luis

What you say is terrible, you can't suspend a pair because you "suspect" they cheat. A very good part of the bridge community is saying "B & L got suspended for cheating" You can't just pretend to investigate the issue later, no apologies in the world would be enough to repair the damage.

Fantastic bidding one player asks for kings and the other bids 7 without any king. Superb.

Playing Moscito it's easy, playing std systems it's quite difficult. I think you are safe to reach 6 and you will be tempted to bid 7 so it's a feeling situation.

Pass, pd has spades.

Does your partner expect a balanced hand when you rebid 2♠? Roland Don't be fancy, AQxxxx A AKx AQx Better now? Cmon!

In my opinion the only way to make individual trounaments civilized is to assign individual points to ALL the players in the tournament from 1st to last for example you can assign positive points to the players in the top half and negative points to the players in the bottom half depending on the # of players playing the winner gets more. You can then keep a stat for each player and for example play tournaments were some kind of requirement about such a stat should be met to play with 2nd tier tournaments open to all the players so they can play well and improve their rankings in order to qualify to the top-tier indys. In this way all the hands count, even when you are having a bad tournament you won't like to do stupid things since it will be very different to be in the middle of the pack or last. Just some ideas :-)

Lot of help in diamonds? Nah... Since pd opened 2♣ the chances of him having AK of diamonds are high so the diamond queen is starting to look like an important card but that card will only play a role if you show diamonds, if you don't show diamonds you will never be able to show the dQ and since you only have a king and a queen I think it's sensible to plot a plan where your queen will play. Example: AQxxx Ax AKx AQx In this hand over the 4c splinter bid opener can count with 11 tricks (5 spades, club ace, two club ruffs, 2 diamonds and the heart ace), if pd has the hK or the dQ you can win a slam, for a grand you will need more and probably won't have spade to find it. So the chances are that you will reach 6 spades while 7s or 7d are very cold. (In the example over 3d opener can bid 4d and then the 4s cuebid showing the K will make reaching the grand slam quite easy) I'm not saying that 3d is right because of this just that I have a lot of doubts. All the players that didn't bid 3♦ mentioned desire to show the diamond suit. I think we have a very basic bidding problem here, after 2c-2d;2M with a 6331 hand with 3 card support for the major is it better to show the 6 card minor or the major? One approach should be better than the other. Volunteers to run a simulation and see what works bets?

You always learn something new in this game, today I learned that I will bid 1NT every single time I'm afraid my opponents may be able to win 4s whenever I have support for pd's suit but I know I will be outbid. Surprinsingly this silly bluff will change many players bid from 4♠ to some kind of "won't be my fault trial bid" or "will be my fault" 2♠. Wild jumps to game and visions of slams in BPO4-A when NV and now they want to play a partscore being vulnerable with a 6-4 hand. God bless Henri is here or I would think the world has gone nuts.

You always have time to show the singleton club, but you don't have time to show a 6 card diamond suit. Example: 2c - 2d 2s - 3d 3h - 3s 3n - 4c You showed both a diamond suit, not enough for a direct 2c-3d, 3 card support in spades AND the club control. You can't describe the hand better. Disagree. The bidding has to go exactly as you suggest (ie partner has make the cheapest bid at each of his next 2 opportunities) in order for you to have a chance "show all the features of your hand" at a convenient level. If the auction continues in any other manner, you are going to have to get to the 5-level to convince partner that you have 3-card support and/or a singleton club. It is unusual for a hand that could not make a positive response to withhold 3-card support for partner's major. As such, it is my opinion that even the auction that you describe should not be used to cater to these rare (and obscure) hands. Couldn't the sequence you gave be completely natural? Maybe responder is 2-1-5-5 (and maybe you belong in clubs). I have not thought this all the way through, but a good general principle seems to be that you should not withhold 3-card support in this auction unless you are willing to go to at least the 5-level. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com I have my doubts about what is worst, not showing the 3 card support of spades or not showing the 6 card diamond suit. While thinking about it I will take your opinion as the way to go since you have more experience but I would like to run some simulations and talk with my pd about what he would prefer me to show. Luis

Say you have, S: JX H: JXX D: KJTXX C: XXX You would bid 3D then 3S. Wouldnot you? How can pd make an intelligent decision if your hand can be so different? No, I wouldn't. I would bid 2NT instead of 3d and if I bid 3d I would bid 3NT over 3h never 3s.

You always have time to show the singleton club, but you don't have time to show a 6 card diamond suit. Example: 2c - 2d 2s - 3d 3h - 3s 3n - 4c You showed both a diamond suit, not enough for a direct 2c-3d, 3 card support in spades AND the club control. You can't describe the hand better. Well, if auction preceeds as you planned, that would be great. However things can go in a very different way. First, 3S doesnot show such good support. It only shows spade tolerance. Pd will be very worrying about the trump strength. Second, if pd bid 4S after your 3S, you will be in a very difficult position. DO you bid 5C or not? Do you bid 4N? Do you pass? If over 3s pd bids 4 I pass, what else can I have?

Richard did you get blacklisted !?! :o Maybe he got suspended by the sacred inquisition (AKA ACBL) for playing satanic bidding systems like Moscito or Polish club. ;-)

Roland, I think you should not bid by your method, you are expected to bid by BBO advanced. Otherwise, any bid could be right in one or another's method. Regards Hongjun And what (where) does BBO Advanced say anything anout the requirements for a splinter on this auction? Roland I think you are free to use a Splinter is just a judgement call. I don't think the system goes far to this point telling us what to do. :-)

Why do I feel so lonely? :-)

Forgot the bonus question What I really don't expect him to hold is some 5431 with 4 spades and 5 diamonds :-) Luis

You always have time to show the singleton club, but you don't have time to show a 6 card diamond suit. Example: 2c - 2d 2s - 3d 3h - 3s 3n - 4c You showed both a diamond suit, not enough for a direct 2c-3d, 3 card support in spades AND the club control. You can't describe the hand better.

At IMPs I think the std is 18-19 balanced. At MPs I think it's just 12-14

The method I prefer is to use 3x as a short-suit trial asking pd to bid game when he has no wasted values in the suit (or a maximum). Then 2NT is a general invitation asking pd to go to game with a maximum. Help trials are usually horrible because they pinpoint the suit to lead. Long trials have the problem of pd not being able to fully evaluate how useful his cards are.

Exactly if everybody knows they were penalized for loads of deals played previously then they must have presented those deals. Or at least the deals that the comitee knew.

So in your view, the Committee should have done nothing for lack of evidence? --Bareket said Lanzarotti peeked; Lanzarotti denied peeking. Somebody is lying. Lanzarotti's supporting statement that he's blind in that eye to differences among the red honors is suspect. Why even make such a statement if you didn't peek in the first place? --Bareket claimed to see three fingers three different ways. Lanzarotti did not even deny that this happened; he told the Committee only that, as dummy, he had put both arms down on the table and laid his head on them. Apparently this explains why there are fingers pointing to Bareket. Apparently, Lanzarotti's restful position (from which it seems quite impossible to play dummy's cards when called from declarer) includes three (not all four--try this and you will see how unnatural this is) fingers resting over the arm. This doesn't explain how the fingers got "free on the table in front of the arm." --Buratti gave four reasons for the anti-percentage play, ranging from completely false by any reasonable standard ("we were behind at the time") to dubious ("the questions led me to beleive the Q♦ was onside," "the A♥ lead [made at most of the tables where 6♦ by South was the contract] was curious") to downright silly ("diamonds are always badly divided at this tournament"). The Committee did not call B-L cheats; the C-word is nowhere in the official report. They ruled that Lanzarotti had passed improper information and Buratti had acted on the improper information. They explained that the biggest reason for their decision was the unconvincing nature of the explanations by the accused pair, which, for competant players was self-incriminating. They did not disqualify the team from the event. They simply ruled B-L ineligible for the Lavazza-Barel match, and the score obtained was annulled and replaced by a 18-0 walkover score. If the Committee had determined unquestionable cheating, they would have had to disqualify the Lavazza team completely from the event, and find some way of cancelling ALL of the team's results equitably. They did not do this. It's fair to assume that, from the evidence presented, the Committee felt that this was a single incident based on the pressure of trying to get a last-minute qualification, not based on a repeated pattern of cheating. Some, including me, have speculated that the Committee had more evidence that was reported. That happens often in reports. In fact, one cannot ever hope to write up the multilingual conversations and deliberations without missing a few non-verbal reactions that the Committee may have considered. If you feel the Committee had insufficient evidence to do what they did, because they relied on the statement of the opponent, it follows that: --no player should ever report a suspicious action unless he has a witness to back him up --anything goes if there's nobody around If you feel that the Committee should have considered and provided previous events to support their decision, it follows that: --somebody must collect these previous events and be both available and impartial --cheaters can cheat as long as they don't do it too often, since we require multiple incidences to convict Needless to say, I don't agree. I think the Committee did the right thing given the circumstances, and acted with integrity and courage. Perhaps others will now look at the past results of this pair and make a case of habitual cheating against them, perhaps not. But within fifteen seconds on this one crucially important board, they made a half-dozen very unusual movements that suggested something untoward, and then took a markedly inferior line. And when asked to explain this coincidence, they denied none of the unusual movements convincingly, and gave goofy reasons for the unusual play. No expert player ever wants to give the impression that he may be cheating. This pair didn't seem to care how they looked. In my opinion it's clearly they were suspended for cheating, the comitee never mentioned the C word but who in the world is not talking about B&L being cheaters? It wasn't even subtle. Then I'm not saying the comitee should have acted differently, their decision is probably right but to me the proofs presented as well as the report is poor in contrast with the decision they took. In my view such a decision would have required a much longer report with a detailed explanation about the decision, all the factors considered must have been exposed. You are putting a lot of words I didn't say in my mouth, I just said that the comitee report looks poor to me to justify the decision they took. Sounded like "We saw this man running with a wallet in his hand so we decided to shoot him". If the decision is right the report is poor if the report is complete then I disagree with the decision. Luis

2 spades. If I have to choose between faking a 6 card suit with KQT84 or faking a heart stopper with J95 I prefer to fake the sixth spade.

I think it may be good to invert the meanings of double and 2♠. I think you will be able to penalize 1Nt more if you double with 13-15 balanced (no major) instead of 16+. And if it's not your hand you can escape to 2x. Using 2s for 16+ will also be better, since 2s is probably the worst call on the scheme and 16+ is less frequently, if it's not your hand you are more likely to be safe in 3x with 16+ in one hand. Just my 2 cents. Luis

I think 3♦ is just competitive but I'm not afraid of it at MPs the worst that could happen is to get a bottom.

1) I bid 1♥ I don't want to defend 1♣x 2) 3♦ Support with support, 4♣ is an option but I can't see a clear path after 4♣ if pd bids 4♦

Passing 6♦ is automatic without a spade loser pd would have bid 5♠ over my 5♦, if he bids 6 is because he is not interested in 7. Luis