easy

1. Since pard is a passed hand i bid a lot of clubs. Maybe ill make 5c maybe ill go down who knows but i prefer the opponents make the last guess. 2. i bid 4h. if i bid a lot of hearts maybe pard will know what to do over 4s. I sure dont:)

1. Do you play 2/1 game force or was 2c. initially 10+. 2. Parter bid 2s over 2h doesnt that promise 3s? Had partner bid 3n over 2h would that have shown a strong nt?Would 2nt by pard be forcing? Would a rebid by pard of 3c been forcing to game? seems like i should have bid 3d over 2nt and gotten my pattern of my chest. I assume if pard had had a 2 3 44 hand he would have rebid nt over 2H. well since i dont know the above 3. i bid 4nt quantitave slam try if pard has not denied a strong nt.. 4. if pard has denied a strong nt i pass 3n

i would use doube followed by 3n. I like to play an immediate bid of 3nt is sort of an ACOl 3n.....long running suit. 16-19

yes this was the hand fred had mentioned. I however could not find an example in bridge encyclopedia thus i put it to our group here. After having posted the question i found a spot on richard pavlicek's site that shows various percentages. Those % were the same / similar to the ones Ben posted. Using the utility that richard has on his site u must add the various applicable % to come up with the best (in a vacuum) play. Anyone have a site where all the work is done and the total is shown

You hold A2 opposite QT9876 how should you play this suit for 1 loser. No other information is available What is the highest percentage play pls. And if you know what is the actual % of winning line. lets here from all of our statitician friends pls. (Hand came up yesterday in ebl cup)

This thread was started because i see a serious problem with the marketing of bridge to the masses not because i saw a problem with BBO's vugraph presentation. I am a bridge kibitzing fanatic. I have gone to Salsomaggiore to watch the european team championships, to Menton to play against and kibitz the worlds best and this morning i got up at 4AM to watch EVERY hand played in the championship. Let me tell you.. its BORING watching someone not play a card or make a call for 2-5 minutes (if this happens prior to every bid or play). If i (the same kibitzing maniac) became bored imagine the reaction of someone who is just getting into the game.And these delays had nothing to do with prooblems of transmission, data entry or simply taking a break. in fact the italian commentator said on any number of occasions "dont go away , there is no transmission problem , they just havent 1. played a card or 2. made a call ". Maybe slow play is an unsolvable problem. If so we will have lost a great tool (viewing of highlevel bridge) for showing the masses what a beautiful game bridge is. On a more upbeat note The commentators did a great job. I especially liked the commentary in the english room where discussion of various suit combinations took place along with bidding and play analysis. The Italian room was also fun but there was only one person commentating so there were'nt any diverse views expressed. These vugraph presentations are a great resource for learning how to think and evaluate like an expert!! (also where to find a good program for deternining the play of any given suit combination...."Suit Play by Jeroen Warmerdam" Thanks for giving the bridge world this resource Fred. I'll be kibitzing the World Championships in November right here on BBO Fred Wills

yes Bridge players at the highest level do think about more aspects of the hand than do us peons. I dont doubt that some hands will require many minutes to play but then others require only a minute or 2 to bid and play. As such the length of time to play several boards (lets use 12) should certainly avereage less then 8 minutes per board. However if a hand takes 30 minutes to play that is just too long ... The purpose of a bridge event (imho) is to put the best players/teams in an "arena" and come up with a champion. But shouldnt there be some rules of play. When we take an exam arnt we required to finish it within a certain period of time? Coming up with the solution to a hand within some reasonable time frame should certainly be included in the definition of a champion player/team.In tournaments we have restrictions on conventions allowed, number of players on a team, number of hands that must be played in order to be considered part of a championship team etc. I think it's time to include a time requirement as well. Yes it will put additional pressure on some of the players but so what. Maybe their problem solving skills arnt quick enough to play with players at the highest levels.

I just watched the second half of the final of the EBL cup. It took 2 1/2 hours to play 12 boards!!!! Ridiculous. We watched a guy take 5 minutes to open 1nt (14-16) I dont know if a slow play penalty was extracted or not but if not one should have been! Bridge is a game that is dying from lack of new players (under the age of 30) A good way to attract players is to show bridge on vugraph or on some large audience venue. If , however, the best players in the world take over 12 minutes to play each board. the game of bridge will appear to be the most boring game on earth. Young people have no tolerance for boredome. I think that in international play (or any high level event for that matter) a limit should be set on time to play a segment of boards. If that limit is exceeded a SEVERE penalty should be applied to the culprit. Maybe if the slow players see that their slow play could cost their squad the match they will speed up their play. Comments anyone. (btw i am so adamant about this issue i'm in the process of emailing the EBL, ACBL, WBF to let them know how i feel about this issue)

Yesterday i was online and went to do some choresand left bbo active. I came back and had 2 chat comments from friends. My first thought was how long ago had the comments been made. It would have been nice to have a time stamp on comments. Now as i sit writing this it dawns on me that having a time stamp on all comments received would make the screen much to cluttered. oh well it was just a thought:))

Assuming that one is playing against reasonable opponents lets ask ourselves (as the south hand) whats going on. Lho has overcalled vulnerable 2 D missing the king. 1. you have 14 hcp and the 2d over call has been passed back to you. Do we think its possible for partner to have a penalty double of 2d? Looking at the KD that is highly unlikely. 2. Partner didnt make a negative double and assuming (1 above) has few hcp. Give pard 4-6 hcp. (with more pard would try to come up with a bid) 3. Missing 26 hcp and pard having at most 6/7 it would seem that rho has somewhere between 6-9 hcp and yet took no call. Sounds like a misfit to me. 4. With 55 in majors need i get involved on this hand? If its a misfit id rather they play the hand. 5. what can we lose by letting them play the hand well not more than 5/6 imps.(assuming part score swing) What do we lose if i reopen with 2H (double makes no sense) If its a misfit we lose 4-6 imps assuming they go down in 2d and we go down in a major) 6. What can we gain...... not much game is unlikely for our side i pass.

Today when playing using version 3.4.12 our dummy left during the play of the announced last hand. The table was set to players must request permission to sit. i rejected the first request to sit by simply rejecting the player. The next request i used the "close and reject all" button. I still received many requests to sit and could hardly finish the hand since you cant play when the player request screen is up. What is the function of the "close and reject all " button? Intuitively i thought that if i clicked it i would receive no further requests to sit. Not the case??

has anyone else experienced this "outage". I need to know if my end is causing the problem or bbo. thx Fred W.

Well there seems to be some discrepancy in opinion on the play of this hand. for your info spades were 33, kjx of diamonds was in west hand. so.......... all of u that chose the 75% (actually a tad more including slight increase for lucky spade holdings) action will earn 35% of the match points and all of u that chose to play for 33 spades or the kd on side will receives 60% or better. I am proud to say i got 35% ROFL

This competition will take place in Rome , Italy October 10-12. It is a prestigious team event with the following countries competing for the Gold and 6000 euro first place money Bulgaria .... including bbo's Ivan Ninanev (inanev) France Israel Italy --- Viva italia !! Norway Poland Sweden I wonder if vincenzo of bbo has been able (or had the time and inclination) to get some vugraph coverage of the event here on bbo. At any rate good luck to all involved .

as i understand it kokish is slightly different than as described above 1d 2c 2d 5+ diamonds may hold a 4 card major 2H 4-4-4-1 2S Big club raise 2n balanced minimum 3C bad club raise 3D Solid diamond suit 3M splinter for clubs 3n balanced 18-19 Comments anyone?

Cardinal Rule: Always be friendly and make partner feel like they are your best friend other rules 1. Never make a delicate bid. odds r pard will be lost 2. Bid nt as soon as possible. you probably play hand better than pard. 3. NEVER make a takeout double at a level higher than 3. Partner will invariably pass thinking you x is for penalty. 4. Never place partner in a touchy contract. Ie: take the low road. 5. Do not use a splinter bid (especially in a higher ranking suit) unless you wish to play there. LOL 6. When defending play no signal. Why tell opponents what u have when pard is not watching your signals. Please temper the above rules with judgement.

Board 6 East dealer , Match Points Auction P - 2n - p - 3n Lead = 4H K43 95 QT9 QJT53 AT62 AQ A82 AK62 You ave just received a favorable lead and now can count 10 tricks but this is match points and the lead seems normal so........ where do you go in search of additional tricks?

a. I bid 4h (with conviction, no need to let the opponents know if have made an "iffy" bid). Granted 4h may have no play but it is game and this is imps. I'm not sure what a bid of 4C would accomplish and pass isnt in my vocabulary with a 6-4 hand and a fit (btw x may not show 4h, sometimes pard is stuck with a good hand and no other viable bid) b. if i have rebid 3d it is because i have decided to treat the hand as unbalanced and im going all the way ie: i bid 4h. However i would have chosen a rebid of 2nt (22-24). As we all know minor suit hands are the toughest to describe.... so we make a decision and live with it. I dont know of a kokish structure after the 3d rebid. If anyone does please let us know.

you are in luck. The bridge gurus have already solved this problem. The convention you need is called MAXIMAL DOUBLES. In brief when the opponents are competing in the suit directly beneath yours x by you is a game try and 3 of your suit is competitive. 1d 2c 2d 3c 1s 2h 2s 3h 1s 2c 2s 3c x = game try x = game try x = penalty 3d/3h = game try 1h 2c 2h 3c x = penalty 3d = game try ......but does not necessarily a game try in diamonds just a general game try. An excellent description of this convention can be found in Root and Pavlicek's book "modern bridge conventions". In fact the book contains very good detailed descriptions of the most commonly played conventions in North American tournaments.

I held that hand during the individual. my pard splintered and i q bid 4h. My pard signed off in 4s. That was high enough for me. when i asked my pard what we could have done differently i was told i should have bid blackwood over 4S. Frankly i cant imagine asking for aces missing 3 aces and having bad spades. pard held AQJx ATxxx A xxx surely after a 4h q bid rkb should be employed. Doesnt the q bid indicate slam interest? Note: it has also been my experience that the person with the singleton can utilize the responses to rkc much better than the person with the balanced hand. Well maybe some of the players were'nt all that good:))

i guess i mite as well put my 2 cents worth in this discussion. 1. value of hand.... before the bidding i would think this hand is a flawed 2nt rebid. 2. after pard responds a heart i will tell a white lie and rebid 1s. I dont like 2nt...not because of the singleton club A but because with 3 small spades i could be wrong siding the contract. I hate 3d because imho the hand is MUCH to good for 3d. (remove the qh and i would rebid 3d and ) If pard rebids 1nt im planning to bid 2h. I noted someone's comment that a rebid of 2h in this situation simply shows a preference. No one objects to that statement?? 2h imho clearly shows an unbalanced hand with interest in playing game with hearts being one of the options. If i held a hand that was only taking a preference to hearts such as xxxx kqx aqxxx x i think i would either raise hearts immediately or pass 1nt. 3. hum, is 2h after pards rebid of 1nt enough? If my club A were the spade A i would say NO.Since the stiff ace of clubs is not carrying its full weight i will settle for a 2h bid even though my hand has improved in value when pard bid 1h.The hand was originally a 5 loser 17 count now i would guess that it has become a 4 loser hand. Well that's my take on this hand. Btw if i had rebid 3d and pard bid 3n i would pass. Had partner wanted to know my heart holding he could have inquired. I dont care if we are playiing imps or mp. I think pulling 3nt to 4H is taking much to big a position. Bridge is a partnership game and pard said " i think 3nt is the correct spot pard"There is nothing about my hand to make me think i should overule my partner.(other than the fact that i have extra's for my 3d bid)

I really think we need an option to not receive messages from tourney organizers and all others that can override our chat options when playing in other venues. I realize it can be eliminated if u make the organizer an enemy but i would prefer not to do that....especially since i would have to review all tournament listings to determine who is organizer.

Last nite when playing i noticed a couple bugs. 1. sometimes could not play to a trick. Had to leave bbo and return then no problem. 2. i have lobby chat turned off but receive messages during tourney play from lobby . 3. again lobby chat turned off but recieved chat from tourney members when i was kibitzing at a non tourney table 4. during an individual tournament i played with the same person 2 times in a row.Was an unclocked tourney. 5. played in main club then began to play in tourney.....when i clicked on movie (during the tourney) the hands i had played in main club were included

imps all vulnerable 974 9653 T8765 8 rho opens 1h, p p x p ?? What do u do and why. Pls give in depth reasons if possible. This question is posted because last nite when kibitzing a very good player the obvious bid (imho) was not made. Interesting comments. I personally would be reluctant to bid 1s on this hand because if pard raises to 3/4 with heart leads u will be ruffing in the long hand of trump. so i would have bid 2d myself. however no one came up with the bid made at the table. That call was Pass And one of the kibitzers (an expert that plays with the "stars" regularly)commented that that was the correct call. How can that be?

imps all vulnerable 974 9653 T8765 8 rho opens 1h, p p x p ?? What do u do and why. Pls give in depth reasons if possible. This question is posted because last nite when kibitzing a very good player the obvious bid (imho) was not made.