Elianna

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=satxxxxxhqxdckqxx]133|100|Scoring: MP RHO deals, opens 5♦. Your bid.[/hv] This is a averagish club field, your partner is an optimist, but not insanely such. RHO seems not too insane, either, but not too good.

I have 170 names on my friends list. Mainly people I know, a few people I like to kibbitz. Some are multiples (different handles). I have 13 on my enemy list, but that number changes daily. It consists of people that I think drive people away from my table (either through rudeness or ineptitude, but usually if the second, they claim to be expert). Also of people that talk a lot at tables I kibbitz, because this is the easy way to shut them up. And lastly, people that are completely wrong in their post mortems, and subject me to listening to their idiocity. Usually after they've been on my list for a few weeks or a month (depending on how much they piss me off) I'll take them off my list, and leave a note in their profile, to see if they've stopped pissing me off.

I think that the main part is that he's a director. He should know better because of that.

Thank you all for replying. What got the director call was that 2♣ was NOT alerted as Drury. So now you know that partner DOESN'T know that you have heart support, and that he might just be raising your supposed clubs. Plus, as you play SA, partner's 3♣ bid is very weak. The person with the hand I showed bid 3♥, and admitted that she bid that because her partner hadn't alerted Drury. I basically wanted to take a poll of people with roughly the same experience, to see what they would bid without knowledge of partner's forgetting of Drury. As the results stood, 3♥ was down 3, and 4♥ down 4 would be worth the same matchpoints, plus the director of another local game did not return my call with results of the same poll I asked him to run as I posted here. So I ended up not adjusting the board, but giving the hand a very stern warning that she is NOT allowed to act on partner's non-alert. (I also warned that she might have gotten a procedural penalty if she were more experienced.) I also considered if 4♥ would get doubled. It seems like it might (since it got doubled at another table) but my poll of flight A players (the caliber of the person who would have doubled) had them pass. Granted, it was only two flight A players, and I prolly would have asked more, but this would have done nothing for the standings, so I dropped the subject. Incidentally, Jeff Goldsmith said that he wouldn't adjust, for a different reason. He feels that the non-alert did not indicate 3♥ over any other bid, but I'm not sure that I agree with that (I think that 3♥ caters to partner's forgetting Drury, it's the only bid that would let him off the hook if he forgot). A funny side note: Her partner, the 3♥ bidder, was very upset at this whole director call, and felt that there was nothing wrong going on, and couldn't be made to understand why there might be a problem. The funny part of this is that he has around 1500 points, and is ALSO a director. So again, thanks all for participating.

You have no agreements about what 3♣ means. You have played with this partner before, and you believe that he can play the cards well, you just don't believe in a lot of conventions.

I am curious as to what most Beginning/Intermediate players would do with the following hand: [hv=d=s&v=n&s=satxhkxxxdxxxcat9]133|100|Scoring: MP opps keep passing. p-1♥ 2♣!-3♣ ???[/hv] 2♣ is alerted and explained as a limit raise of hearts, which is exactly what you intended. What do you bid now? Non-beginners/intermediates are welcome to post, but please, when you're replying to the poll, choose the correct options.

Why did Israel withdraw?

And no heart stopper? Or do you mean in an unopposed auction?

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=stxh8xxdkjxckqjxx]133|100|Scoring: MP Pard is dealer, and opens 1♠. You bid a forcing NT, and LHO bids 2♥. Pard bids 2♠, which is passed to you. What do you bid?[/hv] Also, is there a book answer, or is this a judgement call? (I don't play 2/1 a lot, so I don't know.) I assume that if LHO just passed, you'd have an easy 2NT rebid. Is that true?

Wow, so far I seem to be the only one that has voted for both (though I see reading later on that Mikeh agrees with me). Basically, I voted both for the same exact reason Mikeh stated later on: 2♠ promises a rebid (I'd play it as a normal 2/1 bid in SA, which coincidentally enough, is the system Adam and I play), so therefore both must be forcing. I might not expect a new partner to know this, for the same reason that I might not expect a new partner to realize that the auction 1♠-2♥-3♥ (opps pass) is forcing to game: I don't believe that many people know SAYC. But as I try to expect the best out of any new partner, I'll go with expecting them to know both.

No longer true (in fact, I'm told that this rule was eliminated before I was born, but that's prolly an exageration). You still must promise at least 5 cards, and have a range of 7 points to be allowed to play conventional calls over them.

A little more in depth notes on Phantom Club may be found at http://www.math.unl.edu/~eruppin/phantom.txt These notes were done by Adam, they're just on my (very old and likely soon deleted) web page.

Only if you block chat from enemies. Not everyone does that. Also, to Candybar, have you tried some button like update tournament after you have deleted people from your enemies list? I had a similar problem when I was running tournaments for friends only, and added people as friends, but they still couldn't sign up. I found out that I had to hit some kind of update key for the tournament.

While I have never run a tournament that bars kibs (and actually am really annoyed by these) I think you may be missing another point: some players are shy, and don't want to be watched, so they may prefer playing in a no-kib tournament.

Also, many people distinguish using Texas and Jacoby transfers for quantitative and keycard auctions: 1NT-2♥-2♠-4NT = quantitative (inviting to 6♠ or 6NT) 1NT-4♥-4♠-4NT = keycard.

I think that you'd have to make my heart heart suit something like AKTxxx to bid 3H instead of doubling.

Justin, I don't usually ask about Adam's bidding. ;) But yes, we play Texas. District 14 also has 4-session finals (with no unit finals, at least, there weren't any in my unit). But they do something silly, too. Because the district is so big, there's a split site final, and last year, they seemed to not advertise it in Omaha, so Omaha (the site close to me) had soemthing like two B pairs, and three or four C pairs (all A's had to go to somewhere in Minnesota). The other thing that they do is guarantee the flight winner from each of the two sites at least second place, and then compare percentages (to figure out a clear winner, and to calculate third). Not too silly yet, right? But wait! Because the field in Omaha was so small, they played the B's and C's TOGETHER, but didn't do that in Minn. How's that for fairness for the B players in MN, or the C players in Omaha? Hopefully they'll figure it out better next year, but I won't be there for that. :)

Well, we seemed to be on the wrong end of these hands. On [hv=d=n&n=sk9hk9xdak8xck98x&s=saqjtxxhatxdq9ctx]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] We were in 4♠. Bidding went: 1NT-2♥-2♠-4♠-pass. 6♠ was cold on the layout. On [hv=d=n&n=sk9hk9xdak8xck98x&s=saqjtxxhatxdq9ctx]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] We were in 6♥ in a pushy auction, down one. On[hv=d=n&n=sk9hk9xdak8xck98x&s=saqjtxxhatxdq9ctx]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] We were in 6♣, down one (and 6♦ would also be down one). We were anti-field on each of the three, for three zeros or near zeros. We lost (were second) by .5 matchpoints. :) Lastly, As I think Adam replied to you online, I DID mean district Semi-Finals (they run two of them, all district members (of any unit) may qualify in one or the other, and yes, it's a 45% cut). It's not my fault that District 23 runs things wierdly. :)

Your hand is [hv=d=s&v=n&s=sathakxxdakxxxcjx]133|100|[/hv]. Again, bidding is 1♦-(1♠)-x-(3♠) -??? While the scoring is unknown (you're not keeping score, playing at the local college club) you like pretending it's MP's (feel free to comment what you'd do at IMPs, btw). All bidding is fairly standard.

Because some of us play double is penalty. :rolleyes:

Adam insists on only playing responsive doubles through 2♠, so we have a clear double (it is penalty) here. yeay! :lol:

Hi roland, Reading the notes on BBO advanced, I take this to be the "xyz Convention", where 2♣ forces opener to bid 2♦ either as a signoff in ♦ or some kind of game invite. And where 2♦ is game force. But what is there, is what came from the online description of BBO Advanced, and I have been known to mis-intepret. We will surely see what the panel thinks on this quiz. New minor forcing is pretty simple... Its also most emphatically does not include a puppet from 2♣ to 2♦. Lets assume an auction like 1♦ - 1♠ 1N A 2♣ checkback bid asks partner to describe his hand further. Partner should show (in order of priority) 1. A 4 card Hearts suit 2. 3 card support for Spades 3. A club stopper for NT Lacking any of these, partner will rebid 2♦ 2-way checkback uses both 2♣ and 2♦ as checkback bids. 2♦ promises game forcing values 2♣ shows game invitational values That is what regular, NMF is. But Ben is absolutely correct on what 2-way NMF is. Adam and I play 2-way, and not xyz (ie, we only play it on over a 1NT rebid by opener). Basically, the structure is: (no opps bidding) 1m-1M-1NT-2♣: forces 2♦ and... 1m-1M-1NT-2♣-2♦ responder can pass 2♦; or bid 2♥ to either check for four hearts or three spades (if original 1M=1♠) or check for three hearts; bid 2♠ to look for 3 spades, bid 2NT to invite to game (and usually people discuss differences of what it means to bid 2NT directly). Of course, all of these except passing 2♦ have game invite values. 1m-1M-1NT-2♦ is game forcing, and opener is expected to either bid a four card heart suit (if 1M=1♠) and second choice to show three card support for partner's major, and barring either of those being an option, to bid naturally.

On the following sets of three hands, "yes" says you'd like to be in this slam, "no" says not. These are all MPs, in a "B-flight-only" field (but of course B varies greatly). 1) [hv=d=n&n=sk9hk9xdak8xck98x&s=saqjtxxhatxdq9ctx]133|200|Scoring: MP a. 6♠ by North. b. 6NT by North.[/hv] 2) [hv=d=n&n=sk9hk9xdak8xck98x&s=saqjtxxhatxdq9ctx]133|200|Scoring: MP a. 6♠ by North. b. 6NT by North.[/hv] 3) [hv=d=n&n=sk9hk9xdak8xck98x&s=saqjtxxhatxdq9ctx]133|200|Scoring: MP a. 6♠ by North. b. 6NT by North.[/hv]

Samuel Butler: It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. (From about.com)

i was gonna ask that if you ever use your ipod when you play live bridge, why would they not allow it, afraid you have watson play of the hand on ipod :) i remember once somone at a regional didnt like the fact that i was wearing sunglasses they were afraid i was gonna look into their hand without them know ing it I've seen plenty of (mainly juniors) wearing walkmans while playing. Doesn't bother me except if they aren't paying attention enough/can't hear questions. It would also annoy me if they were blasting the music so that I could hear it, but as none of this has happened, it has yet to bother me. What REALLY annoys me is this LA-area pair that does crosswords during bidding/play. This means that they are absolutely unable to keep a consistant tempo, which is highly annoying in a pair as good as they are supposed to be.