The Secret Lives of Robots

"If you have a decent shot at game opposite a flat 0-count then you should force to game."

Hannie was explaining about MisIry and we talked a little about strong two suited hands generally. We went to bid some and I got this monster red hand. I signed off someplace below game, and when we looked at it we realized that I had underestimated my trick taking power, assuming we played in a red suit, of course. That's one thing I learned this week.

Playing the known card:

This came up before. Bob talked about it. It's hard to internalize though. The idea is this Say you hold the ten and the queen, and the jack has already been played. There's this temptation to take the trick cheaply as possible. However, if you're already known to have the queen you should play it, then declarer still has to guess the position of the ten.

Both Mike (MickyB) and Hannie pointed this out. I played 3nt and went down one on a hand that should make. I kind of choked at the table. I was playing with MickyB against Hannie and Jlall and I had this moment where I just lost focus and wanted to go hide for a while till I felt better. But this known card came up in clubs.


Yesterday, watching the last table finish up at the HB tourney, I was chatting with one of the GIB robots. East. East is far more talkative and forthcoming than west. It's nice to see them out, kibbitizing and socializing.