Rebound

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=s1065hkj8da985ca83&w=sk42h32dqj106cqj72&e=sa98hq974dk73ck105&s=sqj73ha1065d42c964]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Our auction(NS): (p) - p - (p) - 1♦ - (X) - 1NT - (2♣) - ppp Other table(our partners-EW): 1♣ - (p) - 1NT - (X) - p - (2♣) - ppp This may strike you as a pretty boring looking partscore hand, but when played in a team game last night I noticed that the contract at both tables was 2♣, but in opposite directions. Since we beat it both times, we won 4 IMPS :-) How often have you defended or played the same contract at both tables in a team game?

Well I'm still of the opinion that I would rather get a good result from play rather than, say, from a misclick that results in a rediculous contract that would otherwise never occur. It seems I'm far less concerned about UI than most around here. I don't have a problem with granting undos.

I'm dissapointed that even the better players seem to think that bidding methods are a method of determining the skill of the player. I'm used to seeing this with weaker players... Oh! You play precision? You must be really good.... I believe the reason that precision was recently banned from a certain tourney I play in was due to that sort of thinking. Treatments, bidding style, it's all as individual as the player. It has nothing to do with playing ability. I don't think it marks me as a beginner if I don't play xyz or anaemic pre-empts or drury or a thousand other conventions and treatments. I simply don't bypass a 4CM to bid NT. Keeps things simple. My call is 2♣. With 4-3-3-3 partner will bid 2♥. This 2H slow preference by your partner to avoid the 3-3 heart fit is hardly a cure-all. What if your partner (when you bid 1S) was... 0-4-5-4? Now you are still in a 4-3 fit, to make matters worse, you as opener ahve biid three suits, you sound like your 4-3-1-5 (or at the very least 4-3-2-4). Visions of game on minimum hcp will dance in his hand, with your ruffing diamonds, and he spades. What if your partner is 1-4-3-5, now you are going to get to 3C instead of 2C. While there in no bid that works right all the time, and there are multiple ways to bid a hand. Each has advantages and disadvantages. The 1NT response with "balanced hands" simplifies the auction in way that I like, by accurately describing my hcp and "shape" (balanced). For those of you (like me), who believe shape first, the 1S rebid as "unbalanced" does in fact describe shape (4S and unbalanced) better than the 1S bid that just describe "4S" basically any shape that can not raise hearts directly. The 1NT rebid has the added benefit of describe hcp range too... So for me, the bid that makes sense is 1NT with balanced hand. See my longer post on the voting poll on this topic. Fair enough. You can't have everything, so ya gotta pick something based on your methods. But as Fred pointed out in another thread, disagreeing doesn't make a particular treatment right or wrong. Granting that some methods may be "sub-optimal", I think that that regardless, if they work for your partnership, then they are, by definition, playable.

There are actually several options, all of them belonging to the opponents lol. Mind you, they apply when partner has made a call... I really have no idea if putting down a stop card means partner should complete the action with a call. In any event, here are the options: 1. Your partner's LHO may accept the call, in which case the auction proceeds as normal. Otherwise, it goes back to being your turn to bed, then: When a player has bid out of rotation (and the bid is canceled, as the option to accept the bid has not been exercised - see Law 29): A. RHO's Turn When the offender has bid (or has passed partner's call when it is a convention, in which case section A2(:) applies) at his RHO's turn to call, then: 1. RHO Passes If that opponent passes, offender must repeat the call out of rotation, and when that call is legal there is no penalty. 2. RHO Acts If that opponent makes a legal bid, double or redouble, offender may make any legal call; when this call (a) Repeats Denomination repeats the denomination of his bid out of rotation, (penalty) offender's partner must pass when next it is his turn to call (see Law 23). (B) Does Not Repeat Denomination does not repeat the denomination of his bid out of rotation, the lead penalties of Law 26 may apply, and (penalty) offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to call (see Law 23). B. Partner's or LHO's Turn When the offender has bid at his partner's turn to call, or at his LHO's turn to call if the offender has not previously called , (penalty) offender's partner must pass whenever it is his turn to call (see Law 23 when the pass damages the non-offending side), and the lead penalties of Law 26 may apply. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An illegal call by RHO is penalized as usual. Later bids at LHO's turn to call are treated as changes of call, and Law 25 applies. The upshot of all this, is that if putting down the stop card constitutes a bid out of turn (and i feel that it should), then you are barred from the auction but your partner can bid anything.

2♦ obviously. We make slam opposite as little as xxx xx Kxxxxx Ax And in order to avoid any questions about it: The hand is never a heart rebid at any level, and not good enough for a jump shift. Roland That was, of course, my point. If you hold this hand, you really need partner to respond 2♥ rather than pass holding the given hand at the top of the thread.

I have read many many times how important it is to take a preference to 2♥ in this situation. Partner may hold a good hand with 6-4. Suppose you hold x AKxxxx AQJ10 xx. What's your bid after 1H-1NT?

I'm dissapointed that even the better players seem to think that bidding methods are a method of determining the skill of the player. I'm used to seeing this with weaker players... Oh! You play precision? You must be really good.... I believe the reason that precision was recently banned from a certain tourney I play in was due to that sort of thinking. Treatments, bidding style, it's all as individual as the player. It has nothing to do with playing ability. I don't think it marks me as a beginner if I don't play xyz or anaemic pre-empts or drury or a thousand other conventions and treatments. I simply don't bypass a 4CM to bid NT. Keeps things simple. My call is 2♣. With 4-3-3-3 partner will bid 2♥.

I believe there are many who would bid 1NT holding a 4-card spade suit, some conventionally, but I don't like it. Here the KISS priniciple applies for me. So, yes, 1NT denies 4 spades.

I don't think it has much of a play unless East holds the AK of ♠ and West the AJ of ♣, and the ♥ Q is either dropping or onside. So, I don't think the auction matters to me a whole lot. I think I will win the ♦ in hand and lead the ♣Q. I'm hoping to come to 3♦, 2♣, 3♥, and hopefully a spade or a heart. Unlikely, perhaps. But that is my plan.

As usual, this just my opinion: first, in the main room, I will grant any undo. After all, it's just a game right? In fact, I will grant pretty much any undo if it is quick enough. Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of misclicking. Although I request undos less frequently now out of courtesy to the opponents (and because it bothers ppl more than I would have thought), it leaves me sympathetic to the misclicks of others. I agree with waht has already been said tho. Nothing wrong with granting the undo but using the info.

Wadda ya know, it looks like I had the right idea. I doubt I would find the play of the J under the ♦A tho. Mind you, it'll be easier to see it if it comes up now. Thanks Fred :-)

Well I am prolly totally mistaken, but I win the ♠A and play the K of ♦. If it wins, I lead them again, and then every time I am in hand I lead clubs. If it loses, win any return and again play on clubs. How's that?

This reply is sufficient to pretty much address every concern I may have had regarding the changes. The way you describe it, Fred, it sounds perfectly fine to me :-)

LOL Touche. I bow to your greater wisdom :-)

#1 The only play I can see that has a chance is to duck the heart, assuming West is unlikely to switch to a diamond. #2 It depends a lot on your methods, but if partner would return to 2♠ over the double with a minimum hand, I bid 3♦ now to show my side suit. I'd consider redouble, but that might give the opponents the opportunity to introduce the club suit. Also, I feel that, from a partnership perspective, since my partner has passed the double in order to give me the opportunity to describe my hand, I should do so rather than pass it back to him with a redouble. But that's just my humble opinion. #3 Must pass. If West doesn't take you off the hook, oh well. Hopefully they have a grand.

It may not always go that way, but if it does you are ready. I, for one, would not even entertain the idea of doubling with this hand. You have a good 5-card suit. and strength enough to overcall. Why not just keep things simple and bid it? To me it doesn't seem dangerous at all. I deem the odds of playing in 2♣ to be rather low. Just my opinion, of course, but I think Ben was right on the money with his post. There's a lot of talk in these forums of partnership harmony. What's partner going to think if you can't find a bid of a 5-card suit headed by the AK?

A bit of pie in the sky - while I understand your points, Fred, I just wish there was a way to re-distribute server load transparently so that we could keep our nice, familiar, easy to use BBO :) My own only real concern is that of most people going into one particular BBO anyway because that is where most of the top players are. IMHO a bigger problem may be the speed/quality of the internet connections of the users. I suggest some method of choosing a "lower bandwith" option at the client side, requesting less information be sent by default. I rarely have difficulties of any kind with BBO, but I am lucky to live in Canada, where internet connectivity is second to none. There are many parts of the world where this is not the case, of course.This is sort of off topic, perhaps, but I certainly agree that BBO servers distributed around the globe would help to alleviate this problem. To be honest, it sounds to me like you have found a workable solution to a difficult problem.

Yes, I realized later that if the position I was playing for existed, then the finesse was also working so I might as well have just taken it. Thanks to Inquiry's thread on squeezes, I should have known that. Oh well.

Just $0.02 worth- I don't play partner for the perfect slam hand, but my call is 3♣ since I think we probably ought to play this hand in 5 of a minor rather than 3NT, and it coincidentally leaves the door open if partner does happen to hold the magic hand. But that's just me lol....

[hv=d=e&v=e&n=sa92hkq73d4caq1086&w=s43haj85dj97c7542&e=skh1094dakq10863ck3&s=sqj108765h62d52cj9]399|300|Scoring: IMP 5 ♠ South. Opening lead ♦7. East wins and returns a ♦. How do you proceed?[/hv] Auction: (1♦)-P-(1♥)-2♣-(3♦)-3♠ :) -(4♦)-4♠-(5♦)-5♠* At every table where the hand was played in a spade contract, the play to the first few tricks was the same, ruff second diamond, cash ♠A, dropping the K, and after that is where I apparently went wrong. I reasoned that if I lead the ♠ 9 back to my hand like all the other spade declarers did, and then played a heart toward the KQ, I would have no way back to my hand if the heart was allowed to hold. Instead, I played the ♥K off dummy, won by West with the A. West returned the ♣7. Rather than risk the finesse, I tried what turned out to be a hopeless squeeze. I want up A, played the ♠9 to my hand and ran the ♠'s coming down to this: [hv=d=e&v=e&n=sa92hkq73d4caq1086&w=s43haj85dj97c7542&e=skh1094dakq10863ck3&s=sqj108765h62d52cj9]399|300|Scoring: IMP 5 ♠ South. Opening lead ♦7. East wins and returns a ♦. How do you proceed?[/hv] Note that at least one pair that made 5 just lost a club to East and East did not return a heart. I think in another case West went up A on the first lead of ♥ to dummy, but I can't swear to that. So, the question(s): with best defence, can it be made? Was my line totally terrible, especially given the bidding? *Comments about the bidding are not unwelcome and will most likely be entertaining :)

There is another option. If your computer is running windows 9x, you can hold down the shift key while right clicking on the file to get the "Open With" option to appear for files that are already associated with another program. This will allow you to change it as described above. Unfortunately, this no longer works in WinXP as far as I know. In that case, there is another solution, similar to that provided by Ben. The only difference is that it saves you having to locate a .LIN file on your computer. In Windows Explorer, you can click the Tools menu, select Folder Options, then the File Types tab. Scroll down the list of file extensions shown until you come to LIN. Then click change and select NetBridgeVu from the list. Optionally, you can reach Folder Options from the Control Panel. HTH

It seems pretty straight forward to me. If you do not consider the north hand to be worth a 2♠ bid directly over the double (I do), then surely with a max for the 1♠ bid you must compete to 3♠ if only to tell partner about the extra strength.

Speaking for myself only, I rarely remember they exist since I haven't the foggiest idea how one would join any of them.

I'm with Winston in that I thought a trump switch at t2 would be effective. However, on the play as shown, I return a trump. But I've been thinking: what if declarer has a solid heart suit and club support, opting for the 10-trick game? Is this a possibility on the given auction? If so, a third spade would seem to be the better lead. What do you folks think? Am I off in left field as usual? :-)

With my regular partners, we will not preempt in 1st or 2nd seat with a side 4-card major so this is a 1♠ opener to me.