[neilkaz]

AL78, on 2019-October-22, 14:22, said:

I'm struggling to find good examples of where we lost the partscore battle and got a bad score, and I can remember the bidding. I have noticed one way we are getting bad scores which there is nothing we can do about, that is, opposition bidding games and slams that are only bid once or not at all at the other tables. I have found a couple of evenings where our opponents bid a slam on a combined 33HCP and it is either significant imps out or a near bottom, because almost everyone else stays in game, or bids the NT slam that goes off.

Here is a partscore hand we lost:

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I was North. I didn't think my hand was good enough for a 2♠ overcall over what could be unlimited opponents. Sadly I was wrong, all other Norths overcalled and found the spade partscore so we got a near bottom.

I've just noticed I haven't set the vulnerability correctly. EW were vulnerable.

Send the paramedics to check your PD for a pulse for not balancing with X.

[pescetom]

I too would pass with north's hand, although it's far from nondescript. South has the easiest decision in the world.

[barmar]

AL78, on 2019-October-22, 14:22, said:

I have noticed one way we are getting bad scores which there is nothing we can do about, that is, opposition bidding games and slams that are only bid once or not at all at the other tables.

This happens to everyone. But that means that in the long run it should cancel out -- sometimes it will happen to you, sometimes it happens to other players. Similarly, sometimes you'll get lucky and the opponents will hand you gifts when they overbid or misdefend.

But if you're getting consistently poor results, it can't just be due to bad luck like this. There are almost certainly more hands like the one you posted, where your side didn't bid enough, than hands where the opponents found miracle slams.

My regular partner of almost 2 decades is a conservative bidder, too. He often downgrades hands that others would open (or downgrades strong 1NT openings to suit openings), and we get poor results. We could get away with this in flight B, but since graduating to flight A we have had consistently poor results, and I've mostly stopped playing with him in tournaments, we just play our regular weekly club game.

[AL78]

barmar, on 2019-October-23, 08:56, said:

This happens to everyone. But that means that in the long run it should cancel out -- sometimes it will happen to you, sometimes it happens to other players. Similarly, sometimes you'll get lucky and the opponents will hand you gifts when they overbid or misdefend.

But if you're getting consistently poor results, it can't just be due to bad luck like this. There are almost certainly more hands like the one you posted, where your side didn't bid enough, than hands where the opponents found miracle slams.

My regular partner of almost 2 decades is a conservative bidder, too. He often downgrades hands that others would open (or downgrades strong 1NT openings to suit openings), and we get poor results. We could get away with this in flight B, but since graduating to flight A we have had consistently poor results, and I've mostly stopped playing with him in tournaments, we just play our regular weekly club game.

Oh I know it can't be just bad luck, as luck should swing both ways over time. I'll try and dig out some more hands for you to look at where I got a bad score on a competitive partscore hand. I may have to go back a year or so because I've forgotten what happened in the bidding on recent evenings. There might be one or two from 2018 which ring a bell.

[AL78]

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I was North. 2♦ makes exactly for a NS bottom. It was an evening with only three and a half tables, and this board only got played three times. The other two scores were 1NTX= by North, and 2♠+1 by North (they may bave been playing a strong NT 5 card major system).

[AL78]

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I was North. 2♥ made +1 for a joint bottom. One East played in 3♥, but the rest were in 3♦ by South.

[akwoo]

AL78, on 2019-October-23, 12:16, said:

I was North. 2♥ made +1 for a joint bottom. One East played in 3♥, but the rest were in 3♦ by South.

Do you play Lebensohl?

[AL78]

akwoo, on 2019-October-23, 12:21, said:

Do you play Lebensohl?

With the partner on that evening, yes. I guess South could have bid 2NT followed by 3♦. If West then bids 3♥ we lose the board, but at least we would have given ourselves a chance to match the room.

[AL78]

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I was North. 1♥ just made, we should have got it one down but that makes no difference matchpoint-wise, a 37% score.

[helene_t]

AL78, on 2019-October-23, 12:08, said:

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I was North. 2♦ makes exactly for a NS bottom. It was an evening with only three and a half tables, and this board only got played three times. The other two scores were 1NTX= by North, and 2♠+1 by North (they may bave been playing a strong NT 5 card major system).

If you play t/o doubles here (personally I don't think t/o doubles are best when playing weak NT, but maybe I am wrong), then I think South should double. It can backfire when North has a 3334 and (32)35, but at matchpoints you have to take that risk I think.

[helene_t]

AL78, on 2019-October-23, 12:16, said:

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I was North. 2♥ made +1 for a joint bottom. One East played in 3♥, but the rest were in 3♦ by South.

Partner apparently forgot about Lebensohl. Btw, without Lebensohl, 3♦ should probably be to play when playing weak NT.

[helene_t]

AL78, on 2019-October-23, 14:35, said:

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I was North. 1♥ just made, we should have got it one down but that makes no difference matchpoint-wise, a 37% score.

The bidding seems normal. Except that the teacher has to have a talk with East about takeout doubles.

It is more interesting how to defend 1♥. Indeed, GIB says it should be one down.

[hrothgar]

AL78, on 2019-October-23, 14:35, said:

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I was North. 1♥ just made, we should have got it one down but that makes no difference matchpoint-wise, a 37% score.

The choice to double a 1!D opening seems strange.

Either a 1NT overcall or possibly a pass (planning to convert a penalty double) look much more normal.

[Tramticket]

AL78, on 2019-October-22, 14:22, said:

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There are four chances to compete on this hand:
- North could bid 2S over 1NT. As has been said above, it is usually a poor strategy to compete over 1NT on a balanced hand - and a 5332 shape is a balanced shape. But I have seen much worse overcalls - our suit is headed by the AK, we have an outside ace, we own the spade suit, we are both non-vul, we are playing Match Points, we want partner to lead a spade if on lead (unlikely). Club players will often make worse overcalls and you are probably playing with the room in overcalling. But we do have a good lead against 1NT, so probably wisest to pass.
- South could compete over 2D. This is easy to rule out.
- North gets a second chance to bid over 2H. I would be very tempted to throw in a bid here. I was happy defending 1NT, but much more interested to compete over a suit contract. I know that it is a live auction and partner might have nothing, but it is MPs and you need to muscle in at this vulnerability.
- Finally, South can protect once it is clear that the contract will be passed out. It is absolutely clear to bid at this stage. You know that the points are roughly equally divided and you can't sell out at the two-level when the opponents almost certainly have at least an eight-card fit.

[AL78]

hrothgar, on 2019-October-23, 14:44, said:

The choice to double a 1!D opening seems strange.

Either a 1NT overcall or possibly a pass (planning to convert a penalty double) look much more normal.

Some people at my club double on any opening strength hand.

[hrothgar]

AL78, on 2019-October-23, 15:52, said:

Some people at my club double on any opening strength hand.

I expect that you're going to need to get used to all sorts of random ***** happening then...

[Zelandakh]

Hand B3: One of the known properties of playing a Weak NT is that it tends to hide suit fits. Most of the time that hurts the opps more than us but part of the mentality of the system is accepting that sometimes we will be the ones that get the short end of the stick. While South could potentially Double 2♦, my instinct is to put this one down to luck. On average I would expect to come out ahead if an opp overcalled our 1NT with 2♦ on that hand; here they get a lucky make while our spade fit gets buried.

Hand C7: South not bidding on this hand is a serious mistake imho. I daresay that most players would have opened the hand with 2♦. With that unavailable South should certainly be willing to compete over 2♥

Hand D12: This appears to be an example of poor bidding being rewarded. East's Double is an absolute abomination whereas the N-S bidding looks normal. At Pairs this looks more like a cardplay hand than a bidding one though. There are plenty of opportunities to gain or lose tricks and perhaps the real answer here is that the majority of good players are sitting N-S. What were the other scores that +50 only got 37%?

So far on 50% of the hands your partner has badly undercompeted and the other half are primarily down to system factors, at least as far as bidding is concerned. I suspect already that a big part of the problem here could actually be the club culture, which is surely a major influence on your partner's style of bidding. The Double on the last hand demonstrates clearly that the prevailing thinking is for the hand with honour strength to bid and for weak hands to pass. While there is some degree of truth in this for constructive bidding, it is absolutely the wrong way of thinking when the auction gets competitive. Assuming you know enough to play a more mainstream and modern style, you are probably either going to need to retrain your partner to bid much more aggressively, accepting the odd 4 figure penalty along the way with good grace, or find a new partner that has already learned the lesson.

[AL78]

Zelandakh, on 2019-October-23, 17:43, said:

Hand D12: This appears to be an example of poor bidding being rewarded. East's Double is an absolute abomination whereas the N-S bidding looks normal. At Pairs this looks more like a cardplay hand than a bidding one though. There are plenty of opportunities to gain or lose tricks and perhaps the real answer here is that the majority of good players are sitting N-S. What were the other scores that +50 only got 37%?

1♥ W 7 -80 (us)
2♥ N 6 -200
2♦ N 9 +110
2♥ W 4 +200
2♥ W 5 +150
1NT E 7 -90
2♥ N 8 +110
1♦ N 7 +70
2♠ S 6 -200

I'm sure there are hands where I did the wrong thing, I haven't found them yet. I am not deliberately cherry picking hands to make my partner look bad.

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2019-October-23, 14:38, said:

If you play t/o doubles here (personally I don't think t/o doubles are best when playing weak NT, but maybe I am wrong), then I think South should double. It can backfire when North has a 3334 and (32)35, but at matchpoints you have to take that risk I think.

Do you play weak NT much? Takeout doubles work pretty well in my experience. Without them it seems you will very often lose the partscore battle,

[mycroft]

Caveat: I play in a world where about 15% of the room plays weak NT (and outside the city, that percentage plummets). Some of our reasoning would not be relevant if one has a lot of company with one's weak NT auctions.

I enjoyed playing penalty doubles of interference over our weak NT - it was rewarding and enjoyable. It was just that for every time we had one of those, we had 4 or 5 "I'd like to compete, but I don't know where" that would cost us 4-5 IMPs/30-35% a throw. Since switching to takeout doubles, we're now back to the field a lot more; yes, we've let through a few -150s and -200s that should have been -500 or -800, and a few -100s that could have been very nervous -200 tops, but we are *clearly* ahead of the game.

And last night we got: p-p-p-1NT; p-p-3♦-p; p-X-AP for 500 into nothing when I passed with ♦Jxxx and two-and-a-half tricks.

On topic: I agree with most here - it looks like "bidding is for finding game", not "competing for the part score" is in OPs- or partner's - mind. Especially at matchpoints, you will be eaten alive if you let them play 2-of-a-fit; frankly if you let them play 2-of-a-suit unless you *know* that this is going to be difficult for whoever declares. That goes double for the 1 level, unless it's the 1♠-p-p- "You know, I bet opener's got 20 or so" ones, rather than the "it looks like partner has a penalty double over there" ones.

Since OP has a lot of data to look at, one way to check is to see how many hands they're declaring vs defending, and what their scores are when on play vs on defence. From the examples given, it looks like they'd be defending 65-70% of the hands. Not only may that mean that they are defending more than their opposition, but defence is hard (and it's even harder when defending lower contracts than the rest of the room!)