[MrAce]

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Here is a hand where i could not resist and opened 1♥, weak for a normal 1 level opening i know,as south, and bidding went the way you see in diagram. IMP.

I started with ♣ A. Pd played ♣ 2, standard signals and count. Which means he had originally either a stiff club or xxx. Before we play something (which is not the target of this topic anyway but knowing what they hold will increase the accurate defense by a lot of course) what do you think N and E are dealt with and why ? I am not expecting anyone, including myself, to guess precisely what N and E hold. The goal here is to show some example of hands where you can as a declarer or defender can read at least a good % of card numbers they hold in each suit.

I have to admit pass by W is not something i would do if i was W. But that is their problem.

Please only B/N players.

NOTE: The BBF bidding diagram is a bit confusing, you are south and the dummy (W) is on your left. (everyone sees the green area as table, but it is not, just saying )

[Antrax]

You mean W shouldn't pass in his second turn, right?

[MrAce]

Antrax, on 2014-January-22, 06:48, said:

You mean W shouldn't pass in his second turn, right?

I would not pass myself.

[billw55]

I think the 1♥ opening is normal. 55, rule of 20, all values in long suits.

[eagles123]

well I think north is probably 5/2/3/3 the reason being If he had 3 hearts he'd probably support the hearts and if he had a 6th spade he'd probably bid 2 spades rather than letting it pass out. and i think he must have 3 clubs as otherwise he'd have 5 diamonds which would make east's overcall very unlikely.

therefore i'm placing east with 3/4/5/1. Given he's overcalled 2D on a 5 card suit i'd expect it to be a pretty good suit and would place him with AQJxx. at a guess the overall hand is something like:

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[MrAce]

eagles123, on 2014-January-22, 08:59, said:

well I think north is probably 5/2/3/3 the reason being If he had 3 hearts he'd probably support the hearts and if he had a 6th spade he'd probably bid 2 spades rather than letting it pass out. and i think he must have 3 clubs as otherwise he'd have 5 diamonds which would make east's overcall very unlikely.

therefore i'm placing east with 3/4/5/1. Given he's overcalled 2D on a 5 card suit i'd expect it to be a pretty good suit and would place him with AQJxx. at a guess the overall hand is something like:

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Well Done !

You guessed all the missing honor cards correctly. It is very impressive you even got almost all the spot cards correct.

Anyway, what matters mostly is to think about the bidding and figure how many cards pd or declarer holds/not hold, in each suit, due to their bids and/or lack of bids, which you explained very well. Good job m8

EDIT : Fwiw, i was not able to read N with Ax or AJ doubleton ♥ and KQxxx spade. I thought N would not give up competition at 2 level easily with that holding. But N,E,W were GIB and their bidding tend to contrast from us humans. I still find them very useful to practice. I strongly suggest to stay away from "Robot race" tournaments for B/N players. Try and play as much "Robot Duplicate" tourneys as you can. They are very educational imo in so many different ways.. Even if bots play or bid weird now and then, you can check the traveler and compare your line of play or defense with other players. And believe me they can play and bid and defend better than a lot of humans in BBO and probably better than almost all N/B level.

[StevenG]

MrAce, on 2014-January-22, 09:43, said:

Fwiw, i was not able to read N with Ax or AJ doubleton ♥ and KQxxx spade. I thought N would not give up competition at 2 level easily with that holding.

I would not be happy if partner passed as North with that hand (or any hand with two hearts), so I put him with at most one heart.

Quote

Try and play as much "Robot Duplicate" tourneys as you can.

I don't think they are useful for those of us, like Eagles, who play 4-card majors in Acol-land.

[MrAce]

StevenG, on 2014-January-22, 10:03, said:

I don't think they are useful for those of us, like Eagles, who play 4-card majors in Acol-land.

I just wrote a long reply to this, but then i remembered that this discussion was already made in the past and most of what i wanted to say here is already written in those past topics and deleted it. But shortly, if you drag your mouse over the bidding it explains what your pd meant by his bid. And it also tells you, even before you make your bid, what will it mean to your pd.

Bridge bidding systems are like languages. We use them to communicate. As long as we are able to communicate with pd, and understand our opponents, and express our hand, it does not matter which language we use (legally of course). And the software gives us this ability as i wrote above. So the complaint about the system is hardly an excuse, unless your religion strictly bans any other language other than your native language to communicate. I agree that this will not help you to improve your native language skills, but there are a lot more other things that we all need to improve than the system we play in bridge.

Eventually and hopefully they will come up with improved GIB or w/e they will call it, which allows user to be able to choose other systems such as ACOL, SEF, Precision, 2/1, SAYC, Polish cl and allow user to choose their own gadgets among the available ones as well.