karlson

I often use a TV as my monitor. HD video looks great, but the card images on BBO look awful (pixellated). 52 high-res images doesn't seem like it would make much of a dent in the total bandwidth -- maybe this could be improved? Everything else in the interface looks fine (presumably it's vector-based).

I think it's clear to try for slam. Moreover, I think we should at least consider getting to diamonds. So I'd start with 2♦.

I agree with the sentiment in the original post and Rainer's reply -- it only makes sense to bid 1s over 1h-x with a good suit. But on the second hand, I'd bid 1s, especially at MP. If it happens to be that their suit is hearts and it's a partscore hand, we have to find spades.

Firstly, I don't understand anything. Why on earth would west be thinking about covering if he had the ♠Q? But on the larger point, in my opinion, it would be best if the laws retained the right of the players to think as much as they needed to, and the standard for "could have know that the variation in tempo would mislead declarer" was quite a bit higher. Even if it leads to a little bit of coffeehousing, it's not clear to me that would be as devastating to the game as some people suggest. If you have such great table feel that you can reliably make reads from your opponents' tempo, I bet you have good enough table feel to still get a read even when they're allowed to vary it randomly. And even if does mean that experienced players have to give away some of their edge playing against less experienced opponents, is that such an awful thing?

Basically agree with Wesley, but I would just go low with 4♠ even if you play 3♠ as fairly strong.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the OP's system -- many people play basically the same way. I think it works fine to just play normal 2-way checkback (2c puppet to 2d, 2d artificial GF). Usually it's pretty straightforward to sort out opener's stiff major, if that's what you're worried about. Just don't insist on the major with 6 mediocre ones, go through 2d. There's room to relay out opener's shape if you prefer to do that over 2d, but I have been perfectly happy with natural bidding. If you also play that after 1c-1d-1h, 1s puppets to 1n, then you have more sequences than you could know what to do with.

4♥ seems normal to me. Did we miss an easy slam?

It's kind of an interesting hand: if the ♣K is on, we only need one of the red suit finesses, but unfortunately we have to guess right now which one to take in that case. So I also start with a heart to the Q. But if the ♥Q holds, I think we should not cash the ace. It's only necessary if righty has both the ♣K and ♦A (pretty much impossible) and it loses if lefty has both of those and the hearts are ♥Kxx-♥Jxx.

I'd bid 3n. Double seems really weird to me when we don't really want to hear 4 of either red suit (if 4♥ is right partner may well bid it over 3n anyway), and the chances of a pass seem remote.

Trump for me.

On the second one (assuming OP is correct and we're balancing after 3♠-p-p), I think I would pass, but 3n would not be the craziest bid I've ever seen.

So we get to 3n instead of defending 2MX with marginal values and our long suit opposite partner's shortness. Surely this is a significant loss. I'm not out to bash the system -- it's an interesting idea. But I think there is pretty clearly a big downside.

Well, ok, if he has another place to play, like a 5-card minor, then yes, it's easy. How about something like a 2533 11-count? I think that's closer to what Rainer is worried about, and I'm a little worried about it too. (If you think that's impossible on this auction, then let's switch the majors around).

I've seen the following kokish-like thing, which seems to work pretty well: 2♣ = 20-21 balanced or 24+ bal or strong unbalanced -2♦ = either waiting or 5+♥ -2♥ = 5+♠ - higher = whatever you want over 2♣-2♦, 2♥ shows 20-21 balanced or hearts. Responder passes with 5+ hearts and bids 2♠ otherwise, then opener clarifies. In theory, you might play 2♥ when opener has unbalanced with hearts and responder has a weak hand with 5♥. I haven't seen it happen yet.

I would play 2♠ natural for sure. The actual hand looks like an automatic double.

I've been playing penalty doubles of strong NT for a couple of years now and am totally sold.

You could easily make an argument that knowing how many keycards partner has will help you decide whether to save over their slam. I just don't see how these types of bids could possibly be regulated, and I find it hard to imagine that this is something the writers intended to fall under "controlled psychs".

I think this is probably a good place to play the cheapest step as an artificial negative. Without agreeement, I would have thought 2♠ was non-forcing and everything else forcing.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for 4NT to show the majors, because it would require playing them at the 5-level when there was still a chance to play in one of them at the 4-level (either by making a takeout double or simply by guessing to bid one of the suits). So if 4NT showed the majors, responder would really only be bidding it with a slam try. Whether it should be natural or RKC in clubs is less clear. I suggest you and your partner pick whichever of those is more intuitive to you.

I would double with the south hand. I'm not so worried about taking a phantom like mikeh suggests -- I think if 3N is going down partner is quite likely to pass.

I would double. Could work out badly.

I assume that the "stronger/weaker than 1n rebid" is meant to be "stronger/weaker than 1n opening" unless I'm completely misinterpreting. (at least in strong NT context)

I think 2♠ is enough. Double shows hearts to me.

Definitely not my style to pass. Either 3♣ or some psych.

Sorry, it's not really clear to me what problem you're trying to solve. Standard of 2♥ non-forcing and 2♦ as an artificial force seems to work ok. You can play 3♦ as 5-5 GF to take some of the hands out of 2♦, and if you're willing to play 2n forcing, you can take even more hands out of 2♦.