cheech

[hv=s=sk65hdkcqj9865432]133|100|[/hv] teams, unfavourable vulnerability, the auction is 1H P 4H to you. My bid worked out very well as the hands lay, but i suspect is probably wrong nevertheless (my partner certainly thought so). Is your answer any different at pairs? thanks, chica

HI Well thanks for THAT comment. I planed before playing from my hand - to throw a ♥. But because of the card that was ready to be played from 4th hand I changed my mind. My point is - said in another way than before, is it ok to have a card ready or not? Law 74B3: As a matter of courtesy a player should refrain from: Detaching a card before it is his turn to play. That answer my question quite clear. And about driving people away - maybe at your place. There are nice ways to call a tournament director and there are certainly also bad ways. Should people who care about ethics be driven away too ? the relevant rules here seem to be (and i don't have a rulebook to hand, so i'm paraphrasing) "players must not vary there tempo or manner when they have reason to believe it ight benefit their side" and "players are free to draw inferences fro opponents devitaions at their own risk". It seems clear to me that declarer falls foul of the second ruling, while i see no reason to believe the defender falls foul of the first. The defender took a card out, intending to play it, but changed their mind when they saw declarer's card. Taking a card out of your hand, intending to play it may be against the rules (i've heard a professional bridge player criticise his (client) partner for doing so before), but if it is, it is against the rules regardless of whether that player goes on to play that card or not, and if declarer had no objection to the defender doing this (in fact, decided to use it to what he believed was his advantage), i fail to see how changing the card can be objectionable. Declarer chose a particular line of play based on his opponent's manner, which he is well within his rights to do, but if his opponent has accidentally led him astray (with no reason to believe that this could result fro his action), then he must take his lumps - people are allowed to intend to do one thing, then change their ind, and do soething else - declarer did it, and apparently so did the defender. Possible UI issues with regards to partner are an entirely separate issue

I really don't agree here. There are rights and wrongs when it comes to both bidding and play. In card play I'd go so far as to say there is ALWAYS a right play or a wong play given a set of circumstances unless something is completely 50/50. Even "guesses" usually take into account math, the lead, etc. When you go down in a contract that could have made, or dont beat a contract you could have you really have to ask yourself if you made the right play and were unlucky or if you made a bad play. To say "there was no right or wrong here, it was just a judgement call on which inference I thought was more likely" is a copout. In bidding, there is almost always a right or wrong in the context of your system and style. There is no "wrong" system or style (within reason), but the bids you make within that context can be wrong. In bidding there are more judgement calls, and it's harder to determine if you were unlucky or wrong sometimes. Occasionally, like in situations of tactics, there is no right or wrong really, but again if you make a bid that doesn't work out you should always ask yourself what happened. How often is your bid right vs another bid. Sometimes this is impossible to determine, but sometimes you will realize you made a mistake, other times you were definitely just unlucky and made the right call. I think if you accept the premise that there are no right or wrong answers you do yourself a disservice because that is simply untrue, and it will be much harder to gain through introspection as you will think "well there really was no right or wrong here." I do not claim to always know what IS right in a given situation, but 99 % of the time a "right" does exist. I'm not great at the technical plays (I can just about manage a simple squeeze on a good day) and I don't know all the odds, but the hands where I'd disagree with you about there being right or wrong answers is the hands where I DO know which line has theoretically the best chance, but have some psychological factor inclining me towards another line (perhaps I think I detected a slight hesitation, or maybe it's just a hunch), and there doesn't seem to me to be any scientific way of weighting these factors, to see if they are sufficient to change the best line. I remember 1 hand, a few months ago, when I was in 4 spades, and the contract could make on a simple finesse in spades, OR I could discard enough losers in the hearts broke 5-3 or better, but I couldn't do both, and so played for the hearts to split nicely (which I'm almost sure is better than a 50-50 chance. Now, when I played the second heart, 1 of my opponents discarded the highest heart out (the J, I think) and I was left having to figure out whether she was likley to play the J from J-10 or J-small (I had played with her before) In the end, I decided she as likley to play the J as the 10 from J-10, and just might have played it from J-small, so I played for the hearts to split, they didn't, and I went down when the finesse was on, and had I made the contract, we would have won the match. Now obviously, I wish I'd taken the finesse, but I didn't (and still don't) see any precise way in which factors such as these (which can include fairly delicate judgements of the people you're playing against) can beweighed against technical and mthematical knowledge of the a priori percentages of different lines of play, to discover which line is "right" (as in has the best chance of success) in a particular situation

Hand 3S, 4H, 2D, 4C. 17 points (British) Acol opening: what is the systemically correct opening in 1st seat?

I agree, in retrospect I should probably have taken 3n out, but looking at it at the time, it never occured to me that partner wouldn't have a stop and I just thought "maybe the hearts wil run, maybe the spades will run, and if his stop's something like KQx or such, my singleton may well be useless" ie maybe we're making as many tricks here as anywhere else. Also, although it is true that I knew we had a major fit, I wasn't sure which 1 we had, and was afraid 4 hearts or 4 spades could easily put us into a 7-card fit (it has since been pointed out that 4 clubs would have avoided this problem nicely, but it didn't occur to me at the time)

Does anyone know what the results for this are so far I know it doesn't finish for a couple days yet, but I have a few friends playing in it, and was wondering how they were doing. Thanks, Chica

Interesting. How many people do you reckon fall into this bracket in the US? In the UK I understand there are maybe 4 such players! Just out of interest, who are the "maybe 4" u are thinking of? (not that I'll probably have heard of them)

Basically, I was taught that a 1NT opening categorically denies a 5-card major, but my regular partner is of the view that 1NT is a great bid that should be used wherever possible - even with a 5-card major, and I was curious to see what others think Thanks, Chica

I think the key issue here is how much information are your opponents entitled to. As much as your partner has, or more. In cases where the partnership is eshtablished, there will be very few situations in which partner is in the dark about how a bid is intended (though I must admit, even with my regular partner there are occaisions where I'm not entirely sure what is meant). With scratch partnerships, however, there will be many situations where partner is at a guess as to the strength (or length) promised by a particular bid, and it seems unfair to me (and clearly to quite a few others) that opponents should get this information when partner does not. It seems to me, in these situations, a person should be able to reply "no agreement", but opps should be able to ask partner how they were taking it, so opps get the benefit of partner's judgement, and any inferences available from the nature of the system played (for instance, playing acol, I might be able to more accurately judge the nature of my partner's bid than a sayc player who was not familiar with acol).

Exactly how much information do you have to disclose to your opponent's when playing online? As much as your partner has, or more? When Playing in a tournament with a scratch partnership, I made a bid which I had not discussed with my partner - i was unsure of whether my partner would take it as pre-emptive (as i play it with my regular partner, invitational or forcing. My partner raised it to 4, and my opponents asked what my bid meant. I told them we had no agreement as to it's strength, but they were not happy with this and called the director, who said I had to tell them how I meant it, regardless of whether my partner knew or not. I complied with the director's ruling, but it seems to me that if my partner doesn't know, my opponents shouldn't either. They can of course ask my partner how they take it, but that should be all. What do people think? It seems to me an abuse of the system that if i make a bid which i intend as pre-emptive, but my partner takes as forcing, I have to tell this to my opponents, so they know to dbl the final contract. How do people feel about this? Am I being unreasonable? I would appreciate your opinions. Thanks, Chica