Blofeld

And the classical (and most leading, imo) version: "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

Just to say that "Moslem" is also valid as a transliteration.

I'd think that a double of 2♥ would be more useful as another bid distinguishing power/ODR than penalties, so you can throw what that should mean into the mix.

5♣ looks normal at any scoring/colours. Not keen on 3♣ or 4♣. At least a 1♣ bid has noble goals (even if it is misguided ; how do you show this hand in a delicate slam auction?).

I'm with Phil.

Erick's suggestion, if used to convert HCP to ZARs (he gave it for ZARs to HCP, which is I think the more useful direction) tells you to multiply by 3/2 and add 8, here getting 11*3/2 + 8 = 16.5 + 8 = 24.5. This is a little higher than the actual total, but I think that's to be expected on 4333 hands where standard count makes no downward adjustments relative to say 4432 but ZAR does.

A back of the envelope calculation (should be correct to within an order of magnitude or so) suggests that if getting energy out of sunlight is ~1% efficient then we'd need to devote about 5% of the earth's landmass to cover the world's total energy usage. The 1% I used for efficiency may well be too high a figure.

Marbles:

Answer hidden: Another domino one: how many different ways are there of tiling a 2 by n board with n dominoes? (ignoring the pips on the dominoes)

Systemic low ♦.

If I open and rebid ♦s and partner has 4-card support, I might expect them to mention it . . .

Erm, Ben, I think we all know that those up/downgrades don't apply in this auction. But that's precisely why Richard suggests it as a beginning (or at least, that's why I'd suggest it). It's not a question of understanding ZAR points here so much as a question of teaching style. The school that Richard is subscribing to here (I haven't thought about the issue of which school is best very much, but this has a certain appeal) is that new concepts are easiest met a bit at a time. If one first looks at ZAR points in very simple everyday auctions where one doesn't even need them (and they work in these auctions, right? it's just that they agree with everyone's judgement) then one gets a better feeling for the basic ZAR points, and then can understand the entire system better when one introduces situations where one needs misfit points etc. Whereas if one is straightaway supposed to deal with all of them, having previously been unfamiliar with the system, there is a very real danger of getting confused by the number of things going on. To reevaluate, first learn to evaluate so that it comes naturally.

I'd probably pass 3NT. If making a move over 3N I can't imagine bidding anything other than 4♣, patterning out.

How about: 1♦ : 2♣ 3♠ : 4♦ 4♥ : 4♠ 4NT : 5♠ 7♣ ?

Certainly not in England at the moment, but when the new Orange book comes into force it will be announcable if played in the simple manner, and alertable if you sometimes use standard. Afraid I don't know about that side of the pond.

Pass. I'm guessing this worked badly or this wouldn't be a problem?

Double. They won't have a clue about what's going on, so if I go slowlyish and show defence they're more likely to pass 4♥ than the auto-4♠ an immediate 4♥ bid is likely to provoke. Second choice 2♣ for vaguely similar reasons.

This works particularly well when you're doubling from the passout seat. :blink:

Why is it obvious that partner took 4♦ as a cuebid for spades? This wouldn't occur to me either before or after looking at either or both of the hands.

I copy Han.

Frances: I agree with both of those points when we think that we are the stronger team. But can it really be right for both teams to follow such an action, if they both have accurate ideas of their relative strengths? Say Team A expects on the remainder of the boards to beat Team B by about 4 IMPs, with low variance. Say there is a game that can be made certainly or played for an overtrick with high probability of success with a small chance of going down. Then if the variance of the expected scores from the other boards is high enough, it looks like it must be right for both teams to eschew the overtricks : for both teams the value of an unlikely large swing or a likely small swing out in is greater than the cost of an unlikely large swing out or a likely small swing in. So ok, I grant that the situation is possible. But to make it possible it looks like we need a low variance on the rest of the match (well, or it to be a late hand in a match, where you have a pretty good idea of the score). My intuition for this says that the variance is unlikely ever to be low enough that it is right for both teams to persue such a strategy (given that we also need the expected score to be away from zero). Is my intuition just screwing around with me here? --- Phil: I like 2♥ much more at BAM, though I suspect I would double instead. However, BAM doesn't feel awfully like a short (but longer than 1 board) IMP match to me. I should add the proviso that I'm not very good at BAM !

Pass. Second choice double. Phil, could you explain how the length of the match alone is enough to change your choice. I could see this if in combination with some other known factors (state of match, strength of opposition) - but on its own? I'd assume we could hypothetically tag each bid with an expected IMP score and variance. In each case lacking any other knowledge wouldn't we just like to pick the one with the highest expected IMPs? Sorry if I'm being dense here.

Agree that pass is completely obvious on the first hand. Now curious as to what went wrong with it. I don't like the second one at all. I think I pass, but I would bid if I could show a 2-suiter but still get out in 2♣. Easy for this to cost either way.

Doesn't 2NT do a better job of bidding out your shape? Especially as a lot of the time you'll be able to double next, giving partner a pretty good description of your hand. I side with the passers. 6♣ may be there, but it may well not. No room to find out, so let's go with the (probable) plus score.

6♣. Sure, the opponents may have screwed up by bidding and raising, but that doesn't mean that we should be doubling. Perhaps RHO should have opened 3♠ and LHO would bid 5♠ and we'd never get a look in. It isn't clear what's making. Grand is possible, but the hand isn't good enough for 5NT. 6♣ is admittedly a guess, but it feels like the lesser risk to me.