Gilithin

The original version of bridge, biritch, also did not include a misere denomination. Game was made by scoring 3NT, 4♥ or 5♦. Game could not be scored with a black suit as trumps without help from the opponents. Biritch turned into auction bridge after 20 years and contract bridge derived from Vanderbilt's changes to the scoring table 20 years after that. That was nearly 100 years ago - one might conclude that we are well past time for similar innovations to come along and re-invigorate the current game. I doubt very much that misere will be a part of any such improvement.

That rather depends on your version of Acol. In the (arguably) most popular version 4M4m(32) hands tend to be opened with the major, while the same hand outside of NT range would be opened with the minor in a 5 card major system. So it is not absolutely automatic that an Acol pair will find any minor suit fit that a 2/1 pair will reach.

After 1♥ - 1♠ -- 3♦, 3♥ is not really false preference so much as a grope. You have to bid this with a range of hands that are unsure of the final destination. If people are seriously considering bidding 4♦ with your example hand, they deserve to find themselves in a hopeless slam 100% of the time.

German also uses colour for suit (Farbe). The rebid terms I see for Forum D descriptions are: 1♥ - 1♠ -- 2♦ is a cheap 2-suiter (billiger Zweifärber, sparsamer Zweifärber) or are cheap-to-bid 2-suiters (billig zu reizende Zweifärbe). 1♥ - 1♠ -- 3♦ is a cheap 2-suiter in the jump (billiger Zweifärber im Sprung), a cheap 2-suiter with jump (billiger Zweifärber mit Sprung) or (somewhat strangely) jump bidding (Sprungreizung). 1♦ - 1♠ -- 2♥ is an expensive 2-suiter (teurer Zweifärber) or expensive to bid 2-suiters (teuer zu reizende Zweifärber) but the term reverse (Reverse-Reizung or just Reverse) is also used. 1♠ - 2♦ -- 3♣ does not appear to have a special term dedicated to it and is usually included with the "teure Zweifärber", since "expensive" refers to being above 2 of the original suit rather than to suit order. Finally, rebidding your own suit is a repeat (Wiederholung) and raising partner's suit is a lift (Hebung) or support (Unterstützung). The fact that so many terms are used interchangeably suggests that Germans are more concerned with what the bids are and what they mean than what to call them. That might not a bad strategy for some others to follow.

She might also have crossed to the ♠10 and played a ♣ to the queen. This also conspires to lose a second trick.

On BBO, if it seems to be necessary I just write "2012" with the numbers in the order of ♠♥♦♣. Against most online players though I play until things are so obvious that a complete novice will see it. Claiming early is something of a mark of respect. Occasionally I will mark a profile to say "don't bother claiming".

Back in the days of biddable and rebiddable suits, this was standard procedure. Bidding theory moved on and some of those old concepts got abandoned along the way.

If the auction starts, 1♥ - 1♠ -- 2♦ - 3♦, a 3♥ continuation seems to do the necessary. If Responder has 2 hearts here they should now show them.

1♠ This seems quite reasonable assuming the pair is not playing conservative openings. X South thinks the hand is too strong to pass and is presumably planning to sell it either as a ♣ 1-suiter or as big and semi-balanced. 3♥ Obviously meant as preemptive but no alert so there is a case for MI. P Tough to argue with at these colours. P This shows that East was in on the joke. 3♠ This is where things start going off the rails. Did South think they were showing ♠? Again, no alert is recorded. P Automatic. 4♦ North is doing their best but it beggars the question as to why they did not alert 3♠. X East would probably do better to pass here and let N-S guess but they are looking at 4 winners so... 4♥ It's tough to know what is going through South's head at this point. Panic? I would be interested to know how North described this call in the Clarification Period. X Pointless. P North seems to be a passenger at this point. P What else? 4♠ "A perfect auction." P "I showed my hand twice already." P "Why did I agree to this? I wonder who I can partner next week instead..." X "Clearly my spades are way better than expected and those ♦ are surely still worth 4 tricks..."

It is ♣ in Dutch (klaver) but ♦ in German (Karo).

Other than massively increasing the budget deficit, would you care to tell us what Trump did in these categories to justify your suggestion that this explains 2020 rather than the more obvious case of it being related to easier access to voting through more extensive postal ballots, drop-boxes, 24 hour voting and other such initiatives?

Most assuredly also the right attitude to take with RR's main business of aircraft engines.

Better: "You may use judgement but you have to disclose what you actually play". In many countries, you have to alert/announce an opening 1NT call with something like "possible singleton". As long as this is actually disclosed, what is the problem? As others have pointed out, the real issue is banning certain logical agreements that many pairs would like to be able to use. Thus they do it anyway and (illegally) fail to disclose saying it is a deviation. This in turn causes the lawmakers to ban the deviation. The answer is to fix the original issue, the banned agreement, rather than applying a band aid to the mess that that regulation creates. In terms of why the regulations exist, this actually comes from the top in the US. Many American experts have complained about having to face unfamiliar methods and consider it to be "guerrilla tactics" or even a form of "germ warfare". Their argument runs that these foreign pairs use a method once and then switch to keep the Americans from becoming familiar with them. Meanwhile the Americans have to learn a new defence for each method. It is a little like a chess player complaining that their opponents keep coming up with opening novelties meaning that they have to think about the position rather than being able to keep playing "book" moves to get the position they want. Probably the best equivalence of ACBL regulations in chess though is that white may only open with 1. e4 (natural) or 1. d4 (strong ♣) and gambits (unusual preempts) may not be played for the first 4 moves. While computer chess works quite well with enforced openings, it is highly unpopular with human chess players. Why bridge authorities think the equivalent should be used for their game is beyond me. If players using unusual methods do not fully disclose, by all means throw the book at them. As long as the disclosure is complete though, let them play what they want!

I agree with Skid completely and do not play the Extended Stayman responses. Nonetheless, you have to accept that a large portion of bridge players in Western Europe, particularly France and Germany, do use this method. Most of those players find the concept of using Stayman with a weak hand to be a completely alien idea. I actually play with a German regularly and even my partner is not wholly convinced after having seen it bid from me many times.

You might like to read your link again: "A high-reverse bid is made by making a three-level bid in a lower suit than the original bid, after partner or opponents' two-level response".

For those not in the know, dasselbe is "exactly the same" (ie selfsame) and das Gleiche is "the same thing" (ie equivalent). But you can put ziemlich in front of either and now there is more or less no difference. The real equivalent discussion in German is: "Is a lightbulb a type of pear?" or "Is a tortoise a type of toad?". The word for lightbulb is "glow pear" and a tortoise is a "shield toad". Blackshoe's argument becomes: "If a lightbulb is not a pear, it does not exist."

Is there also in your world no such thing as a cable car or a flower bed? A cable car is not a car; a flower bed is not a bed; and a high reverse is not a reverse. But all of them exist under those specific names. What is so complicated about this?

The biggest problem with California is that it is too large. If it were to be split up into roughly 30 small states, Democrats would have more or less a lock on the Senate and excellent chances of winning the HoR and the WH outside of catastrophic losses across the country.

Which (as previously mentioned) is fine if you play 4-way transfers and have to go through Stayman for an invite. Most pairs can respond an immediate 2♠ or 2NT with an invitational hand and no 4 card major. Some parts of Scandinavia bid spades in preference to hearts due to that being part of a leading pair's system that was influential. More importantly, the standard system in France and Germany uses 1NT - 2♣ -- 2NT to show both majors meaning that a 2♥ response guarantees hearts only and specifically denies 4 spades. This method is quite widely used across Western Europe. Perhaps you should check how the magazine describes it then: "Bridge World Standard is the standard system developed by The Bridge World magazine based on the preferred methods of leading American experts."

As Winston points out, the term reverse refers specifically to bidding a higher-ranking suit at the 2 level and originates from the idea of bidding the suits in the reverse of their natural order. You can use the term low reverse for that if you want, to match high reverse (or high hat reverse in some older texts) but that does not make reverse an overarching term for both. The relationship here is more like car to cable car or bed to flower bed.

When I was at school, one of the books that got studied was The Merchant of Venice. It is Shakespeare and a classic so what could be more natural? Well there is a very good case to be put that MoV is at its heart antisemitic. That is perhaps not surprising given that enmity against Jews was even more prevalent in the late 1500s than it is today but it does open the question as to what is right. Personally I think it is something that should be studied but that part of that teaching should be to point out the fallacy of the Jewish stereotyping behind the Shylock character. But what to say if a school chose at its book list: The Merchant of Venice, Oliver Twist, The Great Gatsby and The Canterbury Tales? Would that be ok? I would suggest not unless it was part of a humanities course on how Jews have been misrepresented in English-speaking literature. The point here is that you have to look at cases individually. Now I have to admit I am not familiar with Beloved. It appears to be a Pulitzer Prize winning novel based on a true story. That would seem to me to make it worthwhile studying. Against that there are claims of bestiality, infanticide and violent rape, which if true would preclude it from study by children below a certain age. Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be for books, at least for the purposes of school study, to have an age rating attached to them in the same way that films do. I do not have any difficulty in saying that a particularly violent or explicit book should generally not be taught to students below 16 (or 15, or 18). I do have a problem with saying that a book should not be taught at all because it highlights racial issues. The complaint in Virginia that started the whole Beloved debate was about violent and explicit sex. As long as the complaint was adjudged on these grounds and not because of its depiction of slavery, it seems to me to be reasonable for parents to have become involved.

While BWS can be useful as a reference guide, it contains plenty of treatments that do not really work together very well. In the short paragraph on NT responses, 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 2NT is invitational with 4 spades and 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 2♠ appears to be...invitational with 4(?) spades. Well sure, but if you think this is the most common system in the world I am not sure what to say. Additionally, in large portions of the world it is quite normal to play that 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ denies 4 spades. How many of those pairs do you think play 2 different invites for shadings of spade holdings as their most important calls over 2♥? Now if a pair plays a method where to invite 3NT they need to go through Stayman, and some (like jallerton) do, it makes good sense to play this sort of structure. Similarly there are pairs (JLall was one) that like to play 2-suited invites or second round transfers after their 2♥ Jacoby response. In this case they need the 2NT rebid for something other than its natural usage and many of these pairs take 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 2♠ for the purpose of showing an invite with 5♠. That also makes perfect sense. But neither of these is close to an international standard. If you look around at various educational sources, the most common method to be recommended is for 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 2♠ to be invitational with 5♠ and 4♥. But I cannot think of any good pairs that play that. As a non-American, I learned that if 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 2NT promises 4♠ and 1NT - 2♥ -- 2♠ - 2NT is natural, then bidding the other major is a slam try in Opener's major. I am more than happy to agree that there are many possible logical structures to be played here. I am not willing to accept a US-specific committee system like BWS as strong evidence of any type of standard, expert or otherwise.

It did not seem so, the most common method really is to play 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 2♠ as a good ♥ raise and not 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 3♠. My suggestion is to use 1NT - 2♣ -- 2♥ - 3♦ for that and then assign the required hand types (GF ♣, GF ♦, balanced invite) between 2♠, 2NT and 3♣ with some space left over for whatever you want (minor suit Baron or whatever). I cannot see a huge advantage to shoving it up even further to 3♠. If the 5♠ hand is such an issue, rearrange the structure to free up another route - it's really not that difficult.

So basically a dummy reversal? ♠A, ♣A, ♣ruff, ♠K, ♣ ruffed high, ♥K, ♠J, ♣ ruff, ♥A, ♥ ruff, ♦A, ♣, ♣. This works although I daresay only a low proportion of real intermediate players would find it due to the timing. Certainly from the comments I saw in this thread it sounded like many wanted to play for 3 ruffs, which has some issues. I still hesitate to call this cold in I/A. Honestly if an opponent played this against me on BBO, I would mark them as being in the top 10% of players I typically see. For Mike's opponents, it is probably routine. When this is routine in your circle, perhaps you should acknowledge that the level of play in Norfolk is not so bad as you sometimes suggest! :P

In which system? I did not really follow what you were writing about in this comment. Most (all?) good pairs have a way of agreeing the major at or below 3M in Stayman sequences.