[masse24]

RedSpawn, on 2017-May-14, 13:01, said:

Do you think RedSpawn would have doubled 4♠ if his partner had called PASS with his garbage hand with a horrible ♥ suit?

I'm still trying to figure out why Double was even on your radar--with the preempt?

[RedSpawn]

Jinksy, on 2017-May-14, 13:09, said:

[edited] On second thought I guess the diamond switch is tough.

Do you think RedSpawn would have doubled 4♠ with a valid call of pass from his partner?

masse24, on 2017-May-14, 13:17, said:

I'm still trying to figure out why Double was even on your radar--with the preempt?

You didn't answer the question, and I have a feeling I know why.

But thank you for your feedback.

I am gonna stop.

I see right now what this is all about.

Each bridge player reserves the right to lie about the suit quality, strength, shape, and values in his hand. And if his partner relies on that bid for whatever reason, the lying partner is released from all liability and off-the-hook. And intense scrutiny will be placed on respondent and absolutely NONE on the liar who started a snowball chain.

Thank you all for your feedback.

This has been very revealing about people's view on the partnership relationship.

I wish all of you the very best--especially your hardworking clairvoyant partners who are getting the short end of the stick.

[johnu]

RedSpawn, on 2017-May-14, 13:16, said:

Do you think RedSpawn would have doubled 4♠ with a valid call of pass from his partner?

For some reason I find it humorous that RedSpawn talks about himself in the 3rd person

[johnu]

RedSpawn, on 2017-May-14, 12:53, said:

We would not even be in 4♠X if the liar-in-chief would just call PASS from 1st seat![/b][/u]

If you had a very specific agreement with a particular partner to only preempt with only highly disciplined preempts, you might have a smidgen of a valid argument. If you haven't discussed it thoroughly with a pickup partner, who's the fool?

[johnu]

Vampyr, on 2017-May-14, 12:50, said:

I do not think that the diamond switch is easy even if partner passes.

Maybe not in a random BBO game. While the trump lead could have been successful, it left East with a choice after winning ♣A. An opening heart lead would have cleared up the heart situation so a diamond switch would be indicated.

Playing with an advanced or expert partner, the ♣2 should be a suit preference signal for diamonds. Not sure how reliable that would have been with the actual West player.

[johnu]

masse24, on 2017-May-14, 13:17, said:

I'm still trying to figure out why Double was even on your radar--with the preempt?

You aren't the only one. Opponents have voluntarily bid game and the East hand is a good minimum opening hand but has no surprises, no trump stack, no reason to expect a defensive ruff.

[Vampyr]

johnu, on 2017-May-14, 14:11, said:

Maybe not in a random BBO game. While the trump lead could have been successful, it left East with a choice after winning ♣A. An opening heart lead would have cleared up the heart situation so a diamond switch would be indicated.

Playing with an advanced or expert partner, the ♣2 should be a suit preference signal for diamonds. Not sure how reliable that would have been with the actual West player.

Yes, it is pretty obvious that the non-heart opening lead was the worst mistake made on the hand.

[RedSpawn]

Vampyr, on 2017-May-14, 15:21, said:

Yes, it is pretty obvious that the non-heart opening lead was the worst mistake made on the hand.

Co-sign the opening bid lie. If you don't have what you promise in the 1st place, you get what you get.

Second of all, I am pretty sure that you have no comment on JohnU's error in post #78 about the 2♥ open when he failed to read basic instructions by the OP TWO days before and attacked me without fact checking.

Nope, I don't think you would.

You don't criticize people you like. You give them a hall pass as the case with my partner who straight up lied to me in bidding. We overlook the lie.

I said why I was taking out the opposition's spades 1st in theprevious post. The fact that he makes a preemptive bid from 1st seat missing the following trump:

♥J
♥K
♥A
♥10
♥9

Laughable. . .

[masse24]

Vampyr, on 2017-May-14, 15:21, said:

Yes, it is pretty obvious that the non-heart opening lead was the worst mistake made on the hand.

Though I would always lead the ♥T on this auction, the trump lead is not horrible.

However, the double, in my opinion, is incomprehensible--making it the worst "mistake" on the hand.

[RedSpawn]

masse24, on 2017-May-14, 16:59, said:

Though I would always lead the ♥T on this auction, the trump lead is not horrible.

However, the double, in my opinion, is incomprehensible--making it the worst "mistake" on the hand.

As I said before, whoever makes a deceptive, misleading, or psyche bid (inclusive of preemptive bids) owns ALL of the possible outcomes. The deceptive bidder doesn't get the privilege of cherry picking which outcomes he likes and casting blame on his partner for the outcomes he doesn't.

Whatever fruit is borne from the opener's lie is his and his alone. If the fruit tastes delicious and sweet, congrats. If the fruit is very bitter and poisonous, it's HIS fruit. My partner planted a seed from the very 1st promise (lie) he made to me and the opponents in the auction. He doesn't get the privilege of comparative or contributory negligence when he lies to his bridge partner.

I leave you with this quote from Eddie Kantar, a Grand Master in the World Bridge Federation and a two-time world bridge champion.

"If you make disciplined preempts (that is, your hand fulfills the criteria for making the bids you make), you'll be a feared opponent. If you make undisciplined preempts (yielding to temptation), you'll be a feared partner. Although you can have fun opening [an undisciplined preempt] in the hopes of messing up the opponents, if you have the wrong sort of hand for the bid, you run the risk of losing your partner's trust--[which is] the one thing you can't afford to lose in the game of bridge."

Amen, Eddie!

Sounds very similar to what I have already been saying and I am very sure this quote applies to weak 2, weak 3, and weak 4 preemptive bids.

Thank you all and enjoy your games.

[RedSpawn]

johnu, on 2017-May-14, 15:13, said:

You aren't the only one. Opponents have voluntarily bid game and the East hand is a good minimum opening hand but has no surprises, no trump stack, no reason to expect a defensive ruff.

You haven't explained why you think my partner, who was seated in 1st seat, needed to share his horrible, moth-eaten ♥ holding suit to me in this auction? It's basically a bust hand.

Also, you haven't explained that why you think his weak 2♥ bid is superior to a call of PASS? or better worded, What is the compelling need to make an undisciplined preemptive bid from 1st seat with a new partner?

And please provide something more reasonable than, "Well, bridge is a bidder's game." Thanks.

[Zelandakh]

johnu, on 2017-May-14, 01:06, said:

Hmmm, I'm biased but anybody can look at the bidding and play and come to their own conclusions.

My conclusion is that of the 4 players at the table - 3x adv, 1x exp - none is above intermediate standard. Of the 4, West (the 2♥ opener) took the least questionable actions. Against good players opening 2♥ is probably slightly -EV; against weak players it is probably a winner in the long run. Of the others, North's 2♠ overcall is more than questionable, the 4♠ raise ridiculous. East's double is clearly the worst call in the auction. And South's 3♠ raise is also highly questionable (but vies with Opener as being the least-worst). In the end though, this hand has little place in this thread. A better idea might have been to create an ATB thread for it.

As for the topic of how disciplined preempts should be, I heartily recommend a reading of Robson-Segal "Partnership Bidding in Bridge". The traditional idea of preempts in 1st and 2nd seats being strict (Rule of 500) has long been discarded and 1st seat is now seen by the vast majority of pairs as an ideal time to put the pressure on the opponents. That it sometimes instead puts pressure on partner is an acceptable side effect.

And finally, to Stef, would you and your partner really not preempt with something ♠QJT9876 ♥- ♦432 ♣432 NV in 1st? Or would that already be a 4♠ opening for you?

[Zelandakh]

RedSpawn, on 2017-May-13, 08:29, said:

In Bridge, you can either have "bidding accuracy" or a "higher frequency of opens". You can't have both and if you could, that book would have sold out a long time ago and we could all be Bridge Masters ruling the game.

As an aside, you are wrong about the above. You can improve bidding accuracy without reducing frequency (providing the opponents are silent) by the simple expedient of organising the bidding system more efficiently. This has been happening over time, for example with conventions like Gazilli. Almost the entire theory of relay systems, particularly symmetric, is based on this concept. Forcing pass systems are supposedly even more efficient when you get down to the maths.

And yet not every player is using such methods. Strange, I cannot imagine why every club player in the world would not want to memorise a 200+ page artificial system that they will only be able to play in a few events every year due to system regulation. Perhaps you can think of a reason...?

[alok c]

This thread is DTD ( DONE TO DEATH) where relentless forces are meeting immovable object.

[RedSpawn]

Zelandakh, on 2017-May-15, 08:50, said:

My conclusion is that of the 4 players at the table - 3x adv, 1x exp - none is above intermediate standard. Of the 4, West (the 2♥ opener) took the least questionable actions. Against good players opening 2♥ is probably slightly -EV; against weak players it is probably a winner in the long run. Of the others, North's 2♠ overcall is more than questionable, the 4♠ raise ridiculous. East's double is clearly the worst call in the auction. And South's 3♠ raise is also highly questionable (but vies with Opener as being the least-worst). In the end though, this hand has little place in this thread. A better idea might have been to create an ATB thread for it.

As for the topic of how disciplined preempts should be, I heartily recommend a reading of Robson-Segal "Partnership Bidding in Bridge". The traditional idea of preempts in 1st and 2nd seats being strict (Rule of 500) has long been discarded and 1st seat is now seen by the vast majority of pairs as an ideal time to put the pressure on the opponents. That it sometimes instead puts pressure on partner is an acceptable side effect.

And finally, to Stef, would you and your partner really not preempt with something ♠QJT9876 ♥- ♦432 ♣432 NV in 1st? Or would that already be a 4♠ opening for you?

Thank you for your "expert" rating of me. Let me put that in File 13 .....{aka} the trashcan. Also, I don't rate people from one board, and especially a board in which the partner has lied from the initial bid. It takes a sample of boards to get a feel of someone's bridge rating. If you are in the business of judging someone bridge skills or lack thereof from one board then we have a lot of people whose bridge "brand" is going to be in trouble.

Again, comparative or contributory negligence is NOT a privilege to the lying partner. Please refer to the quote from Eddie Kantar.

When I lie to my partner for whatever the reason, I don't second guess my partner's moves after that. Don't get me wrong, in my earlier days, I would blamestorm in a minute. But I understand now how important the partnership relationship is and how I need to strike a balance with my partner.

If a player starts the auction on a convenient lie and then tries to justify and/or post mortem folks for actions taken after he told that lie, he is out of order. His own house has to be beyond reproach before he starts to look to his partner to explain a nasty outcome of a lie he told his partner.

A lot of folks are trying to release my partner from the lie he told, and while that's a noble effort, that isn't consistent with how deceptive bids and psychs work.

Own your mess.

There is no justification for a moth-eaten weak 2 bid from 1st seat and at best it is labeled an undisciplined weak 2♥ bid. That is his fruit, EAT IT and enjoy.

If you are the business of selling lies to a new partner, please let me know when you are going to play.

And I am still researching to find a single BBO game Johnu has played on BBO in the last six months under the Johnu user ID in MyHands. Stay tuned for further developments.

Thanks.

[diana_eva]

There are forum members who either don't play on BBO or use a different username there. This says nothing about the quality of their arguments.

[diana_eva]

I deleted two offtopic replies. Stick to the hand Redspawn, I already explained why you won't find hand records for some of the Forum members, no need to expand on that.

[Vampyr]

masse24, on 2017-May-14, 16:59, said:

Though I would always lead the ♥T on this auction, the trump lead is not horrible.

However, the double, in my opinion, is incomprehensible--making it the worst "mistake" on the hand.

Well... I know it is resulting,but the hand does go down.

And I do think that the trump lead is horrible. I can't think of a reason for it. If RS's partner really did have top hearts, you want to cash them before the rats get at them.

Zelandakh, on 2017-May-15, 08:50, said:

And finally, to Stef, would you and your partner really not preempt with something ♠QJT9876 ♥- ♦432 ♣432 NV in 1st? Or would that already be a 4♠ opening for you?

This partner is really rigid, and he kind of regards a preempt as an invitation to 3NT. He also makes up meanings for every single card played on defense. He and I agree on very little, but I play with him once a month because I like him. He does play the cards well.

[MrAce]

Vampyr, on 2017-May-15, 18:31, said:

Well... I know it is resulting,but the hand does go down.

And I do think that the trump lead is horrible. I can't think of a reason for it. If RS's partner really did have top hearts, you want to cash them before the rats get at them.

Redspawn controls both minor suits very well ( AQ AQ) and his pd says he has the hearts. What can be better reason on earth for leading trump when your side locked all other 3 suits and opponents still bid 4♠?

I mean it is ok to criticize the double. I would never double myself but I do not think it is such a huge logical mistake when his expectations from his pd and a weak 2♥ bid are more sound than the rest of us.
I do not think the lead was a mistake, I would have led spade myself. After he wins the ♣A he could perhaps panic (seeing 4 clubs in the dummy are literally ready to go after trumps are cleared) and decide to play pd for K of ♦, but the the fact is if 2♥ opener held the ♥K instead of ♦, only defense that beats 4♠ is to play ♥ now immediately which he did. It is not that hard for defenders to spot the entry issues of NS. So I disagree with the comments that says he defended bad.

[Phil]

I'd pass. The ODR just isn't good enough for even a weak 2 in 1st seat.

Redspawn: 1st seat is almost as good a time to preempt as 3rd and should not be mentioned in the same breath as one in 2nd.