Gilithin

Michel, you are consistently evaluating hands according to their Work Count and undervaluing distribution. After a 5cM, this hand is easily worth a 3♦ cue raise and is not even close to a minimum, hence the majority opinion here that the hand would be worth 4♥ without the BIT.

I deliberately left the meaning of 5NT out of the previous post and think the theoretical discussion here is as interesting as the hand itself. My first thought was that this is obviously pick-a-slam but as I thought about it, I realised quickly that this does not really have any advantage over bidding 4NT and raising partner's 5♦/♥ or bidding 5NT/6♦ over partner's 5♣. So it seems to me that either 4NT+raise or 5NT should have some grand slam interest. Something like 5♠ = GSI with no ♠ loser and 5NT = GSI with a ♠ loser perhaps? (or the reverse if you denial cue). Is there some expert standard here Mike or is it just for individual pairs to have personal agreements on the differences?

X is convertible values, 4NT is takeout, other bids except 5/6♠ and 5NT are natural and non-forcing.

East might have a balanced 9-12 for their Pass of a 1♣ opener? You are just trolling now, right?

You start the auction with 1♣ - P and ask why the pair did not bid game? Maybe you would like to re-think that.

It seems to me that whenever a mass of negative press surrounds Donald Trump, certain conservatives come here and launch trolling posts that attempt to bury any discussion about the current scandal. If you look back through the history of this thread, you can see this pattern repeating itself endlessly. At this time it seems much more fitting for this thread to be discussing why "someone" at Mar-a-Lago stole over 10000 government documents including 2-300 with confidential markings than to go over Chas's racist posting history yet again.

Is there a question or do you just want to impress everyone with your insight that AKQTxxx is worth more than 9hcp?

Unfortunately your partner opened 1♦ on a 4=4=3=2 hand and now you are too high - pity. Next auction: 1♦ - (X) - XX or P - (4♥) -- P - (P). Your choice this time?

Then I recommend you read Partnership Bidding at Bridge, which is available online without cost. You might still decide not to change your style but it will at least give you some insight as to what the big boys are doing. Overcalling a QT62 suit rather than a higher ranking QJT87 suit is just bizarre.

Jean-Luc Godard

This seems like an appropriate time to post an article about what has gone wrong with BBF.

If Democrats could get a national law through - any national law - it would not be an issue. But there are not the votes to get through a filibuster, so it is going to take women to vote blue in huge numbers if they want to see a positive resolution to the whole thing. Otherwise, all Democrats can do is pass state laws. The best workaround currently there is to pass a Texas-style private action law targeting guns. But now that Roe and Casey have been washed away, Republicans do not even need those so the SCOTUS can happily fast track a denial.

How is this a workaround? If blue states enact this law and red states stick with their total bans, poor families will likely end up even worse off than they already are.

North "opened" with a Forcing Pass and didn't alert it?

You are giving him far too much credit. He was not fine about the potential of 3 low level classified documents falling into enemy hands via a private email server. But ~200 classified documents including the most sensitive information held by the US government being put in a location easily accessible by foreign intelligence agencies - that's no problem!

The right call depends on what hands your 1♦ overcall can contain. ♠Qxxx ♥Qxx ♦Qxx ♣Qxx matches the description of your call - you really do not want to be bidding 4♠ (or frankly even 3♠) over that.

As you are one of the better posters here Paul, I have to ask if you would feel just as comfortable with a random non-expert pick-up partner? or if the comfort comes from knowing your partner will not hang you by doing something stupid?

X as specifically both minors would be unusual too. Generally it shows all of the hands that cannot easily be bid a different way that do not want to pass. Exactly which hands depends to some extent on how you play 2NT.

As a general rule, X is negative by Responder and Support by Opener. That said, I have played auction #1 as 3 card support in a 4 card major context for many years and think that is a net winner over the more popular takeout. Similarly for (1m) - 1♥ - (1S) - X, which I have played as 2 hearts with some partners and as 3 hearts without a high honour with others. So by analogy, playing auction #1 as 2 hearts (or if preferred as ♥xxx) would seem to make sense. Auction #2 is different. Here you just do not have the bidding space to make your more important and flexible call so specific. I would therefore very strongly suggest that you do not restrict this double only to hands containing precisely 2 spades.

Funny how differently players see a hand, particularly as I usually agree with your logic. I see this one as a choice between X and Pass, with 1♦ and 1♠ coming in a distant 3rd and 4th place.

North has at least 3 calls - 4♥, 3♠ and 2♠ - that I would put ahead of 2♥ in my Nigel-style bid ratings. Any of these would give you a much better chance of getting this right.

As far as I know, locking someone up is not a barrier to running for POTUS unless they are indicted as an insurrectionist or under certain Espionage Act charges. Locking up criminals has nothing to do with deciding who wins future elections; you fix those by putting into place rules that allow partisan legislatures to override the actual vote count.

It helps in the same way as locking up any criminal helps the average American. That is simply the job of the DOJ. In Trump's case there is also the additional factor of protecting American intelligence interests, which potentially could mean the difference between foiling another 9/11 attack or having it succeed.

Spread is a Forcing Pass system using a Weak NT opening. Clearly E-W were not playing that on this hand. The suggested 4th hand defence after a 1NT opening and transfer is for cue to be a full value takeout of their suit rather than a Raptor-like overcall in the other major.

There is a separate forum for GIB but sometimes posters forget to use it. I agree wholeheartedly with the chorus saying that no competent human would bid 2♥ with that hand.