jchiu

I will be in Nashville from July 18-30. I will be playing primarily knockouts, but may try a national team event here or there.

[hv=d=n&v=n&n=saj10xxxhjxxdackxx&w=sxhk10xxxdkj9xxc10x&e=sq9xhxxxd10xxxcjxx&s=skxxhaqdqxxcaq9xx]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] That's true, I had enough confidence in your teammate's play that I didn't post this here in hopes of beating the hand. I posted it here because I didn't understand my teammate's inference that Tom (my RHO) must be loaded in diamonds to blackwood in this auction. Apparently nobody found that conclusion. With a diamond lead, Tom saw alternate line to play the spades from the top. If spades were 3-1, this meant clubs were 3-2 unless my partner's hand was exactly 1=4=4=4 or a two-suited freak 1=(5-6)=1. This guarded against 2=5=5=1 distribution with a doubleton queen in the wrong hand.

You hold ♠ Q96 ♥ 742 ♦ 10842 ♣ J63, second-in-hand with neither vulnerable. Your opponents, who are quite competent, bid 1♠ Pass 2♣ Dbl 2♠ Pass 3♠ Pass 4♣ Pass 4♥ Pass 4NT Pass 5♣ Pass 6♠ All Pass If it matters, you are probably stuck a little more than a dozen IMPs with six boards remaining in a knockout match.

Gnome, you should know better than this. Foo always thinks he is right, no matter how far from the truth his beliefs are. You have been on this forum far too long to be involved in such a lowly case as this ...

Sounds like a hand that I heard about while waiting in the check-in line to go to Oklahoma City last month ... K10xxx Q8x Axxx x

This isn't what the original monkeys option was designed to flush out. After the Cromwell Regional, I posted several problems on here with one ridiculous choice at the end to test the number of monkeys at the keyboard voting on these polls. I don't really need to mention any names by which these primates operate, but I think we all know who some of the more vocal ones are :)

Sorely tempted to bid Monkeys or more Monkeys, but I'll vote for my initial reaction here.

But you may get to defend 6♥ doubled, which may be a crapshoot between +100 and -1210 ;)

Defining the difference between 3♦ and 4♦ is very important. In my established partnerships, I play 3♦ is a mini/maxi splinter to differentiate it from 4♦, a distributional raise to 4♥. The mini splinter is a distributional raise to 3♥ with four-card heart support and at most one diamond. In the particular auction, this bid is not game forcing only if responder rebids 3♥. If opener moves over an attempted signoff, either by cuebidding another suit (could be clubs) or raising to 4♥, then he has the maxi splinter. This is a sound raise to 4♥ with mild slam interest, although the sequence 1♣-1♥-3♦-3♥-Cuebid usually ends in game. However, the largest gain comes when responder can cuebid a suit on the way to 4♥ and begin the slam investigation lower. This particular hand is a textbook example of a 3♦ maxi splinter.

My partner told me that RHO has a reputation for overbidding, and Bones-like doubles have netted 500 and 800 on air (partscore making our way each time) earlier in the match ;)

Unfavorable at IMPs, in an important match, you hold as dealer ♠ AQJ1097 ♥ 932 ♦ KQJ ♣ 4 The auction goes 1♠ Pass 2♠ 3♣ 4♠ 5♣ Pass Pass Dbl All Pass Sure, the double may have been a tad hungry, but now you have to worry about the lead. Over to you ...

I thought former-Brits like you played Acol :P

Definitely true, I did achieve the second best Worldwide Sim score in the United States last summer by accidently stumbling into a club where my partner and I were the only life masters. We were dealt 78%, but decided to graciously give back 6% of the matchpoints to "the field". Besides this, my best in a regional flight A separate came this year in Cromwell, where Joseph Byrnes and I racked up a 450.26 on a 650 top (69.81%). This was our second session together.

I'm surprised there is no bulletin. In round 5, the Wolfarth team beat Allfrey 63-60, thanks in part to a psychic double by Valio Kovachev. He sent me this story earlier today, which I have included with minor editing. You are playing a 32 boards knockout match against very good opponents. After 24 boards your team is 20 IMP behind. The last eight boards don’t start well either — Tony Forrester makes an expert play to bring home a 4♥ game with [a mere] 22 points and a 4-4 fit. So it looks like you are now trailing 27 or 30 IMP depending on whether your teammates have reached that game. In fact they [went down one in game]. Now for the first time in my life I made a psyche double. I was in second position and held: [hv=d=e&v=n&s=sa10865h65dq1094c97]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] The auction by Tony Forrester and David Bakshi began 1♦ - Pass - 2♣ (FG) - Pass 2♥ - Pass - 3♥ - Pass 4♣ - Pass - 4♦ - Pass 4NT - Pass - 6♦ - Pass 6♥ - Double (!) - Pass - Pass When the double [returned] to Tony, [a] great player with a lot of imagination, he agonized for three minutes staring at his hand (East): [hv=d=e&v=n&s=sa10865h65dq1094c97]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Tell me now dear reader would you pass, and face a dummy like (West) [hv=d=e&v=n&s=sa10865h65dq1094c97]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] [hv=d=e&v=n&s=sa10865h65dq1094c97]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] only to find out that Valio's double contained 5 or 4 good trumps? Anyway, his final decision was wrong — he moved to 6NT as is [customary] nowadays only to be doubled again for -4 (-800) as he had no stopper in spades. David's hand was (North): [hv=d=e&v=n&s=sa10865h65dq1094c97]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Indeed, 6♥ had some play — but tell me honestly how would you guess the ♥Q after hat double? That swing created 17 IMP for our team — just the breath of fresh air that we needed. The final result was 63-60. Most of the time the game is just to sit and bid your hands waiting for the opponents to make a mistake, but sometimes you need to push them to the edge where it is easier to fall out. Some final words. That great player Forrester, who isn't famous for his nice behaviour, came to me after the segment and said: “Great double”.

Thanks, Roland, for the link. As of this posting, I have heard that: "[Wolfarth] beat [a] Norwegian team by 2 imp---just because they play [a vulnerable] 6♦---and the side suit is 3-3---26 imps difference". Are we broadcasting from both rooms tomorrow morning in the semi-finals?

It's Monday morning in England. I just spoke with Valio Kovachev, who is on one of the remaining two undefeated squads for round 6. I certainly wish him the best of luck as the event progresses. Does anyone know the link to the current results page?

I noticed that myhands seems to group hands by date according to GMT-05:00 in the summer (and GMT-06:00) in the winter. While it is a minor inconvenience for me to see hands I played timestamped incorrectly by an hour, it may be much harder for infrequent users to find their hand if it may be off by twelve hours. Like the Vugraph schedule, is there a way to bookmark a version of myhands that is local to my timezone?

Seems like a good time for the beer card to make a noble sacrifice. If he is out, this should be a clear suit-preference signal, otherwise he will start wondering where the ♦ AJ10 are and figure it out for himself.

After receiving so many questions about where my beer list went, I will post it here by bbo handle in alphabetical order. Note that positive numbers represent beers owed to me, and negative numbers represent beers (usually lost by betting) that I owe others. aaronh 1 ant590 1 bnbeever 2 cathedra 2 crush 2 dangold 1 dank -1 eamongall -1 echognome 3 fifee -1 finally17 1 fraxi 1 gerben42 1 gingolia 2 gio 89 1 gwnn 2 harmon 1 jdonn 2 jlall 2 kamla 2 mrdodgy 1 pclayton -1 shaulter1 trpltrbl 1 valani 1 warrenf 1 For a reference to the beer card, and a hand that explains how jlall entred this list, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_card .

My biggest issue is sitting down in a reserved seat for a set game and having the BBO client crash. After waiting 15-30 seconds for the server to respond, I have to abort by clicking "log off" and relogin to BBO. Usually the reserved seat prompt that I see upon entering BBO takes me to my seat without problems. I am on a 10Mb shared university line most of the time, and occasionally on wireless, and haven't encountered any problems while playing.

Pass, wtp?

I did the cards for all of the USBF pairs in the Schools series last summer. Anna told me that she had a special script written so she could convert the cards to PDF while preserving the suit symbols. She did not share, however, who wrote the script or what exactly it does. It seems she wanted to keep this in-house. On the other hand, if you are preparing this card for a zonal or global competition, she would be quite happy to run it through the script and send your card back in PDF format.

How fast did he bid 2♠ ? :P

A direct 2NT overcall is a strong notrump, essentially 16 to 18 HCP with a full stopper in their suit. Occasionally one could stretch to overcall 2NT with a prime 15-count where the stopper is enhanced by the likely favourable placement of honours in the weak two suit (e.g. KJx or AQx). I have never met anyone who thinks this overcall is unusual. Over a direct 2NT overcall, 3♣ is stayman. Respond to it as if you are responding to stayman over a 1NT opening or overcall, but do not reveal that you hold four cards in the major opened at your right. The hand shown above is a textbook example of a 2NT overcall. Doubling on that hand makes me sick. The advancer hand shown above should probably bid stayman to inquire about a 4-4 heart fit. Until you have enough experience to determine when it is not a good idea to bid stayman here (e.g. Qx, J10x in spades), it is the recommended course. Overcaller should bid 3♥ and be raised to 4♥ by his partner. As it turns out, it is likely that both 3NT and 4♥ have ten tricks.

First question: abstain, I don't know what these methods are. Second question: I pass in tempo. Even though I'm playing semi-constructive raises that have at least one game try that would be accepted, there seems to be too much work to do to really make this hand 5.5 losers. On a good day, they balance 3♥ and I'll know what to do next ...