ETA: win by 17 vs NN. With a push on board 16, where the bots have 13 top tricks in NT but rested in 4S. Probably I would reach a slam with most human partners, but no bid was terrible
. Reissued
Unbelievable. Lose to AA by 5. Normally losing to AA by 5 would be believable, but it happened on this hand with exactly the same bidding and play to tricks 1 and 2 at each table.
Despite the double of 2C, CHO did not lead a club at either table. Just as well; club lead declarer easily makes 11 tricks. OTOH declarer should easily make 11 on a spade lead, since the trump ace is in the hand with the stiff spade. Declarer wins the spade lead in his hand and leads a trump to dummy’s Q and our A. And now?
I led the club 10; declare won 1 and took his 11 tricks. AA led the club 3, and idiotic declarer decided to hook the J. So CHO won the K, gave AA a ruff, and the defense still had a diamond.
Reissued.
oirg wins the regular challenge with +14.50, a margin of 8.25. procrastinator wins the declare-only with +13.00, a margin of 11.75. Both reissued.
Win some (vs procrastinator); lose some (vs NN). Both by 12. Both reissued
Lose by 8 to AA, because I forget to beat a slam that should have been beaten as declarer played it. Bad declarer play, IMO, since a different line just requires him figuring out the distribution in the end position (deciding if LHO unguarded a king), whereas the way he played it gives him no chance except misdefense on many normal distributions. Guess he had played against me before, since he got the misdefense, which was really awful defense. Reissued.
oirg wins the regular challenge with +15.25, by 10.25. NN wins the declare-only with 13.00, by 9.50. Both reissued
Win by 31 vs NN. Lose by 14 to procrastinator. Lost 11 when he played 3N slightly better than I did, making 4 instead of down 2 (where I should have been down only 1). OTOH, as the cards lie he should have been down as well. Major gift to him by the defense. Both reissued.
ETA: lose to AA by 2. Reissued
Win by 20 vs NN and 23 vs procrastinator. Second featured an interesting push, where he got a friendly trump lead against a slam, where I made it only due to what turned out to be misdefense. Trumps were Axxx in dummy, K10xx in my hand. I played a trump to the ace and a trump back. I was rising K anyway. I only needed trumps 3-2, but the 10 losing to an honor would leave me a trick short (still needing a finesse). Fortunately for me, RHO rose on the second round from QJ9x. That would have been right if I required 2 ruffs in dummy (because after 2 ruffs, I couldn’t lead toward my trump 10). But knowing the trump position, I was home with one ruff and a diamond finesse.
Both reissued.
procrastinator wins the regular challenge with +8.75, by 4.75. NN wins the declare only with +16.25, which was only by 1.25. Both reissued
ETA: win over AA by 8. Reissued
Have a question about hand 5 of our 1:1 challenge, that I’m currently playing.
You won the challenge by 10, despite my winning 12 on hand 5. I shouldn’t have won 12. Your CHO was an idiot and passed a forcing bid. (That said, if you were planning on passing if he bid only 3H, I think your action would be too conservative. And if you were going to bid 4H anyway, I don’t see any merit for not bidding 4H right away. Slam is too remote to justify moving above 4H.) Reissued
Wow, that is a crazy pass by CHO. I understand some of their plays due to the way they are programmed, but I don’t understand how this one is possible…could any simulation suggest this is right? Doesn’t seem so. Does it have rules for each bid, and for some weird reason this one did not qualify for any, so it passed? It is a super max, so maybe it was too good for the description given to 4H?
I think inviting is reasonable. If partner is declining, doubt game is that good. I find 4441 hands often disappoint in the play, and the stiff is in the suit partner opened.
Yeah, I was just caught way off guard by CHO’s pass, and wondered if I did this to myself. I knew I should/could just jump to 3H or 4H depending on what I decided. But saw that I could show another suit, and give CHO more info, and that it was forcing. Maybe it was a bit of a pointless or lazy bid. But then CHO passed. I was aghast. And didn’t know if I messed this up or CHO did.
lost to NN by 19. Reissued
Reasonable yes, though just taking a shot at game is also reasonable. Several plus factors, though a side stiff would be far better than a stiff in partner’s suit. My main point is that you should have a reason for a bid. If your intent when you bid 2S is that the contract will be 4H whatever partner does, then don’t bid 2S (and the risk that 2S would become the final contract isn’t even on the radar in my thought process). If you bid 2S intending to pass if partner bids 3H, fine, just a judgment call.
Agree with both points. In addition to describing your hand more for no benefit, in human bridge, you could end up constrained if partner makes a slow 3h call.
NN wins the regular group challenge with +19.75, a margin of 8.50. Reissued
Are you suggesting, if you confuse your partner and he hesitates, opponents could claim he is passing information unfairly, and force you not to use that information, and therefore pass?
This is all foreign to me, having never played live. I have read about all the rules and procedures of bridge, but this seems aggressive and unfair. Sometimes I need to think about things. And it’s not for show or to pass information.
What I mean is that if partner bids 3H slowly, it is often because she was deciding between 3H and 4H, i.e. has a borderline hand. With a real bad hand, she would bid 3H swiftly.
The rules say that if partner’s tempo suggests an action for you (here bidding 4H instead of passing), and the alternative is a “logical alternative”, you should select it, or in this case pass.
It does not imply intent, or that anybody was trying to pass information, just that the information is there, and you must go out of your way to not take advantage.
When folks are still learning, often the extra time does not really pass information, so there may be no implication.
That’s what I thought you meant. I feel like that’s harsh. I’m against trying to table talk or pass information against the spirit of the game, but when someone is genuinely thinking, you shouldn’t be penalized for that.