pilowsky, on 2020-August-20, 16:22, said:
Unlike matchpoints formats, it does reward occasional bold bidding that results in large swings.
IMPs just means certain boards are worth more than others. Where game/slam swings available, and partials to a somewhat lesser extent. Mainly where there are going to be some people making game/slam where others fail to reach/go down, difference can be in the bidding or the play or both. The goal is simply to get these big boards RIGHT, the small boards where the only difference is +1 overtrick or not are rather insignificant (though good players will out of habit tend to pick up fractions of imps on many of these also).
IMPs doesn't really mean you should be particularly bold in bidding vs MP, except in bidding vulnerable games where you stretch an extra 10-11% or so, accepting 38-40% success rate on the thinnest games you choose to bid instead of trying to be >50. Not vul, you only stretch to bid game very slightly. Slams, any vul, for small slam you shouldn't be < 50% because tossing away a making game to get to a failing slam is a huge loss, as big a loss as making the slam would gain you. For grand slam you need to be even more conservative, particularly if a decent chunk of the field may not even find a small slam. There are actually quite a lot of situations where MP calls for bolder bidding than IMPS.
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If I finish quickly I can kibbitz the others and watch my IMP's change as they do better or worse
Why not take your time and play as well as you can instead of rushing? Look at the travellers *after* the tournament is over to look at how good players bid/play? There is no need to kibbitz in real time.
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To do this I need to get the "average" boards right, but I must also find something special where I can.
Is your goal to win tournaments by getting super lucky on a couple boards (i.e. play a wild high variance strategy, making weird bids no one else in the field is doing), or is it to actually get better at bridge? If you are terrible, I suppose going nuts looking for "something special" will get you some occasional wins when the card gods shine on you for these very short tournaments online which are crapshoots with few boards (+ IMP scoring effectively meaning even fewer boards that *matter*), few players, wide skill range, but playing this way does practically nothing to make you a better bridge player (except for experience playing bad contracts). It is not a viable strategy if you ever play bigger/more serious tournaments with more boards or transition to non-online bridge, and is not conducive to attracting good partners/teammates to want to play with you.
Good players don't really try to do special things. Mainly we try not to f* things up, and we have fairly high standards of what constitutes a f* up (some things we consider routine might seem "special" to a novice/int who don't recognize things as well). To win lower level tournaments just need to play well and get a bit of luck (mainly in opponents giving gifts, instead of fixes), not a series of miracles.
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Next, it's a best-hand tournament. So on this hand, I tried to imagine what North might have given what I had.
Best hand means your hand is *equal OR better* than partner's, and most often will be *better*. It doesn't mean partner's hand is going to be as good as yours. You should assume partner has a *worse hand* than yours until revealed otherwise. When partner opens and you have a 16 count, the expectation is partner has 12, not 16, because average hands (closer to 10) are more commonly dealt.
The point of bidding low, taking it slow, is so you can find out more exactly what partner has (and/or tell him what you have), without having to *imagine* what partner has. You bid slow, and give him room to tell, less guessing, stay at a lower level without risking your game and going down in 4nt or at the 5 level when there is a foul break or every finesse fails.
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I completely agree that in normal circumstances a Soloway jump shift is a stretch.With GIB if I bid 6NT as you suggest I am quite likely to end up in 7NTx-1: not a good outcome.
It's not just a stretch in terms of strength, it's completely wrong in hand type. You have a 3 suited hand and no idea which suit to play in. SJS should be solid one-suited, two-suited with support for partner, or semi-balanced 17+-19. No side suits other than partner's that you might want to play in. It would be wrong to bid 2d with 4441 even with 19 hcp.
The 6nt wasn't a serious suggestion of how to play with GIB. It was a criticism of your style of bidding, I have seen hands similar to this on your other posts where you inappropriately jump shift or deploy premature Blackwood with a strongish hand instead of taking it slow to find out more about partner's hand first, exactly which trump suit you want to play, find out partner's strength range, etc. Jump shifting instead of taking it slow on this hand is akin to just deciding after partner opens 1c that you want to bid 6nt and doing so (even if playing with a human rather than a robot who should prob just assume you are crazy and have given up on normal bidding and just pass rather than trying to interpret your hand as like exactly 20 hcp balanced and try to figure out when it's right to raise to 7nt).
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What I imagined was that North would have a solid Club suit for its bid and a little extra on the outside. Combined with my nice Hearts and Spades I figured 6NT was makeable even if the ♦A was missing.
See that's one thing you miss out by jumping, you don't find out if partner has that "little extra" on the outside along with the solid clubs. You needed like the SK in addition, if partner had that additional card and solid clubs they'd bid 1c-1h-3c, but without that card bids only 2c. Then you can proceed to slam opposite the first sequence but not opposite the second. (You also miss finding if partner has 4+ fit with H/S/D, maybe you belong in a suit slam where you get extra tricks from ruffing, instead of 6nt).
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This was my reasoning for deliberately bidding Soloway (17+ total points). The layout was exactly what I expected it to be: Unfortunately, so was my card-play. Interestingly, although I lack the solid suit, I do have 19 total points - so there is that...
You should not be counting shortness points in suits partner bids, initially. This is because partner will often have wasted values opposite your stiff in his longer suits, and this causes a duplication of values. Like partner might have say KQJx clubs, and he is counting 6 hcp for 2-3 tricks, but you are also counting 3 points because of ruffing value. But the points don't really add here, because you have 2 winners and one loser out of this suit (if ace offside), which isn't really any different from KQJx opposite xxx, same if you didn't have a stiff. But if he is counting 6 and you are counting 3, in this suit you are counting 9, which is basically same as AKQx opposite xxx, where you expect 3 tricks with no losers, but in reality you have 2 tricks and 1 loser.
OTOH if partner has xxx clubs, if you also had xxx clubs you have 3 losers, but with stiff only one (assuming finding fit in other trump suit), and in addition partner's high cards are moved to where they remove losers in your other suits. If partner had say 2434 distribution, you'd much rather he has SK removing your losers in spades and DA promoting your cards, than having CK not really doing anything your stiff doesn't cover.
Now if the auction proceeds something like say 1c-1h-2h, if playing with a good human partner (GIB is hopeless and won't bid well on this sequence), you can bid 4c splinter showing short clubs, and if partner's high cards are outside of clubs, instead of having wasted CK/Q/J, removing losers from your side suits and trumps, then he can cooperate and you can reach a good low hcp slam (GIB doesn't handle these at all, you can splinter but it won't continue appropriately cooperating with good hands opposite the shortness and signing off with bad ones). But this can't happen if you start with 2D!
Help
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Pilowsky, South, declares 6NT, West leads ♠K.
++++++++++++++++++++
A pretty variation, illustrating CyberYeti's point.
A. If East discards 3 ♥s then South's ♥5 becomes a trick.
B. If East discards 1 or 2 ♦s then South's ♦7 becomes a trick.