Ant590

Further to Matt's questions here are two that I recently struggled with (f2f): 11) You deal and pass. LHO opens the auction 1♠: pass – (1♠) – dbl – (2 ♠) 2NT which you mean as a preliminary to signing off (i.e. Leb). This is apartnership agreement. No alert... 2NT – (pass) – 3♣ do you alert before bidding you 3♥, or not? 12)Your LHO opens 1NT, for which your (previously discussed) defense is 2♣=majors, rest natural. (1NT) – pass – (pass) – 2♦ this is alerted and explained as spades and another... (pass) – 2♥ so this is meant as "bid your 5 card suit", but in your frame it is natural. Do you alert? Does the context of you hand make a difference (e.g. if you believe you would pass 2♥ with no UI?)

An option that would let you keep you "2NT is never natural" meta-rule would be to play that both 2NT and 2S show raises of clubs in this sequence. You could separate one to be three cards, one four, else one showing a stop and one denying a stop. I'm not saying this is a better treatment than a natural 2NT in this sequence but it keeps you rule intact.

Hey everyone, I was wondering if there was any consensus amongst experts on what the sequences (1NT*) - 3x and (1NT*) - p - (p) - 3x mean? * 12-14 If one plays 2♣ and 2♦ as artificial I presume then 3♣/♦ are natural, but supposing you play natural overcalls what would these show? How would they differ to doubling then bidding your suit? Many thanks

Ctrl-W switches the window between the two modes. AFAIK there is no way to resize to any other proportion...

I used the flash client again on my Mac with safari yesterday- a couple of thoughts... 1) When watching a team game it seems impossible to see the current score. 2) Having to click on 'myhands' to see the results of other table in the MBC is counter-intuitive I think, especially if one is only kibbing. 3) When playing in the MBC you can't see the score for the last hand, merely the total. 4) Having NSEW in the bidding area is a backwards step from the PC interface imho. 5) The chat interface needs a lot of work. It is far too easy to click on someone to see their profile and then accidentally chat to them. Moreover reselecting chat to table / chat to kibs is irksome, especially as a slow computer such as mine seems to take an age drawing menus in flash. 6) I'm getting used to "Table ->" now, although it still seems unnecessary.

I was wondering if the inclusion of partnership bidding is possible in the near future of BBOFLASH? I probably use this room as often as I play, if not more and it'd be great to not have to borrow a PC when I need to. It is often this feature that I promote when I try to convince current players to try BBO for the first time.

[hv=d=n&v=n&n=sajxhaxxdjxxckq8x&s=skqxxxxxhtxdxctxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP 1♣ - (1♦) - 4♠ - (pass) pass - (5♦) - pass - (pass) 5♠ - all pass[/hv] Left hand opponent leads a small diamond, won by East with the ace. Then a turn up for the books, East cashes the club ace and returns a small diamond. Adv+ please reply in invisible ink... hopefully someone will agree with the line I was very pleased to find at the table :)

I think Hardy advocated that #6 is a hand that thinks it can't get a positive enough score from defending NT doubled, but for certain has game values and quite possibly slam aspiration. It's in his 2/1 book if anyone wants me to name my source :P

I'm rather keen on a 3♣ inv+ fit jump

Hi all, I've just been reading through the ACBL Summer 2002 casebook (http://web2.acbl.org/casebooks/Washington_DC_Sum02.pdf) and was wondering if anyone could clear up two points for me... 1) When polling players of a similar standard are any other factors other than masterpoints taken into account? I was alarmed at the commentary from case 8; a player who is improving but fairly new to the game would surely balance on this hand, yet the poll suggests his/her peers (presumably accurately) would not. This leads on to q2: 2) I consider myself, rightly or wrongly, better than my masterpoint level- having been playing for four years but being a keen student of the game. I've only ever had the pleasure of attending one appeal (opp were offending side, we called to get ruling at table which they challenged... I'm sure Matt -Echognome- will remember it better than I!); our the committee's ruling was largely based on our opponents' skill level as opposed to bridge 'logic'. This leads me to believe that the EBU policy is similar to the ACBL one in terms of polling and LAs... do I need to start documenting the fact that I like to balance when the opps have a fit etc to cover myself?

Hi, In a non-2/1GF system, what do people play a ) 1♥-2♣-3♥-4♣ b ) 1♠-2♥-3♥-3♠ as? I'd especially like to hear from people familiar with an acol interpretation, but it's more the thought process and other systemic devices that facilitate the meanings you would use that I'm interested in. FYI: With regards to (a): We play 1C-something-3NT as a long running suit with extras outside (compared to opening 3NT with long running suit with nothing outside). Currently we are playing 1M-something-3NT as this too, but I think this is a bad plan. I know of a pair who use 1M-something-3NT as a long non-solid suit and 1M-something-3H as a long semi-solid+ suit, and thus play 4C in (a) as a control bid... is this viable in your opinion?

I was told by someone that psyching in short suits is a bad idea because they're already splitting badly, so we want the opps to play there. 3 or 2 card suits however...

Very nice! Will take a bit of getting used to but so did the new colour scheme before. A couple of things that have frustrated me so far: 1) Agree with the others' comments about the border of the cards and the blue border of the main window 2) There is a strange object that follows the tip of my mouse- it looks like a scroll wheel or something 3) When watching vugraph commentary the format "NAME -> table" takes up too much space. Perhaps if the chat is to the table it shouldn't say, but if personally to you it should? 4) I'm not keen on the placement of the other room score, it's not obvious what it is unless you know (i.e. could be par or something) Ant.

This is a lead problem, yeah? Are all the bids natural?

This sounds interesting... what did you play in response if responder passed? What did you do with 13+ balanced hands? Ant.

Hmmm, am I more excited about the possible announcement of new iMacs on Tuesday or the possible release of Flash-BBO on Friday? :P

Hi, When I operated the vugraph in the EBU Spring 4's one pair had their FD file on a disc and gave it to me before we began. I thought this was a great idea (and it was most useful for the commentators as they were playing a strong club-relay system); I think it would be a shame to phase out the ability to have some kind of FD in place. Flash is great news, I must admit that BBO is one of the few programs keeping me from completely moving to my Mac (which is too old for the fancy dual-booting stuff etc). The worrying thing that you mentioned Fred was the ability for people to log in anomalously. This strikes me as an issue in a few areas, specifically 1) cases of abuse, 2) harder for new players to establish a presence on BBO- I for one don't allow any Private profiles to my table and therefore new members who don't think it is usual to have a profile are likely to be faced with many rejections initially which may be unhelpful. But hurrah in general :(

But doesn't 2NT as a club pre-empt give LHO two bids rather than the one that a natural 3C pre-empt gives? A good pair will surely have defined meanings for moving over 2NT and balancing over 2NT-p-3C-p-p-?

Hi, I was wondering if the two access routes: ServerHostName1=bbo.bridgebase.com ServerPort1=9999 and ServerHostName1=sat.bridgebase.com ServerPort1=80 are still working as per this thread on July 10th? I've recently moved to a new network and the people running it are trying to help me get BBO working (thanks guys :P )and I just wanted to confirm that the issue is this end. Is there anything I should be asking them in particular to look for/change in their settings? I've told them that "BBO makes a single outbound connection on TCP port 9999 to bbo.bridgebase.com" as per the FAQs. My issue is that I'm getting the blue bar saying "Logging on. Please wait..." and then nothing happens for a while and I get the box saying "Connection lost. Reconnecting..." then finally after half an hour or so I get a grey box saying "The connection with Bridge Base Online has been lost. Please long in again. (0)".

Hi, I've posted this in here cus I'm hoping for expert advice, rather than because they are expert problems (I think)... Playing at a local duplicate, not a terribly high standard. Relevant System 12-14 NT 4 card majors Three weak 2s Many thanks, Antony. --------------------------- Question 1 You hold [hv=d=e&v=n&s=sqxhajxdjxxxcaxxx]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] Partner deals and passes. p - (2♥) - p - (p) - dbl - (p) - ? We reopen with pretty much any 4-1-4-4 9 count here... You annoyingly are playing Lebenshol... do you just bid 3NT or choose a minor to play in, if so which one? Anyone pass? Now some slam decisions --------------------------- Question 2 [hv=d=w&v=e&w=sqj983hkjtd6caqt9&e=sahaq8daj972ckj84]266|100|Scoring: MP (uncontested) 1♠ - 2♦; 2♠ - 3♣; 3NT - 6NT[/hv] So, q2a) The general consensus amongst the people in the room was that 2♠ is an underbid and that West should rebid 3♣, any comments? q2b) 3NT or 4♣? q2c) 6♣ is obviously the place to be. Any ideas how to bid it either with 2♠ or 3♣ rebids? ---------------------------- Question 3 [hv=d=w&v=e&w=sqj983hkjtd6caqt9&e=sahaq8daj972ckj84]266|100|Scoring: MP (uncontested) 1♠ - 2♦; 2♠ - 3♣; 3NT - 6NT[/hv] Happily we both agreed on all of the bid's meanings at the table and this sequence rattled off nicely with the LOLs satisfyingly running out of pass cards. Only afterwards we felt uneasy... (1) We play this as 100% forcing, but do not play XYZ after (2) We play 4sf as forcing to 3NT+ (3) We play first round controls only q3a) I felt this was the only way to make a slam try in spades due to o 2♠ being any minimum with 4 spades, making it hard for lefty to balance o 3♠ is an invite (although in hindsight is this a GF spade hand?] o 4♠ does not invite slam I then took a back seat and watched the play. ♣ Q is lead, and partner won with the Ace on table and advanced a small heart. Happily enough North hopped up with the ace (we presumed this was a bad play?). Any advice on how to proceed now? (full hand to follow)

Wrong again. Edit: If you did use binomial coefficients, you should learn how to use them. I hear the University of Wisconsin has a great class for this, "topics in finite mathematics". Too subtle perhaps - see http://www.math.wisc.edu/~peters/ :(

I'm presuming you bid 1NT and got told off for not bidding 2♥? :) I am also presuming that you were top half and us lower 2nd ?

I'm about to operate for the first time on Tuesday at the Spring fours.... anyone got any tips?

[hv=d=e&v=b&s=sakqj972h9dk7cak5]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] (p) 1♦ (p) 1♠ (p) 2♣ (p) 2♥(1) (x) p (p) ?(2) I'd really appreciate your thoughts on the following... (1) Is 3♠ a better way to proceed? (2) What would you do here? Your agreements limited, but XX from your partner would have shown 1st round heart control; his pass shows a good stop in the suit. Cheers, Ant.

I don't trust my intuition also, but I feel that this method would make in very hard for teams to climb and fall in the rankings in the latter stages of events assuming 11/9 10/8s etc are the most common scores.