Ant590

rogerclee/cherdano bidding now

I have a meeting at 16.00GMT, so if xasanya can start at 20.15IST (14.45GMT) that should give me enough time to get from my office to the meeting room after the bidding.

I can be online in about 20/30 mins from now if that's a help.

Hi all. If inquiry tells me how to help I've bid the hands and am happy to lend a hand.

Many thanks to Hanoi for hosting our session! A great set of boards (sadly, not a great set of results natch).

Anyone free to host in about 40mins/1hour from now? (about 20:30UK, 15:30NY, 12:30LA)

I get very tired with inconsistent rulings from the EBU on these matters. I am on the board of a league where a player passed his partner's 2NT opening when he decided he was not going to try for slam, but to play in 3NT. Letters were written, and we eventually consulted a National level director, who allowed an adjustment to the board. I had read threads previously on here and the old laws site which suggested that, in the UK at least, such "intended" brain farts could not be changed, but I kept quiet as I have no qualifications in opposition to a National director. In any respect, I do not even play in the League, so the ruling had no material effect for me. I really think that there should be some education here, even to the well qualified directors. Disclaimer: I may be mistaken with the exact specifics of the case as I only saw the letters, rather than the director's ruling or anything at the actual table.

Penalty. I might not describe them as penalty opposite a partner who believes that 'penalty' means pass regardless of your hand and the context of the auction.

When BBO ran 18 board $1 matchpoint & IMP robot duplicates they were a bit of a failure in terms of participation, which was a real shame as I thought they were good value. It seems that people like their 25c of fun only really.

Akin to the reason why you declare more, it may well be the case that by having more points you are endplayed into making more dangerous leads at trick one compared to the GiBs.

Every reasonable or better player I know plays it as big balanced. In fact when I want to quickly assess how bad a pair are in a club game I look to the balancing 2NT bid to see if how they play it.

It was not so much what to alert that was my concern, more that in a bidding room partner can see our alerts. Given all the talk about system notes earlier I presumed this would be an issue!

P.s. The reason why I care about the alerts is in the last round it allowed an opponent to make a natural 2♥ overcall over a 1♥ transfer we made, which meant our auction was similar to the other tables rather than getting lucky because of an artificial bid.

But at a bidding table we can see each other's alerts. I'm sure we can trust people not to press the movie button as much as we can trust them not to be on the phone during the competition.

I guess most people will have seen the Vuvuzela concertos by now, but they're pretty good!

Was Mr. Piltch late to the table then, or did he deal one board in the time you took to deal 3? It would seem weird for neither side to mention that Mr. Piltch was absent for the majority of the dealing. If he dealt only the one, it seems mighty fishy that he remembers which one it was so well when no one else at the table did.

Blimey, just realised that GiB on a quantum computer will be able to simulate every possible hand in a fraction of a second.

In my experience, only ~20% of multi players play that responder's 2♠ is invitational in hearts, the majority play that it is a preemptive raise to 3♥ (to play opposite a weak 2♠ bid), with most invites starting with a 2NT bid from responder.

That doesn't seem to fit in with your general aim of penalising them when it's right to do so. My perspective is that a system that is geared towards penalties of what is usually a standard 2M opener is not as sound as one which is geared to taking-out into our fit(s). Of course against an assumed fit preempt like the Ekrens, a penalty oriented scheme seems prudent.

It seems to me that people who fix hands like (as suspected) this character are really dumb. Surely you'd make a more simple hand like a 2-way finesse, which would be far less hard to notice but be a +EV over quite a short time.

For whats its worth, we replicated the same auction +1

We (almost) had the simpler auction 1♣ - 7NT on our table until I tried to be scientific and ask partner if he has a possible source of tricks in the auction, completely forgetting that I should just blast to 7 anyway. 1♣ - 2♣(1) 2♦(2) - 2N(3) 3NT - 5NT(4) 6NT (1) Clubs GF or balanced GF (2) Any minimum (<14 ish) (3) Balanced GF, asking for 4 card majors (4) Quant to 7NT

wow, no votes for Serenity (until now...)

Thanks for the awesome answer Wayne!

Sure. I only put this to demonstrate there was a line where it was demonstrably correct to play the ten, in order to phrase the question where the "probably right to" line may be.