pescetom, on 2018-August-20, 09:52, said:
I agree, North would be crazy not to look for slam over 2
♠. But if she had initiated control-bidding rather than asking Aces she would have known for sure that South lacks control of hearts. Not that it was sensible to assume otherwise anyway.
Yes I would expect this West to lead her clubs rather than hope for two heart tricks. And she would eat East alive if he offered the ruff and discard at round three
Unfortunately she's not equally reliable in competitive bidding and I had lost some confidence in the preceding hands. I was also aware that she had no reason to be sure I held semi-solid hearts (our preempts non-vulnerable are not very disciplined and she didn't take the chance to interrogate), a long hot night and a silly hunch did the rest.
There is no way that you can or should be guessing what your partner will lead against 6S, other than that you expect a heart lead, if for no other reason than that any other lead may allow our heart trick (assuming we have one) to go away.
As for North control bidding, that is impossible. The only way she can set spades as trump, other than by using keycard or bidding some number of spades, is by bidding 4H. Bidding 4C or 4D is natural (and it is unplayable to treat it otherwise....since North may hold a good hand, a good suit, and spade shortness).
No, if I were North, and assuming that I hadn't yet found out that I was playing with a very weak player and probably even then, I'd bid 6N to protect the heart King. I'd 'know' that I have 6 spade tricks (only a very very weak player overcalls on a marginal hand with a marginal short suit, as in KJxxx...btw, this wasn't a marginal overcall, it was an abomination) and I'd definitely expect at least the diamond Ace, so at worst I'm on the diamond suit coming home and many times I'll be claiming on the lead...to the point that I rate to take 13 tricks if they don't cash the heart Ace. A reasonable overcall would look something like KJxxxx xx AQx Kx. I'd excuse KJxxxx xx Ax KJx and now I need some luck/card-reading.
Of course, there will be hands on which 6S is cold and 6N fails: KJxxxx x Ax KJxx and the diamonds don't come home in notrump. Preempts work, even when one knows what one is doing.
As for the information that South enjoys a fairly high ranking, and has had 'success' at regionals for many years, I had to laugh.
It sounds as if South is closer to the highest Italian rank than I am to the highest ACBL rank. However, as any expert knows, masterpoints, or their equivalent, are to some degree attendance awards. Show me a non-sponsor client with 25,000 masterpoints and the odds are good that he or she is an expert. Some of the top clients are also undeniably expert...they are as good as or almost as good as their pros, but some sponsors are little more than advanced, if that (especially back a few years....these days most of the prominent sponsors do know how to play, and some are genuinely world-class).
Play lots of events for decades and one had better have lots of masterpoints!
My experience, and I have occasionally had discussions about this with other good players (who universally agree), is that one can usually tell within a couple of boards approximately how good a previously unknown opponent is. Sometimes it takes longer, and one qualification is that sometimes all I can tell is that my opp is at least as good as I am. The reason is that one identifies the ability of players not by brilliancies, which almost never arise, but by how they make mistakes. I am not worldclass (other than by BBO definition) so I make mistakes and sometimes don't recognize that I did so....if an opp makes the same mistake, it is invisible to me. So when I see an opp make 'no mistakes' I know that he is at least as good as me, but he may well be much better.
Most opps make a mistake of some kind within a board or two of starting to play. Many times the mistake appears trivial, and many times it has no adverse effect. Show me a player who religiously gives count (or indeed religiously gives signals) and I know he or she is not expert, even tho the signaling had no effect on that hand. Show me a player who bids 2S here, as South, and I know he's an idiot, in bridge terms (may be a genius otherwise and may be a wonderful human being!)
I've watched quite a few hands where non-expert friends have played on BBO, including lots of 'BBO experts' and my opinion is that the average 'advanced' player makes on average at least one mistake every hand, and often more. What is funny is that on many occasions one sees both sets of players making mistakes that offset each other, so that the result appears normal, and usually both sides then assume that they did well.
It isn't just frequency of errors that counts, of course. Otherwise I'd have to admit to being non-expert myself, since I make lots of errors. it is also the type of error that counts. Some things are just so basic, such as what one does with Jxxxx xx AQx Jxx after a weak 2H on one's right. Bidding is simply so bad that it cannot be reconciled with any claim to any real ability unless the player is stoned or drunk or everyone at the table is fooling around.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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