[bluecalm]

3 judgement calls from match vs Italy which caught my attention.
All 3 problems were the same at other table so it's interesting to compare calls from Bocchi-Madala and Lall-Grue.

As it was round 8 and Italy was main contender to win the whole thing I imagine all the players took it extremely seriously
The opponents are Sementa-Duboin as world class as you could get.
Here we go:

1)

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Your call ?

2)

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Your call ?

3)

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Your call ?

Bonus question: only one of the calls was replicated at the other table, guess which one
I consider all of those interesting. I tend to like all actions taken by Italians but I consider all of them very close.
Your opinions ?

[rduran1216]

I suspect the cheapest spade bid was made on all three. I personally would pass on the first two and bid 2S with the last

[jmcw]

1. 1♠ without reservation. This collection of junk needs to bid
2. Pass. probably not the popular choice.
3 2♠, expecting this to be duplicated. Strong NT?

[gwnn]

1s quite minimum
2s relatively auto
2s see above

[Fluffy]

1♠ -pass-2♠ for me, the one I am least convinced is the last one.

[whereagles]

pass
pass
2S

[Cyberyeti]

P
2♠
2♠

guessing the last got duplicated.

[gnasher]

1♠, 2♠, 2♠. I'd be astonished if anyone didn't bid 2♠ on the third one. The other two are a matter of style.

[JLOGIC]

Yeah, hand 3 I saw the auction as 1H 1N 3H lol. I was pretty shocked when I passed and RHO had bid only 2H. Was not exactly a judgement call. I think it was maybe the last board or almost the last board and I wanted to go smoke, and knew we had a good set, so maybe that made me more distracted but I def thought it was 1H 1N 3H. It was funny to hear the speculation that I was trying to avoid going for a number and blah blah because of victory point strategy (when really the WBF VP scale is close to total imps).

ETA: Bridge at the top!

[bluecalm]

The results are:
1)JL overcalled, Madala didn't
2)Both Bocchi and Grue overcalled
3)Madala had bid 2♠ and JL didn't (as he misread the bidding , interesting to know btw, a pity vugraph archives don't contain such information)

It caught my attention because:
a)I've noticed that while Italians are fast to overcall on junk, they need shape for that with 5-3-3-2 they are in general careful and they often pass weakish hands with weak suit like this but still it was surprising to me to see a pass.
b)apparently in modern bridge this is standard overcall these days, time to update those books ?
c)I thought it's close. JL suggests now it's 100% 2♠. I believe partner will balance anyway with nice 3-2-4-4 or something and we are vul. I guess I am a chicken

[JLOGIC]

FWIW I think overcalling on the second hand has much more upside/less risk/is better than on the first hand. I would automatically bid with the 2nd hand. Grue is a much sounder 1 level overcaller than me in general, I am somwhat surprised he did it.

2S is just a completely different style than we play and than I am used to, same for the italians. I think we'd be much more likely to see it from the dutch or somewhere like that.

[cherdano]

JLOGIC, on 2012-January-07, 11:16, said:

ETA:

Urban dictionary:

ETA 995 up, 35 down

1. "Estimated Time of Arrival" abbreviated. Sounds officious or military when spoken out loud.

2. "Edited To Add" abbreviated. Used frequently by bloggers when adding something to a post.

3. "Euskadi Ta Akatasuna", or Eta (pronounced "eh-ta"). A paramilitary organisation based in northern Spain which uses terrorism to push for Basque] independence.