EarlPurple

partner has 4 diamonds.

maybe because we don't trust them to play them? Maybe because when I'm playing in a BBO Indy and finally get dealt a decent hand, I hope to declare it. If I open 1♦ with KJxx QJxx AKx xx what will partner's response be? 1♥? 1♠? 1NT. And I'll have to raise him, then sit back and watch him misplay it. Much easier to steal a point and open 1NT.

And the solution is: don't play in BBO indys

just lead the card nearest the thumb. Next question. How to be avoid being dealt an endless string of hands like these in an indy and getting an endless string of bottoms you can do nothing about.

I lead a spade. If partner has a different ace, can they take 13 top tricks anyway? I don't know, but less likely than if he has the ace of spades. Because I have the king and my LHO has 5 so the 7NT bidder could be sitting there with a bundle of tricks outside the suit. Ok, so what was the full hand?

How about this layout? Bidding looks a bit more reasonable. [hv=w=shkxdqjxxxcaxxxxx&e=sxxhaqjxxxxxdxxcx]266|100|[/hv]

Given that RHO has opened 4♥ I hardly expect to get a diamond ruff, he will probably be able to ruff high in front, and may even be able to then draw trumps, cross to the ace of clubs and discard clubs on the next two diamonds. And if one of them is void in spades then 5♥ made. Their hands like this: [hv=w=sxxhkxdqjxxxcajxx&e=shaqjtxxxxdxxcxxx]266|100|[/hv] or [hv=w=sxxhkxdqjxxxcajxx&e=shaqjtxxxxdxxcxxx]266|100|[/hv] though the 4♥ opening on the 2nd one looks highly unlikely, but here he can ruff 3rd diamond high, trumps drawn in 2 rounds, spade ruff and other 2 losers away on diamonds.

Is your system 4-card or 5-card majors? I have noticed a popular method nowadays: 1NT pass 2♣ pass 2♦ pass 2♥ traditionally used to be 4-5 in spades/hearts but now is often played as 4-4. This means you'll sometimes play in 4-3 fits but will not miss the 4-4 major fit when responder lacks the points for 2NT and has both majors. Now, whatever the merits of this over the traditional 4-5, is this something you would teach beginners? I think maybe - once you teach them Stayman they will use it at the wrong time anyway. But then I think maybe not - I don't think beginners should be trained to play in 4-3 fits. I prefer not to play in them. 1m pass 1M pass 2M 3 card support or 4? I prefer 4, on the whole. 3 with a side-suit singleton, horrible hand like this: Kxx x AKxx Kxxxx 1♣ pass 1♠ pass ? yeah, of course I raise to 2♠. My only worry would be that I've underbid, a bit. Kxx xx AQxx Kxxx not this time. It's a balanced hand and a 1NT rebid for me. If I get another bid I can show spade support now. There is actually a system whereby: 1♣ promises a 4-card major 1♦ denies a 4-card major. I'm pretty sure it's that way round. Should be anyway, as you can now use 1♦ response to 1♣ to ask for the major. So obviously a 1M response shows 5. I guess the rest of the time we use 1NT response for 6-10 and 2m for 11+. Might be the simplest system to teach beginners...

When there are long suits the LAW needs positive adjustments. Your only possible negative adjustment is for Qxx in clubs. That could take a trick in defence but be worth nothing in the play of the hand, for example, if partner has Jx opposite, or even if partner has xx and the opps guess wrong (ok the LAW does not assume wrong guesses, but let's be practical). On this particular hand the LAW seems to work perfectly though - there are 21 total trumps and 21 total tricks. The 5 level doesn't always belong to the opponents after all...

CET is 6 hours ahead of EST so it looks like the best time would be around: 11am PST (Los Angeles) 2pm EST (New York) 7pm GMT (London) 8pm CET (Berlin) 9pm EET (Athens) Can I assume that time and I hope everyone will be there. Maybe a few volunteer subs (now wouldn't that be exciting?)

I used to play 5 card majors and weak NT but: 1♥ 1♠ 1NT was wide-range 1M 2mi 2NT was weak. Latter treatment is fairly non-standard but works well. 1M 2mi 3NT is used for 15-16 hands and bigger hands can find a stronger bid by bidding a 3-card suit if necessary. The problem of opening 1NT is that it can be hard to compete later if the opps intervene because it is not so easy to find a fit when you have not yet shown a suit. Opening 1NT as often as possible is great when the opps don't come in over it. Especially non-vulnerable as the old rule of "you can't score badly in 1NT undoubled non-vulnerable" applies. (If you go as many as 3 off the opps probably have game, 2 off and they probably have a part-score that beats the +100 they score. I am, of course, assuming that our own side doesn't have a game somewhere!). This was a long time ago, and was mainly matchpoints.

I would have had BT Openworld. I signed up for it in June 2000 when it hadn't even started yet, and 4 months later there was still no BT Openworld broadband so I joined Homechoice which was the first one available at the time and I'm still with them.

I've played many hands in NT, when I had no trumps at all... Ok, seriously, I think I've played in silly fits but got bad results. The only time I got a decent result was when I was in a "run-out" sequence from 1NT-X and stopped on the way in 2♣ planning to redouble if the opps doubled. They didn't, and left me in a 3-2 fit. It went 3 off non-vulnerable but was a decent result at MP.

1. I agree with teaching them to play fairly early on. And that includes defence, of course. If you start teaching them to bid, they will never get to play and will get totally bored of the game. 2. Bidding should be simplified. I think SAYC, 2/1 and even Acol are too complicated. Simplify them. But tell them the system is simplified, and also tell them that there's more than one system, and more than one way of playing these things so they are ready to change later on when they are more advanced. It's like teaching a tennis player - you teach them simple forehand and backhand shots - they can learn to put on spin later and they might know that such shots exist, but tell them not to try them yet. 3. Competitive auctions are very important. Get them ready for competition. The simplest way to start is that all doubles at the 1 and 2 level are take-out (they can learn the exceptions later), all doubles higher up are penalty except for double of an opening pre-empt of 3 of a suit. Teach them the law of total-tricks and to support with support. I have found that beginners have trouble giving preference to their partners. An auction like this: 1♠ pass pass 2♦ 2♥ pass ? A responder with nothing will feel they can't bid with only 1 point or whatever so they pass. Another common mistake by many players is bidding their hand twice. That includes showing weakness twice. For example: 2♣(1) pass 2♦(2) pass (1) strong but not game-forcing (2) negative response 2♠(3) pass ? Natural with spades, non-forcing. Responders will not understand that 5 points is a good hand in this sequence. Opener chose to open 2♣ because he was worried about missing game if he opened 1♠, i.e. he knew there might be game on if partner only has 5 points. Beginners can even do this: 2NT(1) pass 3NT pass (1)20-22 4NT To me I think these errors show a lack of common sense, not a lack of experience/knowledge, and those who continually make this kind of error will never make it in the game and should give up now. But I know they want to encourage everyone to play, no matter what standard they are capable of achieving.

If partner has either black ace I can get a club ruff. And declarer could, in addition, have 2 unavoidable heart losers.

- At MP, when neither side is vulnerable this is actually the optimal time to pre-empt. Even better than opps vulnerable, because if opps are vulnerable, defending could give us +200 if things fall well for us. - There is a big advantage in having hearts when they have spades in this situation. Although they can outbid us at whatever level we choose to play, partner can pick his best response when raising, in particular can bid a suit for a lead. So partner could, perhaps, bid 4♣ or 4♦ over 3♠ by them. If 4♣ we know to defend - a club lead could beat this. If 4♦ then it's a double-fit and we should consider bidding 5♥ over 4♠ by them. 3. The only danger is that we are doubled and go 300 down with them only making 3♠. This might happen if we have club ruffs and partner has a singleton heart. However MP is about percentages and they'd do well to double 3♥.

clear 3♥ but I voted for clear 2♥ by mistake...

One day everyone will have totally reliable broadband. So you think it will be "safe" then, but no it won't, because I can guarantee you that once that occurs, they will continue to stretch things to their limit. They always do. I have no idea why these disconnections happen. All I know is that I have broadband here and it is supposed to be wonderful but in actual fact I have had so many disconnections and downtimes in the last 4 months that I would change ISP right now if it weren't for the fact that the best one in the UK (Telewest Blueyonder) does not serve my area. Uday and Fred are also at the mercy of their ISPs as well as limited budget. Big companies like Bloomberg can afford to have multiple servers etc in case there is downtime at one of them, but BBO doesn't quite have that kind of budget...

And how many BBO players do you think actually go into the BBO sections other than Play, and Explore/Vugraph ?

I have Jack 3.0 now. Unfortunately the play is still very very slow if you want a decent level.

Perhaps we should set the date and time and then work out who can play at that time? How about Sunday 12 December? Now we'll have to work out the time.

There are two ways to play them: - Grab as many tricks as you can, thus making the contract or leading to a situation where you have one certain trick to take for the contract. At that point you can lose control. - Maintaining control. This will usually happen when you have a good side-suit (which possibly should have been trump, but never mind). If you have Axx opposite Kxxx, a common way to do this is to duck the first round, then take ace and king on the next 2 rounds of trumps, thus drawing the trumps if they break 3-3 and otherwise leaving one winning trump out while you take your side-suit winners. You will have to set up the side-suit first, and may run into an adverse ruff, in which case you hope it is a hand that started with 4 trumps that is ruffing (thus a natural trump trick), or at least a hand with only 3 that is ruffing. Sometimes maintaining control will be achieved by throwing losers if they are forcing the longer hand to ruff, rather than reducing your trumps.

Reopening with a double holding a void is bad - defending low-level contracts doubled with a void in their suit is not a good thing to do. SJ Simon wrote about this topic in his book "Why You Lose At Bridge". Of course, in those days they didn't play negative doubles, so the sequence would have been 1♦ 2♣ Dbl (penalties) pass ? and holding a void he suggests you take it out. At a high level (eg defending 4♥) having a void can be good - it means partner has quite a few. So what is the difference? Well, as SJ Simon explains it, at 4♥ you are taking your side suit winners plus any trump tricks that come your way, but you are not trying to make more tricks than the opponents. In order to beat 2♣ by 2 tricks you need to take more tricks than them in a suit where one of you is void. How well do you think it would play in a 4-0 or 5-0 trump fit? You wouldn't normally want to play in one. But that is effectively what you are doing when you are defending a low-level contract doubled. A singleton is fine - at least you can lead one through declarer's hand once. A doubleton is best. But with a void you can never push through declarer's hand. Now, as for re-opening the bidding with a weakish hand holding 3 clubs or more, that depends a lot on: - The form of scoring - Your methods. Do you play negative free bids? What do these sequences mean: 1♦ (2♣) 2M (where M = hearts or spades) 1♦ (2♣) Dbl followed by a bid of a major and are there any hands where partner will want to compete but has to pass now, then pull your re-opening double to 2 of a major? If the scoring is MP, and you do not play negative free bids, or if the free bids are encouraging but non-forcing, so with slightly weaker hands your partner will have to pass first then bid, it is suggested you re-open with a double more often. Also beware, though, of how strong your opponents overcalls may be? Are they nearly unlimited in strength? How do your opponents overcall with good one-suited hands? If there is a strong chance that your LHO may be very strong, they may be missing game (in this sequence possibly 3NT) and beware of reopening to push them into it. And even at MP, losing 130 against their 2♣ will score better for you than 150 against NT even if they don't bid to game in NT. (or -110 in clubs better than -120 in 2NT).

By the way, Larry Cohen warns against re-opening doubles with a void. Too likely to be left in by partner at the wrong time. So perhaps here it is East's re-opening double which might be faulty (West might leave it in, and there is certainly no way to beat 2♥!). As it happens, on this hand 2♠ might play reasonably well but there's no way to know that, and it's too likely that it will play poorly. South should not have bid 3♥. If the 2♥ bid shows what he has, pass.

when I say there is no way to make it, I am assuming that West is defending correctly. Of course he is going to cover the jack.