[iandayre]

http://tinyurl.com/qadqgfn

In normal bridge I would have no alternative to force to game with this hand. But playing Human Best Hand and looking at this aceless balanced 12 count, and playing Matchpoints, it made sense to take the low road and bid only 3S. I played there making an overtrick for 92.9% of the MP's. All but one in 4S were defeated.

As I stated in another recent thread, I like having a reasonable hand each time. But I really think it needs to be changed so that PARTNER can have a stronger hand than you do.

BBO (or anyone else of course) please comment?

[cloa513]

 iandayre, on 2015-July-27, 16:21, said:

http://tinyurl.com/qadqgfn

In normal bridge I would have no alternative to force to game with this hand. But playing Human Best Hand and looking at this aceless balanced 12 count, and playing Matchpoints, it made sense to take the low road and bid only 3S. I played there making an overtrick for 92.9% of the MP's. All but one in 4S were defeated.

As I stated in another recent thread, I like having a reasonable hand each time. But I really think it needs to be changed so that PARTNER can have a stronger hand than you do.

BBO (or anyone else of course) please comment?

I don't get you with this hand- by all rights South should just bid 4S- its only down because West is void in hearts and East has an easy entry give West AKXXXX and then a singleton heart and the hand plays better - nothing to do with South having the best hand in terms of HCP- don't get hang up about HCP- it should not a be all end all for human bidders- it may be for GIB's bidding ability.

[steve2005]

According to Gib you can make 4♠ of course that's double dummy. Personally I think partner does have a better hand than your aceless 12

[Bbradley62]

Although Ian picked a poor hand to demonstrate his point, his point is still valid. The knowledge that no GIB holds more HCP than the human player is information that can be used by the human in non-bridge-appropriate ways. There have been at least two suggestions to modify the conditions to allow human to continue to have enough to be involved without taking unfair advantage: human can be guaranteed 11+ hcp instead of most hcp, or allow only one GIB to have more hcp than human in any hand. I don't know the details of the recent BBO-ACBL discussions of robot tournaments, but it might be that BBO doesn't want to bring up issues. It is clear, from an admittedly small sample of recent ACBL robot tournaments, that the Best Hand tournaments are far more popular than the Classic tournaments.

[cloa513]

 steve2005, on 2015-July-27, 19:30, said:

According to Gib you can make 4♠ of course that's double dummy. Personally I think partner does have a better hand than your aceless 12

No you can't. K♦,A♦,heart ruff, A♣- 3 spades makes and that's all.

[Lovera]

The problem probably it must see considering Matchpoints rules. Infact here 3♦ by W is one down whilest if you rightly bid 4♠.. is the same. Than 3♠ is a good score but considering all it.

[steve2005]

 cloa513, on 2015-July-27, 22:44, said:

No you can't. K♦,A♦,heart ruff, A♣- 3 spades makes and that's all.

your right I was thinking you were in 4s and gib was saying you can make

[iandayre]

 cloa513, on 2015-July-27, 18:04, said:

I don't get you with this hand- by all rights South should just bid 4S- its only down because West is void in hearts and East has an easy entry give West AKXXXX and then a singleton heart and the hand plays better - nothing to do with South having the best hand in terms of HCP- don't get hang up about HCP- it should not a be all end all for human bidders- it may be for GIB's bidding ability.

You are right, and that's exactly the point. Only knowing that GIB has a max of 12 HCP can 3S even be considered. It's certainly possible that 4S might have made easily and I would have gotten a poor score. On the actual hand, the HQ must be found even if they don't find their ruff, although that's pretty easy with the preempt.

By the way, I doubt if I need your bidding advice. I haven't played live duplicate in a few years, but I was reasonably successful at the local and regional level in the 30 years when I did.

[kuhchung]

I love best hand.

[gwnn]

Don't listen to kuhchung he just wants to pass forcing bids on perfectly fine openings!

[kuhchung]

#winning

[johnu]

I like the idea of the human having at least 10 points, but partner could have a better hand. This eliminates a lot of the current inferences about the HCP of partner but still allows the human to be declarer most of the hands (except in classic games).

[cloa513]

 johnu, on 2015-July-28, 22:59, said:

I like the idea of the human having at least 10 points, but partner could have a better hand. This eliminates a lot of the current inferences about the HCP of partner but still allows the human to be declarer most of the hands (except in classic games).

Don't they rotate to let the human play the hand? The human having 10 HCP increases the chances his side plays the hand.

Any way this is a gimmick- lots of other games play gimmicks to get people to play it- often very distorting so why go against this.

[johnu]

 cloa513, on 2015-July-29, 17:31, said:

Don't they rotate to let the human play the hand? The human having 10 HCP increases the chances his side plays the hand.

Declarer rotates only in human declare competitions. In "Classic" games, whoever would be the normal declarer is declarer, so GIB could be declarer and the human could be dummy.

Human declare games finally came into being after many complaints about the quality of declarer play by GIB by people who thought they could play the dummy better than GIB. Nobody likes to defend in a robot game since your GIB partner doesn't give signals which could help you defend.

[iandayre]

In any case no one is asking to go to strictly random deals. My suggestion is this. Human has 11+ HCP every hand, but PARTNER may have more. Then you can't open in 1st or 2nd seat and pass partner's new suit. Now if you have 12, there is no point in inviting after say, 1m - 1M - 1NT since you KNOW partner has 12. And as for the OP here, some say it's a bad example but I disagree. Perhaps you think I should bid game anyway, but the point is I HAVE to go to game if I don't know partner has a max of 12.

[gordontd]

 iandayre, on 2015-August-03, 17:26, said:

In any case no one is asking to go to strictly random deals.

I am. I find it boring that we almost never defend and switching declarers already gives us plenty of declarer play. I'd like it not to be beneficial to pass forcing bids simply because you have an 11 count and know your partner can't have more.

[1eyedjack]

The classical format combined with human declares when dummy, would have some attractions. I may be wrong (and correct me) but I think that the classical format of robot tourneys also require you to let the robot declare as North.

[iandayre]

 1eyedjack, on 2015-August-04, 04:34, said:

The classical format combined with human declares when dummy, would have some attractions. I may be wrong (and correct me) but I think that the classical format of robot tourneys also require you to let the robot declare as North.

Yes in the Classic tourneys, the Robot declares as in normal bridge. Isn't the "classical format combined with human declares when dummy" the same as what we now have in the regular, non-Classic Robot Tournaments? It's the same in the real-time ACBL tournaments and in the Instant tournaments.

[1eyedjack]

 iandayre, on 2015-August-04, 09:51, said:

Yes in the Classic tourneys, the Robot declares as in normal bridge. Isn't the "classical format combined with human declares when dummy" the same as what we now have in the regular, non-Classic Robot Tournaments? It's the same in the real-time ACBL tournaments and in the Instant tournaments.

I didn't think so. I thought that

Non-Classic Robot Tournaments are both (1) Best hand for South AND (2) Human declares when dummy.

Classic Robot Tournaments are (1) completely random deals AND (2) Robot declares when human is dummy

I was thinking of a third way: (1) completely random deals AND (2) Human declares when dummy

It might just up the popularity of the random deal tournaments, I was thinking. I know that I would prefer that third way over the current Classic format.

[iandayre]

 1eyedjack, on 2015-August-04, 10:38, said:

I didn't think so. I thought that

Non-Classic Robot Tournaments are both (1) Best hand for South AND (2) Human declares when dummy.

Classic Robot Tournaments are (1) completely random deals AND (2) Robot declares when human is dummy

I was thinking of a third way: (1) completely random deals AND (2) Human declares when dummy

It might just up the popularity of the random deal tournaments, I was thinking. I know that I would prefer that third way over the current Classic format.

Perhaps we are talking about two different things. But, Classic ACBL robot tournaments are human best hand, with robot declare. I will add that while I would prefer the adjustment mentioned in earlier posts, I would prefer the current method to completely random deals. As someone else mentioned, defending on 1/2 of the hands would be very tedious given the lack of robots' ability to signal or interpret signals.