[DJNeill]

IMP's, both white.

---

Your call. Partner is a good player.

[mikeh]

5♥, expecting to make.

Partner's double merely said he expected to make 4♥ or at least come close. Well, that heart Q is pretty good, the side A is golden, and my Qxx in spades is dead meat on defence, but a good sign on offence, since partner will hold at most a stiff.

He is too one-suited to have started with a double.

[aguahombre]

mikeh, on 2013-September-16, 09:42, said:

5♥, expecting to make.

Partner's double merely said he expected to make 4♥ or at least come close. Well, that heart Q is pretty good, the side A is golden, and my Qxx in spades is dead meat on defence, but a good sign on offence, since partner will hold at most a stiff.

He is too one-suited to have started with a double.

Yep. This is not (when partner is a passed hand) one of those Preempt and bid again peeves.
He has the nuts, or he is nuts. 5♥

[hrothgar]

I'd bid 5♦ (lead directing raise to 5♥) in case we need to defend 5♠

[mikeh]

hrothgar, on 2013-September-16, 10:07, said:

I'd bid 5♦ (lead directing raise to 5♥) in case we need to defend 5♠

Three points

1. The opps are unlikely to save white on white at imps, 5 over 5,

2. We probably don't 'need' a diamond lead against 5♠, and

3. While it seems to me clear that a good partner would take 5♦ as intended, I really don't want to wait to see the bidding tray come back all green, with partner figuring I am 2=2=8=1 or so. I know, it is 'impossible', but because of 1 and 2, I see no reason to tempt fate. I would ask him, in the post-mortem, what would you have taken 5♦ to be, instead of 5♥?

[ggwhiz]

This was not a pre-empt just a hand that gave up on slam in light of the 1♠ opener as revealed by the double.

Respecting that I'm bidding 5♥ and am close to having bid it at my previous turn as a 2 way shot (good dive or bump them up) that turns into door #3, we make.

[PhilG007]

DJNeill, on 2013-September-16, 09:28, said:

IMP's, both white.

---

Your call. Partner is a good player.

Pass 4♠ Partner's 4♥ pre-empt was designed to disrupt the opponents bidding.
It has failed. Best to pass and defend and hope to put the contract down. Competing further
risks 2 things 1) a hefty penalty 2) pushing the opponents into a makeable spade slam they
would not otherwise have bid. I've seen this situation happen many times in the BBO goulash
tourneys. Unless partner has discovered extra values,his original bid said it all.
If 6S is on,then +450 is going to a lousy score for them.

[mikeh]

PhilG007, on 2013-September-16, 12:44, said:

Pass 4♠ Partner's 4[hearts) pre-empt was designed to disrupt the opponents bidding.
It has failed. Best to pass and defend and hope to put the contract down. Competing further
risks 2 things 1) a hefty penalty 2) pushing the opponents into a makeable spade slam they
would not otherwise have bid. I've seen this situation happen many times in the BBO goulash
tourneys. Unless partner has discovered extra values,his original bid said it all.
If 6S is on,then +450 is going to a lousy score for them.

What a weird post: it reads almost as if it were strung together by a computer program able to state bridge propositions but lacking any understanding of them.

1. you have a fear that they can make slam yet at the same time you assert that partner's pre-empt has failed to disrupt their bidding.

2. you think that -450 for them will be poor compensation for missing a making slam. Well, I'd agree with that, but if they only make 11 tricks, I'd prefer them to be in slam rather than game. Where I come from, -50 compared to +980 is a heck of a lot worse than being +450, but I don't play in the same high-stakes games you like, so maybe the rules are different there?

3. you say that unless partner has discover extra values, his original bid said it all. So why did he double? And, as a sidenote, given that he has doubled (and how hard is that to miss, given the thread title?), I am really puzzled as to how they could make 450 as a score.

4. your partner is specified to be a good player: you hold spade length, suggesting spade shortness for partner, you hold trump honours that he didn't have for his 10 trick pre-empt and you hold a side A, yet you are afraid that you will pay a 'hefty' penalty if you now bid 5[hearts]?

I'd expect that on a large subset of plausible hands, both 4♠ and 5♥ will fail, almost never by more than one trick, but that on a somewhat (slightly?) larger subset one or both will make. I think to a large degree that would depend on whether there are any major suit voids floating around. In any event, I would think us very unlucky if we went 300, and even unluckier if that proved a phantom. 500 is impossible. This situation cannot (imo)be effectively simm'd, since we can't really establish clear constraints for the 4♠ call or for either of partner's calls.


I doubt that I will respond to many of your posts in the future, because of the tone of your posts in the N/B forum, but I couldn't resist, given your evident view of yourself as a true expert.

[aguahombre]

Just to clarity, since ggwhiz and MikeH (among others) are using the word "preempt" differently from each other:

Any bid which jumps, is preemptive ---in that it prevents any of the other players from making a bid below it. The context of the preempt determines whether it shows strength or not. In other words, not all preempts are weak, or solely designed to disrupt the opponents' auction.

The double, after jumping up to 4H initially, is being used to show he wasn't weak. The 4H bid was still preemptive.

[Vampyr]

mikeh, on 2013-September-16, 14:18, said:

I doubt that I will respond to many of your posts in the future, because of the tone of your posts in the N/B forum, but I couldn't resist, given your evident view of yourself as a true expert.

Please don't keep to this. The result would be the newer players being misled.

[PhilKing]

Vampyr, on 2013-September-16, 16:26, said:

Please don't keep to this. The result would be the newer players being misled.

Not really - they tend to look players up on BBOSkill to see if they are any good.

http://bboskill.com/user/philg007

[wyman]

Or the mods could just nuke his absurd posts in the NB forum (and expert forum, hopefully) and we could continue to flame him when he posts in IA, which should be more self-regulating.

[Vampyr]

PhilKing, on 2013-September-16, 16:31, said:

Not really - they tend to look players up on BBOSkill to see if they are any good.

http://bboskill.com/user/philg007

Not all forum members play on BBO though.

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2013-September-16, 16:26, said:

Please don't keep to this. The result would be the newer players being misled.

PhilKing, on 2013-September-16, 16:31, said:

Not really - they tend to look players up on BBOSkill to see if they are any good.

http://bboskill.com/user/philg007

Vampyr, on 2013-September-16, 17:01, said:

Not all forum members play on BBO though.

Even for those forum members who do play on BBO (I don't), a person using that reference link can be sorely misled about a player's relative skill level ---which may or may not correlate directly with the usefulness of their posts.

I have found some real surprise statistics with that link. I will not share them, but I am pretty sure PK has noticed one particular case and been amused.

[Antrax]

PhilKing, on 2013-September-16, 16:31, said:

Not really - they tend to look players up on BBOSkill to see if they are any good.

Spoken like an Expert minus.

[the hog]

5H. Partner has the nuts and I expect to make this.
The interesting position would be where partner of the doubler is on lead. Now I would expect the X to be a Lightner double.

[helene_t]

hrothgar, on 2013-September-16, 10:07, said:

I'd bid 5♦ (lead directing raise to 5♥) in case we need to defend 5♠

hmmm .... not sure if we really want him to lead a diamond. A heart or trump lead is unlikely to cost and if he has a natural club lead it is likely to be better. It is great if he leads a diamond from Kx but not so great from Qxx. 5♦ might help opps or maybe (as Mikeh suggests) be misunderstood by partner.

Anyway, pass would be absurd so I bid 5♥.

Quote

Please don't keep to this. The result would be the newer players being misled.

I don't think we need to worry too much about this. If most or all replies to a query would be misleading then it could be an issue (assuming any newbies read the topic at all) but there will always be several sensible answers. Experts rectifying the non-experts' bad advice is fine but IMHO shouldn't be the highest priority.

[Zelandakh]

PhilKing, on 2013-September-16, 16:31, said:

Not really - they tend to look players up on BBOSkill to see if they are any good.

http://bboskill.com/user/philg007

I prefer to go to the direct source, since bboskill is so bad about inflating ratings:

IMPs Total -140.65 167 IMPs Hands
IMPs Average -0.84
MPs Average 49.07% 911 MPs Hands

The main reason why the MP average is better seems to be that many of those results come from ghoulash tournaments.

[mr1303]

One thing I noticed is that Frances (sorry for bringing you into this) is classed on BBO skill as being intermediate.... I think that says all you need to know about BBO Skill

[PhilKing]

mr1303, on 2013-September-17, 04:50, said:

One thing I noticed is that Frances (sorry for bringing you into this) is classed on BBO skill as being intermediate.... I think that says all you need to know about BBO Skill

But that is after 28 hands. It has inaccuracies for sure, but as a guide, it certainly has it's uses (just as similar sites are useful when playing poker). I spent a week playing 6 hand individual turbos, and looking up partner's rating is certainly good for deciding whether to trust their bid or let them declarer a hand - my most costly boards tend to come when I neglect to do this.

Anyway, your rating suggests that the county selectors should have you as a shoe-in for the Tolle, so I suggest you send them your stats.

And sorry for the highjack - I bid 5♥. Partner's double is a pretty big call.