karlson

I'm pretty sure I'd want to play this as takeout. There are 3 possible strains in play, as well as defending. It's takeout with everyone I've discussed it with for me.

Sure. I tried to give the worst hand possible, this is probably a submin for most people. Besides, 4s looks pretty good with the opponents' cards on that example. I have to admit I'm leaning more towards 3h.

I bid (4s). The singleton heart looks like too much o/d. Moreover, they might be about to bid 5h over this if they do have 11 trumps, which I'll happily double.

I can't imagine why pass is the book bid. 2h looks like an underbid if anything. 3h looks like a mild overbid though. Probably -2 if partner has his usual junk of xx KQxx Qxx KQxx. Hopefully if partner has x AKxx Axxx xxxx, he'll muster up a raise when the opponents compete to 2s or 3c.

Partner opens 1N, 15-17 [hv=v=n&s=sakqxhaxxdxxxcxxx]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] Question 1: Do you stayman playing standard methods? Question 2: Suppose you play that 3H shows a gf with 4 spades. Partner can bid 3N or 4s to play, 3s as choice of games, or anything higher as "you declare 4s". Would you bid 3h? You could also just stayman if you wanted to.

I would have the worst auction ever 1♥-2♣ 3♠ seems obvious enough ..... - 4♥ I think most people would play this as natural 4♠ opener's gotta be worth one more try when KQx Qxx Axx Qxxx is still a pretty good slam .... - 5♥ I would probably bid a slow 5h here, just to make sure partner couldn't bid on

I would definitely not do this. Partner is likely to have nowhere to go (say 4225 or something), and for all I know 3cx might make. In the the methods I usually play, partner could bid 2N scrambling with 4-4 in two suits. In that case I'm 200% not running from 3c. I am also a doubler, even red I think.

I'm sure Jan will also comment, but this was discussed a little bit at the meeting. The fact that the FISU trials are hopefully going to be after the collegiates suggests to me that while the college winners are encouraged to play in them and probably have a good chance to make the team, they are welcome to pick up teammates or partners from other schools. I do think that promoting the collegiates and encouraging people to participate in the fisu trials is a fine idea. Also, we're apparently sending two teams, which gives some wiggling room. I'm not sure there's going to be an enormous turnout of non-acbl-collegiate people for the fisu trials, so I don't think this is false encouragement even if they are going to have to play in the trials.

Kind of unfortunate that this conflicts with the US summer nationals and junior team trials. I would love to play in this event, but I will play in the team trials if I have to choose.

[hv=d=w&v=b&s=skxhtxdkq7xxxcktx]133|100|Scoring: MP (1♣)-2♥-(2NT)-p (3NT)-p-(p)-p[/hv] Partner overcalls 1c with 2h red/red, and the opps get to 3N. Your lead (at MP, feel free to mention what you'd do at IMPS).

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that the sun is 90 million miles away. It really doesn't look like more than a 1000 miles to me. Seriously, how is this an example of scientific evidence? It's just your intuition.

Example? I don't know anyone that I would consider a serious biologist that believes this. From reading and talking to people, the impression I've gotten is that Christian biologists that have reconciled their faith and their science tend to think of God's (sorry, the Designer's) role as setting the entire universal process in motion, not as playing a part in any process between the beginning of life and where we are now.

I pass. Not enough high cards for 1s, and just too good for hearts for any other number. (Obviously?) if I had something that showed the majors, I would use it.

I installed newer wine, and at the point where it crashed before, wine asked me to install some kind of gecko that I didn't have. So that was indeed the cause, and it works fine now. Thanks Gerardo.

Someday foo will figure out a line that picks up both JTx and Jxx on his left.

The beginners you find look extraterrestrials to me. I know at least of a hundred players who have played for more than 20 years who would never ever think of falsecarding with this holding. I think against totally unknown opponent the percentage play is to finese but not fully sure. Ok, I may have exaggerated B) It may also be that I've been watching beginner juniors a lot lately, who play their cards pretty randomly, just for fun, sometimes.

Agree with Ken. Even beginners ought to see that this is a falsecard that can never cost, so some people might make it without thinking about the exact position.

I think 4d over 4c is forcing, but shows a different hand, offering a choice of diamonds or hearts (xx Kxxx AQxxx Qx or whatnot). With this hand I think we just have to bid 5d over 4c. Maybe partner can raise.

Double seems clear enough to me. Hopefully partner with 2 spades will sit it out.

On Ubuntu with firefox, I have the same problem I had with the old BBOTV (maybe the new one too, haven't tried recently). I get disconnected every 5 minutes or so. Sorry if this was covered in an old thread.

Very strangely, while it works flawlessly on my laptop, I can't get it work on my workstation for some reason. I'm not really sure what the difference could be, but here's the error message I get in case someone has seen it before: (this is on Ubuntu 6.10, wine v 0.9.22. BBO downloaded today, not sure what version). It seems to crash immediately after loading the player list (perhaps during). $ wine NetBridgeVu.exe err:ole:CoGetClassObject class {96749377-3391-11d2-9ee3-00c04f797396} not registered err:ole:CoGetClassObject class {96749377-3391-11d2-9ee3-00c04f797396} not registered err:ole:create_server class {96749377-3391-11d2-9ee3-00c04f797396} not registered err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {96749377-3391-11d2-9ee3-00c04f797396} could be created for context 0x7 fixme:msvcrt:MSVCRT__sopen : pmode 0x01b4 ignored fixme:ole:OleCreate {8856f961-340a-11d0-a96b-00c04fd705a2} {00000112-0000-0000-c000-000000000046} semi-stub! fixme:shdocvw:PersistStorage_InitNew (0x1a7ed0)->(0x5dd568) wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 0x00000000 at address 0x4fb662 (thread 0009), starting debugger... Modules: Cannot get info on module while no process is loaded Threads: process tid prio (all id:s are in hex) 0000000a 0000000c 0 0000000b 0 00000008 (D) (null)

While this may well not be the field contract, and making it should be a fine score, it looks like the only extra chance for 9 tricks is if the ♣AK are onside. Since I think that's less likely than 2-2 diamonds, I'll just win trick 2 and try to take 12 tricks.

I agree with the diamond leaders. Seems like a spade really needs to catch partner with the J to be successful, and of course diamond is suggested over club.

In response to Justin's last comment and some others -- I didn't give the information about the players because that's not often available, and I thought it was interesting in a vacuum. But in this case, both opponents were very good club players playing together for the first time, and partner was an intermediate-level junior who is on the conservative side.

This is kind of a funny hand, because given our 1N bid, we have the minimum length in the minors that we could possibly have. Because of that, I didn't really want to raise (I certainly wasn't thinking about slam, that seems nuts). As far as placement, well the aces in the majors are higher ODR than we might have, but as jdonn says, we'd gladly trade one for a minor suit K. In particular ♦xxx seems really bad. I thought double was pretty clear at the table, but a local world class player said he would bid 4♣ for sure. Pass is perhaps also an option. I have to say that the discussion hasn't been particularly illuminating, as in, I still don't know what I'd do next time. 4c is the winner (well, I don't know what partner would do over 3s), as the full hand was [hv=d=e&v=b&n=sxxhxdajxxxcakqxx&w=sqtxxxhkqtxxxdtcx&e=skjxhjxxdkq9xctxx&s=saxxha9xdxxxcjxxx]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv]