[mikl_plkcc]

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I wanted to find a bid showing 18-19 HCP balanced but the robot bidding system thought my 3NT was 21 HCP. I passed its forcing bid and ended up just made.

What should I do to play 3NT instead?

[hrothgar]

Comment 1: It is perfectly reasonable (even good) to upgrade your hand to an 18 count

Comment 2: If partner can't scrape up a bid, is balancing with 3NT really a good choice with an 18 count and no running suit?
What kind of hands can partner hold for their pass?

They can't have a penalty pass. Your hearts are too strong.
They can't hold what they actually have. They should take action with that.

3N might work if partner has a weak very distributional hand (but even here, defending 3♥ is probably just as good.
It might work if partner has a very flat 6 count.

Balanced against this, 3N is going to go very very poorly if RHO is holding the missing points

Comment 3: Looking at both hands, is 3N really where you want to play? Because I'd want to be in 6♣ (even with the shitty transportation).
And its not like 5N is any worse than 3N

Comment 4: The robots decision to pass 3♥ is incredibly bad

[mw64ahw]

I'd open 1N then I guess you end up in 6♣

[mikl_plkcc]

 mw64ahw, on 2025-May-18, 07:07, said:

I'd open 1N then I guess you end up in 6♣

The spade suit was too strong for a 1NT opening so I prefer bidding the major first, and I was stuck for a rebid after the preempt.

[mw64ahw]

 mikl_plkcc, on 2025-May-18, 11:32, said:

The spade suit was too strong for a 1NT opening so I prefer bidding the major first, and I was stuck for a rebid after the preempt.

Doesn't bother me. I open all balanced 15-17 with a 5-card Major 1N even against a robot

[hrothgar]

 mikl_plkcc, on 2025-May-18, 11:32, said:

The spade suit was too strong for a 1NT opening so I prefer bidding the major first, and I was stuck for a rebid after the preempt.

The issue here isn't the strength of the spade suit in isolation, but rather the playing strength of the hand as a whole.

> I was stuck for a rebid after the preempt.

The NT ladder is as basic as piece of a bidding system as there is.
You need to learn it and respect it.

Please note: You weren't stuck for a rebid.
You have an obvious pass.

This wouldn't end up scoring well, but that is your partner's fault and not yours.

[thepossum]

At least 5NT makes. Could have been in 6

[Huibertus]

You have a clear pass after 3 ♥. This cannot be game for you simply because partner should not have the hand he had, and defending 3 ♥ could easily get you +200. However, there is a slight excuse for the bot, defending 3♥ could easily be the optimal result if you have a minimal balanced 1♠ with some ♥ values. I still feel he should double though. I agree with the 1♠ opening, your hand is too strong for 1NT (not because of the quality of ♠ but because you have 5 of them and upgrade your hand because of it), but you can't bid after 3 ♥, you are stuck, bad luck, preempts work sometimes that's why they exist.

Your comment "but the robot bidding system thought X" is incorrect, the robot is cheating an KNOWS exactly what your system agreements with him are he checks your system notes. So when you hover over 3NT and it shows the annotation "21 HCP...." then that is what you promise, even if you don't like the agreement, so don't click on the bid.

[johnu]

Good pass by GIB North. Bidding may lead to a game or a makeable slam. Defending partscores adds up.

[mikl_plkcc]

Huibertus, on 2025-May-19, 03:08, said:

You have a clear pass after 3 ♥. This cannot be game for you simply because partner should not have the hand he had, and defending 3 ♥ could easily get you +200. However, there is a slight excuse for the bot, defending 3♥ could easily be the optimal result if you have a minimal balanced 1♠ with some ♥ values. I still feel he should double though. I agree with the 1♠ opening, your hand is too strong for 1NT (not because of the quality of ♠ but because you have 5 of them and upgrade your hand because of it), but you can't bid after 3 ♥, you are stuck, bad luck, preempts work sometimes that's why they exist.

Your comment "but the robot bidding system thought X" is incorrect, the robot is cheating an KNOWS exactly what your system agreements with him are he checks your system notes. So when you hover over 3NT and it shows the annotation "21 HCP...." then that is what you promise, even if you don't like the agreement, so don't click on the bid.

I wanted to show 18 HCP balanced and hadn't shown it yet, and I felt that a game was still possible even if the robot partner couldn't bid over 3♥, so I needed to find the best game, which I believed to be 3NT.

If I doubled instead there was a strong likelihood that the robot would respond 4 of a minor.

[hrothgar]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-May-21, 07:37, said:

I wanted to show 18 HCP balanced and hadn't shown it yet, and I felt that a game was still possible even if the robot partner couldn't bid over 3♥, so I needed to find the best game, which I believed to be 3NT.

This is wrong on multiple levels

1. Regardless of what you think 3NT showed or want 3NT to show, this bid does NOT show a blanced 18 count

See my earlier comment about learning the NT ladder and respecting the NT ladder

2. If partner can't scrape up a bid over 3♥ then 3NT could easily go horribly and catastrophically wrong.

Please note: If folks learn that you'll balance with completely inappropriate hands, they are going to start sandbagging

[hrothgar]

Years back, there was a character at the MIT club who went by "Binkley" (or perhaps he came to be labelled as "Binkley").

Regardless, Binkley loved to balance. Binkely would balance on anything.

Which eventually lead to me creating "BOTP" (The "Binkley Oriented Trap Pass"). Because hilarity ensues when partner opens, you have a balanced 20 count and no expectation of good fit, and you know that Binkley willl happily balance when he is red and you are white...

[smerriman]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-May-21, 07:37, said:

I wanted to show 18 HCP balanced and hadn't shown it yet, and I felt that a game was still possible even if the robot partner couldn't bid over 3♥

Such as?

You have 3 spades, 1 heart trick on the lead, 1 club trick.. how are you planning to get at least 4 more when partner was too weak to raise spades or make a negative double and all finesses in the minors are likely to be offside? (And if East has two hearts, you have to do so before they win a single trick, otherwise you're going down heaps..)

There may be a rare one where that's the case, but not remotely close to common enough to compensate for all of the losses.. your hand got significantly worse after the preempt and your partner's pass (solely a free robot issue); you have an easy pass any day of the week.

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For those interested, the free robot requires 9+2*level (17 in this case) total points for a free bid, and 4-5 cards in each minor for a negative double, so neither rule matches.. but this is a typical scenario where the rules were only meant to be a starting point, and the advanced robot logic was designed to plug the gap by weighing up potential options vs blindly counting points.

[mikl_plkcc]

smerriman, on 2025-May-21, 15:07, said:

Such as?

You have 3 spades, 1 heart trick on the lead, 1 club trick.. how are you planning to get at least 4 more when partner was too weak to raise spades or make a negative double and all finesses in the minors are likely to be offside? (And if East has two hearts, you have to do so before they win a single trick, otherwise you're going down heaps..)

There may be a rare one where that's the case, but not remotely close to common enough to compensate for all of the losses.. your hand got significantly worse after the preempt and your partner's pass (solely a free robot issue); you have an easy pass any day of the week.

--

For those interested, the free robot requires 9+2*level (17 in this case) total points for a free bid, and 4-5 cards in each minor for a negative double, so neither rule matches.. but this is a typical scenario where the rules were only meant to be a starting point, and the advanced robot logic was designed to plug the gap by weighing up potential options vs blindly counting points.

So the rules were defective. Why couldn't the robot double with 4-6 in the minors?

[hrothgar]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-May-23, 09:07, said:

So the rules were defective. Why couldn't the robot double with 4-6 in the minors?

It feels like you have been given the answer to this question any number of times...

[Huibertus]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-May-23, 09:07, said:

So the rules were defective. Why couldn't the robot double with 4-6 in the minors?

Repeating my earlier comment.

"However, there is a slight excuse for the bot, defending 3♥ could easily be the optimal result if you have a minimal balanced 1♠ with some ♥ values."

There is an explanation why the bot didn't do it, and it is a sound explanation. There's not always 1 solution only to what bid should be made. Your and my preference would be to double, but pass can work out perfectly fine.

[smerriman]

 mikl_plkcc, on 2025-May-23, 09:07, said:

So the rules were defective. Why couldn't the robot double with 4-6 in the minors?

No, I specifically said the opposite.. the rules are fine, and the proper robot does double a lot of the time (or bids clubs, but never once passes; it disagrees with Huibertus that defending is reasonable).

What is defective, fully intentionally, is the free robot.