Chamaco

1) worse trump support is xxx or Hx. Best is undefined. Can be found by either TAB repeat or RKCB. 2) steps responses to 3C are, in order: no control (xxx or worse) 3rd round control: xx or Qx(x...) 2nd round control: x or Kx(x...) first round control: void or A(x...) AK(x...) 3) can't ask clubs after hearts

Sono assolutamente d'accordo su tutti i concetti espressi da Vincenzo. Questa "caccia alle streghe" rischia di avvelenare un ambiente per la paura di quei pochi che barano e che se proprio vogliono continueranno a farlo, magari non quando stanno al morto ma semplicemente telefonandosi da casa quando controgiocano. dal mio punto di vista, in un'analisi "costi benefici" (a cui i bridgisti dovrebbero essere abituati, in quanto sta alla base di tutte le scelte di dichiarazione o gioco della carta), i costi in termini di allontanamento di gente in buona fede sono superiori ai benefici (limitazione delle scorrettezze). In questi casi, dalle mie parti si suol dire che "la fatica supera il gusto"... :(

Ron, could you comment more on this concept for less experienced players like me ? From my pespective I would want to be in game regardless, having a 6 loser's hand with at least doubleton honors support opposite a "weak 2", but I guess it depends on how wild your weak 2's are.

[hv=d=s&v=b&s=sahkqt9xdakqcjt9x]133|100|Scoring: MP Opps silent 1C*:1NT** 2H***:2NT**** ?[/hv] You deal and pick up this hand. 1C* = 16+, Precision 1NT**= 8-13 balanced (may have a stiff honor, may have a bad minor 5 bagger) 2H***= asks for support in hearts 2NT****= minimum range (8-10), support (at least xxx/Hx, where H = AKQ) At this point your system allows the following to invesrtigate further for a possible slam: - new suit is Control Asking bid to find out 3rd round control [xx or Qxx(x)], 2nd [x/kx(x)], 1st round [void/A(x)]control, or AK(x). - rebidding hearts asks for the quality of support - 4NT is roman key card blackwood. - 4H is signoff What choice is best ?

Mc Bruce, who are you referring to ? On my behalf you probably have only seen the manifestation of my great disappointment for this kind of choices, and the explanation of my reasons, never being disrespectful towards any TD nor player. As an aside, I am old enough to have lost much confidence about "changing other people's mind", but I still believe it is right to express one's own disagreement without having to be regarded as destructive or offensive, so there.

Sure thing, I think we are stating the obvious(playing better than watching). I also like to play and to learn from my mistakes. However, I want to say again loud that I really wish to be able to see the good players when they "fight for blood" rather than just in the lobby. Inhibiting this is a serious damage in my opinion. Please do not take this away from me.

I disagree. I know a bunch of italian good players ranging from expert to top teachers in italy. Most of them have told me that they play in the lobby just for fun. The like to chat during games and make silly mistakes; they chat a lot sometimes not even watching cards "who cares?" after all, this is no tourney... Not all experts do this, but many do: so I REALLY want to see how the big guys play in a competition not in the lobby. Moreover, in the lobby you are bound to see many more occasional ptships (which often results in more misunderstandings and lower quality of play), in tourneys this is much less frequent.

Hi all! Playing MINI NT (10-12), 1) what scheme do you think is best to handle the following responder's hands ? - slammish one suiters - invitational one suiters - slammish 2 suiters - invitational two suiters - weak 2 suiters. - (As we are about that, also GF 1/2 suiters could be discussed... :( ) If the answer may be too long here, any pointer to the right sources to study will be greatly appreciated :D 2) Some sources suggest playing 2-way stayman, and the advantages seem quite clear. Yet, playing miniNT, I like safety, and giving up the weak 2D signoff worries me a bit. I would appreciate opinion on this by all people who have experienced miniNT. 3) I am having a little debate with one of my partners who would like to keep transfers on also over miniNT. This is related to point 1) above, as he argues that weak and strong 2-suiters by responder are easier to describe. All the sources I am studying recommend against that, what is your comment ? Thanks all!!! :(

Almost everything has been said on excluding kibs from tourneys. If this is a sort of poll, add my vote against excluding kibs: I would be really sad if allowed to kib onbly in the main lobby, where players tend to play less competitively (hence less instructive), I like to learn from kibitzing real competitive games

Pass, any vulnerabilty. Expecting partner with more than 7-8hcop (average) is not bridge, it is gambling. In direct seat this hand is barely enough to bid over a weak 2, not enough at 3 level, let alone at level 4.

There are potential UI problems from pre-alerting online. I pre-alert my psyche and then the TD comes snooping around. When something seems awry with the auction partner or one of the opponents may be able to deduce that I have psyched based on the presence of the director. Maybe I missed the full proposal but it seems to me that a pre-alert procedure would need to be accompanied by the TD monitoring the psyche from a distance or in some sort of invisible mode. Personally I think regulations regarding psyches are bad. The laws make it clear that psyches are legal. What is illegal is to have a concealed partnership understanding. I also think that it is entirely inappropriate to call the director because an opponent psyches. When an opponent psyches there has not been any infraction of law so there is no need to call a director. Therefore calling the director is poor sportsmanship in my opinion. It is only appropriate to call the director if there is an infraction or a suspicion of an infraction so unless there is evidence of a concealed partnership understanding I do not believe that it is appropriate to call the director. In fact I think that calling the director just because the opponent has psyched is an example of gamesmanship. I agree on the principles you refer to. The potential problems arise, anyway, in tournaments with people used to play in tournaments where psyches are banned. As an example, some of the limitations in OItaly about psyches are the following (I won't discuss whether they are right or wrong, just mention them to clarify the reason why an italian player is likely to call the TD, or why an italian TD may have tendncy to ban some psyches): - you cannot psyche 1 of a suit unless you have at least 8 hcp; if you do, you will be automatically penalized - you cannot psyche NT bids with hcp deviating more than 3 hcp from your announced range; if you do, you will be autoimatically penalized - system-protected psyches are banned altogether. - there are more limitations but I won't enter all details. So you see that psyching is bound to generate different reactions from players used to different regulations, and who assume (by ignorance) that their local regulation applies worldwide. This is only one of many cases where a TD will find helpful to have the time to be prepared to explain to the contenders the reasons of his decision. I agree about the slight difficulty of the players viewing th TD at the table (which may signal a possible psyche), but I think there are ways to overcome this.

In many country, in f2f bridge, you HAVE TO do it afterwards, if you psyche, because recording those psyches is the only way to verify if those psyches recurs or not (and are hence a concealed agreement). The only reason not to call the director BEFOREHAND is that it would disclose unauthorized info to partner during bidding. Since there is not this problem in online bridge, I think that *if a TD decides to rule psyches that way*, he may like to require psyche preannouncing. Personally, I have no strong opinion for or against psyches, I simply believe that such a tool should be viewed as a compromise: there are people (and TDs) who see psyches as *the* evil thing, and they'd wish them to be banned. There are players (who would probably overuse it) who just think that ANY regulation of psyches is close to dictatorship and anti-bridge. Obviously these 2 positions cannot co-exist and none of the 2 solution is feasible, in my opinion. The only possible solution is a compromise, imperfect, with shortcoming, but better than nothing. Extreme solutions cannot be applied IMO. Psyche pre-alertting has the advantage of simulating a procedure already used in many low-mid flight national events, and it would probably be seen as a sign of goodwill from the psycher to preinform the director, easing his task. From the other viewpoint, if I were a psyche supporter, I'd much prefer to have to simply click a button (what's the problem in clicking a button?) to prealert rather than having to accept that in many tourneys psyches are either banned or severely penalized. In any case, this time I'll follow the "in quick- out quick" principle for this thread, I am not a psycher nor an opposer, just pick the solution you like :rolleyes:

I hate responding clubs to 1D with only 4 clubs. I want 1:d:2C guarantee 5+ clubs and I want that 1D:1H/S guarantees 4 cards in H/S (e.g. absolutely NONONO to respndig a 3 card 1H/S with very strong balanced hands). And, since I'd like to use this scheme for the Precision nebulous diamond, I want 1D:2D to be 5+ cards, not only 4. So I need a response for the strong balanced responder. I have no problem giving up the invitational 2NT: many strong players avoid altogether invitational responses. For example, Buratti and Lanzarotti in their "Nightmare" system have explicitly eliminated invitational sequences.

a ) weak and invitational hands: use XYZ convention also in competition. You bid spades, then over 1Nt (only problematic rebid): 2♣ = artificial relay forcing opener to bid 2 diamonds, which may be passed by weak hand with long diamonds; if responder bids again after the opener'2 2D, he has an invitational hand. So with an invitational hand with 5+ spades, just bid 2C then spade rebid. b ) GF hands: natural bids, 2 diamonds natural, forcing 1 round, then reverse to spades. If using negativ free bids and 1 spade promising 4+, you may wish to use xyz in competition also here over a 1NT rebid (you may use 2D as game force with 5+ spades, and hearts cuebid as a GF hand with 4 spades).

I am intermediate and disagree ;)

Also Fred Gitelman in his "Improving 2/1 GF" articles specifically mentions exactly a suit like Qxxxx: he says that responder should better NOT show that suit, if he has a reasonable alternative; according to Fred, the 2/1 suit should be a source of tricks, hence better than that. I like this agreement on the suit quality and based on that I'd chose, as a reasonable alternative, J2NT or any other forcing raise which does not promise diamonds. Splintering with stiff Ace does not seem at all a good choice.

1) open if you play weak 2 suiters like this one 2) pass; unless pard had a great distributin we want to defend. If pard is alive he will bid somthing himself otherwise passing keeps us out of trouble. 3) 1S. 4) first instinct was to bid 1NT which has the advantage of showing the right value and shape (1NT balancing does not show a stopper for most players, and 10xx is plenty for a balancing 1NT IMO). On second thought , anyway, the hand does not seem very notrump oriented without tenaces and not many minor honors. Close call between double and 1S. Double may lose only when pard has 4333 with 4 clubs, and even then, he may have the right values to bid 1NT himself (probably rightsiding the contract since we have no tenaces): other balanced hands are lkely to bid spades with 3 cards, diamnds with 4 cd suport or clubs with 5 cards. 1S may lose if you raise aggressively 1 of a major overcalls (e.g. based on the law of total tricks). I think I'd double (not without a nervous feeling ;) ).

At the 2 level, it's totally another matter, especially at MP it is almost mandatory to compete strongly for te partscore to avoid lettimng them play at the 2 level. Besides, if you compete at the 2 level, you are *much much much* less likely to be doubled ;) The same does not hold at the 3 level. The obvious risk here is that RHO has 14/15 hcp stacked in misfit and has nowhere to go. This is a good question. But the main question is what will be par'd choice if you reopen. E.g. if he has a minimum opener (say 13-14 hcp) and 3-4 card support, should he bid game over your reopening at the 3 level ? In standard bridge, yes, even if you are a passed hand, even at matchpoints. The corollary of this is that if you reopen with 9-loser, your pard will have to guess every time if passing misses a good game or if bidding on misses a good partscore. If instead you are disciplined, you accept the occasional bad results, you avoid the much more common disasters, and above all you jeep the trust of your partner, much more important than avoiding one 25% board. YESS!!! me too ! :D

Happy Birthday my dear friend !! Save a piece of your birthday cake for me... ;)

Nikos, I thought you knew the bridge laws. They say that if you psyche you should self-report the psyche to the TD. If you have to report your own psyche to the TD, the most effective and helpful way to do it is doing it in real time (one thing that the online play allows without disclosing it to pard). After all, you should do it anyways, the bridge laws explicitly state this. The TD may choose or not to follow the development in real time, according on how much he is busy. This tool is not intended to be yet another obligation to the TD, nor to try to complicate his tasks. It is intended to be a help for him: he knows where and when a psyche is occurring and there is a potential for trouble. Much better for him to know it beforehand than after the facts occurred. Of course he may decide to ignore the psyche announcement, he's the director, he will decide. The button facility may be admittedly a bit cumbersome, but there are alternative solutions (none of which am I particularly fond, I simply like the idea of preinforming the TD of the psyche) : e.g. just using the TD call facility which allows to specify the reason for the TD call; the psycher may just click the exsting "Call TD" and enter in the box asking for the reason for the call that he is about to psyche. There may be other better ways to do it which do not cross my mind, of course. I simply believe that directors will have an easier life by knowing that a psyche is occurring in real time rather than after it has occurred and players have already lost their mind arguing with each other (not to mention the loss of time in clocked events). Mauro

LOLL alright, when such kind of arguments start to come up, it reminds me of the last debate I had with my ex-girlfriend :P And I had promised not to fall for this debates anymore B)

Probably it is, yes. With that hand I might just manage to scrap up a 1H opener ;) The trouble with "book standards" is they deal mostly with clear-cut situations, and disregarding scoring methods and table presence. Of course, I expect 3H to carry us overboard in many cases... BUT... (and this is the whole point)... since I'm booked for a near-zero if I sell out to 3C, I might as well "try" something. Technically, 3H is probably a wrong bid. It definitely is at imps, but at matchpoints things are different, and it might be just what you need to go from bottom to top (as was the case). In book standards they refer to both IMPS and MP scoring. A 9-loser hand is below std even for MP. An 8 loser hand may be a MP stretch (a 1 trick stretch). A 2 trick stretch is definitely a poor bid even at MP and even when it works, if the percentage of success is below 30%. :P

L'ho postata apposta perchè è banale ovvero tipica :D Per quanto riguarda le regole sulle psichiche mi sembrano allucinanti. Impedire le psichiche a basso livello non significa proteggere i principianti: significa solo che questi non impareranno a difendersi dalle psichiche fin quando non raggiungeranno un livello piu' alto. I principianti fanno fatica anche a cautelarsi contro i barrages, e gli scarti falsi...allora aboliamo anche i barrages e gli scarti falsi ? :) E' diseducativo proibire uno strumento che viene suggerito come buona tecnica di gioco da tanti giocatori di fama mondiale (da Zia fino al vecchio Culbertson). Cmq la cosa mi tocca poco visto che non ne eseguo proprio per evitare di dover discutere ;) PS- Un bacione a Elena :) , Beky :) e gia' che ci siamo pure a Giasone che gli piace tanto il lambrusco :P

Expecting a hand like the one Earl posted: ♠A9 ♥J976532 ♦KJx ♣x Is it taking too seriously? This hand is the right minimum for distributional balancing by book standards. Regardless of the experience of your pard :) the hand posted by helene_t is 2 tricks weaker than this one :)

Earl, the hand you posted is a 7 loser hand, way stronger than the original hand. I agree on balancing 3H with the hand you posted. I would expect a good partner to reopen with such a hand. The original posted hand is a 9 loser hand, it differs by 2 tricks, and it is not a small difference as you obviously know. I am not arguing with balancing with disributional values, I argue with the distributional strength of the original hand, abnormally weak even for balancing.