Rebound

FWIW I agree w/ J, 4♥ was my gut reaction.

I may have neglected to say so in my previous post, but this ambiguity and subjective application of the laws is part of the problem I have with how this works. I know it makes sense that there has to be some way to address the possibility of a player taking unethical advantage of UI, intentionally or not. And I know I have little experience in these matters, I admit that. But if the numerous threads on this forum debating committee decisions is anything to judge by, it's a system in serious need of a rethink. Edit: I didn't see you post, Cascade, before I posted mine, but, as I said, the number of debates on this subject I have seen here and elsewhere would seem to contradict that.

Perhaps this is well understood by all of you who have posted already, but the thing that bothers me about this entire process is that, in such situations, break in tempo almost guarantees a favorable result for the opponents. As mentioned above, let's say neither 4H nor 4S makes. Then, if one passes, again one can be accused of using UI to make the decision. In some similar cases, it could be that pass, double, and 4S are all LA. How are you to know which to choose to avoid a ruling against you? I don't think you can. No matter which you choose, if it proves to be a good result for your side it seems you are doomed to an unfavorable adjustment. At the higher levels of competition is any break in tempo inexcusable? That doesn't make sense to me.

FWIW I would assume pass to be best here to prevent opps finding a spade fit.

Please clarify. I would expect to have to have something for partner to make a free bid over 4H. Granted this may not translate into any defense but I believe any indecision over whether to pull 5Hx stems from the wide variety of hands one could have if bidding 4S shows no more nor less than the 1S response.

FWIW I agree with pass previously and I bid 5♠ now.

I may be crazy but I think it's worth 3♦. Partner (typically) has at least 9 cards in the minors so you have a double fit, plus the spades are headed by the A and you have shortness in the unbid suit. Or perhaps if a mini-splinter in ♥ is available.

Ah, oops. You're too fast for me Han, I'm still editing to see if I goofed up. I should have realized something was up. Regardless, my gut tells me to encourage spades, so it is probably wrong. :)

But with that hand, doesn't declarer now have 5 diamond, 3 club and the heart king for 9 tricks, making this a hopeless situation anyway? I realize every trick counts in competition but I'd be surprised to see the hand posted if it hinges only on whether declarer makes an o/t due to the spade suit. Anyway I'd be reluctant to cater to a holding that assumes declarer has already made.

To me it looks like we ought to try to cash out in spades now before declarer grabs 9 tricks from minors+♥K.

This is the sort of situation that always seems to make my brain hurt. Either a low club or a high one could be right so as often as not I'm tempted to switch altogether to prevent a giving away a trick in the club suit out of pure wishywashyness. I flop back and forth trying to decide to lead low or hight. When I do commit to a lead (in this case in the club suit) I invariably make the wrong choice. I'd be like to know what y'all think of a heart switch.

What do you think about leading a low diamond after covering the J and getting in with a heart?

Perhaps I'm just stunned. If so, please forgive me. But I really don't see what other options exist other than to ruff in the South hand, pitch a club from North, and pray W holds the ♣ K.

Just to get my 2 cents in for a change, I think pard has a good 6-4 in the minors and could easily have first or second round control in both majors. My initial reaction was to pass but I now believe 5♣ is right.

Seems like a typical hand for declarer would be something like J9xx (AorK)xxx Ax Qxx. Passive defense would seem to beat this hand. If declarer plays on clubs it gives partner a chance to show where his strength lies so I return a spade.

FWIW if you're using an image hosting site like Imageshack, for example, you could post just the link to the image rather than the original in order to save space and loading time for the bandwidth-challenged.

I have serious problems with my ability to concentrate, as some here can certainly confirm, so I do make some terrible errors. I recently went to a local small tournament after not having played much for some time. In a 2-session open mp event, my partner and I managed to be well placed after the first session. In the first two rounds of the second session I grossly misplayed two easy hands. In a swiss on the final day, with a few consecutive victories in hand, my team faced one of the best teams there. At my table, we got off to a great start. I told myself, "All we have to do is avoid a major disaster and we'll win this one." Well, on the last board I singlehandedly created a disaster that resulted in our defeat. I kicked myself around a lot after the game but we had a sweep on the next round. I it was painful, I admit, but it only made me more determined to kick butt next time. Clearly, the above could not be considered "serious bridge" in the sense that I agree that if you are serious, you need to get a single partner, practice a lot, and play in the toughest events you can find. Unfortunately, I might never reach the level of being able to play "serious bridge" simply because I concentrate so poorly. Playing almost constantly allows for much improvement but I still lose focus too frequently even then. But I take almost any bridge game to be serious in that I want to play my best and I get equally hard on myself then as when playing in competition. I have played with one or two of the posters here and played like I didn't know what I was doing on more than one hand. But I am determined to play as well as I can on each such occasion. To me, what it comes down to is your own expectations. If you want to win, and if you feel you have the ability, all you need is your own determination to play better bridge next time. Perform activities designed to improve your ability to concentrate. Even if this is away from the bridge table it will improve your game. Accept that you will make mistakes and use them as a learning opportunity. I agree that basic errors like miscounting trump must never happen in serious competition, but that's all down to concentration.

A note from the peanut gallery: I agree with Hannie. I learned many years ago the perils of doubling on a hand where you very much do not want it left in. (Bearing in mind that I was somewhere in between a beginner and a novice at the time, and had just learned to double and then bid my own suit to show a strong hand, it may amuse you to hear I doubled 1♠ with something like void AKQxxxxx AKx KQ. :) )

Do you think that, even on such an auction, they would drive to slam with who-knows-how-much spade wastage? I don't mean this as a facetious question. I am just wondering whether opps spades might be divided Hxxx / Hx so that A-other spade is required to defeat it.

Wunnerful. Thx for the quick replies. I'll give it a go. It sounds pretty straight forward. Edit: Found on WineHQ where I could copy the font into the fake C:\ drive and then to make matters even easier, when I clicked to download the bbo software, Firefox offered to "open with wine" so it installed easily. I had to close and reopen it after installing gecko and needed to use the Ctrl-W mentioned earlier but otherwise it worked wonderfully. Thanks, everyone. Incidentally, performance seems to be about equivalent to or even better than in Windows. I will need to use it more to be sure though.

Hi folks. I'm a total noob to Linux and just installed Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10). I could really use a step by step guide to: a ) where to put the symbol.ttf file b ) installing apps under wine Please and thanks. Please bear in mind I know almost nothing about Linux. I only managed to install Wine by copying the instructions from WineHQ. Further, do I need to register there to download? The BBO entry there doesn't seem to have a download link, just info.

IMO all 4 suits seem to be breaking evenly. I would just cash the ♠A. But I'm no expert. I'd be interested to hear what others have to say.

It works better when you don't knwo how to ask for trump queen after blackwood ;). Grand Slam Force is a jump to 5NT without using 4NT before, it asks specifically for trump Ace, King and Queen, with step responses (6♣=0, 6♦=1, 6♥=2, 6♠=3) I'm afraid that with clubs as trump that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Taking the 6♦ response as an example, if one of the top 3 isn't enough for the grand, you've already by-passed 6♣. On the auction, I don't see anything to suggest 6NT is safe if only 1 of the top 3 is not enough for the grand. The odds are I'm missing something though, so I invite further information about this treatment.

The way I see it, with the opponents having a likely double fit in the minors it seems clear we need 3 tricks in the majors. I choose the ♠ J. Here's hopin' that as part of partner's random 8-or-so-count she holds the ♠ A and can lead a heart through the 1♣ bidder. I grant it could go the other way and we might need to cash 2 hearts before declarer gets in and pitches ♥ losers. I have no idea which is more likely; sometimes you just have to pick a side :P edit: I've totally neglected the diamond queen. The auction should make it easy to pick up I think.

ditto... with the usual "i'm no expert" disclaimer