coyot

2/1GF is as easy as you make it (or as complicated as you make it.) In the crudest variant, all you need are the following definitions: 1♠-2♥ promises 5card and 12 HCP 1x-2m promises 4card and 12 HCP 1M-1NT is forcing for one round and asking you to bid (in that order of priority) 6 in opening suit, 4 in other major if strength allows, next best minor otherwise. (all with hands up to 17HCP) and natural bids 2NT and higher with 18+HCP. I would say that once you get a good feel of this, it will be much EASIER to use than a system where 2/1 is 10+ - you will maybe land in a few bad partscores, buy you'll hardly miss a game... There are a lot of "easy" additions to enhance the system later: - playing 1M-1NT as semiforcing (i.e. passable with very minimum hands) - playing 2/1 as either GF or 9-11 with a good suit - playing 1x-2y-2NT as 12-14 OR 18-19 and 3NT as 15-17 directly. - defining 1x-2♦ as 5card and 1x-2♣ as 3+card - adding some major suit raises like Bergen/Hardy to leave only a few possibilites for 2/1 auctions with full support. Then it will become complicated.

Being late to the thread gives me a few things to react to: 1) 1♣ explained as 12+, 4 hearts is perfectly adequate. (If opponents want to know what hands does this deny, they can ask 2) Non-alerted 1♦ is perfectly "normal" bid in the sense that any player has the right to assume that it is natural - and does NOT HAVE to protect himself by enquiring. (Just because the opening bid is strange (and alerted), I don't have to protect myself by ASKING about the meaning of non-alerted bids, the absence of alert indicating they're basically natural) 3) TD does not have to speculate "what might they have done" when awarding adjusted score to the damaged party - he awards one that is the best of the reasonably reachable scores. (I'm not sure about how this works - i.e. if there is a biddable slam IF you play splinters (but not biddable otherswise), I think that the TD should ask the players what methods they use for slam bidding - and if their methods allow the possibility of slam to be reached, adjust for a slam)). 4) 4♦ is a perfectly reasonable contract. If the NS line gets the information that E has a negative bid, there is enough room to find the suit. Candybar, your "opponents are bidding" is not NATURAL opponents are bidding. Remember that the 1♦ response by east is artifical and WEAK, which basically tells NS that they might have enough values. 5) Again, candybar, I don't like the approach that "opponents were expected to ask about the bidding if it was alerted.", especially since the (totally artifical) bid was NOT alerted. Surely you don't expect players to ask about non-alerted bids that are made in response to any alerted bid. 6) South had another chance to enter the auction? NO WAY. LHO promised hearts, RHO promised diamonds, LHO then bid weakly and RHO offered another suit. What is your idea about the hands? RHO seems to have 4-2-5-2 or similar, LHO might have 3-4-2-4... so would you expect south to reenter the auction when neither side has a fit??? Accusing South of hoping for something undeserved just because he plays good bridge and knows when not to reopen??? 7) If opponents (by their failure to alert or by their failure to provide full disclosure) shut our side out from the bidding, there is no need to adjust A+ and A- if it is reasonable to expect our side to find the right bid. A+ and A- adjusts should be used in cases where the board could not be played at all (delay, mishandled cards etc), not where a foul play (intentional or not) by one side led to a strange result. 8) If the 1♦ was alerted AFTER the bidding, the damage is obvious. If it was alerted BEFORE south passed 1♠, then you could talk about him having a 2nd chance to enter the bidding.

I don't think it's worth the fuss to make any official restrictions. Playing TD is always about trust. The only single case where this restriction would actually prevent cheating would be: - kibitzers disallowed - random hands - individual - TD does not have 2nd computer at disposal In all other cases, there would be other ways to cheat, most of them available for non-TDs as well. There is ONE big reason to ALLOW a playing TD to use two accounts - it allows him to solve problems without having to leave the table he plays at. So I would strongly suggest leaving things as they are.

4♥, undoubtedly. Partner's freebid certainly shows some tolerance for spades unless he has really long hearts - so we're looking at 9card and 8card fit and 20 HCP... that makes it worth a shot at game.

I believe only a few people can be logged on with more than 1 account. Doubt your everyday TD can do this,would be a cheaters eldorado if "anyone" can log on with different account at the same time.... You're definitely wrong :D I have two computers at home, both connected to the internet via a smart linux-based box that does DHCP server and firewall etc over my DSL connection. There is absolutely no problem in connecting to BBO on separate accounts over one connection. In fact, I would recommend to every TD that wants to be playing in his own tournament to do the same - TD with one account and play with another. This will allow him to freely move his TD account between tables, solving problems, while his other account can do the playing duties :) Of course, there is the ethical point of view - if you decide to trust the TD that he is not going to cheat, there should be no problem. Yes, it IS a cheater eldorado all the way down. If you have "kibitzers allowed", there is absolutely NO problem in creating a new account to follow yourself through the tournament from a notebook... as there is absolutely no problem in talking to your partner over ICQ (or shouting accros the flat you both live in :)). I play for fun. Good cheaters are never caught - it's only the bad/stupid/too greedy ones that get caught because they become suspicious. If you're happy with some lucky bidding and lucky guessing, you'll never get caught unless someone runs the bridgebrowser on all your hands to determine that your guess ratio for both-side-finesses is WAY over 50%. And when it comes to game-tries or other things, it will be even harder to prove that you've cheated.

1) No, I have a partner with 4 spades to reopen for me. He will be able to determine my heart length and visualize the ruffs (the position is good, my shortness is placed behind the declarer's guaranteed doubleton - so partner with his 4 hearts and 4 spades and 10 HCP will bid 2♠. If he has 2-3 spades only, I'm asking for a slow death by bidding on my own and then getting forced on the wrong side 2) pass. Not good enough to go onto 3rd level with a minor 3) bid 2♠ - it is quite likely that we have at least 5-2 misfit.

Actually, if there are only three of them, they might be arranging a bridge session as well... here, in a country that neighbors with Poland, we have the term of "Polish train bridge" describing a common situation where you commute somewhere with 2 friends and a pack of cards - so you deal normally and the dealer plays 2NT doubled :)

Am I missing something? Squeeze without rectifying the count? (Not to mention that there is not much in the sense of communication :) - and which suit will you use for squeezing anyway?

It seems that we're going to need the spade finesse unless we make 5 heart tricks. (3 clubs, 3 diams, 4 hearts and 2 spades.) Therefore we must immediately finesse spades and if this succeeds, ride 7 of hearts, unless it gets covered. Win return, cash king of hearts and clubs, cross with diamonds and hope that the other heart honor falls under the ace. If spade finesse loses, we still have the small chance of QJ doubleton in hearts anywhere.

I don't have any problem rebidding clubs twice. My partner KNOWS that 2♣ may be done on 5card with this shape and not enough strength to reverse. I might occasionally end up in a bad partscore on 6 trumps, but I don't really care. I don't want to open 1♦ and rebid the longer clubs later and I dont want to rebid 1NT, because getting partner into 4♠ on a bad fit with playable 3NT is not a good idea...

I don't think you should worry about being too predictable. As far as I know, in most cases benefits from 1) reaching the right contract or 2) giving partner the appropriate information are usually worth MORE than 1) giving the same information to opps. In other words, if you know LOTT and know exactly how to use it, how to make adjustments to it etc., you'll be long-term better off than without it, despite telling ops. (The beauty of LOTT is that it usually works and yields good results.) (In fact, your ability to adjust the amount of tricks by other factors than the length of fit will assure that your information is not 100% reliable and usable by opps.) Noone thinks bidding 1NT is bad because it tells opps what your hand looks like - because telling partner AND taking the 1NT spot is more important. The same applies to LOTT.

Confirm that one - I read from work and home and I don't see the same posts twice. Might be something else. Are you using the same browser on both computers? And is it a good browser? :D)

I open 1♣ and rebid 2♣ if the club suit is any good. If diamonds are good and clubs crappy, I might open diamonds and rebid clubs. I NEVER open/rebid 1NT with singleton in partner's suit. This seems to cause a lot of problems, the hand lacks communication and I run the risk of partner deciding to bid game on misfit. (or even 6fit)

This I know.... but is it alertable IF by partnership agreement you open 1NT on 15/17 ANY shape only count? Not debating how smart or daft it is,just if it's alertable? :) thx in advance Of course it is. ANY unexpected partnership agreement is alertable.

TD ruling is insane. Unless the tournament rules specifically prohibit 1NT opening on singleton, it is perfectly OK to bid 1NT on this hand, because the opener then takes the risk of playing 4M on 6-1 fit. On the other hand, North's judgement smells fishy. I see absolutely no logic in wanting to play 3NT with guaranteed fit and two doubletons. The sad thing is that unless bridgebrowser can extract enough data to find a few similar north hands where he bid 4♠ instead, there is absolutely no way to prove that they were cheating. I would personally swallow the bitter pill and put both guys on my enemylist :) - because where for accusation of cheating you need a proof, marking someone as enemy has no requirements. My enemy list is populated both by rude morons and by folks that play strange bridge - and not bidding obvious 4♠ here is either strange or cheating.

My rule for overcalls/preempts would be: Bid by preempt when I'm not interested in any extra information from partner, I do not posses good defensive values AND my preempt will make life harder for opps. Here, 1♠ seems like a bad bid... You don't give a jackpoop to what will your partner say, you're going to bid 4♠ in any case, so bid it immediately. Furthermore, 1♠ bid looks like 5-6card with some values, which causes partner to double, seeing 9card spade suit (and therefore hoping for 1 spade trick, diamond ace and some good values that you have promised by not preempting with your spade 6card. I imagine that you promised something like KJxxxx-x-Kxx-AJx. If the hand is any weaker, 2♠ jump overcall is better. If it is one king stronger, you will still bid the same way. Even with KJxxxx-x-KQx-AKx you would most likely overcall 1♠ and then bid 4♠. As for strong overcalls: If you happen to have a hand that wants to play 4♠ to make, you can easily start with a double and THEN bidding 4♠ over whatever bid reaches you from opps or partner. If you need 2 tricks from partner, you can overcall 1♠ and see if he has anything to say - if not, bid 3♠ on your own...

Write to uday at bridgebase.com and ask for the TD status. And I recommend you read all the threads here that involve complaints against TDs - so that you will know what to avoid ;)

I think that the bidding went wrong on 4th level. 1♠-1NT 3♣-4♣ Now bid 4♠! It will tell partner that you have 6-4 shape with GOOD spades (and, seeing his empty clubs, he will infer that you most likely don't have any red honors.) Let partner decide whether his red cards are working by showing your black suit lengths :).

I don't think that adjusting either board to 4♠ is fair. If someone opens artifical STRONG club, I will bid 5♣ with the South hand (borrowing one red trick from partner for a safe -500 against a likely game. Will they double me or will they gamble 5♠? In both cases, the damage to NS line was clear in the very first round of bidding (a natural 1♣ opener strongly suggests weak NT hand with both major 4cards, over which noone will want to preemt 5♣.)

With any 14, accept... If it goes down, blame partner for a lousy invite, because you might as well accept with a good 13 :). (His invite is borderline - if you have 2 spades, it usually does not make.)

Feature ask works fine for me. If your weak 2's are undisciplined, you only need to deny a feature even if you have it. Basically it works ALMOST the same way as Ogust. Ogust distinguishes minimum with good and bad suit (which FA hides into one bid), but the maximum and bad suit bid of Ogust is too ambiguous - FA allows for much better combined hand evaluation.

Agree. My defense would be to cash my heart tricks and hope that partner has good trumps for doubling. I will not bother planning defense for any case where partner has 3 hearts, because I know that he would NOT double with any such holding... (even doubleton heart might be dangerous... It took me about 3 years to learn to pass unless I really have the values that my bid promises. I have absolutely no problem with passing a hand that is void in partner's suit and contains 5 bad points - or contains 3card support and 4-5 bad points. I would never discover the right line to defend the above hand correctly, because partner's double definitely painted a VERY different picture for me.

Par result is the one that "should" be achieved on a particular board, meaning that if either side bids, they're gonna get worse result than they would get by passing. We're not taking into account "miraculous" declarer or defense play, we're just assuming "good" play on both sides, in the sense that most of the "good" players in the field will make it. If 4♥ makes for 620 and 4♠ goes down for 500, par of the board is 4♠ doubled down three. If 4♥ makes +1 for 650, par of the same board would be 5♥ just made, because overbidding 4♠ gives better result for the heart line - and the spade line should pass because they'd go down 4 for 800 in 5♠. At least this would be my definition of par: best practically reachable result in which good pairs should end (barring exotic bidding systems, psyches or strange overcalls). Par need not be the best theoretical result. If you bid 4M and go down one when defense gets a ruff that you could not anticipate in the bidding, 4M down one should still be the par of the board, although 3NT will make on the some board due to some lucky breaks or blocked suit...

Play with the field. If partner opens 2NT against yarborough, bad luck, let him live with it, knowing that most other pairs end up in the same mess. Make runouts only when doubled. 4♦ after stayman MUST be reserved for good hands, preventing an occasional bad result is not worth losing slam-exploration.

Happy to play in 3♠. The hands don't go together well at all and the bidding says it all. Maybe the responder could use 2NT (Ogust or feature ask) and back out when he hears about a minimum hand. Going into 3NT with one club stopper and no likely entries to spades is too risky unless the opener shows some extras. Give yourself heart jack instead of diamond jack and this thread does not exist ;)