keylime

That's comical Helene. The defense here in ACBL-land would be barred due to the destructive (to them for once!) nature of it. Thanks for the laugh.

I tried it on this machine and it went very smoothly through into the phases shown; I am behind a hardware firewall and it did not have any trouble getting to the content. I'm eager to try this on my Mac at home to see what happens. I do know that there are some 3rd party software that block Flash animations (Spyware Blaster is the first that comes to mind). Obviously you'd want to install that if you are admin level to do so (like I am - our other accounts are mostly power users but can not install Flash or Shockwave without admins knowing about it). Fred, my question is regards to signoff - will it leave a cookie(s) on the computer so that if you close a tab in IE7/Safari/Firefox/Opera, and then reopen it, will it be of the per session nature where you'll need authenication or will it retain the login?

Crane said to avoid the odd levels. Sound counsel on this hand. He also said to never play pard for the right hand. More sound counsel on this hand. Staying low, 4♠.

I open 1S happily in South: 1S - 2H 2S* (any minimum) - 3S (minimum) 4S or if I wanted to completely suppress the heart (I wouldn't): 1S - 2NT* (how many losers?) ((what Larry and I use)) 3D* (six of them) - 4S or: 1S - 2NT* (LR or better) ((Swedish 2NT)) 3C* (any minimum) - 4S

I'd venture a double. Looks rather difficult for the declarer to find 9 tricks.

3D. I can play in three possible strains comfortably. I have prime controls, and in a forcing club method I open 1♣; thusly in a natural setup, jump shift.

My thought continuing: If I wanted to play in diamonds once I hear 4♠ which should show a nearly self-sufficient suit at worse case, I should cuebid (if available - with 2 dead clubs might be a case for <gulp> Lackwood here but I digress) if I had interest in diamonds. With a solid diamond suit with a stiff honor of opener's suit opposite, I'd probably give up grand chances and bid 5NT pick-a-slam and get on with it. My concern with 4NT being RKC for last suit bid, is if they keep bidding and now after our DEPO/DOPI response we're trying to get back out into ♦. The 6H bid as a Last Train in spades is rather interesting, but how often would it come up for the sake of memory? Theorywise it makes sense but practicality wise I'm unsure of its ramifications; if opener rebid 4H (which I might do here instead of spades depending on partner) then the context changes. I agree with Josh from the view that understanding the context is critical to getting to the end conclusion here. This is a very thought provoking hand indeed.

I'd like to ask a question of the panel here who believe 6♦ is an attempt to play here. Considering that pard bid spades twice in this auction, and that we have keycarded in that suit, how can we then differentiate strain with regards to what contract we're trying to get to. Since we didn't introduce hearts into the mix here (there's another can of worms), and we didn't raise diamonds when we had the chance to, after the keycard ask and rebid, how are we certain that we have intentions to play in diamonds when pard can cuebid to probe further? If pard wanted to play in diamonds by implication, I'd think they would cuebid instead of asking about keycards in spades to focus the auction. This example is analogous to the style that some play where 4NT is keycard for the last suit bid and then yanked to another suit intended it to play - and I'm not a fan of it because of the confusion that it causes. I've had enough RKCB accident with this treatment to pull hair out.

http://thekeylimeexpress.blogspot.com - new format and palette.

Arend, I agree with your line of thought here - so much so that the balanced 5M332 handtypes have their own bids in Ultra. Then again I'm not much of a fan of 5M into a NT opening unless the suit is crappy and/or I have Gazzilli at my disposal (it's a style thing). I would think that you can draw an extension to having 4-4-x-x shape in a weak NT being a possible disadvantage as well (this is a banned handtype for our 11-13 opening because of potential missing 4-4 fit) because of the inability to get to 2M on some hands.

Ditto Arend.

Ah! That is a little bit of a walk...hope the sunshine is good.

4♥ - pard's likely on a 1-3-5/6-x hand with good values. Converting on Q-8-7-6 against these 2 is likely to lead to -530's and worse.

Pard's passed - if you play light initial action you're telegraphing the hand if you take a call. I pass and await them getting to 1NT, back to you. Then you might take a call.

Play transfers over 2♣ - this has unlocked for Larry and I more avenues of bidding than other 2C engines, and you don't need relay follow-ups to gain playability. Keep in mind tho that this may work better for 6+club variants of 2C and not 5C, 4M flavors. 2C - ? 2D = xfer to hearts 2H = xfer to spades 2S = xfer to diamonds 2NT = invite, asks for min/max, forcing (rebid of 4C is RKC) 3C = a raise 3D/H/S = G/F, fit asking 3NT = to play

Assuming pard's 4NT is RKCB for spades, I'd treat 5NT as spec kings as if they never bid. 6C for me is g/s try needing help in clubs for spades (pick-a-slam is I think not applicable here; you didn't support diamonds and instead bid your own hand). 6D I think is choice of slam between 6S and 6NT, and 6H...probably some sort of g/s try showing good hearts with absolute club control. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of 4NT being RKC for spades here; much prefer a cuebidding sequence.

I'm borderline on the fence since, since we play an offshoot of the Overcall Structure. I voted for the "cuebids alert themselves" mentality, but I'm considering adding a tag line to our canape pre-alert to address this, because we play specific 2 suiters.

Something else to consider for why I think a FD to CC conversion would struggle: if you play a method that is undergoing evolution, you could in theory cause a conflict when it "emulates" for lack of a better word from one source to the other - especially if there's oddball/non-standard conventions that a pair would use. Admittedly the thought I had was to use a different mechanism to provide the desired convention card: a Word template that would be easy enough for users to plug away at and yet provide enough customizations for the advanced coders and crowd to modify for their using. Since Office 03/07 and OpenOffice are out there, might be the easiest route to implement in terms of cost and deployment. Any oddball conventions can appear then as a pop-up or an appendix to the opponents. I'm not a programmer by trade; am a hardware guy so this is just a thought (i.e. don't shoot me down too hard please).

If I was playing forcing NT I'd be much better positioned. With the conditions given, the only time I'd force to game is if I was playing a Fantunes flavored method where I know pard has a "real" hand versus a "shape" hand". For me what is interesting is if pard finds a 3C call.

Happy birthday neighbor - I hope you and family enjoy a good night out enjoying the local cuisine.

I used to call this time of double the "uh oh we're in deep trouble now".

Ditto Josh's comments. Double of 5D is showing extras and good playing strength and is competitive, not penalty. I had a hand about a year ago against Jeff Roman and a client that went like this: (2S) 4H (4S) P P X all pass for a great score. His hand was very close to this hand type minus the spades; i.e. a great hand that wanted to compete.

I play this currently with Larry, but admittedly I'm starting to swing towards using 3C as the both minors instead of 2NT due to the trouble a double of 3C causes in terms of context (or maybe playing a 19-21 NT - dunno yet). Over a regular 2NT opening, LHO gets a shot to show using our minors 3C/D for takeouts of hearts/spades respectively. This is a concern of mine. If you play weak/strong variant here, I think the concern you'd have is when both hands are of good strength and you hear an invite - that's why I tend to like it as a weak hand only. If you choose to use this opening, have very clear followups in terms of forcing calls versus signoff calls.

I'm in the 4NT and raise boat too here. I think 5NT is too anti-positional here and leads to easier sacs (heck they may have six of a major on this construction for all I know!)

All Mike needed in addition to that post is the "Rocky" theme music to round it out. :P