jonottawa

Partner's pass of 5♥ is gross. In fact, his whole auction is horrible. 1D-1H 5N-7H

Guess this wasn't all that interesting. RHO played the T at trick 1 and I decided to duck (I didn't think he was up to finding the ♦ switch, particularly since the auction hadn't been particularly informative.) He continued with the ♥Q and I won in dummy. Have I done anything atrocious/bad/sub-optimal yet? What now?

If we're going to bend over backwards to get girls on the junior team, we should also bend over backwards to get boys whose parents aren't expert bridge players on the team, since they're just about as rare. ACBL shouldn't be in the 'legislating morality' business. Surely the amount of sexism today is negligible among young people. I was something of a sexist pig in my youth and it was certainly frowned on then. I don't see how any junior male could look at what the Swedish girls have done or at Gavin/Jenny's history and conclude that girls can't play this game. The best bridge prodigy I've ever seen played on BBO and is female. But she decided that throwing cardboard rectangles at a table probably wasn't the end-all and be-all (or even close) in life and never got actively involved in play at Nationals. Maybe there are fewer young female superstars because they have more sense than we do.

gwynn answer best answer

Another possibility? 2C-2D 2S-3C 3D-4N P

I've been toolin' around New Eden for about a year. Just wondered if there's a significant bridge-player presence there. EVE

So did it make? I love it when I'm in a potentially ambiguous auction and a bid has a couple of possible meanings and my hand happens to cover both. 5♠ would seem to qualify here. E might have showed minors rather than just ♦. 6♣ looks like the best slam.

Leave George H W Bush alone!

While we're at it, might want to revisit the idea of allowing a CWTC win to count as your 'national win' for Grand Life Master eligibility. As to the Player of the Year race, I think the problem could be solved by simply changing the awards for all non-top-tier national events from 100% platinum to 50%gold-50% platinum. As to the inflated masterpoint awards for certain restricted events, points schmoints, shrug. I'm with Jan on this and gimping their awards would probably kill the events entirely in some cases.

[hv=d=n&v=b&n=sqjt5hk42da9764c3&s=sa8ha93dq5cakt976]133|200|Scoring: IMP P-P-1♣-P 1♠-P-2NT-P 3NT-Float[/hv] ♥5 Lead (Opps are random BBO 'experts') Auction ok? Is there a clearly best line?

Funny, when this topic came up I thought of Michael Rosenberg and his 'which minor to open' from Zia and Me.

Because familiarizing yourself with your opponents' methods would be rilly rilly disrespectful, or something like that. And as long as your opponents pinkie promise that they 'believe that their systems give them a competitive advantage' it's okay if they don't tell you what they're playing because they have like families to feed and stuff.

LOL

Just because something is legal, does not mean that it is right. Full disclosure means full disclosure. I shouldn't have to reverse engineer their system (not that I have or would want to.) They should make it available to all, not just to their family and friends. (Reminds me of an Ontario-wide business game I played in high school (accounting class) where the previous year's winner gave his 'system' to his brother, luckily I came up with a better system.) I want the Masters winner to be the guy who played best, not the guy with the best golf clubs. I want the Wimbledon winner to be the guy who played best, not the guy with the best racquet. I want the National League MVP to be the guy who played best, not the guy with the best chemist. IMO what 'accepted practice' has to say about this doesn't matter - it is simply wrong.

Horrible problem. I bid 3♠ (I'm an advocate of Burn's Law.) I wouldn't fault partner if he tried passing or some other call, though.

I've always hated insurance. Betting on myself dying or my house catching on fire or my car crashing always seemed stupid. I've always considered it a shady enterprise. But that applies to all insurance, there's nothing particularly weaselly about the folks who sell health insurance. Here are my health insurance thoughts: First, this pre-existing condition nonsense. You can't buy fire insurance if your house is burning. You can't buy collision insurance if the police are at the scene. Your heirs can't top up your life insurance when you're lying in the casket. Why on Jon's green earth would you (or should you) be able to buy health insurance that covers a pre-existing condition? Anyone who believes you should is too dumb to understand the concept of insurance. Second, this 'discriminating against women' nonsense. Women get pregnant. Pre-natal care and delivery costs are very expensive. Women visit the doctor more. Women incur more healthcare costs. Women should be charged accordingly. Third. Denying claims. Since doctors have no motivation not to overmedicate/overtreat and since patients have no motivation to insist that their doctors not overmedicate/overtreat them, it's up to someone to contain costs. That someone is the health insurance adjuster. I'm glad that SOMEONE in the system is trying to contain costs. Dropping coverage/portability. Okay, here's where the critics finally have a valid point. If you pay your insurance premiums every month, they shouldn't ever be able to drop you. And you should be able to keep your insurance if you lose/change jobs. The only other criticism with any validity against the health insurance industry is that their target profit margin is too high given the minimal risks they incur. Bottom line, health care insurers, like casino owners and morticians, are weasels, but they've got to earn a buck too and they've been given way too much of the blame in this debate. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/16/8...-Save-You-Fools

Lame and misleading introductory analogy aside, here's my take on health care: Americans tend to be fat, unhealthy, litigious, prone to substance abuse and prescription drug abuse, prone to violence, unaccountable, narcissistic, gullible, demanding and irresponsible. Doctors tend to charge exorbitant amounts for what they do. They all too often abuse their monopoly to reap windfall profits. People who sell insurance expect to make a profit and charge some people more for health insurance if their costs are reasonably expected to exceed the health costs incurred by other people. In many cases, the profits they reap are excessive given the relatively small risks they incur. That makes any health care reform a huge challenge that requires both parties to step up and give Joe 6-pack, Dr. Joe, and Joe Insurance guy some straight talk. And yes, I'd kill the current bill as per Howard Dean and others. That doesn't mean the Republicans are 'right.' It just means that the Republicans have demonized all the good out of the bill and what's left would do more harm than good.

Your Republican talking point fails. The debate isn't between two reasonable alternatives (as in your analogy,) it's between restoring sanity and cost containment to a broken system and insanely pursuing the unsustainable and immoral status quo while demonizing virtually all reasonable reform proposals.

This.

Some of us are too smart for our own good. http://www.vimeo.com/4835556

I'm not in any rush. LHO might have a 10 count. 1♣ for me. 1N if midnights.

Your reality's still a little skewed, here's how it really went down: Economics. These tax cuts for the rich will pay for themselves and lead to prosperity for all! Health care. Let's do nothing! We have the best healthcare system in the world! TARP. Let's keep it a secret until the last minute and then announce IF YOU DON'T PASS THIS RIGHT NOW JUST AS IT IS THE SKY WILL FALL!!! Climate. Instead of getting behind a politically unpopular but principled issue like a carbon tax, let's see how fast we can wipe out species, how dependent we can become on despotic foreign governments and how dirty we can make our environment. War. Let's torture and kill as many brown people as we can. Let's wonder why they hate us. Actually, scrap that second part, they don't hate us, they hate FREEDOM. Other issues? 3 or 4 blow jobs are more important than destabilizing the US economy by impeaching the greatest president ever, who brought us unprecedented prosperity. Those are some expensive blow jobs.

I enjoy bridge a lot more when I don't watch partner declare.

Bah. Should have known better than to second guess gnasher on double dummy. (Worked it out myself in the meantime.)

After ♥ - ♥ you stop me from taking 3♣ 2♦ and 2♥ how now?