luis

You must bid 4♠ if that is doubled you may retreat to 5♣ assuming a bad spade break but you certainly can't pass 3♠ (illegal). Bidding 4♣ is fine as long as your pd continues to 4♦ or 4♠. Luis

I think he is void in diamonds. I pass, I probably don't have any single useful card.

It seems most people have made up their minds, some that they had to be cheating, others that they couldn't be cheating, and still others, that they might have been cheating but there is no "proof." In this way, each of these groups seem biased to me. But please, lets keep this discussion civil. We each have a right to our views. I have yet a different view. I don't know if they were cheating or not but I think the comitee acted poorly. The facts and the decision don't match. If they were considering previous events they should have provided the information from those previous incidents.

I bid 1NT, I refuse to suppor hearts with this 3 cards I have.

I accept the reasons to pass but when was the last time that they played 1♠ against you at MPs and it was a good result for your side?

Double "book mode" I don't have to think this one :-)

1NT I don't care about what happens I won't let them play 1s at MPs.

1) is this a slam you would like to be in? Yes because it makes. 2) if so, how would your partnership bid it? I don't think we'll bid to 6, 2 keycards missing. No way. 3) comments on this auction? None, all roads will lead to 4♠

Let the result stand and ask west not to cry when he gets a bad result. Nothing to do.

I think 3♣ can be accepted since in my opinion more than 50% of the field would bid 3♣ without any UI in this situation.

1) The OPP's felt they had enough evidence to justify the final judgement. 2) The committee felt they had enough evidence to justify the final judgement. 3) If the present process is deeply and fatally flawed, what is better? 4) Multiple eyewitness accounts are often confusing, misleading and open to many interpretations. 5) Multiple camera angles are often confusing, misleading and open to many interpretations. 6) Of course more evidence is better than less but we are fooling ourselves if we think we are going to have anything near a complete or final answer. 7) If multiple eyewitness and multiple cameras will not give us a final answer and they do not , how can we expect more evidence will give us a complete one? 8) Your last point sounds very noble but not sure if it is true or not or even noble. Are you saying bridge can survive 101 top class cheating pairs but cannot survive hanging one innocent pair? All you say is enough for a comitee to declare a foul board, for example because dummy "may" have taken a peek at his opponents cards and they claim that dummy "may" have transmited information to declarer since they did took a low percentage but succesful line the comitee may declare a foul board based on tha facts they have already published in the bulletin. But this is not enough to disqualify the whole team or the pair which is saying that they cheat. I would like to see more examples of signals, strange gestures, strange results etc. I'm strongly inclined to think the comitee should have acted in a more subtle way and put that pair under undisclosed observation, taking notes of their positions, gestures etc and carefully recording all the results. Then they would be able to take a decision and present all the evidence they collected for their decision.

I would like to have a transcript of what was said in the comitee, cheaters usually have a very prepared defense for his case while honest players facing accusations say all sort of incoherent things and strange comments. So saying that not having a good excuse for the play is self-incriminating is a very doubtful dedeuction that they made if that was the case. You have to proof they are guilty not ask them to proof their innocence. I'm not saying they are either guilty or innocent I'm saying I'm not convinced at all by the evidence I've seen so far. Hanging an inocent pair would be 100 times worst for bridge than letting cheaters go.

I know two variations against a suit contract: 1) The A asks for a suit preference signal while the K asks for attitude (when the Q is in dummy attitude is count of course). 2) The A shows a side singleton while the K denies it so if you cash the ace and then switch you are switching to a singleton if you lead the K and switch your switch is not a singleton. This may help pd determine the best defense. Luis

You didn't psyche. You cuebid 2♠ so what ? I didn't have the hand for the 2♠ cuebid as well :P That doesn't matter :-) You may say you psyched your strength but anybody thinking that 2♠ showed a real spade suit need a reality check. There're at least 6 or 7 meanings of 2♠ before thinking about a spade suit.

You didn't psyche. You cuebid 2♠ so what ?

I would open the 4 hands, this is quite funny. EW should get a very good score. Having said that I would grade East pass as "highly strange" and take a look at what kind of hands this east player regularly opens or passes. Maybe it's just his style maybe he knew that opening 1♠ would lead him to a bad result in spades....

You are a passed hand, LHO opens the bidding, your pd shows a weak hand with diamonds, RHO shows majors and you want to play in spades? Welcome to the IBA, you are now an official member Justin! Doubling with 3424 can be fine but you do have 7 cards in the majors maybe 34 or 43 but usually the double shows majors.

I'm VERY confused. Where's the psych? 1♣ - 2♦- X shows majors so 2♠ can't be a real suit unless West is from the IBA but since I'm a board member of the IBA I know he is not. So 2♠ was a cuebid or some kind of raise or something, why North didn't double is a mistery I'm sure nobody fielded a psyche because there was no psyche!

This is so strange that I really don't know what to say... I don't think a comitee can declare a pair cheated and ban them and eliminate the whole team for just one hand, that doesn't make any sense. Can they? To understand this we, the people following the incident, need more information, maybe they were already being watched for previous accusations if there wasn't a previous incident I think that the only thing a comitee can do is declare the board foul and register the incident for a follow up investigation...

Important f2f tournament, 4 exp++ table, many kibitzers, the following hand showed up: Matchpoints! [hv=d=e&v=n&n=skxhaqxdxxxxxcxxx&s=saxhkjxdacakqjtxx]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] Bidding (East deals and opens 2 spades) 2♠ - DBL - 3♠ - 3NT Pass - 4♣ - Pass - 4♥ Pass - 4NT - Pass - 5♦ (1/4) pass - 5NT - pass - 6♦ (1) pass - 6♥ - pass - pass pass South intended 6♥ as asking for the hQ to play 7N or a heart doubleton to play 7♣. North explained south must have a strong hand with hearts and didn't bid 4♥ over 3NT since that would have been non forcing. So 4♣ was an advanced cuebid and then he probably needed 2 kings to play 6NT instead of 6♥. The War of the Worlds started with a "what the hell?... from south" when the tray came back with a pass from pd... Kibitzers tried to run but some of them were not quick enough, some kibitzers are still in hospital with rebound injuries. We have not received information about survivors. What's your opinion?

The June edition of BW has an interesting article on "Jammer" a new form of 2♦ opening bid, the article discusses the likeability of finding a "lawful" fit after using different conventions and find "Jammer" better than a standard weak 2 with diamonds and other methods and the frequency is quite high. Basically there're 2 options Both shows a weak hand with 4-9 HCP Jammer-long-spades: 4432, 5431, 4441 or 5440 with 4+ spades Jammer-short-clubs: 4432, 5431, 4441 or 5440 with short clubs The first treatment has better frequency (7%) but is less likely to find a "lawful fit" The second variation has better chances of finding a good fit but less frequency (4%) Maybe a good option is to use Jammer-Long-Spades when NV and Jammer-Short-Clubs when Vuln? I liked the idea so I would like to know what you think about it. Luis

A forcing game hand that can't or don't want to double 1NT because 1NTx won't be a good result for our side. Usually a two suiter as you mention but can have other variations.

Leb is almost standard, Rubensohl is almost the same but using 3 level transfer bids, so it's slightly better since it tends to place the contract in the right side more often. I never understood well why people that play Lebensohl and know it in full detail don't switch to Rubensohl but in a world where Sayc is presented to beginners as being simple I can't be very surprised.

2NT 4333 I have no better option.

With the first hand I think a 2NT bid before bidding 3s or 4s would show the 4333 hand and without ruffing values respoder need a lot more for slam. With the second hand you could probably reach 6 in the same sequence and go down 1. I don't know why some people love posting hands were one sequence or another one doesn't work do you want me to post some hands were 6s is cold and some hands were 6s is down? Very useful information.