glen

... but they won the 2002 World Pairs, an event which includes a five session final

4CM <> Fantoni-Nunes

... and an amazing second post ("The Fifteen Thousand Dollar Question"). Btw very happy you are back blogging JLol

In a four round club rated Swiss last weekend (somewhat smaller than the four session NABC Swiss on the same weekend), we had 4 wins (62 of 80 VPs), with the team that we had beaten by 1 IMP in round 3 winning the event (64 VPs) - you can imagine the number of masterpoints this cost us. While I think the result is fair and right, for the problem of determining which team is "significantly better" the VP scoring compounds the issue beyond the head-to-head match - it makes factors such as first round match-ups very important. I never liked it when extended Europe picked their Bermuda Bowl teams with a single round robin - that meant a team could qualify over another just because they did marginally better massacring weaker teams. IMO, a team that Q'ed this way was not significantly better than the team that barely failed to qualify. I thought that they might just as well throw out the results against the bottom 12% or so of the field before they calculated the final rankings, if they wanted something significant.

4♥ is a Bluhmer - "A call, often a jump bid, which encourages high-level action, usually a slam-try, by denying values opposite partner's short suit." - based on the 1993/12 The Bridge World Jim Foster article, and named after ACBL Hall of Fame member Lou Bluhm. I will now turn this over to Ken.

It's nice to see Cayne's rep well on the mend: The Rebirth of Jimmy Cayne

this

holy ******* ****!

" intent to deceive" is misleading here. Simply explain 1♣ as artificial, forcing, and either 16+ or 10-15 with less than 5 losers.

Not so. Item 3 under "responses and rebids": "CONVENTIONAL RESPONSES WHICH GUARANTEE GAME FORCING OR BETTER VALUES. May NOT be part of a relay system." True - thus conventional responses above 1♦ would be allowed when they promise game forcing or better values.

This is correct - the opening would be legal if always 10+, but to play conventional responses above 1♦ would require the 1♣ opening to always be 15+.

f2f: 3♥ w/ self-alert - Pass (w/o asking) - ? f2f with screens: 3♥ w/ self-alert, written down (partner only hears the writing), screen-mate writes back "GL"

This is related to the DipS... double

1) Has anybody disagreed with you yet? 2) I'm glad that Non-Natural System Discussion has returned to, well, non-natural system discussions, after 300+ legal postings

Please see: Bridgeguys: Montreal Relay Note that Mr. Eric now lives in Toronto, and has not yet invented the Toronto Relay. The book "Some Issues of Intermediate Bridge and the Montreal Relay Plus System" by Rosenthal is detailed and interesting, but hard to get at this time.

One of the best business blogs had this link-2-another-blog post today: Clusterstock: The Failed CEO Retraining Program What I didn't understand is why somebody would deal away an excellent NPC Btw last time I posted something in this topic in the Water Cooler (a link to a cover story in Fortune), the mods deleted it - let's see how Water Cooler moderate things are now!

A couple of examples of the masses not "protected" from the well knowns: 1) Last Washington NABC, Pairs event: 1♣-1♥(o/c)-1♠ Alert! Please explain: "Denies 4 or longer spades" TD Please I say to the TD "nowhere in the convention charts is this artificial bid allowed" Opponents, well-known: "We talked to the chief TD beforehand, and he said its okay" TD: "carry on" 2) Use of Drury opposite a 1st or 2nd seat major suit opening - had been done and continues to be used by well known pairs.

I thought you were doing quite well until: This bordering on "secret agreements" is nonsense because you haven't figured out how it is secret or not: how it is to be disclosed and what is proper disclosure. Given the move by the ACBL away from style alerts, disclosure is via the cc and full description when asked. Thus the real question is what do these folks put on their cc, and how do they describe their bid when asked?

I love this

However this is far more than discussion: This would take quite some time for a partnership to be comfortable with. Contrast this to the simple meta-agreements proposed by others, which just require some discussion. Not doing something because it would require hours of prep work is not weird.

Ah, you just didn't ask nicely enough. A more favorable response might have been had from saying: "We want to use the following opening bids in our strong club system: 1♣ artificial 15+ 1♥ 4+♥ 10-14 pts. longer minor ok but not 4=4 majors 1♠ 5+♠ 10-14 pts, "standard" 1N 12-14 balanced, 5M332 ok 2♣ 5+♣ 10-14, longest suit, no 4cM 2♦ 5+♦ 10-14, longest suit, no 4cM 2N 5/5 minors 10-14 Can we use a 1♦ opening as an all-purpose opening for all other hands with 10-14 points? Thanks!" :) Slight mod: 2♣ 5 to 7♣ 10-14, longest suit, no 4cM 2♦ 5 to 7♦ 10-14, longest suit, no 4cM 1♦ now does not promise any particular suit

I thought The Wire Season 4 was an outstanding achievement

From the best that you remember, would this be before you played from dummy, or before you played from hand? Thinking before playing from dummy would be common in this situation. This is silly - please ignore these people from now on, and call the TD if they continue to be this rude.

While true, this does not seem to stop people from doing it. Not only that, but for these events, my usual partner's profile states "Does not always know the name of every convention so please explain bids with description - thanks!" (this is quite true, doesn't know what DONT or NMF is, for examples). However it frequently goes 1NT-2♦ overcall: Sometimes this is not alerted, but turns out is conventional Sometimes it gets a delayed alert Sometimes it gets an alert when the bid is made For the alert, if we are blessed with one at some point, it will very often be CAPP or DONT, instead of MAJS or Ds+MAJ. Infrequently it will be "1 MAJ", and then we are in the mess of bids not allowed in ACBL tourneys.

[hv=d=w&v=n&s=sa2ha953djt9ca762]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] 1♦-P-1♠-X;-P-2♥-P-P;-2♠-P-P-? You doubled, then passed 2♥, and now Pass, 3♥, or Double? I didn't poll this question, as its not a great poll, but I would like to see any views on what is the right bid here, and should double be "your choice partner" or be more penalty or takeout oriented. Thanks in advance.