karlson

I have always said "finesse the Q" for playing the Q from AQ, but having heard it often said the other way recently, I try to avoid the usage now.

Someone needs to nail south for taking advantage of UI. He has a completely obvious double of 3h and 3n.

Heh, I still play count here with my regular partners. I need to meet this partner of MarkDean's too. Of course, it should probably depend on context -- attitude clearly seems better with this dummy, but in a situation where cashout looks like a priority, I would like to be playing count. Unfortunately that type of agreement will also will lead to some misinterpretations in disasters.

Alright, I'm with karlson/threenobob. But I'm doing a lot of traveling so if it's not over, say, by the time nationals start, we'll probably drop out.

I pass, all the other options are so bad. Hope their wide ranging preempt caused them to miss a good game one time.

What date would this start/end?

I'm certainly in for 4♥, but not quite as optimistic as everyone else. I expect partner to bid 2♥ on basically all decent 5-5 hands (you can't just concede the partscore every time). On a trump lead we'll probably only be able to ruff two spades; righty probably has 5 spades, so we're not setting up the suit. I wouldn't be surprised to be a trick short opposite some pretty decent looking hands (AJxxx QJxxx Ax x maybe?). But 3♥ can certainly be on much less and I don't expect partner to bid 4 every time on just a little extra (even changing SJ to SQ will make it quite good), so I think you have to try 4.

all at matchpoints or bam 1. ♠Qxx ♥xx ♦KQxx ♣KQxx w/w 1♥-? 2. ♠AK98 ♥Jx ♦Txx ♣K98x r/r p-p-2♥-? 3. ♠K9xx ♥Txx ♦AQJx ♣Ax w/r p-1♥-?

♠9xxx ♥x ♦KQ8x ♣K987 w/r dealer. board-a-match p-p-1♥-1♠ p-p-2♦-x 3♦-p-p-x ?-4♣-p-p ? Perhaps you disagree with your second pass, but I'm forcing it on you.

I think I would probably bid (2s)-3c-(3s)-x-ppp, and I think only the final pass is unclear. Obviously 3n is an option, but Kxx is not so great as a stopper (can't hold up) and there's a decent chance the clubs aren't running. Did I go -730?

Russian but my English is undoubtedly better than my Russian.

If i had to quickly write up a sort routine from scratch, I'd probably do insertion. I notice that bridge players that use insertion sort to sort their hand do so incredibly slowly (usually this involves leaving all the cards face down and then picking them up one at a time). Then again, I don't know anyone that actually uses bubble sort or the like. For sorting my bridge hand, I use some kind of greedy heuristic thing. I just make random moves that look like they'll result in a more sorted hand until it looks "good enough".

17) 1 18) 1 19) 2 20) 1 21) 1 22) 2 23) 1 24) 1 25) 1 26) 0 27) 0 28) 1 29) 1 30) 0 31) 1 32) 1

[hv=d=s&v=e&n=sq52haxxxxdcjtxxx&w=sajxhkdkqjxcaxxxx&e=sxhqjtxxdxxxxckqx&s=skt9643hxxdatxxxc]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] This was played in a sectional swiss this weekend. At both tables the contract was 4♠x. At my table, the auction was 3♠-p-4♠-p-p-x (I was south -- what would you open?). I don't know the auction at the other table. The lead was the ♦K (yes, ♠A,♠ would have worked nicely this time) and declarer ruffed three diamonds in dummy and four clubs in hand using the ♥A as an entry to reach [hv=d=s&v=e&n=sq52haxxxxdcjtxxx&w=sajxhkdkqjxcaxxxx&e=sxhqjtxxdxxxxckqx&s=skt9643hxxdatxxxc]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] with declarer having taken 9 tricks. When the DT was led west ruffed and east pitched a heart, so west was immediately endplayed. If west tries pitching a club and letting east ruff, he will be endplayed after ruffing the next heart lead. The only defense is for west to ruff and have east overruff. Then declarer will be trump couped. Extremely unfortunately, west's spade spot was the ♠8 and east had the ♠7, so this defense was not possible. I was going to give the play at the other table, but upon writing it up I realized that my teammate's account involved a revoke. So I have no idea what happened, but somehow the defense took four tricks after the ♦K lead.

Holy !$%*& , kfgauss has come out of retirement?

1n-2♣ 2♦-3♥ A common psych with 5 spades and 2 small hearts to deflect the heart lead. Someone whose opinions on bridge I don't generally dismiss claimed today that this particular psych was declared illegal by the ACBL. This seems impossible to me, but is it really true? Does it fall under some general rules against psyching artificial bids? (I thought that only applied to opening bids).

I play it NF with anyone I've discussed it with. On the given hand I don't see why I won't survive starting with double. Obviously would rather be playing it forcing on this hand.

Results: I played the Q, figuring that it would be too weird to lead from AJx when there was probably a perfectly good spade lead available. Wrong, -1. I think I've come around to it being too weird for righty to bid 2♣ on Jxxx, but I don't understand the spade shift argument. No matter what the club layout is, I can set up a trick if I guess the suit and so a spade shift could be right from either defender's point of view. In fact I thought that righty's card may well have just been count. Another point in favor of the T is that righty probably has at most one of the ♣K and ♥K. So if the T loses to the J, I still have very decent play (I can pick up Kxxx on the right on many hands), but if the Q loses to the K I'm likely just down (righty probably has either ♥K or ♥void for a decent takeout double). Edit: Uh, nevermind about the Kxxx part, thought I had one more entry than I did.

Yes, there's a downside to responding 1♠ which is that you probably won't get to play a partscore in diamonds unless partner rebids 1n. But there are too many factors against suppressing the spade suit here. -your hand is decent and may well make 4♠ opposite not a whole lot -your hand is not so one-suited to make diamonds the 100% right partscore strain. If partner rebids 2♥, I think he could easily make it. If your hand was xxxx --- QJT9xxx xx you'd see votes for 1n, guaranteeing being able to play in diamonds. But some people will hate it even on that hand.

I still don't understand this discussion. What's wrong with "approximately 15-17, could be a bit more or less" and then if they ask you for details, say "we upgrade very often with good intermediates and honors in the long suits and downgrade very often with honors in short suits". I estimate that would take me no more than 10-15 seconds to get out of my mouth.

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=saxxxxhtxdkqxcqtx&s=sxhaqj9xxdaxxcxxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] 1♥-x-xx-2♣ 2♥-p-2♠-p 3♦-p-4♥-ppp ♣A lead, east plays the lowest spot, smallish club continuation. They play UDCA but no further discussion about signals. Opponents are decent but not a regular partnership. You can ask about pass vs. 1n. vs 2c over the redouble, but you don't get any useful answers.

I'd go 4♣.

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=31871 Glad you're consistent. I like this interpretation, but yeah, some disagree.

I don't know the right answer on the first one, but I guess I would bid 2♠, and will take the blame if we get too high. But I know that on the second one, I would double 2♠ and feel like I've shown my hand pretty well.

Having played 2n balanced GF for a little while, I really don't like it. It just seems like there's a ton of guessing about whether to bid 3N or 4M and you don't really have room to both sort out stoppers and show some slam interest. For me those auctions start much better with 2♣. So I guess I would play 2♣ as balanced GF, possibly with 4M, and 2n as either weak or GF with single-suited clubs? I bet Ken approves.