Double !

3rd segment was wild as all ______. Not sure how many imps were won by both teams combined, but I can't remember the last time I saw so many double-digit numbers on both sides of the scorecard. Big swing after big swing after big swing. So many judgment calls that could go either way, hand after hand. Firechief et. al kept getting closer, then came the unfortunate -1100 hand.

A more basic question. Does a newbie know or play that a cue bid suggests support for their suit (limit raise or better)? I wouldn't bet on it. Or is a cue bid just a strong, forcing hand to them? Cue bids are EXTREMELY advanced bids to newbies. (Remember the last time your partner didn't interpret your splinter bid?) Repeat the cue bid with a total stranger/ newbie and you'll get the result you deserve. Partner will think you really have clubs: after all, you did bid them twice!!!

EKEBLAD team wins! Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee EKEBLAD team wins Spingold by defeating Carmichael team. To all members of the team. Big Time Congrats are in order. This was a well-deserved victory for a very excellent team that is playing very well. Are so happy for all of you. May many more victories follow. GO TEAM FIGHT RAH! Get some rest. You guys have earned it! ;)

I went back to school in the middle of my life to get an MBA. After watching Jay leno segment "jaywalking" I asked a bunch of these young grad students some basic questions. 1) Who fought in our civil war? 2) What century? 3) How long for the earth to rotate once around the sun? 4) How long for the earth to rotate around its axis? 5) Do you know what the heck the axis is ? Of course almost none of these grad students got these right. Why confuse them with fib....sequences, let alone T-statistics, Durbin-Watson, multiplication, division and critical thinking? Teach them bridge, most of them have no idea who Walt Whitman is. good grief. two comments in response 1) Serious Congrats in getting MBA- a lot of time and work put in, I suspect. 2) Why don't the results of your little survey surprise me? (What's an "axis"?, asked the spin-doctor. Isn't the term "civil war" an oxymoron? Wasn't Walt Whitman the guy who created all of those over-priced chocolate candy sampler packages and, as tokens of appreciation, had schools name after him?)

worth a lot or I would not keep asking LOL has anyone got a link to good bad 2NT please as I think it is a concept I need to get used to I wish I could help with the link but cannot. I picked up the concept from Larry Cohen's book The Law of Total Tricks and found it so useful an idea that my partner and I have adopted its use in virtually every case where the opponents bid and raise their suit. Not to get too deep, but we've found that on auctions like this: 1D-1S-X-2S that it is rarely right to want to play 2N or even 3N but it is very important to know if opening bidder has a game invitational hand or instead some shapely minimum with enough to compete - hence, 2N in this sequence is also good/bad. Of course, as we are a couple of oddballs :blink: we reverse the meanings - for us it's the direct bid that is the weaker. Winston Page 112+ in "Better Bidding with Bergen, Volume II".

why trickier? You aren't bidding over 3S and one would likely pass if P re-opens with double. Then try and present a forcing defense. OK, what am I missing here? (Even I rate to have a good sense of the trump distribution once dummy is revealed. lolololol)

""lho doubled for takeout"". Is this definitely the explanation given of the bid. If yes, then wouldn't there have been misinformation given by both sides. Maybe it was for takeout contingent on the 2C bid being natural, and would've had a different meaning had 2C been explained as having been for majors? What a mess. Who said what, and exactly how was it stated? I guess we shall find out soon enough.

While I like the idea, its never gonna happen in the US... Public schools are all "teaching ot the test". You might be able to pull this off in a Montossori School or some such. Back when I was an Associate Instructor for Intro to Probability and Statistics at IU a truly remarkable amount of the course work dealt with Blackjack... Sadly, I had to remove the problem sets when some parents complained. Sigh I work in a middle school in the inner city in a different state not too far from you, but I also know the Mass. Dept. of Ed. and the Mass. Ave/ Mem. Drive area quite well. I spent a lot of my life in the Boston area. Trust me, I know all about teaching to the test (the pressures to get scores up and consequences for nonsuccess) whether they be the MCAS or whatever they're called, or various state and/or city-wide tests. Not a bridge-related topic (except for Mass ave bridge, perhaps?). I just seem to recall the acbl looking for ways some time in the past to initiate teaching bridge in schools (as an elective/ after school) or at least exposing more kids to the game at a younger age. I guess I had a delusional epiphany in thinking that it might appeal to more people/ kids if it was associated with the idea that many aspects of the game were things that they had been learning all along.

Great post question! My feeling is that, if P has a limited albeit large hand, why can't I pass when I have no bid? And, where is it written that both P and opp can't have their bids, and that 3S makes? Is double negative or something else. I wish to hear opinions on this: I was taught to play it as negative but maybe there is a better way. I know that there are many who play that, after P has opened 2C and opp has overcalled, that a double by the partner of the 2C bidder shows a double negative hand. But, this is a different issue.

Question. On how many occasions did one, the other, or both of the members of the redoubling partnership leave the table after (or during) the hand was over and they were set? I tell you, there are days when I am completed astounded by what appear to be some people's expectations from cyberspace.

Here's a thought. How much modification would it require for school educational departments to progressively integrate the basic and then more advanced concepts and principles of bridge into their Math and/or integrated curricula? Think about it: addition, subtraction, division/percentages, probability, problem-solving, planning and anticipating, etc., etc. (Maybe not bidding- haven't thought that much about bidding. Perhaps that could come under some communication rubric. After all, bidding and signalling are forms of communication/ language.) Could do this without ever mentioning the word "card", or any suits. Kids would be learning the game without even knowing it over a period of several years, and it wouldn't even cost school departments a penny more.

Oh, this is really cute! If opener would have passed 3C, then there's the issue of partnership agreement about the meaning of Brad's 2 diamond response as well as lho's takeout double after Fred reportedly bid 2C (takeout for what? Fred's theoretically held suits?). Depending on the meaning of 2 diamonds, would Fred have then been mandated to pass 3 clubs, and would this have mattered? (What info did Brad get regarding the double of 2C?) Would any of you like to be on an Appeals Committee and have to resolve this one? Maybe if your name is Solomon (or the linguistic equivalent).

NO! Appeal still pending: just checked NABCs bulletin for tomorrow (Sunday). It still has the result pending appeal. Sorry for my literary optimism. (i.e.: Thinking that I can write a complete sentence is being optimistic.) Sure wouldn't wish to be part of the Appeal Committee in this case. To possibly change a result that occurred during the 3rd quarter? Could this then be argued back that, had the players known the outcome prior to beginning the 4th quarter, this might have influenced some key decisions? Sticky!

A new suit bid at the 3-level, especially by an unpassed hand, tends to be regarded as being forcing at least one round? FWIW, IMO, part of the problem with this hand was partner's 3 club bid. This tends to show a better hand (That's what G-B 2NT was created for).

Why did you respond 2 clubs? With a newbie, avoid making cue bids as much as possible, make bids that they know and will understand even if there's a technically better bid. I would just bid 3 diamonds now. P has lousy diamonds, hopefully will remember your cue bid, still won't know what you have, and might just muster up the 3NT bid that you are hoping for. If Partner passes, at least he/she will thank you for supporting his/her second suit. Don't make things more complicated than necessary with a new player. If you rebid 3C, odds are that P will pass. (and then politely or not so politely ask why you didn't raise diamonds?)

PASS!!!! opps haven't bid game, yet. no need to encourage them to do so.

One down, one more to go! although, it got scary at the end! Ekeblad team still on fire: Take care of "Firechief" and his crew in finals. We're all behind you guys. GO TEAM FIGHT RAH!

to Q in mixed BAM means someone had a good pard :-) Yes, it is that Adam. We q'd, but finished 32nd on the next day. Two more days, and we get to go home for some much needed rest! I was caddying for four days in the tournament, and I must say: it should be a requirement that people caddy before they can become an LM, because caddies get treated SO badly, it's incredible. Elianna: Like I said, to Q in the BAM, Adam had a good pard. Yes, being a caddy can expose you to all sorts of people. I support your recommendation of making caddying ( bringing supplies and boards to the tables, picking up score slips after each round: things like that) a prerequisite for earning LM status. Just have to make sure the caddy doesn't look at the score and ask the participants something like, "how did someone go down in .......?"

OMG I, too, play that one can have an outside 4-card major, especially when playing wk NT. I am really VERY surprised at the number of respondents who say they will make a single inverted minor raise holding an outside major. I thought that I was in the vast minority on this subject, that the whole world firmly held the position that an inverted raise denied a 4-card M. Although this helps when you have 5m and 4M, the 5M-4+m hands also need to be considered. I, personally, play 2-way Jump-shifts over 1m: either a fit bid GI+ with 5M and 4+m and/ or as a (old fashioned) strong J-S in the bid M (possibly also with support for opener's minor). Partner bids the next step as a puppet bid to allow responder to clarify which type of hand the J-S was based on. It seems to work fairly well and takes the stress off of opener about whether or not to show 3-card support for P's major after responder bids the M and then shows support for opener's minor. Still a work in progress.

FYI Ekeblad team is now in the semifinals of the Spingold after winning in quarterfinals by about 201 to 99. This team is smokin'!!!! Next up is the Jacobs' team (Jacobs-Katz-Lauria-Versace-Rosenberg-Zia) Oh, please have this one on BBO tomorrow. Count the number of Kibs!!!! GO TEAM FIGHT RAH!

agree 2 diamonds This is what you want partner to lead if opps buy the contract, and you have a sound suit, reducing the risk of lho having the trump stack that could result in you going for telephone numbers.

Sorry, not a lot of numbers, and is this (Southern California) really a representative sample of the total population of targeted "consumers". (Come to think of it, who exactly are the targeted consumers in this survey and campaign?) Did they actually go out into schools including in the inner cities, and survey these populations? I work in an inner-city middle school in the northeast USA, and I have yet to meet any student or more than a few parents, and not that many adults in general who know what Bridge is, much less whether or not it is cool and could lead to a career in the NBA! I suspect that, to this potential consumer group, Bridge is something you have to pay a toll (or take a crowded subway) to cross. OK, fine, refer this to the acbl education department.

Hey! That quote is reserved for those of us who grew up in the 60s! If you qualify, then, "groovy" and "out-of-sight",......and, mowing "grass" was considered to be a moral sin. :blink: :P

When I used to play competitively, my partners and I had the agreement that any really unusual or unexpected bid including a cue bid in an unclarified situation confirmed the last naturally bid suit by the partnership as being trumps (or at least showing the necessary support and strength to make it a viable trump suit. Using that principle, I think I might have initially responded 4C to 3H (if forcing: there's a lot to be said for just bashing this contract to 6C or something similar). At least I'm getting a reasonable result IMO. To anyone who bid and made 7H on this hand (nice that the jack/knave fell, I say "Mazel Tov!" Is it me, or are significant number of posts and/or unfortunate results involving hands where someone pushed too much in an attempt to catch the wind and find the perfect contract? (I qualify this question with the understanding that there might be some recent bidding developments that I am not familiar with that permit discovery of the perfect cards. e.g.: some spiral scanning sequences.) Thanks for your understanding.

This post raises an issue for me. Assuming that the partnership is NOT playing negative free bids, does the person making the 2S bid unconditionally promise another bid? This is an issue where I have heard differing opinions such as "yes, unless opener rebids 2NT". For those of you not playing nfb's (are there any?), what are your opinions on this question. (This is sort of like the question of, playing sayc, whether or not someone making a 2/1 response promises a second bid.) Thanks in advance. DHL