smerriman

Then it was probably wrong to use Blackwood in the first place. Or if it weren't, the probability of missing QJxxx and an ace was low enough when using it that the chance of making slam outweighs that cost. I'm still not quite of the point you're trying to make - if Blackwood is right in a given auction, I'd still say it's a pretty even split as to whether it's the person with or without the queen who is using it. Definitely not the case that most of the time you shouldn't ask without the queen. Simple example matching your criteria.. [hv=pc=n&s=sat754hkq7dq9cak6&n=sk82hjt53dakj4cq7&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1sp2dp2np3sp4cp4dp]266|200[/hv] Are you saying neither player should go past the 4 level because if you're missing QJxxx and an A you might be going down in 5 33% of the time?

48 hours left - let's get those remaining challenges wrapped up.

Not at all. 2/1 and Bergen are completely compatible. It's Bergen and IJS which are (obviously) not compatible.

That's the purpose of asking for the queen when missing one keycard; if you're also missing the queen, you stop short of slam. And why all of the comments above are about making sure the asking bid has enough room to stop at the 5 level in that situation. If you're likely to go down at the 5 level when missing 1 keycard and the queen, you shouldn't be asking for aces in the first place.

If a partnership like simple, consistent, memorable methods, I prefer "4C is not Gerber" ;)

I would have said the opposite - the ability to go slow and both get an extra descriptive bid in while still showing the 3 card support is a good thing, rather than (in your partner's system) having to go straight to the three level and not be sure where to go from there. I do wonder how that partner plays the delayed raise if 3 card support is shown in another way though.

I think you're misunderstanding something here - nobody in this thread has suggested 1M - 3m being major support with 4m. For me - and what Stephen Tu is describing - 1M-3m *denies* major support and shows 6+m with an invitational hand. The type of hand that you can't really bid by starting with a forcing 1NT and then bidding the minor the next time, because you would also bid the same way with a long minor and a weak hand where you want partner to pass. This only applies if you're playing 2/1. If your 4D was a typo for 4M, and that was a reply to AL78, then I would suggest sticking with the standard Bergen definitions, where 3D is 10-12 with 4 card support for the major. 8-11 seems an odd range and there's no need to use 3C for 10-12 with three card support since you can do that by bidding 1NT first. (Edit, except if not playing a forcing notrump, in which case I guess it's a new suit followed by a raise).

We have a huge advantage over many other countries - geography. We're pretty isolated from the rest of the world as it is. Our government also took action very early - we've taken a big economic hit given we rely on tourism, but we shut our borders and went into full lockdown early in the hope that some pain now will allow us to get back to normal and prevent a larger one to come in the future. We're down to about 3 new reported cases a day, and that's still including returning travellers or ones that are being found in retrospect. Our prime minister and chief executive of the ministry of health are also fantastic communicators - it feels a little like they've been able to 'hypnotise' (but not in a bad way) the whole country into doing what needs to be done - and actually wanting to! Their press updates are daily viewing for most of the country.

You wouldn't ask for aces with AKQx Kx x AKJxxx? ;)

Your post is contradictory; 2/1 and SAYC are completely different systems. There are also different 'standard' ways of playing 2/1; some play that 2H promises 6, and others don't. And most people playing a proper 2/1 system would be playing a cheaper bid (4C or 4D depending) as RKCB in clubs, not 4NT. If I were playing with a random 2/1 player online I would interpret them as: 2C: 4+ clubs, GF 2H: could be anything 2S: 5+ clubs, 4 spades 3C: 3+ clubs 4N: shouldn't be RKCB but assuming it is 5D: 0/3 keycards 5H: asks for queen of clubs I assume this came up because the person bidding 4NT tried to sign off in 5H after realising they made a mistake and is now learning why people don't play 4NT as RKCB in clubs.

Perhaps you could clarify what you mean by the "2 over 1 rule when wanting to do a Bergen raise". As far as I can tell these have no relation to each other (one is bidding 2C/2D over 1H to show a game force, one is bidding at the three level to show a heart raise).

You have to play 10 tournaments before getting a TCR. Not all tournaments have a TCR restriction, but the fastest way to get a TCR is to play a bunch of robot tournamnets (everything except daylongs count).

Keep going, I just need one more 'ad hominem' to mark off and I have bingo!

Repeated analyses have yet to find a single bit of evidence of bias, so this is all in your head. Given probability is such an important part of bridge, if you're not able to understand why I'd suggest studying it a bit more.

Interesting. The same code but at http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/dealer/dealer.php gives an error about not being able to open a temporary file, so I had always assumed the double dummy portion was unusable.

Are you sending them to the table? If you click 'Kibitzers' rather than 'Table' then your chat will go to Kibitzers only.

You're compared against a different set of 15 tables every board, since it's randomly dealing them throughout all the different tables that are online, as new people come, others leave, etc. So comparisons only make sense for a single board at a time. But if you look at the results for that board (initially, or later on when more results come in), you'll see the scores for all of the other people who played that board, in order of how they scored.

Does your system not have one either?

This works differently from any other tournament - anyone who is active on the forums is automatically registered for it. Most of those won't have even seen the tournament / decided to play it.

It sounds to me like some form of user error, since there is no way to click a robot and see it is 'Offline'. Though if, for example, you reserved a seat at the table for a human named 'Robot' then you can click it to see its profile and that it is offline..

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:33d0fc78.85f7.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1587710736&u=smerriman smerriman 63 - 13 muddylane

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "playing for points". If you're just playing casually, you'll be compared against 15 other tables that are also playing casually. But yes, some of these might have played the hand before you (you'll see those results immediately), and some of these tables might not have completed (or been dealt) that hand yet (which will result in the scores changing as they do).

When you click 'Start a table', you can choose between IMPs, Matchpoints, or Total Points. So choose it then; you can't change it after the table has been created. In terms of your last sentence, you have things a little backwards. Suppose you get dealt good cards with which anyone would make game. You get 400 points for doing so, and your opponents get none. Does this mean you played better than your opponents? With IMPs or MPs, you're compared against people who are dealt the same cards as you as a true test of how you play with the luck of the deal removed.

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:47bae746.83d8.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1587477552&u=smerriman smerriman 36 - 21 hrothgar

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:9c6492a6.813b.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1587190361&u=smerriman smerriman 24 - 20 gordontd https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:c7d740ab.822e.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1587294802&u=smerriman smerriman 2 - 53 cherdano