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I would rather see some finals or semi finals, but i am guesssing they wanted it to be shorter, because if you want to have a serious final or semi you cant make it 20 boards or so, it must be atleast 100 boards, and that take time.

You need more then aces to m ake a grand. Mike :D Ofcourse , but aces is what bathered him.

Unfortunetly this is true about israel too, our better players didnt want to play in this championship, it wasnt importent enough for them and the olympics are enough. We sent a team with the oldest being 33 years old, he is also the least expirence playing bridge for only 3 years.

Bidding 7nt is worse then a psych, i agree. Now consurning your psych, you talks about it like its a normal bid, if so dont you think the opponents have the right to know about it ? I'm sure you dont feel like you have cheated, and im not saying you did, but law and the idea behind the law is that you cant by any mean have any extra information over your opponents. Ask yourself, are their psyches you tend to make more then others ? yes ? then you break the law, because your partner know something the opponents dont. Its almost impossible to play 100% honest when using psyches, you will nearly always have some kind of extra knowlege.

I have every right to expect my partner not to psych, i dont see any problem with that. Psychs are a problem in the bridge law, because you nearly can never say that the psych's partner didnt have even the slightest advantage over the opponents, its enough that you and your partner both read about with a specific psych, or both read this thread, you already have some info about your partner bids that your opponents didnt have. With all this said, dont get me wrong, i never complained (or even called a director) when opponents psyched against me.

This is a regular hand i think i might have misplayed today, its just a regular hand so dont look for something special. [hv=n=sk10xxhqxxdxxca1098&s=saxxha10xxdaqxcxxx]133|200|1♣ (P) 1♠ (P) 1nt (P) P (P) [/hv] 2♦ was lead (explained as usually 4th best) To the J of east and my Q. Mp with an intermidiate field and opponents so i would be happy to make some overtricks. Not sure how should i played this, maybe start with a a spade to the 10 ? I started with heart to the Q which lost to the K and diamond came back.

Imo and im sure not alone there, psyching is what takes the fun out of bridge, psycs as i see them are anti bridge. I told my partner today that if he psyc i will bid 7nt right away, i dont like it when im not allowed to take part in making the result of the board, i consider myself a good player and i want to influent, and this is exactly what the psych take away from me, this is way i dont like it.

[hv=d=n&s=sk10xh109xxdakjxxcx]133|100|Scoring: MP 1♦ (P) 1♥ (P) 2♦ (P) 2♠ (P) 3NT (P) ???[/hv] scoring is MP, do you bid more to try for slam, or passing ? Would you bid differently (skiping thew heart for inv 2d ? or not bidding 2sp) ? Would your answer be different for imp ? Thx

Playing what Ben suggested might be a problem vs non forcing 2d, which is what 2d is when there are no strong options.

This is a matter of principle, I believe you should have a system and stick with it, if the system say 1s= 6 hcp then it should be a hand worth 6 hcp (5 with a 5 card is fine) you can stretch here and there but not too much, what im consurn about is not this board result, but the next board, because when you pass with this , it mean that when you bid you got more. An example hand i had yesteday QJ987xx x x 10xxx All vul and I was first to bid, I know i will most likely get a better result with this hand by opening it (2sp or 3sp or 4sp), and like everyone i like to bid and play, but i passed, because next time when i open 3sp i want my partner to know i'v got more. The result was sad, 4sp bid and makes at many tables sometimes doubled, and i got -130 for 4c they made, but i dont think i'll change my ways, and hopefully my partners will have enough self displain to do the same.

I didnt have any doubt that you would.

Actually one bid isnt define here, which probebly mean its "normal" but maybe it shouldnt be, this is the bid of the suit partner might have, like (1c) 1sp (p) 2h not sure this bid should show a normal 2h , first there is the question of is this a real heart suit, and then also the question of hcp and how forcing this is (a normal 2h is contructive but not forcing)

I think you missed this bit Flame. Hey im not the one who was asked here, i was only guessing so dont have to give full answers ;) Anyway didnt understand the question, the quete "x = any card.." im not sure where did free take it from, it seems like he asks how to respond to overcall with weak or invitational hands, im guessing with weak hands you pass, also i am guessing that you can support with 3 cards (even tho parter can have only 4) at least to the 2 level, jump cue and 2nt are probably used to show 4 card support with mixed/inv+ , you can show the forth suit by cue bidding. And when you feel you cant do all that you just pass. The hardest case is probebly 3 card support with inv hand, and with this you will use the relay which can hurt sometimes when the opponents push with another competitve bid, partner will not know of our supprt.

Id bid just the same as said before: Pass with a, b, and c, bid 1S with d and e. I wouldnt critisize my partner for bidding 1s with c, it might be better for this hand but imo bad for other hands (if i pass this then when i bid 1sp partner know i got more). If we play limited opening (even 12-17) 1h could work as well ( but imo this bid must be alerted)

Your partner is the open to open 1c. 1c (pass) ?

My answers 1. pass 2. pass 3. 1sp just like with a natural system. As to the last question, this is exactly a what i was talking about when i asked how will it will work in the parscore battle, and yes i think the answer is to bid 3sp (if you started with 2c)

Imo it doesnt have to be clear, if there is any chance you knew or even could have suspected it (like when it happend before) i would give adjusted score.

bluffing is not against bridge rules as long as it does the same to partner, and by that i mean there is no way in the world you could predict that . This "cant predict things" is not something you can just say, this mean you had no clue, or even could have no clue, for example from today you will have to alert any 1h in the same situation , because you are no longer in the possition to say "i couldnt know" , if you were in that possition before, for example if you both read a book in which this "bluff" was presented then you just cheated, because you had more info then your opponents did. Beside this any club can deside not to allow bluffing , even if the bridge law accept them. I am really against this kind of play, it doesnt worth it, especially if you consider yourself a good player and have intentions of wining a tournament.

luke suggested "3♥ upper end in spades" , i think 3♥ should stay premptive to the 3 level in heart and atleast 3 level in spade. About the sequence 2d-2nt-3nt showing strong NT, i see no problem with that since its rare, and there is no problem checking for 4-4 major fit with 4c, the partnership is almost in a slam force situation so stoping at 4nt wont kill us. "but sometimes responder might bid a “fakey” 2NT without real game interest. " if this is a problem then partner shouldnt do that.

What is that exactly ? 14-16 balanced nv or 15-16 balanced vulnarable ? Not even close to enough for the lowest suit bid, which could and should include more then any other bid in the system.

It looks nice, its use the space effectively and its does what you wanted, you will play from the strong (and unknown hand) but it may have 2 flaws, one after the 3c partner doesnt know which major you got and if opponents decide to step in it can hurt, imo this isnt a problem at all, if they didnt get in till now, there is no problem of them getting in after all the knowlege have been transfer. the second is losing one bid step when instead of bidding 3c with hearts and 3d with spade , you bid 3d with hearts and 3h with spades, this mean partner cant make another game try, this is a problem, but maybe you can and wish to live with it.

There are many factors that effects the success of a system, some systems are better for one and worse for others, one example could be of system A which takes lots of memory with underards of sequences to remember while system B is very simple and depend more on the players skills. I don't think current systems are exctly as effecitve but the differences arent that big, also i don't think the best system was developed yet. Systems arent the main factor of success, if you watch 100 boards in a world championship you will not see many results effected by system, more is about evaluation which lead to good decisions, the second factor is diffence play.

About conventions like those you mentioned, i can tell you there are many bad teachers who like to teach many conventions, they do this because they just dont know enough bridge to teach it, so they prefer to teach conventions, learning something like scrambling NT , or smith is much easier then learning how to play AQJ vs xxx (yes that simple) but it will not help your bridge nearly as much, and imo will hurt your bridge because it will solve bridge dilemas that you should face and learn from.

First i agree those subject arent importert, but when someone askes we shouldnt ignore. Now there is a problem defining a begginers, i sometimes teach begginers and i was a begginer ofcourse, those begginers and the way i was a begginer fit the profile of begginer you that doesnt know how to play AQJ vs xxx. But on the other hand i know begginers who play a year and really know bridge, actually my current partner is playing bridge for less then 2 years, and he isnt paying me. Is he a genoius ? no he is far from it, he just decided to learn brdige seriously, read 30-40 right book, asked the right questions and there he is playing with me, yes his inexpirences makes him mistake more then i, but he know bridge, sqeezes scrambling or any of those conventions you mentioned. So what made him get where i got only after maybe 10 years of bridge ? my answer is the enviromnent, i learned bridge with a group like you mentioned, with knew what we knew, and didnt do much to know more, on the other hand , he was in a competitive enviroment with other young people that wanted to get better at this game, and now they are all pretty good players. I dont think knowing there is whole world of bridge outside the door of your classroom, is bad, i think its what got them to be good players, and probelby enjoy the game better. I believe if someone wants to, i can teach him to be a good player in about a year after he learns how to shuffel the cards.

I was asking myself the same question, i didnt watch too many of their matches so i cant say what ment there, but from what Iv seen they play simple bridge , making nearly no mistakes, and putting pressure on the opponents to make mistakes. tradition and expirience got alot to do with it,they play for long time with the same partner in serious tournaments thats helps alot, i watched a match between israel and germany yesterday and i must tell you both teams played really bad, one things i really didnt like is a pair on our team trying to save the nation and after few bad lucks , doubling a contract that can make with an overtrick, and a board latter opening a (14)15-17 1NT with 13 hcp (yes nice 10s so what) , i guess this wouldnt happend to the italian. The german played really bad too so it ended with a tie. About systems, the italian have nice and untreditional systems that might help, i also checked the Sweden's systems yesterday and i really liked them, i think those good systems got something to do with the success of the Sweden team.