G_R__E_G

Toronto has an amazing underground set of pathways aptly called The Path. You can actually walk underground from The Sheraton Centre to The Royal York in about 10 minutes. During that walk you pass right by The Source in The Royal Bank Centre (it's in the north tower). Here's a link to the map of it: http://www.toronto.c...th_brochure.pdf

Ok, are you staying at The Royal York? If so, there's a store called The Source that's in The Royal Bank Plaza right beside The Royal York. They'll be able to help you. (You might even be able to use your current phone and just throw a SIM card in it - that would be a super cheap option for you).

Are you driving or flying in? I'll give you directions right to a store that will be able to help you.

I'm playing the queen. It appears that West is 5-5 in the blacks. Why would he discard clubs and not spades? With Jxxxx it would seem to be a lot more attractive to discard spades. If he had Kxxxx then he's probably feeling comfortable coming down to Kxx. The other thing that you might like to know is what the defenses carding is. If the ♣2 was encouraging clubs then it's pretty good evidence to play West for the king.

I'm also very fond of using a good provolone. My wife's homemade burgers with provolone, grilled onions and HP sauce - unbelievable!!!

I couldn't agree more. That's almost as bad as using mozzarella on poutine instead on real cheese curds. There's nothing quite like a good quality French Canadian poutine.

Discuss.

Thanks Justin. This is why I didn't mention whether 2♠ would be forcing or not in the OP, I was interesting in hearing how people would bid it with various agreements, Follow up question....does anyone think my partner should have taken another bid after my 4♠?

I could X but then somebody will probably call the director. :)

I agree with you fully Adam that playing 2♠ as forcing is best. Unfortunately this lady that I play with does not. I also wasn't in love with my void so I settled for 4♠ which is where the auction ended. The ♥K was offside (the only 3 pts righty had) so I only made 6. Partner had ♠KJx ♥Ax ♦Ax ♣K10xxxx.

Sure, with my luck my partner would be on lead with a club void and she'd decide to lead something pointy. :blink:

I should probably add the other thing that was going through my mind was that the hand really didn't have much defense. My thought was that I didn't want to give them a chance to find a fit to find a good sacrifice at the 5 level. I figured the risk of them finding a fit outweighed the chance of missing slam. If I wasn't opposite a passed hand I definitely wouldn't have done it this way and I'm not even positive that what I did was best (hence posting here :) ).

I said they were strange. Anyone who says that computer hands are the strange ones should have been at our club last night. These were all hand dealt. Besides this hand and the last one I showed, we also had a hand where my partner and I were both void in spades and we can make grand in hearts, diamonds or clubs!! Anyway, here it is: [hv=pc=n&s=s86hatdcakqjt9863&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=pp5c]133|200[/hv] I decided to open 5♣ which as it turns out is cold (partner had the ♠K and the ♠A was on my left). I figured that slam was probably not on opposite a passed hand. Agree?

Some crazy hands at our club last night. This was one of them. [hv=pc=n&s=saq987432hqj73d6c&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=1d2cp]133|200[/hv] What's your bid and plan in general? Some extra info that may or may not factor into your decisions. It's matchpoints and your partner's style is that this bid will show between a good 10 to a bad 16 hcp.

I just want to go on record as saying that I think if you're playing 2/1, starting with any other response than 1♠ is crazy chicken. Feel free to up vote/down vote accordingly. PS and obviously it only promises 4. As many have said, it's the 3♦ bid that increases the likelyhood of it being more than 4.

Using a screwdriver open up the chassis of the hard drive. There is a "disc" in there that looks much like a CD. Pry as much of it out with a screwdriver as you can and smash the hell out of it. Now you can discard it in the trash and save yourself some digging (I hate digging). If you are really paranoid you can discard different pieces of it in different locations.

The number of devices is not going to exceed the maximum allowed on any recently made router. They can generally handle an absolute minimum of 256 devices simultaneously (I think in our house we have around 20 at a time with the laptops, netbooks, iPod Touches, Nintendo DS's, Wii and PS3 - we have four kids). Just make sure that you get yourself a good quality N router like a D-Link DIR-825. Your main issue will most likely be your internet connection speed rather than the router. With all of that said, if the proximity of the laptops allows it I'd really recommend a wired solution using a router and switches. No disconnects to contend with.

I think if you aim any post at the group you aimed this one at you're pretty much assured to get an analytic continuation. :)

I'm going to disagree with the majority here. While West's 2♥ bid may have been stupid (aka SEWoG), it is almost a certainty that they wouldn't have made it if the support double had been alerted. I think in cases like this you need to err on the side of caution towards the NOS.

So you're saying that you think that any player (other than dummy) doesn't have the right to ask that the other players at the table follow Law 65C (and/or call the Director if they're not)?

I don't think this specific question is really covered in the laws but Declarer has the right per Law 65C to request that the defenders arrange the quitted tricks properly so that they can see how many are pointed in each direction. Asking how many tricks they've lost might be simpler.

There's a pretty big difference between KQ10x and KQ109 when it comes to wanting the jack unblocked.

Do you need it to be free or are you okay with paying a few dollars per month?

I think you'll need to rethink your scoring for the defense. The defense should get at least two points for taking 3 tricks (ie a euchre) otherwise there's not much downside to wildly declaring trump.

FWIW, here's how I understand GIB to work in regards to the second hand. GIB starting by bidding Stayman is quite normal. Once it knows that there's a heart fit what GIB does is run simulations to decide what to do. When playing with the standard robots the sample size of those simulations is relatively small. So, it decided that based upon the results that bidding 4♥ was the winning bid. This time it didn't work out but statistically it should in the long run.