[Stephen Tu]

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How are 1 and 2 spade defined such that North can't find a bid directly over 1h?

Also it's kind of sick that the GIB's missed their huge diamond fit; I wonder if it can be tweaked to open the higher suit on minimum 6-5s, and reverse a bit lighter with this shape. I've seen this happen a lot, GIB opens its lower ranking suit then buries its 5 bagger for the remainder of the auction.

[cloa513]

Stephen Tu, on 2012-May-10, 20:49, said:

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How are 1 and 2 spade defined such that North can't find a bid directly over 1h?

Also it's kind of sick that the GIB's missed their huge diamond fit; I wonder if it can be tweaked to open the higher suit on minimum 6-5s, and reverse a bit lighter with this shape. I've seen this happen a lot, GIB opens its lower ranking suit then buries its 5 bagger for the remainder of the auction.

I think overall the doubles are sick- they should be 4-4 in majors over 1 of minor not 3 card support for all suits.

[Stephen Tu]

cloa513, on 2012-May-11, 03:52, said:

I think overall the doubles are sick- they should be 4-4 in majors over 1 of minor not 3 card support for all suits.

Post some examples?

You can't be 4-4 in majors all the time; it's normal to double 1c on hands like 4351 or 1d on 3415 type hands. One doubles with good hands 4-4 majors off-shape, but you feel a bit sick when partner bids or 3d in comp and you have to pass and hope he has at least 5. Ideal takeout doubles are 4441, short in suit bid, or within one card of that distribution; 4-4-2-3 doubles of 1c like mine are abuses one takes with 4-4 in the majors, relying on the priority of partner to bid majors over longer minors and hoping to survive otherwise.

I don't have a problem with the hands GIB doubles on; what I have a problem with is hands GIB *doesn't* double on, mainly decent 4333 hands, 13-15- hcp, not too much wastage, where it chooses a rather committal overcall, instead of a takeout double where it likely still finds fit in its 4 cd suit if it has one, and encourages partner to bid their 5 cd other suits way more than overcalling does.

Also the responses to the takeout doubles are broken in some spots, particularly when 3rd hand bids. There was another hand I lost where GIB had a perfectly normal 7 count with an unbid spades that could stick a 1s bid in but didn't.

[barmar]

On this hand, the book bid for North is 2♣, which requires 11 total points and 4-4 majors -- the rule doesn't check whether West has already bid one of them. It then does a simulation, and Pass is the overwhelming favorite in its simulations.

In the balancing position, the book bid is Pass, and again it simulates. In this case, the result varies among simulations, and some of them select 2♠.

[Bbradley62]

What does GIB-North need for 1♠ or 1NT over 1♥?

[barmar]

1♠: Free bid; new suit -- 4+ S; 6-10 total points
1NT: One NT to double -- 2-5 C; 2-5 D; 2-4 H; 2-4 S; 9-11 HCP; 12- total points; stop in C; stop in H

It's too strong for 1♠, too few ♦ for 1NT.

2♠ shows 4+♠, 10-12 total points, so this might be the appropriate bid. But it's generated by two rules, one that requires 5+ cards, another for 4 cards. The 5+ rule has higher priority than the cue bid rule, but the 4 rule has lower priority, so in this case the cue bid rule takes precedence. Then it simulates and decides that none of these would work out as well as passing.

[Stephen Tu]

I'd be OK with it cue-bidding I suppose (works well against psychics by RHO!). I think it's wrong to simulate so early in the auction when there are so many different hand types in play, so many possible continuations Simulate when taking actions likely to end the auction, or auctions when the # of possible continuations is manageably low.

[steve2005]

My current partner and I would respond over 1♥ with X, showing 4 ♠ and not garbage.
Not sure if this is standard but I think i saw this method discussed in a question in the ACBL bulletin

[Stephen Tu]

steve2005, on 2012-May-11, 15:06, said:

My current partner and I would respond over 1♥ with X, showing 4 ♠ and not garbage.
Not sure if this is standard but I think i saw this method discussed in a question in the ACBL bulletin

Not std. double shows 4cd hearts, penalty, unsuited to 2h (which probably should be 5). With spades you can just bid them; after all you were OK bidding them if responder had passed so it shouldn't matter. You don't want opps to psych you out of a major simply by bidding it, and sometimes you want to play in hearts despite 4-1 split or whatever after their side retreats to clubs or notrump.