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[hv=pc=n&s=sak94hak3dak9cakj&w=st32hj954dt32c432&n=sj65hqt2dj65cqt98&e=sq87h876dq874c765&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=6hdpprppp]399|300[/hv] The above hand was played by my great grandfather, Baron Wynsten von Munchausen. The six heart bid was an example of the von Munchausen convention showing at least 28 HCP. The Baron used this convention on many occasions. West's double was lead directing, indicating a lead of dummy's first bid suit. Dummy had not bid a suit, but West was on lead anyway so it made no difference, he explained later. The Baron re-doubled because he had extra values (29 HCP). He always had extra values, and always re-doubled. West led the four of hearts. Von Munchausen had a nearly super-human table presence and played each hand as if he could see through the backs of the cards, or perhaps, as if the backs of the cards had special markings that allowed him to do so. In any case, how did he make six hearts re-doubled?

My partner was a player with advanced ranking. Ops opened the bidding and my partner bid 1nt. I had 10 high card points so I bid 2nt. Partner bid 3nt. He had no profile. Turns out he had eleven high card points and went down several tricks and booted me from the table. I'm not objecting to the boot, but I think he was way off to overcall 1nt unless he held at least 15 pts. I've noticed the players who rank themselves advanced or higher are the ones more likely to lack sportsmanship. I realize there are many exceptions. :)

If you have concerns about how a tourney may be run, a good general rule is to stick to the ACBL, with all certified directors, or possibly other paid tourneys. If a paid tourney is run in an unsatisfactory manner, then avoid that tourney in future. If a tourney is free, try to be grateful that someone is volunteering their time and effort to provide a tourney at all, instead of being critical that it doesn't meet your standards. Another possibility, if a free tourney, is to offer the club or person some occassional help to run future tourneys. A few TDs may not know how - or when- to make adjustments, aside from sometimes getting swamped with issues you may not have any idea are going on at the time.

Say you pick up this hand in 4th after three passes: KQJxxx x Kxxx xx Do you think you will make two spades opposite partner's random 10-count? I think you will make quite a bit more often than you go down. This being the case, I want to open this hand. However: 1. Opponents may have a big fit in hearts or clubs and I'd prefer they not find it. Opening 2S instead of 1S makes this more likely. 2. If I open 1S I really don't want to hear a 2nt invite from partner, or a 3S invite on doubleton and a random 11, but such a sequence seems likely. Opening 2S avoids this.

Not 8-12 for me as I prefer not to have minus scores as opposed to a 0. For me this is about 12-16 with a nice 6 card suit.

If you don't play strong twos, then it shows a minimum opening hand with 6+♠.

You can decide to play the 4♠ bidder for the diamond guard, and thus try to generate the end position in which dummy holds the stiff spade K and KJ in diamonds, with declarer holding A9x in diamonds, and West having to hold the spade A and Q10x in diamonds. This also works any time West has any 4 diamonds, and that is a clue as to how you play the hand. If he has 4 diamonds, he will be very short in hearts.....maybe 8=1=4=0. So: ruff the spade lead, draw 2 trumps, ending in dummy, and ruff a small spade high, checking in case spades were 9-1. Then pull trump and play one, just one, more round, pitching a diamond. The purpose of this is to give east a chance to make a silly error...throwing a 3rd, 'useless', spade if he holds it. Of course, that spade is far from useless. Pitching it gives you a perfect count, while holding it, if he has one, will likely lead you to place West with 8 of them. Having cashed the 4th trump, play 3 rounds of hearts ending in hand, so that you can run the rest of the clubs if a squeeze looks like the right line. This will give you an excellent inferential count. It is inferential because you don't have a true count on spades...you infer they are 8-2 from the auction, the 2 spades played by east and the failure to pitch a 3rd one, which inference is very weak against a competent player. If West shows out on the 1st or 2nd heart, you place him with long diamonds, and play the squeeze. If West follows to 2 hearts, then diamonds are, inferentially, 3=3. You can still opt for the squeeze but you need West to be Q10x, while the finesse needs east to have Qxx or Q10x, so the odds are heavily in favour of the finesse. If West follows to 3 hearts, then the odds are heavily in favour of the finesse since diamonds are probably 4-2, with east holding 4. The important lesson to be learned is that one should, when possible, try to count out the hand before deciding what lie of the cards one will play to exist. Edit: I wrote this and had it in preview mode when the phone rang, and posted it on hanging up, only to see that Timo was ahead of me...sorry about that.

Depending on how things have been going, I do... One of my favorite auctions, at a Las Vegas NABC many years ago, with first-time partner: P-(1♣)-P-(1♦) P-(1♥)-P-(1♠) 1N RHO asks me what pard's 1N means. "He wants to play 1N." "But what does he have?" "I neither know nor care; he wants to play 1N." Many matchpoints for +90.