=18 total tricks, so LOTT underestimates the trick total by 1.

Of course that doesn't mean that everyone would make 6 , although perhaps most would, or that a contract would always be held to 6.  It's double dummy analysis.  Nor does it mean that they will reach 6 .


I have not made a serious study of how right or wrong LOTT is, but my impression is that although usually it does better than 6 out of 25 still it is off fairly often. When coupled with the fact that we often cannot really count the total number of trump  for EW and NS, I think caution is advisable.  It is definitely one factor, just like the rule of 11. Taken literally, that rule says fourth seat should pass on my posted hand. But NS can both beat 3 and make 4 so here it pays to open. As I think I would. "6-4  bid more" is another rule, or at least a slogan. One can always come up with some rule or slogan for doing what one wishes to do.

There is no way around it, sometimes we just have to make our best guess, sometimes right, sometimes wrong.