[mgoetze]

32-board team match, IMPs.

---

This would be easy if partner had replied 2M, or if you were vulnerable...

[eagles123]

i go 3n we have AKK

[Bbradley62]

2N. I'd have bid 3N opposite 15-17.

[mike777]

easy 3nt, very easy. In fact it looks like NS is nv so I would hve opened the hand.

[PhilKing]

3NT.

[mgoetze]

Bbradley62, on 2015-January-25, 17:05, said:

2N. I'd have bid 3N opposite 15-17.

I'd be ashamed of myself for posting this on BBF if we were playing 15-17.

[steve2005]

NV I invite with 2N, Vul is when you push would bid 3N then. Partners has no 4-card major so hands likely not fitting. Hoping if partner has 14 hcp with a 5-card minor will still go.

[Mbodell]

2NT for me. My hand has only one T and no 9 and no 5 card suit so it is a mediocre 10 count at best. With no fit and a mediocre hand for my point count I don't want to be in a 24 hcp game white.

[rmnka447]

The scoring makes it about breakeven whether you bid game or not NV at IMPs.

I hear that the bulk of your points aren't in partner's suits, you don't have many intermediates, etc. Nonetheless, you do have prime cards in 2 Ks and an A. IMO, they are worth a little more than 10 value especially with the A paired with a 10.

So I'm bidding 3 NT.

Winning IMPs includes bidding and making some thin games. This seems to be the occasion when I take that risk.

[mikeh]

3N

Give value to the A/K/K. Calling this a ten count shows a lack of appreciation of the value of aces and kings, as oppoed to queens and jacks.

14 opp a great 10 will make game about half the time even with good defence. Defence is tougher than declarer play, so this rates to be odds on.

[Fluffy]

2NT. This looks like aces and spaces to me. If partner doesn't raise 2NT our best fit will be 4-3 without any useful jack, Those beatiful Kxxx vs Qxx and A10xx vs xx are luring. I wouldn't blast even at IMPs vulnerable.

[whereagles]

3NT. Reason: the other table might be playing 15-17, after which reaching game is a certainty. Even with 14, sometimes people upgrade. I cannot afford not to bid this game.

[NickRW]

For me, it depends on what you call a 14-16NT. When I've played it we downgraded a few 14s as not good enough and included a few uninspiring 17s at the top end. If you do that I'd say 3NT. However, if pretty much any old 14 qualifies, invite

[lycier]

This is a invitational hand.
1- If the responder hold 5332,5m with 10 hcp,I would bid up to 3NT.
2- If the opener's 1nt is 4333 only with 14hcp,hard to believe we are easy to take 9 tricks.

[Fluffy]

I am really surprised with all the bashing. We are looking at quick tricks for NT without any long suits. Haven't you played those 26 HCP no play 3NT without Jacks?. AKx4 produces 28 HCP game that is a favourite to go down. Quick tricks are good for suit contracts and 3NT with running suits, we are not on these scenario, we are looking at slow 3NT where 10s and 9s are extremely valuable.

[mgoetze]

NickRW, on 2015-January-26, 04:21, said:

For me, it depends on what you call a 14-16NT. When I've played it we downgraded a few 14s as not good enough and included a few uninspiring 17s at the top end. If you do that I'd say 3NT. However, if pretty much any old 14 qualifies, invite

Our most likely up- or downgrade is upgrading a 16 HCP hand to a 1M opening.

[Mbodell]

I simmed this, and while it is reasonably close, it does favor bashing (and I was in the invite camp up thread). I assumed that partner would accept any invite with 15 or 16 points and either wouldn't bid nt with a 6 card minor or else would accept an invite with a 6 card minor and 14 points. So the only hands where we end up in 2nt instead of 3nt are ones with exactly 14 hcp and 2-3 of each major and 2-5 of each minor. I didn't consider upgraded 13 counts, so if you do a fair bit of that, maybe that would change things to favor the invite. I also didn't consider that blasting 3nt will make it harder on the defense (lead and play) than the delicate route which should favor the blast. I had basic filters on E and W (East must open with pass, West must not bid over 1nt - check the code for details). When doing all this and calculating the double dummy result - again for the rejected invites only - I got (100,000 matching hands simulated):

Quote

There were an average of 8.3518 tricks available in nt
In general, blasting instead of inviting wins you 0.07908.
In general, inviting instead of blasting wins you -0.07908.
=================================================
When we stay low we would have made game 42286 times (42.286%)
When we stay low we would make 8 exactly 43460 times (43.46%)
When we stay low we would make 7 or fewer exactly 14254 times (14.254%)

So on hands where you invite and the invite is declined you lose about 0.08 IMP. This overstates the difference, because on hands where you invite and accept it, you should have closer to 0 IMP difference (0 IMP dd for sure). We only make the 42% of the time, but since 14% of the time we don't make even 8 tricks, the cost benefit favors the blast (if the 58% of the time we made exactly 8 then inviting would have been better). At least at double dummy. Code is available here.

[Fluffy]

The problem with aces and spaces 3NT is that you do not know which is the suit that breaks 3-3. Although obviously the lead favours defenders also, but I think knowing which is the suit that breaks helps declarer more.

[mikeh]

Fluffy, on 2015-January-26, 09:20, said:

The problem with aces and spaces 3NT is that you do not know which is the suit that breaks 3-3. Although obviously the lead favours defenders also, but I think knowing which is the suit that breaks helps declarer more.

Since when is a hand containing A10xx in spades an Aces and Spaces hand?

Not that I pay much attention to that saying, which completely ignores the fact that we can expect partner to hold some cards when he announces 14-16.

I am not the least bit surprised that a simulation shows that bidding is the right action. I appreciate that the simulation plays double-dummy, but remember that it also defends double dummy, and will always make the killing lead if there is one. Defence is the toughest part of the game and on auctions like this one, the lead is often a very difficult choice, where choosing wrong dooms the defenders, while often providing a lot of inferential information to the declarer, not to mention tempo and even an outright trick on occasion.

I wouldn't put an intermediate player in game here, but I'd surely put an expert into it, and an advanced should be given the chance.

[mgoetze]

mikeh, on 2015-January-26, 10:41, said:

I am not the least bit surprised that a simulation shows that bidding is the right action.

I am not the least bit surprised that a simulation shows that 2NT and 3NT are very close (as Mbodell notes, it doesn't always matter which we choose - on the actual hand, partner had 16). The value of AKK including ATxx versus the knowledge that we almost surely have no 8-card minor fit are factors that, I believe, are quite hard to weigh against one another.