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The different between levels is never a clearcut, you might be good enough on play, but not good enough on bidding, maybe your diffence isnt good, maybe you dont do well on competitve. Its also a psycologic question, self confident is very importent for bridge, after making some good results you might actually play well, but a series of bad results might take you back. Anyway what im trying to say is that there isnt a clear response to the question, you just need to decide it yourself.

Nice rules. What about competition, 1sp (4H) 4NT 1sp (3h) 4nt 1sp (2h) 3c (4h) [ 3c is natural GF] 4nt and a word to Erick when you got no trump you cant use cue bids.

I am trying to be more flexiable , my model for flexibility is Hrotqar. Today i tried it twice, but i think i went too far, how bad was I ? 1. all vul the bidding goes (1S) p (1NT) and i hold ---- 10xxx J10x AQ10xxx I bid 2C now. 2. non vul against vul 1S (D) I hold 72 Kxx K10xx xxxx I bid 2sp

Maybe im missing something, but 4h should be made, its easier then 4sp. On a club lead, taking out 2 trumps and playing club to the J, after clubs are out, you play diamond, and the opponents will open spade for you. You can also play A of spade and then diamond and the player with the Hx will be endplayed. If you get a ruff and discard, you trow one spade on it and the other one on the club. Or if you can just play J of spade as in 4 spade (thats the worse option)

In any serious event if 1sp can be 4 card suit you should know about it. If for example they normally bid 1sp with 4 spades and 5 hearts you should know about it. I dont know what exactly is sayc, maybe sayc isnt a pure 5 card major, but if you see 5 card major in their cc, or you ask and get a response that it show 5 card, you have a case imo.

Think a bit more

Like the rest of the world we play 5 aces, its a great way but here and there we have misunderstanding about the trump suit. The problem get harder when the opponents interfere. My partner wanted to play 4 aces unless the suit is 100% clear to any stupid bridge player. My mother plays either the suit we agreed or the last suit we bid. My general idea is that the suit is the one i couldnt support forcingly. There is also an ida to just play 6 aces (include both Ks of our suits) This isnt easy because there are endless situatuation, and we need to set some basic rules. What are your agrements on this ?

Must be fun to play a free style like yours, i should try it.

what a surprise, i thought you are one of those who like opening 10 hcp hand, this is 12 with a 5 cards and 3 aces, even the biggest underbider (me) cant pass it. 29 zar points if i still remember how to count those.

Some ppl in this forum, like to think of the bridge federations guys as the bad guys. Also refered to as those who have no talent for the game and therefore makes rules to help them. I am sure this is far from the truth. The perpose of the regulations is to make the game more fun for more people thats all. wather its right or wrong is another question but it should be adress rationaly.

I agree. True partner rate to have a single but its not sure, and 5sp will make it harder for us to get to 7, but still my choice.

psychs bid full both partner and opponents, for example if you decide to open 1sp when u have 3 hcp, and partner know nothing about it. You are right that psyching cant hurt you partnership trust and therefore i dont use them or allow my partner to, if you have a very solid partnership and you can think it can handle such a thing and the trust wont be hurt then you might find it usefull. psyching has its point in bridge, but im 100% sure that if you check all the psychs made by all players or even all those who made by this forum members, you will find more losers then winners, this doesnt mean that there arent some who know how to use them. nyway they arent one of the importent things for you to learn. Brown sticker is somethign totally different, those are conventions or bidding systems that arent allowed in most turnament, the resson they arent allowed is not because they are cheating systems or bad system, its mostly because the field cant handle them, most bridge players agree that they cant excpect you to be able to play against any system, for exmple you are not prepered to play against forcing pass system. because there can be millions of system, a decision was made to allow only part of them to normal turnaments, still if we want to check who is the best pair in the world it make sense to allow this par to play what he believe to be the best system, therefore in very importent turnament all those systems (the brown sticker) are allowed, all the pairs get a discriptions of the systems they are going to face before the turney and they can prepare themself (oviously this couldnt be done in a normal club turney)

I would pass it, first because its MP, second becasue its a pickup partner, third because no one is vul which is the best vul to act agressively over 1nt.

I agree that as DECLARER you need to play TOP of equal cards ( like J in the example shown) BUT IF you are defending and partner leads a suit in which ( for example you have QJTxx and dummy plays a low card -------- play the LOWEST from touching cards :) As a diffender the normal play with third hand is the lower or equal honors, but when tou are second hand and spliting your honor you should play the top one (although i like to play K from AK because partner know alot more this way) There is a nice excpetion to this lower honor in third hand, which i read not long ago but im too sinail to remember it exactly, i think when having QJ10 (and maybe 3 equal honors) its better to play the middle oen and not the lowest one, this makes life abit eaiser for partner. but i advice beginers and inters to ignore this till you be an expert .

First of all its ok to miss 50% slams. Now to the bidding, it depend on your 3c style, there was a discussion here about it, and it turn out 3c show exta, in this case north 4sp was too weak, if 3c shows extra then 3sp should be forcing, and north should bid it, then south cue bid 4c, north 4H, south should ask 4nt here and bid 6sp after the response. If 3c is a weak bid then i would still make it, now north has a problem, 3sp wont be forcing, now i think north got no choice but to bid 4sp which south should pass. Two different methods would lead to different contracts, 6sp or 4sp, and intrestingly both those contracts are good.

Im glad you think this was because this was also my line, and it didnt took me hours , so maybe im not getting old like i thought.

it doesn't really matter if they cover or not, if you've made up your mind to either finesse on the way back or play for the drop, nothing's lost by the play... Well you need entries for it which isnt something you have too many of.

Ron - I would agree with you if 3♥ was a double jump; i.e., (1♣) - Dbl - (1♦) - 3♥. But not as 3♥ as a single jump. Your either loading up the cue bid or playing 2♥ as too wide of a range if 3♥ is weak in the given example. Generally you should forget about games in competitve especially when both your opponents bid, its more importent to be able to follow the law of total tricks.

I was asked to explain how it will help the diffence to play a lower card. Ill give some examples from the book mentioned before xxx ---- AQJ10 you lead to the west win with the K, east know you have the QJ because west would put J or Q if he had them, but if you play the Q and west win with the K, east dont know where are the J and 10. west know a little more too when u play the 10. A42 ==== 653 ===KQJ10987 if u lead the 7 both opponents will learn the quality and lengh of this suit. If you lead the king, and later play the Q and J, either opponent may hope or suspect his partner has the 10. K42 ---- QJ3 If you play the J and east wins , west know you have the Q, if you play the Q, they dont know where is the J . (this is a classic example where ppl would think its clever or funny or something else to play the J , and have the glory of someone who made a sucessfull finnese)

There is a mistake i see alot from inters and even some advances so im sure beginers makes it too. Playing a suit like When declarering dummy has 432 and in hand they got AJ10987 They like to play to the 7 instead of the J, this is like showing off, and this is a bad play. There are many many examples like this, and nearly always the best as a declarer is to play your equal cards from top. When you play a small card you are helping the diffence. For better understanding this and special cases where it might be better not to play the top read in flase carding by mike lawrence, but trust me you will be ok if you just play the top of equals.

Do you agree with the rest of his post ? Does 2h promiss 7-9 ? and how many hearts ? This is pretty basic, but i wanted to clear it to my partner and i.

You should have post it in another forum, anyway i dont think this should or will be fixed, the ways to fix it arent worth it. Maybe you just had bad luck.

What do you need for a free bid after partner Takout double ? (1D) D (1S) what will 2h show ? pnts and how many hearts ? how different when its at the 1 level ? (1D) D (1H) 1S

If i finnese imidiatly it would be Finnesing LHO (A then J) this is because RHO cant play diamond, and also because of the lead. But this isnt my line. I play the A of club, then finnese spade if it works, i play A of spade discarding a heart, then AK heart, s[pade ruff in hand, then J club, if west play club i put small. Now i made it unless east has 4 hearts. I think the lead increase the chances of west having something in the other suits which increase the chances of my line. n/b only really bad players would cover with Qxx, so its nearly hopeless to play J and hope something good happend.

Double, why not ?