[FrancesHinden]

---

Vulnerable against not, IMPS, playing with screens. LHO is your screenmate. You ask about the 3C opening (while you are thinking) and are told it is 'totally random'
Question 1: What do you do?

Question 2: The tray is very slow coming back, so you know that either partner or RHO (or both) thought for a long time. This is AI. As you don't know who was slow, your actions aren't constrained, but does this make a difference to your call?

[gnasher]

I'm not sure I agree about the status of the information from the other side of the screen. It's more likely that partner was thinking than that RHO was, because it's more likely that partner is short in clubs than that RHO has club support.

The UI rules don't cater very well for this type of situation, because they assume that we know who was thinking, whereas with screens we're dealing in probabilities.

[paulg]

gnasher, on 2014-March-15, 07:42, said:

I'm not sure I agree about the status of the information from the other side of the screen. It's more likely that partner was thinking than that RHO was, because it's more likely that partner is short in clubs than that RHO has club support.

Most players with short clubs don't normally take a very long time to make their choice, unless their name is Barton or Spears. On the other hand, when you have a good hand opposite a random pre-empt it can be difficult to judge what to do.

So I agree with Frances on this point

[Vampyr]

What does "totally random" mean? Is opener showing club length?

[Fluffy]

I would double or bid 3NT, but I would not pass

[FrancesHinden]

paulg, on 2014-March-15, 08:39, said:

Most players with short clubs don't normally take a very long time to make their choice, unless their name is Barton or Spears. On the other hand, when you have a good hand opposite a random pre-empt it can be difficult to judge what to do.

So I agree with Frances on this point

Well, partner was Spears...

[FrancesHinden]

Vampyr, on 2014-March-15, 08:39, said:

What does "totally random" mean? Is opener showing club length?

it might be Jxxxxx, or it might be KQxxxxx. 5-card pre-empts are rare in first seat.

[ggwhiz]

3nt. The random nature of 3♣ could easily be giving my rho the headache and besides, my partner has a strong tendency to pull the trigger on a bid (right or wrong) in a timely fashion.

Maybe it's about trusting a more casual partner to do the same? Doubling instead of 3nt because of a hitch doesn't compute to me.

[MrAce]

Imo when playing with screens, in order to assume UI, it has to be obvious. Other wise this is getting way too out of hand, which i believe is already gone too far. Unless it is done systematically, momentary hesitations are over rated regarding the info they give and it is always assumed to give the correct info. Anyway i agree with Frances about the AI.

This hand reminded me a recent topic where 2nd seat was voted to pass by a lot of players in BBF, with 14 hcp and doubleton in preempt suit 4432 shape, not in specific order. Where i thought it was an auto T/O double. I suspect some of those players may choose to pass here as well. Then the blame goes to "the preempt" But some of them do not even preempt unless they see something very close to the textbook preempt (probably with higher requirements, trump spots and all...) Matter of the fact is, here we are again about to make a decision, in which we have no idea where we are sticking our nose into if we bid, and if we don't we may be missing the ocean stolen in front of our eyes. But lets just skip all these type of decisions and make sure our preempt, if gets doubled, we do not go phone numbers and/or if we preempted pd we can still recover from our own preempt and find most of the games or slams.

Having said that i would bid 3 NT. Double is totally acceptable for me as well.

[gszes]

I see 3N is very popular and that scares me---the downsides
are many--
1. we have an iffy club stopper
2. we are vul vs not so down 3+ can be a pretty large loss
3. assuming the opps cannot run clubs we need almost an opening bid
from p to make 3n and they have already passed 3c.
4. If 3n is right p will most likely bid it if we x or at worst pass
and we play 3c x for a decent penalty.
5. P is probably very short in clubs so the hand rates to be played in a suit
which 3n makes problematic most of the time.

X has none of the problems listed above and allows us to escape at the
3 level when p is weak. If we get to game odds are it will not go down much
no matter where p bids it so we have little downside and quite a bit of
reward if we can make a vul game. The slow screen is meaningless here since
it can happen for any reason and really slow is still a relative term that
can depend on how we feel atm.

[HighLow21]

If we ignore the AI, which I am inclined to do as a general principle, the Double seems more flexible than bidding 3NT. At anything other than unfavorable I'd be much more likely to shoot 3NT, but if righty has Kx(x) or Ax(x) in clubs, 3NT rates to go down a ton, and there may be no safe escape.

Yes, I realize this risks wrong-siding the contract if partner turns up with something like Ax in clubs. That's only one possibility out of quite a few here.

If we try to take into account the AI, I would argue that this sways the right call even more in the direction of Double. The reason is that if it was indeed RHO that hesitated, there's much more of a chance that we will get doubled in general, and in 3NT in particular, whenever partner is broke.

But still, I don't like taking info like this into account. There's plenty of reasons the box could have come back slow, and if I were to try to estimate probabilities and see if that swayed my decision, it's very likely to give me a headache and no new insight.

Besides, if partner was indeed close to competing in direct seat, there's every chance we will get to and make a viable game after a double. Give him something like ♠KQxxxx ♥Jxx ♦KJx ♣x, for example, and I'd much rather be in 4♠ than 3NT.

[steve2005]

I don't think the slow tray gives you info. opp may have been thinking of bidding 3N or raising the pre-empt just as easily as partner may have been thinking of bidding.

maybe the odds are slightly in favour of partner bidding but it certainly isn't clear. just bid what you were going to. anything else would be unethical.

[nige1]

FrancesHinden, on 2014-March-15, 05:32, said:

Vulnerable against not, IMPS, playing with screens. LHO is your screenmate. You ask about the 3C opening (while you are thinking) and are told it is 'totally random'

Question 1: What do you do?
Question 2: The tray is very slow coming back, so you know that either partner or RHO (or both) thought for a long time. This is AI. As you don't know who was slow, your actions aren't constrained, but does this make a difference to your call?

---

IMO

1. 3N = 10, Double = 9, Pass = 8.
2. Pass because now there are 2 (or 3) possibilities.

On the one hand, if you guess that partner tanked, then you're in receipt of UI that suggests bidding -- and Pass is the non-suggested logical alternative.

On the other hand, If you guess that RHO tanked then bidding is fraught with danger and pass seems prudent.

This seems reasonable to me but Is this reasoning really logical?

For completeness, there is a another possibility (The third hand?) Some screen regulations allow deliberate random hesitations, in order to even up the tempo. Here, however, we're told the tray was very slow

[FrancesHinden]

I was wondering if there comes a point when a balanced 16-count with Qxx in the suit opened shouldn't act.
I was the 3C opener.

At the table, 3NT was selected and conceded 1100
The alternative of double is also -1100 because partner is 4333 and will bid 3S, and RHO has AKQ10x of them.

If you could persuade partner to pass the double, you would be +100. Opponents also can't make game.

This hand was, indirectly, an advertisement for semi-random pre-empts (opener is 1426). At the other table they played in 2D making.

[FrancesHinden]

p.s. I think the whole tray tempo thing is a red herring in terms of affecting your choice of call. Just thought I'd add it because it adds verisimilitude.

[dicklont]

FrancesHinden, on 2014-March-27, 16:04, said:

p.s. I think the whole tray tempo thing is a red herring in terms of affecting your choice of call. Just thought I'd add it because it adds verisimilitude.

Apart from the warning about flat 16-pointers (thanks for that) you also made me look up that word

[the hog]

I am sorry Frances posted the result. This hand is a totally obvious pass. You have a minimum, you have no source of tricks and your shape is poor. Seriously, why bid on this trash? The result was well deserved.

[paulg]

FrancesHinden, on 2014-March-27, 16:03, said:

I was wondering if there comes a point when a balanced 16-count with Qxx in the suit opened shouldn't act.

Certainly wrong when it is not the strongest hand at the table. And some didn't face the problem because your partner's hand acted, which I guess will be the next question.

[Jinksy]

the hog, on 2014-March-27, 18:15, said:

I am sorry Frances posted the result. This hand is a totally obvious pass. You have a minimum, you have no source of tricks and your shape is poor. Seriously, why bid on this trash? The result was well deserved.

This is a strange comment coming from someone who keeps complaining about people on these forums who don't agree with expert/majority opinion.

[Lord Molyb]

I agree with the hog here, pass is obvious