Gilithin

May you get a big black Helmet where you deserve it.

Let's start here - can you construct such a hand? If the response had been 2♦ then 5♠4♣ would be such a hand but opposite 2♣? This thread strikes me as the bidding theory version of GIGO.

Send it here.

With a shortage, splinter. Without a shortage, raise the major to 4. If neither of those look right, make a temporising forcing call (reverse or jump shift) and show support later.

There is quite a bit of difference between (1♦) - 4♠ and P - (1♦) - 4♠ even though the overarching meaning is the same. The general principle is that you make the bid when you do not want to bid constructively, meaning that the range for 4♠ is much wider in the second auction than the first. That said, this is a hand that I would feel I was underbidding if I opened it with a Benji/SEF/Forum D 2♣ - 9 PTs! It is good enough that we could easily have a grand on a hand partner would pass, so I think Double is a better option than the immediate 4♠. I would not just X and bid though - the hand is too good for that. X and 4♠ is an option, as Douglas suggests; X and cue is another. North bid impeccably, there is no reason to expect partner to have a hand like this for a simple 1♠ overcall so allowing for it would be foolish. Some Easts would have doubled back in, which would have given you a second chance, but GIB is made of sterner stuff.

You might find it helpful to read that 80% of Georgia voters blocked by the state’s “exact match” voter registration law were people of color in 2018 and much much more.

Wrong forum, please remove.

It is quite interesting that you write this. Fans of Zar Points will have noticed that this hand has 25ZP - the Zars rule for opening says that you open the hand with 5 spades but pass with 5 hearts.

When Winston and I talk about 16-18 in a context such as this, we are not talking about hcp so much as a combination of honour values and distributional values. I really didn't think it was necessary to mention it in this forum but... The most common way of making such a combination is TP, which uses standard 4321 Milton Work plus 5 for a void, 3 for a singleton and 1 for a doubleton. Some older texts will use a different way of evaluating shortage: trump length - length of shortage. Many modern schemes will use 4.5, 3, 1.5 as the AKQ values for the hcp portion of the evaluation. In many of these evaluation methods, the values are equivalent enough (or can be made so through some simple maths) that the 16-18 will still be representative of an invitational hand. LTC is a scheme that uses AKQ values of 3, 3 and 3 with VSD values of 9, 6 and 3. A 6 loser hand in this context is 18 points. The Modern LTC is a scheme that uses AKQ values of 4.5, 3 and 1.5 with VSD values of 9/4.5/1.5. 6 losers is again 18 points. There are plenty of other alternatives too - Zar Points is one of the more recent ones. To scale the hcp portion of ZP to regular points you multiply by 0.75. The distributional part is more difficult to convert - the simplest way is to subtract ~7 after the x0.75 scalar, which is not perfect but does give a more or less comparable figure. The OP North hand is 32 ZP, which gives an equivalent evaluation of ~17. This is a mild undervaluation, primarily due to the way the distributional conversion works. For comparison the LTC value is 18 (invite) and the MLTC value is 21 (game). As for Milton, the antiquated method gives 17 (invite), the traditional TP valuation is 18 (borderline invite/game) and the modern TP value is 19 (game). And there are plenty of other methods that can be brought to bear, particularly if you want to produce less accurate results. It is irrelevant - Winston uses an evaluation scheme where the hand is an invite; I use a scheme where the hand is a game force....but we both understand what the bids mean. And they do not mean to look only at your hcp and ignore everything else.

If I open balanced bad 11s then this qualifies; if my NT range starts at good 11s or at 12 then this is not good enough. There are a small number of systems where I could open this with a limited 1♠ and be sure that a 2♠ rebid is not necessary. Playing a typical 5cM SNT system with sound openers, it is a clear pass.

It is an important part of approach forcing bidding principles for raises such as this to show an invitational hand. As Winston write, 16-18 is the traditional range but in modern bidding, a good 18 will typically force to game so 16-bad18 is more precise. That said, it depends on how you organise your responses, since not all pairs respond equally and pairs also vary somewhat in how wide they allow their invites to be. The important part is that it is invitational absent special agreements; the rest you can adjust and apply to the specific system.

1. You register to vote. This registration is not restricted to gate-keeping forms of identification that are often not held by members of groups that vote for the party not in control of the state legislature but tries to be as inclusive as possible. 2. A voting slip is sent to every voter. 3. The voting slip can be returned in the way most convenient to the voter. 4. If lost prior to voting, a replacement voting slip can be obtained from a local voting booth during the in-person polling period. 5. Polling stations and in-person polling periods should be distributed so that delays of above an hour to vote are unusual and above 2 hours impossible absent special conditions (such as a bomb threat). I would personally suggest in addition the creation of a national voting database if certain parties have doubts about double-voting across state lines. This makes more sense than the current voluntary opt-in state-level system. It also seems obvious that certain minimum standards should be created federally while still giving states some degree of leeway in how they choose to hold their elections to best suit the local conditions.

Even this sort of language gives air to the false claims Ken. Voter fraud in the US is not "rarely a problem", it is an event with odds below that of being involved in a traffic accident or even being struck by lightning. There have been a number of reports that have painstakingly tracked voting data and voter registrations across state lines - the incidence of voter fraud is less than 0.003% and most likely closer to 0.0003%. Now if you have one of the candidates actively encouraging their supporters to commit fraud, or encouraging organised efforts to undermine election integrity, that number could potentially rise in the future. But it has only happened once so far - I would suggest that legislation to make encouraging election fraud be a felony is a better solution than millions of the poorest of voters, those typically least able to fight back and retain their voting rights, having their names stripped from state registers.

One of the classics.

The Acol Club has a very simple rule. You can play non-Acol systems there but only if you tell your opponents in advance and leave if they are at all unhappy about it. Notice that Acol as a system is not just the opening bids, so if you are playing relay follow-ups you are not playing Acol and describing your system that way seems designed to mislead. Some players will be willing to play against your unusual method even in the Acol Club if you provide very precise descriptions of your bidding but by no means all. Finally, you can of course always go to the Main Bridge Club instead. Wherever you play, if you just give vague descriptions of your bids then you should not really expect anyone to want to play against you, regardless of where you set the room up.

The issue is not of whether any voter ID is required - only 15 states require no in-person IDs. The issue is rather one of laws that specifically target very strict photo IDs that are generally not commonly available in certain groups of the electorate. In almost all states, pharmacies do not require photo IDs for prescriptions, let alone restricting it to 7 or 8 specific types of ID. Photo IDs are however required in 19 states. Can you think of any reason to restrict access to voting more heavily than the distribution of potentially dangerous drugs?

No, I am sure you would never make me think of bellwether.

You are right - I must have been thinking of bell end when replying for some reason. :blink:

The obvious answer from a bidding perspective is Gaz or transfer rebids. Gaz sequences have already been given; in transfers 2♥ followed by 2NT is a reasonable description of this hand. The "best" auction I can come up with in Standard is 1♠ - 1NT -- 2♦ - 3♦ -- 3♥ - 4♥, but I am certain I would not be trying anything like that with a random pick-up. Hiding the 6th spade is quite appealing when you can see this hand opposite but there are plenty of other hands where doing so will be sub-optimal.

You miss the point. In America, "safe and secure elections" is bell whistle code for finding ways to stop black and brown people from voting.

Here is a hand that might make the list. This is another that looks fairly weird but whether they gained an advantage from it is another question. Another for the weird but landing on feet category. Did you mention 4-card overcalls? Or how about those non-forcing advances? Well, except when they're not. Invites? who needs an invite? WJO with a side 5 card major? WTP! Would you lead from 8642 in the unbid suit or Q2 in Dummy's second suit? Who says Acol handles 4-4 club fits better than SA? This and this were played on consecutive boards. Offshape takeout doubles aren't just for the 1 level. Against that, there are a small number of hands that actively suggest that they are not cheating. Sometimes I was just confused - can anyone explain to me what was going on in this auction? Just a little mix of selected hands from the last month. It is notable that together they have a record of +1.33 IMPs/bd, a fairly normal score for a solid regular pair and significantly less than one would expect from cheating. Comparing that with the record playing with other partners though, -0.47 IMPs/bd, and the difference certainly might be one that warrants investigation.

The term I have seen used consistently across several retellings of this story is that he "suggested" a PP to the TD. One of the juniors (Ng) is reported to have been slightly annoyed about the suggestion. In the case of the Singaporean juniors, the TD ruled that the pair could not open a Multi and a weak 2♠ was opened instead. In the similar case that happened 2 years later, the TD was able to locate 2 copies of the approved defence and brought them to the table. Meckwell then produced their own printed defence and proceeded to use that instead. The opponents were warned that a subsequent offence would lead to a penalty. In neither case was there any suggestion that Meckwell had breached any laws or regulations. There was fairly widespread criticism of gamesmanship and equally very strong support for the actions from most American professional players. None of the Nickell team have ever commented about either case as far as I know.

If 4♥ is not Last Train, which appears to be the case here, the jump to 5♠ is often used to say "please bid slam if you have a ♥ control". If 4♥ is LTTC, it is much more difficult to find a good use for the call so a trump quality ask makes about as much sense as anything.

To build on the previous post, there is also another way of building a sensible reversing structure, namely to play that Responder's 2M rebid is 5+ but non-forcing. The GF hands with 5 cards in the major then need to be bid via a different route, which will either be via Lebensohl followed by 3M or (for the sequence 1♣ - 1♥ -- 2♦) whichever of 2♠ or 2NT is not being use for Lebensohl or just a bid of the 4th suit. A combination probably makes most sense - going via 2NT shows 5M+stop, going via the 4th suit shows 5M without stop. The advantage of this approach is that it removes most of the bidding questions for this sequence (and very occasionally allows you to play 2M); the downside is that you get less information on the way to showing your "GF with 5M hand". Probably not worth it overall - making the cheapest call very narrow is rarely a good idea - but if the uncertainty in the 2M auction is an issue, this is a way of fixing that without giving up very much.