gszes

Reading the notes it looks possible we have possibly maybe 7 players interested with 2 set pairs. here is my understanding of the recap. Jillybean TylerE Nige1 Gszeszycki individuals wishing to partner anyone PhilKing and Cameron Small (is that bbo name) Jallerton and frances (is that bbo name) are willing to play if they can partner Phil and Cameron I'll be honest it will be a last resort to play a pair that want to limit who the other two players will be so if i misread that statement about Jallerton and partner let me know. I will let JEC know in about 6 hours who we are starting and i think we will even have extras so maybe a pair can start and we can sub in a pair after 14 boards

for what its worth the only time we beat them (the last match 6 weeks ago i think the score was 34-30) everyone on the tem was playing a 2/1 variant. There is no need for too many special effects (ok ok i admit we talk about a LOT of special effects) we want to see good solid bridge like the kind we write about here.

PASS W no longer need to keep the bidding alive in case p has a very strong hand they can do that for us. Bidding 2d or neg x now has so many really bad outcomes its boggles the mind and we strongly prefer to avoid a bidding disaster when playing imps. If p cannot keep the bidding alive than we have little to no worries about missing a game. Another problem with bidding now is that it risks burying the heart suit. Passing now allows us to GASP actually jump in the bidding under certain sequences to let p know we were close to having a bid the first time. The black jacks (need them in casinos) have no effect on my decision here.

For once i have a clear cut x which cannot possibly be for penalty and has to be for the minors. This hand has many ways it can gain which would be better than allowing opps to play 2s and the x is the only way to let p (who is looking at their cards) decide how to proceed. I have never known a partnership that would byass 1s with 4 spades to bid 1n just because they were playing flannery --- it would risk missing a 44 spade fit if p were 46 so we cannot possibly have spade length.

This bid depends on yur viewpoint as to what constitutes a good 2h bid. In my case (im a big chicken) when I enter this auction with the strong NT to my left and stayman (and unlimited) bidder to my right i am no sticking my neck out on the chopping block just to make a lead director (not vulnerable does not mean invulnerable). I would have a hand where I expected to take six tricks at a minimum and 7 would not be unreasonable. Using my thinking I would not wish to x here for penalty precisely because I rarely ever expect to set it a number. I would try 3d This has several ways of winning w/o the huge risk associated with allowing the opps to make 2h x. 1. If p cannot bid 3n we might still be able to play 5d and the heart K is then protected. 2. We might find a 5d contract even 4d or 3d might score better than 2h x -1. 3. this leaves room for p to bid 3h to show a partial heart stopper at which point we can bid 3n not worried about going set off the top. 4. We might still be able to play 3s or 4s (moysian) and our spade suit quality is good enough to keep us from worrying about uppercuts. If I knew my lho was taken to frequent flights of fancy and loved to stretch to make a lead directing bid I would x and expect to set it a number. Surely noone that reads these forums would make a mere lead directing bid at even at IMPS where the expected gain would usually be small at best and the potential loss tragic:))))))

while x for me is TO it generally emphasizes diamonds more than hearts but in any case shows at least 4 hearts. Do we really intend to pass 4h if p bids it if we x???? Just cant make the stretch looks like a simple competitive 4d for me. Pass seems out of hand cowardly and I would not be really happy using x even if it was penalty here.

There are just far too many hands where we lose the heart suit when opening this hand 1c. the club suit certainly is better but a 1c opening bid really tells p little about our hand it is generally more of a punt than a useful start. 1H at least lets p know about our major suit and gets us off to a much better start overall. Missing 53 even 54 heart fits become possible if we open 1c. At favorable where i might be inclined to bid at the 5 level I would be a ton happier having started with 1h and then backing in with 5c. As to the current hand I will PASS since there are far more ways to make 3n than 5c and 6c would take something like a miracle hand.

The question boils down to what the definition of lead directing means i this partnership. In mine it might be as simple as Axx KQJT xxx xxx if that is the standard in this partnership the 4h bid pretty much has to be to make (little sense in competing over 3s otherwise). Our hand has two extra offensive tricks and the club K has a very good chance of being as good as an ace. 5h surely cannot be hammered too badly and might make. It is just too small a target to play p for a hand that sets 4s 1 trick.

you have to have some sympathy for N bidding stayman with this undervalue hand. N strongly suspects W has diamonds and they will be handcuffed if the bidding proceeds 1n 2c p 2d p p---so they took a small gamble and hoped to find a 2h/2s contract they could pass and it worked (sort of). They would have been more than happy to play 2h but W suddenly bid 2s which N KNOWS is at best a 7 card suit. If the opps were going to run to 3d they will do so wether N x or not so X The x is important information for p since you would not be making a low level x for penalty with a hand that had strong hope for a vul game (unless N expected a huge penalty). That will end the bidding or E will bid 3c and get hammered in 3c. Do not x when you know the opps have a safer place to play but here you have no idea if they have anywhere to run so x is fine. Be prepared to apologize to partner when gambles like these dont work like PhilKing says where the heck are you going to go if p bids 2d:)))))))))))))))))))

if you receive no reply from mars are you willing to patner another random poster?

yep he can A. his partner can play (name please) b. play with anyone in which case we may have 4?????

piecing together the clues you left P did not have a 2s or a 3s bid available since both might have been considered non forcing. Your p had to temporize. Assuming p had a 4c splinter available for use--why did p embark on slam bidding using 3c??? Our hand is about as perfect as it can be for slam though the spade J and dia Q could be the dia K which would make it almost a miracle hand for the bidding----so cooperation for slam is fine but how and why? IMO p has 2/3 heart losers off the top. When p bid 3c (asking for a club stop then showing no interest in nt--they are cue bidding for slam. The 3c bid itself does not tell p story but the failure to bid 3h does. Anytime p has slam interest and minor suit worries they can start with 3h (which also would get a 3n response with clubs stopped). Given these circumstances i would pass

we still have some time so far it seems PHILKING is available prefers regular partner but no clue if regular partner can play MICKEYB cannot find his regular partner but leaves no clue as to willingness to partner with a stranger Gszeszycki (my alter ego) willing to play with anyone so far we have 1 (me) maybe 2 (PhilKing) and a nebulous 3 (MickeyB) not an overwhelming response so far but progress. I will wait another day to see if any further interest develops and hopefully hear from the uncommited if they have any interest in partnering with a stranger and possibly future bridge friend. If nothign dvelops I will fill the team as best as i can but i really want to see more posters come forward.

The closer you are to having classic shape for a TOX the better off you generally are using it. This is a great ex of a hand with tremendous flexibility to play in 3 different places. The fact that this hand makes it possible for p to eke out a 5h bid (if we overcall vs x) is not reason enough to abandon a TOX. By overcalling 2h we make any minor suit sacrifice or game virtually impossible to reach if the bidding goes 1s 2h 4s. Bridge is a game of % do not worry about 1 specific example. The most interesting aspect of this hand of the bidding were to go 1s x p 2h your hand suddenly becomes much stronger in fact it is probably not out of line to bid 4h knowing most of the enemy stuff is with rho and the trump suit should supply ample entries to take advantage of finesses. The next question is if you decide to x what is the difference between another x and 4n??? IMO it is how "transferable" your values are. void Axxxx Axxx AK is a very reasonable 2nd x void QJxxx KQJx KQJx is a 4n bid having little to no desire to penalize 4s. Most hands will fall somewhere between these 2 extremes and the vulnerability imps vs mp and state of the match can all play an important role as to how you proceed. The important part is to be on the same page with partner. On the given hand I would start with x and x again when 4s came back to me. I do not know what your p would have done since you do not show their hand (who knows p might have had a 5h bid over 4s) xxxx Axxxxx void QJx for ex

SIX DAYS LEFT and as far as I can tell from reading the forums NOONE (but me) is willing to pit their skills against the mighty JEC STARS is this right????????????????? Is it really because we can't stand the idea of playing with someone new?? I have played with 4 different advanced players and lived to tell about the experience and won once-----I will look back here in a couple of days and if no other volunteers I guess I will start contacting friends to play with but this is a forum poster match and I hope some forum posters will step forward and v\olunteer their time and expertise CALL TO ARMS

when contemplating a convention try and make sure there are no obvious holes. In this case if your suit is clubs opener might easily hold Q(J)xx and have to bid 5d which puts you too high. Another problem if p holds say AKxx (showing 3+ initially) or heck AKx (showing 2+ initially) they would bid 6c and you would be no closer to knowing if 7 is good or not. The convention might have merit if you more severly define when it can be used---just a thought.

1. It is perfectly normal defense to force declarer to take a guess early in the hand before they have knowledge of other options. Rho is merely trying to convince declarer to "guess" wrong even when the "guess" seems obvious. Finesse the T. 2. Aside from worries about who did or did not lead from Qx of trumps there are other considerations in this hand. If rho began with AQx in spades we are in serious trouble if we fail to take the finesse. When rho wins a dia or a club they will draw another round of trumps and if clubs fail to break 32 we might still easily lose 3 dia tricks. By taking the finesse even if it loses we will still have 2 dia ruffs in dummy and can set up (if possible) our 5th club to hold us to down 1. Taking the finesse is a form of insurance that is trying to keep us from being slaughtered. Do not get so carried away looking at a single card combination (who the heck would lead from Qx trumps) and fail to take the entire hand into consideration.

going for the club immediately seems to have much better chances overall (gnasher) After hearing you have 9+ cards in the majors it is a lot tougher (seemingly suicidal) for lho to duck the club A if you lead toward the dummy. Even at its worst this play alone is 50% + 33 hearts + (by taking 1 heart finesse) Hx HH HHH HHHx with rho. While going after hearts alone will reward you with some extra chances in hearts those chances are nowhere near the 50% (at its worst) the club suit offers.

The 1d bid was fine and well thought out. W failed to remember a cardinal rule of bidding once the majors are out we are looking for NT with the minors as a last option. W had Ax of hearts a suit you would have strained to bid NT if you had stop(s). That greatly increases the probability of the opps holding KQJ of hearts and them being worth 1 or zero tricks. It is difficult to imagine too many hands where we dont have decent play for 5 of a minor and we need to make a stronger bid than 3c and i suggest 3h. Lets give p some room to bid further and see if they can bid 4c or 3s or have to rebid 4/5 diamonds (or even 3n) P next bid will give us a strong clue how to proceed but W cannot act as if they have a minimum balanced hand. Your partnerships does need to define fsf as game forcing or invitational+ (my choice but not a majority choice) IMO it does your partnership a huge disserive to just willy nilly bid 2N and up w/o having stoppers in the unbid suits and this is especially true if your bidding 1c 1d 1s showed a semi balanced or unbalanced hand. 1c 1d 1s 2h 3h 3s 4c*4d (cue) would not have bid 3s with long diamonds 4h cue 5c nothing else to add pass or 6c are both reasonable though i think pass is a tad better since p did not want to cue 4s and it is unliely we will escape wit no spade losers *note this is a stronger bid than 4c over 2h due to using 3h first

partner needed to show some disgression with 2h because of the possibility of playing in a misfit. Noone has tried NT for the opps generally indicating p probably has as least AKxxx in hearts. We have a fit an entry and possibly even a ruffing value. P was able to compete to 3h (after not getting x in 2h they became bolder:)) with as little as x AKxxx AQxxxx x we might only need the dia finesse and this is hardly an outlandish hand for p to hold. 4h also remember p knows it is a ton harder to make game in a minor so they will use even more disgression when competing until they know they have a major fit

There are many ways to possibly set this contract it has been my experience that playing p for the least amount of power and most normal distribution is the way to go (mainly because its very uplifting to defeat a virtually impregnable contract with the fewest assets possible). Our carding apparently leaves a lot to be desired since it is immediately obvious that we do not need dia attitude p first card should be either count or suit preference. If we cannot depend on that we need to guess. I believe we can beat this if p has as little as Qx Axxxxx xxx xx or Kx Axxxxx xxx xx or Qx AKxxxx xxx xx trick 1 dia ace trick 2 heart 9 to give p even count they win (A or K) depending on holding trick 3 dia back to k trick 4 dia J forcing a ruff no matter what declarer does now if p has one of the 3 holdings they will go down. Another advantage to this defense is we will also hold declarer to 4 if p has something like xx AKxxxx xxx xx where we had no chance to set 4s. the key here is to use signals to your advantage the more flexible you are the more situations you will be able to cover. With good signaling methods you will most likely be able to find the best LOP to defeat this contract (if its possible). Note there are at least 3 totally different concepts on how do defeat 4s and only with viable signalling do you have a chance of getting it right.

"are you feeling lucky punk" (dirty harry) well that's this hand P has heard your 2s bid showing extra spades and presumably power since you are forcing p to bid 3h to take a preference. All u need is p to have say QTx of clubs and 2 small spades to set 3n but you might also be able to find a good sac (probably in 4s not 4h so much) The downside is you could get slaughtered if the hand is a total misfit. I would go the road of the ostrich stick my head in the sand and pass and lead a small spade but anything could work IMO P=10 4s =7 4h=4 x=1

There is a bit more room for bidding when our suit is spades vs hearts. (2h3s) (3h 4s) (2s 4h) all show big hands because of the jump over the preempt. But 2h 4s leaves some lattitude for the 4s bidder the have a much weaker hand that still desires game. and over 2h 4s the monster hand presented would just bid 5n and go down 1 (in 6s) when the opps had the spade AK (unfortunate). On the given hand however i still prefer 4c showing clubs and spades since the clubs are so much better than the spades and slam is still possible in clubs even when 6s has no chance. Spades is indeed our most likely game but clubs very easily can be our most likely slam.

This is my first real chance to coordinate a game in advance-----I played in 3 others and the way it worked was mgoetze gathered the names of players from this site and gave them to jec and they set up the match when it was game time. I never had a clue who was going to play for JEC and they may not even know until the last minute:)))))))))))))))))))) I am sure that it can be arranged for you to sit opposite JEC and partner vs opposite moki/apron if that is what you mean since we can always put our request is as say JLOGIC/partner at main table and poster/poster in closed room for ex:)))

mgoetze was keeping track there is another thread in this forum for historians but he seems to have diappeared. We lost the first 33 in a row then won the last one (almost 6 weeks ago) and havent played them since. I sort of started doing this since mgoetze diappeared. With any luck we will get back to an everyother week type schedule. Lots and lots of kibitzers watch these matches (JEC is very popular) and it gives us a chance to show that the concepts and ideas we present here for others to read and learn from are solid. The downside is since forum posters also watch the matches the players can expect to see their name in print if things dont go ummm errrr according to plan:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))