AL78

I'm not convinced it is necessary. Why not bid 3♣ with that hand? If partner has enough that game or slam in clubs or 3NT is a good shot, they are not passing.

1. To show a very strong balanced hand after an opponent has opened, the standard method is to double then bid NT. The fact you didn't overcall 1NT means you must be above the HCP range (about 15-18). 2. Some people play a direct 2NT overcall of a major as at least 5/5 in the minors. As to the strength, you have to agree with partner whether you do it on any strength, or is it weak or strong, not intermediate, or is it something like 8-15HCP. If a 1M opening comes round to you in fourth seat, 2NT is usually played as 18-20HCP balanced, the reason being a protective 1NT overcall is 11-14 HCP, so you need an extra bid to show all the balanced HCP ranges.

My plan would be to discard one spade on dummy's diamond winners. I play a heart to dummy and play a top diamond, throwing a spade, then run the ♣T. Win the return (unless East holds ♣KQ and covers then I can knock out the second honor for two club tricks). If they try to cash three rounds of spades, ruff then go for the club ruff and claim. If they knock out dummy's last heart, take the club finesse. I fail if West holds both club honors, but it might have led the ♣K in that case. This gives up on an overtrick if the diamonds are 3-3, but avoids going down if the diamonds are not 3-3, but I try to cash both of dummy's diamond honors. I don't think any of my regular partners would criticise me for that line if I go down. If the diamonds are 5-1 and it requires the brain of a world champion to find the solution in a suitable time which also works on all the more likely diamond breaks, I'll apologise for not being talented enough to find it.

Hence why I said double dummy. I wondered at first if it was like one of those bridge playing monks of St Titus hands where declarer thinks "The contract would be easy on a 3-2 break but what to do about a 4-1 break", and there is a way of setting up a trump coup if West turns up to have four diamonds whilst not risking the contract if diamonds are 3-2.

It looks like there is a trump coup on double dummy, but I'd have to play it out with cards to check whether or not West can thwart it through careful discarding.

I classed myself as intermediate. What does that mean in your eyes?

I would assume it is forcing absent any specific agreement. It looks to be setting clubs as trumps and expressing slam interest, inviting a cue bidding sequence. 3♥ would be game forcing but fishing for 3NT as a contract. I think you and your partner have to discuss when cue bids of opponents suits are forcing raises, and in the sequence given, what would double mean?

OMG, on a rational trick one play, the defence can take the first six tricks.

Include defensive problems as well as declarer play problems, where there is one best answer as to how to defend and there is a way to logically work it out, assuming some standard carding methods.

I'm not one for lying to partner purely based on what is in my own hand. There is no reason partner cannot have four spades and the two hands together play better in spades than NT. Bridge is a partnership game, and it is about how both hands combine together.

9. People who live together looking at each others hands. What is self-kibitz?

In addition, if LHO does raise spades, partner is marked with a singleton or void and can double if they have extras, then you can show your heart suit. I prefer a takeout double here to show proper responding values (i.e. a good 6+), so I would pass and hope to have a chance to show the hearts next time. If there isn't a next time, it probably wasn't our hand and we are getting outbid whatever.

I've use KS to test for likely deviation of a distribution from normality, I've never heard of the G test until now.

Not everyone wants to play in tournaments. In my experience those who specifically want to play bridge amongst their peers who are playing similar systems and of similar ability have little interest in the more competitive side, they play for enjoyment and social interaction. A loose exception being novices, some who will have a go at playing in no-fear events which is technically a competition beyond a normal club duplicate, but where the players will be limited to simple system and limited rank.

From my recollection there is a significance test that can be used to test whether a sample is likely to have come from a different distribution to some other distribution, usually setting the significance level to 5% or lower. The name escapes me at the moment. The bridge hand HCP distribution is unusual compared to real life distributions in that we know exactly what it is, because there are only a finite number of bridge deals. The distribution is very close to normal, not actually normal because it is bounded by zero and 37. I would think it is close enough to normal that statistical methods could be used that rely on normality as an assumption. If I were doing a bias test, I'd take the sample I'd got, note the number of deals in it, then randomly take the same number of deals from the full distribution of deals a large number of times (say one million) and compute the HCP for each rendom sample. The HCP of the real sample can be compared to where it falls on this distribution of one million random samples, this distribution will be approximately normal by the central limit theorem. If, by this distribution, the probability of obtaining the HCP of the real sample is <= 5%, the sample is likely to be biased. It doesn't guarentee bias since if the p-value of the sample is 5%, it could still be unbiased and you happen to have got the one in twenty unbiased samples that lie in the 5% tail.

That is what happened at my local (physical) bridge club years ago when the committee decided for consistency reasons, all evenings should have random seating, when at the time the Thursday evening people sat where they liked.

I have recorded my average HCP playing in my virtual club on BBO. I nearly always play North or East. There was initially a bias towards me picking up sub-average HCP over a session, and more so my partnership picking up sub-average HCP, but this has gone with having better than average HCP over the last four sessions. My conclusion so far is that what feels like a bias at the time is really a temporary streak, and the streaks can go both ways. Streaks are routine even in completely random systems.

These were the hands and auction: [hv=pc=n&s=saj9hkj43d62ck943&n=sk7ht95datcaqjt87&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=p1cp1hp2cp3cp3hp4hppp]266|200[/hv] Partner got a spade lead and made 11 tricks. I was curious why partner had chosen 4♥ on a Moysian fit, but she clearly didn't fancy 3NT with the lack of a diamond stop, and it turned out to be good judgement, 3NT is held to nine tricks on a diamond lead. 3♣ is invitational so I felt 3♥ should be showing enough for game and three card support. I wanted to check my bidding was reasonable.

Assuming 5CM, strong NT, 1♣ could be two cards: 1♣ - 1♥ 2♣ - 3♣ 3♥ What type of hand do you think 3♥ shows?

If it is semi-balanced, make the NT bid which shows my point count. If it is a very good hand with slam possibilities if partner is also good, bid 4♦. Partner can sign off in 4NT or 5♦ with no slam interest. If I have six spades, rebid the spades. Very occasionally, I might have to make a forcing bid such as 3♣, that won't come up very often so partner is free to assume a club suit .

It is non-forcing and she holds an 18 count opposite an opening bid. I assume you don't have a way of making a direct forcing raise, if not the only way partner can show a game going hand with spade support is to bid a new suit (forcing), then jump to 4♠, or drive to slam if your rebid upgrades her hand. If you raise to 3♦ that might well incite her to go slamming based on a lot of HCP strength and a double fit.

I wouldn't open that rubbish but if I had, I would raise partner to 3♦. This doesn't show anything extra other than diamond support. No you shouldn't pass when partner is unlimited, and that is the danger with opening sub-minimum hands, you find partner with a good hand who drives to game or slam going off. It is at least partly your fault if that happens.

With the first hand, it depends who I';m playing with. Either (depending on what tools I have available): Namyats 4♦ Tartan 2♠ followed by 3♠ showing a strong two in spades. Benji 2♣ followed by 3♠, showing a strong two with a self supporting suit. 1♠ followed by 4♠ if partner can find a response other than supporting spades. The second hand is weaker in playing strength than the first and is not a strong two, so I would open 1♠ and stretch a 3♣ bid if partner responds a 6-9 HCP 1NT. If partner can respond at the two level, 3♣ is easy. If partner responds 2♣ (not playing 2/1), I'm not sure. It is awkward holding a maximum 1 opener and partner bids your second suit at the two level, there is sometimes no good forcing bid available which doesn't go past 3NT.

After a hideous evening of 41% (my worst evening for a long time), I played this slam (which we shouldn't have been in). [hv=pc=n&s=stha932d943cq7653&w=s832hq864dkj87ca8&n=sq654ht75dq65cjt2&e=sakj97hkjdat2ck94&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=1sp3cp4dp5cp6sppp&p=c5cac2c4s2s4sjstckc3c8ctc9c6s8cjs3s5sac7hkh2h4h5hjhah6h7cqh8d5s7dad3d7d6d2d4dkdqhqhtdth3d8s6s9d9skh9dj]399|300[/hv] 3♣ showed 10-12 HCP, 3 card support. I realised I made life hard for myself. The ♠T dropping meant I could have taken the finesse a second time and made it, but where's the fun in that (and it was the last hand, I was a bit tired, cock-ups are more likely)? North could have thwarted it by throwing his last heart on the fourth round of clubs, then I can't throw the diamond at trick 11 to play through his trump holding at trick 12. What is is called when you can't take a marked finesse, so you shorten your trumps , cash all your side winners, and come to an ending with a trump tenace over the opponent and use a non-trump card to take the finesse?

This wasn't playing in my (BBO based) normal club, this was some EBU short session thing that my partner expressed an interest in playing in. Neither of us had any idea of the characteristics of our opposition, so no way to known whether either opponent genuinely had their bid.