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I'd marry pass, f--- compete, and kill pull.

I have a feeling that someone may soon have to modify the "notice of thread/post moderation" thread. This will lead to an unfortunate recursion which will lead to the end of BBForums.

What is your goal at this club? 1. Do you want to have fun? Stay at home, watch TV or have sex. You may play snooker or try some knitting, too. 2. Do you want to support partner? Play your normal game and talk about the hands later. Praise him for all missed blunders. 3. Do you want to win at all costs? Play only his conventions and his system. if this is transfers, Gerber and old Black, so be it. Add nothing fancy or new. Don't waste energy with showing the advantages of 5 card majors over 4 card majors (or vice versa). Handhog the hand. You must be declarer in all situations possible. To be Dummy is his strongest part of the game. Sacrifice when you are declarer, but seldom with him being declarer... Open NT a little offshape and with 14-18 (13-19 with novices...) Always rebid NT, don't raise him. Your 1 NT is superior to his 2 Spade in a 4-4 fit. 7/4 fits in Hearts play great in NT if he has the hearts. Jump to 4 of a major after his 1 NT opening, even in a 5-2 fit. This will give you better results, but if your victims (there are not partners any more) find out about your attitude, you may be quite alone after a while. Start again with point one and try point two. Makes much more fun then Nr 3, at least for me.

small hint: after ♦T, ♦A, ♥J, club duck to hand, declarer cashes one more trump and then plays a club to the king. Check the 4 card ending. It is pretty :D Of course it needs a world class declarer Rainer Herrmann

I said nothing about hearts. I do not think I would mind having Michael Rosenberg posting his analysis on some bridge hands here on BBF accompanied by a few hearts on top and bottom. But please understand that there is a big difference between that and you posting About tens of times and acting like it's a good thing to do so. It was quite obvious that you were not interested in the "why" question but were simply acting like a self-proclaimed, unsolicited police officer for a problem that most people did not ultimately regard as harmful. I do not think this is "polite and constructive". I'm not quite sure what it is but it did not add much to the forums. The little hearts and the different font just made it all the more annoying for some reason, I'm not sure why. You found a magic mix of pointless questions, strange font and inexplicable heart symbols that is optimal for getting on people's nerves.

I went to the club yesterday and I noticed that opponents often ruff their partners' tricks, underlead aces, bid ridiculous slams, miss games when they have 28+ hcp's, maybe they should stop trying to cheat with GIB and try to think for themselves.

Pass. Somebody has done something silly. Why assume it is partner instead of the opponents?

If opponents double me in 3c, doesn't it seem weird for me to raise myself to 5c? Yet awarding 5cX a higher score would give me reason to do it!

agree Why? Often partner will lead suits he does not want to lead and does not want played

Quantumcat, Your comment could have been right if the topic was different, but here you just add the probabilities toghether. Semai, I think the chance is a little better even because the opponents didn't bid.

I think it's a MUST pass. In my partnership we are only allowed to bid here if we think we have at least a chance of making. May be the case if the 3♥ bid is weak instead of invitational (which you don't specify) but still a stretch. That gives pard the freedom to bid like this and force them into 5♥, hopefully down 1 without getting hung out to dry.

I'd say you're allowed to pass, and would with the hand given. Partner should know you have nothing. It might be different if you voluntarily showed values (e.g. by bidding 3S over 3H). What do I expect for X then X? probably a big hand - could be a range of shapes but with the hand given, likely some sort of 31(54) with about 16+ HCP. Then again, not too many HCP because he couldn't double 5H. So AKx x KQxxx KQxx? But that looks like it should double 5H... ahydra

The US, among non-tiny nations, has the highest per capita income in the world. If you have too much poverty, to the extent that it is interfering with educating people into being reasonably productive members of society, then do something meaningful about it. I mean seriously, you have high relative poverty because you have chosen a set of policies that lead to high levels of poverty, compared with European countries. Moreover its not at all clear which is cause and effect: there are very few educated people living in poverty.

It is a shame we see so few stripe-tail ape doubles. Bridge would be more fun if doubled overtricks were less expensive.

Mike, I grew up in St. Paul. Sort of Chicago, North Branch. Just as the St. Paul Saints were a farm team for the (Brooklyn) Dodgers, our hoods were rated by the strength of their Chi connections. Let me see what I can say. I mentioned that my wife and I were "drafted" (meaning that except for a generous expense allowance we didn't get paid) to work on the state minimum competency exams. The teachers I met, and there were many, were very good. I would be pleased to have my child in the class of any one of them. I also mentioned a middle school teacher (white, for those who are keeping score on such matters) who really liked the idea that students could be graded on effort in mathematics because she had no idea how to get the answer herself. Both exist, and you can guess where the weaker teachers end up. There is a lot of bogus certification out there.Teachers are required to take graduate courses to keep up their knowledge. Some of these courses are very good, our next door neighbor selects then carefully and gets a lot out of them. Some are a joke except no one is laughing. I can tell you from direct experience that there are people out there teaching algebra who do not know algebra. This matters, no many how many courses you have taken in how to teach algebra. Students, and not only the top students, sense when the person in charge doesn't have a clue. So this has to be addressed. Next, we have to reverse the trend that students have no responsibility for their own learning and their own lives. A defiant fifteen year old can foil the best efforts of a teacher. On this I speak from very direct experience. My high school Spanish teacher was very good, in Spanish I I learned a lot. In Spanish II I learned very little. She wasn't different in my sophomore year, I was. What's his name from Harvard [Ah, Moynihan, I recall] became famous for saying that we have defined deviancy downward. We have also defined adolescence upward (in terms of age). I skipped a lot of classes in college. My error, no one thought that anyone other than me was to blame for this. Now we fret. We (I speak of college now) give "attendance quizzes" to reward students for coming to class. We have online homework and give students points for doing their homework. At a meeting one time a physics prof, highly regarded both as a physicist and an instructor, expressed his teaching philosophy as "We throw the crap out there and tell them to learn it". I heartily agree. Of course he didn't mean it exactly, and I don't agree exactly, but the student needs to understand that it is his responsibility to learn. Finally, I really don't like this minimum requirement stuff. The minimum is, well, really minimum. At the upper end it doesn't matter. My granddaughter, now in college, passed the high school minimum in math in the seventh grade. For these kids the minimum requirements are just something that takes a day to get out of the way. But there are a lot of kids who are in the middle and could do a lot better than minimum, but the teachers are so busy trying to get save their jobs by getting the weakest through the minimum that they have no time for anything else. So: Teachers have to know what they are talking about. They don't have to be geniuses or anything near it, but some of them need to be gone. Kids have to be given more responsibility for their own learning. And we should stop focusing so heavily on the minimum.

I really don't understand some of the comments here. Would North pass over 2♣ if he wasn't told it was the minors? Only if he is a total wimp and a wuss. Would South pass over 2♣ if he wasn't told it was the minors? Only if he is a total wimp and a wuss. Were N/S a pair of complete wimps and wusses? Once North or South bids 2♦ would West pass? Only if he is a total wimp and a wuss. Who is playing at this table? Either there was no MI - no adjustment - or assume that the players will play bridge and adjust to some weighted combination of 5♣ doubled or not and down 1 or 2 plus 4♦ down 1 or 2.

Its not clear that this is an irrational poll at all. Suppose there are people who think that Obama was an impediment to the finding of Osama. That he was wishy washy on FP, and weak with Pakistan, and that OBL could have been found much quicker if only he had been a real man willing to invade pakistan much earlier. In that case, by merely having nothing to do with it, Romeny could, in some sense, be "more responsible" to it. I am not endorsing this view :P. Imo, presidents have almost nothing to do with these things. The intelligence does their thing and when they have solid Intel then the president gets told.

Ok, a few general comments: (1) The point is that its not racial, after you control for socio economic class and marital status of the parents*. But some sub-cultures have much higher levels of family break down and poverty, which may themselves be at least partly interrelated. (e.g. poverty => crime => jail => divorce). In the UK our worst performers by ethnicity are afro-carribeans, but it turns out, they have almost identical achievement compared with a group of white children selected to match their parental stauts and economic status. (2) Education will continue to get more expensive for the same reason that opera tickets get more expensive. Its called Baumol's cost disease. Since a graduate working in a car factory can produce many more cars per worker than in the past, you would expect their wages to have risen (and they have), and since a teacher is an educated worker who could certainly have a similar job in a car factory, you must pay them equally. Hence wages in a society tend to rise together largely independent of which industries are experiencing productivity increases. In the car factory increasing productivity decreased the number of workers, to compensate for rising wages, but in education there has been almost no productivity increases - we requirethe same number of teachers per student as we did in 1800. (3) More money helps most things, if it is intelligently administered. It appears that unions have been extremely effective at channelling rising budgets into worker pay, at the expense of what we might call the `infrastructure' of education. (4) I don't know about the US, but in the UK, changes in how teacher pensions are calculated/administered, as led a non trivial amount of the increases into topping up the pension pots. (5) We should really do better at education. Its not rocket science. Just copy any of the wildly successful education systems in the world. Sweden, South Korea, etc. (6) Having said that, culture is very important, and persistent failure over a generation has led, in some places, to a generation of parents that do not respect and encourage education in the way that one would hope. It is hard for children to develop good habits without good examples and support. Education system takes generations to fully reform, as poor standards propagate to the parents, and end up holding back the education of their own children.

Ahh... Karpov-Korchnoi... Those were the days... Rik

I don't think it is a panacea either, but I also didn't read any posts suggesting that it is. As is common in bridge, whatever agreement you make you will regret it on some hands. Give me three more aces and I'd wish I had a forcing 2C available. However, I think that the strength of the given hand is more common. Of course it depends also on overcall style. If you are on one side of the spectrum where an overcall shows something like an opening hand, then playing 2C as forcing makes a lot more sense. If you are on the other side, where KQ10xx is an automatic 1H overcall, then it will be rare to hold clubs-hands with which you will want to force. Probably most of us are somewhere in between. I can imagine that for some pairs playing 2C as forcing when vulnerable but NF when non-vulnerable could even be an optimal agreement.

Not me. I pull. I expect my partner to have a singleton heart and a good hand. My thin constructive raise contains no defensive tricks. It is possible that both games are down one. But I bet one game is making Rainer Herrmann

At trick four, comparing the OP's spade to the ace with Ben's spade to the jack: The first-round finesse loses when spades are J-xxx. It gains when spades are void-Jxxx, but only if East has ♦J. When West has a spade void and ♦J, we can recover by taking a diamond finesse and using the extra entry to pick up trumps. Given that East has ♣AK and the three low spades, the vacant places are 6:7, so a 0=4 break is only slightly more likely than J=xxx. If we think we're going to recover on half of the 0=4 breaks, that makes a spade to the ace better. However, with Jxxx x xxx AKxxx, East could have beaten us by force by discarding two diamonds on the hearts. That argues in favour of the first-round finesse. But the most compelling argument is the bidding. With void AKJ10xxx xxx xxx, first at favourable, most people would open 4♥. I think this outweighs the other considerations, so I'd start with a spade to the ace. There is one other line that isn't relevant given the bidding, but is vaguely interesting. Suppose that you play a spade to the ace at trick four, and LHO shows out. If East has four damonds, you can make by playing a club to the queen. If he returns a diamond, that gives you the extra entry for taking two trump finesses. If he returns a club, you ruff, play a diamond to the king, take a spade finesse, ruff the fourth diamond in dummy, and lead a club to trump-coup him.

The whole thing is a relic of rubber bridge that doesn't translate well to duplicate. +180 is not enough for 1NTx making, but +670 is too much for 2Hx making. +580 at matchpoints for 1NTx +2 is even worse. Doubling games that make is too cheap as well. I would just have a flat +250 for any doubled contract that makes, or +500 with a redouble. And another +250 for each overtrick.

I'll pull if I never want to play with this partner again. Mind you I should own him as an opponent for years.

If he is just bidding because he has extra values and is balanced(ish), why didn't he make a game try over 3♥? I don't think he can have this hand?

Pass. Expect partner to be 5=2=3=3 / 5=2=42 likely Hx in ♥s and probably 14-16 HCP. No doubt about this decision. Yes pard would have possibly opened 1N if 5=2=3=3 and 15-16.

Pass, not close http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gifYu

Look at it this way: The opponents who judged that they could successfully defeat 3♣ were far further off on their estimate of # of defensive tricks than the ones who thought they could defeat 5♣, and therefore deserve a worse score. There's always some luck involved in getting opponents to do something worse at your table than the field, so if your opps only started doubling you at 5 rather than 3, that's just the normal luck of the game.

Don't many of us? The only argument is that some mistakes are bad for the game and players should be given every opportunity to be able to recover from those mistakes.

One of you two has issues and right now it isn't looking like its Bill.

I think it is usually best to look at this kind of idea by comparing directly with the alternatives. In the case of RKCB the example used should normally be spades, since if the idea has merit the other cases can always be converted by using Kickback if it is found to have merit. Here we have 2 auctions to consider, a 5♣ response and a 5♦ response. Taking the latter first, the proposal is:- 4NT - 5♦ - 5♥ ============= 5♠ = no ♠Q 5NT = ♠Q, no side king (6♣♦♥ = SSTs) 6♣ = ♠Q, ♣K (6♦♥ = SKA) 6♦ = ♠Q, ♦K, no ♣K (6♥ = SKA) 6♥ = ♠Q, ♥K, no minor king 6♠ = ♠Q plus trick source This looks remarkably close to "natural" responses to RKCB, ie 5♠ = no ♠Q 5NT = ♠Q, no side king, something extra (6♣♦♥ = interest in feature of this suit + maybe higher) 6♣ = ♠Q, ♣K (6♦♥ = SKA) 6♦ = ♠Q, ♦K, no ♣K (6♥ = SKA) 6♥ = ♠Q, ♥K, no minor king 6♠ = ♠Q, nothing extra There is a small movement between the hands with ♠Q and no side king but nothing major. Given that the trick source hands are actually removed from 5NT I woudl have thought the feature ask style of follow-ups was actually even better for the proposed method. That would definitels be something I would want to look into. Now we can compare with the Kings first method: 5♠ = no ♠Q 5NT = ♠Q, ♥K (6♣= SmKA, 6♦♥ = SSTs) 6♣ = ♠Q, ♣K, no ♥K (6♦ = SKA; 6♥ = general try) 6♦ = ♠Q, ♦K, no ♣K, no ♥K (6♥ = general try) 6♥ = ♠Q, no side king, something extra 6♠ = ♠Q, nothing extra Here we have gained additional grand tries after partner shows a side king but lost them when partner shows no king. Which is more important? Well your experience may vary but I think the grand tries come up more often when partner shows a king than no king, so I prefer the last method. The other justofocation for this is that the "extra" being shown is often obvious from the context of the auction making those asks less valuable. Note also that the SSTs after 5NT do not necessarily have to be in diamonds and hearts. For example, after 1♠ - 4♦; 4NT - 5♦; 5♥ - 5NT, it should be completely obvious that 5♦ is an SST in clubs, not diamonds. Let's move on to a 5♣ response. The proposed method here is 4NT - 5♣ - 5♦ ============= 5♥ = ♠Q, no side king (6♣♦♥ = SSTs, 5NT = ? (SQA? general try?), 5♠ = ? (sign-off? something else?) 5♠ = no ♠Q 5NT = ♠Q, ♣K (6♣ = king ask, 6♦♥ = SSTs) 6♣ = ♠Q, ♦K, no ♣K (6♦ = ♥K ask, 6♥ = ?general try?) 6♦ = ♠Q, ♥K, no minor king (6♥ = ?general try?) 6♥ = ♠Q plus trick source 6♠ = ?♠Q, nothing extra? Again, comparing with "natural" follow-ups: 5♥ = ♠Q, ♥K (5NT = SmKA, 6♣♦♥ = SSTs, 5♠ = ?) 5♠ = no ♠Q 5NT = ♠Q, no side king, something extra (6♣♦♥ = feature asks) 6♣ = ♠Q, ♣K, no ♥K (6♦ = SKA, 6♥ = general try) 6♦ = ♠Q, ♦K, no other side K (6♥ = general try) 6♥ = undefined, could be ♠Q + trick source if desired 6♠ = ♠Q, nothing extra This structure looks to me to be clearly better. We have tries everywhere and have the correct amount of space devoted to the Q + no side king hand types. In fact, this strongly suggests that the optimal response for this hand type if wanting to be able to resolve the side feature is 5X + 1 step, where X is our side suit. Finally, let's compare with Kings first: 5♥ = ♠Q, ♥K (5♠ = SmKA, 5NT, 6♣♦ = SSTs, 6♥ = general try) 5♠ = no ♠Q 5NT = ♠Q, ♦K, no ♥K (6♣ = SKA, 6♦♥ = SSTs) 6♣ = ♠Q, ♣K, no other side K (6♦♥ = SSTs) 6♦ = ♠Q, no side king, something extra (6♥ = general try) 6♥ = undefined, could be ♠Q + trick source if desired 6♠ = ♠Q, nothing extra Once again, the same trade-off. Many more grand slam tries if partner shows a king witht he queen but inability to resolve what the specific extra is when partner has no king. Overall, the structure looks playable but I would definitely suggest moving the "queen + no side king" hand to one step above 5 of the trump suit. I also think that you will gain more from feature ask bids over this than proper SSTs. Switching the "no extras" and "trick source" hands round between 5NT and 6 of the trump suit looks to be fine and might even be better on rare hands. If you do go ahead and play this I suggest you keep track of how often you needed a specific feature ask (or SST) after the Q, no K response (needed, not a nice-to-have) and how often you needed one after a Q + K response but were unable to. If the latter occurs more frequently then consider switching over to the Kings first method. (Extra: Frances' method is also good (obviously) - it would be worth the time comparing that against the alternatives too.)

Justin and Josh have convinced me its bad to pass. And since I am stubborn like a mule, you should all be convinced. :)

I mean, it seems pretty likely that LHO is void in diamonds if we have any decent diamond holding (which I think we need to X) but I guess the spade holding is pretty important. If the X of 2♦ is takeout then can't we have diamonds and spades on this auction with a couple cards? I had been thinking with something like Qxxx, xx, KTxx, xxx isn't it rather unlikely that they're making 2♠, since their tricks are coming from... where now? Yes I suppose they probably have some sort of fit in an unbid suit but it still seems unlikely that they're scrambling 8 tricks. So if we have a little more than the hand I gave earlier isn't 300/500 available? If we give partner 16, RHO 13 for his rebid over 1NT, and LHO 6, the hand I gave is possible and really none of the 3 of them have to have exactly the points given. My point is not that I think we should be doubling on air but I wonder sometimes with hands like these if we're leaving a MP top or 5-8ish imps on the table by not hitting the contract.

I'll tell you what we play, which I think is slightly superior if you are responding to 'normal' blackwood i.e. most of your answers take you past the 5-level (or maybe if you were a level lower it's also relevant as they take you past game). Simple case: no room below 5M. Example, spades are trumps, the Q ask is 5H. Now we play what you suggest i.e. 5S = no queen, 5NT = queen, no side king; others = lowest side king (following which a non-sign off asks for the king of the bid suit) If there is more room, e.g. Q ask is 5D, now 5H = I have the queen, 5S = I don't, 5NT+ = I have a source of tricks in the bid suit (5NT = hearts) - usually this is a suit already bid by the responder in which case it promises KQ (KQJ if KQ implied already) Over 5H, 5S asks for specific kings while a new suit asks for 3rd round control in the suit (5NT asks about hearts)

We have an extra ♠ than our Drury promised and more than half the high cards are in our suit. Pulling to 3♠ seems indicated.

I don't have to look very far for examples: Here is felix Salmon, who could probably lay claim to being the worlds most influential financial journalist, (and is a left wing progressive thinker) arguing against charitable status for private schools. Here is Fiona Miller, a commentator for teh Guardian News paper Or here is a commentator from the New statesmen, another left wing periodical in the UK I could go on. Its harder to find the `real intellectual left` on the internet than newspaper commentators, but I'm sure if you try it won't be too hard for you to dig it out.

maybe this hand need many of flexible bids to show,so bid 2c force a round at first,then wait a chance to bid 2s,and then rebid 3c is as a final bid with non-forcing,believe partner can have last decision rightly.

My guess is that declarer played a ♣ from dummy toward his Q first. When he played a second ♣, North who was not paying attention to his partner's card played low again. No, we were not that lucky EW, but one of the two lucky NS against whom EW were playing constructive raises.

Brd #10, second final; EW 1s-1nt; North now introduces 2♥ with ♠J ♥ KJTxxx ♦ T9x ♣ Axx; ♥ lead is the only one that holds it to 11 tricks :) http://www.d21acbl.com/tournaments/nap/2012/flightA/NAPA-4.htm

I would certainly bid drury followed by 2♠ even if partner shows a full opening bid.

2s as a non passed hand 2s as a passed hand need Qxx of spades vs xxx to make a drury call missing Q may not seem like much but it means our hand is short around 23% of the power we are promising with drury.

I assume reading this thread counts as unfortunate.

If we are strict 5-card major openings in all seats, Drury (preparing to apologize for poor trumps later). If we play 2♣ Drury showing aa 3-card raise so that partner identifies 4-card trump holdings (2♦ rebid) then Drury, rebidding 2♠ if partner has only 4. If neither, then a hefty CONSTRUCTIVE 2♠ as a 3-card raise. Partner is always able to show extra interest...

Describing everything Roland has done for BBO Vugraph over the last ten years as "assistance" must be the biggest understatement ever written on BBO Forums.

I'll play partner for about 2.5-3 defensive tricks (assuming this is a natural 1NT overcall), so I'll need at least 4 trumps to go with some more defence... perhaps AJxx xxx Qxxx xx at MPs? At imps I think I'd need a bit more, say AJ10x Qxx QJxx xx. But this is getting way into "just how many points are there in this deck" territory... ahydra

I was led to believe the modern style is "NF but encouraging", which makes 2C a standout bid. Still, this is just another one of those hands where you just wish you were allowed to TOX your partner's bid... ahydra

I overcall 4 cd suits with length in the opponents suit much to often to consider a pass so I would respond a simple NF 2 clubs.

What is your fascination with spades on this hand?

Pass. It is very unlikely that this will be passed out. Usually opener keeps it open with a double (in case his partner has a penalty pass). If responder then passes for penalty I can bid 2♣ to play. Steven