luis

5h exclusion key card in spades. If 5h not available then just 6s. Pd bid a vulnerable game so he must surely have the sK and a minor suit ace and might as well have more values.

It doesn't matter what 4NT is because the guy who bid 4N is playing with a psycho. The double of 4s is not bridge. Had the double be a normal one I think that 4N is scrambling.

Ogust is a must have for me, it gives your partnership the freedom to relax the 2x openings and use them wisely according to vulnerability, because pd can always ask. If the tournament is MPs DONT in 2nd and 4th position is a very useful tool to prevent them from playing the mps paradise contract of 1NT.

Weird, Dbl if this costs less than 12 I have a good result. Next board please.

After 1d-x-pass With 2,QT32, 432, AT432 I'd bid 2c, when pd has a normal takeout double with 3+ cards in all the suits but diamonds I want to land in a 5-3 or 5-4 club fit and not in a 4-3 heart fit. With 2, AJ43, 432, KJT42 I'd bid 2h, showing some values. With 2, AJ43, A32, KJT42 I'd cuebid 2d

I disagree Ben, I think we've already had this discussion 8-) If you don't have an agreement then you should not tell the opponents what you have, why would you give LHO the advantage of knowing what your bid is while your pd has to figure it out by himself? When you bid something without agreement you may have an advantage if your pd is better than your opponents getting the message, that fair advantage will be lost if you just tell what each bid means even if unagreed. In other ocassions you bid something "strange" that you know your pd will understand because of his hand, in some way this is a perfectly legal encrypted bid, for example you bid a suit that your pd knows you can't have because of his cards and the bidding.

Trpltrpotrpltr Have you ever heard about the "impossible queen" ? Not standard at all, well done by Henri!

Lead?

For beginners I recommend a convention called "Roudi" 1m - 1M 1N - 2c 2d = Min 2 cards 2h = Min 3 cards 2s = Max 2 cards 2n = Max 3 cards

And when the contract is 3NT the opponents know exactly to attack too :D I find your comment very silly. When the contract is 3NT you are not supossed to relay for exact distribution. Why relay if you know you will be playing 3NT ? You use relays for full shape when you have slam chances, thus when you can't find what you need for slam 3NT and even 4NT are very safe contracts.

#1 Because sometimes you have xxxx, xxxx, xxxx, x and want to pass whatever pd bids to 2c. And you can use 1n-2c;2d-2h to show a weak hand with both majors, opener corrects to 2s only with 2 hearts and 3 spades, thus finding at least a 7 card fit in a major. #2 I agree with Free, 2s is the better way to relay after 1n-2c;2d to get the exact distribution of the nt opener, a simple follow up to the 2s relay: 2n = 4-4-3-2 shape 3c relay 3d = 3-2-4-4 3h = 2-3-4-4 3c = 5 cards (relay asks for doubleton) 3d = 5 cards (doubleton in a major, 3h asks) 3h = 3-3-4-3 3s = 3-3-3-4 3n = 3-3-5-2

I don't know should I be scared ? The 5d bid on a void and the 6d bid in board 2 are fairly normal the interesting thing is your choice to pass in hand #1, in a 19 table field I was the only south player that passed (there were 1d bids, 5d bids, one 6d bid and some 3N bids and yes one psycho doubled!) Since I had a lot of points and pd opened a 14-17 NT I decided that the 2c bidder must have the hK as well as the AQ in clubs so I played him for the sQ and the triple squeeze you described. No way since west held the sQ. I think the hand cannot be made but maybe maybe there's some trick.... Not sure.... Applying other rules I can't blame pd for any bid with a 7-5 hand, who knows what can work well... I think he should have showed his 5 clubs in some way but I'm not sure how.

Again and again players are confused about the alert procedure. Self alerting in online bridge is frequently missunderstood as if players were obliged to explain each of their own bids. You have to alert what you have agreed with your pd, if you don't have an agreement you don't have to explain what each of your bids means.

Ok lets see what happened at the table: My plan was: If pd shows signs of life then 6d, if not 5d faking a sacrifice. So I passed over 1c, LHO passed and my pd, god bless him, reopened with a 2c cue showing both majors. I bid 6d and made 7 when they didn't lead a heart (pd held both black aces) In tables were this hand bid 5d that contract was passed out for +440 If you bid 1d pd bids 1s and you have to decide what to do.... So you reached 6d as I did, west leads a club as supossed and dummy has: AJx AJxx Kx Jxxx Plan your play I supported with the void as many of you did, this imaginative bid was doubled for 1 down but could have been worst. Pd held: x - QT9xxxx AJxxx He was in a problematic situation since two of our "partnership golden rules" had to be respected here: * Never bid 1NT with a 6-5 hand or worst * Never pass a 1x bid with an ace Ideas? :-)

I have a 22 page document describing German Moscito, a version of Moscito that was modified to meet system regulations in several countries. It is mid-chart compatible and blue under the WBF system. It is NOT the state-of-the-art Moscito, you can find that in Richard's notes based in Paul Marston system, the version I published was created by Rene Steiner and some other players and is the one I've been playing for some years. If you want it just let me know an email address so I can send it.

3 fun problems with the diamond suit Hi all, back to training activity for a new year. You are playing f2f bridge, IMPs scoring, expert pd but young and very creative. Some problems to check your bridge neurons for 2004. Hand 1 (nv vrs vul): You have: - 9 AKQJxxxxx Kxx RHO opens a natural 1c, what do you bid? what is your plan? Hand 2 (vul vrs nv): K Qxx AQxxxxxx K Pd opens a 14-17 NT and RHO inserts a natural 2c bid, what do you bid? what is your plan? You are playing Leb if you bid 3d (natural, forcing) pd bids 3h. We never open 1NT with a 5 card major. Hand 3 (nv vrs nv) AKQxx KJxxx - Kxx You open 1s, the opponents are silent and the auction goes: 1s - 2d 2h - 3d 3h - 4d Now what? 2/1 is not GF but natural forcing to 2NT. Do you agree with 2h and 3h? Solutions based on what happened at the table to be posted later, maybe one of the problems will then become a play problem :-)

Hi Luis, welcome to my problem of trying to tell the symbol for CLUB from the symbol for SPADE. Opener's rebid was 3 CLUBS in the proposed problem, not 3 SPADES. A hint that will help is that if people use the spade symbol provided by the system, it is BLUE while the club symbol is supposed to be Green (it looks black on my computer). What the hell is a 3c rebid ? This partnership should see a psychoanalist, opener jump rebids on a doubleton and responder passes a forcing bid ? Blame the gods that made this two psychos play together.

100% responder. Opener "invented" 3s, I don't like it but if would be unfair to punish him for being creative. He felt 3s with KJ in spades was better than 4h on AQ 7th. I disagree but can understand his thinking. Now responder passed a forcing bid, if that was intentional then he should be told "do it again and you will have to find a new pd". The #1 rule for a partnership is respect, if a bid is forcing you can't pass. Even when pass is the only bid that leads to a reasonable result you must bid.

Ok let's make lists :-) Zia Rosenberg Lauria Gitelman Helgemo Balicki Chemla Fredin

Free: 18 whaaaat??? Children can start learning bridge at 6. At the age of 11/12 they can play normal tournaments with a good int/adv level and can reach expert level by the age of 14/15 same as in chess but harder because some extra skills are needed. If you start teaching mini-bridge at schools children interested can then move on to bridge as a sport.

I have one particular opinion about bridge and young people, I think that the best way to introduce kids to bridge is in the schools. I found incredible that chess is tought at many schools while bridge is not. A partnership game like bridge is far better and I think it helps developing a lot of useful skills in children like counting, making inferences, etc.

First of all some non-bridge 100% joke from time to time is not going to hurt, specially when the thread is more about society and bridge or bridge for youngsters than techincal bridge itself. Second Anna K is not someone that should be protected by moderators and so since she lives from his image and jokes and comments about her are exactly what she looks for to get more publicity contracts. I agree with the rules for this phorum and I agree with moderating posts, I just disagree with the deletion of posts that are meant to be funny. You can just use #### in the "offending" or "non PG" parts of the message, no need to remove the whole post and warn the poster. Post edited by moderator or something is enough... I think. On the other hand if you Ben decided that the best action was to remove the post I think that you have my vote of confidence and I'm sure your action was the best way to go.

2d, when pd bids 2h I bid 3s. Game forcing hand with 3 cards in spades and a diamond suit. Pretty clear I think.

Censoring? That's a bad thing, too bad indeed. What did you post free?

I'm passing in the first case. I reopen with an automatic 1NT in the second case (10-14) balanced.