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showing 2 of the top 3 honours is pointless. showing weak suits isn't pointless, but is a bad idea - it just helps the opps find the right lead. if you want to play 2 lots of transfer breaks, just have 1 amorphous weak and 1 amorphous strong. you can also play 2NT as a supermax with 3 if you like. the 1NT opener is more likely to have tenaces/secondary honours to protect so having opener play it is quite important. by only having 2 breaks you'll always have room for a retransfer. personally i don't like to break with weak hands. when 2nd/6th hand has the sort of hand which could act, he'll be unable to do so safely as responder is unlimited and in prime position to extract a penalty. you'll peforce get to play 2M with a 9 card fit on minimal values. this argument particularly applies when your suit is spades, because you can compete to 3S over 3H slowly if necessary.

Hand 1 is definitely not a good example for educational purposes. It teaches a sort of convention (5♠) while it grossly skips the bridge logic that teachers often fail to pass to their trainees. Hand 1 basically shows how to recover from a gross mistake that was made previous round. It is much better to teach them when not to RKCB and which cards to look at when pd invites to slam. Do not use RKCB. Always ask yourself if the response can put you in this awkward position before you RKCB. Make your slam try. If pd has 3 aces, he will go himself, if he has only 2 aces, he will be the one to ask RKCB and you will not need any mambo jambos after you already passed your safe level. This is important. NEVER refuse or deny slam invitations when you have too many keycards and pd made a slam invitation without them. You are not even safe in 3 NT, let alone 5 NT. if pd has something like x AJT xxxx AKQxx If you think this is not a 3♦ , you are definitely in great danger in 5 NT when pd has x AJT xxxx AKQJT or x AJT Axxx KQJT9

Yeah, no. If you mean that a 17-year old gangbanger who can barely read or do math at a 6th grade level needs Affirmative Action to get him into university or else society is full of racist crackers, you're bonkers (I believe that's the medical term.) There is no (significant) racism problem. There is a culture problem. There is an illegitimacy problem. There is a dependency problem. There is an unenforced border problem. There is an Orwellian media problem. There is a river in Egypt problem. Affirmative action IS the problem. It's racist. It's fundamentally unfair. And the only people who are exempt from it are the (marginally qualified for their professions) old fogeys who actually DID benefit from a somewhat racist society back in the olden days. At least you acknowledge that it is a form of discrimination. Hooray for words meaning things on a semi-consistent basis! No, that would be for anyone interested in how racial prejudice may have impacted one bright African American ~30 years ago (if you ignore the bits about how racial preferences benefited him.) I'm kinda 'do research for these people'd out. I think it's abundantly clear that if a bunch of white people formed a group called “The Race” which promoted white unity/teamwork/collaboration & opportunities for white folks that you'd say they were racist (at a minimum) & probably call them White Supremacists (I know, I had you at “The Race.”) If you think it's cogent to raise hell about 2 or 3 cases nationwide of 'Cop gone bad' each year when hundreds of young people are murdering each other in the ghetto to the sound of crickets, we have different ideas of what 'cogent' means. (Maybe cogent means nucking futs in the world where bigotry doesn't mean intolerance for people who don't share one's views?) So you think that blacks commit crimes at the same rate as whites but police only tend to respond when the crime is committed by a black person in order to manipulate the crime statistics? I'm trying to get your 'logic' here. Or is it that you think police should keep an Affirmative Action ledger and when they get a call they should ascertain the race of the suspect before they decide whether or not to respond? “I'm sorry ma'am, we've already reached our quota of sexual assaults by black men this month. We won't be able to assist you or else our 'armed confrontation' statistics will be all messed up.” And they also stop males of all races between the age of 15-40 more than they stop other demographic groups. Should they start randomly pulling over old ladies to balance out the statistics for you? Let's be serious. That's funny, my very regressive SJW leftist birth mother, who also lives in Victoria, draws the line at niqabs too. (It sounds like you do, anyway. There might be some hope for you yet.) I don't see why it's silly to ask your opinion (I assume you have an opinion on this that you don't wish to explicitly/publicly share) on whether 'diversity' is a universal good or ONLY in all countries that when you were born had 90%+ white populations. Surely after decades of listening to CBC you have some opinion on & understanding of the subject of 'diversity.' But I'll take that as a 'not a universal good, duh.' I don't see how someone who is an adherent of a faith-based religion like regressive leftism, despite having grown up in the glory days (albeit not perfect, but as close as we've come so far) of western civilization, with today's reality screaming at him that he's wrong, that the 'solutions' he's clung to for decades aren't working (and are in fact making things worse) and that we're on the wrong track, can claim that his beliefs are solely based on facts. If your lying eyes and memory can't convince you that at least some of your presuppositions are mistaken, I sure as hell won't be able to. There are other examples of things that I'm confident you believe in that meet your definition of racism (though it seems to me we've already agreed that Affirmative Action does.) For instance, I'm confident that you support race-based scholarships for some races and not others. I'm confident that you support student groups for Asians, Latinos, African Americans & Muslims, but not for whites. I'm confident that you support the right of people to celebrate Black pride, Gay pride & Asian pride, but not White pride. I'm confident that most of your fellow Kaitlyn-bashers (though probably not you) think it's fair that a private bakery owned by devout Christians be forced at gunpoint to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, but that it wouldn't be fair for a private bakery owned by devout Muslims to be forced at gunpoint to bake a cake with a picture of Mohammed on it (or to bake the same-sex wedding cake, for that matter.) (Okay, the last one technically isn't racism, just a textbook example of the regressive left's war on Christianity.) I'm not sure why this jpg seems appropriate. But somehow it does. :)

For a while now I have been collecting threads with useful tidbits on bidding systems, i.e. explanations of specific conventions and treatments or discussion of defenses against various bids and so on. Having just spent an hour stealing some of the forum's style elements (I must say the CSS is incredibly hard to read), I now feel ready to present it to the world at large. Are you ready? Here it is: http://bridge.mgoetze.net/bbf.html Feel free to suggest organisational improvements or to recommend worthy threads for inclusion. I plan to keep this updated for the moment, so if any moderator finds it useful, feel free to pin this thread.

Perhaps we can all agree that cleareyed reporting like the reporting in these excerpts from the 1992 campaign trail is something we all benefit from.

Of possible interest: Infrastructure build or privatization scam? One of the scariest things in all of this is how the private equity guys continue to slice and dice the world at whim. Yes there is a potential win-win there but that is not how this game works. Happy days are here again but not for the Archie Bunkers of the world who have done their jobs and can now be shown the door thank you very much. Service entrance please.

We do the first part, because normally responder is only interested in whether there is a transfer break, so the information leakage is pointless. Also responder can still make a game try. the 3m bids are currently undefined; the above is probably as good as any, though a weak NT (which I prefer) is less likely to hold as strong a suit as the example hand, since the hand itself is weaker.

Haven't you asked this before? Yes - it's not just bad form, it's illegal for dummy to interfere in the play in any way.

Ok. (I'll pretend it doesn't sound like you're bashing motherhood and the monumentally vital role that women have historically played as homemakers and raising healthy and well-adjusted children.) I would imagine it took a lot of independence for countless historical figures to do what they did. I guess they had a lot of independence, some might have even had so much that they declared it! I suppose it would depend on one's abilities, ambition, self-discipline and interests. I don't see how 'of course' it's twice as difficult for anyone. I would imagine there would have been TONS of opportunities for highly intelligent, ambitious & well-educated African Americans once the 60's rolled around & employers were looking to virtue signal & comply with the law. And let's not forget, you're talking about 50+ years ago. Remember the Cosby (that guy who sexually assaulted all those women after drugging them) Show with the successful Doctor & Lawyer & the adorable family? That was 30 YEARS AGO! There are tons of examples today. It wouldn't be a valid justification even if there weren't. But there are. (Besides, that didn't stop lots of (non-white) immigrants from all around the world from thriving in America.) Again, there are tons of role models out there. Neither of my parents went to university. Both my older sister and I got our Bachelor's degrees and went on to post-graduate school. She's a prosecutor. This is just not a valid excuse anymore, if it ever was, even a little. Such a flimsy excuse certainly doesn't justify the indefinite perpetuation of a RACIST governmental policy. I see what you did there. So now we make a huge non-sequitur where you no longer try to rationally justify your claims, you just 'imagine a society where we have decided that MikeH is right about everything.' Who are you to decide what's fair and just? To me, a meritocracy that emphasizes equality of opportunity is fair and just. To you, racial discrimination is fair and just. To me racial/gender quotas are abhorrent. They not only deprive more qualified people (perhaps even with epic, gut-wrenching sob stories of their own) of getting the jobs/education they've worked hard to earn, they also taint the reputation/stature of minorities/women who EARNED their place at the table but who might be suspected of being token Affirmative Action hires/selections. Or we could say 50 years IS the long road, and definitely long enough. There are lots of role models now. No young girl or black or black girl today wonders if she's going to be 'allowed' to pursue her dreams. Let's try to make our society as gender/race-blind as possible and end the divisiveness, racism & misandry we (and by we, I mean you)'ve created. Let's acknowledge that women who choose NOT to enter the workforce, but to raise a family instead (while their husbands work & provide, as men have done for generations,) should be praised, not scorned or derided and that silly arbitrary participation rate statistics are NOT the measure of a functional or moral or just society. Uhhh, no. But it should be (and is and will be after Affirmative Action is abolished) as easy for an equally QUALIFIED woman or black man to aspire to become a lawyer, doctor or engineer as it is for a white man. Doesn't drive me nuts (nothing drives me nuts today, because when I start to get vexed I just say 2 words to myself: President Trump.) It's just emotionally laden rhetoric designed to substitute for a valid argument. But your last sentence is certainly correct. It would be and IS unjustifiable. You're right about one other thing (but for the wrong reasons,) many (most?) African Americans living in America today ARE oppressed: They're oppressed in the sense that many of them are brought up (often in a single parent household, with no strong/moral male role model) in a (regressive left) culture that promotes degeneracy, illegitimacy, law-breaking, violence, promiscuity, victimhood, drug use & dependency & scorns old fashioned values like honesty, hard-work, common courtesy, educational achievement, thrift, sacrifice, family, marriage, monogamy, etc. They have to compete for unskilled jobs with millions of non citizens living in the US illegally, artificially (and drastically) lowering their job prospects & potential wages. Untold gobs of money are spent trying to educate them, but in most cases the negative cultural influence is too strong. They're oppressed because the regressive left has rigged the system & set them up to fail, then told them that they are failing because of Whitey. Affirmative Action doesn't do anything to fix that oppression and simply adds another victim (the innocent white boy (who also might have grown up in poverty in this degenerate culture) who didn't get the job or educational opportunity he earned) while depriving society of the lost marginal utility between the two candidates. Sorry, but just you saying it and wanting to believe it doesn't make it true. Welfare & a culture of degeneracy have destroyed (formerly strong and proud) black communities, not some 'discrimination' bogeyman. Though if you advocated (mild) Affirmative Action (speaking of generations of systemic discrimination) SOLELY ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC GROUNDS then you'd at least have ONE (albeit wobbly) leg to stand on.

Ok. It's actually a very simple issue. Racism is wrong. Sexism is wrong. Holding someone responsible for the (real or imagined) sins of their ancestors is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. Even if it was right at one time, 50 years is enough. We should repeal Affirmative Action. Oh NOW we're opposed to knee-jerk name-calling, how serendipitous. 50 years is long enough. The president is black (or half-black, I'm not sure if it's more politically correct to acknowledge his white half or to ignore it, perhaps a PC expert can illuminate me.) Hillary would have won if she hadn't been such a uniquely unqualified candidate (and, perhaps most importantly, she got WAY more votes solely for having a vagina than she lost solely for the same reason.) Nobody questions whether or not a well-qualified woman could become president. The glass ceiling HAS been shattered, it's just waiting for someone worthy to step through. (My money is on Ivanka (she'd also be the first Jewish president.)) Ok. I think they were well aware of their biases. It's just that in most (almost all?) cases they considered their racial beliefs to be self-evident. Most (educated) people are familiar with (everyone's favorite president) Lincoln's comments on race, for instance. Read (or watch on CNN, NBC, CBS, CBC, MSNBC or ABC) (almost) any election coverage written in the last 6 months in the NYT or Washington Post (or countless other lesser rags/websites) and you will see discrimination that forms part of the background to the story. It is so omnipresent that it seems that the writer and intended audience weren't even aware of the biases, in much the same fashion that allows Mike to repeatedly claim that Hillary Clinton is a unicorn who farts rainbows who would have fixed all of society's ills if only we'd let her extend (a SLIGHTLY more corrupt version of) the Obama administration for 4 more years & amnesty 15 million+ non-citizens living in the US illegally. Except (in most cases) the writer (loosely described as a 'journalist') WAS aware of the biases and wrote the story that way anyway, even if much of the audience wasn't. (So if I'm not being clear, I'm a lot more concerned with current media bias/groupthink/crybullying than with how people viewed the world back when scientists and educators weren't afraid (and were in fact encouraged) to follow the evidence wherever it led.) I don't know. Nor do I particularly care. I'd be mildly interested in knowing (if such a thing were knowable) how many unfortunate women who LONGED to do this or that but were prevented from doing so solely because of their gender there were. I do know that nowadays any woman with the ambition, drive & ability to become an astronomer or a medical doctor or a lawyer (though Lord knows why anybody would want to) can do so as readily as a man. Again, I don't know or particularly care. I would imagine there were quite a few Latino astronomers, doctors and lawyers in Mexico 80 years ago. How many Christian politicians are there in Japan? Or in Iran? Or in Pakistan? Or in China? Or in South Korea? I would guess none, but surely at least not more than a handful. I know there are female-only health clubs in Ottawa today. I see no reason why there shouldn't be male-only private clubs. I believe in freedom of association (and in intellectual consistency.) It was openly degenerate, but I don't see how a consensual sex act is sexist. Would it have been sexist if the class president was female and had screwed a hired Chippendale's dancer? As for how many women were in Engineering with you ... again … so what? Was it because they were forbidden to apply or because they were held to a higher standard? I doubt it. I strongly suspect it was due to a lack of interest in the field by the vast majority of young women. Nursing is dominated by women, does that mean that men who apply to nursing school should be held to a lower standard? Social work is dominated by women, same question. If a guy wants to run a daycare, should he be able to sue successfully when people prefer to leave their children with a woman? Should I be able to sue my government successfully because a woman will on average collect an old age pension for at least 5 years longer than I will? Or should I sue my doctor for keeping women alive longer than they keep men alive (I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy fueled by discrimination & oppression, amirite?) Maybe I should sue the police for arresting, charging & incarcerating men in such disproportional numbers to the number of women who are arrested. Or sue my government for 'reparations' for all the men who fought & died in wartime compared to the paltry number of women who did. I think it's an outrage that such a high proportion of homeless people are men, & yet that they have shelters SPECIFICALLY for homeless women, don't you? I feel so victimized. Who should I sue? Let me sue all the things! I was shopping at the local drug store & they asked me at checkout if I wanted to donate money for women's health. Can you imagine? Don't they know it's 2016?! Should I be able to sue successfully because I've been to bars DOZENS of times in my life and NOT ONCE has a strange woman approached me and offered to buy ME a drink? Do you not see what nonsense this all is? Leave past injustices (real and imagined) in the past. And stop trying to create discrimination & oppression out of thin air. Focus on pragmatic, cost-effective solutions to today's problems, or at LEAST on ending policies that exacerbate today's problems. Stop punishing today's youth for the (real & imaginary) sins of their great-grandfathers. And stop perpetuating a culture of victimhood, injustice, dependency, degeneracy, dishonesty, groupthink and defeatism.

To be honest, this is a very ridiculous auction and I do not know why are you asking us to make a sense out of this nonsense? West's actions does not make any sense whatsoever. Did he think if he bid 2♣ over redouble that will show strength? What made him bid a free 3♣ over 2♥ now that he could not do over redouble? If E has a monster balanced hand, why is he still keep bidding on when it is obvious that partner is broke? If East has a big hand with spades, why did he not start 2♠ over 1 ♠ ?

Random scramble - usually a weak balanced hand. This is consistent with the idea that we double a strong NT on a strong balanced hand ourselves, or one with a good suit, because we are trying to compete the partscore rather than trying to take a large penalty.

a.- (2♥)-4♠ Very strong. Overcaller eschewed a jump to 3S which is pretty powerful, and also double followed by various spade bids. b.- (3♥)-5♦ This time the real options were 4D or 5D or double followed by diamonds if you got the chance. I would think this is a hand that make 5D opposite something like Qxx, Qxx, xx, Kxxxx which might pass a 4D overcall. c.- 1♣-(1♠)-2♥-(3♠*) 5♣I believe he is bidding what he thinks he can make opposite a typical minimum (or perhaps a bit better than minimum) 2H bid with a doubleton club. *Pre-emptive

Hi - these problems should be very easy for experienced players but an I/N player needs to think about the right things in an auction. If you get them wrong, don't feel too bad as long as you understand the rationale for the answers. I'll provide the answers later but I'll put a hint as a spoiler. Try to solve the problem without the spoiler. Also, let me know if you would be interested in seeing more of these from time to time. Assume you are playing Standard American (a natural system with 15-17 1NT openings and 5-card majors), IMPS, and nobody is vulnerable. 1. [hv=pc=n&s=s32ht9d8743cj6532&d=1s1sn&v=0&b=1&a=1spp2c2hp]133|200[/hv] 2. [hv=pc=n&s=sq2h76543d7532c62&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1spp2c2hp]133|200[/hv] 3. [hv=pc=n&s=s742h7432d63c7653&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=1hd3hppdp]133|200[/hv] 4. [hv=pc=n&s=sj7652h964d62c843&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=2cp2dp3dp3sp4cp]133|200[/hv] 2D is waiting. 3D is forcing. 3S shows five spades. If you don't know the answer to the spoiler question, look at the second spoiler for a hint: 5. [hv=pc=n&s=s2hjt632dj854c763&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1s2dpp3cp]133|200[/hv]

Answers: (Material in blue may be too advanced for some novices.) 1. [hv=pc=n&s=s32ht9d8743cj6532&d=1s1sn&v=0&b=1&a=1spp2c2hp]133|200[/hv] Hint: To your knowledge, what is your best fit? Answer: Your partner has shown at least five spades and at least four hearts. It is unlikely that partner has more hearts than spades, but quite likely that partner has more spades than hearts. Bid 2S. You might ask, "Won't partner think I have something if I bid?" You already passed 1S; you have less than six points. Partner won't think you found a hidden ace, they will assume that you think spades is a better trump suit than hearts. Some might have wanted to bid 2NT. First, even if you score a club trick, partner will need to promote spades and/or hearts and that will give the opponents time to take their clubs. You virtually never bid 2NT just to play in a competitive situation. If it turns out that the opponents have more strength than your side, 2NT is quite easy to double. 2. [hv=pc=n&s=sq2h76543d7532c62&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1spp2c2hp]133|200[/hv] Hint: What does partner have? Answer: You might think that partner can have no more than 21 points and you have 2 (4 if you count your doubletons) so why would one think about anything but playing 2H? However, you have a great-fitting hand for partner. The queen in partner's spade suit rates to be very helpful. Think of this, sometimes partner is going to be 5-5. Give partner as little as AKxxx in each major, and ten tricks are going to be easy. Partner could easily have more; and some 5-4's have excellent play for 4H. Consider that your right hand opponent didn't raise clubs, that means that partner is more likely to have three clubs which makes your doubleton more valuable. Given the choice between bidding 4H and pass, I would choose 4H. However, I'm going to let partner off the hook if he bid 2H on a random 17-count with 5 spades and 4 hearts since he's not likely to make game anymore (e.g. S-Kxxxx H-KQJx, D-AK C-xx) so the suggested call is 3H. One point here is that partner does not need to jump with 20 points anymore. When you respond, showing 6 or more points, partner needs to jump shift (or bid game) to make sure your side gets to game. Here with you having passed, from opener's point of view, your side is simply competing for the partscore and there is no reason to do more than bid 2H with 20 points. Your partner expects to play in 2H or 2S. Your raise is telling your partner that your hand is exceptional for a passed hand in that you still may have a game despite not having the suggested 26 (25) points between you. While your partner will probably go to 4 only with a maximum hand, he may realize that your hand fits very well with something like AKxxx in each major and bid a makeable game with only 16 HCP between the two hands. 3. [hv=pc=n&s=s742h7432d63c7653&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=1hd3hppdp]133|200[/hv] Hint: Do you think you can set 3H? Answer: Your partner's first double was takeout, and the fact that he doubled again didn't change that. The opponent's bidding and your hand says that your partner is probably void in hearts. Your prospects on defense are poor; it's better to go down in 4C (or 5C if partner raises) than to let them make 3H doubled. The recommended call is 4C. Even if you had only two small hearts so that you couldn't tell partner was short, you would still respect the takeout double and bid 4C. If East had raised to 4H instead of 3H, and partner doubled (still takeout), you should probably pass now, hoping that partner can take 4 tricks on defense rather than 11 on offense. 4. [hv=pc=n&s=sj7652h964d62c843&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=2cp2dp3dp3sp4cp]133|200[/hv] 2D is waiting. 3D is forcing. 3S shows five spades. Hint: Is partner's bid forcing? Hint: Your 3S bid is unlimited so would you expect partner to jump to 5C when he can make it? Answer: Your partner's hand is still unlimited and his 4C bid is forcing. Partner likely has more diamonds than clubs, and I would recommend bidding 4D rather than raising clubs. If partner has equal length, he can bid clubs again. (Partner's hand is: S-A H-Q D-AKQT42 C-AKT95. If you pass 4C, you miss game which makes most of the time diamonds are 3-2. If you expect partner to jump to 5C, you get to play in a minor suit (or 5S) when your hand is S-QJ98754 H-765 D-3 C-32, 5. [hv=pc=n&s=s2hjt632dj854c763&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1s2dpp3cp]133|200[/hv] Hint: Why didn't your partner reopen with a double? Answer: You might be thinking that having the safety of having your partner know you don't have anything would allow you to bid 3H here. However, bidding 3H is only a good idea if partner has three-card support. Think about this: your partner has spades; your partner has clubs; your partner has three hearts; your partner must have short diamonds, what would they have done over 2D? They would have doubled for takeout! Partner didn't double for takeout, therefore he doesn't have three hearts. You don't have exciting distribution for play in clubs, so 3C is high enough. Your ♦J might be a stopper but you don't want to play 3NT with at most 23 points between you and no good fitting suits and no entry to your hand. The recommended call is Pass. Sometimes when you don't have anything, you should just pass. :) In fact, most of the time you don't have anything, you should pass. Problems 1-4 were the exception rather than the rule. The times when you can bid are: you believe you are improving the contract, and your bid can't mislead partner because you have either already shown weakness, or you are being forced to bid.