Trinidad

It is a matter of simple arythmetic: The double shows ~9+ Opener's 2♠ rebid shows ~12-14/15 Opener's 3♠ rebid shows ~15/16-19 (15/16-19) + (9+) = game That means that you are not allowed to pass 3♠. And that, in turn, means that (if your partner can do the math) you can even bid 3♠ on better hands. Rik

In my opinion and experience, it is best to call the TD as early as possible... and in as neutral/objective way as possible. This means: 1) After the board is over, you call the TD. You state that declarer took 15 mninutes for a 3NT contract where you couldn't see any problems and overtricks were unlikely. 2) After about 30 seconds of thinking by dealer you ask whether he is aware that it is his turn to bid. After about 2-3 minutes you call the TD and say that the dealer has been thinking for 2-3 minutes and still didn't make a bid. There are two likely outcomes: 1) The fact that you called makes the opponents speed up: Problem solved. 2) The opponents remain slow. Call the TD again. It is unlikely that slow play penalties will be assessed against you. And calling immediately after the opponents' slow play makes it harder for them to deny this. Rik

X does not promise both majors. Instead it promises: - At least 1 four card major and - The ability to reach a decent contract when there is no major fit and opener has a minimum In practice, I would say that this means (with approxmate HCP strength): Both majors (8+) One major and support for opener's suit (8+) One major and tolerance for the other (i.e. a decent three card suit) (9-10+) One major, a decent stop in clubs and some "body" to play 2NT (10+) One major and a good hand (12+) Rik

Freudian typo or simply militaristic? ;) Rik

For me this has always been the reason to separate my BBF identity from the real life identity: I stand by what I am writing here, but I don't want some $%@#$% to cherry pick some oneliners out of context and put them on my boss's desk (or my mother's for that matter). Rik

Just my $0.02: Expert players don't have any problem opening 5422 or 6322 hands with 1NT when it suits them. They might even have a 4441 or 5431. BUT... when they do so, they have a reason. Nowadays it seems to be somewhat fashionable for everyone who thinks that he is an expert to demonstrate that by opening virtually every 6322 or 5422 hand with 1NT when the point count is right (or even when it isn't). And when it works out wrong, they claim that all experts open 6332s with 1NT. While that last thing may or may not be true, usually the expert wouldn't have opned the actual 6332 with 1NT. IMO this hand is a typical example: If your partner has anything valuable, you want to be in 3NT... from his side. Then it is pretty silly to have prevented the best contract with your opening 1NT bid when you have a perfectly natural alternative available. Sometimes you wrongside a contract. That can happen and often is hard to foresee. But in this case one can see the problem as soon as one takes the cards out of the board. Rik

Yes, but why does the system say that you must jump? Rik

The Russian Red Army Choir. They can be seen here in a concert with Finnish band Leningrad Cowboys. To me this showed that the Cold War was definitely over. Rik

Why did you have to jump? Nobody here would jump. Do you have a special reason why you have to jump (e.g. 2♥ would not be forcing)? If so, could you tell us that reason? If you don't have a special reason to jump then you shouldn't. Jumping around to show how strong you are belongs to the animal kingdom, not to the bridge table. Rik

I really fail to see why wishing everybody "Happy holidays" means anything other than that you wish them to enjoy those days off around the end of the year, without any idea of "only if you're christian" or "except if you are christian, since then I mean Merry Christmas". We have sent holiday greetings to friends and relatives that are (in alphabetical order): Agnost Atheist Bridge fanatic Buddhist Calvinist Hindu Lutheran Muslim Nothing Roman Catholic Most likely I have forgotten something. And, of course, this goes both ways: Each year we - of the category "Nothing" - receive holiday greetings from Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, as well as from Christians and non-religious people. I have never seen that as anything odd. Should I? Why would wishing somebody well be a political statement? 'Peace' to you too, dude. Rik

Forcing and natural... as long as my next call is Pass, a mere preference to one of partner's majors, a non jump in NT or a non jump in my minor. All other rebids show a cue for hearts. Rik

Partner is 4342 or 4351 and has a minimum takeout double. That makes this a 20-20 hand with, for LAW lovers, 17 or 18 total trumps. At low levels the LAW underestimates the total number of tricks. There may be an indication that this is a case where there are more trumps than there are tricks: Partner may have e.g. ♥Jxx, a holding that is good on defense, but bad on offense. Nevertheless, I estimate the total number of tricks as 17 and I'll bid 3♠. Rik

Playing 2♦ as "choose yourself" as an advance to Landy is much more useful than playing 3♦ as "choose yourself" as an advance to a 3♣ Ghestem bid. After all, over 85% of Landy 2♣ bids have a disparity in major suit length, whereas this number is less than 25% for a Ghestem 3♣. So when 2♦ (Landy) asks for a preference the true answer will be hearts in 43% of the case, spades in 43% of the cases and in 14% of the cases there is no true answer. For Ghestem, this is 12% hearts, 12% spades and 76% "I don't know". If you then only have bids to show hearts and spades, and none for "I don't know" this means that the replies to 3♦ are seriously unreliable. Essentially both 3♥ and 3♠ mean: "I do not have a preference for the other major and most likely I have no preference at all". Rik

I apologize for not knowing that 3♦ means no preference in Standard Acol (or Standard Ghestem). Thank you for enlightening me and for the trouble you took for finding a reliable source for that information. Once again, my apologies. Rik

Perhaps not. But here there are no other options. You have already shown your majors to partner and he has told you that he isn't interested. On top of that you are constrained by UI. So, IF (big if) looking for a major and looking for diamonds would both be options, you are not allowed to look for the major since it is suggested by the UI. Going for diaomnds even more sensible when there are slam possibilities. Give partner ♠xx ♥xx ♦AKQxxx ♣xxx, the type of hand that he should have, and you have an excellent grand in diamonds and probably won't make 4♠ unless spades split 3-3. (And then I have given partner the maximum amount of spades.) Rik

Of course we do know what 3♦ means in their methods. Every pair plays a bid as natural, unless they have agreed not to. If 3♦ would mean something fancy, NS would mention that and we would rule based on that. So, if NS don't mention anything, 3♦ is simply natural. It is not as if it is completely insane to play 3♦ as natural. And if 3♦ is natural, a slam try in diamonds is the right move. And of all the slam tries in diamonds that are logical alternatives, those that could stear the contract into a major are very much disallowed since they are suggested over the others by the UI that North doesn't really have diamonds. Rik

It seems that Lamford doesn't appreciate what the UI is here. The UI is that North misunderstood South when he bid 3♦, and that therefore, 3♦ doesn't mean what it is supposed to mean. The fact that North woke up later is hardly relevant (and also UI). With the UI, South is supposed to bid as if 3♦ meant what it was supposed to mean (presumably a decent hand with good diamonds). But South didn't bid as if 3♦ showed diamonds. Instead, South bid 3♠, using the UI that 3♦ was intended as a mere preference between diamonds and (clubs or hearts, not entirely clear to me). I agree with Cherdano that this hand is way to good to pass 3♦. But I would go even further: I would bid 5♣. (The OP states that NS are a partnership with scientific gadgets.) And I would be very happy that this wasn't IMPs. Rik

Greg Lake Rik

I am acting a little bit as SB here: Allowing declarer to ask questions requires a fairly loose interpretation of Law 20F2 (for questions) and 40B2c3 (for convention cards): It requires that the moment when declarer decides which option to pick is interpreted as "declarer's turn to play". I think this is certainly the intent of the lawmakers and the spirit of the Laws, but technically I cannot see that this would be "declarer's turn to play". So, it might be good to include "or whenever offered options by the TD" in these Laws. Rik

I mean everybody who denies that product prices should increase when the value of your currency drops significantly (i.e. those Brits who point at Unilever for inflation instead of at the Brexit voters). They are in denial. Whether they voted Brexit or Bremain is irrelevant to me (though I expect that there will be a correlation). Rik

Thanks for the info! It seems to me that a large part of the UK public is in stage 1 of coping with grieve and loss: Denial. They want to live on as if nothing has happened. The next stages will be anger (some people seem to be there already, at least they blame Unilever for the UK mess), bargaining (the UK ain't ready for that yet), depression (yes, the worst is still to come) and acceptance (this may take a while). Rik

So, in the UK nobody is complaining about the price increases for imported stuff? Or is it the oil companies' fault that fuel isn't cheaper? Rik

Apparently, the Israeli politicians prefer co-operating with the religious nutters over co-operating with the other side. If the moderate sides of Likud and Labor would split off their party to start a new one, then one could create a Likud + Moderate labor government without religious nutters. The tricky part in this case, however, is that it is my impression that the view of the Likud politicians (and voters) on issues like settlements isn't far away from that of the religious nutters, but that they let the religious nutters do the work. And I think it has been like that since 1948. Rik

Although I agree with you, I am not convinced that would result in more compromise. A sort of Rubicon has been created and then crossed by first the Moral Majority and later on a substantial amount of the Republican Party itself insomuch they have incorporated religious morality into their planks and platforms. We saw the most obvious example of this in the recent VP debate where Kaine stressed non-intervention by the government in abortion while Pence proposed the government should enforce his morality. What some do not seem capable of understanding is that without secular government there is no religious freedom. How do you fix that basic misconception? One of the consequences of proportional representation is that it makes a multi-party system possible. In a working multi-party system, no single party has the majority. They will always need to find a compromise. To create a simple example: Let's say that we cut both the Republican party and the Democratic party into two pieces. The Republicans into "Tea Party" (TP) and "Mainstream Republicans" (MR) and the Democrats into "Society Changers" (SC) and "Mainstream Democrats" (MD). This means that parties will have to co-operate in coalitions. This may well be (or is even likely to be) a coalition of Mainstream Democrats and Mainstream Republicans. They will make moderate decisions (called compromises) that keep both sides happy. The hardest part in these coalitions is to realize the situations where the compromise is worse than either extreme decision. (E.g. To build half a wall between the US and Mexico is flat out stupid compared to building a whole wall and to not building a wall.) In those cases, the best overall compromise is an exchange of extremes. One party gets its way on one issue, but then also for the full 100%. Another party gets its way on another, for the full 100%. In a two party system, you are essentially always running from one extreme to another, also in situations where the compromise would work better: Raising taxes, increasing welfare - lowering taxes, decreasing welfare - raising taxes ... instead of steady taxes and steady welfare. Rik

I trust that, as an academic, you know what BS, MS and PhD stand for... ;) IMO, a USA with DT as POTUS has it PhD. Rik