Echognome

I generally agree with Ben's analysis, but I should note that there are 6 clubs outstanding, not 5.

Happy Birthday! Hope you have a wonderful day.

Thought of that, but thought it less likely given we hold AJxx in spades. I guess he could have KQT9xx AKx AKx x? Just seemed so unlikely.

I also believe bidding 4♥ is clear. It's also clear that it may not work out, but that doesn't make it the wrong decision.

I just can't bring myself to believe it's a splinter. Partner made a takeout double of 1♥. It's conceivable he has a powerful one-suiter containing a stiff club, but then that would not be a 1-suiter with spades. I can't think of a hand that doubled initially and is splintering now, but I'm sure someone will enlighten me. Aside from that, I would hope we have agreed that in (1) in competition, we can only splinter in one of their suits and (2) that jumps are fitted. So maybe partner has a strong 4=2=2=5 or maybe even a 4=1=3=5 with good clubs, such as ♠KQTx xx Ax AQJxx? I don't know if I would have overcalled rather than double with that or bid 4♣ with that after a double, but it seems possible. Anyway, as others, I will bid 4♥ now.

Well, technically "w" is a vowel in this context. Only if you're Welsh.

Wh nds vwls nywy? Pss

My gut feeling is to bid 6♥ and let them play 6♠. I don't think it's automatic that they can make 6♠. Maybe hearts are 1-1 and we make a minor suit trick or partner has the ♣Q or the guarded ♠Q. I can imagine pass or any number of hearts working, but this is my guess.

I thought about this and wondered if 4♥ was natural in this auction. Doesn't 3♠ set spades as trumps? As you, I would have preferred 2♥ last round. I'm not saying 4♥ is a cue, just saying I'm not confident it's natural.

Some of us do have standards for a vulnerable 2♥ opening, so we might easlily have a bad 6-card suit and want to play 4♥. You beat me to it. Suppose you held: x xxxxxx KJx QTx or say Q xxxxxxx Kx xxx. Would you open 2♥ or 3♥? Wouldn't you want to compete in hearts now? Of course, if you are sure that 4♥ is natural (and I think it would be), then that is the reason partner cannot have a "transfer to ♥ hand."

I would play that 4NT is quantitative. 4♦ would be slam invitational in diamonds and, as Wayne, the only regressive bid available is 4NT by opener. In all other sequences, 4NT becomes keycard.

I hate that attitude. If they know their system, the question has no effect. If they don't know their system but they're honest, the unauthorised information constrains their actions, so if anything I should benefit from asking the question. The only time that asking costs is if they don't know their system and they're dishonest. It seems completely wrong to base my actions on the assumption that my opponents are dishonest. Andy - I really think it matters what the bridge crowd you are talking about is. My experience playing in England was that the higher level you played against, the less you worried about ethics (since the vast majority of good players were highly ethical). In that case, I can see your point, but I also think the policy is less important as people will go out of their way to be ethical. (I also note that it's not that all people at that level are ethical, as I have seen some dodgy things in appeals. I'm sure Frances has a better idea than either of us!) The problem I find is at the lower levels. Suppose you suggested that players always ask. For starters, that would be pretty annoying, especially in England where you are allowed a pretty wide range of system. I guess it would be a pretty big deterrent to play a complicated system. Your second option of only asking on the first couple of rounds is somewhat covered by the alerting system itself of only alerting bids below 3NT (with some exceptions). Aside from all that, suppose a player claims to "always ask", then what happens if you sit down across from that player and they don't ask. Maybe they know the meaning already as you just had that sequence last board. Is that now UI? And back to where I started in this paragraph, I've seen some pretty blatant things at the club level. I remember having a relay sequence where pretty much every bid was alerted and before his final pass (since his partner was on lead), this player asked me "what does 3♦ mean?" Then he passed. He didn't ask about any other call. Lo and behold his partner leads a diamond. That is extreme of course, but I'm sure you have seen or heard about similar issues. So the question is not simply what is the best thing for highly capable and highly ethical players to do, it is what advice should be given to the masses to make the game as fair as possible. I can respect that your opinion about that may be different, but I like the advice given in the Orange book. -Gnome

And 15th in taxes per income. Which is getting pretty close to average. Question: Does CA have above-average income inequality? (Dot-com billionaires and movie stars...) That would make 15th per average even more close to average (in any progressive tax code, higher income inequality will lead to higher taxes per income). I didn't mention this, because the issue is about the state government being able to provide services. Their budget should be considered not just from the tax receipts they take in, but also the number of people they have to serve. As California is in the upper quartile of taxes per capita, it seems they are not using the money wisely. Of course it's not just in their hands, but also in the voters'.

California has the highest gross tax receipts, but is 11th per capita: http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/07taxbur.html By source, California's property tax is small, but is actually close to the average: http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/07taxdis.html

Simple route: Responder bids 2NT at his next turn (if a legal call) if he has the balanced GF. All other bids are natural. In order to handle the rest, you have to tell me what 2NT+ mean in your system.

This topic seems to be one of those that gets revived from time to time. I doubt I was the first to post on the topic here, but here's a link to a thread on this topic four years ago now. There were some very good suggestions there. http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=7920

Were you playing snapdragon redoubles? If so, then I think I'll let this one go. If not, it's tougher.

To me it's an obvious 4NT. Although my 2nd choice would be simply to bid 5♦ as we have a good chance of landing in clubs when diamonds is better by bidding 4NT.

And how many dimensions would that be? My point is that we can always make our vectors have as many arguments as we want (even infinite). Edit: Under your definition, why isn't time also a characteristic? By "location" I can either assume it's an XYZ location or a space-time location. Which is the appropriate use of "location"?

I always thought of "dimension" as a characteristic. Perhaps it's not the best way to think of it. For example, you can imagine another dimension being density. So we can describe our object by it's XYZ position at a given point in time (discrete or continuous) and the density of the object. That's five dimensions and it's easy enough to expand from there.

Well when I'm partner of course! Just to show I respect Phil's judgment, I would bid 4♦ as well.

Best use? Obviously depends on what the rest of your system is. Phil and I choose to play P - 1M; 3m as a fit jump. We also play 2♣ as drury. Therefore, we need a bid for a hand with long clubs and less then opening values and that's what we have assigned to 2NT. I think it should be used as a bid that fits best within the context of your other bids.

Does partner accept the bid out of turn? :unsure: Assuming that it was RHO who passed, I pass as well. I think we are a few tricks short of game here.

It will probably help when answering the question to know which country you are in as the alert procedures vary by country.

Win and play ♦K, planning on ruffing 2 hearts in hand and paving the way to dummy.