Siegmund

I like the very maximum 2D on the previous round Given where we are now I feel forced to bid 4C but don't like it.

At least in District 19, "top bracket of KOs" meant only one bracket no matter how many MPs you had, and it was very rare to see anybody play up. I was on the D19 board in the late 90s, and floated a proposal to have one full-fledged beginning-to-end Mid-chart event, and had a list of several people who said they would come up from California etc for the whole week if we had one such event... and the motion got defeated something like 2-9. Believe me, they acted like they were making a HUGE concession to allow it in the top bracket only -- and they were doing that in the knowledge that there were very unlikely to be any Midchart conventions used often even there. They wanted to welcome pros practicing for international events, but warn young punks who wanted to experiment with their systems that they were not welcome. It was not an accident that they said top-bracket-only and made absolutely no effort to allow or encourage playing up. Come to think of it, even that one concession might not have been made, had a team of 4 rather prominent Australians not come to one of our tournaments in Victoria, BC, and received quite a hostile welcome when they tried to play one of their simpler systems.

I don't have any hard numbers on double-vs-single dummy for 4-3 partscore fits, specifically. That is true. Though it's not obvious to me that they should be wildly different, at least in a systematic way (in the case of NT vs suit comparions we are talking about here, it's the difference between two double-dummy results that matters, and it is likely that with a 3-3 break it is right to pull trumps in a suit AND right to peel the whole suit in NT while with a bad break it is right not to pull trumps AND right to retain a stopper in the suit in NT.) I did inspect some number of the dealt hands, before running an automated script to deal out thousands of them. The most striking feature was that the hands where running to a suit made the most difference were the hands where responder was hopelessly weak and one suit was unprotected in notrump -- you don't get rich trying for 110 instead of 90, you get rich by conceding -100 instead of -400. Notrump on less than 20 HCP is often a huge disaster, while a 4-4 fit on less than 20 HCP is usually just fine and a 4-3 fit on less than 20 HCP is...well... not fun but often less painful by a couple tricks than 1NT would have been. Anyone who is familiar with Deal 3.1 and cares to inspect the script is welcome to send me a PM. The one way in which I consider this type of analysis most flawed has to do with the quality of the defense. I have done extensive sims of blind leads against 3NT and 4M reached by various auctions, and the less informative auctions consistently receive opening leads that blow a trick more often (to the tune of about 30% of the time vs. 2NT-3NT, 20% of the time vs 2NT-3C-3D-3NT, to 10% of the time vs 2NT-3C-3M-4M.) I have not done the same experiments on the impact of leads against partscores like we are talking about in this thread. If the effect is similar -- that the defense against 1NT is likely to be 0.2 tricks worse than against 1NT-2C-2H-Pass -- that does certainly swing some borderline cases against Stayman, but won't change 2C being right on a 3352 0-count.

I apologize for not repeating that clearly at the beginning of the drop-dead Stayman article; that was one of three articles on NT responses I wrote the same month, and more of the details are in the other articles. For the sim, opener's 1NT range was 15-17HCP. A 5-card major, 5422 pattern, or a 6-card minor is allowed. A singleton ace or king is not (always balanced or semibalanced.) As Rainer noted, I redid the results for a "classical" 1NT (15-17HCP, never more extreme than 5332, no 5-card major). I admit to being excited to know at least two people have actually read the article :) I have been 'practicing what I preach' since then, and getting raised eyebrows from partners for 2C on weak 3352s etc, but so far it has turned out reasonably well. A 4-3 fit does play better when you can ruff in the 3-card hand: that is a big reason why Stayman on 3352 or 3361 is a big winner, while with 4432 the case for running from diamonds to a 7-card major fit is not so compelling.

I don't know if I am typical... but for me this is not how I feel about it. Under normal circumstances I get to play a few sessions of bridge here and there, squeezed around work and other commitments, and don't play enough to keep sharp - and especially if I play a lot online and not much live, I forget how to tune out distractions around me. A week-long tournament is a rare opportunity to practice bridge daily. I am playing a lot better on Thurs/Fri/Sat of a typical regional than on Mon/Tue/Wed. I always try to make a point of arriving the day before if I can so I am well rested - when I was younger there were times I flew to a regional on a redeye Sun night / mon morning, had a board meeting all day Monday, and then had to play a KO Mon night and three sessions Tuesday. Even my 25-year-old self was not equal to THAT. (I also gave up the morning continuous pairs even when I had free play coupons for it, to the benefit of my main-event results. I don't know how much of it was actually a stamina issue, vs. the event schedule not agreeing with my sleep pattern: I quite enjoy 72-board bridge "dinners" that start at noon and run straight through to 10 or 11 at night with an hour for dinner about 2/3 way through.) But if there is one thing I could do differently to prepare for a regional than I do now -- it would be to play live bridge twice a day starting the Saturday before, instead of Monday night. Sunday of course is an exception. Getting up early Sunday after having been up late every night all week is a killer. Might as well just go home. If THAT's which "day 6" you meant, well, yeah.

I wanted to ruff the first trick too; my P won it in hand, and while I instinctively felt ruffing had to be better, ran into trouble when I actually tried to find breaks on which it was down if she won the club but making if she ruffed (there is one, 4-1 spades and 5-1 diamonds onside, I think, but thought there ought to be more.)

I am surprised how many posters in this thread think it is easy to find Midchart events at live tournaments. Just because a regional CAN allow Midchart in the high brackets of KOs and in the A section of flighted games doesn't mean they will. Some regionals in my area will allow Michart for the top KO bracket (ONLY the top bracket, even though brackets 2 and 3 may well meet the 1500+ requirement); a few of them also in the A/X Swiss on Sunday...some of them just don't. A request to play up usually gets you moved up one bracket or not at all. A strong B player or a part-time regional pro playing in the middle brackets could very easily go a whole year without playing a single hand in a non-GCC event except at the NABCs. And those like me who prefer matchpoints are even more SOL. There are a lot of fun toys I've never gotten to try since I can only use them on the internet, and it's not worth getting too hooked on them.

♠AKx ♥AKT ♦AKJT87x ♣--- ♠Q876x ♥J9x ♦--- ♣AJ8xx All vul, matchpoints. 2C - 2D (2H would have been a bust) 3D - 3S 6S Opening lead is a small club. Best line to guarantee making against bad breaks may still be appropriate since others may be in 6D or going down a different slam. But we do want as much chance of making 7 as we can. First big decision is whether to ruff this lead or let it come around to our ace-jack.

Sounds very penaltyish to me. I'd guess it will include 5 hearts more often than not though 4 very nice ones isn't impossible. Nigel's hand is possible; so are others with only 4 clubs like xx ATxxx xx KJxx or x QJTxx Axx Jxxx, not quite good enough to pass 1HX for penalty the first time. I *dont* expect to see very many hands with 3 hearts and 8 HCP. Hands like xxx Kxx xxx AQxx or xx AJT xxx Kxxxx bid 1NT the first time around, not 2C. The auction will be more common at other vulnerabilities, of course, but I think the essential features are about the same - a greater likelihood of beating 2H than of being eager to try 3 of a minor our way.

Small (except with people who lead low from doubletons)

There are many others. None of them is perfect, many of them are used at least some of the time. If you are interested in what has been done to search for the "best" point count, have a look at Thomas Andrews's hand evaluation articles. LTC is very different from the others you have listed, in that it works very well when you have an appropriate fit, but is of very limited use for opening bids and non-raise responses, except as a measure of what potential your hand may have if partner turns up with a fit. From your list, I tend to start with Karpin, and from the next round onward see what LTC says. If the two methods disagree by one trick I believe the LTC, if two tricks, usually split the difference.

I use this double to show a doubleton honour in partner's suit and a desire to complete (often 5 cards in the unbid suit but not quite promising them.) I find it more useful to be precise about the quality of my support than be precise about the length and strength of my holding in the fourth suit. It also greatly eases the memory burden to have a large family of doubles all showing one card short of raise length in partner's suit and a desire to compete, rather than have separate rules for support, rosenkranz, snapdragon, etc, situations. Without discussion I would assume a more generic Snapdragonish meaning.

I have heard lots of people say there was a time they were allowed, but if there was, it must have been a very short time. Reredoubles and bids of more than 7 are already not permitted in the 1920 laws (of Auction Bridge.) I want to say there was only one official set of laws before that - 1913 maybe? - and that the arguments about whether weird conventions like takeout doubles should be allowed had already died down by the time they were written.

If you are already going down to 9 I wouldn't also go up to 18 (or at all) except in 4th seat - that already adds a lot of frequency to these. I just happen to have conservative enough partners and a conservative enough regulatory environment that opening a lot of 9s in 1st seat isnt happening for me.

I think it should, yes. (But remember GIB shows first-round controls first, so it wouldn't have bid 4C for you anyway... though it didnt say 0-7 8421 points in C and D, either.) The way I play Soloway, even 4H should unambiguously be a heart cue over 3S. Returning to the main thread, not all that eager to see Drury added, think there are many other more important refinements to make.

Playing Polish-family systems I typically play 1M as 11-18, so I can't see why it would be too much of a problem to do the same for 1H only in Precision, if you gain something from it elsewhere. The 11-15 range is VERY limited, more limited than I want it to be, to be honest.

The only "rule" I am aware of is that you must correctly disclose your agreements to your opponents -- an obligation from which you are not freed just because you forget the agreements yourself. If one of you forgets something it makes it difficult to provide an explanation, if both of you forget at the same time, it makes it look like whatever you both accidentally did was something you both had agreed to do. Either way its a pain for all concerned to try to drag the truth out, and lots of UI gets passed from all the hemming and hawing answering questions (or just from the pained looks on faces.)

The two aren't mutually exclusive. A bidding system is supposed to exchange enough information for you to correctly place the contract, and no more. It may well do that by being "simple" and just blasting, or it may do that by being complicated -- spiral-scan cuebids until you have enough information for a go/no-go decision on a slam, or even purely artificial sequences so that dummy's hand is completely described and declarer's hand is not revealed at all. But the question of whether a system seeks to maximize information transfer or not is NOT the same as the question of whether a system is simple or not. "Complete" natural systems can still transfer lots of information, sometimes more than necessary, as in a game-try and counter-try auction.

I would have started with 1S like several others.. But taking 1H-2C-3C-3H as given, in my world hearts are unambiguously trump, and over 3S I bid 4C. If we are in a strictly aces-first world, maybe I have to bid 4H; if so I am ending the auction at 5H over 5C since we seem to have two fast diamond losers.

Will add you to my list. Often on late at night, and enjoy experimenting, though not often do I have a partner sharing my tendencies.

I am a bit surprised to see so many votes for 3S and 4S in fourth seat on this hand. I would open it 2S and feel I barely had my bid. (If partner raises to 3S, and I am not sure he should unless LHO acts, I would leave it.) I do like my fourth seat openers a little sounder than most - generally 1 trick short of the bid.

The time to end ladies' events was the same day we ended men's events. If you want to run both, fine, if you want to run mixed and unmixed, fine... if you want to run only one of the above, not fine, by me. It has been a non-issue anywhere I have played (having seen the last ladies-only event dry up and blow away circa 2000.) There was still a mixed pairs game at a few sectionals I've been to. It was usually necessary to allow a few unmixed pairs into the field to get all the LOLs paired off. Have never seen mixed anywhere except as a fun casual game.

Most the regionals I've played have clocks in the corner, too. But they allot between 14 and 16 minutes for a 2-board round, between 21 and 23 minutes for a 3-board round, anywhere from 40 to 50 minutes (to start the last board) for a Swiss match - more or less according to what causes equal numbers of "its too fast" and "its too slow" complaints. The directors enforcing slow play penalties I have only seen once in my life: when I overslept, showed up half an hour late for a morning KO, and got 4 boards taken away and fined 12 imps, despite the fact we played more than fast enough to finish our boards had they been given to us. It was quite possibly the only time I had a proper lunch break between a morning KO and a 1:00 game. I suppose it is a good sign, if there actually are some of these around these days. I still feel their presence is more a reflection of a desire of the majority of the players to play faster, vs. any attempt to impose an outside time constraint on them.

No. Serious bridge never was a timed event. That is, it has never explicitly been the intention that a typical player feel any time pressure as a feature of the game. The time limits are set based on how long it takes ~90% of the players to play an event, not the other way round. There is an event schedule and a clock, yes, for the convenience of the players to have an idea when the game will end, and as a means to deal with someone who deliberately filibusters to avoid getting a bad score / playing against someone he doesn't likes / whatever. If a substantial minority of the players are feeling rushed, the clock has been set wrong. (It is a curious bit of psychology that people play faster when the clock is present even if there is absolutely no consequence for playing on past the time it shows.) The fact that the big national team events routinely allow in the vicinity of 9 minutes a board rather than the standard 7 or 7 1/2 is, all by itself, evidence that the clock is not intended to apply time pressure. There are speedballs, where using time efficiently, and blasting to probably-good contracts rather than conducting slow probing auctions (and stalling to get an average rather than a zero), are special skills; and now on BBO there are exotic games where speed is the whole point and you pass out partscore deals because they aren't worth the time to play ... those are all something new and different from garden variety bridge. In the early computer bridge championships a set amount of thinking time was specified, as a special condition on measuring the quality of the software, again for a special extra reason beyond what normal bridge is. End of rant. I have always hated the phrase "bridge is a timed event' and have never seen any basis in law or in tradition for that claim. I agree that the pace described is awfully slow -- but I would not be too worried that once they are used to screens etc they could not fit 60 boards into 8 or 9 hours. (The D18 GNT, entirely online, was also unbelievably slow, though not quite as slow as D20s, to the tune of 4 hours for 24 or 25 boards in the first session, because of so many people new to the software and so many phone calls to coordinate between sites. It did make it hard to keep focus.)

( Deleted earlier response, when I misread the auction as starting with Jacoby not Stayman.) In my part of the world, it IS a bit odd to not have 4C Gerber available after 1NT-2C-2H; many play 3S as an undisclosed splinter, 3NT by opener asks which suit.