poohbear

Personally I am not surprised at pairs adjusting methods to cater to their opponents. I disagree strongly that one can't cater their methods to their opponents or even to whether the sun is shining or not shining. The key is disclosure. Let's face it Fred . Your partnership has been known to have weird 3rd seat NT openings . I recall one with a 7 card Heart suit where opener responded 2d to a stayman enquiry. I realize that was state of the match and I am dying to try it :D BUT that is the kind of thing that brought this up Lets take Joe Grue . He opens 1NT on anything. " Everyone " knows it . Does he disclose? Meckwell were called out for using upside down suit preference and not telling anyone . Their defence? We told them we use upside down SIGNALS. Also their NTs can be highly uhhhhh lets call it preeemptive and they never disclosed. Have they been punished? NOPE. Everyone knows and people cater to it. It would never dawn on me that 14-16 NTs is anything but STRONG and yet people use weak NT defenses against certain pairs because its whittled down to 12 sometimes. I also know a pair that uses 2 way dbls that are either penalties or I wouldnt pass a penalty dbl . I am waiting for the right time to spring it against them :) They dont disclose it and they claim it works BECAUSE they don't disclose. How many times does it come up that you really wish you knew what the opps were playing in a certain situation but you cant ask or look at the CC ( assuming the agreement is even there) without tipping your hand or tipping your partner or the opps for that matter. Bridge partnerships are like a marriage. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors . Longtime partnerships are in "tune " with each other subconsciously. Is that cheating? How is anyone ever going to call somebody on the fact that by the way he twisted his elbow you know that he played the 10 from K10 and not from 10xx behind dummies AJx . Was it intentional? Of course not. Partner's know each other's body language. They can't help but know. I know I have kind of got off topic but the issue is much deeper. I don't condone the pair . They were asked a direct question and the opps are entitled by law to get a direct answer but as someone mentioned the never ending loop applies. Will they be punished? If history is a precedent then no. But if they aren't " famous " who knows ? Too bad stars are above punishment

I think pass is 100% clear . lets take the given hand. AKQJxx x KQ10x Kx and everybody bids 4S. Do you really want to be in slam opposite this? It's not like it went 2H 4S. Partner only has 2 levels of spade bids available. Dont hang them

North lost their mind. Dbl opp a passed hand is questionable at best . 3C was clearly suicidal. I would pass the redbl with the south hand. Now partner can introduce a 5 card suit or kick it back to me with 1nt

first hand. heart to the King is a clear error. It takes out your entry to Diamonds when Jx is falling. Crossing in the suit you have 3 entries in seems way better than in the suit you have 1 entry in just as a matter of technique. The fact that the spade finesse won at trick one doesnt mean it will win again so need to take it at trick 3. When it does win again there are multiple ways to play. Cashing a second diamond seems clear. If the Jack falls , claim . 2 ways to go now. One is pass the Jack of clubs. If it gets covered just duck . Now you are set up for a red suit Squeeze or to get a count of the hand to make a better guess in Hearts ( no guarantee). Second line: cash the ace of spades A of clubs 2 rounds of hearts ( unblocking the 9 ( as well as in line one) If nothing good in Hearts guess which hand you want to endplay with the 4th red card if and cash accordingly ( this based on what you think the spade count is) . if you get something good in hearts then you have to decide whether to finesse hearts or endplay. Line 2 feels better to me second hand i would ruff the first trick. cross to a club and ruff another heart with the ace cross to a spade . Draw trumps. If trumps 3-2 claim. If trumps 4-1 I need 3-3 Diamonds or the long trump hand to have xxxx in diamonds. So if trumps are 5-0 I see that and I can now cash the ace of clubs. and hope to run diamonds. Assuming they are 3-3 ( or the hand with 5 trumps has xxxx and I claim) I play a 4th diamond. RHO must ruff . I now have 11 top tricks ( 5C 1S 1H 3D and a ruff in dummy) and i finish trumps and attempt to endplay LHO in the 4 card ending . My hand. Ax A10 Very interesting hands Thanks

Dbl and thrilled about it. Partner cant expect this heart suit when I bid 6H. I woulda been happy defending 6S dbled

If partner has only 5 hearts a grand has to be terrible. Partner's pattern has to be 1-5-4-3 by their failure to bid 3S or 4C over 3H. From partner's POV u are unlimited so we need to find best strain and best lvl. Why should partner not bid 3S with Kx AQJxx and the Ace of C? Whats the rush to play 4H? With a 4 card club suit why is partner not supporting at some point? Given that. Partner should have bid the grand with their actual hand over 5nt . How could partner have more and just bid 4H over 3H? The real question is : Should you have even bothered to suggest a grand given everything we know up to the 5S bid. it is not clear to me that you are even worth a slam try let alone a slam force over 4H. Shouldnt partner have done something just a tad more constructive over 3H? Which brings us back to agreements. 4D here should be last train and I think that is the correct bid over 3H

4H. Better have agreements here! The " fake " transfer is a common psych playing weak NTs . There really is no issue playing on BBO or behind screens since there is self alerting. An opponent is entitled to forget their agreements as long as neither opponent takes advantage of it. If RHO knows that he is playing natural and lies about it, that is subject to a disciplinary hearing . It is much tuffer at a table with no screens where RHO can hear the answer to the question . WHAT is 2H? Are transfers alertable in THIS spot? Does partner's failure to say " transfer " wake up RHO? Definitely a messy situation and the subsequent committee will prob get it wrong. But back to the real issue. We all know that RHO has spades. Partner failed to make a responsive dbl ( yes that is what it should be)or a 3 level Q bid . I guess he could have something like xxxx void AQxxxx Kxx and what game do you want to be in? 3H is clearly a stopper ask. It has to be . 4H should state this is where I want to play the hand. An analagous situation is when you open 2C and they overcall in a suit. If the 2C bidder's first bid is in that suit it is DEFINITELY natural.

4D . Partner can raise with any pure minimum like this one. I disagree with Jdonn stating that 4D is competitive and can be done with a king less. Just pass and go plus TYVM

It is a tuff hand. I totally agree with the comment someone made that if the Ace of Diamonds was elsewhere dbl would be much clearer. In fact prob automatic since that Ace would be building tricks as opposed to just acting as a stopper. The way I like to think about these situations is : If partner has a suitable minimum can we make game? lets take this hand KQ10x AKxxx xxx x . Shouldnt partner just bid 4S expecting to make it most of the time? Partner knows you have 3 LVL values unless you stretched with short Diamonds which suits this hand quite well. How is 4S going to play opposite this? As for finding clubs? GOOD LUCK:) Oh and BTW if you get dealt a strong NT just open a strong NT!!

Hi everyone We are trying out a new format on Tuesday's after the Junior tournament. Instead of reviewing the hands we just played we are going to introduce interesting hands with a theme. The first of these was held Tuesday Dec 2. Talking to some of the Juniors that attended, they seemed happy with this change. I am open to ideas on how we can improve. I also talked to Fred regarding a bidding forum. The idea would be to have a few interesting bidding problems and get a number of experts to answer and explain their choices. Problems will be scored but it is on the juniors to score themselves. It is not a contest but simply a way to exchange thought processes . I would also like to hear ideas in this regard Thanks everyone Barry Goren AKA Poohbear

Seems to me that 4NT is natural in this auction. Why should it be anything else? Partner can assume you have short spades and a source of tricks otherwise you would just dbl most of the time. In my partnerships I have a rule that if you could Q bid the opps suit on the way to slam and didn't you don't have first round control. Given that I would bid 5S. This hand is good enough to play slam most of the time and you have the added vig that the opps might save.( perhaps I shoulda checked vulnerbility and type of game before answering. Oh well) . If partner tosses it back to me with 5nt I am bidding 6H

Not really, at least not in my book. Not too strong for 1♥. 2-suiters can be difficult to handle, when you open 2♣. 3♣ is not pointless. Partner liked it, but he didnt like it enough. South was interested slam, only if North made a move towards slam under his own steam. 3♣ might also pave the way for 3nt, especially importent at MP's. Best Regards Ole Berg The plan was to get to 3nt. Slam was never an issue when partner didn't Drury . I hate opening 2c with these types of hands. It is Preemptive