MickyB

Yup sorry, two of the three questions were pretty silly I know - I had just heard differing opinions and wanted to check I wasn't the one who was off-centre. Thanks

You open 1m, playing 2/1, on an 18-19 balanced hand. The auction continues, 3♥ on your left, pass pass back to you. Would you ever pass this out, or do you just bid 3NT and pray whenever you have a stop? What about, instead, if the auction continues 2♥ pass 3♥ back to you? What about if LHO overcalls 1♥, partner passes, and this is raised preemptive to 3♥?

This made more sense once I realised "WC" didn't stand for "World Cup".

If he was, it makes his decision to return more bizarre IMO.

Do you play that? I would play it as penalty implying short hearts and/or good defense with something in spades, in my dreams QTx x xxx AQxxxx. Yeah I don't think this is an auction where X means "please bid on" - there's nothing wrong with opener bidding 5H here, I am not going to have a massive spade stack for my 4H bid over 3S.

I have been trying to work out why I feel instinctively that there is more advantage to playing transfers over 1S 2S than over 1S 2H. There is no advantage to having a natural 2NT available on the first auction, so you aren't losing anything by definining it as a transfer. Hardly a big issue to give that up over 1S 2H too though, many already play it as a good 4-card raise, which you can just as easily use 3♦ as (or 3♥, as Gnasher does). Playing transfers can wrong-side 3NT when responder has clubs and give oppo a double of our transfer bid. Maybe the wrong-siding is more of an issue on the natural auction, but it hardly seems unimportant on the Michaels auction. In short, what I'm trying to say is that I think my instinct is wrong, and I should probably be playing transfers on both auctions.

People tend to be very risk averse in some situations. People often take actions with the intention of flattening boards when there's no reason to do so*, I think this is similar. I guess this is partly down to psychology too - the feeling from having been the person who "won the match" is usually less intense than the feeling from having been the person who "lost the match". * Valid reasons include "we were winning with only a few boards left" and, to a lesser extent, "we are a better team than the opposition".

Goal wrongly given

You have a doubleton in pard's suit. This hand has reminded me to put transfers here into my system file.

Please, I've just eaten Hmm? Jxx K Jxx is worth 5 points these days or else Brits will start vomitting? It's not about points - I'm quite happy to pass, but I think preempting 2nd seat vul on such a defensive hand is horrible.

Please, I've just eaten

..

I did a quick google search on this - it was suggested to ask for her parents' blessing, rather than their permission, and to judge it on how close your potential fiancée is to them. One site said to make sure both parents were present when you asked (unless they were separated/divorced), the other said to have a "man-to-man" chat. I should probably delete my browsing history in case my girlfriend gets the wrong idea! Oh, and Pride and Prejudice [bBC TV series, I can't claim to have read the book] is amazing, although that's mainly due to the way Mr Bennett winds up his wife.

Unfortunately, there are no clashes between the top teams in the last round - England vs Israel, perhaps, but that won't affect who wins. They could have shown several womens matches but I doubt that would have been a popular choice either. How many teams qualify for the Venice Cup?

Inverted SEF - better major, 5-card minors, 2C and 2D are weak, 2H and 2S are strong and artificial - sure I have played something weirder, I'll post here again if I remember. Also "bid if you've got twelve points and I'll bid 3NT" was good fun too, 50% session with the caddy who didn't know what a trick was 30 minutes beforehand

Yup - it is somewhat close for me only because partner is a passed hand. And yes, I have been "cured", I used to be very much of the "shape suitable" school of doubles. Now I am firmly yes/no/yes for the three hands.

Depends a bit what you respond on 4D4M GF and 4+D4M INV. I quite like being able to bid 1C:1D, 1NT:2C, 2D:2M on a 4M5D invite. I quite like 2M as natural GF - it's a basic principle that unbalanced hands should describe themselves to balanced hands and not vice-versa, and you want the hand declaring 3NT to not have described itself. I guess you could invert the majors here if you want to further increase the likelihood of the relatively unknown hand declaring.

My understanding is that they were, but the operator still didn't realise; and that, unlike the tables that aren't on vugraph, (at least some of) the vugraph tables don't have the names and flags on the screen. As was said earlier in the thread, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to be *told* to replay the match, given that there was time to do so. Presumably they could have elected to give a PP on top of that, but it seems unwarranted if they wre in uniform. In fact, if there hadn't been time to replay the match, there would be a case for an assigned score of 15-15 IMO. With regard to the time penalty, perhaps they had been a lengthy director call that was responsible for some of the delay - I would be interested Lol. I really don't like Hamilton as a person, but Alonso clearly still has a massive chip on his shoulder from 2007. The situation this weekend was pretty complicated really, there was no perfect solution.

You have noticed this is bridge? Ok, sorry, more seriously - what about being unfavourable at matchpoints is so different to being unfavourable at IMPs? Either way, we don't particularly want to compete unless we'll have chances of making 3M. Obviously, going one off at pairs can be a good board if they are making 3D; It can also be a terrible board if they find a double, or we may drift two off undoubled. Yes, you could agree to act on a hand this weak, but how is partner to know when to bid game if you could have this or you could have a hand two tricks better?

Thanks for all the responses - I'll try to get hold of Kleinman's structure to compare. I think I slightly prefer the way round that you "remembered" :rolleyes:

I think it is fairly standard to use double as a transfer here

Even if you play that pard has to bid 4♦ over 4♣ on four cards [which has some advantages for slam purposes], advancer can pull this to 4♥ and opener will only pass with four.

Not the first thread about this - the most recent one I've found is here. Lauria-Versace seem to have changed their responses slightly since then - 2H = 4+S or strong 1 suit in C-D-S; 2S = 5+H or NT hands; 2NT = trsf to 3C 3C = Puppet or 5+H-4S 3D = 5+S-4+H; 3H/3S = both minors and shortness 3N = 5+/5+ both majors; 4C = trsf 4H 4D = trsf 4S 2D-2H-2NT = 4 cards in S; 2D-3C-3D = 1 or 2 majors If anyone knows any other continuations, I would like to hear them. In particular, I am interested in how they avoid wrong-siding 3NT on sequences starting 2♦:2♥, 2♠ - you can't really just bid like over 1N:2H, 2S. Alternatively, it might be better to have 2D:2H, 2S *show* four spades, with 2NT denying, as both calls will right-side the most likely strain. Obviously this prevents responder transferring into his five-card spade suit at the two-level, but on the other hand you would be able to stop in 2♠ in a 4-4 fit, along with some 4-3s (and 5-3s) when responder chooses to respond 2♥ on a weak hand with three spades.

Pass. Pard hasn't opened in third, it's so unlikely to gain from competing here.

About once a month, I'd say.