olegru

I would bid 4♥ as a South on the first round. Overbiding a little, but would like to include minor in a picture too.

Please correct me if I am wrong. The biggest bridge bum was when Ely Culbertson created the new bidding system and arranged games to prove his system is better than existed. Pity there was no ACBL that time to restrict the use of new “homebrew” system … of cause for the benefit of the game future and to defend beginners. B)

See you in B-A-M in NY?

I believe the key word here is habitually . By some reason this word is missed in your next sentence. I hope you did not want to say that because you do not want to play against people habitually forget their conventions you are willing to punish everybody who misbid. Problem is – it is the only way how CD could possible work. Let’s take a look a hypothetical case. In the first round of Blue Ribbon in San Diego I will misbid against you. Am I habitually misbidder? How could director tell it? I am not good enough to be recognizable and nobody knows how often I forget conventions. No player memos against my misbids were ever filled out. Are directors supposed to investigate partnership experience? It is one thing to misbid with permanent partner, other with somebody you usually have as a teammate but almost never as a partner and absolutely other with picked up partner. I believe somebody already said it, but let’s repeat. Habitually misbidders have concealed agreements. If they misbid often enough to be known by others they defiantly know that partner’s bid could mean something different from written in convention card. In this case the current bridge law already has mechanism of punishing them. There are no needs to create any additional terms like CD and any additional penalties to fight with them.

If your partner did something you would never do there are at least two explanations possible. First. Partner does not know what he is doing. Second. You are not good enough to understand what your partner is doing. No guaranties, of cause, but there is a method how to get some ideas which case is more probable. Press this link: http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/index.php Type your nickname and look at your summary for a month. If in average you are losing ~0.5 imps per board - chances are there is something in this game you do not understand yet. You can also check your partner’s stats to see if he is the person you would like to learn from or his ideas does not appear to be very successful. BTW: Cases when bidding and cards require to lead singleton in unbid suit against a NT contract are exist.

I had a good laugh with undo recently. Here it is: http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer...0222-1252631008 I was dummy. On the third move North ruffed clubs and then underlead ♥ trying to get partner for the second ruff. South play 10 and declarer (with J9) put 9. No requests for undo. Now South played ♥ back instead of ♣ for partner to ruff. Declarer played Jack, North typed: ??? and South asked for undo. Undo get rejected and North asked for director – How dare declarer to reject undo in this circumstances?! This case director hand the case correctly, but I really like my opponent undo attitude :P

Long ago, when my son was a baby and my daughter was 4 years old, we used to play at home: my wife and me against our friends. We even had stakes - losers should buy a cake for the next game. One day my son started to cry during the game and my wife went to feed him. Because it was boring to sit and wait I asked my daughter Natalie to be my partner. She did not completely master her bridge game yet, but she already learned the main part - how to follow suit and turn cards. In the first board I had: ♠ A72 ♥ 763 ♦ 986 ♣ Q1052 I open 1♥. Why not? Because my partner did not know names of suits yet I did not expect her to bid anything except pass. I was wrong. LHO, a very good guy, double and Natalie bid 5♣! It was the last bid my wife made before baby get up and I said something like “very good bid, Partner.” Natalie was here and she learned something new! But what should I do now? RHO passed, I passed and LHO double again. Did I say he was a very good guy? Natalie said double too. Sometimes kids learn too fast. “Did you mean pass or redouble?” asked her LHO. (You see, he was a really good guy). Sure, Natalie confirm she meant redouble and 5 clubs redoubled became a final contract. RHO led small club. LHO took Ace, King and continue trumps. As you already know he was a good guy, but not the best bridge player in the world. Natalie, who gave clubs on the first two rounds, asked where she can buy additional cards if she does not have a suit. I explained that if she has no suit she is free to discard any card and she discard a small diamond. I took that trick and made the last round of clubs. (I know dummy should not play without command, but insist of that rule was too much even for LHO.) Natalie gave another small diamond. I played the Ace of Spades and Declarer discards the third diamond. “Natalie, dear, you should follow suit,” said I. “I have no black cards anymore,” said Natalie by insulted voice. “I have only hearts left.” And she tabled ♥AKQxxxxx. 5 clubs redoubled bid and made on 15 points with 4-2 in trumps. By the way there are two different words in Russian language for heart as a cards suit and heart as a human’s organ. She used the second one.

I believe we mixing up two different cases. Lets take a look at 2 examples. Example first: I am playing with somebody I know but do not really have to much discussion about bidding. I open 1NT, lefty bid 2♠ and my Partner 2NT. Are we playing Lebenzohl here? I have no ideas. But... I know my Partner knows what Lebenzohl is. And he knows I know about Lebenzohl. I feel safer to bit 3♣ here. If Partner meant 2NT as a Lebenzohl we are OK. If he did not, he has a good chance to figure out where my 3♣ bid came from and probably we will land in some reasonable contract. In this example me and my Partner know about each other something that opponents do not know. I agree - I have to alert 3♣ and Partner should alert 2NT and let opponents know that possition was not discussed. Example second: I am playing with completely unkown person. I never played with him, I have no ideas about his level and convention knowledge. Matchpoints. He open 1NT, RHO bid 2♠. We are non vul and I have long clubs with almost no points. What to bid? Pass is loosing bid, 3♣ is way to risky, he will expect some points for that bid. We never discussed Lebenzohl and I have no ideas if Partner even know about existance of this convention. But I will bid 2NT anyway. I am not expecting my Partner to understand it as a Lebenzohl. In the best scenario he will try to guess is it Lebenzohl or not. If not... minus 100 for down 2 could still be better then -110 for 2♠ from opps. In this example my opponents and Partner have exactly the same information about my bid and I see no reason why opponets should have advantage. I think no alert should be here exactly the same way how no alert requered for psyche bid.

Agree. You have agreement to play 2/1, you know that Jacoby 2NT is a part of 2/1 for Canadians. You have an agreement you must alert it. Now look at my example. I am the first time playing with BBO expert from, ok let's it be Canada. We agree to play Standard. Partner open 1 ♣, 1♠ from me and 1NT from partner. Now I bid 2♦. I have absolutely no ideas in NMF is a part of a "Standard” for Canadians or not, but no other reasonable bids appears. My partner and opponents have the same amount of information about my bid. Do you think I should alert?

What cause you think partner will understand your call particular way? Do you have some agreements for similar situations? Did it already come up? Do you know something about your partner that opponents do not know? Probably in those cases you have to alert implicit agreements. But if you are playing with truly picked up partner and think he will understand (for example) your mini-splinter based solely on word "expert" in his profile there is no agreements to alert - opponents have about your bid the same information what your partner has.

You are not alone :)

If my understandings correct - The main reason why the perfectly legal action like baby psych does not considered as an appropriate against unknown opponents is – you thinks this can annoy the beginners and even turn them out of bridge. Question: what about much more often and even more painful for novices issues, are they appropriate? Examples: 1. (pass) - pass - (1 spade) – pass - (2 clubs, no alert) – pass – (pass) - dbl – (2 spade, my God, partner again forgot we are playing Druri). Is it classy to call Director here? Opponents clear not experienced and directors call 100% will annoy them and probably turn out of bridge? Of cause it is just one of a thousands possible MI examples. 2. You are declarer. You lead to KDx on the table and RHO play her smallest card, but hesitated long enough to make it perfectly obvious she has the Ace. Your only possible plan was to convenience her partner later lead another suit, but now he can not make a mistake. RHO very proud she found the hold up play and will be extremely unhappy if you will question her wonderful performance calling TD. Will you call him or classy player just have to accept losses like that in not the top level game? 3. Novice opponent has a penalty card. Is it appropriate to take advantage of that? I guess opponent will not feel it is fare to lose trick such a stupid way and it can turn him or her out of bridge. 4. Bidding 3NT with no stopper in known opponent’s suit. It is contradict what they learn in classes and by beginners opinion more poker than bridge. 5. Lead unsupported honor. If you will be lucky enough to find partner with another honor in this suit, they can think something fishy is going on. 6. Underlead the Ace in a trump contract if you think situation is good for this kind of action. They learn from the teacher experts never do it and surely will get situation wrong. Don’t you feel you took a candy from a baby by undeleading the Ace? 7. Preempt with a very bad suit? And so on and soo on...

Not on the leads, by the way. Could I share the story which bother me a lot. I am declarer in 3N against well know expert opps. LHO leads Q. I am asking about leads - Q deny J. Ok. I played according the explanation. No luck. LHO had KQJ. Not a problem it was just an missed overtrick in the team game. Couple of monthes later. The same opps. The same lead. The same question. The same explanation. I learn my lesson - I played for J on the left. I got it right. Now if I notice that lead of Q from this particular person does not have to deny J, how could his permanent partner does not know about it? :)

Why on the earth should I care about opponents? Partner is a key factor. He is the only person his feeling I should take into account. If I will psych against weak opponents and we will get the bad result he will not happy, because chances are we would get a good score in a normal game. If I will psych often, partner will not be able to trust my bidding. If I will repeat psych in the similar position with the same partner it became an agreement. Even if partner is experienced enough to alert it he will still in a bad position because it is hard to continue normal bidding if you do not trust your partners bid in certain position. What I want to say is bluffing (IMHO) very often is a bad idea, but it has nothing to do with unethical behavior or cheating.

Hi Tony, After receiving UI opener made 2 bids, not one and his first bid easily could have LA. If it is the case absence of logical bridge reason to bid over 5♠ could be irrelevant, because we do not know if 5♠ bid would be made without UI.

Yes, but this one can be big. One of possible reading of 3 ♠ bid is the two way bid - request to bid 3NT with spades stoper or spades cuebid is slam bidding on agreed clubs. Bid 4♠ after 3NT now is the first class spades control and clubs slam invitaion, probably even grand slam. In this case 5♣ bid, which allows responder to repeat spades and clear confusion, can be suggested by partners remark with LA 6 clubs. Sure all this easily can be out, but without verification about meaning of redbl, dbl on 2♦ and so on we are not in the possition to make iltellegent comments. :)

At first TD must get full explanation of all bids. After it TD must take a look at Dummy to make sure all his bids after receiving UI did not have the LA became less favourite because of UI. Without this information nothing can be said here.

I have some doubt here. If both partners have no ideas about meaning of particular bid, should we still think they agreed to play convention written in their CC or it will be more honest to assume they have no real agreement about this bid? If second option is correct - West was missinformed by convention written in CC opponents. For illustration if I recently agreed to play Cappelletti against week NT, but by mistake took the old convention card with DONT written there and opponents intead of asking meaning of alerted bid look at convention card - it will be clear case of MI, isn't it? We agreed to play something and opponents must be informed about our actuall agreement even if in our convention card marked something else. I believe here is the same case. NS agreed to play something (in this particular case nothing, I mean they have no agreement). And they actual agreement (absence of agreement about this bid) should be given to opponents, but not convention Mathe wchih is in the Convention card but not in use.

You are agreed to play 2/1 with no negative free bid. You open 1 ♥, opponent bid 1♠ and your partner on non-passed hand bid 2♦. 1♥ - (1♠) - 2♦? Question is: is it forcing game or not by system definition or there are different 2/1 styles and this bid can be game forcing or just round forcing depending on agreements?

You are South [hv=d=e&v=n&s=sxhak109xxdk10ckqxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] You are in red agains green. 7 boards match. RHO open 1♠ You bid 2♥ planning to dbl on the next round. LHO jumps to 4♠ Somehow unexpected your partner bid 5♦ RHO hesitated a little than bid 5♠ Now up to you. RHO.......YOU.........LHO..............Partner 1♠..........2♥............4♠...............5♦ 5♠............? During the discussion on the other bridge community several more interesting questions come up, and I would appreciate if you can give your opinion too: 1. What hands should partner 5♦ bid promise? Does he guarantee the ♥ support? Could he simply have 8 diamonds with AJ and nothing else? 2. Should your pass now be the 100% forcing in this vulnerability?

Completely agree! People need to be taught when they feel they need lessons. Lets them make own mistakes, understand why do they need the biding system and only after it gave them bidding lessons. But strict ACBL system policy makes beginners think that bidding system is the part of the game rules. Very complicated and boring part :D :) It is really not typical for ACBL land. You probably will find it hard to believe how many different systems and conventions had been played in Moscow bridge club in beginning of 1990s. Anybody play whatever they want. Relay systems, strong pass system… 2 diamonds opening 5+5 in random suits, 2 hearts opening with week spades or strong 5+5 in minors, 2 spades opening with more than 6 spades or less then 2 spades and so on so forth. In the environment where everybody playing something “their own” idea to create something “your own and better then everybody” is a very natural. “Let’s, partner, open 1 heart to show week hands with spades or strong hands with hearts and see what happened.” It took me several months to understand that bidding is not just separated bids, that making mess during the bidding is not the way to became a winning player and that the well developed by experts systems are a very useful tool to study and use. Of cause you are right. There is no guaranty that something worked well for me and my friends will work equally well for everybody. But if current policy is not successful to ensure future of our game maybe it is a good idea to look at individuals experiences and re-think if policy better to be changed or not.

Before player will lose interest in something he needs at least get interested in it :unsure: Should we really care about a percentage of players who will give up with game because they find it too complicated? My feelings that early or later they will give up anyway. I guess the primary concern should be to do not lose people who can give up with game not because they found it difficult, but because they found it boring. We need to cought once who just tried game and make them interested into it. I am trying to recall what did I enjoined in bridge the most in my bridge babyhood, before I actually understand something in the game. Here is the list: 1. Developing my own bidding homemade systems and conventions. To be honest all my ideas that time were extremely strange, stupid and not playable at all, but I felt creative and enjoyed it. 2. Discussing with my partner what went wrong on the board just played. I was not able to discuss them after tournament – beginners forget boards very fast. 3. Bluffs, of cause. Easiest way for beginners to oversmart an experienced player. And how funny it was! Especially if your baby bluff hurt some of the best players in the country. It brings us to the next point. 4. Playing against the very best. When and where I started to play bridge the stars were in the clubs all the times. And there were no tournaments for 99ers. Not like I could see the difference between the champions’ game and game of average players, but it was a real pleasure to say “I played against the country champions and smash them in one board.” Who cares that I got zeros in other boards in the round and “smash” actually was only ave+. 5. Prizes. Not like I really had chances to get them, but I did not know about it. Bright beginners have tendencies to overestimate own level. By the time I understand how weak player am I, I already got caught by the game. 6. Oh, almost forgot. “Join the club” feelings. Now I am turning on my imagination and trying to see that would happened if I would start to play bridge in ACBL land today. 1. Forget about creating the new convention, you can not use them. 2. Please continue, you will discuss boards later. 3. Director! 4. How often would you see the famous players in the regular club games? At least in NY it is not happened very often. 5. Money prizes for first, second and third place? Ha-ha. 6. Young player came to the bridge club and looked around. Does it looks like a community he wants to belong?

First tournament I played more than 20 years ago, having no slightest idea about the bridge game at all. I believe this story is funny enough to share it here. I went to Moscow chess club to play chess, and got shocked to see some people there were going to play cards. This time cards were not formally prohibited in Russia anymore, but cards in the temple of chess! I was staying in astonishment when very intelligent looking women asked if I know how to play bridge. I replied not. She asked if I can play preference (preference is a very popular in former Soviet Union card game, for some extends similar to bridge, but it is game for individuals, not pairs.) I replied that I am good in it. She literally forced me to the table. As it happened she and her partner were late for game and director let them play only if they can fill out the table – find another pair to play. They convinced to play one experienced player who came to club to socialize and then she caught me. My partner had about 5 minutes to teach me rules of bridge and the bidding system. We played some simplified precision with no NT opening for me. Could you believe we won the tournament! My partner was extremely good and we were extraordinary lucky. I still remember couple of boards. Once I interfered 1 diamond with almost no points and no diamonds. I did not realize that bid 1 diamond is negative (0-6 points any distribution) only if partner opened 1 clubs, not opponent. Poor opponents missed their contract. In other board I doubled opponents in slam. I simply did not believe that 12 tricks of 13 is something realistic. Poor declarer expected me to have some reasons for double and found the way to get down in ice cold slam. Another board I corrected 3NT bid by my partner to 4 diamonds, because I thought play in level 4 gives us more points than on level 3. Partner blasted to 6 diamonds and won it because of friendly lead and lucky distribution. Unfortunately, I don’t know who my first partner was. I played my second tournament only in 3 years after the first and by that time I forgot name of that guy. Recalling how did he look I would not be very surprised if it was Andrew Gromov, but I have never asked him

I will not bid any of them, but I've seen people do it. 2NT and 4♥ are the swingy actions, against the odds by my opinion, but not neccesary bad. 2 clubs simply the bad bid of the weak player. By the way, what would by 4 clubs opening, not strong pre-empt with ♥?

Main part of my posting is not my convention, but reason given to reject, having nothing to do with nature of convention or quality of deffence. Actualy, I already received the reply to my 5th try. Here it is: