jikl

This is deeply flawed. D is always the default answer, from here you have Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica and Dominican Republic. From here there are so many possibilities, almost everyone will come up with Denmark first, from a New Zealander will probably finish with Kiwi and Indigo for example. Sean

We do all agree that Gerber sucks still right? *hides* Sean

Why are we looking at a ♥ suit safety play with the back up plan of a red suit squeeze? Sean

Thanks for running it. It was a lot of fun and worth getting up in the middle of the night for. Sean

2♠, anything else is rolling the dice. If we want to actually resort to HCP here, there are still about 19-24 out with 2 people left (not that HCP will mean as much with this much distribution in the first 2 hands. If you bid ♣s as a lead director, you lose the ♠ suit which is your best bet when both 4♥ and 4♠ are making; partner will be hard pressed to pass on 2♥ - 3♣ - 4♥ - P (or X) - P - 4♠. Any 2 suiter might get you up too high without partner knowing what to do since you are sort of intermediate and might give them too much information if they happen to buy the hand; this might be a good time to hide your ♣ suit unless partner starts asking some questions. Sean

I have signed up and will try to be there but it is 0330 Monday for me :) Sean

Doesn't this all depend on whether the standard 2NT opening is bundled into the 2♦ opening? Then it is a 3 way question. Sean

Wayne is from NZ, they play rugby there (rugby union to be specific). Sean

I remember people playing FP as a defence to FP but they got to have system notes at the table since it was a defence. Then came the question of when the people playing FP were allowed to look at the defence notes :P Sean

Are helmets compulsory for motorbikes over there yet? I know they weren't 10 years back and they are a serious drain on the economy. (More injuries and deaths etc) Sean

1♠ for me, if partner can't muster up a response then I am probably where I should be. Sean

Thanks for the clarification Nick, I wasn't that far off :) Sean

Wow, Fred, you jumped down the throat of Australian and New Zealand bridge. Marston and Burgess won either a silver or bronze in Perth World Champs Pairs playing FP about 20 years ago, probably the start of this controversy really. (They are both actually from NZ by the way but moved to Aus for greater oppurtunities bridgewise) From memory we also had an Australian as part of a partnership in the World Mixed Pairs championship. Sure these are not the medals that anyone wants, but in some ways we are still overperforming on a per capita basis as we do at the Olympics every 4 years. Our bridge problem is as Richard said, we are too far away from both North America and Europe; hopefully we will leave Zone 7 and join Zone 6 to have more regular competition; much as our soccer team has done. If we miss out on a few world champs because of this it will induce the match practice we need. What I meant by my molly-coddling question was that Europe sees far more diverse systems than America will ever allow. Now this counts for their juniors also who are theoretically the next players on the open team; if they have never played against something allowed in the Worlds when they get there, are they at a disadvantage? That was my question, not an attack on the US. Sean

Congrats :) Sean

I also found Arclight's insinuation that we are all basically cheats highly offensive. In regard to Cascade's guess of the number of people in Australia that play against weak 55 unanchored 2 suiters; assuming that the roughly 30000 people registered play once a month (not an unfair assumption), I would guess at least half would come up against it, if not more. None of them will care, they have seen it all before. The side question which is interesting, is all this molly-coddling of the masses hurting the US in international competition? Sean

What is the opening lead? Sean

I have refrained from responding to this for some time now. "In the best interests of bridge" is a very interesting comment. The problem is: 1) The best interest now? 2) The best interest later? 3) Whether the game dies? 1) The problem here is we have a severe problem with people getting old and then perhaps no longer being with us. Unfortunately, this is the average bridge player. I could look it up but I am guessing the average age of an ACBL member is getting up to 67ish; if I am wrong so be it. However you get the point. The best interest now is to keep these people happy, but what happens in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? 2) Here in Australia, most multis are allowed in virtually everything. All the older people are so used to them there is never an eyebrow raised, they already have a pre-defined defence in their head for all 2 suited multis so that even if they come across a new one they are ready. Very few people even raise an eyebrow to MOSCITO; "transfer openings?" we are used to them. We have general defences to certain types of bids; we don't have a 200 page exchange of notes before each round in a pairs or a teams event. That is only for national events. What I am saying here is that, protecting the older players might be good for revenue now but as the average bridge player age increases and the people that want to do the wild and wonderful things in the bidding are not allowed to do it are denied they will stop playing. This over-regulation will stop the younger players coming in. Which leads to 3) 3) If we don't get young players involved in this wonderful game it will not exist in 50-75 years unless we try to rectify it now. Many card games fade from existence every year. If you can't play them online, not interested, is the general case. If gambling isn't involved, not interested, same reason. Some people want to get it on TV, won't really work. SAYC or even Acol or Precision are far too complicated for a TV audience to understand. They have no investment in watching, where Poker has worked on TV is that the watcher has an investment in the watching: "What would I have done?" or "I hope this person wins" or "I can't believe that idiot just folded, I would never have done it (even though they might never understand why it happened)". It is instant TV. It all happens quickly, bridge does not. Poker is easy to understand, bridge is not. Whilst protecting the older population of the bridge market will help the game now, it is perhaps dooming the future of bridge. Bridge in its current state will never be as accessible as chess, chess needs 2 people, easy, child vs parent. Child gets hooked, add another chess player. Bridge; hrm, need 4 people, we have a problem. The most potent place to recruit people to bridge (assuming they don't have a parent playing) is from college/universities, they are the target audience now. Sure targetting high schools is good but there is only so long these teachers will be available. Bridge will never be a mass market game, it is far too complicated unless it is reduced back to rubber bridge form. Rubber bridge will not happen because then there is no mass market. ----- So perhaps we should look to the future instead of the now and allow some wild and woolly things in the bidding instead of thinking of the bottom line. Sean

Well said

It is best to ignore his posts, he lives in his own little world where every bridge law is obeyed, the directors are gods and have room service while they wait to be never called since the game is run so well that noone can make a mistake. Then when you bring into question the difference between offline and online bridge, you better hide. He only has one response, there IS no difference when it comes to the rules. This is despite the fact that you now cannot lead out of turn, you can't revoke, you can't make an insufficient bid, you can't make a scoring mistake; you get the picture. But all the rules are exactly the same, leave him to his own little world, it saves aggravation. Sean

I remember in the old days, we played 0314 unless the suit was ♥, then we played 1430. Sean

Damn, you stole my answer awm. Although strictly speaking he has already made it with that drunken one he made from Beijing on someone else's account :P Sean

Economic Left/Right: -4.62 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.64 Sean

Would Al Gore have had a chance? This is a serious question because who knows which party he would represent apart from Republican. Sean

Virgin has already cut fuel surcharges in Australia. Apparently they also held back in July when the price went right up (the others increased it). Our other airlines have not followed suit yet. Sean

This is possibly one of the more offensive threads I have read on here. Sean