W Kovacs

Pass for me as well. If partner opens we have something to say, but until then no.

Well, you could fudge a bit and bid 1NT anyway. Your ♦ suit is certainly good enough for that. But partner will undoubtedly believe your major is hearts, not spades. That is obviously bad. A Takeout Double is out as well for the same reasons. Bidding 2♦ looks attractive. Sure, it's not a 5 card suit, but 4 card suits get no better. Plus, you have the strength and distribution to introduce the clubs at the three level. Unless a 2♦ overcall means something else in Polish Club?

Everyone has a bad hand now and again, although this one goes beyond bad and into :o :( :blink: Today I managed to count a king in my hand twice, pushing me into opening, and then later in the bidding ignored my partner's game force (and a good thing I did, too). So things do happen. This one happened to be a little more...egregious.

12pm-1pm CST. CST is GMT-6, if I'm not mistaken. It's my lunch hour at work. :( I only play pickup when my partner doesn't show. He's been a little iffy the past few days. But he did show up yesterday, albeit a little late. By happenstance, that is also my lunch hour, when I often play. I will look for you there, if you don't mind. Is your username the same? Yep. Like I said, I do have a regular partner, so when he shows up, I will play with him. But It'd be nice to have a backup partner, or maybe a change of pace. What systems do you prefer?

I was going to suggest 1NT-2♠; 3♣-3♥ as a possible auction, but I noticed two things. 1) In my system notes, this auction shows 6+ clubs, a singleton or void in hearts and slam interest. Not good on this hand. 2) Partner is pickup, and likely won't know what the hell to do with a 2S bid. So I will bid 2C, and bid clubs over a diamond or spade response.

Yes. The spade lead at trick 2, which means you only get 1 club ruff.

I bid on both hands. As stated before, partner has a powerhouse, likely very distributional, and East has a weak hand with long hearts. Besides, in my system, the TO dbl is still on through 4♠ and partner has demanded I bid, so to pass is criminal. I value partner's trust more than that.

Out of curiosity, what does 2♠ show, what is 1♦-2♥-3♦ in your system, and why is partner responding 5♠ (assuming 4NT is rkc in hearts)? Crap. Typed faster than I thought again. I'll amend my previous post. I changed the 5NT king ask to the 5♠ queen ask in light of the ammended auction. The responses should still be valid. And the 2S! bid is a relay, allowing responder to further describe his hand. We have no meaning for the 1♦-2♥-3♦. Partner's next bid will tell me exactly what he holds, so why should I ever not want that information?

1) I don't agree with your partner's 4♣ bid at all. In the absence of agreements, I would take that as a splinter, showing shortness and slam interest or a control, never a choice of games. Especially if you never raise with only 3 card support. 2) The 4♥ bid looks perfect. Partner is showing interest in slam, and you have the heart control to show. 3) Off a control and the Q of trump, 5NT is terrible. A signoff in 5♠ is certainly in order here.

12pm-1pm CST. CST is GMT-6, if I'm not mistaken. It's my lunch hour at work. :D I only play pickup when my partner doesn't show. He's been a little iffy the past few days. But he did show up yesterday, albeit a little late. To add to my rant, I despise the undo button. I'm OK with it if the person claims a misclick. That happens. But a few days ago an opponent bid and raised clubs while his partner bid and raised spades. 3C got passed out. Just before my partner led, the opponent asked for an undo. We granted it, thinking it was a misclick. He changed his bid to 5C, and it made. That rankled a little bit, so I looked at the hands post mortem. Opener had a flat 13 hcp, and the person that asked for the undo had 10 hcp, and a sort of ratty 6 card club suit. They had no business even sniffing at game, and got lucky that the cards fell just right.

I was going to ask if that 3♠ bid is a minisplinter agreeing hearts, because I'm not sure I would take it that way. Anyway, I agree with Fluffy's implied auction, except that I would bid 1♦-2♣-3♦, not 1♦-2♦-3♣. Out of curiousity, how did the Strong Jump auction go? I'm imagining: 1♦-2♥! 2♠!-3♥ 4NT-5♦ 5♠-7♥ 7NT That's how my partner and I would bid it, at least. EDIT: fixed the bidding. Apparently I wasn't thinking clearly.

The problem with that is I only get an hour to play a day, so looking up histories on every pickup partner cuts into that time severely. Getting up from the table is also a waste of precious time. It's not an issue when my regular partner shows up. I know what to expect out of him...most of the time. :D And I didn't realize that the boards were scored on a random sampling of only 16 tables. That explains a lot. It also means that the IMP scores don't mean much, unless we play in the tourneys. More than anything I just wanted to vent. I feel uncomfortable enough playing standard anything (partner and I play Precision), and then poor bidders shake my confidence even more. One last thing. I checked this particular partner's last 6 days worth of hands. He lost 40 IMPs over ~70 hands, for an average loss of 0.58 IMPS per hand. I'm not surprised. Even with today's fiasco my partner and I are averaging 0.5 IMPs per hand. With pickup partners I average 0.44 IMPs per hand. Yes, I am a statistics geek. And I'm probably a better player than I give myself credit for.

So I'm playing standard with a pickup partner, and on the second hand I get this: [hv=d=s&v=n&s=skhxxxxdxxcatxxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Partner opens the bidding with 1♦. I probably could have bid my club suit, but the chances of finding a fit there looked remote, the suit just plain sucks and I hate bidding at the 2 level with less than 10 points. So I bid 1♥. Partner decides to bounce straight to 4NT. I think "Surely he knows 1♥ can be as few as 6 hcp, right?" So I answer a truthful 5♦, and partner places me in 6♥, which promptly gets doubled. As soon as the opening lead is made, he leaves the table. Thanks. He had a 19 count, flat hand with three hearts to the AQ. I worked my butt off to hold it to down 1. So I look at the traveller, and most tables were in 3NT making. I expected the normal sequence to go something like 1♦-1♥; 2NT-3NT or 1♦-1♥; 3NT. Turns out most pairs went 1♦-2♣; 3NT. I can respect that, even if I wouldn't bid it. But there were oddballs that opened 1NT with the south hand. And one South even opened 3NT with that 19 count! How am I supposed to trust a pickup partner again, when there seem to be so many wackos out there that can't even open a hand the right way? This goes beyond misunderstanding a convention. This is basic bidding, something that everyone should have a handle on. As a postscript, my regular partner showed up, and we proceded to have the worst session we've had on BBO to date. I keep track of what went wrong on every hand in the post mortem, and most often it's either 1) Other Tables didn't bid game/slam or 2) Other tables bid too high and went down. I'd say 80% of our negative scores are like that. It's just plain frustrating. /End Rant

1♦, without hesitation.

My partner and I play it as strong with solid Clubs, strong with Clubs and Spades, or strong balanced.

I wasn't sure which forum this hand truly belonged in, but I thought this was probably the best place. [hv=d=w&v=n&s=sxxhjxxxxxdckjxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP West opens 1NT. Your bid.[/hv] Simple question. Do you act over the 1NT opening? I'll go ahead and give the full hand below, because what happened at our table was somewhat interesting. [hv=d=w&v=n&n=sxxhjxxxxxdckjxxx&w=sajxhaxxdqxxxcaqt&e=stxxhktxdjtxcxxxx&s=skqxxxhqdakxxxxcx]399|300|Scoring: IMP Bidding at our table went: (1NT)-P-(P)-2♦ (2NT)-AP[/hv] In our methods, I actually do have a bid for my hand. We play Astro, and at these colors I probably should have bid 2♣ (my hand is weak, but the shape is to die for), showing at least 5-4 Hearts and a lower suit (the ♥s can be the 4 card suit). But I blanked on whether the correct bid was 2♣ or 2♦, confusing it with a much different, unrelated sequence. So I passed. That allowed my partner to use Astro. Initially he misclicked and bid 2♣, but asked for an immediate undo and bid the correct 2♦. After having a few more seconds to think about it, I knew the correct meaning of the bids, and knew we had a terrible misfit going, so my pass was easy. 2NT went down 1. It wasn't a top, but still a tidy +1.43 IMPs for us. If I had bid correctly we likely end in 2H, which goes down 2 if I look at things right. Not as interesting as declaring 3♦xx holding 1 HCP, but that is a different story.

Nothing is forcing me to bid here. I pass and see if partner can add anything next round.

1) 2♦. We are already forced to game, and partner knows I have 5 already. Plus the ops seem to be relatively balanced, as they haven't interfered yet. Tiem to show P my 4 card suit. Standard Precision sequence. Now, if we were slumming in some sort of standard or 2/1 system for some reason, I re-bid 2♥ both times.

I wouldn't assume anyone knows Michaels, either. http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=41098 I made that thread after a partner passed out my Michaels cuebid. I didn't fare too well :lol:

I was about to say 2C, showing 11-15 and 6+ clubs, but then I realized I'm in the SAYC forum. I'd open 1C on this hand playing standard or 2/1.

The only systematic defenses to our 1C opener that my partner have ever seen used are Mathe: 1♣-(x) or 1♣-(P)-1♦-(x) = 4-4 Majors 1♣-1NT or 1♣-(P)-1♦-(1NT) = 4-4 minors All other overcalls are single suited. And we've seen CRASH (Color Rank and SHape): 1♣-(x) or 1♣-(P)-1♦-(x) = Reds or Blacks 1♣-(1♦) = Majors or Minors 1♣-1NT or 1♣-(P)-1♦-(1NT) = Pointed (♦♠) or Rounded (♣♥) 1♥, 1♠, 2♣, 2♦ are natural single suited. Cheapest NT by advancer asks overcaller to identify his cheapest suit, for a pass or correct scenario.

It sounds like it was Ken Miller, from what I read. Here's what I got: the club suspected some tampering of scores had been going on. They hired a computer expert to show how easy scores could be tampered with. They also hired a second expert to find proof that external hacking had taken place. When the results of both investigations turned up positive, this Ken Miller (the club champion) was shown the door. So Ken got mad and turned around to sue. The article doesn't mention whether any of the evidence pointed to Mr Miller's guilt, either conclusively or circumstantially. I'd imagine his scores were the ones tampered with.

My partner and I play Precision on BBO (straight out of Precision Today, more or less). Here's my take on it. 1)Yes, 1C openings are easy to interfere with. But 1C openings are relatively rare. how often are you going to hold 16+ as dealer. Holding 16+ in 3rd or 4th seat almost always gaurantees someone else is bidding. Almost. 2) 2C openings aren't that big of a minus. If you hold them to 6+ club suits (which we do), then your hand is limited AND you show your distribution quite nicely. Plus, they are extremely rare. 3) 1D openings are a bit sticky, most of the time. If partner opens one, I assume 4 diamonds and go on from there, until shown otherwise. 4) The loss of a 2D preempt is minor, if even a disadvantage at all. The ops still can show their majors, which is what they want to show anyway (who cares about those stupid clubs). Besides, when playing standard, we usually play Flannery anyway to get rid of ugly 4-5-2-2, etc. minimum openers. The big positives are those very nice, limited openings. On 65% of the hands where partner opens, I know immediately which level we need to be at, and usually have a good idea which strain as well. You don't get that comfort level with standard. And Marlowe has the defense against Precision openers pretty well described. Although most players will have a system against interference.

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=sq98xhdaktxxcqxxx&w=sjxxxxhxxxxdqxxxc&e=shjtxxxxdxxckjtxx&s=saktxhakqdjxcaxxx]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Here's the full hand. On defense, anything except the heart lead gives declarer the cross-ruff, leading only to down 2. To make a slam (NT or ♠), both the J♠ and Q♦ had to be on the left, or the Q♦ had to be doubleton. And my partner responded to my e-mail. He would take 4NT over 4♥ as natural, and would leave me there :) Only two tables reached 6NTS, and they had little (TO dbl by E!) or no interference. I credit the opps for making life difficult.

I'll post the full hand in a little bit. I was curious what my P would have done had I bid 4NT (I'm not entirely certain myself, though I believe it would be RKC in Spades. I could Q ask after that). Doubling and leading three rounds of hearts puts the opponents down 5 or 6, depending on how partner discards on the heart leads. If he holds onto all 5 diamonds, then he can run them when no trump are left. Otherwise declarer gets a club eventually. My biggest error was the 2NT bid. Already forced to game, I was trying to bid slowly to investigate slam, which let the opps into the auction. If I had bid 3NT, showing extra values, partner has already said he bids 4NT, Quantitative, which lands us in 6NT+1. Those that push to 7♠ go down 1 on the 5-0 spade break. Sorry.