squealydan

I was doing it from memory, but I can post the link here. Hand 25. My link Looking at it now I see I got the vulnerability reversed. It was vul vs non which might change the non-passer's views.

If it goes something like 1m - pass - 2m (inverted) or 1D-2C with partner passing, are you planning to show both suits or just the hearts - and hope partner will work out that the flaw which stopped you opening 3H initially must be the spade side suit?

Second to bid, non-vul vs vul, matchpoints. Pass from dealer. ♠ 10.9.7.5.3 ♥ A.Q.J.T.8.3.2 ♦ - ♣ 4 What would you open? And any thoughts on what to do later given some likely scenarios?

I've just started playing 2 over 1 after years as an Acol 4-card-major-er. Was playing with a better, and more experienced player than me, and I was surprised by one of his bids. Sitting south, I opened 1H, pass from west, and my partner held : ♠ Q.9.6.4 ♥ A.8.3 ♦ 9.5.2 ♣ 7.6.4 We have agreed that truly minimal hands with 3-card support may reply 1NT then give preference back to 2M, so 1M-2M tends to show a little bit of promise. Just wondered what folk would reply with these cards?

My father lives in Germany (Dusseldorf area if it's relevant), and after talking bridge with me a bit he's showing some interest in taking the game up again after many years off. He's never played in Germany, and doesn't have the internet. (Yes, I know...) I just wondered if anyone could tell me what system you'd expect a typical club player to be playing if you called up a club and found a pick-up partner? My Dad played a very old-school Goren-style system and I think I'll need to give him some guidance on more modern conventions. If anyone can point me to a website with this information my German is just about good enough to understand what I'd read and pass it along to my Dad (though not good enough to search the internet to find it myself...) Thanks.

Well i was Bewitched at no. 10 and nearly didn't bother with the rest. But I persisted on. Reassuring to see that the best ten sitcoms of all time were all made in the good old USA! None of that Fawlty Towers, Blackadder or Yes (Prime) Minister rubbish....

When a tax-cutting president hell-bent on military intervention wherever he sees fit puts your economy at the bottom of a huge hole, I find it hard to believe anyone can believe that a tax-cutting candidate hell-bent on military intervention wherever he sees fit will be the right guy to get you back out of that hole...

Surely the greatest gift the writers of the Constitution (I assume that's where it sits) gave to the American people and rest of the world was the two-term limit....

That's why I wrote "(colour now)" beside those movies... perhaps it was my spelling of the word that confused you!

A big tick for this post... Of the really old films (black and white), The Big Sleep, Casablanca, Some Like it Hot, and To Have and Have Not are not far behind. Of the mildly old films (colour now), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Graduate and the spaghetti westerns. Of the films made after I was born, but before I would have been old enough to watch them... Chinatown, Mean Streets, Dog Day Afternoon, Apocalypse Now. Anything from the 80's onwards cannot be called an old film, but I can see how younger folk than me might disagree.

Playing a club game the other night against an occasional pair, who both play transfer pre-empts with their regular partners, we had this start to the auction. 3♦ - p - p - X 3♥ The 3♦ bid was not alerted. Opener held ♠ xx ♥ KQxxxxx ♦ Ax ♣ xx We ended up with an ok board, but I was curious about opener's behaviour. They did have transfer pre-empts on their card. I would have thought that she should think something like "I told my partner I had a lot of hearts, he has chosen to play in diamonds instead. I have ace-doubleton in support of his suit..." in which case the only decision is whether to pass or to raise diamonds? Is it reasonable for opener's decision to be influenced by knowledge that her partner is very old and often forgetful? If you choose to play such a convention, can you have a meta-agreement that "if you fail to complete the transfer, I'll assume you've forgotten"?

Lukewarm's initial list pretty much summed up why most of us in the rest of the world truly despise the Republican Party and most of its supporters. Even those of us who occasionally vote for right of centre parties in our own country. It's lame, it's dumb, it's untruthful, it's mean. Both the list, and the Republican Party.

Give partner the trump K or A and the diamond ace and you'd lose just two clubs and a trump as long as the trumps behave. (I'm not disagreeing with your view that west might be better off inviting than jumping... If 3H would be merely competing, then redouble to invite game?)

♠T.2 ♥- ♦T.8.6.3 ♣A.K.Q.T.9.6.3 My partner doesn't play gambling 3NT (not that there's anything in its place, just he doesn't like the bid), and I picked up this collection, as dealer, nobody vulnerable, imp scoring. Thoughts?

I'd guess 50-60% of players at my club who claim to play Acol adopt at least a 5-card spade suit, if not both majors, in their system. And at the national Interprovincials recently I played against a pair with a system described as "modified Acol". Modified meant 5-card majors, 15-17 NT. To answer the OP, in my experience it's rare to find a pair playing a weak-NT who open 1NT with a 5-card majors (unless the suit is truly awful). So if they rebid their major at the 2-level, they will often not have a 6-card suit, they'll just be stuck for a rebid with a minimum 5-3-3-2.

Shows that it takes all sorts, as I couldn't consider listing Doors songs without having LA Woman front and centre....

Glad you liked. The Mutton Birds are great. If you haven't already try any of Dominion Road, Anchor Me, Nature, White Valiant, While You Sleep, Not to Take Sides, Don't Fear the Reaper, Queen's English (in short, anything on Flock : The Best of... is a good place to start) And if you like kiwi disturbing, try The Chills - Pink Frost.

Thanks a lot for the whole reply (and to everyone else). But I really appreciated this part, which I hadn't given too much thought to. I was just trying to figure out in my head which seating structure would introduce more randomness, and so what approach to take if we were doing really well and wanted to protect ourselves, or what might help if we do badly and need some lucky breaks. Having thought about the make-up of our team, I now realise the above will be really important as we have one pair who are solid players, but a little timid, and likely to feel a little intimidated at the event we're going to, so it will be important to ensure they don't get crushed early on. Thanks again.

A random collection from the top of my head : 1. The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed 2. Van Morrion - Astral Weeks 3. Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See 4. Paul Weller - Wildwood 5. Radiohead - OK Computer 6. Aimee Mann - Bachelor no. 2 7. Iron and Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle 8. Gillian Welch - Time (the Revelator) 9. Jackson Browne - Solo acoustic (vol 1 or 2) 10. Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway and here's some songs from my corner of the world (NZ/Aus) that you may not have heard. 1. Hannah Howes - 8 (google Live at Bodegas) 2. The Jezabels - Unmarked Helicopters 3. Paul Kelly - Deeper Water 4. Hunters and Collectors - Throw Your Arms Around Me 5. The Muttonbirds - A Thing Well Made 6. The Waifs - Sunflower Man 7. Powderfinger - These Days 8. Paul Dempsey - Out the Airlock 9. Augie March - One Crowded Hour 10. Angus and Julia Stone - Hollywood

Hi all If you're the "home" team in a teams Swiss or round-robin (ie, you get to choose the pairings), - and you know your side contains one pair better than the other, - and you believe your opponents also have one pair better than the other, - and there are no system issues, with everyone playing basically the same system, then is it automatic to choose to have the two better pairs play each other? Would it matter if you believed that the opponents were generally stronger than your side, or weaker? Second question : If you believe within the pairs that there is one much better player on each side, and the opponents' better player is sitting south... - if you could arrange it, would you have your better player sitting east or west?

Against a natural suit opening, after [1♦]-1♠-p-? : I'd bid 2♦ with most decent hands with 3+ spades unless there was another suit to bid (new suit forcing for us). A jump to 3♠ would be pre-emptive. After a Precision 1♦ opener which may contain as few as one diamond, it seems we may want to bid 2♦ as a natural bid. In which case am I right in thinking that 2NT is the bid to use to show a decent raise? Or is a pre-emptive raise redundant here given LHO is limited to 15 HCP and RHO hasn't said anything, leaving 3♠ a natural invite? I'd be interested to see other people's defensive structures after the 1D opener. Thanks.

This seems pretty much accepted usage in North America from what I can see on television, and is spreading fast to my neck of the woods. It's not only an ugly sounding way of talking with the repeated "would have"s, it adds a lot of unnecessary syllables : "if I'd taken the finesse, I'd have made my contract" vs "if I would have taken the finesse, I would have made my contract". Worse, of course, is the fact that many times I have to hear "would of" twice in quick succession.

Sorry, I'm a long way from the US. All I know is Letterman's "great moments in Presidential speeches" hasn't been aired too often in the past three years...

Ken should not visit New Zealand. "Between you and I" is absolute standard usage here and the decline started at least 25 years ago, as I can recall my university flatmates using it. At the time I suspected they thought it sounded posh. Using "and me" in these situations has become so rare that whenever I use it, I half-expect to be corrected. Even worse, the opposite is starting to invade - object pronouns appearing in place of subjects. It is not at all uncommon to hear people say "her and I were talking last night". It sounds so ridiculously unnatural to me that I can't imagine how people started to use it, but many of my colleagues have abandoned "he" and "she" in these situations. I expect it to make it onto tv and radio fairly soon. And the word "good" has won the battle over "well". How are you? Good! Strangely, "hopefully" has never bothered me. It is so uncommon for me to want to use the word in its original sense, or even to see it used anywhere in such a way, that its current usage seems like the only one I've ever known. So I guess I sometimes fall into the "if it's how it's used, then it's correct" camp. Anyway, back to your original post - isn't the ability to mangle the English language a pre-requisite for anyone seeking leadership of the Republican Party?

My declarer play is generally rubbish, so could you please explain why is this the correct play?