[dkharty]

MFA, on Jun 1 2010, 06:05 AM, said:

For me the most important thing is that 4♣ is a big underbid. If it were approximately right on values I could easily live with not being so flexible since the upside of introducing such a strong suit is great.

When we have this 'monster', and yes it is a monster with all those controls and the good shape, it's very convenient to state that 4♣ shows strong values. But it doesn't. Or at the very least it shouldn't do. Without the ♥A we would have had a routine 4♣ call. We must be able to compete with shortness in their suit and reasonable playing strength.

4♣ is clearly NF and will quite often get passed...

I guess this is what I don't get here. Sure, 4C is "nonforcing", but is partner really going to pass very often when we have a game? Give partner hanp's example hand--xx AJxx Qxxx xxx--and he may very well pass 4C. Which seems to me to be just about as good a spot as anything else. To me, opener taking a free bid in a new suit above 3NT shows a very good hand, not just "reasonable playing strength." It seems backwards to me to say that 4C doesn't show a good hand, but then argue that you must strive to compete with shortness in the opponent's suit--THAT, to me, is the hand that should be doubling, the 5314 hand without significant extras. Maybe that's an unusual position, I don't know. If that's the case--that 4C doesn't show significant extras--then I would choose double. I'm not sure I understand hanp's argument about missing 4H though, why is this contract impossible after 4C?

[hanp]

I wouldn't double with a minimal hand.

I think it is unlikely that partner bids 4H over 4C with a 5-card heart suit.

[dkharty]

Sorry for the long wait but the results are now in, I just got my new issue of Table Talk. The results of the bidding contest were very interesting...

The "Forum Consensus" picks would have scored 475 out of a possible 500 (since we didn't achieve consensus on problem #1, I simply averaged the results for the two answers with equal votes). That would have been good enough for 3rd place on the expert panel, and would have comfortably bested all reader submissions (the top reader submission was 440).

Congratulations to the following posters, whose individual scores would have been excellent:

MFA (perfect 500, well done! No experts on the panel matched this)
hanp (490)
RobF (490)
jjbr (460)
Dirk Kuijt (460)
P_Marlowe (460)
wyman (450)
MarkDean (450)
Mbodell (450)

For reference, the "perfect" answers to the problems were:

1. dbl
2. 3NT (agree with 1st pass)
3. 4NT
4. 2C
5. pass

Also, an amusing note about problem #4. Many people commented on how awful the psyche was; apparently a lot of the expert panel did, as well. The hand as given was incorrectly printed! It was supposed to be: 6 T985 K97 AQJ63, which makes it a lot less awful I guess. The "correct" hand was emailed to the expert panel after the mistake came to light, but none of them changed their answers.

[MFA]

The danish bridge magazine "Dansk Bridge" has its own master solvers' club article series, and I am one of the two editors.

I took the liberty to "borrow" problem 1 and 3 - I hope you don't mind that.

The results based on the danish jury were:

Prob 1.

X 10points
4♣ 10p
4♦ 7p
4♥ 4p
5♣ 2p
6♣ 2p

Prob 3.

X 10p
4NT 8p
3NT 7p
Pass 5p
4♦ 2p

[dkharty]

MFA, on Oct 14 2010, 05:12 PM, said:

I took the liberty to "borrow" problem 1 and 3 - I hope you don't mind that.

Not at all, as long as you give credit to Table Talk, not me--they aren't my problems!

Very interesting results, too--the scores on #1 are quite similar to the Table Talk results, but the results on #3 are radically different. The Table Talk scores for #3:

4NT: 100
dbl: 90
4D: 90
3NT: 80
pass: 80

Seems like a lot of high scores for very different evaluations. I'm glad I didn't have to score it (or any of the hands) myself.