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The contract looks great but the 2♣ bid is wrong, use cuebid only with support or with hands that really have no alternative bid. Here 4th hand has a clear 1♥ response, wich if you don´t play right now as 4+ cards and forcing, you should switch as soon as possible.

The enforcement of ACBL's cell phone policy is unjust. While playing at the NABC in an Open Pairs event we had no less than 3 cell phones ringing during the event. The TD's made a joke of it, saying such things as "the next one to ring will be shot". I also heard of another player receiving a full board penalty for the same offense in another event. The wording of the policy seems to leave it up to the TD's judgement wether to apply a penalty or not. It must be uniformly applied or scrapped altogether. The electronic device is either on or off, present in the playing area or not. 4. Except for health related equipment or by permission of the DIC, cell phones, pagers, and all similar communications equipment may not be operated or operable in the playing area during a session of play at NABCs. Violations of this policy may be penalized without warning. Minimum penalties of one-quarter board for matchpointed events and three IMPs or one Victory Point for other events will be assessed if a player's cell phone or pager is audible or if a cell phone is being used in the playing area. Sponsoring organizations of other ACBL sanctioned events are strongly encouraged to adopt this policy

In that auction I wouldn't play a forcing pass. There's no longer the "sound of the auction" inference that they're saving, and the 4♠ bidder doesn't promise great defensive strength.

There is an even better reason for using the in-between bid as weaker than 'accepting' the transfer. Anyone using 4 way transfers, and indeed many others, have to go through 2♣ with a hand that is invitational to 3N, whether responder has a major or not. This means that opener will have to describe his major holdings, at least to some degree, even on hands on which responder has zero interest in a major. This in turn makes the opening lead more informed and the subsequent defensive counting of declarer's shape that much easier. I'm on lead with say Q108x Q108x in the majors...the auction has gone 1N 2♣ 2♠ 2N.....I lead a heart and rate to do better on average than if I led a spade. How does this impact how we play 4 suit transfers? Make your 2♠ bid either a transfer to clubs or an invitation to 3N, with NO 4 card major. Opener bids 2N with all hands on which he would reject the invite, and 3♣ with all hands on which he would raise an invitational 2N to game. The plus side of this treatment is concealment of opener's major holdings and this can be huge. Remember that, by definition, we are often going to be in a close game....because we had an invitational sequence. It is precisely on these hands that this method works best, because the wrong lead can give the contract either immediately or by losing a defensive tempo, and the lack of disclosure of opener's hand can help even later in the play. The downside is that opener's call doesn't relate to his club holding. There will be a few hands on which opener likes clubs but wouldn't accept a balanced game invitation, and that could result in the very occasional missed game, when responder would be able to count tricks if aware of the club liking. The same notion applies when opener bids 3♣ and responder has to decide whether to try to play in clubs or notrump.....not knowing how the hands fit. Finally....when responder has a bad hand, wanting to play in 3♣, we do get the contract wrong-sided when opener has a max but right sided when opener has a minimum. This seems to me to be neutral....opener will more often have a minimum, but right-siding is probably irrelevant most of the time, and probably less relevant opposite a max than a min, so I think this is a wash. The negatives seem to be far less significant, due to frequency issues, than do the positives. There is no reason in principle that one has to use the same treatment of acceptances in both minors, but it makes sense to do so on the grounds of ease of memory.

xxx is awful, need tricks ASAP, RHO has heart shortness, LHO's short could be anywhere but more likelly in diamonds than clubs, so clubs is perhaps better in order to find partner with a magical ♣K onside and a trump trick.

Hi, sitting second in hand vul against notval you hold x Q43 KJ7x AKTxx what would you bid (at MP, at IMPS)? cheers Wolfgang

Over 1♠ an obvious double, I think 2♣ is really bad. However, if my hearts were xxx and my clubs AKQTx, I would bid 2♣.

100% agree with Art

Over 1♠ I double.

Double is too risky with partner holding 4S. Competing at pairs with a one suit situation over the 1S response I think dble is better sooner. It would be good to know if the opps bidding showed real C having bid S. I suspect it does. We might well have a 8 card D fit our way, possibly 9 and bidding sooner might have solved this. I agree with the first pass but would not yell if partner had over called 1H, not great, but it is pairs.

This is an excellent point is overlooked when people compare systems. I used to call kenrexford out on this when he was promoting his style, knowing both hands you can make a reasonable auction to the right contract in 2/1 auctions no matter what system you play. He always claimed not to cherry pick hands, and I agree that he didn't, you could give him any slam hand and he could find the right spot in his system, and explain why if you changed the hnd a little the auction would be different. He was doing nothing wrong, other than ignoring the fact that many times you have some judgement calls/guesses, and knowing what contract you're trying to bid to, you'll never get those wrong. In the real world, sometimes a player will sometimes have to guess, and will sometimes go wrong. A better system will make this happen less often.

No balance DBL 2♠ here for me, 3 level is not safe. But why not DBL after 1♠ if u really wnna show sth?

1) Yes. 2) Yes, he is allowed to use his judgement. It would also have been fair for him to have given me a ticket for a blown out light. 3) Not usually. 4) BUT BRIDGE IS A GAME!! Do not conflate these situations. Games have rules and they must (should) be enforced as stated. In baseball, if an ump gets a call wrong this is a big deal. Same in soccer (for anyone who doesn't know baseball). It's not that these things don't happen, but within their abilities to rule correctly, we expect them to. Police have lots of goals, primarily to maintain order and safety. If they can do this by not giving a ticket, they need not give a ticket.

Yuck. You think we have an 8 card fit?, certainly no guarantee. I'm passing at these colo(u)rs. Wish I had bid a ♥ when I had the chance.

No, we are vul and there's only one suit left, in which we have a poor holding.

Agree with this. The suggested distribution is consistant with the auction. To have any hope P will need a high trump and the ♦K or ♦Q.

If partner is 6232 and declarer is 1633, I think you would want to take the ace of spades and lead ace of diamonds and then jack of diamonds to shorten board. Such that if partner has the ace or king of hearts he can bury the queen and promote your jack for the setting trick.

At double dummy, this question was answered by Ginsberg along the way to building GIB, see: http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.0669. The most interesting thing about the relevant part of this paper is that along the way it makes the point that if you're going to try to induce misdefence, there's a huge edge to putting the problem to the defenders early. At single dummy, well, we don't have a good single dummy solver yet...

I would imagine top players could and would generally find the 'correct' safety plays. But there are other considerations such as the value of an overtrick vs the risk of going down. Those small gains can rack up over the course of a match (with careful risk analysis). Sure. The 'correct' play based on the bidding or the defenders' play is likely to be subjective which is why it's always good to discuss these things :). What I was suggesting is that it is rare for an expert declarer to make what might be considered a mistake. SuitPlay may tell you which way to play a suit in isolation, but an expert (which I'm not BTW) will take account of many other factors to decide what is best for the specific circumstances. And I think in 99% of cases their reasoning will hold up.

OK, I'll bite. (Note: I am definitely an intermediate player) Win the ♠A and follow it with the ♠K, showing a doubleton. Then underlead in diamonds for a third round of spades from partner. Ruff high to promote partner's ♥Txx. If declarer has a stiff spade or diamond void, this is not going to work so well. But the auction seems to be consistent with partner having 5341 and declarer having 2524. No, if declarer had 4 clubs they would be in a club contract. Partner must be 5332 and declarer 2533.

I find it very strange that the AC committee considers it close as to whether East should have asked at his turn. He was told at the beginning of the round that the opponents play "strong NT, rubber bridge style". I didn't know that Drury has become common at rubber bridge. If we equire East to "protect himself" in this situation, maybe the ACBL should just do away with alerts altogether. Meanwhile, if the auction had gone 1S P 2C ask-is-this-drury-answer-no-then-P P, West might well be barred from reopening with a takeout double of clubs (if passing is a LA), and so East's worry about asking is very well justified.

That's not true. Every time you have the auction 1M 1N you've benefited, since you now know more about responder's hand. So actually it's only on hands where responder does have a GF that you clearly benefit, which must be well under 50%.

That's not what I'm looking for. I'm after a sense of the kind of hands on which 2/1 helps, and why. (and thanks to those who've provided them)

I know this is not nice to hear but your basic bidding knowledge needs to improve much more before you should worry about conventions. No, your biggest problem is that you don't know what basic auctions like 1S - 1NT - 2S show. That's what you'll need to learn first.

This was NOT an oooooops this was an intentional and dare I say criminal act of bidding. That 6d vs 6c (to offer alternative place to play) has landed you in a cruddy contract. Bid properly and you wont have to worry so much about what LOP is available for a cute 10% contract. NUFF SAID:)

♠KQxx ♥KTx ♦xx ♣AKxxx I wonder if there are others who consider fast arrival one of the most abused bidding principles. IMO FA should not be used when you have an outside control (more like this). ♠AT82 ♥AJ95 ♦Q2 ♣J92

After more thought. What happened? Was 3NT a better contract than 4♠? 1♣ - 1♥ 1♠ This auction should guarantee four clubs. 9xxx, Kx, Kxx, AQJx With 'bad' spades, 1NT may be a better rebid than 1♠.

Agree 4♠. What's the problem? Fast arrival.

2♦ (4sfg) then spades on the cheap.