smerriman

I checked my temperature and it appears I'm still alive, so 2♦..

This is a feature of 'OPPO Game Space' - specifically the Hyper Boost aspect - which is built specifically into OPPO phones and not others in order to optimise running games.

https://imgur.com/upload then paste the resulting link.

The entire premise behind Soloway is that in order to make up for the space lost by jumping, it has to show precisely defined hands. With Soloway these are strong balanced, one suited, or two suited with support for partner; so if you use it on this hand you will have to set the suit as diamonds and accept that you can't play in spades. But perhaps you are mixing up Soloway and older strong jump shifts.

I'm not sure about 'all natural'; after Soloway at least how I've always understood it, you can never play in spades, as a new suit later is a splinter. It would definitely make finding the right diamond slam easier, but is it worth giving up a possible spade fit?

Well, I can say confidently that it doesn't appear for me, so there's definitely *something* different about your setup; it could well be innocuous rather than malicious. But there's no way to dig further without more specific details - if you can't figure out an image, even some exact text (word-for-word, as much as possible) rather than a generic 'network, memory details' may well be sufficient to debug with.

Most likely isn't related to BBO, but something to do with your device itself. A screenshot would definitely help.

My post was after you had only posted your first sentence. When you edited the rest in later it answered my question so I deleted it.

Perhaps thepossum actually wants the exact opposite of random deals; hand-crafted deals that avoid flat boards. But I'm afraid that's not what you get with true randomness.

Oops, yes, messed up the formatting when entering the hands.

Yes; the simplest example is: AKQJ x xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx x AKQJ AKQJ x x AKQJ xxxx xxxx where not only do all contracts go down, they actually go down 2. {edited to fix accidentally rotated hands}

Sandra Landy (no relation to Alvin) was known for the 'Landy game try' - bid game, and try to make it.

Now seems a more appropriate time for a 4♥ splinter.

3♠ is tempting but after ruling out hands where partner would have doubled 2♥, I think I'm just going to defend.

Agreed - seems too strong for 4♥.

If you're suggesting partner should open 1♣ and reverse into 2♦ with 4 clubs and 5 diamonds.. that's horrible. As mikeh mentioned above, partner could have up to around an 18 count with this shape, so I see no reason not to give the standard false preference into diamonds.

Not really. A cue bid by doubler doesn't promise a spade fit at all; it just shows a strong hand that wants to force. So you're just making a natural bid and waiting to hear more info. Starting with 1♠ and continuing with 2♥ is much more efficient than any alternative.

Usually when you reply after me, I end up agreeing with you and not my own post, and this is no exception. Not sure why I even said that and no double, I think I somehow had a blind spot after the OP decided not to use it either.. This one is interesting. I agree with your first sentence, but if you're saying "should have" based on what double dummy says or what other tables did, that's a really bad habit. On this layout, you make 12 tricks with one club ruff by running all of your tricks outside of hearts; South gets squeezed as they can't hold onto both the club winner and heart length. You can tell South has the club from the lead, but this line only works if you know South has 4 hearts, since you need to save the heart as an entry.. it seems better to me to hope the queen drops in 3 rounds with AK + a ruff. That only takes 11 tricks on this layout, unless someone can think of a better line? If not, then 'should have' is incorrect.

Your plan actually works fine; you just did things in the wrong order. If you save the club ruff for after you've drawn trumps / set up the diamonds, then you can use it to cash the 4th diamond. I'd just overcall 1NT :) A stopper is absolutely required for a major, but less so for a minor (especially 1♣). But 4♠ is probably worth a shot anyway, given you know you have an 8 card fit and partner is likely to have some club shortness. You should probably also discuss the meaning of an immediate 3♣ bid by your partner, which normally shows this type of hand.

I think you misread something.. West is on lead, not East, so whether the opponents are GIB or not has nothing to do with anything.

Seems harder to get to 3NT than 6NT to be honest.. if you play Kokish relays then you start with 2♣ - 2♦ - 2N, while if you don't you start with 2♣ - 2♦ - 3N; in both cases, North can't stop in 3NT with that beautiful hand.

That's true, but the OP stated that in their club a score of 40% could receive 0 matchpoints. That's not possible regardless of whether you're using half points or percents, unless they're using a different scoring system altogether.

I can't find the specific ruling - just references to it acting as a precedent - but the ACBL ruled a long time ago that a hesitation regarding how to best deceive an opponent was not considered a demonstrable bridge reason. Edit - case 8.

I don't understand your post. Are you saying that at your club, the bottom half of the field on each hand scores the same 0, and the top half scores the same 1 - even if some did considerably better than others? This certainly isn't matchpoints, or how normal ACBL scoring works.

Congrats Cherdano on yet another win!