Elianna

No, 6♥ happened at the other table. (at the other table, the person with LHO's hand bid 6♥). Yes, Lightner doubles are standard, I'd assume that they're on playing with anyone with experience, but my partner is not extremely experienced. Don't you ever play with someone who's learning, to teach them? And you can't cover EVERYTHING when you start with someone inexperienced. Wouldn't it be better to cover things that come up more often?

You hold QJ7xx - 9 AQJ9xxx (5=0=1=7), and I'm sorry, I don't remember the smaller spots. All white, 2nd chair bidding goes: RHO ... you ... LHO ... pard 4♥......5♣ ...... 6♦ ...... pass pass ?? 1) How do you feel about your 5♣ bid? (Keep in mind that you don't have a convention to show two suits, ie, partner will not know that 4NT shows a two suiter) 2) what do you bid over 6♦? (You have not agreed with your partner that you are playing Lightner doubles, and while partner may know what those are, he may not realize that it is an L double, and not just penalty) 3) If you were on lead vs. 6♥ (and 7♥, if you refuse to sell to 6♥): a ) would you be wanting to play that contract doubled? b ) what would you lead?

What's the lead?

A form of Mexican 2d used to be one of my reg partner's favorite bid. I managed to convince him to drop it from our cc when he forgot what we were playing, and he opened 2d (intending it as a weak two) and we got a giant penalty for psyching a strong, art opening (which is one of the few disallowed psyches). Sorry, not too relevant to your question, but I thought that you might find it amusing. ;)

In addition to what Scoob said, a Regional tournament is usually staged by a district (it's not unheard of for two districts to collaborate on one), and each district usually sanctions 2-3 each year, depending on the size (population) of the district. For example, district 14, which covers the northern plains states (the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota) seems to have two a year, one in Minneapolis, and one in Omaha. District 23 (Los Angeles) has in the past varied between 2 and three a year, and is currently debating whether to have three a year, each lasting a week, or two a year, each lasting ten days. There usually seem to be around 2 a month that I deem a reasonable distance (for regionals, this is less than 8 hours driving time). Sectionals are usually staged by Units (which are smaller than districts, but again the geography seems to depend on the size). Living in Lincoln, NE, there seem to be three sectionals in "reasonable" driving distance (reasonable to me less than three hours drive for sectionals, ie, I don't have to stay overnight): 1 in Lincoln, 2 in Omaha. In LA, there are a lot more, as there are a lot more units very close to each other. In addition to this, there are Sectional Tournaments at Clubs (STaCs) which take place across districts (sometimes a single district, sometimes a few combined) in which you play a game at the club, but your results get compared to all results played that day (and again, this varies as to how the comparison is actually done). I hope that this was informative, and sorry it was longwinded. Edited to add (since I hate >1 posts in a row by the same poster): As scoob has said, both Sectionals and Regionals offer concurrent options of events, with regionals having the most choices at a time. They usually have, in addition to "main events" single session open side games, and single session limited games (for newer players).

Am strongly tempted by double (penalties for my regular partnership), but my partner would probably be mad at me when it makes, and since I like him and don't like making him mad unnecessarily, like others I shall pass, and hope to go positive. If partner reopens with a double, I'm again tempted to leave it in. I think that I shouldn't, and should try 3nt, but it's very hard not to pass that. As others have pointed out, it depends on scoring, vuln, and for me, mood.

I don't really think that I can vote for either of these three categories. I choose option four: depends on what I can rebid if I don't open 1nt. Usually I don't have a problem with 15 bad points, or 17 points, but with 16 points and a balanced hand, I usually have rebid issues, so I will open that 1nt. (I obviously play 15-17 NT.)

I don't agree with this, one big mistake is often plenty for ending up in the wrong contract. Here I agree with you that there is not one person to blame though. It is always better not to try and put someone the blame. Any reasonably intelligent player will quickly find out by himself what he did wrong. Pointing out errors to him is redundant and will only suceed in irritating the person. This is not the way to go if you want to win. The good attitude is to tell him "I probably would have done the same." Maybe it would be better, instead of blaming SOMEONE, to ask the question of which bid is most suspect? Or to ask the general question of would anyone do something different with either of the two hands? That way it's construed more constructively? Is this what you're unhappy with?

I don't know if this is the place to mention it (but since the thread where you announced the new version is closed, I guess here will work), but it's rather counter-intuitive to figure out how to follow someone playing in a tournament. (If others are having issues: You need to right click, and go to player notes, this brings up the window previously available by right-clicking.) I expected it to be in the right-click menu, and when it wasn't, I had to do some searching! Anyway, thanks for the changes otherwise, it all looks great so far!

You could also play Grant's Hack After an inverted minor 3m bid. But then again, I STILL wouldn't be happy hearing partner ask me about my hand if I raised to the three level on this, because then we'd wind up in 4♣, opposite an 18-19 point hand, basically balanced, for no good reason. (So I'm agreeing with you, Justin.)

How do you plan on finding partner's 3card suit vs. his 2 card suit (or a good 3 vs. a bad 3, or even 4 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 2). Your psychic powers must be greater than mine.

Again, if one read the posts between Hotshot and myself, one would know that 6♠ is not natural, it should show ♠K (and obviously a hand willing to bypass 6♥). I take exception to characterizing 6♥ as lazy, it is responding to partner's question. I know that many people on the boards like masterminding the auction, but some people like cooperating with partners. I think that that the best option may be that responder, instead of keycarding, bids 4♠ (continuing Qing). Responder is clearly willing to proceed past 4♥, he may as well continue his bidding.

Um, I believe that it clearly states the 5♠ was not a cue bid, but a Queen ask in hearts. It does not show the K.

Don't forget about Omar Sharif. He's a bit less controversial.

How does opener know about ♠K (and therefore that he can bid 7♠)? Also, how does he know that bidding 6♠ is to play, not showing ♥Q and ♠K (and ability to force to the 7 level)?

Well, I bet that my bidding with my favorite partner would go the same way. :blink:

Actually, I think that standard is that (specifically over the sequence 1♣-(1♦)), 1♠ still shows just 4+ (over 1♣-(1♥) it would show 5+) because that way the negative double can show 4-4 (or better, of course) in BOTH majors. What I see frequently unalerted is negative free bids, and those are usually done by people who don't know that they're alertable, rather than those trying to hide their agreements. I find that people that play unusual systems are usually so proud of their systems, and what everything shows, that they will happily alert and explain (maybe some take a bit more nudging, though). I like playing against precision players that have bids that completely describe their shape, HCP, etc, it gives partner no excuse for not being able to picture declarer's hand! :P

(My numbers added) (1)This is not entirely true (that the ACBL regulations for f2f tournaments don't allow undos). For example, when bidding, if you intend to bid 2s, and pull out 2h by accident, if you catch it immediately, you are allowed to change that bid. (ie, you're allowed to make finger errors, but not mental errors.) (2) I believe that actually, for this kind of misbid, (by ACBL rules, but I have no idea about WBF) allow you to change your bid, but your score is capped (I forget by how much). This is done to protect the field, and not reward opponents, but cannot restore you to a good place. I hope that this all showed up ok. It's the first time I've tried quoting something.

My partners will raise on 3 card heart support when minimal, even when holding four spades, so at most, partner can have 6 major suit cards. Also, in our methods, partner could still have a fairly balanced hand (4-2-3-4), and if diamonds are 4-4, or even 5-3, NT is still doing fine. If partner is fairly unbalanced, he is likely to correct to 2c. I may be corrected about this point by partner later! :P

Well, it could be something like "confirm bid", and for play, that you have to double click, or drag the card to the table. Yes, I realize that some people might consider it an inconvenience, so it could just be an option to be turned on or off. But it might make playing bridge on a computer a lot easier for us older folks.

I think that it might be nice to have some kind of confirmation that this is the card intended to be played, or that is the bid intended. Something like having to drag the card, or click a box that says "yes" after you choose your card. I realize that people may not like this, maybe it could be an option? This would greatly help a lot of people whose hand-eye coordination has not been aided by video games all these young people like nowadays.

I always grant undoes in the MBC, but maybe that's because I'm usually playing with friends, and want everyone to do the best they can, and also know that they're not undoing because of something played subsequently. I always grant undoes to people I don't know, too, because it generates good feelings, and I'm not that competitive a person. It would be really great if there were no need for undoes, like you had to confirm the card you want to play (maybe by dragging it to the table, or clicking a "yes" box or something). This would be great for people like me who have eye-hand coordination issues, and for people who don't have as much control over their hand movement as they would like. Maybe it could be an option, though, so those juniors who may not like it can continue to play at lightning speed and astound the rest of us.

I would say that it completely depends on who you're playing against, but that's not 100% true, it also depends on which direction the randomness happens (ie is there an insane EW or NS out there). Honestly, it seems fairly random, that it's hard to pin down a good IMP average. If you're averaging +10 per board, maybe you need to find opponents that you're not beating up on. If you're averaging -10, maybe you should find people that you can compete more easily with.

The 3NT bid seems a bit insane, but to be honest, I don't really like the double, either. It sounds like RHO (the 1C bidder) has a hand with AT LEAST 10 minor suit cards (if not more) and is slam forcing (otherwise why pull 3nt?) so I have grave doubts about my hA scoring, much less my K. I agree that their auction sounds silly, and it's tempting to double based on that, but I've learned not to double on silly-sounding auctions, much of the time people reach the correct place by accident, and a tiny portion of the time, they are trying to engineer the auction to tempt a double (this is usually the case when playing against good juniors). But yes, I would not have expected LHO's hand based on his 3nt bid.

I like 2h here, mainly for the point that others have made (1s followed later on by 2h is a stronger hand than I have). I should also note, as on the other thread of this type, in most of my regular partnerships, we frequently raise on three card support much more freely than many people are used to. As has been previously noted on the other thread, if partner has an invitational or better hand, we are always finding the correct place to play, and the problem here is where is the best place to play if I know he is passing my next bid. To answer another question, if partner has an invitational or better hand, I'm not worried about missing a 4-4 spade fit. 1m - 1h; 2h - 2s shows four card spades (it's not artificial or helpsuit game try or anything of the sort).