SoTired

One philosophy is that a 5-6 opening bid is automatically worth a reverse. Not a bad philosophy. Works well if you have a fit, which is likely, because the playing strength of the 5-6 is huge. If you don't adhere to that policy, open 1S and show a 5-5.

If you change one of South's small clubs to a small spade, 3N still goes down and 4H still makes and nobody would fault South for opening 1N. 100% blame to North for not bidding Stayman, which is a basic bid. North needs a refresher. My guess is North did not bid Stayman and wants to blame South for the zero. Sorry - South's bid may be a poor choice, but North's bid is definitely wrong.

i have a different ranking system for others. It runs 1 to 6. 1 - too poor for me. i cannot tolerate to partner 2 - poor player, but tolerable if i am in a good mood 3 - not as good as me, but a tolerable partner 4 - about equal to me 5 - better than me, but still willing to play with me 6 - much better than me and will not play with me I think this is a more useful ranking system. the interesting thing is that players that i might rank a 1, also have players that are too poor for them to tolerate.

Turn a small diam into a small spad... then is it dbl? Turn a small card into another ace, then what?

To me #1 and #3 is contradictory. If you would have passed 5♣ as north (you can't think it's forcing, can you?), how could south NOT raise 5♥ with his hand? With your #1 in mind, it's almost obvious to bid the grand.... uhh, I hate to speak for someone else, but I took #1 pass comment not as pass over 5C, but as pass in 1st seat. No sane person would pass 5C with 5-card support and a near opener. Not playing a 2-suited bid, I think South has a clear 4H overcall, which would entice North to bid 6H. Over 5H, South should wake up to the original underbid and bid 6H. As a matter of fact, I would think about grand and bid 6C over 5H. The ♠xx is of little concern because maybe North has a spade control or maybe they won't lead it. What? You've never gone down in a slam?

3H is only bid. dbl is wrong. pass is wimpy. Would probably bid 3H with a Q less; maybe a K

So a person who is proud of their accomplishment is not as good as someone who does not care whether they win or lose? So being proud of winning a gold medal at the olympics only proves that you are not that good???? Is that your logic? What a bunch of rubbish.

No you are not. Noone who posts so many questions, baring their potential mistakes for all the world to see and risking looking like an <insult> could possibly be described as too sensitive. I bet there are many B/I lurkers who would like to post, but do not have the nerve. They could not tolerate being told they are wrong; that they made a mistake; that they are unworthy. Those lurkers are grateful to you. And even if some of the questions are repeated, it is new to the new lurker.

I would take a 5D bid as a que-bid showing support for clubs, and interest in grand. You made your bed when you gambled a takeout dbl with a singleton. Now you just have to sit.

Unfortunately, bridge is different than almost any other game/sport. If you are an expert bowler, chess player, baseball player, tennis player, sudoku player, or whatever, and you walk into a game with strangers, it will not take long for them to recognize your abilities. Not so with bridge. A top expert could play at a local game for weeks and except for a pattern of success (which may not even occur), no one would recognize his expertise. I can just imagine overhearing this conversation: "He seems to play the cards well, but I saw him open a weak 2 on Qxxxxx, so he is missing some basic bidding skills." "Yes, I know what you mean. I played with him last week and he dbled an opening 4S bid with only 3 sure tricks and no spades. They made it easily for a bottom for us." Self-rating does not work. A person learns bridge, plays for a while and assumes intermediate. He plays with another intermediate who fouls up the declarer play on a hand, so he figures, "What a louse. If he is intermediate, I must be advanced." Then he plays with a few advanced players and they don't signal properly, so "I must be an expert." Alternatively, if you mark yourself honestly as intermediate, you will never get any decent partners. Now I read that everyone claims masterpoints are no good; Ratings are a disaster; And someone said that even good accomplishments are not a good measure either. I'll paraphrase an old saying, "Everybody sucks except for you and me... and I am not so sure about you."

I am trying to figure out the purpose of the dbl. Extra strength values? Diam stack penalty? Takeout? This hand has none of these things. I see no purpose or reason for anything other than passing 3D.

Why not? If you bid 1♥ on four and partner raised with say 1354, you'd prefer to play 3♦ instead of 3♥, at least at IMPs. Completely disagree. If you have a min response with 4♥, it makes no sense that you would want to leave a probable 4-4 major fit at the 2-level to play in a minor contract at the 3-level. So the only reason why you would want to bid 3D is a game-try showing a double fit. True, you could be 4♥5♦ and if opener wants to reject the game-try, playing a 5-4 3D fit is superior to playing a 4-3 3H contract. But that particular situation is rare, so it does not make sense catering to it and therefore losing all the other game-try (or even slam-try) cases when you want 3D to be forcing.

Excuse me, I have to ask. Exactly what planet are you from? :) Should! Is this wishful thinking or projection? :) If you take offense, I apologize in advance for this post. It is late and I am still dumb-struck by the clever weaselness and reverse weaselness in the "UI?" thread.

Yup - found it. A BoD member wrote an article on the Internet about Las Vegas. See http://www3.sympatico.ca/jonathan.st/board082.html

checked ACBL website and see nothing about this. Where did you hear it?

inverted minors agree after a 2/1, what bids are forcing and which are not agree if reverse after a 2/1 shows reverse strength or not support dbls & redbls

Can't be. If one player alerts and the next player says, "Explain" and the alerter then explains the alert, this constrains the partner of the person who said, "Explain"???? Nonsense. Too many lawyers

1C (p) 1H=spades: X= hearts 1S = takeout everything else is natural overcall Same with 1C (p) 1D=hearts: X = diam 1H = takeout everything else is natural

nothing to q-bid, but still interested in slam. trump honor(s) and Q's like in actual hand seems about right. Even if not playing "Serious 3N" this meaning seems clear, at least to me.

One reason for defining 2H super negative to be less than K+, QQ, or QJJ, but not JJJJ (according to the original article I read from Mike Lawrence) is it allows opener or responder to bail in a part-score in certain sequences. This allows you to open 2C on slightly wider range of hands, particularly those that have spades. 2C-2H-2S-2N/3x-3S is NF Playing 2nd super negative with same weakness definition, responder can also bail on non-Kokish 2C-2D-2H-<2nd neg>-3H or Kokish 2C-2D-2H-2S-3H

I think you are dead wrong that beginners are taught garbage stayman (1N 2C 2D 2H = weak 4+/4+ majors). I think that is an advanced bid. If you ask a normal B/I what "garbage stayman" is, you will likely get the answer that with a weak 4450, you bid stayman and pass opener's rebid. The original Goren/Std American method of showing an invitational major 5-4 was 1N-2C-2D-2M where M is the 5-card major. And 1N-2C-2D-3M was 5-4 GF. Smolen's change was to bid the 4-card major rather than the 5-card major. Once you add true Garbage Stayman, then you need to replace the invitational 5h/4s sequence 1N-2C-2D-2H. Many players use 1N-2D-2H-2S for 5h/4s, but keep the 1N-2C-2D-2S for 5s/4h. How are B/I's usually taught to show a major 5-5? Show a 5-4, then if opener returns to NT, insist on the 2nd 5-card major. Some are taught that a 5-5 is shown by transfer and bid other major. Hearts then spades is invitational, spades then hearts is GF. Forgive most B/I for forgetting which is which, since it does not come up very often. HOWEVER, once you get to the Advanced/Expert end of the player spectrum, the entire NT sequences diverge and there is no standard anymore.

It is commonly played by non-experts (and some stubborn experts) that dbl of preempt 4H is takeout/negative, but dbl of 4S+ is penalty. These are probably the same players that want preempts to have 2 of top 3 honors.

I think someone posted a hand somewhere (here?) with J-7th of clubs and out, showing how clever they were passing out 2C because they hit opener with a balanced 2N, in the only contract that makes. Many posters replied saying the passer got lucky and the pass wasn't clever at all. In fact just the opposite. I was too much in shock that someone actually thot passing 2C was "clever"

3D/4D. Since there is no way to invite and show a 5-5 at the same time, we settle for GF Stayman. That will find a 5-4 fit. 4D will force partner to choose a major. It should be a good game. If we bid 2S, we might play it there, missing a good game or a better fit in hearts If we bid 3S, partner will raise to 4S with 3s & 4h and we miss the better fit.

I believe one of our posters has one of my all time favorite articles at http://www.poorbridge.com/?pbotw=9, which is a slam made on 18 HCP (3 of which were not needed).