easy

Today i held xx xx AQ AQJ9xxx my partner and i play 2/1 almost forcing to game. we had the following auction pard me 1H 2c 2D 2S (fsf)(a rebid of 3C would be passable) 3H 4C 4D 4H all pass The reason i bring this hand up is because here is a situation where i dont have a spade stopper or a primary fit with pard and i needed to know if pard had a stopper in spades. So my vote in the auction mentioned earlier would be that 4th suit is looking for a stopper in the suit bid or slamming. (btw opponents for reasons known only to them did not lead a spade and pard made 6h)

I'm not a multi 2d lover either...but not because of abuse of the convention but because i hate the fact that as the responder to a multi opening i cant always further partners preempt effectively. Lets say pard opens 2d and i hold Qxxx x Qxxx Jxxx If pard has wk 2 in spades i want to get to 4s immediately, if pard has hearts i pass , and if pard has the balanced 22-24 then we'll play game somewhere. It seems to me with all of the various hands pard can have we lose the preemptive effect of our major suit wk 2's. Im not sure that that loss is offset by the fact that the bid allows us to open 2h/s with 5/4 major minor hands. I like taking away bidding space from the opponents and multi puts a real cramp in my preempting style! Comments anyone??

how does one request the system to send them their password??

Let me make sure i understand what has taken place. East the declarer did not follow suit to a club. On the subsequent trick south leads a diamond and before east calls a card from the dummy he indicates that he has a club that should have been played on the preceding trick. If this is the scenario the revoke has not been established. (law 63A1)" A revoke becomes established when the offender or his partner leads or plays to the following trick. " Now that we have determined that the revoke is not established we need to look at Law 62 " Correction of a revoke" 62A states "A player must correct his revoke if he becomes aware of the regularity before it becomes established. How is the revoke corrected is the next question. Law62B States "To correct a revoke the offender withdraws the card he played in revoking and follows suit with any card." So the answer to your question is yes the director should go back to the preceding trick and allow the declarer to win the trick! The card lead by south is returned to his hand with no penalty. The fact that the declarer caused the problem does not negate his right to win the trick. Remember the goals of the laws of bridge when infractions occur are to restore equity to an injured party not to assign blame and then punish the offender......even though on occasions that seems to be what is happening at the table

I vote for swiss movement

yes i can view hands if i save them .......but i must save them 1 at a time. I'm going to play a few hands this evening and see what happens

LOL Good question. If a gun was put to my head u couldnt talk me into opening this hand 1S!! In my opinion that is a four card suit so i would open 1D.I have been in 4s down 1 with this hand type too many times when 3nt was the correct strain. I will gladly play spades if over my 1d opening pard bids spades or i rebid 1s and am raised by pard. I'm sure this answer will cause a little controversy but....... such is life. Good luck and keep asking good questions like this. It shows you r thinking the rite thoughts

Ditto. I experienced the same occurance. I logged the vugraph yesterday and had 1 hand in my file using version 3.3.14. I upgraded to version 3.4 and I just reviewed my files for today and noted that i had 3 files (05-10-03-1,05-10-03-2, 05-10-03-3) all of which contain only 1 hand. I kibitzed at least 5 hands each time but.......... only 1 was recorded each time Fred

Boy were u unlucky to play oppts that reached the Grand!! Yes if fit jumps were available that would certainly be my bid of choice however im missing something here....isnt 2S a good club raise? Had pard bid 3c over 2s were u planning on bidding 4H? The key to this slam are your great diamonds and yet pard has no clue about that suit. Was the purpose of your 2s bid to have pard think that your clubs looked like your diamonds thus after the diamond q pard was to think u held something like xxx xx Axx KQJxx

Ben said "I was kibitizing the following hand being played by two very good players who missed slam on the following combination of hands. 63 Q93 AKQ62 975 A AKT842 985 A86 The bidding, opened by South 1H (P) 2D (P) 3C (X) 3H (P) 3S (P) 4D (P) 4H all pass " 1. Given that the north hand is a 7 loser hand I would respond 2/1 in both imp and mp scoring. I like to upgrade my hand for fits with pard and good suits. Now if pard would open kxx Jxxxx xx Akx 1 heart i will change my vote to 1nt but if pard never opens 1 of a major with a 5 card suit that looks like a 4 card suit i 'll stick with 2 d response. 2. 3c rebid was creative. i guess opener was planning on showing a 1 5 3 4 good hand. Not a bad approach but i would prefer emphasizing my good 6 card suit by rebidding 2H. 3h not available as would be a picture bid showing solid /semisolid hearts and outside controls. Also my guess is opener played that bidding a new suit at 3 level showed extras (my prefered style) 3. 3h by responder gets my approval. I dont think their hand qualifies as a picture bid. 4 hearts by resp. would have shown good diamonds and good hearts and no outside controls. I dont think that Qxx qualifies as good hearts. For me good hearts must consist of 2 high honors or axxx or kxxx. Fast arrival..... one of the most abused bidding principles in bridge. I've always wondered why we start out showing an opening hand and then begin preempting partner. Like sex ......slow is usually the best approach. 4. I dont play serious 3nt but i do know that if i had a method to cuebid and show a minimum i would use it with the north hand. 5. If north bids again over 4h he is flirting with disaster. After having bid 2/1 , raised pard and q bid i think he has told his story..... on the other hand 6. South took a big underbid signing off in 4h. Even given that 3c showed extras, south still had plenty in reserve. a) an extra trump :) lots of controls, stiff as, akh,, ac c) an undisclosed secondary fit in diamonds Frankly after north chose to bid 2d GF i find it hard to believe that a good pair could stay out of 6. (i know the x of the creative 3c bid scared south but........... my auction would have proceeded 1H 2D 2H 3H 3S 4D 4NT 5C (1 or 4) 5D(queen ask) 6D (yes i have Queen of S & k of D) 6H (wish i had raised diamonds but didnt so i guess ill have to settle for 6h)

Last weekend playing in the finals of GNT i discovered that my partnership's forcing pass agreements were'nt clear. Years ago i bought a book(pamphlet actually) called Forcing Pass written by Eddie Kantar which discussed in depth the concepts of forcing pass. One of the most basic concepts was when partner invites to game and the invitation is accepted a forcing pass situation has been created. Another "rule" was if the partner ship bid a vulnerable game and the opponents "saved" not vulnerable ... forcing pass is on. And the really big" rule" of pass and pull applies.(ie) when pass is forcing and u pass pard doubles and u pull you are making a slam try. ok now for the questions. 1. does the fact that 1 of the partners is a passed hand affect these agreements? 2. Should forcing pass exist in an auction where you r favorable pard invites to game and u accept (perhaps taking a save rather than expecting to make)? 3. What are your forcing pass agreements in your partnership and does the form of scoring impact your agreements? 4. What criteria do you use to decide whether to pass or bid on when its clear that the forcing pass is on.

Yesterday i attempted to view the hands i had played and got a big shock. In order to view a hand i must first download the hand and then view it. What a time consumer ??? I attempted to open the file rather than save it and got the following message Windows cannot find "C:Documents and SettingsFredContent.IE5RQ4VTOXhistory[1].lin" Make sure you typed the name correctly and then try again. To search for a file click the Start button and then click Search. This first happened using version 3.3.14 i then upgraded to version 3.4 and the problem continues. Has anyone else experienced this problem and is there an easy fix. My operating system is xp pro Thx Fred

I was going to leave this thread alone but.......... i can't. Steve if you have the above hand and pard opens 1d and rebids 2c pass is not a reasonable option. I think most would rebid 2n, some mite only bid 3c but no one would pass. Here is why. Assuming strong nt. when pard opens 1m and rebids 1nt they show 11-14hcp. when pard opens 1X and rebids 2y their range is from 11- to a bad 17/18. (For this reason i tend to rebid nt with 2254 and 11-14 and rebid 2x with 15-17)With the above hand u simply cant afford to pass.... pard may have a hand that falls in the 15-17/18 category. heck on a good day you may make 6c opposite x xx Akxxx AKxxx even with the wasted spade king it doesnt take much more than 22 clubs and 42 diamonds Wouldnt it seem a tad silly to be in 2c making 5/6 ??

Inquiry (Ben) has mentioned in almost every post possible how wonderful the approach to bidding is that is expounded by Robson and Segal. (Just kidding Ben) Finally i downloaded the book (all 254 pages of it) and am in the process of reading it. At first blush i like what im reading but i have a little problem. Partnerhip bidding (PB) uses lots of fit showing jumps at both the 3 and 4 levels. I like this but i am currently playing weak jump shifts in competition as well as some modified bergen responses in uncontested auctions after pard has opened 1 major. Here is my question: what do u do with the hands that i would have made a weak jump shift in competition. Such as 1C 1S 3H (weak) holding xx KJT9xx xx Kxx or x AQJTxx xxx xxx or 1H 1S 3D (weak) holding the same hands as above but the long suit would be diamonds. Are you bidding them at 2 level or beginning with 1 suited negative double, planning on bidding the suit over partners response.. I plan on going through the entire book so be prepared for lots of questions about the PB notes :)

hi roland I was somewhat surprised by your sarcasm but I thought u mite be interested in the response. "It rightsides the NT? So you had bid 1 NT with AQx,Jxx,xx,KQTxx? Just to rightside your contract? Wow interessting way. " I dont raise with 3 for the purpose of rightsiding the contract i do it because the other alternative (rebidding nt with a worthless doubleton) is less attractive. Right siding the contract is just an added plus. And yes i would raise pard with the above holding. "How do you decide when to "rightside" the contract?" Quite simple, with a minimum and a worhtless doubleton or a singleton i raise my pard. If you are really interested in the reasoning behind it check out a thread i started some time ago re "When to raise with 3 trump. or check out Mike Lawrence's "2 over 1 Workbook. It has an entire chapter re when to raise with 3. "And there are one or two ways to play the 5-3 fit even after a 1 NT rebid. If you wish, check the next bridge library about new minor forcing, texas, checkback etc. " Thx but i'm well aware of those conventions. Although im not sure how texas (as I know it) applies to the above auction. "With strong hand you really have no problems at all. But with weaker hands, you just play 2 Heart with 3433 opps 3334 instead of 1 NT. What a great idea. " None of the above examples would be hands where i would raise pard. :) Easy

Good job Steve! When u first suggested to me that this hand should be posted here in forum i thought to myself "is he kidding? This is crystal clear that pard has denied a club control. " I have enjoyed the discussion of this hand immensely but like you my position hasnt changed.For those of you that arn't aware i was the opening bidder on this hand. Now i will give you my perspective on the hand. Holding AKQ jxx xx QTxxx In my opinion raising hearts is a much better alternative than rebidding 1nt. Raising hearts works immediately on all hands where pard has 5 and still allows you to get to nt from the correct side when pard has only 4h and inv or forcing to game values. When pard rebid 3d i took that as either 1) game try with hearts as trump or 2) slam try with a diamond q bid. (could be natural but always slamming) If pard was making a game try i wasnt interested in playing game with my minimum and 10 of my hcp in my short suits. if pard is making a slam try over 3h he would let me know by making another q bid.(note: based on many of the comments re my bid of 3h over 3d it seems that either most dont make game tries when playing or they would accept the game try with my hand and bid 3n.... I 'd like to here from those that bid 3nt as to what their reasoning was. When pard bid 4d i knew he was slamming and DENIED a club control. Now although i had great spade control that wasnt going to help if we were about to lose the first 2/3 clubs. I've seen your comments re: the need for a spade q bid and i dont buy your reasoning but that's ok as long as u and your partner agree with your style. My style of q bidding is as follows. 1st rd controls, then second rd controls. So when my pard bid 3d initially it was a game try, the second time it was a 2nd round control of d and denied 1st or 2nd round control of clubs. (3d had become a 1st rd control q bid after i had turned down his game try and he q bid again) One thing this thread has shown me is that q bidding although done by everyone doesnt mean the same thing for everyone. So if you are planning on developing a regular partnership here on bbo (or anywhere else) you had better have some in depth discussions about style!

Most seem to think that opener should rebid 3n over 3d. Question. If 3d is a game try with hearts as trump suit. should opener accept the game try by bidding 3n or reject the game try and bid 3h?

regarding the hand A xx aktxx aqjxx "As a practical matter, I would open either of the hands 1C and reverse in diamonds, then bid diamonds again to show my pattern if partner doesnt return to clubs. It saves an entire level of bidding vs. breaking the unequal suits requirement. In the 2d case (where i have removed the ace of clubs), that economy may well be necessary (its hard to stop below 3nt with this hand after a jump shift), and if partner is on a relative bust that savings is worth it. " reply In normal bidding when bidding 2 suits every time u rebid a second suit you show equal or more length in the first bid suit. There fore if you open clubs and bid diamonds twice pard has the rite to expect u to hold 6clubs not 5. Also (in std american bidding) reverses are not a game forces but a 1 round force. They range from a great 16 to 21 hcp (unless the hand is wildly distributional in which case it could have fewer hcp)if you have a game force and reverse your 3rd bid must indicate such.Opening 1d and jumpshifting into clubs seems appropriate to me in the first instance. In the example given where the C A is removed leaving A xx Aktxx qjxxx i see no reason to do anything other than open 1d and rebid 2c. After all, that auction does include hands that fall in the 12-17 hcp range......doesnt it.

i just played a hand where my pard was in 5h x down 2 (not vul). he claimed down 2 and the score was reported -2300. Fortunately we were playing mp. so our teammates werent angry with us. (lol) This was using the 3.3.14 version

No Ben i think he's talking about a Stratified event. Statified events have become extremely popular because the field is divided into 3 strata, a , b and c.These strata at a regional event are typically >2000 = a, >500<2000 = b and all other =C.In this stratified event we play against all of the players of all levels and our performance is compared against all of the stratas Lets say that im playing in strata c and i have a 62% game. First my score is compared against the c players and we find that my score is the highest in the c strata. I'm now entitled to .80 masterpoiint. Secondly my score is compared to the strata b players.We find that im also first in B, and the 1st place award in b is 2.00. We then compare my score to strata A and we find that im 4 in A and the masterpoint award is 2.4. The actual masterpoint award that i will receive is 2.4 the highest of the 3 awards i am entitled to.Therefore on an overall stratafied result sheet you mite see a player from a lower strata with 3 rankings. Such as [fixed] A B C Easy 4 1 1 [/fixed] There r 2 major differences between a stratified event and a flighted event. 1)In the flighted event flites b and c never play against flite A. whereas in a stratified event you play against all levels of players and 2) in Flighted events your performance is compared against your flite only whereas in stratified your score is compared against all stratas.

If you would like to see a picture of Fred G. and his teammates after having won the OPEN SWISS TEAMS (major national team event at the just concluded Philadelphia nationals. ) click here www.federbridge.it/FIGB/News/101-200/news168.html Congratulations Fred G. ;D well done Fred W.

Si vincenzo hai ragione. ci siamo incontrati a gaeta l'anno scorso. Purtroppo quest'hanno non andiamo a gaeta :) pero andiamo a stentino e mentone. Giusippe continua a giocare a bridge? Spero di si. abbiamo bisogno dei ragazzi nel gioco. Se vai a gaeta quest'estate dire a tutti che ho detto CIAO

Good solution, Ben, your line does seem to be 100%.Mine does not cater to a 6- 4- 2-1 heart distribution. nor did i cater to the d h squeeze. I thought about this hand for about 30 minutes while riding my bike. At the table i'm sure i would have gone down because i wouldnt have that much time to solve the problem. How long did it take u to solve problem?

here it is R63 AQ62 5432 73 AQJ108 KJ 7 AKQ62 The way I see it this hand is cold if we can guess lho's distribution. I dont see any squeeze because if lho can be squeezed in clubs and diamonds line 2 below works. 1. If lho is - xxxxx xxxxxxx x win spade in hand cash ak clubs and rough 2 clubs in dummy using hearts as entries to my hand 2. if lho is - x xxxxxxx xxxxx win spade in hand cash kj h go to dummy with k spades, cash 2h pitching 2 clubs then return to hand in trump. 3. if lho is - xxxx xxxxxxx xx i need to cash kj h , ak club ruff club , return to hand in trump pulling all o/s trump 4. - xx xxxxxxx xxxx Win spade in hand cash kj h ak club ruff club with ks and return to hand with trump 5. If lho is - xxx xxxxxxx xxx any of the above lines of play work. Since cashing the kj of hearts allows me the most flexibilty i will take that approach. if lho shows out on 1st or 2nd heart i will use line 2. if lho follows to both hearts i will use line 4.Taking this approach works with all of the above holdings except line # 1.

Pard led spade. Post modified to reflect that. I guess it's time to go to bed because my post r makeing less sense every time.rofl