Echognome

I know many people will have their own views about this, but I don't think we can look at leads in isolation. We need to think of the whole carding system. Here's what I have observed playing in both the US, UK, and Ireland. 3/low leads - These are primarily count leads. Most people I know that play these leads use attitude as their primary discard (whether standard or upside down). 2/4 leads (UK style) - These are primarily attitude leads. Most people I know that play these leads use count as their primary discard (whether standard or upside down). Note that I mention "UK style", as my experience is that the leads are Xx, xXx, HxX, xXxx, HxxX as opposed to a more literal translation of xX, xXx, HXx, xXxx, HxxX. Which is better? Well I know many will vary depending on suit contracts versus NT contracts for starters. That mean there is some thought that getting an initial count defending against a suit contract is more important and getting an initial attitude signal is more important defending NT. Beyond that, I think we can argue for a long time about which signal is most important first and which signal is more important later. At least she didn't ask you to play revolving discards. Edit: Given Elianna's big clue "super-specially if you are from Israel", I tend to think that Adam was pulling our leg... but maybe not.

Winston - The "taking away" part is easy. We suppose that the parties that issued us invoices (and triggered the accounts payable) have canceled those invoices. I don't think you can extend anything to accounts receivable, because those are derived from different underlying transactions (such as our company issuing invoices to a completely different party). We are talking only about a change in AP, not a change in AR. So let's take this example to your specific questions and continue our hypothetical. Q: Do I remove them by taking in +6 from accounts receivable? A: No. This was a cancellation of an invoice issued to our company and does not affect our AR. The party that canceled the invoices is one of our vendors and therefore we do not issue invoices to this party. We have no AR with this vendor at all, so there is nothing to net or offset. Q: If I negate them with income from accounts receivable, my net profit on that transaction is zero, right? A: No. They are from completely separate transactions. In addition, any discussion of "profit" should be referred to my profit and loss statement rather than my balance sheet. The only netting that occurs is when I am determining what my current balance is. Edit: I just thought of a way to summarize. We state the question as: "What happens to our balance sheet when a vendor cancels two $3 invoices issued to us for payment?" Answer: Our balance sheet gains $6 as (-2)x(-$3) = $6.

I must be missing something, so please tell me where this logic is wrong. Even if partner has ♣AKxxxxx, don't we need him to have at least 3 diamonds in order to make grand? As an example, if partner has: ♠x ♥xxx ♦xx ♣AKxxxxx Now we can ruff two diamonds in dummy and we still have a heart loser. I don't see any likely squeeze combinations. I understand that it's likelier that partner has 3+ diamonds given that it's our void and that opponents have shown 8-9 spades. I guess if we feel absolutely sure that partner has a spade void, then the only shape we worry about is 0=4=2=7 and we would still make if he had the ♥Q or the ♥J with the Q falling. I guess we would have to put odds on 1=3=2=7 and 0=4=2=7 versus the rest of the shapes. I don't know how much that would trim our initial estimate of 87.5%, but it should knock it down a little bit.

Winston - How about this? You have two line items under accounts payable of $3 each. You then remove them with (-2)x(-$3). What happens to your ending balance?

I also agree that it is 2♣ if playing inverted minors and 3♣ if playing that as our limit raise. The separate question is "what would you bid if all you knew was it was an indy tournament with such and such conditions." In the latter case, we are dealing with probabilities that partner will understand and the error if partner assumes the wrong thing. In that case, I think 2♣ is safer, since 2♣ as a single raise when 3♣ is limit is less of a distortion than bidding 3♣ as a preemptive raise when 2♣ is inverted.

Trying to get your head around a particular mathematical subject can be difficult no matter how far along you are in the chain. I do think that until you get into real analysis, most of the focus is on doing rather than understanding. You learn rules, not proofs. Most of calculus is focused on learning rules. I do think it would be useful to learn more of the whys rather than the hows. I just don't think it's all that practical. As a continuation of the questions above, seeing the proof for why 1 > 0 blew my mind. I can't recall the exact proof, but I do remember we had been discussing Dedekind cuts. Think of it this way, if you are trying to prove 1 > 0, then what are you starting with as your assumptions? The real number line also blew my mind. We learned that rational numbers are dense in the real number line. An implication of this is that between any two real numbers lies a rational number. In my mind, there are "more" irrational numbers than rational ones. If we just take any rational number and multiply it by the square root of 2, we have an irrational number (zero being the exception). But then we can also multiply the rational number by the square root of 3 or the square root of 2 divided by 2. In addition, we can multiply by the transcendental numbers, such as pi or e. It just seemed "clear" to me that there were many more irrational numbers than rational numbers. But now I'm being told that you can take any two real numbers (rational or irrational) and you'll find a rational number sitting right there in between. What? Once I had down some knowledge of real analysis, complex analysis wasn't so bad. Yeah we had to use imaginary numbers, but since they were imaginary, I didn't have to come to grips with them in the same way. Their properties certainly seemed reasonable and the extension from real analysis to complex analysis flowed naturally. The next blowing of my mind came with abstract algebra. I thought Fermat's Little Theorem was elegant. Where I struggled was with field extensions. Why are there no general formulas for the roots of fifth (or higher) degree polynomials? All this just taught me that somewhere along the mathematical chain of learning you are going to struggle. I'm sure that PhD mathematicians struggle when trying to understand a theory that is yet to be proven. The difficulty in math is that there is often a chain of understanding that you must grasp in order to understand the next concept. Sometimes the chain is linear, sometimes it is not. I always thought of econometrics as a field where the chain is very "broad" (by that I mean you have to have studied calculus, linear algebra, and statistics). What happens when you struggle with one link of the chain early on? Maybe your parents split up? Maybe you had a bad teacher one year? Maybe you got into a bad crowd? If you break that chain of understanding, it is very difficult to catch up. I don't think other subjects in school are the same way, not relying nearly as much on knowledge learned the year before. That is a challenge for teaching math. Anyway, I've rambled enough, but it's certainly a subject I find interesting and worth discussing.

I think a Tournament of Champions would be appealing to many. Perhaps the stakes can be higher and/or BBO can chip in some extra prizes. Having it set up as online Vugraph might be nice as well, even if the speed is break-neck. I don't know if the software can be used in that fashion, but it would be nice. I also wonder if it can be set up as a sort of Swiss where the Vugraph always completes the current hand and then jumps to the leader's table (which may mean it stays where it's at). I'd have to think about how that can be done without jumping around too much. Maybe you stay with one table for a set time and then jump to the leader's table and stay there for a set time. Maybe that's too difficult or not ideal. However, it would be nice to have several tables to watch and people can watch their friends. Finally, for further advertisement, I think it would be nice if the winner could be interviewed by someone at BBO and talk generally about their tactics.

Not really. Our takeout of 1♠ was not to force to game right? If partner invites are we accepting given that he is a passed hand? We obviously have a different problem if partner is not a PH. Again, if we make a t/o dbl the round before, then we have bid our values have we not? Now that we have described a different hand to partner (not necessarily less in values, just a different shape and location of values), it's hard to know the best way to describe our hand from here. In the end, I guess this is why "abstain" is popular. We are discussing the hypothetical consistency between two different sequences.

I lead a low heart. I don't think it's that obvious to lead a club. I am curious why Han says "our club tricks are more likely to go away than our hearts." I am willing to be enlightened with a layout where this both happens and is more likely. Edit: By "more likely", I mean that a simple permutation of the hands (which makes a heart lead more attractive) is less likely due to shape considerations. I'm not expecting a full simulation or proof or anything like that.

I would open 1♣ if my style allowed it. For example, if I played 14-16 as my 1NT range AND I played a system where I opened better minor on my minimum balanced hands. If not playing that style, then I would pass.

Pass. Given we have both majors and our suits aren't very good, what is the rush to get into the auction?

I overcall 1♠ as well. It's not so much that I want to outcompete my opponents (although catching partner with some spades would be helpful), but it's that I really want a spade lead if we defend. This seems like our only opportunity to mention our good spades.

Would have made a mixed raise the round before (I think some of our values are clearly wasted to be making a limit raise). Would have made life much easier now. As it is, I'm having to assume we do not play mixed raises and my guess is to pass.

Seemed a pretty clear 2NT to me.

Would have doubled the round before. I bid 2♥ now. I don't understand aiming higher with a passed partner who doubled in protective position. What hand are we playing for to make game?

I am a Michael's bidder and I will bid more later. As for the continuations, as partner is a passed hand, I would not play 3NT as natural in this auction and would have an easy 5♣ call.

I think you are missing something here. The issue I was discussing is the risk of passing 2♦ when we bid 2♣. The risk if partner is an unpassed hand is that he may have an invite or a game force. If he has an invite, what's the invite in? NT? Do we really want to play 2NT rather than 2♦ on our hand? I don't know why we would want to play 3NT. I don't really see how it really hurts if partner does have an invite.

East and West are both passed hands. East may be hoping that 2NT may play to the same or better score than 3m (not my judgment, but certainly not insane). I think 16-17 is uncommon enough that it definitely warrants an alert according to both the spirit of the laws and the actual wording of the laws. So there was a failure to alert IMO and MI to EW. I don't think West is under any obligation to ask as West's only claim is they wouldn't bid had they known it was so strong [as 16-17]. Therefore I adjust to +170 and I'm done with it.

Richard - As you know, econometrics is a huge field in economics. Does the localized regression technique fit into any of the known econometrics techniques that have been discussed in academic papers? I was just surprised to see the blog without any reference to academic literature on the subject. If it is truly a novel technique, I am surprised that no one has attempted to publish it.

Given that partner is a passed hand, that is less of a worry.

I don't have the most recent version of the Orange Book, but in the 2006 OB, they have: Darren and I used to play it using the following opening scheme: 1♣ 16+ Any 1♦ 10-15, 4+♥ may be canape 1♥ 10-15, 4+♠ may be canape 1♠ 10-15, Clubs, or Diamonds, or both unbal 1NT 12+-15, Balanced

By the way, the paper didn't give a system, but since it was an American newspaper, the implied system is probably SAYC.

This hand is similar to a hand I read in the newspaper, but since I don't have the newspaper handy, the hand will be my memory of the actual hand. You are playing a natural system (SAYC, Acol, 2/1, SEF, whatever). [hv=pc=n&s=saj5ht7532dak83c5&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p1s2c]133|200[/hv] What now?

Apologies for the slight threadjack, but I think it's pretty interesting as to what contract you would want to be in at MP's. I would say 4♠ by south. At IMP's, 3NTS is obviously laydown.

Fair enough. I think it's a vital convention and one of the more important ones. But don't take my word for it. I would suggest you look into it or at least speak about it with better players. Or maybe post a poll on these forums to see what they think. I think most would consider Stolen bid doubles to be inferior, with the one exception of a 2♣ overcall.