Cthulhu D

Not sure what your argument is. Either you accept that regulation can be productive, and therefore there is an efficient regulation level X (indeed there might be several such points depending on exactly how the graph of outcomes against regulation looks), or you don't. I think you accept that regulation has a purpose, and that no regulation is not an efficient level of regulation. If you do, then the more regulation crowd are saying that we have less regulation than the optimal regulation level of X. No-one really knows what X is, we have to look at our peers and try and work out if they are doing it better than we are. In the case of the US, I think it's fairly clear which side of the scale we are on. As preventative measures rather than post facto solutions are clearly better with the economy, I think that the case that the US banking industry was (and is) insufficiently regulated is clear cut. The first step to fixing that would be to fire everyone who has accepted any sort of remuneration from a private sector entity to work for the public sector regulators. This is a disturbing practice and ensures that the balance of regulation is tilted towards the private sector. Indeed, the very fact this practice is permitted is hilarious and shows that US government regulation is insufficient.

Totally off-topic, what was your 2NT response here? I'm playing 2S as 4+ spades and a minor, but I would like a way to find out if P has 4 spades or 5. Or did you require exactly 4 spades?

Which leads to the weird situation that 2H as 4/4 in the majors weak is OK but 2D is banned.

Partner was an expert playing down with a novice so ironically he took charge but not in the way you might expect. It went something like: 1C-1S 2H-3NT (me thinking 'ohdear' at this point) 4C-6C which makes on the defence we got but 6H is a much nicer place to play. However I probably should have bid 4H not 4C

The most important stuff is discussing competitive auctions. The toughest decisions and the biggest swings are always on competitive auctions. It's fine knowing what 1H-(Opponent 1 Passes)-3H means. How does it change when pass is instead a double or a 1S or a 2S bid? So pretty sure you don't need Gerber, but it's worth looking at competitive tools like agreeing a defence to 1NT with partner (Landy above is easy and fine), and negative doubles - e.g. after an auction like 1D-(Opponent 1 bids 2S) - ??? Partner's double should probably show hearts. Obviously NAE, IMHO etc.

I'm opening 1NT and passing.

Damn, 4am is a bridge to far otherwise I would have liked to get beat down.

I'm agree that it's a good thing to write your own system - it forces you to think about why things work like that, rather than just 'operating' the system. I just also think that it's right to start by surveying what 'best practice' is and understanding why it operates like that. Then from that base, doing your own thing. You see further when you stand on the shoulders of giants and all that. Plus it exposes you to ideas that are a bit out of the box so you will question your current local maximum. Edit: It is possible that this reflects my personal biases from my professional career, where step 1 is almost always 'so what's everyone else doing with the same problem...'

I think the thing I missed in the bidding was clubs, hearts, hearts would show this hand. I tried clubs, hearts, clubs.

All vul, at a recent teams match (in which we lost), I dealt myself: S: - H: AJ974 D: 4 C: AK97532 Spots are approximate because the hand records are in my car, but I definitely didn't have any Ts. Playing 2/1 GF with 1C: Clubs or balanced, what is your bidding plan? I had no idea what to do with this. Partner will respond showing spades at the 1 level to your opening.

A question I probably should have asked in the OP is - assuming you sat down opposite a good partner with a complete system discussion of 2/1 GF with a strong NT, and partner bid 3NT over your 1H, what would you think he was

Not sure I get this. For starters, there is already a fall back rule. It is 'from any DD equivalent holding, play a random card.' So the objections to having fall back rules at all are illogical. There is currently a fallback. It is just not very good. Surely in these cases (as for Free's) though simulation is going to produce different values! If there is a danger hand, the simulation will find this! It's only when the simulations tell you there is no difference in what card you play from from your suit holding that you should resort to manual rules. In that case, it doesn't even matter if your rules are very good, or very detailed. If the simulation isn't finding this either then you have other problems. Remember, we're only talking about situations in which DD, there is no difference what card you play. The reason is to avoid the below: I am not sure why objections like 'if there is a danger hand' hold true - surely, surely if there is a danger hand your simulations will determine that and then the cards will not be DD equivalent. It's just to prevent cases like Barmar is stating above, where all the cards are DD equivalent. If you KNOW the cards are DD equivalent, there is little complexity - entry problems, danger hands etc would have been revealed in the simulation. You just need a totally generic fallback position. It is unlikely to cost if your fallback position is wrong either - remember the cards are DD equivalent... Then you can play a basic rule. Note that 'second hand plays a random small card from any holding with a single H' is sufficient to solve the problem above, and handles all permutations in which the two, three, five or 12 cards are DD equivalent. If I am mistaken, please tell me why, but I am not sure why a rule such as 'from any DD equivalent holding headed by 1 honor, play a random small card in second seat' is inferior to the current rule of 'play any random card.' Heck, I'm 99% sure that you could just change the fallback rule from 'random card' to: * From any DD equivalent holding with no honour or sequence, play a random card * From any DD equivalent holding headed by an single honour, play a random small card * From any DD equivalent holding headed by an honour sequence, play <random card from the sequence> * From any DD equivalent holding headed by more than one non touching honor, do... something. Maybe cover an honour with an honour otherwise play a random small card. I just pulled these out of my ass. Then if you can show me any scenario in which both these are true: A) Monte Carlo simulations would show that the cards are DD equivalent B) Applying these four rules costs over simply playing a random card. I will give you a gold star and commit internet seppuku. ;)

That's really good actually. I will give it a throw.

OK that all makes sense. With that said, what should be in 3NT then.

It implicitly denies a 5 card suit, so it has to be 4-4-3-2 shape or 4-3-3-3, so it's effectively choice of games. What you're saying makes sense though, maybe just pull 13-15 balanced in 2C.

A is easily addressed by saying 'pick either the 4 or the 2' from Q42 or 'random from Q or J' from QJ tight. B Yeah, it's only relevant when it comes to the situation where all cards are double dummy equivalent - so simulations indicate that it doesn't matter what card you should play from Q42 - the root cause of the boneheaded defence plays Banmar is talking about. If and only if simulations say 'nope, doesn't matter' is it worth resorting to pre-programmed rules. It should be computationally relatively cheap because you could pre-program it.

Playing 2/1 GF with 5 card majors, a 14-16 NT and an agreement to open all 11 counts with an A or a K, what should the sequence 1H-3NT mean? Currently in my regular partnerships we are playing it as exactly 3 card support in a balanced hand (4 spades is OK) with 13-15 points. This takes pressure off our 1M-2C sequences which include all balanced hands as well as unbalanced hands with clubs so 1M-2D/H are 5+. Are there good alternative uses for the bid?

Curious here: why doesn't it make sense to use pre-programmed optimal play to a suit stuff (like suit-play), if simulation doesn't generated a clear best line. So have a pre-calculated table of all suit combinations and when it's declaring it looks up the one it has and makes that play. It's probably most relevant for defence when it 'knows' that all the cards are equal from a DD perspective. It would make sense to fall back on a rules engine here. So have a default rule on what to play in second seat from any given holding.

Cannot answer your other questions sorry, but 2NT = 11-12 is typically in response to an opening of 1 of a minor. So 1C-2NT is invitational to 3NT.

2) People open much lighter. You will find many proponents of opening 4-4-3-2 hands with 11 HCP. I think Meckwell will regularly open 10 HCP hands in similar circumstances. However, a note of caution - the thing to remember is that it is quite likely that partner will have such an 11 count if you agree to open them (it's the most probable hand type in a 1C or 1D opening in SAYC), so you need to be judicious when responding for fear of getting too high. Lots of people play special methods here (Meckwell's 1D, 1H and 1S opening are limited to 15 for example) to ensure they don't get to high opposite a light opening from partner, but these are probably out of scope for a beginning partnership. At the end of the day, and opening hand is whatever your partnership agrees it is, and frankly opening lighter is more fun IMHO, but you need to remember you agreed that partner can open those hands, and if he's opened an absolute piece of cheese don't hang him for it. 1) The general objective is to find all your eight card major fits, whether they are 4-4, 5-3 or 6-2. Different styles here have different trade offs. 5 card majors are probably better in competition for example (partner can safely raise on 3). Overall it doesn't really matter, expert consensus is probably that 5 card majors are better (take that with a grain of salt), but ultimately I am not sure it matters. The biggest issue with switching away from 'standard' is that you are without support locally for bidding questions, but as the English have a love affair their 4 card majors and 12-14 no trump, there is plenty of support on the internet :) For example: http://bridge.soc.ucam.org/articles/standard_cambridge.html is a fairly standard 4 card majors system ready to go. There is no reason not to swap that for a strong NT if you prefer that.

Doesn't it make sense to say 'Yeah, it's a 4 card GF raise' or if you're worried that's misleading 'It's a card GF raise.'

The TV series is very good - it's up to to the usual HBO standards of production. If you haven't watched deadwood and the wire for example, you should do so immediately.

What's the GMT time?

How do you get 2C to always show 5 after 1S? I play the others as 5, but 2C is clubs or balanced because otherwise I am doomed with hands like: S: Ax H: Axxx D: Axxx C: AKx Or is it (4)5+?

Stackoverflow is rubbish imho if you are trying to 'discuss' something, but great for Q&A style stuff. We have a mix of both. Tags are money for jam, but unless they are well used by the community you don't get much out of them.