Echognome

Phil's original post stated: Your next post stated: This seems that you are asking Phil to reconsider voting against Proposition 8, which is at odds with you favoring legalizing gay marriage. Hence I was confused.

I will readily admit that I'm biased on that by the fact that we play reverse Flannery (so partner would have bid 2♥ over my 1♦ opening to begin with. I suppose if we did not have that gadget it may go: 1♦ - 1♠ 2♣ - 2♦ 2♥ - ? If partner feels he has enough to force game, then he can try 3♥ and we will find 4♥. If partner feels he does not have enough for game, then he will bid 2NT and we will play there. I agree that is suboptimal.

If 2♣ followed by 2♥ is pattering out, I don't see why it should be any weaker than an immediate 2♥. In either case partner may be forced to give preference at the three level. All it does is misstate your shape in addition to overstating your values. If we held x AKT QJTxx AJxx it would be a wtp hand. We'd open 1♦, rebid 2♣, and then bid 2♥ over a 2♦ preference. I personally like to call this "bidding around the horn" which shows a range from about a K above minimum to minimum reversing strength. So no, I do not think it overstates values. Your agreements may, of course, differ. If we held --- AKTx QJTxx AJxx, I think most would bid 1♦ then 2♣ then 2♥. So that's the hand I'm going to sell it as. Edit: We may also have an awkward 1=4=4=4 with slightly better values. Say we held x AKTx KJTx AJxx, now we would also bid the same way, at least I think we would.

If you are in favor of Proposition 8, then you are in favor of banning gay marriage. If you are opposed to Proposition 8, then you want to continue to allow gay marriage. It seems that is your source of confusion.

I understand the point and if partner has something resembling a two-suiter (perhaps a 5-4 or 6-4) then we will potentially be quite happy. I just don't find double to be automatic in the slightest and believe the odds of ending up on defense are quite real. It may not be a bad thing, mind you, but I wouldn't feel happy about it.

Maybe when we looked up the scoring table and noticed that 3♦X making is game?

I have seen these doubles with 5-5 in the off suits work out so poorly. I can understand that if you can only take one call and you have enough values that you can stand partner to pass, but not enough values to bid your suits naturally, then so be it. Here, I just find there is too much danger in the auction going swoosh.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't expect your partner's hand on 1. It wasn't one of the possibilities I was considering when raising, but it's so much a style question. I would pass opposite myself, e.g., but I reckoned I opened more aggressively than most... maybe not by the comments. On the second one, I would bid 4♠ right away as I think it's a good spot for a pressure bid. I would not, however, overcall 1♠ and then later compete to 4♠. If I had overcalled 1♠ then I would have gone only to 3♠ as the others.

1. Penalty. The rule being doubles are penalty if one side bids NT naturally, with noted exceptions.* 2. Takeout. I.e. I agree with the above two posters. * Exceptions (among others) as I have agreed them with partners are: (1X) - P - (1N) - Dbl = takeout 1N - (2X) - Dbl = takeout (1X) - 1N - (2X) - Dbl = takeout I'm sure there are a few others I'm forgetting, but I prefer to start with that rule and list exceptions than work in another way. Edit: This comes from a broader set of rules that starts with Doubles are for takeout except... and one of those exceptions is the one above. Doubles are complicated! <_<

I'm quote ok with using one of Merriam Webster's definitions of "terror" and then extrapolating that to "terrorist"

In my partnership with Phil, I expect this to be a reverse.

Football - I definitely agree. I think it's the (major) sport most influenced by the coaches. Baseball - sure. The coaches decide on how the field is aligned (similar to cricket, except I believe it's the captains who decide), they decide who is pitching, the order of the batters, etc. Basketball - I'm going to have to disagree, especially in the NBA. So many of the decisions are made real time without the influence of the coach. The coaches decide who goes in and out more often than in soccer, but I would personally consider them akin when it comes to making the decisions on the court/pitch. Ice Hockey - At least at one time this was considered one of the major sports in the U.S. Not going to contest that may have changed. I would liken it to soccer and basketball.

1. Unless my partner opens extremely undisciplined preempts at these colors, I think it a pretty clear bump to 4♠. 2. I would have overcalled 4♠ to begin with (for better or worse).

Have you asked yourself why this is? I don't understand the axe you have to grind with people asking for boards. Having the boards move along helps speed up the game and alleviate when play has fallen behind. So not only do you find this to be a problem, you make sure it becomes one by sitting North! Yuck.

We play transfers starting from redouble. I always ask the question of "wrapping" when it comes to playing them, but generally we use 1NT as showing clubs and 1♠ as showing the balanced hand with a stopper (although because you bid 1♠ you can show it as a balanced hand without a stopper easier). What we do with the true XX penalty-oriented hands is pass.

I guess you might have some difficulties on a club lead if everything is off. Totally cold by the north hand on any lead.

Oops. Yeah. 120 difference would be 3.

Actually, it's not very clear to me what should be the conditions of contest and how they might vary depending on the particular competition. It seems that the egregious violations should be dealt with more on a case-by-case basis. I don't believe that timers should necessarily be used for the many reasons pointed out where certain situations just require more time and the violations come on an aggregate basis. I imagine that when Andrew Robson or Michael Rosenberg or Barnet Shenkin (or select your favorite player with a reputation for being slow at times) spends an inordinate amount of time thinking through a bridge problem, it is not because they are trying on gamesmanship. It is because they feel that the problem is complicated and that thinking is part of the game. So is it? Are they right that they should be given ample time to think a problem through? Or is it a timed sport where they should have a limited amount of time to think? (Like we impose on the bridge playing computers.) I think that answer should be dealt with first before deciding how to punish offenders. Once we decide what the limits are (are they per hand? per round? per session? do they depend on the event? etc.) then we can deal with how to enforce those rules. For now, it seems that most players know the egregious offenders and those can be dealt with individually. Finally, if this is deemed to be an issue amongst the competitors, why not ask the competitors what they want done? I don't think our solutions here are going to be as relevant as the solutions proposed by the players of this national and international events.

Wdp. Just have to be careful to defend accurately thereafter. Well; lose 8 instead of 12 :) I have it as lose 4 so perk up. B)

Wdp. Just have to be careful to defend accurately thereafter.

Was really the only poll I could think of to figure out a sensible way to judge the situation. I will go further to disagree with Flader's ruling on the basis that in order to rule "result stands" you are basically saying that South would pass 3NT given the correct information! I think that was just a poor ruling. This poll was actually made to address one of our posters who said he would rule that South had "failed to play bridge" when he passed 3NT with the given explanation. I thought it extremely harsh to rule that when it seemed obvious to me that South was confused as to their agreements.

I think you have this quite wrong. Self-alerts are impractical in face-to-face bridge, although I'm sure they would be preferred if not for the unauthorized information they convey. Note that the top-level of competitions uses screens, so as to limit the unauthorized information. In that situation, both the player making the bid and his partner alert the bid (since one of the opponents is on the other side of a screen!). However, in online bridge, we have the ability to have the player self alert with the explanation shown to both opponents and not to partner. That seems like no compromise to me.

At least Josh and I agree... to disagree.

I assign much more blame to 2♣ than to 3NT. 3NT was speculating on 6 club tricks and 1.5 additional tricks from partner. However, West really has no reason to move over 1NT.

Not so sure what you mean by this. My understanding is that the median is a more robust statistic than the mean. It's been awhile, but I thought the point was that the median is robust to, for example, measurement error. Suppose you had the following data from a poll that was taken: 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 40 Now the median would be 2 and the mean would be ~6.4. Is 40 a true value or maybe one of the poll takers wrote down the wrong answer? Another related topic is interquartile range. I was surprised to find when I started working that the IRS definition and the Quartile function on Excel use different definitions. Personally, I side with the IRS on the matter.