[pooltuna]

JLOGIC, on Aug 24 2010, 05:35 PM, said:

pooltuna, on Aug 24 2010, 05:26 PM, said:

jjbrr, on Aug 24 2010, 05:22 PM, said:

manudude03, on Aug 24 2010, 03:53 PM, said:

Whoever bid 3H own up plz.

This is why we need public polls!

WRONG! not that I chose 3♥ as I thought 4♥ was a WTP. Still you get more honest results if they are anonymous.

That's what you think! (I was the 3H voter)

that's what needs to be fixed those misclik votes should be correctable

[Fluffy]

gwnn, on Aug 24 2010, 08:58 PM, said:

there was one and it's not hard to find it, Art. it's in the "hands of the decade" thread but I am reluctant to provide a direct link to it here.

I found another here:

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?&ac...4&mode=show&st=

don't think it will last long though

[jjbrr]

Fluffy, on Aug 24 2010, 04:54 PM, said:

gwnn, on Aug 24 2010, 08:58 PM, said:

there was one and it's not hard to find it, Art. it's in the "hands of the decade" thread but I am reluctant to provide a direct link to it here.

I found another here:

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?&ac...4&mode=show&st=

don't think it will last long though

I contributed!

[Phil]

rogerclee, on Aug 24 2010, 05:36 PM, said:

John Mohan is a very good player, but I still don't really get 3H. Maybe they were playing precision, maybe he was playing with a client who doesn't know to go low with 2H if it's close, or maybe he just thought it was percentage. At the end of the day he is only one (very strong) expert, and I really doubt 3H is the expert majority view.

In the Bridge World, unanimous polls are about rare as BBF. What surprises me is that a hand like that this would probably get an 80/20 or maybe an 85/15 split between 3♥ and 4♥ instead of the current 97/3. On BBF you definitely have a herd mentality. Also, I doubt that a Mohan might compare his vote for the February 2011 issue with a Fallenius.

I don't know why this is, but some people in TBW like to be contrarian just to hear themselves talk, even though at the table they may be '4♥ wtp'. This is a very common human condition.

Don't read anything into what I'm saying above. I think this hand is a very obvious 4♥ call.

[JLOGIC]

Phil,

IMO the difference is that the problems in the bridge world go through a rigorous selection process. Someone submits it, then the problem editor and JR look at it (problem editor used to be LC not sure who it is now), the director of the set can reject it, etc etc.

So it is very unlikely that after that process there will be a unanimous problem, because the job of all those people is to weed out bad problems (aka, easy/unanimous ones).

On the forums, players of all levels can post a problem and it's there immediately with no other selection criteria. So it's way more likely that there will be "bad" or "easy" problems posted here than in the bridge world.

This is not a criticism of the forums or anything obviously. I do think that a problem like this would have a chance at being unanimous in MSC, but it's moot since this problem would never make it to MSC.

Of course there is always one or two random guys with weird ideas in every group of people, especially when it comes to bidding since it's so subjective, so even something like this might be 24-1 or 23-2, but I am sure that some of the problems posted on the forums would be unanimous in MSC even if this one might not be.

[Phil]

Justin, I agree with everything you are saying (and was going to mention that myself), but my ADD brain forgot to include the screening component to TBH instead of random problems on an open forum.

[jdonn]

You get better scores at mps for bidding your games too, not just at imps.

[Fluffy]

gwnn, on Aug 24 2010, 09:40 PM, said:

it's 0-29-0 at the moment.

for f**ks shake, it took me 4 hours to find it, did you say it was easy? :S.

I had to read all of foo's posts before finding it, and guess waht? I never voted on that poll, so I can change it. You are all in my hands muhahahahha .

BTW: about 4 years ago I would had actually picked a different option than theunanimous one.

[manudude03]

At least John Mohan has company now . I still can't find the link gwnn was suggesting....

[jjbrr]

Fluffy, on Aug 24 2010, 06:56 PM, said:

gwnn, on Aug 24 2010, 09:40 PM, said:

it's 0-29-0 at the moment.

for f**ks shake, it took me 4 hours to find it, did you say it was easy? :S.

I had to read all of foo's posts before finding it, and guess waht? I never voted on that poll, so I can change it. You are all in my hands muhahahahha .

BTW: about 4 years ago I would had actually picked a different option than theunanimous one.

lol way to read the "Best threads of the decade" thread!

[hanp]

I voted 3H to make the forums look better. 3-31 now, more in line with the bridge world.

[the hog]

I would bid 4H on this.

[Phil]

hanp, on Aug 24 2010, 08:18 PM, said:

I voted 3H to make the forums look better. 3-31 now, more in line with the bridge world.

Sorry, not good enough. You have pick a serious underdog and offer sage advice to make yourself look like a genius and imply everyone else is stupid.

[neilkaz]

Can the 5 who bid 3♥ really be serious?

[jjbrr]

neilkaz, on Aug 24 2010, 09:44 PM, said:

Can the 5 who bid 3♥ really be serious?

It's possible they found the winning bid. Chances they found the right bid are small.

[hanp]

I expect at least half the panel to bid game, afraid to appear cowardly in print. In truth there is nothing cowardly about bidding the cards you hold. Here we have a minimum with 3 diamonds, the worst possible number. The avenue [Ed: French for street] I live on is called 3H.




Any better Phil?

[Phil]

hanp, on Aug 25 2010, 05:22 AM, said:

I expect at least half the panel to bid game, afraid to appear cowardly in print. In truth there is nothing cowardly about bidding the cards you hold. Here we have a minimum with 3 diamonds, the worst possible number. The avenue [Ed: French for street] I live on is called 3H.




Any better Phil?

Jrubens@thebridgeworld.com

[Dirk Kuijt]

OK, I admit to being one of the 3♥ bidders, and I don't think this is such a WTP, LOL problem at all, especially at matchpoints.

It seems to me that there are several warning signals that suggest going low:

1. The 2♦ bidder is likely to have an easy and effective opening lead of a top diamond honor, so you don't get any help from the blind lead, and it sets up tricks for the defense.

2. The partner of the 2♦ bidder didn't double, which suggests that he doesn't want to go higher in diamonds, which in turn suggests that partner will have a few diamonds, which will be very bad for us.

3. The opposing bid was 2♦, not X. Double would tend to have more values in spades; this suggests that missing spade values are in the dummy, which is not a good place for our side's values.

4. The OP said the partnership style was to open most 12's and good 11's, so there is no potential 'reserve' of high cards, since partner is a passed hand. Putting it another way, you are not going to make this game on power; if you make it at all, it will be because of good distribution, and, at the moment, you have no reason to expect that good distribution exists.

Let's look at a few possible hands:

KQxx
Axx
xxx
Qxx

The worst: This is an easy beat for the defense, and if clubs are 5-1, even 3 hearts is going down. Pretty pessimistic, I admit.

Kxxx
Axx
xxx
Axx

I give you having the spade Ace in front of the king, but it doesn't help much, does it?

AQJx
xxx
xx
Axxx

You will make this hand fairly easily--if both round suits are 3-2. Is that likely? I'm guessing that the compound probability on this auction is less than 50%, and, note that this might well be an opener by OP's standards.

Having written down a bunch of hands, I concluded that you make if partner has most of:

1. 2 or fewer diamonds
2. 4 or more hearts
3. QJ in clubs (not A, not only Q, not only J)

There are too many assumptions to have an effective simulation, IMHO, but it seems to me that there are lots of hands that are going down in 4♥, and, on a really bad day, in 3♥.

[gwnn]

partner is not always balanced when he shows a limit raise!!!!

how about this hand?

xxxx
xxxx
x
QJxx

???

partner does not need to have a lot of HCP in spades and a 4333 hand!

[hanp]

6 votes for 3H and counting, who said anything about herd mentality?