[jillybean]

---

IMP

[CSGibson]

I'd pass, but its obviously borderline. vul at imps basically is a wash imo, we'll go down more often because partner will stretch to accept on these borderline things, and partner is much more likely to have a pass or borderline accept of our invitation on average, but everyone knows that the imp expectation pays to bid game aggressively & hope it makes. two tens, no aces, no 5 card suit, one crappy 4 card suit with no honors, one good 4 card suit with 2 supporting honors...Whatever action you talk yourself into, your expert partner will result it and call you an idiot if you fail, apparently, but imo, pass or stayman are both reasonable.

[blackshoe]

I paid my entry fee. 2♣.

[mgoetze]

Am I the only one who realised you can pick multiple options or why does "Give up playing with random experts" have so few votes?

[1eyedjack]

mgoetze, on 2012-June-09, 18:29, said:

why does "Give up playing with random experts" have so few votes?

I go there for the entertainment

[the hog]

Pass. This is a bad 8 count. To bid is an insult to partner.

[chasetb]

the hog, on 2012-June-09, 20:17, said:

Pass. This is a bad 8 count. To bid is an insult to partner.

In a home game today, almost this exact hand literally came up (no, it wasn't with Jill). Here's how things went (dummy was so close to this, I just used the hand Jill provided; I was East):

Down 2 !

---

[JLOGIC]

Pass and it's not close

[gszes]

I remember this hand p was

xxxx
AKQx
QJx
Ax

we lost 2 spades and a dia making 4 I was glad I used stayman

no wait im wrong p hand was

AJx
Axx
QJx
Axxx

they led a spade and we scored up 4c 2s 3d 1h

At IMPS or pairs with IMP scoring-It is beneficial to stretch a bit
if you are responder. The stretching should always be done by
responder. When responder invites they are asking for opener
to accept if near top. Sort of the opposite of MP where when
responder invites they are asking opener to bid game if not near
bottom. Will this always work --of course not but in the long run
your reward will vastly outweigh the risk you took.

At MP (where stretching for game isnt important) I would pass
it's that close.

[jillybean]

Interesting replies, thanks. Here's the full hand, most of the field were in 2N (+1,=, -1,2) My partner was the only one
to butcher the play so badly that we went down 3.

---

[jeffford76]

I was expecting the story to be that you need to invite because random BBO experts open 1NT with 18.

[the hog]

As you have 4S and a H to lose off the top, (and that is before you try to set up the Ds), I fail to see how most of the field made +1 in 2NT. I guess most of the field could not defend?

[MickyB]

the hog, on 2012-June-09, 20:17, said:

Pass. This is a bad 8 count. To bid is an insult to partner.

Lol. You'll have to explain this one to me. Why are some people so keen to label any call they disagree with as an insult to partner and/or teammates?

Surely, if anything it's a compliment to partner to bid here - it certainly shows a lot of faith in their cardplay! An insult to oppo, maybe

I'd have passed this hand a few years ago, but I spoke to a few top English players about similar hands and they were always bidding. Interested to see this conflicts greatly with JLogic's opinion, maybe I should have stuck to my guns.

[blackshoe]

gszes, on 2012-June-10, 08:42, said:

At IMPS or pairs with IMP scoring...

Sloppy terminology. IMP scoring is one thing, form of contest (teams, pairs, or individual) is another thing altogether. It's true that pairs is most often scored in MPs and teams in IMPs, but that doesn't make "teams" the same thing as "IMPs".

Sorry, it's a minor nit I'm sure, but it can be hard to communicate properly if we're using words in ways they weren't meant to be used.

That said, I agree with the rest of your post.

[kfay]

Not sure if JLall meant his response in the context of playing opposite a random, or ever.

If it's ever then 'not close' is hyperbolic. If I had a 2♠ size ask available I would employ that vulnerable. Pass non-vul.

[jillybean]

the hog, on 2012-June-10, 15:45, said:

As you have 4S and a H to lose off the top, (and that is before you try to set up the Ds), I fail to see how most of the field made +1 in 2NT. I guess most of the field could not defend?

This was BBO. I said most of the field were in 2N, not that most of the field made +1.
2 made +1, 1 made 2N, 3 were down 1, 1 down 2, we were -3

[Fluffy]

that's certainly a great poll.

[JLOGIC]

MickyB, on 2012-June-10, 16:10, said:

I'd have passed this hand a few years ago, but I spoke to a few top English players about similar hands and they were always bidding. Interested to see this conflicts greatly with JLogic's opinion, maybe I should have stuck to my guns.

This is really amusing. Several years ago I would have considered it automatic to bid with this hand, and I now consider it one of my most important developments that I pass (I think it helped my results tremendously). I started doing this because I noticed all of the top american players seemed to pass with hands like this including those considered very aggressive at game bidding like meckwell.

I think there is more going on here. Maybe opposite a true 15-17 where you never upgrade, it is possible that inviting with this hand is slightly good, but if you upgrade a normal or even slightly conservative amount (and r/w in first seat I would think most players do not upgrade a stupid amount), it is getting worse and worse. I read in this forum somewhere something about how 15 is much more common than 17 even with no upgrading involved, 14 is way more likely to be held so even if you are upgrading top 5 % of 14 counts, you're adding in a lot of hands where you play 2N. Then you take out maybe the top 5-10 % of 17s and you're taking out some of your best games that you'd miss by passing. Most people who open 1N with a 5 card major take out almost all 5 card major and 17 counts, now we're taking out even more 17s where game would be quite good.

Then you add in that partner is going to accept quite aggressively, probably all 16s and sometimes you are dealt Axx AQx xx AJT9x and I assume everyone is accepting with that or Axx Axx AQJ9x xx. You could get lucky and change it to Axx xx AQJ9x Axx and we have gotten to a great 3N but that is the point, we'd have to get lucky when our hand is this bad to be getting to good games imo (obviously some will disagree).

Maybe you disagree that partner will accept aggressively. But the decision to go from 2N to 3N should be made aggressively imo, if your general strategy is getting you to a lot of 2Ns you're doing it wrong. 2N to 3N, well sometimes 2N is down anyways, but 1N to 3N now 1N is almost always making and 3N is down 200, it's a big deal.

Personally I think this hand is -EV to invite with even if partner is exactly 15-17, and even if partner will only accept with a good 16 or 17 but no one plays that way so my judgement may be off on that. We have no aces, we have 2 small of a major (they often lead majors), we have only 1 spot card and it's in a 3 card suit, we have no 5 card suits, and even our 4 small hearts is bad, if they lead hearts they can probably set them up (the 8 might come into play I guess). But I'm about as confident as I can be in saying that it is wrong to invite opposite a normal partner who can have the top 5-10 % of 14 counts, won't have the top 5-10 % of 17 counts, and won't have 90 % of 5 card majors and 17, and will accept with 90 % of 16s and 5-10 % of 15s and all 17s.

If I was more hopeful about playing 4H I would be more inclined to invite, but here that looks pretty shitty anyways with this hand. I would be much more inclined to invite on a hand where I thought getting to 3N would probably be slightly bad, but getting to 4H would be good.

Playing 3N-200 instead of going +90 is a pretty large disaster. 2N down when 1N makes is bad also and adds up. This is not to mention sometimes in 2N or 3N you go down an extra trick because you have to play for some layout to make, whereas 1N you would play safer, or the fact that you have to go through an invitational sequence which means that the non opening leader can just double you with a good major pretty easily (especially if it's hearts and partner responded spades to stayman, which wouldn't be that surprising). Maybe it is the poker player in me but you are just asking to get ripped when you invite with xx xxxx in the majors.

The decision to go past 2M or 1N in search of an unlikely game is a very serious one to me. It is going away from a safe, sure plus score into the territory of down multiple tricks, or even down 100, or getting doubled, or whatever. I think being conservative with bad 8 counts on 1N p and also being conservative on 1m p 1M p 1N p 2C p 2D p 2M (2 way NMF) has been a huge plus for me. Same with playing 1N 2C 2x 2S as your invites instead of inviting via transfer then 2N. I learned bridge from my father and it was always 8=invite, 9=game, 24=game always etc. And my heroes seemed to play that way also. But it's really not the case imo. If your range is 23-25, that may seem to average out to 24 but 23 is way more common than 25, and 24 is going to be pretty bad without aces, long suits, and spot cards. Sure, if I'm 24-26 I'm pretty much always bidding game rather than inviting, or even 24-25, but that is a different case from 23-25 over 1N.

It is funny that we had opposite changes in our game at about the same time.

[JLOGIC]

kfay, on 2012-June-10, 19:41, said:

Not sure if JLall meant his response in the context of playing opposite a random, or ever.

If it's ever then 'not close' is hyperbolic. If I had a 2♠ size ask available I would employ that vulnerable. Pass non-vul.

Some people consider "not close" to be hyperbolic in these spots because if we added a random jack or whatever everything would change, but obv when we are considering whether to invite or pass over 1N we're gonna have 8 so I don't think that is relevant. I think inviting is a very losing action. Maybe I feel too strongly about it but that is honestly how I feel. I would not be tempted to do so under pretty much any circumstances (even down a lot of imps, in which case partners 1N is likely to be shaded). I would not invite if Jeff Meckstroth were my partner, and told me he wasn't much of an upgrader red/white in first seat. So "not close" is pretty much how I feel, I could obviously be wrong but that is my assessment.

If you ever watch me play, you will probably notice that I routinely pass in this kind of situation, with hands better than this (though perhaps that is because for my partners 14-16 seems to have a lot of 13s!). I do usually play 15-17 in third seat red and that is rarely going to be upgraded on the 14 end at least so that is probably similar to this situation, and I would routinely pass with 8 counts that are better than this, though there is probably not enough of a sample for this to be shown. I just don't think it's right to bid or that it's very close, not much more I can say about it.

I don't think anyone would accuse me of being shy wrt vulnerable games but you can also be smart, this is not the same type of thing as we're already in 3H so lets bid 4, or we're already in 2N with 24 HCP, lets kick it in obv. This is a much bigger decision because our expected points in 1N is so high.

[phil_20686]

MickyB, on 2012-June-10, 16:10, said:

Lol. You'll have to explain this one to me. Why are some people so keen to label any call they disagree with as an insult to partner and/or teammates?

Surely, if anything it's a compliment to partner to bid here - it certainly shows a lot of faith in their cardplay! An insult to oppo, maybe

I'd have passed this hand a few years ago, but I spoke to a few top English players about similar hands and they were always bidding. Interested to see this conflicts greatly with JLogic's opinion, maybe I should have stuck to my guns.

JLOGIC, on 2012-June-11, 10:57, said:

This is really amusing. Several years ago I would have considered it automatic to bid with this hand, and I now consider it one of my most important developments that I pass (I think it helped my results tremendously). I started doing this because I noticed all of the top american players seemed to pass with hands like this including those considered very aggressive at game bidding like meckwell.

I think there is more going on here. Maybe opposite a true 15-17 where you never upgrade, it is possible that inviting with this hand is slightly good, but if you upgrade a normal or even slightly conservative amount (and r/w in first seat I would think most players do not upgrade a stupid amount), it is getting worse and worse. I read in this forum somewhere something about how 15 is much more common than 17 even with no upgrading involved, 14 is way more likely to be held so even if you are upgrading top 5 % of 14 counts, you're adding in a lot of hands where you play 2N. Then you take out maybe the top 5-10 % of 17s and you're taking out some of your best games that you'd miss by passing. Most people who open 1N with a 5 card major take out almost all 5 card major and 17 counts, now we're taking out even more 17s where game would be quite good.

...

The decision to go past 2M or 1N in search of an unlikely game is a very serious one to me. It is going away from a safe, sure plus score into the territory of down multiple tricks, or even down 100, or getting doubled, or whatever. I think being conservative with bad 8 counts on 1N p and also being conservative on 1m p 1M p 1N p 2C p 2D p 2M (2 way NMF) has been a huge plus for me. Same with playing 1N 2C 2x 2S as your invites instead of inviting via transfer then 2N. I learned bridge from my father and it was always 8=invite, 9=game, 24=game always etc. And my heroes seemed to play that way also. But it's really not the case imo. If your range is 23-25, that may seem to average out to 24 but 23 is way more common than 25, and 24 is going to be pretty bad without aces, long suits, and spot cards. Sure, if I'm 24-26 I'm pretty much always bidding game rather than inviting, or even 24-25, but that is a different case from 23-25 over 1N.

It is funny that we had opposite changes in our game at about the same time.

I think your upgrade tendencies matter a lot here. If you basically never open a 14 count red vs white in second (understandable), then this is pretty close and probably just on the side of an invite.

Since I started playing transfer Walsh I feel like I have a pretty strong reason not to upgrade, as the chance of reaching a good 2M/3m partscore instead of 1N is dramatically increased compared to standard methods, at least if the opponents pass, to the point where I am now reluctant to upgrade fourteens with a four card major. I don't know if this is common, but I don't see why it shouldn't be. The switch to transfer walsh has changed my 1N profile enough that I feel like I am significantly more aggressive inviting I was two years ago.

I suspect that a reverse effect happens if you play precision, as now the 1d (and 2c) opener is such a loser that it makes sense to upgrade frequently.