Chamaco

I have seen many threads with people angry they cannot make psychic bids in tourneys. We all know that a psyche is not illegal "per se" as long as partner is unaware of it. My suggestion is that there could be a button "Psychic bid" alerting the director at the moment you are about to make a psyche. Online play has the advantage that you can selfalert a psyche to a director without revealing it to your partner. The TD in this case would have the possibility to watch the developments in real time. With the "Psyche" button at the player's disposal, the TD would also be more justified to opt for penalizing the bids.

Un accrgimento molto semplice quando state per effetuare una pischica è: avvisate il direttore al momento di farlo. In questo il gioco su internet ha il vantaggio che è possibile avvisare il direttore senza svelare la psichica al p. Il direttore saprà che siete in buona fede e ne terrà conto. Se poi il direttore è Giasone, offritegli un po' di Lambrusco e fara' tutto ( ma proprio tutto!) quello che volete ;)

yes but there is no way to stop in 3H even when it i the right spot . That's the whole point. And as i told, better risk the occasional 25% at MP but keep agreements correct. Besides, we do not know the hand of pard (6 good spades). It is likely the 25% scorec comes by not opening weak 2 this hand or not overcalling by pard. This is where the postmortem shd focus, not on balancing with this hand.

Maureen, I am VERY VERY VERY grateful for your committment and all you do. All the activities you do are great, and I wish there was something like this (and somebody like you!) also in real life bridge, that would be simply great ! I love the enthusiasm you put in. And of course the private club is yours and you do the choices you think are right. Still I believe it is right to express my disagreement on excluding indiscriminately all advanced players: those who like to make smart comments and interfere with the activities should IMO be excluded, yes, but my own opinion is that other advanced (42 being one of them) would stay there only to watch and do nothing. I think I can say this without necessarily having to start my own club :P . And yes, I do confirm that letting these silent advanced people in the BIL would not take away extra resouces: they'd just be watching and noone should do more that they are doing right now. I do not expect that expressing my opinion changes the policy, but I had to say it, I think it is right to express one's opinion :) Finally, let me again reiterate my compliments to all the BIL activities: as I said, my regret for them to be limited to a smaller audience, is an indirect statement of how good a job you and your team are doing ! ;)

No no I am not saying that. If it sounds like that, then I have chosen the wrong words, sorry for that. What I am saying is that I believe that biding is a very very very poor choice here, not a matter of judgment and that when this happens, I want my partner to know it (not yelling at him, telling it very nicely, if he is a listening partner). I will repeat it for the last time, and Ron has posted the same concept as well: if your pard passes 3H here he will be broke and wwe'll go for a number; if he has something useful he'll raise to 4H and we'll go down. On average you are bound to minus more than their club partscore more often than not, AND quite often we'll be severely penalized. This should be made very clear in an intermediate- beginners forum and should be very clear to any experienced bridge player. Bidding here shows one of 2 things: - having no clue of this bidding sequence: in this case i will be very nice to explain this to my partner; I am always ready to explain the reason of a very poor chice to a partner who tried to do his best; - if the bidder is a good bridge player, it just means he plays only with his own cards and does not intend bridge as a partnership game, not thinking of what partner will do, no respect of partnership. The sequence is obvious. A good player knows that it is impossible to stop in 3H if pard has a decent hand. I expect him to apologize even if the bid turns out well, if he does that, no problem at all. Bidding here is like passing a 4NT ace ask by pard, or reversing with 11 hcp because it breaks a basic agreement. What would you do if your pard passes your 4NT ace ask ? You would probably explain to him very nicely that he has no clue of what he did :). If he insist that it is the right thing and that he is a good bridge player the discussion may become interesting :P . I would do the same. Finally: I always make mistakes, but I do apologize when I do them, Luke. But in my experience, the kind of players who like these bids never apologize. Unfortunately, the kind of people who do this bid usualy grossly overestimate not only the value of their hands but also the quality of their own play and bids :)). They lack humbleness: if you tell them (aways nicely and with a smile) to go and study the books on these bidding sequences (there are books quite fine on this) they'll just say that they do not need books, that's theory but real bridge is something else: the typical attitude of people who do not want confrontation. Most of the time they'll be arrogant instead of apologizing, even if your observations on their bad bids are told very nicely and with a smile. They will be arogant because they will not accept that you teach them nicely what is the right bid because that woul mean to accept the evidence that they bid like a real beginner. But that is the plain truth: they bid like a beginner. Many of them put "expert" on profile, perhaps mistaking this term with "experienced". ;) But maybe you are luckier than me in your occasional partnerships. (PS- to avoid any misunderstanding: I do not believe it is the case of helene_t. :) The simple fact she posted the hand shows that she is willing to verify te correctness of a choice she made)

If you bid 4H opposite the posted hand, do not expect to play them undoubled :) (BTW, there are 10 tricks in clubs not eleven with the diamond ruff). But the point is that bidding 3H means play partner for the perfect hand, a common mistake to be avoided. Sometimes passing will lead to a poor matchpoints result (like in the case you just presented= 4HX-1 = -100 vs 3C+1 = - 130), but it is much better to recriminate on a single hand out of many, but having followed the agreements with pard than the opposite. Most other times your discipline will earn you a good result, and keep harmony with partner: your pard will know more precisely what to expect when you do bid; if your bid may range from 7 to 9 loser, your pard will be stuck all the time. Discipline is the key to take good decision when you are at a high level and do not have the room to explore further the potential of the hands. In the long run, sticking to precise agreements and deviating only in really close situations (this one not being one of them) earns the well-deserved unconditional trust and respect of partner. Sorry to seem insisting, it's not a personal thing but I do believe this should be clear in a beginner-intermediate forum.

I do not think so: The balancer is marked with clubs shortness and at least about 10 hcp (obviously none of which wasted in clubs unless it's an Ace) or 7 losers for his balancing. xxxx in opps suit increases the value of our hand (expecting pard with shortness). The 9+ card fit also increases the chances (added possibilities of throw ins and ruffs keeping trump control, less risk of bad trump split). As I said, it is enough that balancer has 2 aces and something in spades to suggest even more than game. A reasonable hand for balancing is: ♠Qxx ♥ATxxx ♦Axxx ♣x or even a distributional hand short in hcp but with 7 losers: ♠xx ♥JTxxxx ♦Axxxx ♣ Or whatever you want: just combine at your leisure any 10-11 hcp count or a 7-loser hand, with 5+ hearts and shortness in clubs and you will see that some layouts will fail (e.g. when balancer has wasted values in diamonds) but most layouts will make game either as cross ruff or as dummy reversal. This is a game where an expert wants to be despite shortage of hcp. Fit matters. I think this is a clearcut 4H bid and I am sure that anyyone who is so aggressive to suggest a 3H balancing with the hand before, will bid 4H with this hand opposite a passed hand balancer.

1) If pard has such a hand he must bid 4H over you reopening. If pard has a decent hand he cannot stop in 3H. If you agree with pard's pass of 3H here, you will miss many games when you actually balance with a real opening hand. That's all the point of the post. If my pard reopens 3H and I hold such a hand I may even think of slam: pard must be short in clubs, with as little as 2 aces and some spade honors, slam is easily on (barring club ruffs). If instead my pard can reopen with nothing, I'll never know where to stop. 2) This should be clear to the beginner-intermediates: NEVER PLAY PARD FOR THE PERFECT HAND. This is a well known rule 3) If pard has the hand you posted it may be more prudent to call the director (2 J's of spades in the deck B) ). 4) I will tell my pard, VERY NICELY, that despite his efforts to do his best, his choice was hopelessly wrong. :) Not to discourage him, but to make sure that he really understand that this situation is nowhere close to a "judgment" situation. Everytime I have told to a beginner partner that his choice was a real mistake, with a smile, I have seen that they were very responsive. If I tell him that he was "a bit optimistic" he may believe that there was any chance for that to be a good bid. I prefer to be clear about that, but with a big smile on my face :)

http://www.worldbridge.org/departments/mps...info.asp?qcat=O 1 Bob HAMMAN U.S.A. 4104 92.25 WGM 2 Jeff MECKSTROTH U.S.A. 4071 44.25 WGM 3 Eric RODWELL U.S.A. 3750 43.75 WGM 4 Lorenzo LAURIA Italy 3172 27.5 WGM 5 Giorgio DUBOIN Italy 3093 18 WGM 6 Alfredo VERSACE Italy 3043 22 WGM 7 Lew STANSBY U.S.A. 2822 35.5 WGM 8 Norberto BOCCHI Italy 2778 18 WGM 9 Chip MARTEL U.S.A. 2739 34.5 WGM 10 Gabriel CHAGAS Brazil 2738 40.5 WGM Does not seem too far off the truth.

I know the kind of guys you refer to. They psyche, make strange bids and are unpredictable although I do not believe in poker bridge at the table: often it leads only to arguuments with pard and in a Chicago or rubber game youur pard will get nervous and play bad. Sound bridge is rewarding in the long run although an occasional gamble can be sneaked in. In any case I was referring to the guy who did not double the 2NT bid holding a semibalanced 18 count. I'd really like to have him at a money game table. This guy is not a pokerbridge player for sure. Besides, I looked up at the hand, and the 2S opener had a hand way too strong for a weak 2 holding AKJT9xx and a side honor.

Regardless of what i said about forgiving or not (anyone who knows me knows I never get upset), the point is that here it is ABSOLUTELY NOT a matter of hand evaluation. I agree when you refer to a difficult bid where you may stretch by *one* trick. Here you are stretching by *2* tricks. (bidding a 9 loser hand as if it was a 7 loser hand). As I said, it is like reversing with 11-12 hcp or bidding a slam off 2 aces. It is not anymore a matter of evaluation, it is just grossly overestimating the hand. If a pard bids with this hand, I will never say "I'd bid this way too". Probably I would not get upset, but I'd spend at least one hour of our next post mortem to explain to him- very nicely - why bidding anything with that hand is hopelessly wrong. Bridge is partnership game: the first thing my partner should think there is: "What shall my partner do if I bid something?" This message should be very clear to the beginner-intermediates who read this. Discipline, discipline, discipline: even if you have a long suit, sometimes you just can't bid it, if the level is too high. Even if you are at Matchpoints. Sometimes not bidding it leads to a poor score, it's life, but one should play the odds and see how many times passing this bid out will keep him out of trouble. Just to avoid misunderstandings, "DISCIPLINE" does not mean "be rigid": you can use your judgment, and I love partners who use judgment, but only in CLOSE decisions. You may overbid by one trick sometimes, it's ok. Not here: here bidding overbids by 2 tricks, it's not at all a close decision, it's only a matter of will power, to restrain oneself from bidding only because we have more than 5 cards in a major. I recommend all the articles by Mike Lawrence on Bidding over preempts.

Declarer in south is seat easier to watch, but posting the real hand with declarer in any seat is easier to post with cut and paste.

LHO, holding a semibalanced 18, should have bid double (which in response to a preemptive bid is obviously for penalty in any standard) assuming your 2NT was natural. I would say that the biggest psyche of this hand is not your one but the one by LHO who did not double ! B) I think your quotation on "self-declared advanced" opponents is quite correct :) I'd like to have them as opps in a money game :)

I am talking of people like that: people that have played in national. The lectures of OliverC on Precision are useful to them too. Some do not know precision, some do not know a few hints, etc etc. I guarantee you, these lectures are useful also for people who win several club tourneys.

hehe, that's the easy way :) If that's the suggestion, I guess I'll tell my freinds to do that B)

You are right, my expression was not precise. The hand you show is close to a 7.5 losers hand. With a 7 losers hand (playing strength of an opener) I have no objectioin to a 3-level balancing so this is a good stretch, even if the hand has preemptive features. But with a 9-loser hand (the original posted hand) I think it is sheer lunacy. However, I have edited my post on the 1C-p-3C sequence, discussing the main difference with a 3 level opening preempt (in one case there is a sure club fit, in the other not).

I forgive a pard that makes a mistake, a revoke, or whatever. believe me, I understand all kinds of errors. The only time time I do not forgive is when a pard breaks grossly the agreements and he is aware of it: if he does that, he starts to play alone and not as a couple: he is bidding only his cards and not giving me a choiice to say my word on the hand. He is being plainly selfish and unrespectful. And he loses my trust. Even if the board comes out with a plus, I will not trust him in the next boards. I accept it when he makes a "judgment bid", distorting a bit this hand. But here the distortion is abnormal, by 2 tricks. It is like making a reverse when you have an 11 point count; or bidding a slam 2 aces off. My pard should respect me and bid according to our agreements, if he has some bridge knowledge. I would forgive a 3H bid only in 2 cases: 1) he took the wrong bid out of the bidding box (lapsus manus) 2) he is a beginner and has no idea of bridge. In this case I would be very patient to explain why 3 H is wrong. In all other cases it only shows selfish bidding.

No I would not balance that hand after 1C-p-3C preemptive. I do not like to bid over a preempt with a preemptive hand. But I would be more tempted at MP than the hand we are discussing. The situation is VERY different: in this case (1C-p-3C) we know they have a fit and we have more reasons to fight. After the 3C opening preempt and all pass we have no idea if they have a fit or not. Besides, I prefer to lose one board than one partner. -------------------------------------------------------------- Put down this way, this is a wrong concept. At MP you compete violently for the partscore if you are sure opps have a fit, and especuially at the 2 level. The old adage "the 3 level belongs to the opponents" often holds true. Besides, the point is to compete when you think it is right: here, even in those cases where 3H makes, yout pard will raise to 4 because he will think your hand is stronger. It is lunacy to expect partner pass our balancing if he holds an opening hand: he is supposed to bid game if he holds an opening hand that was not strong enough to bid over 3C. If he does not hold that hand, and he is weaker, RHO will double because he has 14/15 + hcp in misfit with pard. Bidding 3H is against odds: you may hit a lucky hand once every 20 hand like these, but you lose 19 out of 20 hands and break ptship trust. Discipline may make you lose one board once in a while at MP, but will win many other boards and will be respectful of parttner. This is a very important concept here in a Beginner-intermediate forum.

This depends from your slam bidding tools. Our problem is mainly to be sure of the spade ace and the quality of trumps. If we could bid right away any form of RKCB in clubs, this would solve the problem. In all the example below, I have found no solution for checking the trump suit quality, whereas the spade control is relatively easier to check. Option one If you use strictly 1st round control cuebids, you can bid 4 clubs agreeing the suit, and pard will not be able to cue the red suits (you have the aces), unless he has a void in hearts; if he cuebids hearts, it depends how you use 4NT during a cuebidding sequence for slam in a minor. If it is meant as ace ask (not a great choice for minors), it won't work, if it is meant as waiting bid (similar to Last Train, asking for spades here, the suit we have denied), then it will work. Option 2 If you use mixed cues, 4C anyways asking cues. if pard cues diamonds, we cue hearts: if he cues spades, I would be nervous about trump quality but gamble and bid 6 with all side suit stopped. Option 3 you use mixed cues, 4C anyways asking cues, but after suit agreement, 4D is kickback RKCB. In that case 4NT substitutes diamond cuebid. we bid 4C: - if pard bid 4D RKCB for clubs, we respond to his queries and we relinquish to him control; - if pard bids 4H cue, we cuebid 4NT= diamond cue, denies spades cue: we want to be in slam only if pard has the spade ace. Because we keep the bidding open pard knows we want to be in slam if he has a spade control.

I did not mean take over, do not play with my words please :P I meant just view the lessons, maybe chat disabled, without interfering with the lessons that are -rightly so - oriented to the real Beginner-Intermediates. Many of these lessons, I promise you, are so good that they also useful for many of them. It would cost nothing to let them access those lessons, I just cannot understand why it is not allowed.

Nikos, i know you are a good player, and we both agree that the problem stems from not opening a weak 2. I just state that if I balance here, my pard will always raise me if he has a decent hand (when 3H would make but 4H goes down), and he will pass when he is minium and opps have the balance of points waiting to double us. Bidding here just puts my pard in trouble. The next time I balance he will never know if I have an opening hand or just a competitive hand. the usual rule is that balancing at the 3 level shows a full opening hand in hcpo or distribution. This is much different here: the difference between my hand and and the requirements for balancing is not 1 ace only, but 2 tricks (9 losers vs 7 losers). The distortion is much bigger. I would forgive my pard for not opening a weak 2 with a so-and-so suit, opposite an unpassed pard; but I won't forgive him for balancing at the 3 level. In this case better pass, there are still good chances that we get a good score, while overbidding by 2 tricks your hand is much more likely to bring misfortune. Bridge is playing the odds. Finally, one more thing for "intermediate beginners": never try to recover a bidding mistake you previously made, if you at a high level (3 or more). Most often than not pard will not understand the bidding, he may run to a different suit, or simply you may end in an hopeless contract. If you misbid before and you are at a high level, just accept it. By the way, trying to recover from a bad bid and hoping that your pard understands, is likely to be sanctioned by the tournament director, if the opps call him.

You do not have an opening hand. This is a "weak 2", a semipreemptive bid which does not promise full openign values. even when one decides to evaluate an opening hand just in terms of distribution and not hcp (which can also be relatively dangerous because your pard will overrate your defensive strength), the criterion universally accepted is that a 7-loser hand has the playing strength (in offense) of a regular opening hand. This is a 9-loser hand, not even close to an opening hand: it is a weak 2 at most, and a bad one. Having not opened weak 2, we have lost the chance to show our feature (heart length and little else). If you like to consider these 9-losers hands as opening hands, I won't argue with you (but I would if I were you pard :) ), but in a Beginner-intermediate section, I think people learning bridge should know that this one is not even close to an opening hand and not even close to have the strength (no matter if hcp or distrubution) to balance at the 3 level.

An article on an italian magazine mentions the result of the poll "what's the best convention" held in Reno(USA) at the nationals. Grant Baze: he'd prefer to have no conventions at all. He mentions the anecdote of the old Portland Club, where all conventions where rigorously banned; one day someone suggested to allow tht the double of 1 club opener by opps was not for penalty; there was a reunion of the Portland Club Members and when they finnaly allowed the double of 1C to be NOT for penalty, Reese commented: "You made a huge mistake: you opened the door!" However, having to pick one, Baze chose splinters and minisplinters(he says 2useful to show shortness below 3NT"). Brian Senior: Splinters, weak or strong (intermediate splinters bid differentlky) bcos they help pard to evaluate the hand correctly. Paul Soloway: Splinters help pard to "weights" his cards; RKCB very useful to bid good slams. Ron Sukoneck : unusual 3NT opening (7-10 hcp, 6-5 or better in minors) Jill Meyers : "Polish weak 2s" = 2♥/♠ to show 5 cards + a side suit. Says: "I like it because it create a lot of movement" :) Bart Bramley : Flannery . "I like it because it covers a difficult hand to bid and it preempts opps". Second choice of Bramley is: step responses to strong 2♣. "The number of controls is the primary information needed by opener to decide if slam/game is possible" Chris Compton: Stayman. "Fundamental in matchpoints events, to find 8 cards fit". Compton plays non forcing stayman. Steve Robinson: Support double. "This allows to differentiate the type of support and decide according to the law of total tricks". Second choice for Robinson: Last Train to Clarksville: "One more chance to communicate extra strength and to hand the decision to partner, an essential action if things go wrong and somebody will have to be blamed" :P Betty Ann Kennedy: Negative double. "Useful for all those hand which cannot bid at the 1 level and do not have a comfortable 2-level bid". Eric Kokish: double in all its forms. "Nowadays double is rarely penalty, and there are lots of messages that can conveyed to partner. It is a useful and necessary tools, and requires thorough discussion of the situations of forcing pass" John Mohan: Odd-even carding. "They say that using o-e you may miss the right card for encourage or discourage; well believe me, this is much more common using standard or udca. With o-e carding you have all the options and this is essential when you want to convey the nmaximum info to pard. Believe me, o-e is by far the best carding system" Richard Freeman: RKCB is no doubt the best tool to reach a good accuracy in slam bidding. If used correctly, it's amazing how accurate you can be in selecting the final contract. Second choice: Stayman. Zia Mahmood: Blackwood "i want to know if we miss 2 aces because if it is true that u can make a slam one ace off, 99% of the times you go down when you miss 2 aces" Geoff Hampson: rkcb. "There's nothing I hate more than bidding a slam 2 aces off" Chip Martel: Transfer bids and every form of takeout/negative/responsive double " Transfer bids have many advantage: high frequency, may be used with many ranges of strength, right-side the contract and easy to use. The frequency of use is also a plus for non-penalty doubles, which let partner describe his hand further and help figuring the combined strength" Jan Martel: Weak NT opening. "It is good to be able to have a sound opening 1 of a minor, either a real suit or a strong NT hand" Barry Rigal: Fitshowing jumps. "They are a very good tool in competitive auctions, help partner decide" Mike Passell: Drury. "Using Drury you may open light in 3rd seat to give a good lead to pard and not going overboard" Bob Hamman: Drury. " I can live without transfer and ace asking bids, but Drury is necessary to stop at a reasonable level and to suggest good leads by 3rd hand opener"

Hi all, first of all let me state one more time how great are all the activities held at the BIL club. -Mentoring sessions by OliverC, Cascade, and many other great mentors (sorry if i do not mention their names, just that I ignore those who hold classes during my work hopurs or sleeping time :P ). -Tourneys with prepared hands and post mortem analyses. -a very nice bulletin assembled by the folks there - and fuinally, many many nice people !! :) So what am I to complain about ? :( Here it is. Yesterday I was watching one of the great OliverC sessions on the Precision bidding system. I promise you his lessons are useful also for advanced players (at least "BBO advanced"). I told a friend of mine to join but she said: "I wish very much I could, I can't because I have inb my profile *advanced*". I learned then that if you are advanced you cannot attend to the BIL. My freind also told me that she could easily create another profile with intermediate level and enter, but she does not like "cheating". I believe this BIL policy is unfair, for many reasons: 1) the level of many of the teaching classes (OliverC being one) can improve the skills also of several advanced players, not only intermediates 2) we all know that many times the skill level in profile is meaningless: I myself have "intermediate" but I have seen several "advanced" playing much worse and other people who put "novice" on their card who are instead real hotshots. Basing the selection on self-assessed skill level seems a dubious choice. I understand that a mentor has to prepare his/her teaching material based on a intermediate-beginner skill level and that the presence of stronger player increases the variability of the audience: but what I suggest here is that the activities remain focused as they are now towards beginners-improving players, and to let the advanced + players enter the club at least to view those classes, perhaps with chat right disabled so they won't bring up questions that may deviate the lesson from its basic scope. Since the scope of the BIL club is to improve the general skill of the BBO community, letting advanced players in just to view the lesson is not an extra cxommittment in term of time of resources. As for the rest: good job, BIL folks ! I hope you take this post as a compliment for the quality of your activities ! :D

If you bid 3H here, which promises either an opening hand in hcp or a 7 loser hand in distribution, 2 things may happen: 1- pard has a minimum opening hand and bids 4H, which is not a candidate to make while 3C was probably gooing down 2- pard has less than this, the hand belongs to the opponent (RHO passed with 14/15 hcp in misfit), they double you and you get a zero anyways. As I said beffore, there is no chance after this sequence to stop in 3H if it is the right contract, because, when your pard has the hand that alklowa 3H to make, he raises to 4, since he assumes you have a better hand for your balancing. Another bad thing, more subtle, may happen if you start balancing these kind of hands (even if you get the occasioinal lucky strike): pard will never know what type of hand you have when you balance. If you keep a firm agreement on strength of balancing, you make life easier to your pard to accept game invitations (and sometimes even slams!) when you reopen after preempts; if your range can vary so much, pard will never know what to do. Bidding 3H shows lack of discipline and of sense of partnership. I agree with all the posters who point out that opening 2H would be recommended and would have avoided this problem.