I think what made this harder was that my Lia (2/1) did not open. I just opened 1NT, and after Lia responded with Stayman and Smolen, we ended up in 4S. The average field (rank 10) went down two, just like me.
That board 4 (the second 3NT) was a toughie: I was totally bamboozled and went down one! Great analysis on that to figure out what was going on. Board 5 was the other one I lost: Lia didn't open, once again. I guess she opens more aggressively in your system. In any case, I took a ridiculous line and got ruffed multiple times for an ugly result. Thanks for your analysis and explanations!
I think a top pair could also find the diamond shift on board 3. The club position is known for W. If partner has KQJ of hearts, declarer only has 17. So declarer probably has the AK of hearts. Partner's discouraging spade pitch tell us declarer has the AS. If declarer has the AD, then declarer has the rest (4 spades (because of partner's pitch) 2 hearts, 1 diamond, 5 clubs). So the only thing left to play for is this hand basically. It's good to see that good human defense at least should be capable of doing what Lia did (however Lia did it)
I think on board 4 as long as east has the ace of diamonds you are guaranteed to make by playing spades first - then you can over take the heart with the ace - if diamonds are 4-3 then you are off 🙂I missed playing the KQ hearts too to make the overtrick - tricky hand.
I played these using the robot default system, N didn't open boards 1 and 5 which kept me out of trouble on those 2. IRL I would open both so a bit of luck for robot conservatism today
Hand 4 was a nice problem. After RHO follows with the lowest spade at trick 1 and LHO plays the S4 at trick 3 the spade position is known. But even if you unblock the KQ of hearts there's still the problem of what to do when East wins the third club and returns a club.
Yes I totally missed that the spade suit was knowing because the of the spade 3 at trick 1 from East. Yes. Figuring out how to get the overtrick after the 4th club is making my brain hurt.
@Gavin I know you better than I know any of the other experts on here; but only through watching you and Rob on the Wednesday morning tournament. I get better results against you than against the other experts. Do you get better results when playing against the people that you know better?
Do you mean in the challenges or in the ranked games? If it’s in the daily, 700+ people beat me in this challenge (more than 50% of players). As long as you weren’t playing my system you were really well placed to beat me. The hands didn’t work well for my master series in this set. In the past few dailys I was the champion if you beat me then you did great because I put up some tough challenges. I find it hard to believe knowing my game would make you more likely to beat me. You probably already know the answer to this question because you would have the thought “Gavin is going to do this, but I’m going to try to be different” or whatever. In the ranked games I play like a crazy person, using the cube on most hands. So good normal expert play should beat me more often than not. I think it’s just a really small sample size. How many boards are you talking about? I’m guessing it’s just variance and that it’ll regress to the mean in the future.
@adamspillane do you find yourself considering what I will do and doing something you think is better and beating me because of it? Otherwise I think it’s completely random short term variance.
Or maybe you’ll keep beating me. My experience against others on Intobridge is that I can have pretty big swings in either direction before our EV takes hold after a couple hundred hands.
Actually I just had another thought. Is it possible you take it more seriously when you’re playing against me and actually play your best but are more sloppy on the average day? That would explain a result discrepancy.
Thanks 😊
Moral of Board 1: Trust your partner even if she's a robot 😀- nice video; thanks Gavin
I think what made this harder was that my Lia (2/1) did not open. I just opened 1NT, and after Lia responded with Stayman and Smolen, we ended up in 4S. The average field (rank 10) went down two, just like me.
That board 4 (the second 3NT) was a toughie: I was totally bamboozled and went down one! Great analysis on that to figure out what was going on.
Board 5 was the other one I lost: Lia didn't open, once again. I guess she opens more aggressively in your system. In any case, I took a ridiculous line and got ruffed multiple times for an ugly result.
Thanks for your analysis and explanations!
i mean this with TOTAL humor, but today i can tell friends that i beat gavin, lol!!!! (i thank you for all that you have done to improve my game!!!!)
well done stuart
I’m genuinely happy for you. That’s the best part of the daily challenge. I can imagine how pumped you were as the results were coming in!
Nice job.
🙏🙏🙏
I think a top pair could also find the diamond shift on board 3. The club position is known for W. If partner has KQJ of hearts, declarer only has 17. So declarer probably has the AK of hearts. Partner's discouraging spade pitch tell us declarer has the AS. If declarer has the AD, then declarer has the rest (4 spades (because of partner's pitch) 2 hearts, 1 diamond, 5 clubs).
So the only thing left to play for is this hand basically. It's good to see that good human defense at least should be capable of doing what Lia did (however Lia did it)
I think on board 4 as long as east has the ace of diamonds you are guaranteed to make by playing spades first - then you can over take the heart with the ace - if diamonds are 4-3 then you are off 🙂I missed playing the KQ hearts too to make the overtrick - tricky hand.
I played these using the robot default system, N didn't open boards 1 and 5 which kept me out of trouble on those 2. IRL I would open both so a bit of luck for robot conservatism today
Hand 4 was a nice problem. After RHO follows with the lowest spade at trick 1 and LHO plays the S4 at trick 3 the spade position is known. But even if you unblock the KQ of hearts there's still the problem of what to do when East wins the third club and returns a club.
Yes I totally missed that the spade suit was knowing because the of the spade 3 at trick 1 from East.
Yes. Figuring out how to get the overtrick after the 4th club is making my brain hurt.
@Gavin I know you better than I know any of the other experts on here; but only through watching you and Rob on the Wednesday morning tournament. I get better results against you than against the other experts. Do you get better results when playing against the people that you know better?
Do you mean in the challenges or in the ranked games?
If it’s in the daily, 700+ people beat me in this challenge (more than 50% of players). As long as you weren’t playing my system you were really well placed to beat me. The hands didn’t work well for my master series in this set.
In the past few dailys I was the champion if you beat me then you did great because I put up some tough challenges. I find it hard to believe knowing my game would make you more likely to beat me. You probably already know the answer to this question because you would have the thought “Gavin is going to do this, but I’m going to try to be different” or whatever.
In the ranked games I play like a crazy person, using the cube on most hands. So good normal expert play should beat me more often than not.
I think it’s just a really small sample size. How many boards are you talking about? I’m guessing it’s just variance and that it’ll regress to the mean in the future.
It's in the daily challenge.
I seem to beat you often; but some of the other experts, I can never beat.
@adamspillane do you find yourself considering what I will do and doing something you think is better and beating me because of it?
Otherwise I think it’s completely random short term variance.
Or maybe you’ll keep beating me. My experience against others on Intobridge is that I can have pretty big swings in either direction before our EV takes hold after a couple hundred hands.
Actually I just had another thought. Is it possible you take it more seriously when you’re playing against me and actually play your best but are more sloppy on the average day?
That would explain a result discrepancy.
One day I'm going to get you Gavin. Be afraid! 🥷🏻