Rebound

My vote was pass. But who knows. Looks like I'm in the minority.

This is not the same thing as your brother's example. In his case, UI was exchanged because he was privy to the explanation his partner provided to the opposition and thereby became aware of his error. In the quoted example, i.e. 1NT-3NT-4H, no UI is exchanged. You may bid whatever you please over 3NT (please see my post on psychs) - provided, of course, your partner is not in on the joke and bid 3nt knowing you were going to bid again to keep the opps out of the auction.

Ditto.

There are so many points worth adressing in all the above posts, I don't know if I will remember them all, but here goes: First, I am wholly in favor of allowng psychs even tho I wouldn't know when to bid or defend against one if my life depended on it. I plan to research the topic sufficiently to change that, however. The argument that a psych is simply a subset of so-called mixed strategy is contradictory on its face. The post describing it stated clearly that a psych is not really a psych, then went on to provide an example which is, by definition, not a psych, since it is a partnership agreement. To those who state that the line between a so-called shaded or light bid and a psych has become too whispy to fathom, consider the expression, "gross misstatement". I was taught it amounted to about a king too much or too little in high cards. Make it an ace if you "tactical bidders" feel that to be too restrictive. I think holding 2 cards over or under expected length is reasonably termed a psych, such as opening 1♠ holding xxx in the suit and playing 5-card majors. I agree that there's enough stuff going on on BBO that no harm can come from allowing TD's of free, independant tourneys to ban psychs clear in the knowledge that if you don't like that rule, you simply won't enter. As Fred said, a psych is an altogether different animal from a bid which has no pre-existing partnership agreement. Again, it just goes back to the definition of a psych. If a partnership has no agreement for a given call, they can make it with any hand they like. It seems to bear repeating that the spirit of the rules explicitly permitting psyches is to make it known that, in bridge, you can make any call you want with any hand you want with only 3 restrictions: #1 Disclosure: if your partnership has an agreed meaning for the given call, your opponents are entitled to know what it is, #2 Fielding: some conventional calls and others which allow a partnership to use the auction to deliberately diagnose whether a psych has occurred (where the opponents cannot) may not be psyched since this is grossly unfair to the opponents, #3 you may not psych if your sole purpose is to skew the results of the board for the rest of the field for shits and giggles since this is unsportsmanlike and unfair to the entire field. Regarding psyching against weak and or novice opponents in clubs and bracketed events, c'mon, grow up. If you are a strong partnership, just bid it up, take your expected average plus, and go on to the next round. Why do we want to humiliate players who are new to the game just for laughs? Mind you, if a weak pair enters an open tournament, it's no-holds barred imo. Be my guest and play to win. Sorry about the long post but I felt it needed saying :)

My lead is a club with the double. If it's wrong I'm not losing any sleep over it. Without the double, I put a spade on the table. I say, when in doubt, whip out Occam's razor and presume the most straightforward explanation.

I would just like to say that, imo, so much depends on partnership style. There are some I play precision with, for whom a natural 2/1 style works "best" (and it is my preferred style), and others for whom a wholly artificial relay approach produces the best results. Preferences aside, I believe I actually get better results from that method. I'd be interested in the proportions among international championship winners using either of the described methods. Just my 2 cents.

I consider this to be so fundamental to standard bidding that I'm surprised it even came up for discussion. But then, I once had a pickup partner pass after this uncontested auction: 1♥-2♥-2♠ so go figure. I know it's not the same thing, but it shows no matter how many millions of people there are who would consider this a forcing bid, you can always find one exception lol.

My call would be 2♣. You can debate about it all you want but it's the best way to force the auction. Fortunately, with my precision partners, it's a lot easier. Over 1♦, 2♦ is an artificial game force. It's too easy after that. :-) Sadly, there are too many who have not had the benefit of your experience, Ben, so I would not dare bid 4♦ for fear partner take this to be a natural bid of some sort.

I'm pretty sure at the table I'm just going to play the ♠A.

Dumb question deleted.

There's one other possibility. Were I to open 2♣ (precision), over 2♦, I suggest only that it is possible, however unlikely, that partner could double (negative) rather than a normal 2♠. So then the auction may proceed ...(2♦) - X - (P) - 2♥ - (P) - 2♠ - (P) - 3♦* - (P) - 3♥** - (P) - P or 4♥ * - stopper ask ** - don't like Qxx, like the moysian.

Ditto

On the first one, I'm going to ruff the first trick, then play A of ♥, then ruffing a ♥, I then lead the ♠ Q. How's that work out? Second one, I agree with Frances Hinden. Dunno if either of these are correct but it's what I would try at the table anyway.

With all due respect, that is horse hockey. I have been getting these messages and I have never visited the site, played in no BBOItalia events that I am aware of. I did not write to anyone regarding it since I have no idea how I came to be receiving them in the first place, and no clue who to talk to since I presumed they were sanctioned by BBO. Not to mention that the messages themselves are nearly indecipherable to me.

I have been thinking along similar lines. Perhaps if that is not acceptable, some simple method of donation could be established? Since anything of that sort would be in BBO $ it would of course be invested back into the site. It's just a thought.

I am finding that after tournaments and team games, once the event is complete, the bridge movie displays no scores, only the results of the hands themselves. At the top, it gives my overall score, and underneath it says, Your ranking: 0 of 0 An ideas?

It is precisely because it is simple that it has value. Granted, it adds complexity to the 1NT response. However, by definition, this response is rather likely to lead to a partscore - muddier methods will endager fewer points. I tend to play a lot more IMPs than matchpoints and I guess I tend not to fight over partscores as much as most. I'm not in favor of ultra-light openings. For me, opening 11 is pushing it. Fortunately, our system is geared around low-level penalty doubles, so come get me and we'll see what works better lol :-) Just kidding, of course, but whether they work better or not you won't see me doing it.

I agree with Ben in that I would treat it as a stopper ask whether over a minor or a major since it is somewhat consistant with the west coast cue that I play with my regular partners.

Disagree. Game for your side is a live possibility. If you pass you are essentially giving up on getting to game. So +100 on defense may not be good (if your side can make +600 in 3NT for example). Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Thanks Fred. Good Point. I would be interested to know what happened in the rest of the auction in the actual game.

I think I would lie by a J and open that hand 1 club. I am starting to like the idea of 3NT as any namyats hand... but in any case, ours is currently narrowly defined as an 8-card suit headed by at least AKQ and at most a king outside the suit. I grant that it comes up infrequently, but when it does, partner can accurately set the level of the contract by just counting the number of top tricks in his hand. I question its value as-is because it is so rare, however. There's the rub - is it worth it to play namyats in such a way as to practicaly guarantee a good result but only once in however many - 2 thousand hands? No plans to change it anytime soon, but this thread has been food for thought.

I guess I pass here as a matter of principle. To me, the wide-open club suit makes it as unattractive to o/c 1NT as to dbl. My experience (limited tho it may be) is such that I will often get a good result defending with this hand when the opponents get too high against silent opposition. Otherwise, I feel it is just as likely we will be able to re-enter the auction from a balancing position if necessary. I am sure Fred plays against tougher opposition most of the time so that a 1NT call would be worth it to keep responder out of the auction below the 2-level, but most of the ppl I play against will usually get too high when my partner has no cards. The worst case scenario I can picture is if the auction were to proceed (1♦)-p-(3♦)-P-(P)-... I would be hard pressed to decide whether to double here. My thinking tho, as described above, is that I should pass, expecting that if we can't beat 3♦ we probably can't make anything at the 3-level either. I've just re-read my own post and I've noticed it implies that I'm saying that on this hand any plus is a good plus. Now that I think about it, I believe it to be true, but what do you folks think?

Essentially, once you rebid 1NT, the most partner can achieve, short of bidding game, is a 1-round force. After 1♦-(P)-1♥-(P)-1NT-(2♣)- I would take 3♣ as looking for a club stopper for NT and would bid 3♦. It's difficult to force the auction for long after a NT rebid so as responder you need to be aware of that and determine the final contract asap.

Heh heh, well I hear ya, and I know this will get some hoots, but being a precision player, I play both the mini-roman and gerber heehee. In fact, we have made the decision that it is always for keycards after trump agreement also. I'm sure that statement will receive a lot of negative comments but it has worked very well for us over the years. I suppose I should add that I have had little exposure to little other than standard bidding and what I play. It's sort of a case of not knowing what I may be missing. Unfortunately, I have not had a regular partner with whom I could work to examine other methods. That having been said, the system works for us :-)

I would still like micheals to be on here since showing my shape is important given that partner is a passed hand. If I catch him with 4-4 in the majors, say, we could make game on very little in HCP.

I hear ya but I have no clue about flannery since I've never played it. However, I have to admit, I love gerber. I think it's wunnerful. The reason: natural NT resposes.