[pilowsky]

Newly schooled in the art of thinking by GIB, and the Forum experts I entered an ACBL IMP's challenge tournament.
This was Board 1.
I'm South - I look up from assessing my hand to discover that my partner the North robot has opened 1♦. With earlier admonitions from unnamed irascible experts about not overusing Soloway jump shifts, I bid a modest 1♠.
West overcalls 2♣. North attacks with an alerted double (I'm not sure if the EW robots looked at the alert, but I did - it said "support for my spades and diamonds"). East passes. I bid 3♣ and North bids 6♦. I get 7.4 IMP's.
Here's the hand.
The question is: how would you bid this hand after North opens 1♦?

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Edited after the sharp-eyed Tu spotted the deliberate (!?) error

[Stephen Tu]

Your text doesn't match the bidding diagram; the text says East bid 3♣ raising partner, while your diagram says East passed and you cue bid. Which was it? And the North bot really jumped to 6D next?

It's clear to start with 1♠; you might belong in spades, hearts, diamonds or NT. 2nd round, after North shows the 3 cd support double, is basically a choice between 3♣ and 4♣. 4♣ is more descriptive, agreeing spades and showing club shortness and a good hand. My only concern about 4♣ is perhaps difficulty in getting to 6♦ instead of 6♠ which might be necessary on some constructions, although I'm not sure if 3♣ makes that any easier.

If East bid 3♣, then you don't have much choice other than 4♣.

Also remember bots suck at slam bidding so even if you make the right bid opposite a human, the bot will often do something kind of random, either driving to a hopeless slam or failing to cooperate to a good one. So your good bidding will not be consistently rewarded playing with a bot, so don't take your results with the bot as a final evaluation of whether your bids were good or not on this sort of situation.

[pilowsky]

Stephen Tu, on 2020-September-10, 22:29, said:

Your text doesn't match the bidding diagram; the text says East bid 3♣ raising partner, while your diagram says East passed and you cue bid. Which was it? And the North bot really jumped to 6D next?

It's clear to start with 1♠; you might belong in spades, hearts, diamonds or NT. 2nd round, after North shows the 3 cd support double, is basically a choice between 3♣ and 4♣. 4♣ is more descriptive, agreeing spades and showing club shortness and a good hand. My only concern about 4♣ is perhaps difficulty in getting to 6♦ instead of 6♠ which might be necessary on some constructions, although I'm not sure if 3♣ makes that any easier.

If East bid 3♣, then you don't have much choice other than 4♣.

Also remember bots suck at slam bidding so even if you make the right bid opposite a human, the bot will often do something kind of random, either driving to a hopeless slam or failing to cooperate to a good one. So your good bidding will not be consistently rewarded playing with a bot, so don't take your results with the bot as a final evaluation of whether your bids were good or not on this sort of situation.

Thanks for the correction. Yes, it was me that bid 3♣ (shame-faced emoticon). And yes in my hands the Bots bid 6♦ - but not with others. I disagree about the Bots slam-bidding. I've found there control bidding, cue bidding etc to be spot on. They have directed me into multiple excellent slams - many of which I have failed to make in the most obscene fashion. Mikeh would have a seizure if I posted them - maybe I should .

[Stephen Tu]

Well the bot jumping to 6♦ is pretty good evidence of randomness, I can't think of any hand whatsoever that a good human would jump to 6d with missing all your cards and holding Jxx spades at best. If the bot wants to show good diamonds it can bid 4♦ instead, surely. Though tough to justify that also missing DAJ! So it is jumping to slam quite possibly missing say an ace and say SK or Q, and also killing any scientific chance at finding grand if it's possible. Sheer luck that you had the right cards for it to make.

There's no good hand that ought to be jumping to 6♦ either, even not missing all of your stuff.

So 3♣ probably has some stupid definition, and many of the followups to 3♣ are likely poorly defined.

Also I checked at bidding table, 4♣ by you is also ill-defined, just shows 5+ spades and FG, not short clubs specifically as most humans would interpret. Not that GIB would bid intelligently after a spl either.

Seriously GIB might get you to some good slams, but often it's via some inane sequence that good humans would never perpetrate, and sheer luck that it turns out to be a reasonable contract. Good humans would get there through more logical sequences, more reliably avoiding bad slams, getting to better strains, ruling out grands or getting to good grands.

Some of the slams you posted in the past are just simply terrible slams that find a lucky layout that makes, or takes horrible defense by the bots to let make.

[dsLawsd]

It seems as if 4♣ would show a singleton club with excellent trumps (spades) inviting a heart Q by partner. If that or 4 NT is bid then maybe some slam is on. Over 3♣forcing that must imply diamond support but GIB went crazy-

did that give him 6 diamonds to KQ the A of hearts and JXX of spades? You have not shown North yet!
Regards---

[pilowsky]

OK, I was suffering from a serious medical condition that was cured with a bit of a lie-down and a short nap. Here's the North hand. The bidding sequence as shown in the box was correct. I'll include the bidding again:

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I'll let that comment about my earlier slams go through to the keeper - I'm still learning - thanks for keeping an eye on me. My mistake on this one was not reading the alert to 6♦ carefully enough.
It reads: "3♠; 21- HCP strong rebiddable ♦ 19-22 total points"

You know that feeling that Experts have when they bid 3NT invitational and the new player always thinks that it's a sign-off when it can be invitational to game in something else? Maybe I should have taken more time, thought more carefully etc...

Anyway, the question remains, was the first part of the bidding sequence right?

[pilowsky]

Mind you, the seasoned robot wrangler requires extraordinary situational awareness to avoid ending up in a slam at times: as seen here .

Something else that takes a while to cotton on to is that you definitely more HCP than all the other bots, but you might not have a better shape.

[digiharuka]

pilowsky, on 2020-September-11, 03:23, said:

OK, I was suffering from a serious medical condition that was cured with a bit of a lie-down and a short nap. Here's the North hand. The bidding sequence as shown in the box was correct. I'll include the bidding again:

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I'll let that comment about my earlier slams go through to the keeper - I'm still learning - thanks for keeping an eye on me. My mistake on this one was not reading the alert to 6♦ carefully enough.
It reads: "3♠; 21- HCP strong rebiddable [diamonds; 19-22 total points"

You know that feeling that Experts have when they bid 3NT invitational and the new player always thinks that it's a sign-off when it can be invitational to game in something else? Maybe I should have taken more time, thought more carefully etc...

Anyway, the question remains, was the first part of the bidding sequence right?

You can do nothing. Total points cannot show your side holding all-suits first round control.

Stephen Tu's post(#2) is the answer.
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A bit off-topic: if EW Pass, what will you bid when
(1) 1[diamond] - 1♠ - 2♠
(2) 1♦ - 1♠ - 1NT
(3) 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♦

you may find some ideas when North bid support double in this case.

[Huibertus]

pilowsky, on 2020-September-10, 20:50, said:

The question is: how would you bid this hand after North opens 1♦?

I would check what 4♣ means according to the bots. I suspect it shows ♣ Ace in which case I'd bid3♣. I'd also check the meaning of 3♣, does it promiss spade fit or not? If it does I'd pass 6♦ too, if it doesn't I'll show my 5th spade bidding 6 ♠. In MP's I'd always correct to 6♠.

BtW I don't think the N bot is mad. My guess is the system doesn't allow the bot to bid 4♦ as that would either be passable (I've seen bots pass on 4 minor even after having checked the annotation promising a GF situation, the system seems to think 4 minor is a game) or promisses ♦ Ace, and of course following 3♣ North does have slam values.

Furthermore, I very much like the tone of your post! Well done.

[pilowsky]

Well, 3 people found a better spot than me and came equal second - here's how they bid it. for 8.68 IMP's

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1st prize anyone?

[pilowsky]

The final instalment:

Spoiler

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Making!
Ironically, this deal makes 7♦ and 7♠ for North or South.

The Bid of 7♦ was not alerted as a sign-off - it was described as "3+ ♦; 21-HCP; [diamonds Q; 16-22 total points" - So even then South still had the chance to bid 7♠, but didn't.

At least the robots tried .