Gilithin

You can actually do both. After 3♦, Responder bids 3♥ to accept the game try and 3♠ to decline it. Then any call except 4♠ (over 3♥) or Pass (over 3♠) shows the cue. In that case, if you wanted to use 3♦ as a game try (or 2-way as above) you could just play it as 9-11 and make the weak raise (5)6-8. You might consider using these ranges even if you made the (sensible) switch between the 3m raises as suggested by Winston as it optimises the accuracy of your game bidding.

Make your limit raise 9-11, 9-12 or 10-12 and now using 3♦ to split the range makes perfect sense.

Typically Pass offers ♦ as a suit to play in and either i) XX asks Opener to bid their suit and bids are natural; or ii) the X is ignored with 2♥ being P/C and XX showing an unknown suit to play in. Maybe you could expand on your idea to produce something better?

I found this somewhat amusing - for me the Saints play football and Baltimore is associated more with Orioles and Colts than Ravens.

Sorry I meant a 4♥ rebid, so 1♥ - 2minor - 4♥.

Well that is why I specifically avoided the auction 1♦ - 2♣ - 3♦, which is somewhat more controversial. If you play Frivolous 3♥ there then it has a direct knock-on effect to which hands can rebid 3♦ in the first place. I think a good general rule is for it to be on anytime slam interest is possible for a major and anytime slam interest has explicitly been shown for a minor but for the absentminded it is reasonable to play always on for majors and always off for minors. In any case, a better question for you is what a 4♥ rebid from Opener would have been. I seem to recall Ken (Rexford, not Berg) a very long time ago suggesting this should be a Bluhmer (ie a raise with weak hearts) - any other sensible suggestions?

First of all, 91.3% of statistics quoted on the 'net are made up on the spur of the moment, as was this one. Secondly, the two examples from that page are instructive: in the first Keyes got 27% of a 71.34% turnout, which works out at 19.26% of the electorate. In the second, Jones scored 25.92% of the vote; I cannot locate the turnout figure for this district but unless this safe seat, midterm election somehow managed ~75% or higher, it is also going to be under 20%.

Is this not where Frivolous 3X shines? The first step says you do not like your hand for slam (but still gives partner space to explore) while higher steps show controls and say that you do like your hand (with 3NT replacing the spade cue if trumps are hearts rather than spades). Seems to combine the best aspects of both concepts.

If you read very old (1960s) Acol books they will tell you to open the suit below the singleton. Then sometime around the 1970 they changed to suggesting a 1♥ opening with 4441 (singleton ♣). Move on to the 80s and the majority have switched to opening the suit below a red singleton or the middle suit from a black singleton. Finally, in the mid-80s a minority position appeared in some Acol books for opening 4441 hands 1♦, meaning a 1♦ opening with any (4441) hand containing 4 diamonds and 1♣ with 4414. Also, another minority position exists for opening 1♣ for any red suit singleton; this is usually in conjunction with up-the-line rather than shape rebids. I am not sure of the origin of this one as I think it might come from continental Europe. It does not, as far as I know, turn up in the influential Acol "Master Series" books (I do not have all of them though). In truth if you look back to 1950s bidding you will find plenty of pairs that would always open a 4 card major and would indeed open 1♠ with 4144 but experience and practice has shown that this is less effective overall than opening a minor, with 1♦ being the more popular choice (at least with a minimum hand) because of the potential rebid issue if LHO overcalls 1♠ and partner doubles to show hearts.

No, the clue in the OP is where he mentions a "2/1 response". This thread (from 2016) was specifically about the auction 1♠ - 2♥ and why it is correct to respond 1♠ - 2♣ with a 3433 hand of suitable strength.

This pass feels like someone with a total misunderstanding of basic bidding principles. If it were not the BB I would assume it was a beginner. I suspect there is more to this board than we have been presented with here. The Nickell team is well-known for hardball tactics and Zia+partner (Rosenberg?) were renowned for stepping outside of system based on small psychological cues so perhaps some subtle but false AI was provided to prompt the pass of 2♣.

This one seems like a matter of partnership agreement. For some an immediate 4♦ would be invitational while 3♥ followed by 4♦ would be a slam try. For others the immediate 4♦ would be a slam try while 3♥ followed by 4♦ (at least after a non-3NT call) would be passable. Finally Justin apparently plays a direct 4♦ as a slam try without a ♥ control and 3♥ followed by 4♦ as a slam try with a ♥ control. I prefer Method 2 generally, since in many auctions (albeit not this one) it keeps 3NT in the picture opposite a stopper when I do not have enough for 5♦ otherwise. So my choice is 4♦ but playing either of the alternative methods obviously 3♥ would then be better. I very much dislike Levin's 5♦!

With a strong partner, I think it is after 4♣ clear that 4♦ should agree clubs with slam interest and 4NT should be natural. Here 4NT stands out as an easy call. With an intermediate partner I would expect them to take 4NT as ace/kc-asking, so 4♦ is surely just a general cue asking for more information. Now I think I will try 4♦ and hope partner can bid a 3 card major so we at least reach a sensible spot. With a purely social partner, 4NT is clearly asking and 4♦ risks a pass so I think the best chance at this point is to treat the hand as 4531 and bid 4♥. This could easily end badly so perhaps I should have thought about it more on the previous round and found Mike's Pass over 3♦. I am not convinced this is a problem with a single solution that applies to every pair. Incidentally, that looks like a very entertaining session with several interesting hands. Perhaps you might consider posting, inter alia, Hand 7 from the other table (after Multi-2♦ opening) as well?

The "orange" is actually yellow. "Yellows" are officially called "hosts" and you can see them by clicking on the "Hosts" tab within the "People" side tab. This group was previously known as "Administrators" and are people who either work for BBF or volunteers who are available to answer questions and solve issues.

I am not too sure why you take any of that seriously. There are easy counter-examples to pretty much every statement: There is very strong evidence that women in Australia are increasingly frustrated and turned off by the way politics in the country work. Far from "a joint sense of responsibility", the evidence points towards women being disenfranchised by the entire system. Why would a system that alienates >50% of its electorate be seen as positive? The country that has used a single preferential voting (more commonly called ranked-choice voting or just ranked voting) system for the longest continuous period is Malta. One of the 2 main parties there is the NP (Partit Nazzjonalista). Although it has moderated somewhat in the last 10 years, this party is still regarded as one of the most extreme from the European Christian Democratic (US: conservative) movement and was even explicitly modelled on Mussolini's PNF. Given that American politics are typically more extreme than Maltese, the idea of ranked-choice voting eliminating the possibility of a populist leader coming to power stretches belief. First of all, while it is often stated that Australia has mandatory voting this is not strictly true. It is true for white Australians of course but indigenous (Aboriginal) voters are exempt. Imagine the uproar if Republican states introduced bills mandating voting for whites but exempting non-whites! On compulsory voting more generally, the largest country currently using it is Brazil. At the last election fully 21% of voters did not vote and a further 9% were null or invalid votes. The result of the election was a win for Jair Bolsonaro. Those who follow international news will recognise the name - his nationalistic, populist policies along with the severe downplaying of covid have earned him the nickname of the "Brazilian Trump" in some quarters. If I were creating a voting system for a new country, I somehow doubt that this would be the one I would choose as a model. This is the part where I feel like scratching my head. The turnout figures are mentioned and yet, despite this, the 33% voting for Trump somehow get conflated with the 30-40% of the actual voters who turned out for unpopular candidates. The problem here is that 30% of 2/3 of the electorate is 20%. If someone wrote that 20% of the electorate on both sides were die-hards that always voted for their party then this would be reasonable, although even here one would need to address the question of changes in party-affiliation, something that has happened more dramatically in the US than almost any other democratic country in the world. Better to say that 20% of the electorate at any given time will always vote for their current party affiliation but now we are watering down the supposed point being made so far as to be more or less meaningless. When one looks deeper one sees that the voter suppression goes to any group that the Republican party thinks will vote overwhelmingly against them. This is less about race per se and more about winning. Just as gerrymandering to minimise the impact of massed urban votes is about retaining control rather than racism. It is true that non-whites are one of the easiest groups for Republicans to disenfranchise but there are also specific groups of whites that they try to discourage from voting. While the voter suppression is often couched in racist terms by the Left, it is best not to confuse the two motivations. The loyalty to Trump is not a strict party affiliation. Liz Cheney is also a die-hard Republican and has much stronger conservative credentials so your logic would assume that she is just as popular. She is not! The thing to understand about the modern Republican party ("modern" being since the permanent shift to the Southern strategy) is that they are less a party of conservative politics and more a party of protest. What they want from their politicians is fight. It matters less what they are fighting about as that they are seen to be fighting for them. Say what you want about Trump's intellectual abilities, his public persona is very much that of a fighter. This is what makes him so popular with the Republican base.

"Economics is not an exact science. It's a combination of an art and elements of science." - Paul Samuelson

For those without access to the Virginia Mercury site: maths story link

I have never seen it described this way anywhere but every example hand for this sequence (and similar ones) that I have ever seen more or less matches the general description of an Acol 2 with a good 6 card suit.

3 questions Ken:- 1. Are you aware of issues concerning social justice? 2. Are you aware of issues around racial equality? 3. Are you aware of issues surrounding inequality based on sexual orientation or gender?

Yes, a 1 of suit opening. Whether a minor or 1♥ would depend on system. You then find the ♠ fit and now whether a pair can end up in 3NT becomes, I think, a somewhat more interesting question.

1♦ - (2♣) - X - (P)// 2♠, as per the auction in the quote.

So with a weak 2821 you would pass? The most common treatment I know is "weak with 1 major, or (at least) 2 places to play". As has already been mentioned there are better methods around but for some reason hardly anyone at club level plays any of them. To those for whom 1♦ - (2♣) - X - (P)// 2♠ - P - 3♦ is weak, how would you instead bid an invitational hand with 4 hearts and diamond support?

As mycroft points out, the ACBL clarified their position in this area a few years ago. Critics point out that the regulations as they currently stand just happen to coincide with the preferred methods of those that were in charge of the change but no doubt this was pure coincidence. This is the other way around, right? It was not banned at the time of Trevor Chappell's embarrassingly cowardly underarm ball at the MCG in 1981 but a subsequent rule change by the ICC made it officially "Not within the spirit of the game", something everyone in cricket at the time (with the apparent exception of Greg Chappell) already knew. It is (or was, I haven't checked for over a year) regulation from a national governing body where I sometimes play. Like any other MI, failure to follow procedure risks an adverse ruling if the opponents are damaged.

This is simply untrue. It has been illegal in many jurisdictions at various times. In some where it is now allowed, an announcement is required. Others may require an alert. A typical announcement that is required with a regular partner in a non-ACBL game is "Good 11 to 14. Singleton possible. 5 card major possible." The potential presence of a 5 card major probably causes more consternation than the possible singleton.

Switching the ♥A and ♥T makes this a more interesting hand to bid, particularly if you happen to play Serious (or Frivolous) 3NT.