René's Bridge Diary

I am currently on the level King ♠, struggling to become an Ace. Today, the hand above happened. On its own, it looks strange enough. Would you bid 5♣ on North? It turns out that 5 ♦  make because the hearts can be established. That is not easy to see, but likely. Maybe, Lia on North has found this by simulating probable hands. On my table, however, the South player decided to pass the negative double. The result was 1♠X+3 which is less than my 5♣X-3. You got to live with that kind of disappointing luck on the other side. Now, what happened on other tables? I would have lost against each of them, because they played 3 ♦ -5 ♦ , sometimes doubled. Here is a typical bidding. The difference to my biddings is that South did not repeat clubs. I considered 1NT too, but the spade control looked too bad, and Lia plays the negative double with very little. Others opened 1NT, or doubled 4 ♦ , like in the following bidding. I thought about this hand for while. The simple solution is to ignore the

After reading this posting once more, I feel that I need to preface it with a clarification. This is not to show how great a player I am, because I am not. In contrary, my lonely decisions make me feel uncomfortable thinking I might be on the wrong track and just got lucky. I have too often felt humiliated by all other players who were in game where I stopped early. In retrospect, it turned out that I failed to correctly evaluate and update my hand. Online bridge is great place to learn and grow. It is that spirit that inspired me to write the following. In the hand above, I find it surprising that I was the only one who bid 6 ♦ . Unfortunately, it was not possible to see the other bids in this weekly free tournament. So, I cannot say if they bid until 3NT like we did. But nobody decided to go for the slam. Admittedly, it is a bet. But I think it is a good one. Even more surprising is that everybody made 3NT+1 with four simple tricks missing from the top. 6 hands ended in 3 ♦ , two mo

Maybe, I should have doubled and continued with 2♠ in this hand. But that is not the point. Assume as East partner leads the  ♦ 7. What would you do? I'd try to return a small diamond for a ruff, indicating my club entry, cash two club tricks and give West another ruff. Lia did not do this. Instead, it cashed two club tricks and continued with a  ♥ 5. I find more and more deviations from optimal play in this robot. We do not know what Lia thinks or how it imagines that hand. Could be that it imagines West with Jxx in diamonds, and thinks that it must cash tricks or they vanish on the diamonds. South would have a double in this case and could finesse out the Jack. But this is a bit far fetched, isn't it? Here is another mysterious hand. I admit that I should have opened it with 2♣. But even after my inferior 4♠, I am very sure that any human player as North would raise to the slam.

I find it surprising that someone programs a robot to open 4 ♥  with this hand. We do not have the minority of points. The LAW does not support this bid. You can expect two trumps on average, adding to 9 trumps. The LAW suggests defending up to 3 ♥ . Moreover, your side might have almost game values. But you can argue that slam is very unlikely after partner's pass. And you expect to go down at most three times, most likely undoubled. We can analyze the hand using my Bridge replay. In fact, N/S is unlikely to make 4 ♥ , and will go down 2 most of the time, while E/W is likely to make 2♠ to 3♠. Not the best bet. Certainly, 4 ♥  is a preemptive bid which keeps E/W from bidding at all. But 1 ♥  is just as good planning to raise to 3 ♥  later. Even experienced E/W partnerships will have no scientific way to find the correct level in spades or a penalty double. Another interesting point is the failure of West to see the chance to promote the  ♥ Q, after cashing four tricks in spades an

This is the bidding at Pete's table. The double by South is justified by the holdings in the two other suits, although 8 points are marginal. Should partner repeat his hearts, we are also okay. The 2♠ of West are a cue-bid because we are known to hold the spades. 3♠ is a brave response by North.  3NT went down 1 after a spade lead. The other winning lead is the ♣Q, of course.  I doubled also, but the bidding went differently. Lia in the North did not show his spade support, but instead doubled. I don't know why the bidding is not the same. Hollands is playing 2/1 with Lia too, as far as I know. But now the opponents landed in 3 ♦ , and I am too weak to double once more. That contract can be made with an overtrick, but Lia only made it. A look at other tables is interesting. Most did not double 2 ♦ . The opponents landed in 3NT and made it, because most did not attack spades. Instead, a heart lead to the suit bid by North, fails. I lost the second hand too. Here, I opted to say

This is an interesting hand. My simple idea was that with no special distribution 7NT would make if 7 ♦  make. It's not exactly true as you see. We have 12 tricks, and the 13th comes in from trumping a diamond in the hand with the shorter trumps. Or, if you want to think in losers, you can say that one diamond is ruffed and another one on the spades.  But how are the chances to make 7NT. If you guess the correct finesse in the majors, you have your trick. It does not matter if both finesses work. If both finesses fail, you can do nothing to make the contract.  It gets interesting if both queens are on the same side. You can then reduce to 5 cards in the majors. Then one of the queens must drop. The same happens if one of them is a doubleton, of course. This line of play has the biggest probability to succeed. The problem is to combine the two options. You can carefully observe the discards, and start by cashing the  ♥ A. If both opponents discard carefully, it will be pure guesswo

This hand is from the "Daily Challenge" against Luc Bellicaud. He the brain behind Lia, the robot at the table. His bidding is more carefully than mine, keeping an eye on a possible grand slam in the minors, or even in hearts. I bid 6NT right after 2 ♥ .  The lead on my table was a diamond, which makes it impossible to beat the contract, because you can develop the heart suit. On his table, the robot led a small spade, taken with the Ace in the hand. Your only chance is to play the Queen and hope for the best. East took the King and then made the terrible blunder to return a spade. This yields the missing trick. This hand is another example where the expert bid more carefully than me. This is to be expected, because he programmed the robot. The 4 ♦  bid is explained as a control bid indicating missing controls in spades and clubs. So, we know that the ♠K is missing, which is not a good sign if the suit is attacked. We also know that clubs are not singleton which reduces the