NemoJames

I remember my teacher telling me that the priority is always to try and set the contract even if involves greater risk. Leading a ♥ guarantees the contract will succeed. I realise my partner being void is a long-shot but it offers the only chance of setting the contract. If partner is void and trumps the first trick, there is a 50% chance they return a ♦ and the contract fails. However, I can see that being match points makes all the difference and that the risk of an extra overtrick might be too high. Ironically, all tables made +1 except one table that went down against an opening lead of K♣ by a beginner.

I had this unusual situation recently where I had to decide what was the least bad opening lead. I am West with this hand ♠ KJTxxx ♦ Axx ♣ Kx ♥ xx S - 2♣--- 3♥ W - 2♠--- Pass N - Pass----- Pass E - Pass---- 4♥ I know there is only a very slim chance of setting this contract or avoiding overtricks and it seems to me that the only hope is my partner has a void in spades. The other slim chance is if my partner has an honour and if I lead anything but spades to declarer that honour will be worthless. What would you lead?

in the spirit of keeping it simple: My partner has either king of clubs or of spades. There is a 50% chance of one of those kings being a king of spades. If it isn't then an impasse has a 50% chance of working. The percentage for those two events must be correct and not dependent on what anyone else holds. Being 50% they are the same as the toss of a coin. For the sake of argument, if I am certain that 7NT will make if either event is true then what are the percentages if you combine those two events. I had assumed it would be 75% which is what has been suggested. With that in mind would it be wise to try for 7NT when there is a 75% chance of success. Personally I wouldn't but I have seen other players bid on much lower percentages than that.

This was a casual game on one table with friends and it was the last game of the day so a bit of fun really. We had between 33 an 35 points with a long spade suit. After asking for control cards I correctly assessed that if partner had the king or the king was with east we would have 7NT and it made no difference what other cards the opps held. Needless to say West had the king of spades. If it had been in a tournament I would have signed off at 6nt but afterwards I was wondering what the odds were and assuming they were 75% whether it would be worth taking a chance although I doubt if I would ever have the courage .

I tried googling this but the answers gave me a headache and it is bridge related. If I flip a coin once I know the odds of it being heads are 50% What are the odds if I flip it twice and I win if either flip comes up heads? So I have two chances of making a grand slam, one if my partner (north) has King of spades, or if he doesn't I also win if East has king of spades.

This seems to contradict most of what is said in this thread and seems logical to me. A committee of judges say I have a right to ask a bidders partner to leave the table and ask what the bid meant. Event: Life Master Pairs, 12 August, Second Semi-final Session Board 3 Dealer: South Vulnerability: East/West The Facts: 2 made two, plus 110 for N/S. The Director was called after dummy was displayed. South believed she had made a Support Double. North did not believe that anyone played Support Doubles after 1 No Trump overcalls. North was unsure as to the meaning of the double. The Director allowed the table result to stand since neither East nor West had any clear action. The Appeal: E/W appealed the Director's ruling. North and West were the only players to attend the hearing. West believed that had he known South was making a Support Double, he might have bid 2 No Trump. He believed that North should not have removed the double. North said that South was a relatively inexperienced player, a student of his, though a Life Master. He had explained at the table that his partner might have meant the double as Support Double, though he was not sure. He believed that removing the double was the right action with his hand. The Committee's Decision: The Committee believed that North went out of his way to explain the possibilities for his partner's double, that it was possibly meant as a Support Double, and that she was relatively inexperienced. At this point E/W could have asked North to leave the table and had South explain the intent of the double . The Committee believed that the decision North had made to bid 2 could just as well have worked out badly for his side. The result was "rub of the green" for E/W. The Committee allowed the table result to stand and believed the appeal just barely met the standard of having merit because N/S were not totally clear on their agreement.

What if it were the same hand but partner is in first seat? I have always shown a 4 card suit regardless of a takeout intervention but a new partner (who professes to know it all) surprised me by saying you must have a 5 card suit regardless of point count which sounds like nonsense to me.

I am getting a little tired of rude or crazy people on BBO and would really like to find some regular partners who play standard SAYC.

So in other words a player is free to revoke without worrying about a penalty ? The trick he won is awarded to the non offending side at the end of the game but he would have lost that anyway. I must be missing something here.

I am referring to a revoke that is established. Yes it is easy to find the rules online but not so easy to understand them particularly when there is so much conflicting information out there and it is amazing how so many different players have different interpretations. My main confusing relates to what happens if the revoke was in not following a trump suit. As far as I can see : Non offending side draws trumps and offending side revokes by not playing his last trump card. Offending side doesn't win the trick so there is not automatic trick adjustment. 3 tricks later the offending side trumps a trick with the trump card he shouldn't have. At that point revoke is agreed and established so I assume the offending side loses that trick and the trump card doesn't count as a trump ? Play continues to the end and if the offending side wins one or more tricks following the revoke then a one trick penalty is awarded to the non offending team. Is that correct ?

After a massive arguement at our club last night I have been trying to clarify the current rule on revoking. Have I got this correct: OLD RULE If a player revoked then you go back to that revoke and replace it with the card they should have played, the non offending side is awarded an extra trick but ALSO the card that was played incorrectly becomes a penalty card so is placed face up and played the next time that suit is played. This seems logical to me NEW RULE The non offending side is awarded an extra trick but the incorrect card is no longer treated as a penalty card so the player can just put it back in his hand. But the TD does have the discretion to award more tricks if he feels the non offending side might have won more tricks.

Excellent thanks. To go one step further can it be said that with few tables it is better to play matchpoints so if there is a wild score it will have less impact on the result? With a lot more tables a wild score would become diluted ?

Most players don't really have any preferences. Thay have adopted IMPs simply because they assume that's what you should do with 3 tables or less. What I am asking is is there any there any truth in that assumption or does it not matter either way ?

I play in a very small club with between 2 and 4 tables. We always play IMPS because someone was told with 3 or less table that is what we should play. Is that correct ? It seems to me that if someone makes a wild bid and gives 1400 points to their opponents (as happened last night) another pair will get a very bad score and as I understand is difficult to recover when playing IMPS.

Just to clarify some further confusion. It is not the bidder that has to leave the table but their partner. Neither player has to disclose their hand, it is simply that the bidder has to explain his bid to the opposition. The other thing is most players are well aware of their obligation to explain their bids, that is not the point. The point is there are many people who believe if they say they don't know what their partner's bid meant, then just saying that absolves them from all responsibility. Or it is suggested here if I don't want to explain my partner's bid I can simply say "no agreement in place". The question is can that be reasonable? If not, what resource is left to the non offending pair in the absence of a TD ?

I must say I find some of the arguements here very confusing and illogical. I have now remembered the name of the tournament director who asked a player to leave the table was Eddie Williams whom I see on google is a UK national tournament director. So it must be assumed that it is the correct procedure. I remember at the time being immpressed with the logic because in the case of confusion one side is going to be disadvantaged, should it be the side who are unable to comply with the clear rule on explaining their bid or the side that is simply insisting on their clear right to have a bid explained ? Either we are entitled to know what an opponent's bid is or we are not. Surely it is as simple as that? To say that there are serveral vague situations when an oppenent is entitled to keep me in the dark is to reduce the auction to a farce. It also makes it very easy to cheat. If it is to your advantage not to explain your partner's bid then just say you are not sure what it is. To claim that a player should not be compelled to give opponents information about their hand also makes no sense to me when that is what we do all the time. You make a 2 heart transfer bid and your partner alerts and tells the oppenents that you have 5 spades, disclosure is made. Considering the importance of the auction it surprises me there is such a lot of vagueness about the rules governing it. In the situation I was in, east made what looked like it was a tranfer bid (over an NT opening) and west said they thought it was a transfer but wasn't 100% sure. As my partner made a DONT overcall my hand put me in a perfect siutation to bid as long as I knew what East's bid meant. I asked West to leave the table and he refused point blank. I had to assume it was a transfer and ended up having to play game (doubled) with only three trumps because it turned out it wasn't a transfer. That result put them in first place. My point is there are thousands of small clubs that either don't have a TD or do but they have only a basic knowledge. That is why it is so important to have the basic rules written somewhere clearly and simply so in a case like mine I can show them and in future the club can follow them so everyone is treated fairly. Of course there will always be unusual situations where only a TD can make a decision but in my experience this problem about misinformation is one of the most common problems and could be one of the simplest to solve. If a player can't explain his partner's bid he must leave the table, that seems reasonable and is something everyone can understand. In the case above the pair in question have been playing together for years and are two of the best players in the club. I am not for a minute suggesting they are cheating, just that they are not clear about the rules and considering the differences in opinion in this post that is a common problem. In my case now when we play against this partnership there is no point in me asking them to explain a bid (this has happened several times before) I simply have to accept it and play in the dark and so am disadvantaged, particularly when my partner and I alert everything correctly.

Thanks. That makes sense. The problem we have is there is no TD and to be honest no one who really understands the rules regarding misinformation.

I am having a lot trouble in the small club where I play with players who give misinformation during the auction. All lot of the time I will ask an opponent to explain his partner's bid and they tell me they are not sure or simply don't know. I know what is supposed to happen in this situation because on one occaison in a bigger club my partner's job was to teach tournaments directors. He said the player must leave the table so I can ask his partner to explain the call which sounds logical to me. The problem is I can't find this in the rule book so I can't insist on my right to have the call explained. Does anyone know where I find this rule ?

if a profile is blank (very common) then the player has no profile. Some people put "SAYC" in their profile which is virtually useless. Like many players I don't want to play with someone if I don't have a clue what conventions they use. A separate area would not work. There is an area for ACOL players but no one every uses it. Although I love BBO I do find it a struggle to find compatible players when looking in the open tables list. I have to open a player's profile and by the time I have seen if we are compatible that place in the table has gone. I would have thought the best way to go would be if each of us has some kind of simple compatibility card with minimum requirements i.e perspective partner must have a profile, play SAYC, Staymam, transfers be above a certain standard etc. Then you could safely ask to be taken to the next seat available. Or have some kind of distinguishing mark/colour by players names which shows which players are compatible. Once seated with a partner we could take another look to see if there are any extra conventions we can play.

I love the bridgemaster utility and it is very useful that after making a contract a little star shows up showing that hand is complete. Then I can just go down the list of hands I haven't played. The problem is I now want to start again at number one but can't get rid of the stars so never know where I am. Please give us the option to reset hands that we have played

Does anyone actually understand all this? I just came 12th out of 12 and yet was ranked as coming 4th. Is this a way of making us feel we did better than we thought? In the past I could see how I was doing by the ranking which updated as I went along but now I haven't a clue. Personally I am not interested in learning about stratification, stratum thresholds and section placement so I guess I will have to forget about the ranking.

I am looking for a friendly, laid back intermediate partner to play BBO tournaments. My time zone is GMT+1 and I can play any time of day.