EricK

I pass. Pre-empts work, but at least this way we get a plus score. Nothing encourages pre-emptors more than when you overbid and go minus.

Sometimes partner has a semi-balanced hand with 15-17 HCP. Or even an unblanced hand in that range with a singleton honour. 3NT doesn't require two balanced hands.

If 1NT is the correct bid on this hand, then what do you bid if you have a small ♦ instead of the A? I can't believe that such a large range for a non-forcing space-consuming bid can be correct.

The advice I would give is that bidding extreme freaks is hard. That there is no foolproof method anyway. That the variance on these hands is huge and whatever you do there is a chance that you will do spectacularly well or spectacularly badly. But luckily these sorts of hands are rare so bid what you like and try to enjoy it.

Because a recent poll shows that 36% of the American public now believe the government was either involved in or had enough information available to prevent the attacks. 5 years after the Kennedy assasination you would have been hard pressed to find 1% who believed it was a conspiracy. To convince 36% takes compelling evidence and not just the rants of a bunch of looneys. The reason these conspiracy theories are so widespread today compared to the sixties is the internet. What sources of information did people have after the Kennedy assassination? How easily could some random crank get his theory into a place where millions, even billions of people could see it? Note that since the rise of the internet far more people believe in every single conspiracy theory. By selective reporting of evidence it is quite easy to convince people of some really quite crazy ideas which the totality of the evidence just doesn't support.

I don't think Robson/Segal suggest really wild pre-empts in second seat even at this vulnerability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories gives a balanced account of all the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Well worth a read if you are interested in this sort of thing.

1♦ 2♥ 3♥ 4♣ 4NT 5♣ 7♥

If you had the singleton ♦A then it serves you right for not leading it. I have read a fair number of defensive books, and whenever the player on lead has the singleton Ace of trumps it is correct to lead it to avoid a throw in.

If you start with Stayman and find the Heart fit on this hand, would you also find the Spade slam if the majors were reversed?

When RHO opens and I have 19HCP partner never has 10 HCP (even if it is theoretically possible, he never has that many!)

Why is double bad? If you were going to bid eg 5♣ then doubling and correcting 4♠ to 5♣ is just as effective but allows for the possibility of playing in 4♥X.

So I can get a handle on this, what strength difference corresponds to winning 995 times out of 1000? Suppose one team were the top US or Italian team, what level of players should they expect to beat 995 times out of 1000? It seems clear that this will depend on the length of the match, so answers for various match lengths would be nice!

I would like to sign up to the double followed NT brigade.

What is the lead?

Suppose I make the hand ♠xx ♥Txxxx ♦AKJ ♣KQx (and you don't have a natural 2NT or 3NT bid available)?

If I may I would like to extend the OP by asking if it makes a difference whether you have a fit with partner's suit or not. eg partner opens 1♠ and we have ♠x ♥Txxxx ♦AKJx ♣KQx is everyone agreed that we should bid 2♥ here? Now suppose we have ♠KQx ♥Txxxx ♦AKJx ♣x do we still all mention the ♥ suit?

If North ducks the ♦ West has to play ♣ and South wins the last 3 tricks

Why mastermind when simple is best? Just bid the hand naturally for cryin out loud. Geez. Why is this masterminding? We are playing this hand in ♥ unless partner has got ♠ which are good enough to mention, and I am giving him information which can help him make the correct decision. That is co-operation, not masterminding.

This hand is easily worth an invitation vulnerable at IMPS. If we are not playing 2/1 as GF then I quite fancy a 2♣ response. If partner has 4 ♠ we might still find out about them. If he has only 3 then we might be as well off in ♥ as in ♠. If he has a singleton ♠ we don't want him to devalue it which he might if we mention ♠, but if he has a singelton ♣ then we do want him to devalue it.

It is important to realise that if you never go down in game then you are not bidding nearly enough games.

In your sequence, what would 6♥ mean instead of 6NT. I believe that in Kantar's book on RKCB it is asking in ♥. When partner shows the K, can't you count 13 tricks in ♦ (5♦ 2♣, 2♣ ruff, 2♠, 2♥)?

The poll choices are slightly odd because I would say that C was the strongest hand there, followed by A, then D close behind that and then B a long way further down. I would certainly open C, almost certainly A, and would like to open D as well.

But surely they would choose the smallest target which would give them the excuses they need. Why attack both towers and the pentagon and one other target when one attack would do? The attack on the pentagon was totally unnecessary from this conspiracy theory point of view. The 4th plane which crashed (or was shot down!) was also unnnecessary. Just because the US apparently contemplated this sort of thing in the past, doesn't mean that any attack of any sort is the the way they would go about it.

The trouble with 2♥ is that firstly partner might not have 5♥, so you may not wish to support immediately; and secondly, partner is put into a difficult position because he doesn't know how much you are accounting for the possibility that he is weak. You will want to support on much weaker hands than this to avoid selling out to 2♣, so partner won't be too keen to make a game try in case you are at the weaker end of the spectrum. It is for these reasons that I have never been totally convinced of the logic of opening very weak in third seat - but that is an argument for a different thread.