[bluecalm]

I thought that maybe 4C should show extras and thus be GF but maybe there is something to be said for playing (almost) mandator cuebids here as partner's hand is still in wide range.
Anyway, natural principle is: old suit = weakness and that's what 4D should show here so I guess we can pass regardless of what exactly 4C is.

[mike777]

bluecalm, on 2012-August-10, 19:25, said:

I thought that maybe 4C should show extras and thus be GF but maybe there is something to be said for playing (almost) mandator cuebids here as partner's hand is still in wide range.
Anyway, natural principle is: old suit = weakness and that's what 4D should show here so I guess we can pass regardless of what exactly 4C is.

I dont get this either 2c is 100% gf or you have clear rules when it is not. Clear rules meaning 2c non gf is rare exception and is clearly shown.

you cant play 2/1 gf and make 2/1 bids that are often nongf. That is another system


If this is a rare nongf then you need to make that 100% clear

[bluecalm]

Quote

you cant play 2/1 gf and make 2/1 bids that are often nongf. That is another system

You are just too dogmatic. Just because they call it "2/1 gf" doesn't mean you should follow gf part above 3nt in sequences where it doesn't make sense.
I mean, if 4S shows minimum and we have a hand that doesn't make good game opposite minimums then we pass. It's not another system, it's the only sane thing to do.

Quote

If this is a rare nongf then you need to make that 100% clear

You should just make clear what hands bids contain and then use judgement to pick the best action opposite indicated range of hands.

[mike777]

I strongly disagree

[bluecalm]

What about giving a reason ? I mean, it's hard to disagree with "you should pick the best action opposite indicated range of hands" part so I guess there is something wrong with the premise ?

[mike777]

bluecalm, on 2012-August-11, 01:25, said:

What about giving a reason ? I mean, it's hard to disagree with "you should pick the best action opposite indicated range of hands" part so I guess there is something wrong with the premise ?

It makes me so angry. Millions of people are suffering, and our political classes are wholly oblivious to the actual problem


and you fact are what?-----


---------



I dont get this either 2c is 100% gf or you have clear rules when it is not. Clear rules meaning 2c non gf is rare exception and is clearly shown.

you cant play 2/1 gf a


------



not sure what is your recommendation.......allow inflation to rise ok...but fed do what that it does not do?

bank of england to do what that it does not do?


"It makes me so angry. Millions of people are suffering, and our political classes are wholly oblivious to the actual problem"


As a noneconomist...monterist/friedman.........I guess I show my bias that in general i dont care about budget deficits......in general

--



I also get the impression, strong impression that macroeconomics is a science in need of a savior

[JLOGIC]

mike777, on 2012-August-11, 01:29, said:

It makes me so angry. Millions of people are suffering, and our political classes are wholly oblivious to the actual problem


and you fact are what?-----


---------



I dont get this either 2c is 100% gf or you have clear rules when it is not. Clear rules meaning 2c non gf is rare exception and is clearly shown.

you cant play 2/1 gf a


------



not sure what is your recommendation.......allow inflation to rise ok...but fed do what that it does not do?

bank of england to do what that it does not do?


"It makes me so angry. Millions of people are suffering, and our political classes are wholly oblivious to the actual problem"


As a noneconomist...monterist/friedman.........I guess I show my bias that in general i dont care about budget deficits......in general

--



I also get the impression, strong impression that macroeconomics is a science in need of a savior

[Antrax]

TBH Justin, even though it makes me feel dirty, I tend to agree with mike777. "Common sense" is just not that great a basis for decision making when more than one person is involved - maybe for you experts it works wonderfully, but I don't trust my common sense to be common with my partner's. I think such a common sense would rely on the ability to answer the question "could partner need a forcing 4m here", which in turn depends on my ability to visualize possible hands for him and figure out if he could've bid them differently, and I don't trust myself to do it well enough, nor would want to be in a position where I bid my hand in a way that seems logical to me and have partner pass a bid I thought was forcing. So, I think either 2/1 is 100% forcing to game, or you agree in advance exactly what needs to happen to let you stop on the 4m dime. Just saying "yeah, it's FG unless both of us figure out 5m won't make" won't work for me, and I suspect I'm not alone in this.

[JLOGIC]

But what are your views on macroeconomics?

[Antrax]

I'm a capitalist. Am I not on top of my memes? Haven't heard that one before.

[JLOGIC]

Dude my "WTF IS THIS" post was related to mike777 saying:

"It makes me so angry. Millions of people are suffering, and our political classes are wholly oblivious to the actual problem


and you fact are what?-----


[snip bridge content]

not sure what is your recommendation.......allow inflation to rise ok...but fed do what that it does not do?

bank of england to do what that it does not do?


"It makes me so angry. Millions of people are suffering, and our political classes are wholly oblivious to the actual problem"


As a noneconomist...monterist/friedman.........I guess I show my bias that in general i dont care about budget deficits......in general

--



I also get the impression, strong impression that macroeconomics is a science in need of a savior"

I guess there was some bridge content in there that you were replying to...it seems impressive that you blocked out the other parts lol.

[phil_20686]

JLOGIC, on 2012-August-10, 16:12, said:

Why is such life? You can play a nearly cold partscore, or you can play a very bad 3N. I don't understand why you'd accept losing so many imps in equity knowingly in the auction just so you can have 4D bids be forcing.

Or are you doing it in hopes that youre just on 4-3 hearts? You need a lot to have 9 toppers in that case. Even something like AKQxx xxx Axxx x is on hearts breaking and a club hook. That is not good to play a white game on that, and surely you'll agree thats a very good hand for partner to have. You are often going to be 0 % (AKxxx xxx Axxx x). Even if you hit him with stiff K of clubs for the nuts, oops hes got AJTxx xxx Axxx K, you still have no play. Or no SA... etc.

Even worse, he might have AJxxx xx Axxx Kx and you could have gotten to 5D but you're in 3N now, which is on 4-4 hearts and 3-3 clubs (or do you think that hand should not bother with 3H and just drive past 3N?). And he will clearly bid 5D over 3C.

It's going to be a very lucky day that you're just on 4-3 hearts for 3N. I think you will agree much more common is that you have no play even with hearts splitting, or that game is extremely poor even with hearts splitting (like on 2 hooks...that's after hearts split). Meanwhile you are only gaining 6 imps when you run good, and losing 5 imps to your cold partial the other times. And sometimes you get to a bad 3N instead of a good 5D.

You should ask yourself why such is life. When we discuss the EV of bids, we usually agree if a single bid has an EV of -.5 imps, it is a very bad bid. -1 imp would be a horrible bid. Here you want to be forced to play 3N which must have a massively -EV well over 1 instead of being able to play 4D, and why? What are you gaining in return for this? I think if everyone asks themselves this they will change this silly view of 4D being forcing here by either player.

If it is the case that most top experts play this as non forcing, I will revise my opinion. Is that the case? Does all/most of your circle of bridge friends play this as non forcing? These things ultimately are a matter of experience, rather than analysis. Most people that I play with play 3H as two way, so the 4d bid would indicated that the 3H bid was a cue. If you intended it as a stop ask, you bid 5d next.

Moreover this auction is even more tricky if you play fsf, as responder could have bid 2H and then 3d rather than 3d. Which is either stronger or weaker than 3d depending on agreements. But a lot of people seemed to have moved to playing 2h as natural on this sequence rather than fsf. Responder could also have found out partners shape with 2N, rather than 3d. That would have fetched a 3H response, and now he could bid 3N, as with a 3-3 fit you can just hope for a stop. If instead he shows at least two clubs by bidding 3c, you could then bid 3d. So there is lots of variation, and tbh I don't really know what the standard meanings for these sequences are.

PS: I'm pretty sure mike has put two replies together, one of which belongs in the watercooler thread.

[JLOGIC]

phil_20686, on 2012-August-11, 05:14, said:

Does all/most of your circle of bridge friends play this as non forcing? These things ultimately are a matter of experience, rather than analysis.

erm, well han and jdonn both indicated in this thread that they would play this as forcing. And also clee messaged me saying he would have thought it was forcing before my posts. But I would like to engage in a FIGHT TO THE DEATH with them hence me spazzing out earlier in this thead and posting 7 times in a row. I have no idea about other people outside of this thread, I have never discussed this with any of my partners but I think they'd be on the same page with me, guess I better check!

Also do not know about the most top experts part, maybe fred will chime in.

I actually disagree with you about analysis vs experience on this one, I think this is a case where analysis can clearly show that NF is correct. It's not like what to do in a preempt or something, it's the 6th (or 7th) bid of an uncontested auction, I think we should be able to get it right with analysis.

FWIW I *do* think a common agreement at least in competitive auctions, whether explicit or not, is that when you try to get to 3N and have no stopper, you can get out in 4 of a minor, regardless of your level of force. I do not understand why this wouldn't apply to an uncontested auction, the logic is exactly the same. Perhaps it's due to having a diminished chance for slam once they've bid?

Quote

Most people that I play with play 3H as two way, so the 4d bid would indicated that the 3H bid was a cue. If you intended it as a stop ask, you bid 5d next.

I will try the analysis route again, tell me where you disagree (and since everyone itt disagrees with me I say that non sarcastically).

Why is this a better agreement than simply bidding 4H when you have a heart cuebid? Yes, you lose a step, and I suppose you would use that step to differentiate between a first and second round heart control. Is that step really enough to make up for not being able to get out in 4D when you clearly need to be able to sometimes in an ideal world?

I think the premise starts with "we are in a GF so I should fast arrival to 5D when we both don't have a heart control." This makes sense, but surely we can agree in analysis mode that 1S p 2C does not promise enough to force to 5D, especially with 2+ top losers in a suit and only a 4-4 fit. I mean, even if we give ourselves 24 HCP as a minimum, that is simply not enough for 11 tricks most of the time. Even 25, 26, 27 becomes problematic when we're off 2+ losers in a suit and we know it, we need all the other tricks and only have 8 trumps, poorly fitting hands, and maybe no black suit ace. I submit that we have enough information by this point in the auction to be able to recognize these situations well. Even the old goren textbooks recommended more points for 5m than 3N or 4M!

I guess my point is that we gain a significant amount by being able to stop in 4m in these scenarios. We certainly have enough information to recognize these times. We also have not promised enough points to play 5m, we know our hands fit lousy, and we know that we are off 2 or 3 heart tricks. The only way it makes sense to me to force myself to play 5m is if we gain enough often enough to make up for the imps we lose.

So, ok maybe you get to bid 4D over 4C promising a heart control, and leave room for partner to bid 4H. You also have better definition in your 4H bid (first round control instead of second?). Are these bids really going to enable you such greater slam accuracy with any frequency that you pick up all the 5 imp losses? Maybe it's just me but 1S 2C 2D 3D 3H 4C sure sounds to me like we often have no heart control. When we have no heart control, I would often want to sign off in 5D rather than gambling that we only have 2 heart losers and we have the rest of the tricks. So that is a lot of 5 imp losses you have to make up with this improved definition of 4H, and partners ability to bid 4H over 4D (when he often usually won't have a heart control himself anyways).

Honestly, doesn't it feel like you're giving up a lot to gain very little/almost nothing? Doesn't that feel wrong? I know sometimes it's a fact of life but an uncontested 7 bid auction where we both basically know what is happening a lot of the time doesn't feel like this should be one of those times.

It is circular "we play fast arrival because we are in a GF" is not a good reason that we should be in a GF imo.

I did not know there was a general distiction to the rule of "when we try for 3N and have no stopper we can stop in 4m" as being competitive, but I think that is a metarule that should apply in all auctions.

I mean, how about 1S 2C 2D 3D 3H 4D? What would that auction show? No 3S bid, no heart control, no 4C bid? Or does this also show a heart control, with 4H showing a first round control? I would not think that is standard. Surely whether or not you have an explicit agreement on that one, it should not be forcing. I guess opener can just pass a forcing bid but that just means it's not forcing, he's passing because he has enough info to know that it's right to pass.

[phil_20686]

So firstly, I will admit that I have not really thoguht too much about this auction. It comes up pretty rarely, and my partner likes to bid 3N on any excuse anyway.

First point: you say we are missing a lot seven imps away, but it is rarely so clear as this hand. Suppose that in general we will be like 70% to make ten tricks and 30% to make 11 tricks.

Nv, if we bid game we gain 7 30% of the time, and lose 6 40% of the time, and lose two 30% of the time, which means that our expectation relative to playing in 4d is roughly -1 imps a board, which is not very much. Obviously, its not nothing, but it is pretty rarely the case that ten tricks is cold and eleven tricks is zero play, and while that doesnt effect the expectation of being in game being quite negative, it means that the expectation of being in 4d is not as high, and you are not losing as much. If we were vul here it would be better for bidding on.

Second point: I am struggling to think of a case where it is vital to be able to bid a forcing 4d, but it does seem like the kind of agreement that is easily forgotten. Obviously, if I were a pro that would not be a concern, but sometimes I have to go a coupple of months without playing, and remembering that one specific auction is NF in a gf sequence is exactly the kind of thing that gets overlooked.

Third point, I concede that it looks theoretically superior to use it as NF.

If you were 25% to make game and 50% to make partscore, your expectation of being in 5d and 4d is essentially the same NV.

[Antrax]

JLOGIC, on 2012-August-11, 04:35, said:

I guess there was some bridge content in there that you were replying to...it seems impressive that you blocked out the other parts lol.

In all honesty, I hadn't even noticed those parts. I find his posts a bit difficult to read, so I tend to skim them to try and figure out what the main theme is.

[lalldonn]

JLOGIC, on 2012-August-11, 05:38, said:

erm, well han and jdonn both indicated in this thread that they would play this as forcing. And also clee messaged me saying he would have thought it was forcing before my posts. But I would like to engage in a FIGHT TO THE DEATH with them hence me spazzing out earlier in this thead and posting 7 times in a row. I have no idea about other people outside of this thread, I have never discussed this with any of my partners but I think they'd be on the same page with me, guess I better check!

Well here are my thoughts/points.
- Clee and I play it forcing because it's easier, and because it's less accident prone (that may be redundant but I don't think so). We have lots of agreements specifically designed to know what we are doing on auctions we haven't gotten into much depth in. I have no other partnership that I play in often enough these days to have agreed whether or not it's forcing, therefore I'm sure it's forcing since 2♣ was GF. That's what I meant by my earlier comment that I can't stop. Note I didn't argue that this was good, or mock either of the original bidders or anything like that, just stated my agreement.
- Honestly I don't feel like it's that important an issue. I feel like it's less common than you state that you have the hand where you start with 2♣ then want to stop in a minor below game, and that having 4♦ forcing is more important than you think although you can survive without it. In fact I'm sure the slam auctions are (way) more common, though obviously 4♦ is less useful to those auctions than it is to auctions where you want to stop in 4♦ since there can always be other options.
- What about 1♠ 2♦ 2♠ 3♣ 3♦ 3♠ 4♣ or something, I didn't think about that auction deeply so it might be a dumb example but some slow auction where we may have been hoping to stop in 3NT but we aren't even sure what the trump suit is?
- When I say being able to stop in 4 of a minor is accident prone here, I don't just mean the chance that someone means it as forcing and the other person passes, though of course that's a major disaster. You are also saying just bid hearts again with a heart cuebid. That bid could also be misunderstood and lead to something bad happening.
- Despite allll that I can still easily believe you are right. I think where I disagree most is frequency. You make it sound like playing this forcing is just chucking away 6 imps left and right, but although I'm sure it's happened I can't remember wanting a minor to be NF here at the table. However I have had lots of slam auctions that went something like this.

[han]

JLOGIC, on 2012-August-11, 05:38, said:

erm, well han and jdonn both indicated in this thread that they would play this as forcing.

It's been a while since I read this thread, and now that mike777 dirtied it with his input I'm not going to reread it. I did look at my own post, and I remember it being a reaction to kenrexford, who wrote that the east hand is not strong enough to force to game on. I disagreed with that when I said that I would force to game.

Then I said that I would get to 3NT. In my system west would show a 5-3-4-1 shape, and then it seems normal to bid 3NT.

I don't remember commenting on whether 4D was forcing. Playing a realy system, it's not such an issue. Of course if one partner has shown a minimum (and is not intending 4m as a slam try) then partner can pass 4m. With my girlfriend I do have the agreement that 4m shows a minimum when a minor suit fit has been established, so then 4m could definitely be passed here.

I realize that the forcing nature of 4D was the question in the OP, but I felt I needed to react foremost to the rexford comment, which seemed very dubious to me.

[JLOGIC]

phil_20686, on 2012-August-11, 05:58, said:

So firstly, I will admit that I have not really thoguht too much about this auction. It comes up pretty rarely, and my partner likes to bid 3N on any excuse anyway.

First point: you say we are missing a lot seven imps away, but it is rarely so clear as this hand. Suppose that in general we will be like 70% to make ten tricks and 30% to make 11 tricks.

If you were 25% to make game and 50% to make partscore, your expectation of being in 5d and 4d is essentially the same NV.

These numbers are just not correct on hands like this. We often just have 3 100 % losers in the form of 3 hearts or 2 hearts and a black suit ace. I do think 0 % to 9x % is not uncommon in this kind of sitution. That was my point earlier when I said how brutal it is to play 0 % games. I really dont understand how you don't think having 3 small hearts opposite 3 small hearts is an unlikely occurence on a hand like this! Because every time it happens, you are forced to play a 0 % game under your current agreements if you get to 5D, or otherwise play 3N which might be 0 % (On this hand it's about 25 %, that is still a big loss compared to a near 100 % partial)

But 25 % to 50 % is just unrealistic. It is not that kind of hand where we could be 25 % to make 11 tricks, but only 50 % to make 10 tricks. Those hands occur, but not when we have 24-26 HCP and 2-3 top losers in a suit. Can you give me an example of that kind of hand?

Oh, and by the way, it is not true even in your (imo very contrived) example of 25 % to 50 % that you have the same EV in either contract. It is not hard to double people who have announced they have 2+heart losers if you have anything else in the form of 4-1 trumps, or a black suit ace, etc etc if the opponents are at all listening. If you are going down 2+ you should be getting doubled a lot, after all you said that 3H...4m...5D shows no heart control. Maybe your opps suck and won't double but I would not like to play such exploitable methods where not only do i have to bid no play games, I have to tell them that I'm doing so also!

[twoshy]

Thanks for the insight, especially about West's 4♦ being NF. I for sure would have treated East's 4♦ iso 4♣ as NF but this also makes sense. Maybe this is just a type of auction that people don't think about too deeply. I asked a bunch of people about a less complex auction where RHO had overcalled a major, we had agreed a minor with opening showing a minimum, and we had tried for 3NT with neither partner having the major stopped. This seemed completely clear for 4m to be NF but almost all the responses were "slam try" or "minorwood" (!). Oh well, at least my regular partner likes 4m to be NF when it is reasonable.