keylime

Depending on level - with a lesser player Michaels, with my peers, stop ask. Alluded to other posts, Freeman-Nickell got to an elegant slam using this method.

Arend, I definitely will consume beer in honor of your birthday today. Meeting you and Han in Nashville was one of the most positive elements of my trip, and I consider myself fortunate to call you both a peer and a friend. I sincerely hope that today is a special day celebrated.

Set trumps here. I like the 6♣ without any agreements that Mike alluded to. With agreements, then I Minorwood/Redwood just to make sure. With really fancy agreements, 3D asks for a major.

ditto.

1NT, 3 suited takeout. Otherwise, 2♣ for reasons above.

Arend, It would be beyond irresponsible, to simply say to ourselves, "Well, Iraq's taken care, let's take our ball and go home now.". It'll be Vietnam, take 2. Our politicians have a very bad habit of attempting to hamstring military commanders who are on the ground seeing the SITREPS daily and are slowly but surely bringing stability to Iraq. We've done this time after time in our history under the guises of "promoting self-restraint" and "civilian control of the military". Just look at the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the World Wars, and you'll see that we have exercised tremendous restraint until we've had to unleash the horrors of war, and furthermore, has also delayed victory for the sake of scoring a few points. It takes just as much restraint to not act glibly and to simply reduce our horizons to one country. We simply can't view Iraq as the one and sole function of protecting the United States - I refuse to allow myself the naive notion that Russia and Iran are simply progressing themselves under the guise of modernization. Currently, Armenia, Georgia, eastern Pakistan and Kashmir, the Kurds, are the next areas of view , and hopefully, opportunity. If France and the Netherlands are reexamining the troubles of both immigration and Islamization on their societies, why wouldn't the U.S. want to be at the forefront of promoting basic rights and freedoms? You can't go around and attempt to play nice and appease that which is both alien and counterproductive to the stability of the world. It is of only a sentimental notion that integration would provide enough benefits to a nation-state to have them leave their pasts so to speak. Vigilance is the order of the day. I'm not waiting for the "what if", I've already steeled myself to the "when it happens". It frankly pisses me off to no end that we want to pussyfoot around the obvious: granting concession after concession without challenging the foe is paramount to extinction. Why did 6 million Jews have to die needlessly? Why did Poland suffer such loss? What about Czechoslovakia, who got sold out by the Brits? When we are going to stop hiding behind technology, and actually do some of the hard labors required to turn back this wave of hideous destruction that is a lot closer than most are willing to admit?

I'd authorize military action against Iran; they are clearly fighting a proxy war against us through other nations and groups. There is no rational reason NOT to get in there and make an emphatic statement to the world that the United States is no pushover. If you do not reduce Iran's capability, you'll have a stepping stone effect that will head in all directions (Turkey, the Kurds, Israel, Armenia, Georgia just to list a few). The consequences would be horrific.

I'd think pard wants a club here with the spot cards - pard should realize it's an ACOL style 3NT with a long running minor once the dummy hits. I think a spade shift is possibly a give up play.

K update time. After much help from Gerardo, Dan, Gert, and others, I have been able to get the device nearly functional. The only issue I am having is the fact that I am getting a lot of reception errors. It's dropping a lot of packets. This is causing me not to be able to access the wireless here at work. I am currently using wicd manager which is helping immensely. Any thoughts?

I wholeheartedly agree with Han. 3♥ is standout. 3NT is never in my vocabulary here. 1. Your spade suit looks like Swiss cheese. Probably stinks like a Brie or a Cambrefort. 2. You hold 2 nice honors in hearts for pard. 3. The J of clubs doubleton is now offensive. 4. Diamonds have no future in 3NT after they cash the first 4-5 spades and then attack diamonds because you're having to pitch 3-4 times from the board. 5. 3NT is for hands that need to play somewhat passively because you're either running a suit somewhere or you have values but no fit. You have some values with 2 degrees of fit. It's suit oriented. 3D does make some sense but if opener is on a 1-5-2-5 they are not well placed. I'd tell pard that hearts is "safe".

Also something to consider to in terms of doubles from Echo's post: continuations. If it goes 1C (2H) X (3H - pass/correct) you're going to be potentially on shaky ground if your double is of a card-showing variety versus a specific holding flavor. Furthermore, you can show G/F hands with a 4 card major through xfers if you have a five card suit, but it's the awkward 10-11 counts with a 4 card major that will be tricky. If the team plays light initial action for an opening style, there is some merit in ditching the invitational hand types and go strictly for forcing/nonforcing hands.

I'm pretty classical in terms of splinters, so I'd say none of them.

2♣. At least there's six of them.

4♦ KC? That's not only nuts, it's blatantly nuts. With an experienced partner I try 4♥ (I don't play responsive dbls in this situation with Larry). Anyone else, it's 5♣.

Jan, Over a forcing club, I'd treat it as if the strong club hand is balanced, and play your Multi defense over it (with possible change due to the 2♥ nature of the bid). Over a prepared/short/naturalish club, probably something like: double - values, 3c/d - to play, nonforcing, 2NT being Leb-style.

Sacre bleu....French socialists?! That caused both a laugh and acid reflux in the same motion..... I look at it this way - there isn't many true conservatives left these days in Congress. I think we can say affirmatively that regardless of party, most politicians are either greedy, corrupt, oversexed, or a combination of all three.

Here in the D.C. area, there is a group of players that have bridge themed shirts. One of them has the word "unblock", another "finesse", and a couple of others too.

Y'all are having way too much fun at this. Then again, Democrats get away with much more nonsense. The U.S. without conservatives would become the North American form of Sweden. Instead, I'm going to go back to reading Lucianne and American Thinker.

I play 3S as both minors G/F with xfers; xferring into their suit and then 3NT rebid denies a stop; 3NT direct shows a stop and is the play. Over a call that shows both majors, unusual versus unusual with some modifications. Over a multi 2D call, different scheme.

I like 2♣ - G/F and other bids - constructive but not forcing. Since you're playing limited bids, your 1M-4M hands are a wider cross-section since your minimum picture bids would go in here. I agree with my peers here that the SAYC 2/1 is superior.

That's part of the rationale of my question about what the meaning of 3D in this auction; it might solve some ambiguous overtones.

Today we have a birthday lady in the house, and a very valued member of the BBO family. Helene I hope that your new job in the UK is all that you have hoped for, and that the cats will take the move in stride.

<major edit since auction was changed - had answered to original post> Since 3H to me here shows values and is forward-going, my first question is this: Does 3D or 2NT show a bust hand? I would have liked to have bid 3D and then 4H to show this freak since I do have enough values to entertain game. I would think 4D would be accepting hearts here and forward-going in this context. This auction is much easier to cope than the original offering.

I'm not a fan of leading a diamond here (it's self-evident that we're not touching a major). A club is the most passive and and continuing such is almost automatic.

After reboot, now I can scan for networks. Then after logging off and back on, I no longer have that function. B)