Siegmund

The actual wording is "3 million tables of bridge in play annually in clubs and tournaments and an additional 300,000 tables online", so I was of the opinion that BBO games were not being double-counted, but I can't swear to how the ACBL counts.

That's just too fast copying and pasting on Inquiry's part. Board 12 was West dealer, NS vulnerable, just as on a normal set of duplicate boards. West opened.

We had the same first 5 bids. My partner opted for 4♦ over 3NT to show his 5-6, and he correctly interpreted my 4♥ as a cuebid agreeing diamonds after that. We felt like we had overcome a real challenge to reach the top spot; speaks well for the forum that so many got there.

Depends how good of an opening you want it to be. "3NT showing... a solid suit" has always been GCC legal. It goes by the name of Kantar 3NT in the conventions books - AKQ-7 or better in either major, no outside ace, responder can ask for outside kings. I've been playing it quite happily since about 1995, though to be honest I can't remember many spectacular gains from it. Still, it removes the top end of 4H hands and some of the difficult "1 or 4?" problem hands, and lets you keep a little bit more slam accuracy. I daresay you can bend the definition of "solid suit" a lot farther than you can bend the minds of conventions committee.

I find the scoring on this one almost as strangeas the bidding (at my table North bid clubs twice on a 3-card suit.) I see no clear top spot, to be honest - 4S needs to pick up the SQ so it's marginally better than a 50% game (and this being MPs, 4S needs to be somewhat better than a 50% game to be bid - how much better depending how many pairs we think are beating 3C.) Similarly I see very little chance of more than 5 tricks against 3C -- as we know on the NS hands we saw 3C looked to be making -- and would surely rate 3CX below partscores in spades.

The acbl claims, on its website (http://www.acbl.org/about/organization.html) to sanction "3 million tables of bridge in play annually in clubs and tournaments" which presumably translates into something around 70 million hands. TylerE's rough ballpark estimate came out remarkably close.

In reference to 3NT: I was assuming it would always be in the West after 1NTF, with a diamond led; 75% of the time at least one honor will be with South, in which case you'll lose (at least) 3 diamonds and 2 spades if you try to set up spades. 3NTW, at any rate, should score worse than the making partscores, including 2H; 3NTE I am OK with beating the partscores. All academic anyway since nobody in the field actually played 3NT.

Despite? I tried to make it quite clear that inquiry was not hosting, but was at the table kibitzing when the incident occurred. Sorry if that was not clear. I said something to the table about us missing the slam, which probably confused everybody else. The question about whether we might need a director, and the followup explaining how we hadn't finished discussing our defence when I got dealt the 19 count, were sent to you; I don't remember if I heard anything back before the hand was over and the hand-display issue came to light (if I did it was brief.) I would guess I sent a total of about six lines to you, half at the start and half after the hand. Given that some of them were sent at the same time as I apparently failed to receive my cards for board 3, I too will be interested in whether they made it through. I didn't get a disconnect message, but a large number of lost packets is possible. I assumed, when you announced in the thread there had been operator errors leading to an adjusted score, that the operator had confirmed dealing too soon and dealing board 2 twice. When it turned out that your concern was only with the lacking 2S and 4H bids, I really had no idea what to think. As I said, I am not after an adjustment now, since we did have a pretty serious misunderstanding, and even a top on this board wouldn't help us in the overalls much.

First choice, pass. Second choice, pass. Third choice, drop a card on the floor and call it a misdeal. At equal vul, I would be OK with 2S.

Doesn't strike me as difficult at all. Just barely enough playing strength for 3H at this vulnerability, and no solid 2nd defensive trick AND no surplus of high cards. 1H doesn't cross my mind; I rate it as my 3rd choice behind 3H and pass.

So did I ... thought the point of the hand was to stay out of the game, though I did see that 4S was liable to sneak home undeservedly. Why is 3NT, virtually a no-chance contract most of the time, scoring well? If we "arent taking NS cards into account," I cant see 3NT getting more than 25%.

I very seriously considered that same 1NT bid. I hated the idea of bidding 2C-then-3C on this hand. (So I leapt to 5C, and partner thought that had to be a control-asking-bid in clubs, fishing for a diamond slam. Whoops.)

2D-pass-2S certainly gives fourth hand an interesting problem. Rather unfortunately, the leap to 4H removes all the problems, exposing EW's big spade fit even if the 2S bid made it harder to find temporarily. (I remember thinking, after we landed in 3NT ... hmmm, maybe not so bad, 2nd-best contract. Heh.) I think it was a fair bidding problem, but the leap to 4H removed most the interest from it. I do think it would have been appropriate to include a note in the signup that we might face a multi. As for what happened at the 3NT table, I will give you all the 'rest of the story' here. There were in fact two operator errors, but not the two inquiry thought there were; and since we DID have a bidding accident that was only partly caused by them, so I am not screaming for an adjustment. Operator announced that there was a multi, and invited us to discuss our defense. Partner thought 2NT was minors; I reminded him that our usual agreement is that 2NT is strong over a weak bid, but chose my words poorly, saying something like "I agree except I thought 2NT is supposed to be strong, but whichever way you want it for today." Before partner had confirmed which way he wanted to play 2NT, operator dealt the cards. The other three hands turned face-down, and I was looking at a semibalanced 19-count, 4 spades and a heart stopper. Oh, no: now there is a UI problem if I try to insist on 2NT strong. I open a chat to inquiry saying we may need a director, and I dig up a link to the multi defence posted on my website, so I can provide documentation that 2NT 17-19 is our actual agreement, not me being sharp and picking a defense to fit the cards I am dealt.) Before inquiry answers, partner says "oops" in table chat. A few seconds after, operator says "oops" in table chat. I took this to mean partner agreed he was wrong about our agreement and was agreeing to play it my way, and assumed operator was just being chatty. As it turns out, I now think that both oopses were because operator dealt board 2 to the table twice in a row instead of loading board 3. There was an exceedingly long pause (during which I was trying to explain my ethical dilemma to inquiry in private chat) before 2D finally got opened on my right. Still looking at 19HCP, I overcalled 2NT. Partner raised to 3NT. Still looking at 19HCP, I passed partner's raise to 3NT and waited for the lead.I see 15 points in the dummy, and am aghast that one minute after our conversation, partner has either already forgotten was 2NT means, or didnt intend his "oops" as agreeing with me. !@#$. !@#$%. !@#$%. We've just missed a cold slam. ...and then a hand record popped up on the screen showing a nondescript 10-count I had never seen before. "wtf happened, where did those cards come from?" .... and neither inquiry nor the operator had a word to say about that. It was certainly not the only software glitch -- I was disconnected twice during the session; the 'movie' button sometimes brought up gibberish or a completely empty hand record, but sometimes showed me the previous board, and to my shock somewhere around board 7 showed me the complete hand still in progress before we bid it; and I got sent to a teams scoresheet when I tried to click past the claim screen once. I don't know if my actual cards on board 3 got displayed when dummy was faced, or not until the hand record popped up after the claim was accepted. But I very definitely was still looking at the 5-4-2-2 19-count both when I bid 2NT and when I passed 3NT.

I reluctantly vote for double (passing a 1S advance.) I applaud anyone who can pass in tempo with this hand. I would happily pass 14 and some bad 15s in this spot; can't quite make myself do it with 16.

Double-dummy analysis routinely says 31HCP are enough for 6NT to be a good contract. No surprise that it does the same here. There is some truth in that, even allowing for a few too many two-way finesses being picked up; we've all had a LOT of 490s in our lives on hands with considerably fewer points. But it's quite a leap to deliberately bid contracts we know will be very shaky and the rest of the field likely will not find. I am "blessed" with one frequent partner who almost invariably bounces me to a slam if I open a 15-17 1NT and she has a flat 15. I do make between 1/3 and 1/2 of these slams she puts me in; but I would get just as many matchpoints by getting a 490 against the field's 460, without having to struggle to avoid the -50 (or -300).

Depending on the partnership's style, any or all of South's first 3 bids might be overbids. (Is 12 worth a game force? Does 2NT show extras in a fast-arrival context? Was cuebidding over 3S mandatory in an already-GF auction?) I presume from the 4C and 4D bids that the cuebidding style is to show 2nd-round controls freely. So North knows about a certain heart loser when South fails to cuebid 4H, and must refuse slam with 1 keycard missing. Since 6S is going off two for sure, I guess that is one trick's worth of blame to each partner.

It's going by the ever-so-imaginative name of "3-3-4-4" among the handful of players that use it in my corner of the world. As already mentioned, if you're going to play this, there are probably better responses to it, but it does have the merit of being simple.

Pretty unusual, IMO, to have only 1/3 of the field advance to the upper bracket in round one of a five-round event. (But every time I try to figure out what the format is going to be I am stumped anyway, so do whatever works best on your end...)

SA with custom toys. Majors-first oriented gadgets shamelessly lifted from Matula-style Polish Club. The first batch of hands looked challenging to bid in any system.

In hearts, I think it has quite a bit going for it, especially at matchpoints. (And for me the 6th trump is all but mandatory.) In spades there isn't so much of a need, since there is no cheap bid for the opps. I guess for me the question is - do I need a 5th bid for yet another kind of game try - and so far the answer has been no.

My reg p and I have been playing a version of this for several years and been happy with our results. 1NT-2S: flat invitation, or HHxxxx in either minor, or a minor one-suiter looking for slam. Opener's rebid: 2NT: minimum ......3C: in fact I have HHxxxx in clubs and out ......3D: in fact I have HHxxxx in diamonds and out ......3H: in fact I have a club slam try ......3S: in fact I have a diamond slam try 3C: maximum for NT, but no club honour. Responder passes with a club invite, bids 3NT with a NT invite or a club slam hand that needed a filling honour in clubs. 3D = in fact I have HHxxxx in diamonds. 3D: maximum for NT, a club honour, but no diamond honour. Responder passes a diamond invite, bids 3NT with a balanced or club invite. 3H or higher: max, and an honour in both minors, and a cuebid in this suit. It's not necessarily "better than" 2-under transfers, just a different approach, to put the invites into one bid, and the the weak hands into another (1NT-2NT=bust in clubs, or various strong hands.) If I do play 2-under transfers, I have no balanced NT invitation, and just choose between 1 and 3. I absolutely hate people who go through 2C without a 4-card major just so they can tell me they have an ugly 9 count.

Pass. And if partner looked at the vulnerability, I expect to go one off as often as to make.

I am fine with Never, unless I've got a special agreement that lets me bid 3 bad diamonds here.

3NT is more of a matchpoint bid but I don't think it's insanely bad. Responder took a view that his Txxx was worth suppressing. He was arguably wrong as the cards lie. Bear in mind that, while 1C-1D-1NT can conceal a 4-card major, opener does have a choice whether to bid 1NT or not. I don't know what your partnership style is; but in mine, if I bid 1NT over 1D with a 4-card major, I am definitely claiming to have the other major stopped, so the risk is not as great as it seems. In all fairness, let's also consider that the bidding is going to go the same way when opener doesn't have the H9, which gives 3NT a lot more chances to beat 4H when hearts break badly. It's mighty unlikely to find opener not only with 4 hearts, but with 3 high hearts.

1NT is reasonable, and quite possibly the best call on the cards you hold; it's still an overbid, and 8 is close to what partner ought to expect. Whether partner should have bounced it straight to 3NT is debatable - but if you're of the "bid 3NT with all the 24s" school, yes, he should.