[32519]

How about another dumb idea?

---

Making these sort of splinter bids when you have no idea of responders actual hand strength and distribution. There has to be a better way to reach the optimal contract?

Here declarer loses 1 trick in each suit.

[gwnn]

No, he doesn't.

http://www.rpbridge.net/1t81.htm
http://www.amazon.co...ay-Edwin-Kantar

Also, if a dumb bridge idea is what reaches a 50+% game, what do you call ideas that routinely reach 10-20% slams?

[rhm]

I am sure 32519 can come up with a more careful deal, where game after opener makes a splinter will have no play.
What does that prove?

Some Bridge players are obsessed with constructive bidding. Tactical moves or obstructive bidding are beyond them.
They believe that a good bidding system will always get you to the right level, reaching game and slams when it is right and staying low when not.
Opponents do not really matter to them in the bidding.

They do not understand that Bridge is a game of incomplete information and that invariable means that you have to follow statistical odds in the bidding, which only provides a limited vocabulary.

Rainer Herrmann

[gwnn]

rhm, on 2014-February-24, 04:29, said:

I am sure 32519 can come up with a more careful deal, where game after opener makes a splinter will have no play.
What does that prove?

Of course it would still prove nothing, but it is funnier to read self-defeating arguments than pointless ones.

[Zelandakh]

As you should be aware, splintering is about telling partner your strength and shape rather than finding out partner's. You should understand this particularly well as your own system takes the same approach - presumably South opens 2♦, North shows better clubs. Then South shows a 3-suiter with short clubs and North places the contract in 4♠. South shows precisely the same hand (16+hcp with 4 spades and short clubs but less than a 2♣ opening) in both systems. If you think that any real-world North would stay out of game given this information then you are resulting and need to move a spade from West to East.

[FrancesHinden]

Since when is a 4441 16-count a game force opposite a 1-level response?

[barmar]

That's a very good 16 count. AKxx in both majors is very pure, and you also have several 9's and 8's in your long suits. There are plenty of minimum hands partner could have that would be cold for game, and others where game is decent, but he won't accept an invitation with. Change North's hand to Qxxxx Jxx Ax xxx, wouldn't you want to be there?

And if he has a moderate hand, the club shortness could be the key to finding a good slam on minimum points. It will be hard to find that if the auction just goes 1♦-1♠-3♠-4♠, which is likely if he has 10-11 HCP.

[PhilKing]

barmar, on 2014-February-24, 10:57, said:

That's a very good 16 count. AKxx in both majors is very pure, and you also have several 9's and 8's in your long suits. There are plenty of minimum hands partner could have that would be cold for game, and others where game is decent, but he won't accept an invitation with. Change North's hand to Qxxxx Jxx Ax xxx, wouldn't you want to be there?

He raises Three Spades to game.

And if he has a moderate hand, the club shortness could be the key to finding a good slam on minimum points. It will be hard to find that if the auction just goes 1♦-1♠-3♠-4♠, which is likely if he has 10-11 HCP.

He can bid 3NT to ask for shortage.

Anyway, I have seen worse. In the Bermuda Bowl quarters, Forrester perpetrated a splinter after the same start with: ♠J♥KT97♦AQ653♣AQ4. It did not end well.

[32519]

The OP had a question:

32519, on 2014-February-24, 02:59, said:

Making these sort of splinter bids when you have no idea of responders actual hand strength and distribution. There has to be a better way to reach the optimal contract?

FrancesHinden, on 2014-February-24, 10:38, said:

Since when is a 4441 16-count a game force opposite a 1-level response?

Please suggest a better auction, a better way to reach the optimal contract.

[rhm]

PhilKing, on 2014-February-24, 11:56, said:

Anyway, I have seen worse. In the Bermuda Bowl quarters, Forrester perpetrated a splinter after the same start with: ♠J♥KT97♦AQ653♣AQ4. It did not end well.

I am unconvinced and happen to believe that the standard requirements for opener to splinter are too conservative. The real problem here are wide ranging one level bids.
I think opener should - all else being equal - splinter if he holds 2 loser less than is required for a minimum opening bid, what is generally considered a 5 loser hand or on my personal modified loser count a 5.5 loser hand.
I also happen to believe that a jump raise in general should be done on a six loser hand. This tends to narrow down single raises and jump raises. Accordingly responder can be conservative over these raises and need not move that often.

Advantages:

You can pass single raises and double raises more often when that is right and might reach games or slams other would not. These are frequent occurrences.

Disadvantages:

On very infrequent cases(in my judgement), you might get too high. For that to happen responder will in general require a weak hand and duplication in the splinter suit.

I do not know the full Forrester deal you quote (I would be interested), but was the disaster due to a Forrester "perpetration" or that the partnership was on different wavelength?

Rainer Herrmann

[jallerton]

32519, on 2014-February-24, 20:42, said:

The OP had a question:



Please suggest a better auction, a better way to reach the optimal contract.

I would bid 1♦-1♠-3♠-Pass.

The optimum contract is probably 1♠ or 2♠. It's hard to get there.

[rhm]

jallerton, on 2014-February-25, 14:10, said:

I would bid 1♦-1♠-3♠-Pass.

The optimum contract is probably 1♠ or 2♠. It's hard to get there.

No, the optimum contract without any doubt is 4♠ and it is easy to get there.
It so happens that 4♠ can be defeated by double dummy defense on the actual layout of the East West cards. (The defense can establish a trick in each suit, but this is very dependent on the unknown layout of the East West cards)
On a random simulation basis of the East West cards, 4♠ makes 63% of the time and average number of tricks is 9.65

Rainer Herrmann

[jogs]

rhm, on 2014-February-26, 03:25, said:

No, the optimum contract without any doubt is 4♠ and it is easy to get there.
It so happens that 4♠ can be defeated by double dummy defense on the actual layout of the East West cards. (The defense can establish a trick in each suit, but this is very dependent on the unknown layout of the East West cards)
On a random simulation basis of the East West cards, 4♠ makes 63% of the time and average number of tricks is 9.65

Rainer Herrmann

Never trusted double dummy analysis. This board is always a max of one loser in diamonds. At the table declarers may lose two tricks in diamonds.

[jallerton]

jogs, on 2014-February-26, 13:46, said:

Never trusted double dummy analysis. This board is always a max of one loser in diamonds. At the table declarers may lose two tricks in diamonds.

Correct. Note that after the 1♦ opening bid, 4♠ is unlikely to receive a helpful opening diamond lead.

Having said that, it's quite possible that 4♠ is a better spot to reach than 3♠, because 3♠ will itself be too high some of the time.

[barmar]

Sometimes, even though each player bids perfectly given their holdings, you reach a poor contract. Bidding isn't perfect.

You don't throw out bidding conventions just because they sometimes lead to bad contracts. You have to look at the overall frequency of gain vs. loss, as well as whether the bid could be used more effectively for something else.

I.e. if you get rid of splinters, do you have a better use for those double jumps?

[johnu]

jogs, on 2014-February-26, 13:46, said:

Never trusted double dummy analysis. This board is always a max of one loser in diamonds. At the table declarers may lose two tricks in diamonds.

Trust or don't trust double dummy analysis. The alternative is to generate a large number of hands fitting the bidding parameters and then go through them trick by trick trying to use single dummy information, even though you are looking at all 4 hands. I'm sure you can see the futility of that approach if you look at the how to bid this hand threads where almost everybody gets to the right contract because they can see partner's hands.

If east has ♦KJ, I would expect to lose 2 diamond tricks.

[Cyberyeti]

TBF it's a balancing act, I can take or leave the splinter here. The assessment is whether there are more hands you get too high on than there are that you fail to bid a making game opposite a 3♠ raise, Qxxxx, QJx, xx, xxx for example is a great game with no chance partner will accept an invite (if he does accept, you'll have Jxxx, AKx, Qxx, AKJ).

[rhm]

jogs, on 2014-February-26, 13:46, said:

Never trusted double dummy analysis. This board is always a max of one loser in diamonds. At the table declarers may lose two tricks in diamonds.

Yeah, better stay in bed, because if you get up you might get overrun by the next bus.
It happens

Rainer Herrmann

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2014-February-26, 17:01, said:

Sometimes, even though each player bids perfectly given their holdings, you reach a poor contract. Bidding isn't perfect.

You don't throw out bidding conventions just because they sometimes lead to bad contracts. You have to look at the overall frequency of gain vs. loss, as well as whether the bid could be used more effectively for something else.

I.e. if you get rid of splinters, do you have a better use for those double jumps?

Fruit Machine Swiss?

[Zelandakh]

johnu, on 2014-February-26, 17:18, said:

If east has ♦KJ, I would expect to lose 2 diamond tricks.

What is your line? A perfectly natural way to play the diamonds is ♦T to the ace and then another back towards ♦Q98. If we can pick up the ♦J then we might not get a heart loser in the final reckoning. At B/I level this is a good game as the defenders will give the game away most of the time and not find the best defence.