Trinidad

When a European pair, playing a system that they can play against two grannys in Europe, is invited to participate in the Cavendish it is reasonable that they expect that they can play that system in the Cavendish. Then they get the system regulations. They want to follow those regulations, they try to read them but they don't understand them. That is not because they can't read English. It is because the organization of the Cavendish has written fuzzy regulations. And they have done that on purpose. Their idea is: "Everybody knows what we mean and this gives us the maximum room to intervene if someone plays something that we don't like." But in reality, not everybody knows what they mean (hence Gerben's question). Fred makes it sound like that doesn't matter. In practice, it always goes right. That's true. It always goes Fred's right. He knows that his system will be deemed fine, basically whatever he decides to play. But his foreign colleagues are nervous that a TD will interfere in the middle of the tournament when they open 2♠ showing a weak hand with five spades and a 4+ minor. (And they are quite right in being nervous, given the horror stories about ACBL TD's interpreting system regulations.) Therefore, it would be important to work with clear system regulations. Then, it would always go right for everybody. My next suggestion (but, as Gerben points out, is not part of this discussion) would be to losen the system regulations, so that not only SAYC and 2/1 are allowed, but also other common systems from around the world. Then Fred will see that it doesn't matter, not even in an event of 47 rounds of 3 boards. He will have to play against systems that European grannys play against every day. I think that he will cope just fine, just like my mother is coping just fine. Finally, designing a bidding system is as much a bridge skill as executing a throw in or a squeeze. Bidding is a crucial part of bridge and the general public understands that. There is a reason why contract bridge is much more popular than whist. Therefore, limiting bridge systems has lead to less interest from the general public, rather than more. Rik

Declarer's advantage is that he can control his partner. There cannot be any miscommunication between the dummy and the declarer, whereas defenders are often working on two different plans. This means that declarer's advantage is maximal when the room for misunderstandings by the defense is largest. That occurs when little is known about declarer's hand and when the defense needs to make a lot of decisions, i.e. when the defenders have a lot of 'points' and declarer has made few and vague bids. Normally that happens in partscore contracts. Another example of this situation is after a preemptive raise (e.g. 1♠-Pass-3♠ (weak)- All pass). The defenders may well have the majority of the HCPs, and very little is known about declarer's hand. It is easy for the defense to blow two or more tricks. The declarer's advantage is minimal if the dummy has been the captain in a relay auction. When dummy has asked for declarer's hand and the distribution and placement of all honors are known, the defenders (should) know pretty well what the plan should be. Unfortunately, after 12 rounds of highly accurate bidding, declarer can usually claim the slam in trick 1...:) Rik

I would just bid Stayman. After 2♠, I would splinter. After 2♥, I would just bid 3NT (indicating 4 spades). And after 2♦, I would bid 3♣, asking for partner's distribution in the minors. Rik

Very easy pass. We can't make 4♠. They probably can't make 4♦. But the probability that they will go down in 4♦ is not so high that I want to risk doubling them into game. Rik

That's all very fine and dandy. But everyone knows that it takes a lot of bridge experience to develop your level of judgement. It takes virtually no experience to blindly follow the law. Implying that using your judgement is better than following the law is comparing apples and oranges. Your judgement has been developed enough, so that your judgement is superior to following the law blindly. However, for 80+ % of the bridge players, the law is more accurate than their own bridge judgement. This group will score better when they follow the law than when they follow their poor judgement. A little over 10 years ago, I ran a simulation: I let a commercial bridge playing program play out about 300 (random) deals. I forced the software to let EW play in their longest trump fit and NS in their longest trump fit. Then I recorded the number of tricks that each side took. I plotted the number of total tricks against the number of total trumps. Of course, the law didn't predict the number of total tricks accurately. I also recorded the number of HCPs in the combined EW and NS hands. I plotted how many tricks one side could take in their best trump fit against the number of HCPs in their combined hands. Then, I did the statistics. It turned out that the law was significantly more accurate in predicting the number of total tricks than the Milton work HCP count was in predicting the number of tricks for one side. I found that remarkable, given the attitude that the bridge 'experts' have towards the Law and the Milton work count. When it comes to the Milton work count, they will say that this obviously is a guideline. There are good points and bad points. You need to look at honor placement. You will need to add in distribution points. And then still you only have an approximation... But hey, for the vast majority of the bridge community there is no better alternative, so let's stick with it. The flaws in the Milton work count are no big deal. When it comes to the Law of Total Tricks, they will immediately claim that it is worthless, that using judgement works much better and that the Law should be thrown out of the window. It seems that flaws in the Law are a big deal. On top of that, you either are with the Law or you are against it. Very few experts can just say that the law has some merit: Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. My advice on the Law is: When you know what to do, do it (and don't look at the Law). When you don't know what to do, follow the law. It might just be right this time. And to me it seems rather obvious that Josh will know far more often what to do than my mother. That means that my mother will follow the law more often and Josh will follow his judgement more often. Rik

I agree with Mike. I would Stayman and follow up with an invitational 4NT (when there is no spade fit). Yes, the hand is square. On the other hand, it is very rich in controls, leaving partner with all the queens and jacks. That means that partner will only accept the slam invitation with a real maximum, in which case you are reasonably sure that slam will make. Rik

To me, it seems obvious to set diamonds as trump. You have four of them and you have your secondary honors in the minors. On top of that, you have excellent controls. 6♦ could easily be a claimer where 3NT could be down. How you set diamonds as trump depends entirely on your agreements. If you need to bid 4♦ to do that, then you should go for more effective continuations. Rik

While this is certainly a good agreement, and may even be standard among players from a certain level onwards, it is not clear, since this agreement assumes, that you have a forcing raise for the shown major available. But if you dont have a forcing raise available, than 4NT is asking for Aces / key cards. In the given seq. 4NT is one of those bids, when you make it, be prepared that it may lead to a misunderstanding. With kind regards Marlowe The possibility for a quantitative auction is more important than the possibility to check for aces. Playing simple bridge, 1NT-2♣; 2♠-5♠ is available as a slam invitation in spades. And 1NT-2♣; 2♠-4NT is available as a slam invitation in NT. And then there is no ace asking bid. It is nice to have a conventional way to agree spades, if both you and your partner know what way that is. Playing with a pick up partner on BBO, I would not expect partner to play the same convention as I do. I would keep it simple. I am a reasonably strong player and Stephen says that I should take 3♠ in the auction 1NT-2♣; 2♥-3♠ as a (general) conventional forcing raise of spades. ("3 of the other major should be taken by any strong player as agreeing the major bid and creating a forcing auction.") I think it should be pointed out that these things depend on the whole 1NT structure. In my 1NT structure, 3♦ is available as a GF raise of the major. This means that 1NT-2♣; 2♥-3♠ is a splinter (agreeing hearts) and not some unspecific GF heart raise. If Stephen would be playing with me (it would be my pleasure) he would be wrong. I would drive to slam with a minimum hand and 4 small spades and find out that I can't get rid of the spade losers. In the post mortum, I would have figured out that Stephen thinks that every strong player plays the Hamman slam try (as it is called) but I would tell him that I know how it works, but that I think that I have something better. (And I have the idea that Bob Hamman has something better too. ;)) But I think that if Stephen would just bid 5♥ with me (or with Bob Hamman :) ) he would get a better result on the board. Rik

That would be "Why you lose at bridge". Now I know why I lose at spelling bees. :) Rik

Thanks for your responses. The full deal was: [hv=n=sakt93h985dkq4c65&w=s842hqt7da76cqt43&e=sqj76h63dj3cakj98&s=s5hakj42dt9852c72]399|300|[/hv] The reason why I posted this was that there was a break in tempo before South passed 4♣. The TD ruled that this was UI to North and that North had a logical alternative: Pass. Therefore, the score for NS was adjusted to a 4♣ contract, going down. This was posted as a directing problem on a Dutch forum for TDs. The main question there was: Should EW get the complimentary score or should there be a split score. After all, it was blatantly obvious that EW should get ♣AK, ♦A and the ♥Q. Given the fact that the players involved were just regular club players and not world class experts, I felt that it was easy to imagine that EW let 4♥ make without any gross errors (e.g. winning trick 1 and shifting to trump). Therefore, I felt that EW should get the compliment of the NS score and a split score wasn't necessary. But not everybody agreed. Therefore, I posted this defensive problem for the experts in the BBF to solve. I put up conditions that were likely given the nature of the event and the likely standard of the players (4th best leads, regardless of the situation). These conditions were not optimal for the defense, as Codo pointed out, but IMO they were realistic. The outcome of this little project seems to be that at least it is not blatantly obvious to take the four tricks that you can see with all hands in view, when you can't see all four hands. This makes me conclude that it would be wrong to rule a split score. Thanks all, Rik

Playing with an unknown partner is an art in itself. My suggestion is that you would read S.J. Simon's excellent book 'Why you loose at bridge'. The place where your reasoning goes wrong is that you state: 'i still rule out bidding 6 hts directly.' while you are playing with an unknown partner. Instead of ruling out a bid, you should ask yourself: - What information can I still get? - Will that information help me make a decision? If you ask yourself the first question, you will see that the information that you want to get (how many aces does partner have?), is impossible to obtain. After all, your partneship doesn't have an ace asking bid. That just means that you will have to make the decision based on the information that you do have. That means bid 6♥ now. Get the best result possible given the circumstances. Don't try to get the result that you would get if you would play your pet system with your pet partner. You are not playing your pet system with your pet partner. If you feel lucky, you can bid 7♥, 6NT or 7NT. But the key point is that you shouldn't start messing around, creating a convoluted auction, when it cannot possibly help you (unless you are playing against me, of course :( ). Rik

Welcome to the rest of the world, Mike. Yes, the CIA can. They do it all the time. They will 'interrogate' people or simply kill them. Obviously, it isn't legal, but who cares? In the countries where they carry out these acts, this is called kidnapping or murder. But who can catch a CIA agent? And if these agents are caught and brought to trial, an immense diplomatic row follows. The country in question has seized an innocent US citizen! Then this 'hero' is convicted by a 'fake court' for his 'fabricated crimes'! Usually, the end of the story is that the agent is bought back (which within the USA is sold as "ransom money was paid"), with the promise that he will serve his sentence in the USA. And then the US doesn't keep the promise. The sad part of the story is that the CIA is not only stronger than the banana republics where they do their 'work'. The CIA is also stronger than the US government and the US people, since they are not able to stop this. I wish Obama good luck. I fear that Joe Biden will be the next president after Obama has been murdered. Rik

The answer depends on your system in second seat. In my case, my partner could have opened on 10/11 points. She could have shown a weak two in hearts or in spades, a weak hand with both majors or a weak hand with five spades and a 4+ minor. This means that this is an easy pass for me. I just don't expect to get a plus score here. But if you play Roth-Stone in second hand, against opponents who open on any junk, you can be pretty sure that partner has a decent hand. Then you could open. Rik

[hv=d=n&v=n&n=sakt93h985dkq4c65&e=sqj76h63dj3cakj98]266|200|[/hv] You are East. The auction: West North East South - 1♠ 2♣ 2♥* 3♣ 3♥ 4♣ Pass Pass 4♥ All Pass * Non forcing (About 8-11 points) Opening lead: ♣3 (4th best, lowest from xxx and Hxx) Dummy plays low. When you win, declarer follows with the 2. What defensive lines would you consider? Rik

I agree with Han. North has shown a red twosuiter that wants to play a small slam in a red suit, regardless of what South holds. If South trusts North, he has an easy 7♦ bid. Rik

Armani? or Versace? Swim? Birthday? Rik

Even if the reverse shows something extra, I think that 2♠ is only a slight overbid. South is looking at a hand with prime cards and he knows that there is at least some fit since he has three diamonds. So South has good reason to be optimistic in the auction. North's 2/1 was perfect, but since he doesn't have more than the values for a 2/1, and actually only negative factors, all his other actions were overbids. Conclusion: 100% North. Rik

The correct VP scales depend on the number of boards played. The IMP difference that you need to win to achieve a certain VP score scales with the square root of the number of boards played. (Mathematicians will tell you why that is the case.) As an example, to achieve a 25-0 score for a 32 board match, you will need to beat the opponents by more than 100 IMPs. In an 8 board match four times less boards are played compared to a 32 board match. Therefore, for an 8 board match you will need more than 100/sqrt(4)=50 IMPs difference to score 25-0. The 'standard 30 VP scale' (if there is such a thing, since it isn't dictated by the Laws of bridge) is for 32 boards. All other 30 VP scales are derived from that by multiplying the IMP ranges by sqrt(N/32). See e.g. http://homepage.mac.com/bridgeguys/VGlossa...Conversion.html Rik

In Scandinavia, people swim without a suit regularly. But then again, there are no tides in those lakes... :) I could imagine that the fear of swimming without a suit is a bigger cause for the bad results in solving math and science problems than the educational system. Dogmatic thinking blocks creativity. (And having to wear a swim suit is an example of dogmatic thinking.) And while many people will not recognize that (math... boring!), the one thing you need for solving mathematical or scientific problems is creativity. A culture that is filled with dogma's (do's and don'ts, without a real rational behind it) will not invite creative thinking. It's only natural that such a culture will score worse on problem solving. Rik

To me this is a pure penalty double since 3♥ is available as a general game try. If there is no other bid available (e.g. when our suit was hearts) then double will be the game try. As to the question whether that double can be passed: Absolutely! If partner sees a juicy penalty coming up, he should certainly pass. One of the nicer scores that I remember is after my partner made a support double. The auction was something like Pass-1♦-Pass-1♠; 2♥- Dbl*-Pass to me. I was reasonably sure we could make a slam in spades, but I happened to have AKQJT of hearts as a side suit. No one was vulnerable and I passed. After the play it turned out that we could make a grand slam in spades. However, on the hand, we took 12 tricks against 2♥X. Making the small slam in hearts paid better than the grand slam in spades... Rik

Where I have played, 10 points is considered a win at BAM, but a tie in Patton. To me that seems to make sense. (Essentially it means that in Patton you only win the board if you win IMPs on it.) Rik

I think it is better to bid 4♥ before the joker on my right bids 5♦ (or 5♣). It makes it so much easier for partner to make the right decision if he knows that I have a good hand with a heart suit instead of just a good hand. Rik

As long as your age fits somewhere on your no trump ladder, you shouldn't worry about either of them. Rik

LOL. On a scale of 1 to 10, this story scores a ... ;) Rik

I agree with gwnn. North shows a decent suit and says: "Partner, Please lead diamonds. I really have them and not just the Jxxx that I orginally promised". Point count is not that important. That means that he could have: ♠xxx ♥x ♦AKJTxx ♣Axx (2♦ won't make and could be off 2, but it's not a blood bath and a diamond lead is best against any contract by opponents) or ♠KQJ ♥x ♦KQJTxx ♣Axx (2♦ has a decent chance of making, why not bid it?) but not ♠AQx ♥Ax ♦Qxxxxx ♣KQ (You don't want to play diamonds, since you will go down (a lot). You don't want a diamond lead. Just let the opponents play.) How is your sanity doing? ;) Rik