G_R__E_G

Declarer probably isn't 3=5=1=4, he opened 1NT. But you are correct that calling bidding the grand insane is an exaggeration. I'll go with "overly optomistic" instead.

I was pretty close. Bidding a grand with the actual hand seems insane so it's pretty hard to reconstruct. Was there extra information we should have known like someone trying for a late swing or a history of making insane bids?

Put me down for a heart too. I'm thinking LHO has 16HCP and a void. Maybe he's 4=5=4=0.

It's funny that this topic just came up considering that I'm pretty sure that my partner played a hand as badly as it can be played on Friday night. To make matters worse she seemed to have dipped into some sort of fog and even after it happened she didn't realize the mistake. We were playing Swiss teams at our club and it was the 18th hand of the night and it was the first time she had been declarer. The ops have bid and raised hearts up to 4♥ and she sacrificed to 4♠ which was doubled. We were white on white and taking what should have been -100 against the cold -420 was a great sacrifice. I had ♥KQ9 and when the opening lead came through me my king was covered by the ace and partner dropped the 10. I'm mentally begging my LHO to return a heart but he's normally a decent player so the odds are pretty much zero. Well I guess he had a brain fart and he returned a heart into my Q9 tenace. So what does partner do? Ruffs it of course. Then she can't back over to my hand without losing the lead so instead of getting to get rid of her two small diamond losers on my two good hearts she proceeds to lose those two diamond tricks. So down 3 wasn't really a great success. I asked her why she ruffed the heart at trick two but the only answer she was able to come up with was that it was her first hand of the night. I really want to ask if she meant to say "the first hand of her life" but I'm too nice to do that. :angry:

Too funny. I was born and raised in Orangeville and spent the first 30 years of my life there. Unfortunately I didn't start playing bridge until I was 34. As a strange coincidence, I was actually friends with Eric Murray's son back in high school and often went over to their house. However, I had no clue who Eric Murray was at the time.

I'm a club director and I direct ~ once a week. I'm sure if you were to ask them, 99% of the players that have played at my club would tell you that I'm a wonderful director and that they love to play in my games. If at any time any of you do me the pleasure of coming to Midland to play in one of my games, please keep in mind that I like to keep the rounds at about 7 minutes per board. Please don't take up 5 1/2 minutes explaining all of the possible hands and follow-ups to a Lebensohl alert just because one of our LOL's politely turns to you after you say alert and says "Yes". PS We're only a 75 minute drive north of Toronto, maybe you could pop by after the NABC next summer. Forum members that can keep their alert explanations to less than 20 seconds can stay at my place for free and I'll even give you a free play at the club.

From the web client click on "Help" at the top/middle of the screen. Then click on "The Rules of This Site". There is a section in that which deals with the alert guidelines.

I prefer to have three than to have two and I too voted for bidding game. (also note that I managed to get all three of "to, two and too" in one sentence).

The preceding post does not contain a question mark.

Unless I'm missing something, you still have to guess whether to drop the stiff K or stiff J offside. That's a very good point (although my first thought was to say "Well obviously"). Forgetting about the restricted choice ramifications for now, even if you just look at the 2=1 or 3=0 break situation, you will always play the right card when you play for the 3=0 break but you'll only play the right card half the time if you play for a 2=1 break. So the 2=1 break would have to be twice as likely for it to be the correct play. It's actually pretty interesting to look at it if you assume that the opposing spades are 4=7. This would leave West with 8 vacant spaces (he's known to have 1 heart and 4 spades) and East with 6 vacant spaces. This would make the odds of a 2=1 split 46.15%. If you eliminate the KJ/x case then divide by two you get 15.38%. As it turns out, the odds of a 3=0 break with the above parameters is also 15.38%. So, assuming West would ever play the jack from Jx then it tips the scales in favour of playing the ten. And of course, any chance of East having more than 7 spades makes playing the ten even better.

Hi taresan - welcome to the forums. Rather than downloading the software I'd highly recommend playing via the newer flash version which does not require a download. Simply follow this link: http://www.bridgebase.com/client/client.php

According to Richard Pavlicek's suit calculator, if we give East 6 vacant spaces and give West 13 vacant spaces (which pushes the odds as far as you can to a 3=0 break) then the numbers are 48.3% for a 2=1 break and 29.5% for a 3=0 break (0=3 break is now impossible and a 1=2 break can be ignored). Even if we eliminiate 1/3 of the 2=1 breaks since KJ/x is no longer possible, that still leaves the 2=1 break as being slightly more likely. Am I missing something?

200 years is a looooong time in this day and age - it will be an even longer time 200 years from now. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that within 200 years it will have gotten back together and then split apart again.

An exclamarion mark followed immediately by an h, d, c or s gives the symbols. No space between the exclamation and the letter.

One thing is for certain; assuming it was cheating his partner wasn't in on it. If he could have trusted his partner to answer 4♦ to a double then this wouldn't have raised many eyebrows.

Just say "Finesse" and let everyone look at the cards and figure it out for themselves. It's easier that way.

NHL Rules I asked a NHL junkie and double checked it against the NHL site. Refs cannot impose a misconduct penalty against a player for the next game. The film is sent to Toronto who makes the decision on a suspension. That is correct and further to that it's probably only about 5% of game misconducts that result in further suspensions in the NHL.

I voted that I am a lurker. I mostly visit the forums when I'm at work and I will typically just do a quick scan of what's being talked about. I generally do not take the time to post. For further proof consider my number of posts and the fact that I've been visiting the forums for a few years now.

I guess practice doesn't make perfect after all. :)

I got the impression that the declarer admitted at the time that he had revoked but it was hard to know for sure - he seemed a little.....shall we say dazed.

Thanks guys - it looks like I did the right thing. In regards to the "For some reason..." I will do a minor thread hijack of my own thread. I run the bridge club in Midland, Ontario, Canada. We had experienced a 5.5 earthquake in the afternoon (which might be nothing for Californians but it freaked us out a bit). Then about 30 minutes before game time a tornado hit the south end of town doing quite a bit of damage. Needless to say everyone was a little shook up but since the power was on at our end of town we didn't cancel bridge. I assumed that the poor judgement in not calling me may have had something to do with everyone not thinking straight so I just gave them a gentle reminder about calling when an irregularity happens. Here are some pictures of the damage: http://ca.wrs.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0wNdL9ZxyNMB...ay%26type=photo

ACBL land, club game. I was called to a table after the hand had been played but all four players still had their cards on the table. There was a revoke made by declarer on the fourth trick and all players were in agreement to this. What had happened was a defender was on lead and played a low spade (contract was no trump), declarer discarded and so did the other defender and the trick was won by a high spade in dummy. At this point the defender who had lead the trick said "Something funny is going on here" because he knew that there were still spades out. As it turns out declarer did still have a spade or two. So, rather than call the Director for some reason they decided to play the hand out. So, they are all guilty of not calling me after attention was call to the irregularity. The declarer then allowed the revoke to become established by continuing to play. Should I have ruled exactly like a normal revoke or not? If it matters, the defenders were very experienced players who should have known better than to keep playing, declarer was a novice.

Righty bid freely after the redouble - despite the fact that they obviously have very few points. This would make me shocked if they didn't have both the K and the J but if I'm to hope they are missing one of them it would definitely be the jack.

I had this hand Friday evening. The auction at our table was 2NT - All pass. The ♠10 was my choice as well.

I gave up alcohol once (as I was concerned I was drinking too much - silly me). I really didn't find it all that difficult. I have never attempted to give up bacon as I've never been concerned that I had a bacon problem. If you'd like I will give bacon up for 12 months and get back to you on my experience. PS Do I need to give up side bacon and back bacon? I'm Canadian and back bacon is kinda special to us up here.