paulhar

Agreed. This looks like excellent bridge movie material :) I played it the same way that pclayton did. Unless I have great evidence otherwise, at the point where he might play from hand or go to the board and cash the club and lead up, I go to the board, cash the club, and lead the diamond. Of course, an early appearance of a spade honor or 9 may alter the line chosen.

Please mark me as an enemy now so you won't have to put up with such silliness. Maybe in a well-olied partnership you are right, but in a pickup partnership, even with world class players, some of these auctions are possible. Let's say the Fred G. sat down to play with another world class player for an exhibition but they haven't partnered each other before. His partner opens 1NT. With a hand that wanted to invite 7, do you think he would bid six, bid seven, bid 5NT, or launch a sequence of forcing bids that might lead to confusion by the fourth round? I'm guessing that the bid you find so deplorable might be used.

If they're not fancy, just try playing splinters in McBruce's Alphabet Points tournament (a very popular SAYC only tourney) and see how far you get. (Average minus at best, I think.) I don't think so - the protocol seems to be: advanced players can answer beginner's questions, or they can pose a question for beginners to answer. I didn't want beginners to answer. I'm asking the people that feel qualified to answer a question without using conventions. If you don't feel qualified to bid without using conventions, then don't answer. (I'm not trying to flame you, I meant this seriously, I was hoping that the people that felt like they knew how to bid without conventions would be the ones to answer.) I personally play many of the conventions that weren't allowed in the conditions of the post. But others don't. I had a reason for asking these questions in this forum. There are many possible reasons. Just as a for instance, I may disagree with another teacher about an answer given to a student that plays with the above agreements. Am I going to settle it by asking in the Beginner's Forum?

Yeah, I lead a heart from hand to the jack too. My Mrs. did a lot right this weekend too, only her choice of partners was bad :rolleyes:

Wow - a TD for a large tournament makes lots of rulings. That's a lot of extra work to post them all - perhaps more work than running the tourney itself! I think all TD's want to improve. If they were unsure of a ruling they made, they could ask other TD's if they handled the situation right. They probably should be unsure of any ruling that gets a lot of complaint. But most rulings that the director is comfortable with do not need to be reviewed. Alternatively they could post these on a TD's forum - perhaps one that TD's could monitor but the general public couldn't. This would spare the new TD embarrassment during his learning process.

Yes, you're doing something right. Keep up the good work! There is definitely demand for the type of tournament that you run and the many posters flaming you can choose not to play in them. However, at the risk of repeating myself, I think that 2NT-3D-3H-4C can show CLUBS. There is no advantage that I can see to transferring first (yes, by all means give the opponents a chance to make a lead directing double!) if all you need to know about is Aces. Remember - RKCB is not allowed. If you want to know about Aces, bid 4C right over 2NT. Then place the contract in hearts if that's where you want to play. I'm sure that if this is flat-out wrong, a whole slew of experts would have let me know the first time I posted it. That didn't happen. So you have it all, you can ask for aces, or show clubs, or show diamonds, or bid NT quantitatively, even letting partner know about your major to help him decide on the contract (with 6H being possible.)

Low spade. Reason? We need one trick besides the heart Ace. If I lead a club and hit partner, I can't get to him. His club trick probably can't go away anyway. Declarer sounds prepared for diamonds. It is theoretically possible for partner to be ruffing a dimaond when I get in with the ace of hearts, in that case, I probably would get my diamond trick anyway by waiting. (Hopefully I won't get endplayed with the heart Ace! Declarer can hardly guess my shape, I'll probably be able to ruff a club winner at some point and get out a spade safely. A spade could go on a club if we don't get it in time. I lead low since if declarer has an option, I want him to choose the one that plays me for a spade honor. If partner has a finessable honor, I'm picking it off with the lead anyway.

Why did your partner put his hand down? He opened 1C. While the 3H cue-bid is fairly standard among advanced and expert players, this is the B&I forum and I intend to answer the question as such. If you were playing with your peers and you bid 3H, it's likely to be misunderstood. A beginner would think you had hearts (despite the 2H bid), and some intermediate players might think you were cue-bidding for slam. So, cue bid 3H only if you think partner will understand... The beginners with just a few lessons under their belt would say, "We have a game. We have no fit in a major. It's my job to get to geme.", and just bid 3NT or 5C. If any relatively new player did that, I would understand. Either of these is a better bid than 3C, which the beginners that didn't think about game at all would bid. As the newer player learns more, they realize that: (1) bidding notrump when the opponents have bid shows a stopper in their suit, and (2) sometimes you don't have a good bid but want to make a forcing bid so you have to make up a suit to bid. Minors are less likely to be taken seriously than majors which can easily be raised. On this hand, making up a 2S bid (showing 5!) is likely to get you to spades (while it might work fine on other hands), while making up a 3D bid probably will get the desired result. If partner bids notrump, fine. If partner raises diamonds, you bid clubs. You might have to correct 5D to 6C which is bad, but it's better than having partner pass or raise your cue-bid. So, I guess my answer is: if you don't think 3H will be understood by partner, make up a new suit.

However, we are discussing what 4NT means. The player bid 4NT in a transfer auction. Bruce didn't disallow or dispute the bid despite its omission in the SAYC manual. If a bid is allowed at all, it means something (unless it's a fert :angry: which certainly isn't allowed.) So we are left to determine what the bid means given the constraints of the SAYC manual. The manual doesn't specifically tell us what the bid means. It does not specifically say that all 4NT's are Blackwood except 1N-4N or 2N-4N. It does not say that Gerber is used ONLY... The bid was allowed. Since the SAYC manual doesn't tell us what it is, we have to figure it out using bridge logic. I did that in an earlier post on this thread and I couldn't come to any conclusion except that it's quantitative. I don't read into a 'SAYC only tournament' that you are not allowed to make a bid that's not explicitly explained in the manual. After all, I have seen people bid 1S P 6S in these SAYC tournaments and nobody's going to bar them from doing that. Come to think of it, 1NT P 6NT and 1NT P 7NT aren't there either. But I don't think that ace-asking is a prerequisite for bidding a slam.

I think declarer should always finesse regardless of how you play. Let's say you always play the 2 from J2. If you play the J, clearly the drop can't work. If you play the 2, you could have held J2, KJ2, or K2 (or just 2, where it doesn't matter.) The finesse picks up K2 and saves a trick against KJ2.

1. Where is this SAYC book that you use for your rules? An online link would be helpful :angry: When I looked up SAYC, I didn't find these. For the ACBL booklet on SAYC see this... CLiCK here for link to ACBL booklet Thank you for the link. I've read the pertinent section. What it says is: (from ACBL SAYC manual) I don't see the word ONLY in that statement. If the SAYC manual had stated 'A one level response shows four cards after the opening bid', would you interpret 1C P 1D P 1H P 1S as not showing four spades because the spade bid didn't come directly over the opening bid? Even if you don't buy this logical extension, there's another flaw in your argument. The SAYC manual also states, "Jump overcalls are preemptive." Since I don't find anything else about the issue, I would assume that your interpretation of the auction RHO: 3D You: 4H would be preemptive! We all know that this is not true. So you can't take anything in there literally. Bridge common sense has to override the literal content of the book.

I'm not going to answer this because it's intended for B&I's, but I just love the idea behind it. Many points are lost because people put their partners on the spot instead of helping them. One of the most common situations is when declarer has taken a lot of winners at matchpoints and then led a loser and the defense has the rest of the tricks. You take some winners and are on lead at trick 12. You have a winner and a loser. Probably your partner has two winners, one of which covers your loser. If you lead your winner, partner (if expert) should be able to work out which of his winners to keep, but they often go astray (being human) and throw the wrong one. Then they feel bad about it and mess up the next board too thinking about that one. Don't put your partner in that position. If you're pretty sure declarer doesn't have the winner to cover your loser (he probably would have cashed it if he had it), lead the loser and make your partner's life easier. Partner will happily claim the last two tricks without using an erg of mental energy deciding what to keep and will be fresh for the next hand. IMO, if you cash your winner and partner throws the wrong card, you are partly to blame. I know it's anti-intuitive to lead the loser with a winner in hand. But I've led the loser hundreds of times in this situation and it's never cost a trick. Plus, it keeps my partners playing well, and it's good to have at least one person on the partnership playing well :angry:

:) You have ten tricks - five spades, a heart, two diamonds, a club, and a club ruff. You have to promote them and untangle them. Win trick 1 in dummy and let the HK ride for a ruffing finesse, pitching a club. When it loses, take the next trump in hand and ruff a club. If trumps were 3-2, ruff a heart, lead the CK. If it loses to the ace on your right, and a club comes back, play the 9 to get 2C,1H,1D,1ruff,5trumps. Otherwise, finesse DQ to guarantee 10 tricks. If trumps are 4-1, I think you need the diamond finesse. Still ruff the heart, draw trump, taking 5 trumps, 1 ruff, 3d, 1h. If the HK gets covered WILL FINISH POST TOMORROW :lol: Edited: I lied, not finishing - due to lack of interest.

My original intent is to play for the jack of clubs to be doubleton and hearts 3-3. Club to king (Maybe Ruth will cover!), then queen of clubs. If the jack drops, I'll cash the 9 when in dummy and duck a heart. When the CQ loses to the Ruth's ace and the jack doesn't drop and Ruth leads another spade, I play three rounds of hearts and assume that Ann won't unblock with queen-third, so she'll have to lead from the DA when she's in. When the CQ loses to Ann's ace and the jack doesn't drop, she probably doesn't have the HQ and the DA. I have to try a diamond to the King and hope that Ruth keeps playing spades when in with the third heart.

I play 2 50% of the time, and J 50% of the time. Declarer will presumably play restricted choice and finesse in either event. (Not to mention that either of these could be from KJ2, so your play shouldn't matter.)

I just unhid it, so nobody should be confused about Jimmy's post - mine was hidden at one time.

Not so sure about that, Brandal. He might have the Laws down better but it sounds like you have it all over him in the diplomacy department - I'll bet that most players will appreciate this trait more. Don't be so quick to give up!

1. Where is this SAYC book that you use for your rules? An online link would be helpful :) When I looked up SAYC, I didn't find these. 2. Your conclusion is not logical. If somebody only needs to know about Aces, they don't bother to transfer, they just bid Gerber (under your rules) and place the contract. No advantage to setting the suit first since RKCB is taboo. If your hand is shapely enough that all you care about is aces, then having the responder's hand distribution hidden is probably as valuable as having the lead come up to the NT bidder. If somebody wants to bid quantitatively, it MIGHT be useful for partner to know about the 5-card major to help him decide whether to go or not. So, the quantitative 4NT makes much more sense after the transfer. BBO has some pretty decent players - I have found most intermediates on BBO to be much stronger than our 'intermediate' students (or anybody else's!) I'd bet that most of them that know that 1NT-4NT is quantative can extend the principle to all notrump auctions. That being said, I don't think Bruce handled the situation unreasonably as many of the posters seem to think. He had to make a quick decision how to get this player to bid. Maybe if he had a long time to think about it, he would have done something differeent. But he didn't have that time, and in the little time he did have, he probably were being hassled with other calls. The player needed to bid, and if wasn't going to bid unless he got the information, Bruce gave him the information. Perhaps he shouldn't have done that, but I'm sure the player would have been more annoyed at getting an average minus for holding up play - which a lot of TD's would have given.

Considering that likely things you might hear from partner if you double include: pass, 3NT, 4C, 5C, I feel I must pass. On a lot of the hands we can make 4S, partner reopens. If we can make 3S, congratulate preemptor on a great bid.

WAS HIDDEN, NOW ISN'T: If the opponents are playing standard leads, I lead the king of hearts. When East covers, I ruff, and play queen and a club, putting LHO on play. He has to put me in dummy, or lead a spade making my hand good. If he puts me in dummy, I cash the red tricks, throwing three small spades, and lead a spade to the ten, ready to congratulate LHO on a great lead if he held S-QJ(x). If the king of hearts is allowed to hold, I discard a spade, discard two more spades on the diamonds, and finesse the spade ten. I think I need to play this way if spades are 4-1 because if I retain any small spades, West can ruff the ten of spades and return the jack of clubs, leaving you with a spade loser. If the lead could conventionally be from S-QJx, I think I still play the same way, because (1) leading spades looks bad on this auction, and (2) most of the opening bids East could be dealt that include a singleton king of clubs also include the queen of spades.

I certainly hope 4NT is quantitative here, because if it isn't, my wife is going to have to rewrite the entire chapter she's working on now! :rolleyes:

I hope we all think that 1NT P 5NT invites a grand slam in notrump. What do we all think about: (#1) 1NT P 2C P 2S P 5NT (#2) INT P 2C P 2D P 5NT (#3) 1NT P 2H P 2S P 5NT (#4) 1NT P 4H P 4S P 5NT (#5) 1NT P 4C P 4S P 5NT (#6) 1NT P 2H P 2S P 4C P 4S P 5NT? (assume 4C Gerber, please comment if you think this is rediculous)

If you're playing Matchpoints, 3Cx would be a top, so I don't see how redouble can be to play.

As usual, I'm going to leave myself wide open to be flamed. Why should BBO TD directors (who work for nothing) be different from the rest of the popluation? Can you tell me a position, from the lowest sub-minimum wage jobs to leaders of our countries, in which more than half of the people are competent? OK, I didn't think so. :rolleyes: It's amazing that you expect a higher standard from those willing to give up their time for free, and to put up with crap like this to boot! The solution is simple - play in the tournaments where the directors are in the esteemed 10 percent. We've all got bad calls - I used to get more of them when I played in ACBL tournaments where I paid what seemed like exhorbinant card fees. In most cases, I have found the TD's on BBO to be friendly, courteous, and quite willing to make what seems to be correct adjustments. Which is quite a lot considering the garbage they have to put up with while directing - see the TD forums. However, it sounds from your message that you might be one of these people that ask for an adjustment on every other board (I have known some like that in ACBL; they are usually the loudest complainers about unfair directors), where I could see that some TD's would be put off by the extra work created by just one player. If that is in fact true, the 90% you talk about is going to be darn glad to see you boycott their tourneys. However, even given that, I haven't experienced what you're saying. In one tournament, the director must have been fed up with me - I called three times for an adjustment because I was headed for a near top and the opponents (different ones each time) slowed down. In each case, after careful study, the TD awarded me the score I thought I deserved. In another tournament, which involved the winners gaining entry into other events, I was concerned that my pickup partner didn't enjoy the results of his win because of a disconnect on the very last board. I emailed her concerning this (when I realized it) almost TWO WEEKS later, and almost instantly, she sent me the log where she chatted with my partner offering him his winner's membership. Personally, I think that's exceptional service, far more than I expected from a group reputed to be "90% incompetent". And all this for free! If you feel dissatisfied with BBO TD's, then at least feel good that you got what you paid for. By the way, if only the directors that were competent in your eyes directed on BBO, you'd have a lot less tourneys to play in. And due to the overwhelming demand to play in their tourneys, you might not even get in unless you signed up days in advance.

Wow - do you demand respect! When I post a problem, I get maybe three answers :huh: First one's not even close, if I reopen, the opps might stumble into their mammoth club fit; partner's inaction over 1S probably means we're not missing much. (I'm assuming normal overcalls and takeout doubles - if MOSCITO does something different, maybe I'm making bad assumptions about partner's hand) Second one - I have an eight loser hand - normally like a 7-loser hand for a 2-level overcall. Also, the three cards in their suit is a minus... So, I see that with 16 HCP opposite their 24, it's your hand THIS time, but most times you bid or reopen with your 16 vs their 24, the bonanza is going to be for their side. I would assume that very few get to 4H, nothing works on every board. Chalk it up to the fine preemptive effect of the opponent's 1S bid :ph34r: