easy

because i gave u the wrong hand, lol Akqjt akxx xx xx

Today when playing i noted that my mouse was slowing down. There were quite a few players on net.. that could have been the problem but it was a first for me.

Hi mac This is Fred Wills i havent seen u in ages. Chandra has told me you r doing ok. Good to see your name here. Keep it up ;D

As I said from the outset, that was easy Well Hog i wish i had been playing with u that evening.i was the doubler of course. (no one ever puts their own dirty laundry out in public. ;)I held . QJ98x of hearts and an outside ace. declarer was void in hearts. i doubled and my pard led a Spade. Dummy won its stiff king and declarer ran her suit for 10 tricks. (knocked out my A)

yes it is obvious that pass i usually correct. But how do u get to game when pard has a good 17 with a diamond fit. such as aqxxx axxx akx x or Akxxx Akxxx x xx or qxxxx Aqxxx A Qx So although pass maybe "automatic" game is not out of the realm of possibility. BTW i passed with the hand and we were cold for 3nt.Pard held AKQJT Axxx xx xx

Kantar says (From Defensive Bridge Play Complete or Defensive Tips) C. Doubles of 3nt. 1. when no suits bid pard has a solid suit or a strong suit and an outside A. It's your job to decide which it is. Begin by eliminating any suit in which u have a jack or better. 2. When 2 suits have been bid by opponents. Lead dummy's first bid suit. 3. When dummy has bid 2 suits. You must decide from your hand. 4. When doubler has bid a suit doubler wants you to lead his suit. 5. When doubler's partner bids a suit. The double definitely shows strength in the dummy's first bid suit, so the opening leader must have a STRONG(i put emphasis on strong not kantar) in his own suit to lead it in preference to dummy's. 6. When doubler and partner have bid suits. Here the opening leader must use judgement. if a) his own suit has sequence , lead it. B) if has high honor in partners suit and a weak suit of his own , he leads partners suit. c) his own suit is weakish and an indifferent holding in partners suit, he leads dummys suit...for partner has promised strength in that suit. The most common lead in this situation , however is partner's suit. Well that's what Eddie says so in the above situation that i gave you eddie wants u to lead dummy's suit.

Will not scroll through the names on the main bridge club screen or the main club table screen. Is this a problem with my pc or BBO software??

There is a very good description of 2 way stayman after a rebid of 1nt in the OCT/NOV 97 Mike Lawrence Newsletter. I'm sure mike will send u a copy if you send him a couple of bucks.

A friend of mine signed up for BBO using her handle from OKBridge....... Then she forgot her password. Is there a way for her to find out what password she used to setup the account??

Matchpoint all vulnerable lho pard rho you 1d 2S 3h p 3n p p X 2s is a weak jump overcall. What does double mean???

Playing match points at unfavorable vulnerabilty. System is 2/1 almost forcing to game. You hold void xxx j8xxxx akxx auction pard rho you lho 1s p 1n p 2h p ??

Fred G. and his team of italians (world open pairs champs)and swedes were knocked out yesterday ???So was the jacobs team that included the world champion Italian team. Nickell is still in and so is Cayne. I am now an official cheerer for the Cayne team. :) And 1 pleasant note, the grue team which consists of a junior and a father son pair are still in the hunt!! If u want more information go to www.acbl.org

well i bid 1d, reached 5c and lost imps to the good player :)My auction would probably have gone 1c p p 1d p 2nt p 3c(natural) p 3h p 3s (natural but could be 3) p 4c p 4d p 5C Inquiry made a few comments that made me ask myself ......is that true. 1).He mentioned that 1 of the available bids over 1c p p ? was 2c. That bid never crossed my mind because i play that bid as MICHAELS. Am i alone in using that convention here?? 2. He indicated that if pard had xx aj9x xx aqjxx pard would probably overcall 1h. I personally wouldnt because i dont think the suit is good enough but that begs the question " What is the worst 4card holding you would have and overcall in that suit"? 3. He also indicated that it was very likely that it was the opponents hand since partner didnt make a "shapely" double. With 14hcp i think that is a little negative but ... that's not the question. Over 1 of a suit what is the worst hand with which you would make a takeout double (assuming pard is not a passed hand)?vs a major opening and then vs a minor opening? 4. He commented that the hand had was too good(i presume too many hcp) to bid 1nt, What does 1nt in the balance seat show? i play 12-14 over a minor and 12 - 16/17- over a major. Ok let's see if we can get some input here B)

whats going on here, there r 13 missing hearts and my pard did not overcall 1h. R the opponents playing weak jump shifts. if so it would seem that pard has 5/6 bad hearts since no overcall. Hum. i cant say double, not good enough to bid over some number of hearts by pard.(And its my experience that when doubling with shortness in a major pard always bids the suit and never believes i have fewer thatn 3) B) Dont like 1nt, usually not a good idea with a void, even though it does show my hcp. Pass is a consideration but i could be missing a game. So i guess ill bid 1D and see what happens.

Qui puoi dire un po di se stesso. Comincio io. Mi chiamo Fred. sono americano che abita a Miami, Fl.Faccio bridge qui in america. sono un arbitro e insegnante di bridge . Bridge e' mia passione. Gioco qui a bbo molte volte. se mi vedete salutarmi. ciao

my guess is that the tourneys will be both mp and imps. A little something for everyone

you can get "day old" information from the bulletins at the site. Just go to www.acbl.org there u will find a link to the bulletins.

Eddie Kantar has (what i think) is a good rule of thumb. If your hand does not contain 17+hcp(reverse strength) but has 14 hcp (all concentrated in your 2 suits) bid the hand naturally ie. longest suit first. If it has less than reverse strength or the 14hcp are not in your long suits treat the hand as if it were 5/5 and bid your highest ranking suit first. Obviously if the 2 suits r clubs and spades you can do what ever your partnership style dictates.

perhaps this belongs in a new thread but.......... Lott hummmm I remember when it became the rage. The first time i remember seeing it misapplied was at the local club. the auction went 1s p 2s p 4s down 2. The responder had 3 pts and 3 spades. When asked why they raised to 2 they responded because i wanted to follow the "law" ie: with 8 trump go to the 2 level. The moral of this anecdote? The law has nothing , zero, nada to do with CONSTRUCTIVE bidding. It is used to determine whether or not one should compete to a given level (usually the 3 level) I say all this because if when playing my partner raises me with 3 trump and a 15ct after an auction that has proceeded 1s 1n 2c 2h i will be very disappointed in my pards hand evaluation. Unless of course pard is 5 3 1 4 and his hand now values to something like 17+ in support of hearts. Lets say i have x KJxxxx xxx Qxx after partner raises me to 3 should i bid 4 or pass. If pard has the 17+ hand yes i should. if pard has a balanced 14 or 15 no i shouldnt. How am i to know which hand pard has? miss 4h 100& of the time if one rebid's 2n. Not likely if you have a good partner. Yes u will miss 4h if pard has a minimun with 3h because they will pass 2n.Let me ask you how you would bid this hand AJTxx JTx xx AKJ Lets assume you chose not to open 1nt because either a) your one of those people that never open 1nt with a 5card major or :) you dont open 1nt with 5card major and worthless doubleton.or c) you never open 14pt nt (when playing 15-17) 1S 1n 2c 2h ? r u really going to bid 3h with this hand? on the other hand if pard had rebid 2nt wouldnt you want to accept his game try and on the way bid 3h? And lets not forget those hands where we need to be in 3n when pard doesnt have hearts and has a good 14+. The only bid more discouraging than 2h is pass. Should partner with an unbalanced 14+ with a stiff heart pull the 2h bid to 2n only to find that 2h was the limit of the 2 hands? Or pass 2h and find that we had 11 hcp and bid 2h? No, i think not. Bidding 2 hearts makes pard's life much to difficult if you have an invitational hand and rebid 2h. The law of total tricks is a good tool but bidding to the 3 level to show a 3rd h strikes me as a very bad idea in situations where pard has shown weakness. r we afraid that after 3 rounds of bidding the opponents will now balance in 3d after we have had an auction that is screaming misfit? Not likely.

Although i would open x Akxxx Axxx xxx in any seat i dont agree that one should bid 2/1 with this hand. As far as we know this could be a misfit. Therefore bidding 1nt is perfect imho. 1nt forcing responses include hands that fall between 5+ and a bad 12 points. if over 1nt your partner bids 2c and u are playing no fancy conventions (such as BART) then your rebid should be 2nt (not 2h) which shows 10+ to 12 pts. Although you may not find your heart fit you will have given pard a pretty good description of your hand. If partner wishes to accept your 2nt inv. and has 3h ie xxxxx xxx x xxxx or xxxxx xxx xx xxx (where the diamond suit contains a worhtless doubleton) he will bid 3h on the way to 3nt. A rebid of 2 of a new suit (after having responded 1nt) shows a weak hand with a 6 card suit. A rebid of 3 of a new suit shows an invitational hand with six+ cards and usually only 1card in pards major. Mind u the above comments assume you are playing 2/1 100% forcing to game. If playing 2/1 almost forcing to game a rebid of 3 after a forcing nt has a different meaning. For example lets say you hold x AKJTxx Qxx xxx playing 100% gf when partner opens 1s you should respond 1nt when pard rebids 2c u should then jump to 3h. If on the other hand you play 2/1 almost forcing to game you would bid 2h over 1s planning on rebidding h over pards rebid. Confused yet :) Here is a rule i follow no matter what system of bridge my pard has me playing. When we appear to have a misfit i bid conservatively. When we have fits i bid agressively. Remember its always easier to convince your partner you have a little more than it is to convince him u have a little less.

See Fred , i told you we were dieing for that field. Its great now i've lost 90% of my enemies, and have been able to note things like "great guy but beginner" instead of "black" ;)

Anyone care to hazard a guess as to why we have so few matchpoint tables? My guess is because imps form of scoring is much more forgiving than matchpoints. I normally play imps but of late ive been trying to practice matchpoints (with my regular partner) As often as not no one will join the table. any ideas??

hi maureen. I dont know your favorite way of learning but mine is by learning from the best. In this instance i would say the best is a book written by Mke Lawrence. Its called Takeout Doubles. This book addresses all of your concerns. :) The down and dirty answer to your question is " a takeout double is made with an opening hand and at least 3 cards in all of the unbid suits." Shortness in the opening bidder's suit is nice but not mandatory. Shorttness means 2 or fewer cards in the suit. When is a double takeout? if a person has not had a chance to bid a double is takeout. Therefore in your example a double of 3d is takeout. Again i urge you to get "Takeout Doubles" by Mike Lawrence. He explains it much better than anyone here can :)

I think the reason John suggested setting up different rooms was to make the imps won or lost make more sense!. I like the idea of some way to make the imps we win or lose more meaningful. How many times have we played what we thought was a normal contract making only to find that we have gained or lost 7 imps because the "field" had done something ridiculous. I've only played on okbridge (many years) and here. So i have no clue as to how having various rooms would affect the "community". When i go to a tourney there are several strata all catering to various levels of players. Isnt this the same? Frankly i dont care if there r additional clubs with varying levels or not but i do like to think that BBO is trying to come up with a way to make the imp scores more reasonable. Anyone have any suggestions as to how to do that without having various types of clubs?

I started playing bridge (duplicate) in 1967. At that time Goren was the norm and KS was the superscientific system. KS, which was invented by Edgar Kaplan and Al Sheinwold featured weak nt. 5 card majors and the forcing nt response. (also during this time people were playing Shenken which was a strong club system) Later on in the 70 and 80s precision became VERY popular. In a club game of 16 tables you would see at least 5/8 big club pairs. Today at our club we have about 12-16 tables every day and about 1/4 of a pair plays a big club system. Thats rite less than 1 pair.Why I dont know for sure but i think it's because a big club system is much more difficult to learn and since most dont play it it's not worth the time of the afternoon duplicate player to learn. Today eastern scientific or 2/1 is the most popular system.(Im speaking of in the states) Why. Because it is easy to play (at least initially) I remember when i began playing 2/1. I had been playing match point precision and my pard and i decided to convert to 2/1. Our initial discusion was "ok if we bid a suit at the 2 level we must go to game?"" Fine sounds good to me. " end of discussion. LOL Finding a partner online (to play online) is a snap. You sit , you play , and if u enjoy your pard you ask them to play again. Directors could care less if you play a big club system. But you had better alert all of your unnatural bids. Does playing a big club system give your an advantage at the club level no. Is a big club system difficult to learn. no but........ it takes 2 to play bridge and that is the problem. It doesnt do very much good for you to know all of the sytemic bids and pard no. You must learn together. Expert vs advance. LOL if you ask 10 people you get 10 different answers. I've got about 2500 ACBL attendence points. If i play bridge at the local club im considered an expert. At a sectional ... im an expert. At a regional im an adv/exp. at the nationals im an advanced player. What am i? Expert or advanced?