TimG

You would have passed 2♠ if the opponents had not bid over it?

What were the two penalty points for?

I don't know why you would call it incredibly active ethics to make a NF call when you have a hand that is worth a GF (or at least a hand that would drive past 3♦). I can understand your point if you think 3♦ would normally be forcing after an inverted 2♦, but NF opposite a non-inverted 2♦.

3♣, then compete to 3♠ or give up if the opponents bid higher than that before I get another chance. Of course, if partner happens to raise clubs, I'll compete to 4♠.

This country needs stricter gun control laws...

See if you can use month() and year() to extract the month and year info from the dates. Then sort by those.

If you overcall 1♠ and they compete in hearts, how high will you compete in spades on your own?

2♦ was not alerted (or described properly)? I'm with the others in driving past 3♦. There is probably a case for stopping in 4♦ if there is no heart stopper, but I think I'd take a shot at 5♦.

duplicate

I have a partner who is in this camp. One of the reasons for posting this hand in the first place.

Only because it's been posed as a problem: ♠10.

I think it is important to be on the same page as your partner when it comes to preempts. I doubt it can be proven to most people's satisfaction that preempting with the West hand is right or wrong. What is most important is that you find a style that you and your partner are comfortable with.

I realize this is essentially a style question, but I am curious what your preference is.

One vugraph table missed the grand with the following auction 2N-6♦.

I think "wrong" is wrong. Perhaps not your style, but not "wrong". I don't think 3♠ is wimpy. With a four-card limit raise, I would understand just bidding 4♠. North could have bid 4♠ over 4♥ if you're just looking for results. South took another call opposite the actual competitive raise, why not opposite the limit raise?

I once did a DD analysis for two balanced hands in the game range and found that 4-3-2-1 worked as well as or better than a number of alternate evaluation methods. At least one of the evaluation methods took into account Tens, but none took any other "spots" into consideration. I don't claim my analysis was perfect (and don't remember the exact details), but am comfortable with the conclusion that 4-3-2-1 is just as good as anything when evaluating two balanced hands for notrump play where the high cards are distributed such that one hand might open 1NT (either 12-14 or 15-17) and there are about enough points for game.

In the match I was watching, they made easy work of it after North opened 1♦. Looks like an opening bid to me.

In these cases, haven't you given considerable thought to which way you will finesse before you led the suit to begin with? It's not typical to lead a suit in which you have a two-way finesse and then stop to count things and consider the combination only after one defender has followed, one thinks before leading the suit. I think declarer should generally know what they will do if an opponent follows low (or with a meaningful spot). This doesn't mean declarer can't take an additional moment to consider a pause or hitch or whatever from an opponent, or to count once again just to make sure. But, I don't think declarer should be in need of "tank time" after leading the suit and seeing one defender's card.

Just saying that I expect there would be interest from forum posters in playing in a JEC match. I imagine the reason that there doesn't appear to be is that people don't know about the opportunity because they don't read the "Events" subforum. Maybe now they do....

If I was partnering myself, I think I'd be -420.

I don't know what event is being referenced with this post...well, poll makes it seem like there is an open call to play in a JEC match, but I had no idea (if that's even the case).

i voted for double under the assumption that we are playing support doubles at this level (something I have never done). I did not think it was meant to be a poll about whether support doubles should be played at this level.

Pulling the double doesn't mean he expects to make 11 tricks. It might just mean that he thinks 5D will be less expensive than 4HX.

I think that partner's pass of 2♠ is enough to wake me to the fact that partner has not understood my Michael's bid -- if he could not muster up any action over 1♣ then he should not have a string of spades and want to play 2♠. He might have a really bad hand and be willing to play 2♠ undoubled. But, that's now off the table. Once the auction has awoken me to that fact that partner is on a different wavelength, I don't think passing 3♠ is a LA either. Perhaps I am giving this pair too much credit. But, if I was given this auction in the ACBL (where no alert of 2♠ is required), I would expect that South had misunderstood.

I don't think it requires a specific agreement to play "Obvious Shift" to encourage on the opening lead when we don't want partner to go about looking for our strength elsewhere. Think of it as a positive attitude regarding a continuation rather than a positive attitude about high cards in the suit. Now, armed with this information, opening leader should think about what to do next, not blindly continue.