EarlPurple

I could bid 4NT to see how many aces partner has, though it will probably be 1 or 0, and in the latter case I could be down in 5♣ with 3NT cold, partner having, perhaps KQxxxx QTx xx xx The natural action is simply 3♦ given that it's forcing. Maybe on the above hand partner will show me his heart feature with 3♥ and I can bid 3NT.

As a director you can look at one player's results but you cannot look at the travelling scoresheet for one particular hand. Might be a useful feature - at the start of the next round you can look at the previous hand's scoresheet to pick out the Ave- hands and adjust them where you can. Interesting how often, by the way, I get called to a table because a player is frozen, and just as I am about to substitute them they suddenly reappear. My guess is that they may have been dummy or finished the round early, and saw the clock had 3-4 minutes left so they went off to make a cup of tea or whatever, but actually the round can end sooner if all tables are finished. It would be useful if players knew this. In fact, it can often be better simply to make the rounds a bit longer. Especially the last one.

I have suggested this some time ago. I have also suggested that it is usually clearer to have South as declarer in any play-problem, so if it is a defence problem you should be sitting either East or West (and not South as they often place you here). That includes opening-lead problems - make me West please, not South.

If you play in, say, the main bridge club and play against the same pair continuously, you might get to pick up their "style" and play against it. Against pairs that will always compete to the death, you continue to push them up until you are just comfortable enough to double them then extract penalty after penalty. One of my most common penalties is 500 against 3♠-X - opps with a spade fit will rarely resist bidding them as often as they can, and will compete any part-score deal up to 3♠. Of course if the trump fits are bigger, bid 4♥ and then hit them in 4♠ (which you know they are going to bid). When you are declaring, watch if the opps always signal their count and high cards. Especially helpful to declarer at MP.

There's no way to make this. You can eliminate the minors but you just haven't shortened your trumps enough and it always goes 1 off. (By the way, I find your way of displaying the play very hard to follow. Much easier to follow is to keep the cards played in the column under the player who played them, with a * next to the card that won the trick, so it's easy to see what is led). And no, I disagree with your comments, I don't see players doubling enough. And I watch a lot of bridge and see big penalties go by, possible 800s and 1100s, often being substituted for -100 when they bid on.

1♣. If next time it is my turn to bid the opponents are in 4♠ I can bid 4NT now showing a big 2-suiter, then pull 5♣ by partner to 5♦ to show the reds. If they push the bidding to 5♠, and they just might, at least partner knows I have a good hand, something he wouldn't know if I'd opened 1♦. These hands are difficult in any system with pre-emption. Tactically, if I could open 1♥ then immediately use 4NT as key-card that would actually do the job perfectly - could find out about the 3 missing aces and perhaps the queen of hearts. The one good thing that is more likely to happen if I open 1♥ is that the next player will bid just 1♠ - he won't know I have such a good hand and is less likely to jump. This might get a 2♥ from partner and perhaps I can then use key-card. Not certain, of course, that the opponents have so many spades though. Partner could have 4 or even 5. Or even 6 - no reason why partner should have opened at weak 2 at unfavourable vulnerability if the 6-card suit is a bad one. If I do open 1♣ (strong) then hopefully I'll have heard some useful noise from partner before it's my turn next.

4 pairs could be: luke_warm and mike hrothgar and Free or The_Hog scoob and llamas keylime and his partner Weekend looks best, either Saturday evening or Sunday. I am thinking of making it a fairly long team-game, perhaps 24 boards. Do we switch the pairs around (so they play the other opponents)? That would mean they'd need to prepare defences to both systems.

We need 3 pairs. We provisionally have one, luke_warm and his partner. Then we need to talk some times.

I am with Ben, I think I will bid 3NT on that hand. 4NT in this sequence might be "pick a minor" showing good diamonds but with club support if partner has a genuine suit. I don't agree it would be Blackwood - you rarely will want to use Blackwood in this sequence. If I have doubled and partner bids 4♣ (what did we expect?) then I guess I will now bid 4♥. My other (obvious) alternative to show a good hand here is to bid 4♠ but with partner possibly holding no more than a balanced 12-count that could take us way too high. Easy choice over a strong club though.

The fault seems to lie though with your partner whose hand is far too strong. The purity of the long suit and the extra fitting side suits mean that the total tricks exceeds the total trumps on this hand (total trumps are only 15 but total tricks are 18 - that is quite an excessive difference, as it happens, normally it is out by 2 at most).

OK what do you bid as North holding ♠107652 ♥6 ♦AKQ7 ♣864 3♥? 3♦? Pass, of course. The auction seems an unlikely one though. Couldn't open the bidding, partner has shown no defensive values and has not supported partner, yet decides to come in with a double here, under the 3♣ bidder.

The downside of having ratings (such as the Lehmann ratings at okbridge) is that it takes time to build one up, and newcomer will find it impossible to get a decent game. When this happens they will simply leave. Chess works better because after playing 10 or so games against players way below my standard and winning them all easily, I should have moved up to a high enough rating to get some games against players who can beat me. I don't think it works the same way though with bridge if you are going to play with pick-up partners. Fine, if a regular partnership has to work their way up the ladder a bit (though should only be for a very short period of time). But having individual good players refusing to play with partners of a lower rating is not good for the game.

If you are interested in trying out complex systems, come and post a bit about the methods you'd like to try in the Non-Natural Systems forum. Perhaps you could also post in this topic what system you want to play, or do you just want to try different things?

You can also be swept away into a team-game. Perhaps the software could be modified so you would not be able to start a hand in the main bridge club when you are signed up for a tourney that is less than 8 minutes time.

that would happen in a Howell movement.

In 1988 it has held in September. I wasn't so observant back then and played in it, then immediately went and did the sport-aid run. I was also collecting sponsorship while playing at the table, so raised a fair bit of money for the starving people in Africa.

I kib a lot and chat in kib about the hands. It's safer up there - though I often end up screaming down at one of the players to DOUBLE! When I play I'd also like to test out methods. Makes the game more interesting for me. Perhaps I should play with Ben a few times...

Can't, it's Shabbos Might be able to on Sunday.

A tourney with bots playing in addition to humans may be interesting. It would be good to see if bridge can reach the level where the bots can compete - like they can in chess. Of course BBO do not arrange the Generali or decide who is playing in it, so I'm not sure what effect posting on this board will have. Also not sure that Jack has capability of integrating with BBO. That's up to the developers of both software to put this integration in. I'd actually like to load Jack's DD analysis when I'm kibbing, it is far superior to DF in functionality: Jack can tell me the par result for the board, and can tell me exactly how many tricks each play will lead to (not just whether the contract makes or not). Maybe soon, if I'm playing in an indy and feel the need to make a getaway, I can secretly put in Jack to sub for me without anyone knowing - although if bridge software becomes anywhere near as good as chess software you'll start finding people get banned for doing that (as happens at some chess sites. At playchess.com you get your rating deleted if you use software other than in the Engine room where it is permitted).

In theory we have 4 pairs already. We'll need to confirm who is playing in our first match, arrange a time and ensure everyone's system notes are posted. Kibitzers should have the system notes available too. It is, after all, primarily an exhibition match.

I'd be happy if one pair are a "we can smash your system" pair, but I don't like having to constrain either pair or team to Natural so much that they can't even use Stayman, which is what the Natural vs Science matches were. Obviously, whoever is playing will be happy to play against non-standard systems even if they don't intend to play it themselves, though if we can fill the tables with all non-standard (prefer that to non-natural) system pairs, all the better. Doesn't have to mean a strong club or strong diamond. Could be a system where opening 1-level bids show less than the normal opening range, or 1♣ denies a 4-card major while 1♦ promises one, or similar. It's good that I've had so much response already.

I'm thinking of having a series of "exhibition" matches, hopefully team-games at BBO, where non-natural and even experimental systems can be used, and we can watch them in progress and see how they work. Hopefully these matches will attract a lot of kibitzers. I'm also hoping that the use of them can lead to better bridge education for everyone, both watching the match and those using the systems and defending against them. I would like there to be at least one pair to be using non-natural methods at each table. The match should be set up in advance, and the pairs would have to post (in here) what methods they will be playing so their opponents will have time to look and prepare a defence to them. How to get partnerships together to try out experimental systems is difficult. Perhaps those who have one and want to find a partner to play it with should advertise in the "partners sought" forum - under a topic "looking for a partner to play my system". Maybe some players here will volunteer. After all, the matches are really for both exhibition and for learning, and there are no prizes for winning nor any penalty for losing. As a general rule, I would like to say we will allow players to look at their system notes during the bidding and play. Doing such would not be considered cheating. However if they reach undiscussed territory they must do their best and no table-talk will be allowed. Any partnerships, once formed, please put yourselves forward and we can start sorting out times for these matches.

The "standard" 1♣ opening can be: - A balanced hand, 12-14 points with at least 3 clubs - An unbalanced hand, usually around 11-20 points, usually with 5+ clubs but occasionally a 4-4-4-1 hand with clubs being one of the suits. Sometimes it may be stronger than 20 points. - A balanced hand with 18-19 points with at least 3 clubs. Because it is so undescriptive I have found that weak jump overcalls work very well against it. Even a 1♠ call can work well against it. Do the opponents play non-forcing free bids? (i.e. a 2♥ bid now shows competitive values, usually around 6-9 points and often a 6 card suit) If so, they are in trouble when the responder has a forcing response with 5 hearts. If they do not play non-forcing free bids, they are in trouble when the responder has a competitive hand with long hearts. Right, I have so far convinced you that a 1♠ overcall works well. Also a weak jump overcall works well. So I want to be able to come in with these sorts of bids as often as possible. Clearly we need methods for when the auction is our own, but we could start all good hands with Dbl and make most of our bids weak but constructive, whilst even having one or two bids which are primarily destructive. But whatever the merits of such methods, I feel that if it is licensed to do such things over a strong 1♣, it should be licensed over a regular 1♣ too. Not licensing such is caused by one of two things: - Trying to encourage weaker players to compete by giving them one system they may play with the guarantee that the opps won't use a complex defence over it. i.e. authorities like the ACBL want as many as possible to be able to take part in their tournaments (more money for them). - Trying to encourage all players to use the authorities' pet system, i.e. Standard American or Acol or whatever rather than a 1♣ system.

The reason for playing 2NT to show the weaker hand is as follows. When I have the weaker hand, my main aim is to push the opps up one more level. If they do this before I have bid my suit, I have done my job anyway, and it might not matter so much if I never get to show my suit. If I have the stronger hand, my aim is to win the hand. I want to show partner where my cards are so he can decide whether to raise them further or double the opponents should they go on bidding. Thus I prefer making the more descriptive bid with the stronger hand, in this case bidding what I have. By the way, I have a whole feature about this particular auction, particularly from the overcaller's partner's point of view, on my bridge pages.

3NT is making 10 tricks, 5 of a minor makes 11 but that's not as good a MP score for them and this is MP. However I think if 3NT is specifically denying a stop they are going to run out anyway even if I pass. Other tables won't have got the overcall and would be playing in 3NT.