Combining H&S Entries

Auctions starting with a heart bid have a lot of in common with those starting with a spade bid. The same is true to a lesser extent for clubs and diamonds mainly because an opening 1H or 1S normally promises a suit with 5+ cards while C or D opening bid may have as few as 3 cards in the suit. (Fewer, for some conventions.)

For example, bidding entries for 2/1 Game Force, Bergen Raises, Jacoby 2N Raises, and many others, all have to be duplicated in the sections for 1H-P and 1S-P (Prior Bids). All the follow-ups to those bids also have to be duplicated.

Not only does this increase the size of BidBase, but it also greatly increases the chances for inconsistencies and other errors.

For a long time (decades), given the way BidBase was set up, it didn't seem possible to combine such sections in a way that would keep the basic design of the database relatively simple, and in fact, there is normally a trade-off between simplicity and efficiency.

What changed was in late 2022, it was noticed that when using "Systems On" for notrump overcalls (e.g.: "1C-1N-P"), most of the bids by responder are the same as after "1N-P" creating the same problems of wasted space and errors. So BidBase was modified to look for responses to an overcall of 1N in the same section as responses to an opening 1N. (See more details.)

This has worked so well that the idea has been expanded to combining entries from the 1H-P and 1S-P sections into a "1M-P" section (likewise for 1M-1N, 2M, 3M, etc.) . And the 1C-P and 1D-P (etc.) sections have been combined into a "1m-P" section.

For example, Prior Bids of 1H-P are passed to the BB bidding module. It changes the 1H-P Prior Bids to 1M-P and looks for an entry with hand specs matching the current hand in the 1M-P section.

If an entry is not found in 1M-P, it changes 1M-P back to1H-P and looks in the 1H-P section. If an entry is still not found, it passes.

The reason for it checking the 1H-P section after the 1M-P section is that for some responses, it may not be feasible to combine responses to both 1H-P and 1S-P into one entry for 1M-P. Those kinds of entries are still in the 1H-P and 1S-P sections.

In the entry shown, HCP are specified as 15-16 with 0 Distribution Points (i.e.: 4-3-3-3) and the M suit must have 4+ cards with 2 of the top 4 honors, and if these specs are met, 2N will be bid whether the Prior Bids were 1H-P or 1S-P.

If you enter a hand (Ctrl-Y) to find a bid for it (the box on the right, below), do NOT enter 1M-P. Enter the actual Prior Bid such as 1H-P and BB will do the rest. When it shows you the bid it found, click Edit to see the entry and the full section it is in (in black, below), whether it is in 1M-P or in 1H-P (or in 1S-P if that's what you entered). 

Referring to the screen shot above:  

• In Prior Bids, 1M-P takes the place of 1S-P and 1H-P. It is in the Combo box because it combines bidding for H&S or for C&D. When 1S-P is sent to BidBase, the "x" in Spds Num is replaced with "<3" as shown in the Combo field. When 1H-P is sent, the "x" in Hrts Num is replaced with "<3". In either case, the other 3 suits will be checked to see if any of them have 6+ cards with 3 of the top 5 honors, and if so, BB will bid 3 of that suit ("3x").  
• In the Combo specs line at the bottom, M<3 means that whichever major was specified, it must have fewer than 3. When the bidding module looks for an entry matching the hand's specs and it gets to this entry it will replace the "x" in the major with "<3". To also specify Points for the M suit, again put the M at the start, such as "M4-6".  
• Each suit box above that links to the "x" box, meaning that at least one of the suits must have 6+ cards with 3 of the top 5 honors. Notice that in the Test Hand in the entry, clubs is a 6-card suit and the bid would be 3C while in the Find Bid box, hearts is the 6-card suit and the Computer's Bid is shown to be 3H, both from the same entry.

Since BB looks in 1M-P first, if it finds an entry matching the specs of the hand, it will use that entry and never look in a 1H/S-P section. If you need it to use an entry in a 1H/S-P section, you may have to remove the entry from the 1M-P section and replace it with entries in the 1H-P and 1S-P sections or edit the entry in the 1M-P section so that the hand no longer meets the required specs.

The purpose of the entry below is to make a 2/1 Forcing bid with only 11 HCP but with a good 6-card or longer suit. If Prior Bids were 1S-P and responder's suit is hearts, he can bid 2H and all is good. But if Prior Bids were 1H-P and responder's suit is spades, he should only bid 1S, not 2S. So this is an example of an entry which can't be put in the 1M-P section.

So what we do is leave this entry in the 1S-P section without the "x" in the Spds Num field. In the 1H-P section are any entries in which 1S or 1N is bid after 1H-P.

Here is a little more complex entry:

The box framed in red on the right side shows the suit specs in the original entry in the 1H-P Prior Bids section. In the Combo Points box is "Hx=10+". This means that the HCP for the Hearts suit + the "x" suit (diamonds, in the Test Hand) total 10+.

In this revised entry, 1H-P was changed to 1M-P, the Combo Num box says "M4+" so that whether the actual Prior Bids was 1H-P or 1S-P, the "x" in the suit's Num box will be changed to "4+". The Num for the major suit not being changed to 4+ will keep the "x" and if that suit has 5+ cards with 3+ HCP (or if D or C has 5+ and 3+), then that part of the entry's specs are met.

That is, for this entry, if the M suit is hearts, the spades is still tested to see if it has 5+ cards with 3+ HCP.

Likewise, "Hx=10+" was changed to "Mx=10+", meaning that if the actual Prior Bids were 1H-P, then "Mx10+" is changed to "Hx10+" and if 1S-P, then it is changed to "Sx10+". This change does not affect the Suit Specs line because "Hx=10+" is still a Combo spec for the points for H + the points for whatever suit matches the "x" spec.

In the Test Hand in the entry above, diamonds are the suit matching the "x" spec of 5+ cards and 3+ HCP. So the actual 3 HCP in H plus the 7 HCP in D = 10 HCP and the Combo spec of 10+ is met.

The original spec of hearts Points = 3+ was necessarily lost, but the Combo spec of Mx=10+ pretty well covers that. No harm, no foul.

With this entry we want to Splinter if all the outside suits are covered and we have shortness. Example: KQ743 A952 5 K64

Each suit starts with "x,3+" for Num and "3+" HCP and the "x" specification is "<2".

If Prior Bids were 1-P, then the Combo spec of "M4+" will cause "x,3+" to be replaced with "4+" before testing begins. Every other suit must either have 3+ length with 3+ HCP or have fewer than 2 cards.