[iandayre]

I held this hand opposite GIB today in an ACBL Robot Tournament

QJ9xx
AK
Kx
AJTx

18 HCP, obvious 1S opener. GIB responds 2NT, Jacoby 4 card raise. The system rebid is clearly 3S (maximum 18+), which I made. GIB bid 4C - hmmm, since I have the A, probably a void. What could come next but 4H? Can't imagine so I bid that and GIB jumped to 7S with AKTx, Txxxx, AQTx, Void. Easy make. But only 1/4 of the field got there.

Not a single call I made was the slightest bit difficult or questionable. Point? You usually get the best results from GIB when you bid your own hand accurately.

[johnu]

iandayre, on 2016-June-10, 15:49, said:

Not a single call I made was the slightest bit difficult or questionable.

I agree that your bidding was straightforward, but you can't control what GIB does.

Suppose you had something like,

QJ9xx
AQJ
xx
AKJ

You wouldn't be overjoyed about GIB putting you in 7. If you held GIB's hand, it would be clear that making 7 depends on not losing any hearts and that you can't pitch enough hearts from 5 small, so you should not be making the decision to bid 7.

[Stephen Tu]

Meh. I think GIB bidding 7s is terrible. Isn't your hand consistent with QJxxx AKx xx AKJ or QJxxx AQxx Kx AK at that point?

If you are confident of 4♣ showing first round control, it is your hand that should grab captaincy of the auction by bidding RKC, you are the one that can count zero losers if partner has the missing keycards. The other hand doesn't know about your heart length vs. club length which is critical.

I would consider both 4♥ and 7♠ as very dubious calls. Also unsure if 2nt is preferable to immediate splinter.

[iandayre]

Stephen Tu, on 2016-June-10, 16:43, said:

Meh. I think GIB bidding 7s is terrible. Isn't your hand consistent with QJxxx AKx xx AKJ or QJxxx AQxx Kx AK at that point?

If you are confident of 4♣ showing first round control, it is your hand that should grab captaincy of the auction by bidding RKC, you are the one that can count zero losers if partner has the missing keycards. The other hand doesn't know about your heart length vs. club length which is critical.

I would consider both 4♥ and 7♠ as very dubious calls. Also unsure if 2nt is preferable to immediate splinter.

I wouldn't recommend a human partner bid 7S, but given GIB's limitations at the slam level - it can't count 13 tricks in NT after a response to 5NT guarantees them - I thought I would take the opportunity to praise GIB. And to point out that 3/4 of the field found ways to stay out of the grand, when all you had to do was make 3 simple, systemic calls to get there this time. But I agree with your point that I could have bid BW myself over 4C.

As far as the initial response goes, GIB's splinters are quite limited. This is a treatment that is growing on me. You know not to expect too much.

[Stephen Tu]

iandayre, on 2016-June-10, 17:40, said:

I wouldn't recommend a human partner bid 7S, but given GIB's limitations at the slam level - it can't count 13 tricks in NT after a response to 5NT guarantees them - I thought I would take the opportunity to praise GIB.

It can't count 13 tricks in spades either. I just don't think GIB is worthy of praise here. It should never just jump to 7 on a hand where it can't really count 13 tricks. It should continue cue bidding, or use exclusion if available, followed by showing all key cards if it was unable to prompt partner to take captaincy. If it's going to just punt slam I want it to just bid 6 and not bid 7 without "the nuts", it bids 7 way too often based on some total point estimate that doesn't take into account the large chance of duplication of values. Really it should just bid 5d after 4h.

[iandayre]

Stephen Tu, on 2016-June-10, 18:00, said:

It can't count 13 tricks in spades either. I just don't think GIB is worthy of praise here. It should never just jump to 7 on a hand where it can't really count 13 tricks. It should continue cue bidding, or use exclusion if available, followed by showing all key cards if it was unable to prompt partner to take captaincy. If it's going to just punt slam I want it to just bid 6 and not bid 7 without "the nuts", it bids 7 way too often based on some total point estimate that doesn't take into account the large chance of duplication of values. Really it should just bid 5d after 4h.

Agreed. I had planned to use GSF if that happened. And yes I'll admit to trying to be nice to GIB (or the BBO staff) for a change. But really my main point was that on THAT PARTICULAR hand it was easy to reach the great grand slam, just by making 3 straighforward bids within GIB's system.