ArcLight

Was the 2♥ overcall really a good bid? As opposed to passing. Despite the good spades and the aces, thats a crappy trump suit at the 2 level. responder can have 5 hearts and 8 points.

I would like to know their premepting style. - 2♠ = J5432 or AJT853 (- 2♦ is a weak 2 in ♦?)

LHO has shown a strong hand with long Diamonds. If you lead the Ace, you will likely establish that suit. Maybe a Dime Ace lead establishes that suit for discards of heart losers. However there is also the chance that pard has a singleton and you can continue the suit for a ruff. Pard has 4 trumps so they may have trouble pulling trumps and doing some other things, such as ruffing a suit. If you choose to lead the Dime Ace, I would continue in the hope that pard can ruff it. The opps can't take any Club finesses, so unless they have the A K Q and J, they will need a club ruff or two. Leading a spade can harm pards 4 card holding. With a J9 holding he may have a trick. Any chance of the Diamond loser going away? That would require a discard on hearts. Only possible if the opps hearts are very strong. So whats left? A heart? OK - I lead a heart. Helene, I think your reasoning was ok. Even a reasonable play doesn't always work.

I would endure this if I could learn from an expert, or had to curry favor with a jerk. Its easy - just inwardly smile when pard yells. You know its going to come (frequetly). Listen to what they say objectively, if they are resulting, just nod your head and say "OK". If they make a nice play, compliment them. If they mess up , say nothing. (just like you would with ANY pard) :)

>Looks like Mike and I are in agreement, basically I always overestimated the "everyone is good at declarer play" factor I think. I have been really surprised recently Justin (and anyone else), what are some (non trivial) mistakes you have seen top level players make in major events (Cavendish, BB, etc) Please give more detail than "Loser on loser" Fred wrote "Don't make mistakes". Dang, most of us (at least me) probably wouldn't recognize some of those mistakes. Sure it can be something like ruffing with a low trump and not being able to reach dummy later. I'm curious about what mistakes experts (the real ones) make.

The book is dirt cheap if you buy it used. $5 USD including shipping. I think some Librarys will also have it.

Easy. Tell the students to Edit their profile and kib just NS. :) Of course as the host of the table you will see all 4 hands

Elianna, The reason I started a new thread was I had a new set of hands I wanted to ask about. If I add hands to an existing thread it might be ignored. In other words I REALLY want to hear from experts! Also, I indicate 2/1 rather than SAYC, just in case there are differences. Maybe with these particular hands it doesn't matter. But it does matter with others I have posted. Also for all I know, there may be some subtle differences between SAYC and 2/1 I am not aware of. I just wanted to be clear. >It doesn't have to matter, Arclight doesn't know SAYC very well (does anyone?), he cannot know if it makes a difference, so if it would make a difference he just tells everyone. :P PS - Eli, you haven't responded to my questions. Please do so. :P Thank you all for responding. It helps me to see others thought processes. I appreciate your posts. (Where are jdonn and mikeh? :P )

stiff K♠ (2 spade tricks) QJ♥ ( 3 hearts) Qx♣ (4 clubs) RHO holds KJ♦ (3 Dimes) With a heart - Diamond squeeze for the 13th trick

>btw if I recall Klinger says in his book to not use LTC in deciding to open a hand or not. It is to be used only once a fit is found. I do see many refer to LTC or losing trick count on deciding to open or not. Mike is correct. Klinger warns against counting losers BEFORE finding a fit. And he suggests that a 9 card fit makes this method more accurate, probably because you can ruff losers and or avoid nasty breaks.

IMPS 2/1 (not SAYC) 1. (unfavorable) Pard passes, RHO bids 1♦, would you overcall 1♠ with: ♠ K 8 x x x ♥ K x x x ♦ x x ♣ K x From 1 - 100 how do you rate: PASS, 1♠, Other (explain) 2. (favorable) RHO deals: 1♥ p 2♥ p , p ? Do you balance with: (if so, whats your bid) ♠ K J 8 ♥ J T x ♦ K Q 9 x ♣ x x x From 1 - 100 how do you rate: PASS, DBL, Other (explain) 3. (All Vuln) Opps silent You hold: ♠ x ♥ A K T 9 4 ♦ A T x x x ♣ x x You open 1♥, pard responds 1♠. You bid 2♦, pard responds 3♣ (4SF) You bid 3♦, pard bids 4♦ Whats your bid? Opener bid 5♦ ending the auction, making 7 :P Responder held: ♠ A Q T x x ♥ J x ♦ K J 9 4 ♣ A x How should the auction have gone? 4. Favorable Pard opens 1♣, RHO bids 4♥ Whats your bid with: ♠ K 9 x x ♥ J ♦ K Q 8 x x ♣ K x x 5. All vulnerable LHO passes, pard opens 1♣, RHO X, you bid 1♥ holding: ♠ x x x ♥ K Q J x x ♦ J x ♣ J x x The bidding continues: p 1♣ X 1♥ 2♦ 3♣ 3♠ ? What do you do? ?Pass, 4♣, X, 3♥, Other? The bidding continues: p 1♣ X 1♥ 2♦ 3♣ 3♠ p 4♠ 5♣ 5♠ ? Now what?

A few points: What would Bridge kids books be? Bridge for Dummies? The bidding is complex. Its not so easy to teach. Will most kids be interested? Or do they just want to "play the game" (i.e. try and make the contract) Also, because Bridge is a partnership game, it takes a lot of "together" time to play well. "Why the F^*$% did you pass?" "Because my hand sucked, F^*$% you too" This is common enough in adults, I wouldn't expect it to be less common in children. ----------------------------------- There are a huge number of excellent bridge books. I know because I have read them. Look at this quote from the article >One of the things I love the most about chess is its profoundly anti-social nature In my limited experience many bridge players are not into reading books on Bridge. And Spades players (a Whist derivative) are even less willing to read articles. Perhaps becaus eof its anti-social nature, chess players may be more likely to be loners and perhaps more willing to read books. (This is speculation, I have no proof). The only annecdotal evidence I have is my father said he grew disillusioned with chess because of the anti-social aspect. (He was a good player when younger, rated in the top 50 in the USA) There are also a number of EXCELLENT Bridge CDs. All of the ones Mike Lawrence has written. There is also Bridge Master. The article mentions "chess books for teachers". Thats a little different. I'm not aware of Bridge books aimed at teachers, unless the ABTA has some. On his website Richard Pavlicek has materials he will sell to other teachers. One problem with teaching bidding is the partners may have different ideas. They will favor different styles and conventions, and there is so much to discuss and agree upon. In chess we can all read the same book on end game strategy and come away with something. For kids to learn and want to play Bridge they need to see their parents or others they interact with play it. How can they be exposed to Bridge? High School? College? I have no idea. I'm not sure its easy or normal for elementary school kids to be interested.

B) :lol: :lol:

Adam, you left out one: Almost always pull your pards penalty doubles. >Refuse to play against anyone who doesn't play very standard methods (if possible). Insist that they are trying to confuse your partner with their bidding Play weird methods. Don't disclose them. While I agree with Adams post :unsure: , I do think if you are going to spring some weirdo home grown system on the opps you should suggest a few defenses. We played a pair, I said we play "2/1 Standard Count /Attiture 4th best leads". During a hand I asked about their signaling. They said "Its complex" I was annoyed at that remark. If its that complex, then be ready to explain it or direct me to a URL where I can read it. Instead of giving it a little at a time. "Oh yeah , if such and such ahppens then its X not Y". They didn't really explain much. At one point I asked if its a Precision variant and they said sort of. While they used Full Disclosure, I was still unsure about if it was possible to hold certain hands. They got some good results because we couldn't belive what they were bidding. Ending up in 4 spades down 3 (undoubled). I supposed it was a worth while experience in that anything that broadens your horizon is worthwhile. But I sure didn't enjoy it. I felt it was random, and difficult to draw inferences and visualize the hands. They played poorly also. So I came away with the impression "since we stink lets use a home grown system that confuses people, and we can do ok against Intermedaites".

LHO is bidding like a man with A LOT of hearts and Spade shortness. Would he bid a weak 2 with a heart void? I assume red/white you dont bid a weak 2/multi with just 5? Since he passed initially and didnt make a weak 2, he is sure bidding a lot. For us to make slam, I think we need pard to have 5 spades to the Q J, and some kind of club filler. If we have no heart losers, we can afford a club loser, so if RHO has the KQ we are ok. I'll bid 6 Spades.

>However, it is not possible for me to have this hand in that auction. Meaning you would have overcalled 2♣? (the 2nd auction) I would pass in the first auction If I had not overcalled 2♣ in the 2nd auction I think I would pass, assuming the opponents are decent players. Let them make their 2♠. I think if I bid it will result in an occasional phone number and is not worth it overall, even if you make some partscores or sac at -50 instead of -110 or -140.

I like this problem

I can't believe that grand slams are as frequent as 2% It might change the defense if the defenders are defending 7 instead of 6. You would lead an ace against 7, you might not against 6. In a 7 level contract you might be forced to take a certain line, where in 6 you would take another, guaranteeing the contract for the certain loss of 1 trick. As for 33 HCP slams, those are not that common in my experience, usually shape contributes some points. >I guess my (anecdotal) experience is that there are a fair number of boards where I don't bid slam and slam is lousy looking at my hand and partner's, but things lie very favorably and slam ends up making. It feels like there are probably more of these than hands where slam is actually good in fact! But these are basically "unbiddable" slams because if you bid them you will also end up bidding a much larger number of slams which are equally lousy and where the cards don't like favorably... I agree. You make 6 or 7 because of working jacks and 3-3 splits, adn 2 finesses being right. Pard made 12 on 3NT becaus eopps lead a suit other than Diamonds allowing a finesse, and then later a squeeze. No way to bid that

I think in one of Ron Klingers books he says a slam occurs on around 10% of deals. A part score on 50% of deals. Games on 40% of deals. ( I have edited this post to replace "hand" with "deal" in case my meaning was not clear)

Why is it advantageous to switch the meanings of 4♣ and 4♦? (keycard and balanced slam try)

What about pre-alerting "We use an 11-14 NT" at the start of each set of boards.

I don't agree with 1NT because if playing a forcing NT opener is very likely to bid Clubs. Whats wrong with passing? Maybe the opps will buy the contract , maybe a 4-3 heart fit, or 4-4 diamond fit. Let them find out the extreme distribution.

What does pard usually have for a vulnerbale 3♦ bid? Just the K? Both the K and Q? I dont think 3NT I safe unelss you have a way to ask pard for a heart stoppper and are sure they have the K of Diamonds I think bidding 5♦ is safer. You can ruff some Clubs, If pard has only the King you can finesse the J. If he has both you can ruff a club and make easily. In fact, with 1-2-7-3 shape you can make 6 if the opps fail to lead hearts. If playing MP its tougher. Even though 5D is probably more likley to make, you will still do poorly when both make.

IMPS, unfavorable (using 2/1 not SAYC, and not some home grown bids - please use "standard" not that there is one :) In 2nd seat pard opens 1NT (15-17) how do you bid this: ♠ Q 9 8 x x ♥ A Q 9 x x x ♦ K x ♣ void

I would Reverse and bid 2♥ but I still don't understand why some people think 3 ♦ is horrible? The stiff Q can easily be worth 0, but the Spade Q may be useful since pard bid the suit. The Daimond suit is quite good. I think 2♦ would be a far worse bid than 3♦, unless you enjoy misisng a lot of games.