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Libertarians are far closer in their thinking to communists than either would like to admit. Their 'solutions' to social issues are very much opposed, but the underlying approach is much the same in each. Each philosophy is founded on a set of assumptions about the human animal, considered both as individual and as a social being. The assumptions may be different but what is identical is the lack of any grounding of the assumptions in reality. We, as a species and not, obviously, as individuals, know and understand far more about how the human animal functions than did the authors of the texts that became the bible, or Marx's Das Kapital, or aynn rand's turgid novels or even the works of Adam Smith or William Shakespeare. The notion that there are any such things as 'rights' that have some sort of mystical possession arising in humans is akin to the belief that the wine drunk by catholics at mass has become the blood of christ (I've often thought that the Red Cross would be able to avoid a lot of problems with collectiing blood donations if they could find a way to industrialize that process, but I digress). As anyone with more than a passing interest in actually understanding the concepts would presumably grasp readily if not entrapped in a bubble-world, rights arise only within a society. A castaway on a desert island has no rights nor any need of them. Rights pertain to the inter-relationships between members of a society. It is meaningless to speak of 'rights' of an individual in any other context: the words one would use to describe such rights would be devoid of any real life meaning. Rights therefore arise out of society. The development of human civilization is one of the increasingly complex rules that various societies have developed over the millenia to govern their internal workings. The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights seem to me to reflect not the intention of the destruction of the social contract but, rather, the repudiation of a simpler, more top-down social contract whereby the (white) inhabitants of North America could set up a more complex means of government. The creation of rights, viewed in that manner, is not a repudiation of government but an expansion of it, since rights have no real meaning unless society provides for the protection of those rights. The more rights society grants to its members, the more frequently will there be a need for some form of enforcement or protection of those rights. And in a society in which social and economic power will inevitable become unequally divided, the less-empowered cannot by themselves enforce or protect their rights against the stronger. Hence the need for society, collectively, to act: and we call the organs of society empowered to act in this fashion: government. Hence the more a society grants rights to all rather than, say, to an aristocracy, the more one needs government. Of course, any organ of society is prone to abuse: that is the way the human animal seems to function. The question is whether we choose a complex government, with all the costs and abuses of power and inefficiencies that go with that, or a simple government, with few effective powers, and a largely unregulated society. History suggests that on the whole, and the balance sheet is not all one way, the more complex the government, the better off are the bulk of the people. The simpler the government, the more power and wealth accrues to the few and the more miserable are the many. I expect the right wingnuts to point to communist governments as examples of where this breaks down, but the fact is that communist governments, such as the USSR or N Korea are actually fairly simple forms of government, where the rights are given to the elite and the bulk of the population is denied many rights.

How often have you been in the situation where you want to use Stayman but your pesky RHO beats you to it by overcalling 2C? There is a way around this though it requires partnership agreement Indirect Stayman. Using this device,a double of 2Clubs takes the place of the robbed bid. One example should suffice:- East West North East South ♠AQ10x[ 1NT 2♣ ? ♥KJ10x ♦Kxx ♣Jx East has a perfect hand for Stayman but North butts in with 2♣ first. Using Indirect Stayman, East doubles but it's not for penalties. The double tells West,"They pinched my bid,partner. Do you have 4 card major suit?" If West has a major he bids it in the normal way. If he doesn't,he responds 2♦ the statutory denial. A very useful convention worth committing to memory.

You can't do everything, but it helps to decide what you need to do. For instance, you do not "need" to play that completing to 1♠ shows three spades. It's true that this is useful information, but it can easily be found out later, and being able to stop in 1♠ is just waste of time. Just rebid 1NT with 15-17 balanced. After 1♣-1♥, 1♠ is now available to show a myriad of other hand types. You can include the following: 1. All hands with 4♦ and 5♣ 2. Various hands with 6♣ too good for 2♣ (this means you can play an immediate 3♣ as very sound). You can get to show a 2NT rebid with specifically six clubs, for instance, in most conceivable auctions. 3. good three card raises in spades Over that, responder's life is easy - with less than GF values, he just imagines he is facing 4♦5♣ and makes the appropriate limit bid. And with GF values he bids 2♥(effectively fourth suit). A typical auction might start: 1♣-1♥-1♠-1NT (which is to play opposite a minimum with 45m) Opener now bids: 2♣ = 45m 15-16 2♦ = 45m 17+ 2♥ = 3♠-6♣ at least invitational 2♠ = good 3-card raise to 2♠ (3415 or 3145 14-16, or 3??6 14-15, this being the system solution for your particular problem) 2NT = 6 clubs natural, about 16-17 points 3♣ = nat inv, just as strong as a 3♣ rebid but few points (hence probably 7 clubs) Obviously if responder had bid something higher than 2♣ some of these bids get pushed a little higher, but all the hand types can still be untangled. The further spin off benefits are as follows: 1. 2♦ is a transfer reverse into hearts. This gives you an "out" by just completing to 2♥ showing a minimum response with 3♥ and short clubs. 2. 2♥ shows a good raise to 2♠ with four trumps. In you case that would include 15-16 balanced with four spades and also say, a 4315 12 count. 3. A direct raise to 2♠ shows spanners. The raise by necessity now includes 3415 11-counts and the like, but I just do not believe that is even remotely a bad thing. In fact most hands with four trumps qualify for 2♥. You have a total of three ways of raising to Two Spades, so you get to separate the wheat from the chaff. Oh, and completing to 1♠ is obviously forcing in this scheme.

This is based on the theory that if you need to ask about trump suit quality at the 5 level there is a realistic chance your side is already too high. It is a very reasonable interpretation to play 5s to set the trump suit and ask p to focus on what is probably the main deterrent to bidding slam ie hearts.

You are welcome to argue against a collection of individuals accruing rights that individuals themselves do not possess, but if you want to be taken seriously do not try to burden your opposition with such an absurd argument as the 'divine right of kings'. That is a strawman argument worthy of al_u_card and you are better than that. I am not even going to articulate an actual counter response to that statement because it is that stupid.

You have to make a choice: classically the choice has been to use a bid of 5 of the agreed-upon major to ask for control in a suit that has not been cuebid. For example, in an uncontested auction, in which spades had been agreed and both minors were cuebid, a bid of 5♠ would ask about hearts. Modern bidding is such that one will rarely see that sort of auction anymore. More commonly we have auctions similar to this one, in which the opps have interfered, often premptively and thus depriving us of needed bidding space. We cannot set trump here and start cue-bidding: 3♠ and 4♠ are both non-forcing and we lack the room to cue and then bid spades, even if it were forcing. Spades are agreed here by inference: partner's takeout double will always deliver some spades for us. Historically, this jump asks for control of their suit, by analogy to the uncontested auction idea described above. Why? My thinking is that it is a frequency issue. If we have trump good enough to look for slam, and can't keycard for some reason, we will often survive not knowing how good partner's trump are. This hand is a classic example. Even if partner's spades are xxxx we have an excellent chance of no losers. Otoh, when we lack a control in their suit, the double carries zero inference of a control, so we are in grave danger of a bad outcome if we just blast. Bridge is full of these situations, in which one could plausibly argue for either of two or any of more interpretations of a call or a carding, and yet the call or the carding cannot carry more than one meaning. While the dead hand of history sometimes gets us playing an inferior method (such as the fact that most NA players use standard count and attitude), the evolutionary arms race that is bridge theory usually results in the most efficient meaning prevailing. Here, that appear to be using the unsolicited jump to ask about the opps' suit.

In Acol-land, at least, 4N is typically used as a specific Ace ask (not sure how common this is elsewhere), and I think would normally be taken as such by an expert partnership even without discussion. Responder cue-bids an Ace if he has one, bids 5♣ with none (and therefore has to cue 6♣ with the Ace of clubs), or 5N with 2 Aces. As you can imagine, it doesn't come up all that often, and I've never seen a hand better suited for it than this one, but I was pleased to be able to solve all possible problems on the hand in one go. (Maybe "all possible problems" is a slight exaggeration - I did once discuss with a partner how to deal with intervention over this 4N opening, but I've no idea how this partner would have expected it to be handled.)

I noticed. Was it an Irish Bluhmer?

Nonsense on stilts This claim would come as a great surprise to Hobbes and Rousseau (not to mention Rawls if you want a more modern take on the social contract).

players who play the stop card, then start thinking about which skip bid to use.

I'll also mention that the closest I've seen to a rule describing how these things work "in practice" is the following: * If an opening suit bid promises length in the bid suit (4+ if a major, 3+ if a minor) and might be a hand where the bid suit is the only suit of 4+ cards, then it is considered non-conventional and allowed (regardless of other inferences about distribution). However, an opening suit bid which always contains a suit other than the one named (whether a specific other suit or one of several) is considered conventional and is not allowed unless explicitly mentioned on the chart. This seems to explain the common examples (i.e. Bailey twos allowed, precision 2♣ allowed, Muiderburg not allowed). If this were law (and keep in mind I haven't seen it stated anywhere before, it's just something I conjured up to explain the "rules on the ground") then it would seem to make the method you encountered illegal on the general chart.

I feel ill. These high level situations are a muddle, partly because it seems common to not really have a clear meaning for 5NT rather than 6♣. If you want to have a bid available to just say you want to take a pot at slam (though I would not recommend it), then please don't ask partner to cooperate and then bid 6♠ anyway! Over 5NT, partner can bid 6♣ to show no clear bid, so 6♦ shows a clear preference for playing in, of all things, 6♦. And don't worry that he is just bidding his lowest playable strain, since he knows that with a genuine big two suiter you would have bid 6♣ over 5♣. My view on the difference between 5N and 6♣ is completely different, but that is by the by.

I wrote in post #76 that I will rule exactly like you, because that is the "common understanding". This discussion started with you explaining how one should rule. Iviehoff questioned whether there was a legal basis for this interpretation. This was immediately followed by "Sven is right" comments, as if Iviehoff's question was not interesting at all. The point is that Iviehoff is right in his questioning. The way Law 42B2 is written, it is crystal clear: Dummy is specifically allowed to prevent declarer from leading from the wrong hand. That means that dummy can tell declarer that he is in his hand before declarer leads. (He is not allowed to tell declarer what card he won the trick with.) The dummy is NOT allowed to tell declarer that he is in his hand as soon as he started to name a card from dummy, because preventing an irregularity happens before the irregularity, not during the irregularity. The next point is that we all know what problems Law 42B2 is trying to solve. And we all know what the intended solution is. So, there is a common understanding that your way to rule is correct. However, that is not because the laws tell us it is correct (because they don't). It is because we know the intent of the lawmakers. That is why you should rule like you described. But - given that the law book says something different - this might be difficult to explain to a player who has read the law book. And it may be good for TDs to be aware of the fact that, strictly speaking, there is no legal basis for our "common understanding". Rik

I would try 5N with the intention of passing 6♥ and correcting 6♦ to 6♠. Since 5N implies a flexible hand, partner will have a chance to get us to 7red if he can't stand spades. I feel lucky. I think double is too feeble. Partner takes it out too rarely. If he does take it out we would just about have a leap to 7 in his suit. 5♠ gets the worst of it, since we'll usually be stuck there. We have all the controls so partner won't raise. We'll miss a ton of slams, have the risk of going minus, and never get a 800/1100 penalty. It's a good problem. Too bad the layout is already posted, because it might be easier to be brave when one knows what partner had :).

At club evenings I'd tell him, during a tournament I wouldn't.

Sometimes system constraints force this approach but there are ways of catching back up. For example 1♥ - 2NT = GF raise 3♣ = min with shortage ... - 4♦ = good diamonds 4♥ = not impressed or 1♥ - 2NT = GF raise 3♣ = min with shortage ... - 3♦ = relay 3♥ = void ... - 3♠ = relay 4♦ = diamond void ... - 4♥ = bleurgh Rather than saying "never" or "always" I would prefer to see it that showing the side suit is consulting partner and putting them in a position to judge, while making a forcing raise is asking partner because we think we can get the information necessary directly. Some hands are better suited to one approach or the other while on others it does not matter. There have been enough threads on this subject to show that both approaches have merits.

Too much baggage for a Novice/Beginner to commit to memory Zelandakh At that stage,it's all about simplicity.

Agree lebensohl and rubensohl are also good methods,Eagles. But remember this topic was posted on a section aimed at Novices and Beginners who may find them a tad too high brow. My suggestion is simple and easy to understand and remember. A no brainer. Lebensohl and Rubensohl are best left until passed the elementary stages.

I see no reason why we cannot x 3s (an artificial bid) to show spades. We can always jump to 6d later if needed. for now why not hope p can raise spades and we can then nicely key card looking for 7s????? We will never know how the bidding might have gone after x so having hung ourselves out to dry I see little recourse but to pass and hope against hope 7s does not make,

I think the failure to remove all his cards from the board and look at their faces was a breach of Laws 7B1 and 7B2 and therefore an irregularity, and that you are allowed to draw attention to it (Law 9A1).

Especially since the factory "owner" is a legal construct specifically designed to have insufficient funds to provide any kind of adequate restitution.

Many people were killed. How does the factory owner "repair that harm?"

Unfortunately there are too many ACBL officials who you can ask and quite often you can find one who does not understand the charts. It is quite clear from the charts that just having a known 4-card major is insufficient to make a bid natural. I know that this is what the chart says, but it is shorthand for "if it shows four or more cards in the major and says nothing else about the hand". If your interpretation were correct, then much of the Mid-Chart would be redundant as most of the opening two bids that are Mid-Chart guarantee at least one suit. I believe that if you were to ask the Competition and Conventions Committee or the Chief Tournament Director, this opening bid would be classified as Super Chart. In order to play it at Mid-Chart or GCC with only a four-card major, then the range would need to be 10+ points and BOTH suits must be specified. The discussion about Brown Sticker Conventions is a distraction. It is irrelevant to ACBL events.

♣9 A singleton lead would certainly have looked more attractive to West after this bidding, so West has a void in a minor. In the critical case where South is void in diamonds and West void in clubs you have no diamond ace coming and cashing a second spade lets the contract make. In this case you need to switch to clubs immediately. Declarer can not be void in clubs because partner would not have bid 2♠ with a diamond void and a good club suit, neither would he pass 4♥. Declarer is marked with the ace of clubs. A club switch looses only if partner has specifically ♠JT8532 ♥xxx ♦- ♣JT83 I bet against this and I am not sure he would bid that way with a six card spade suit and void at all white. Why partner can not have a five card spade suit escapes me. But in this case he must be void in clubs and declarer void in diamonds. Lead ♣9 at trick 2 Partner should have made your defense easier by leading an alarm clock signal. The ♠J is not a good card, no matter what this spade holding is. A high spade spot card lead might hint at a diamond switch, while the lowest spade might indicate a club preference. Rainer Herrmann

Even thinking about bidding is a misbid.