[ArtK78]

There are times on these Fora that I wonder whether posters actually read the posts that they are responding to.

I responded to a post that said, and I quote, "7D is ludicrous."

I pointed out that 7D was not a hideous contract, as it made anytime diamonds were 2-2 and some small amount of the time that diamonds were 3-1 with a singleton Q. My point was that "ludicrous" was too strong. I also pointed out that I would not want to be in 7♦.

The responses to my post were:

"Being in 7 requiring a 2-2 diamond break is bad bridge. 7D - 1 is the zero of all time, so it is a ludicrous contract to risk a 6D contract which will get you 80+% of the matchpoints anyway."

"If my team mates reached 7D on this hand Art I would be most unhappy, especially if it went down. Quoting things like 40% might even be right, but I try and avoid grands where i do not hold the Q trumps or require 2-2 trump split when I also need to ruff a couple of clubs."

What exactly were these posts responding to? Did I say that I thought that 7♦ was right? I am pretty sure that I did not say that. I merely said that it wasn't ludicrous.

Inquiry went into a detailed discussion of the odds of making 7♦. I don't know that I agree with him that the grand is as good as 56%, but he did agree with me that it was better than merely a 2-2 diamond break. We all agree that the odds did not justify a 7♦ bid when compared to a 6♦ contract.

So, if you want to take issue with something stated in a prior post, try to make sure that you know what was stated.

By the way, it is an interesting question which contract you would prefer if given only 2 choices - 5♦ or 7♦. At least you have a chance for a good score in 7♦, while 5♦ is likely to score poorly.