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Seems obvious - this thread is about everything under the sun that another thread is not. Bon Appetit!

(I apologize in advance if someone has already suggested something like this.) If you are like me you get a lot of email spam pushing "personality surveys", Briggs Myers tests, etc. I don't know much about these, other than they purport to boil one's personality down to a short string of characters for classification purposes. I'm not sure how useful they are, but I was considering the problem of partner compatibility in bridge, and thought something like this might be useful for identifying other players that might be a good match for your own "bridge personality" and preferences. If you could look at another player's profile and there was, say, some sort of shorthand code for where they stood along various bridge-related axes, it might be more useful than trying to distill from a list of preferred conventions what sort of player someone is. So I came up with six characteristics which might be useful for this purpose; a player could self-evaluate where they stand on these six axes by assigning a number from 1 to 9 , and come up with a string like 378562, or 294451, or whatever. Someone who was "middle of the road" on all six axes would be a 555555. Please note that I am not approaching the topic of self-evaluation of SKILL LEVEL. We are all aware of the problems with that. These characteristics are more indications of your bridge "philosophy" in various areas, for the purposes of determining compatibility with potential partners. I'm sure that my list of characteristics could be refined and improved, please don't hesitate to make suggestions. My list (the first two deal with bidding/system issues, the next two with defensive issues, and the last two are more general): 1. COMPLICATION. This would measure how comfortable someone is with depth of agreements in a bidding system. A "1" would prefer very few agreements (maybe Goren Standard circa 1950 or so), while a "9" would enjoy system notes running into the hundreds of pages. There might be some correlation between a higher Complication number and a preference for system artificiality, but I can also imagine someone who prefers natural methods that wants to explore every possible permutation of the auction. 2. BIDDING AGGRESSION. Fairly self-explanatory. A "1" would be ultra-sound, always having full values for overcalls, classic shape for various doubles, textbook preempts, etc. A "9" would be ultra-aggressive, someone who frequently (constantly?) takes "suspect" actions for the sake of causing problems for the opponents; they go for a lot of numbers but think that the tradeoff is ultimately worth it. 3. CARDING PHILOSOPHY. This would measure someone's preference for depth of defensive agreements. A "1" would prefer very few carding agreements, relying instead on judgment and general principles. A "9" would prefer extensive carding agreements where every spot card played has a specific and identifiable meaning. 4. LEAD AGGRESSION. Within the bounds dictated by scoring form considerations, a "1" would almost never make an aggressive or attacking lead, preferring instead to make safe leads that are unlikely to give anything up. A "9" almost always makes attacking leads, even at matchpoints, preferring to go for the set. 5. COMPETITIVENESS. A "1" might regard bridge as a purely social activity, or as a purely cerebral exercise in problem-solving. A "9" regards bridge as a bloodsport, or as a forum to express their intellectual dominance. 6. "POST-MORTEMITIS". This would measure someone's willingness/eagerness to engage in postmortems. A "1" doesn't really care for discussing the hands afterwards; once they are done, it's on to the next game. A "9" prefers to go over their results with a fine-toothed comb, whether good or bad; the post-mortem might last as long or longer than the session itself. So, that's my list. For what it's worth, I would call myself a 775567. Any opinions?

red vs white matchpoints [hv=pc=n&s=skqj752hj86d4ck98&n=s3hkdkj972caj6532&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=1d1h1s3h4cp4sp5cppp]266|200[/hv]

South is Dealer [hv=pc=n&s=sqj2haqjt52da5cq9&n=sa43hk3dkq862ca32]133|200[/hv] IMPs, short matches

I think the obvious part of the question is what to do now over 5♠, to which pass is very clear to me. We have already shown our values (probably more than what we have) and we have already shown our support and our suggestion to defend. Double now would show more defense and more defense to spades in particular. We are looking at xx in spades, so what more defense do we have?

With Shogi I have the agreement "always" to pass 2♠ if I don't see game prospects. Now obviously any hand with 11 cards in the minors could make game if the hands fit better than they seem to at this point. Anyway, if p corrects 3♣ to 3♦ I am not going to bid a fourth time, so even if 5♣ makes we may not be able to reach it. Pass. Partner has six spades so this is +110, if anything is. I would have opened 1♦ also btw but don't feel strongly about it.

There is a principle that suggests that when a partnership has two fits of equal length, it is better (usually but not always) to play in the weaker suit. One reason is that it is difficult to score ruffs in the trump suit....and another is that when worried about losing control, one often seeks to establish the side suit before pulling trumps...when the side suit is the weaker, this costs a lot of tempo. Here, we can avoid diamond ruffs, opposite say x AQxx KQJx Kxxx by playing in diamonds. As for the roadmap in 5[spades, they have one anyway...if I bid 5♥, they won't likely play me to be 5332, and they will likely play partner for length and strength in clubs. The fear of being tapped in clubs may have merit, but if partner is playing the hand, it is probable that his club holding will buy us some time...whereas that club holding may well be vulnerable if LHO can lead a high spade and switch. Meanwhile, there has to be some slight chance that partner owns only 3 hearts, in which case declaring hearts is unlikely to be our best spot. So 4N.

Because voting is not yet enabled.

Hi rhm, Could you tone down on your attitude in future posts, thank you. I know I'm not supposed to take everything personally but it looks like your post makes me an expert wannabe who is not an intelligent partner. In a previous post you made a few similar insults, albeit not directly to me, but in a post that was a response to my post (something along the lines of "these advanced arguments are probably wasted on most people"). Opposite that hand, opener would bid 4♠ as a reply to 4♦ (the 4♦ bid did not make his hand all that better) and responder doesn't need to carry to slam. His 4♠ does not deny a heart control. I'm not saying that responder must cuebid all the time (which impression you appear to have formed about me) - if all opener needs for slam is a heart control, he should bid over 4♠. As I see it for good features, responder has: -the club King, which will help opener a lot -the heart Ace, aces are never bad for slams -no jacks at all -if partner has the ace of diamonds the KQ will be helpful, if not, at least they're stopping the suit no matter which side the ace is (obviously not worth 5 points in this case though) I think 4♦ is a nice and helpful bid because it tells partner that you have at least a little slam interest and it shows a control. It is by no means a statement that "partner, if we're not off two keycards we should bid slam". It is a very cheap bid with a relatively low cost. There is still room for quantitative auctions, like the aforementioned ... 4♣-4♦; 4♠-pass. Opener showed a minimal slam interest type hand and responder showed 1 sign of life but then stopped. I don't think this simple philosophy of bidding is clearly as bad as you make it out to be. Sigh. edit: let me add that I now think that the "strongly dislike the 4♠ bid" part was an overbid. I don't think 4♠ was so bad, but I don't like it.

I think ITO originally didn't stasnd for anything, just making MOSC into a word. The system could then be called "The system with bite" Adter system restirctions, Marston jokingly said ITO stood for "is that allowed"? In US, we played 1NT as any 12-14 bal including 5cM. Full relay over that. 1♦ was Precision style, meaning diamonds or 10-11 bal. In theory that could include 5cM but we never did that, partly through legal concerns. 1♥ & 1♠ denied 4 OM, always unbalanced. Worked okay for 2 goes at Fall Nats.

You only alert agreements. Now there sometimes is a gray area between "implicit agreements" (which must alerted) and pure guess (which must not). For example, if partner opens 1NT, RHO doubles and I bid 2♣, it could be that opponents' guess is as good as my partner's (in which case I do not alert), but if my p is from the same country as I am I may have a qualified guess as to whether p will take it as natural or Stayman, and that should probably be alerted. Many players and TDs don't know this and think everything must be alerted. When I organize tournaments, I say in lobby chat at the beginning: "This is an indy so you are not required to alert anything unless you have made some special agreements with your partner". Since I started doing this, players don't alert anymore and don't ask opps for the meaning of bids.

None of the above. I prefer 2♦ artificial and forcing, it doesn't mean I have 5♠. It's not the same as NMF.

Neither. (semi-)Natural + forcing. "New minor forcing" typically only refers to auctions after 1nt rebid. Using 2d as wholly artificial force (usually in conjunction with playing 2h as non-forcing), is properly termed something else, "Bourke relay" perhaps.

A lot of work went into fixing what wasn't broken.