Trinidad

In Swedish the difference between a 'call' and a 'bid' is made in an artificial way. The Swedish translation of 'call' is 'bud' (which is the linguistic equivalent of the English 'bid'). To clarify the difference between 'call' and 'bid' in the Laws, the term 'aktivt bud' ('active bid') is used for a 'bid'. I have never heard the term 'aktivt bud' used in spoken Swedish, not even in discussions between TDs, other than at the TD course that I took there. In Dutch, the situation is more confusing. According to the Law book 'a call' is 'een bod' and 'a bid' is 'een bieding'. But if you ask any Dutch bridge player (other than Ton Kooijman :) ) what the word 'bieding' means they will tell you that it means 'auction'. Rik

If anything, I think that double tends to deny high cards outside spades, rather than show them. If I have high cards all around, why would I double to indicate a spade lead? Let partner pick the lead that he thinks is best. Ok, the double is not purely lead directing. It may also suggest a save in spades. But the same reasoning applie: Why would I suggest a save in spades if I have high cards all around? That is an easy route to an expensive phantom save. So, the double shows cards in spades and tends to deny high cards in the other suits. Rik

That's pretty much the point I wanted to make. Rik

It's even funnier. If you would double, which is a call and not a bid, it wouldn't be an overcall, but could be described as an overbid. ;) Rik

[Pedantry on] A sentence is finished by a full stop ('.'). [Pedantry off] [Rant on] Ok, I'll bite. You are absolutely right and in an English forum this would be perfectly fine to point out. But BBO is an international forum. A large part of the BBO community doesn't have American as a native language. While it is perfectly clear that the language in this forum is American, should be American and will be American, demanding that everyone understands the subtle difference between a 'call' and a 'bid' is asking too much. If the original poster goes by the name of 'Hanoi5', it is very easy to imagine that he (or she) doesn't know the difference between a 'call' and a 'bid'. Therefore, responders to this post should allow for that. This makes your remark technically correct, but otherwise off the mark. Since I consider the quality of virtually all of your posts in the range of 'good' to 'excellent', I wasn't expecting this from you. You could (should) be grateful that you happen to have English as your native language. It gives you the advantage of having a better understanding of American than many of us will ever have. If you don't point out subtle language errors made by people who don't have American (or English or Australian) as their native language, I promise that I won't comment on your spelling of words like 'honor' or 'analyze'. [Rant off] Rik (who in this context should point out that he doesn't have any connection to Trinidad and Tobago and doesn't have American, English or any variation of it as his native language)

Seems like correct translation of Dutch "wereldconventie" is Leaping Michaels (not sure if that is also used for both majors). The story goes that a certain Dutch top player (I don't remember who) was introduced to Leaping Michaels. He exclaimed: "That's a fantastic convention!", but obviously he said these words in Dutch: "Wat een wereldconventie!". (In a word to word translation this would mean: "What a world convention!".) Ever since, the Dutch (and Flemish) have used the term "wereldconventie" to describe Leaping Michaels and non Leaping Michaels. (Regular Michaels is still called Michaels.) Rik

2♠, wtp? Well, one of the problems is that your 2♠ has a very wide range, from Kxx xxx Kxxx xxx (or worse?) to the hand I posted (or a bit better). Another is that you're likely to have to compete to 3♠ anyway, and if so it's better to do it straight away rather than after they've had a chance to exchange information. A third is that a 4243 8-count is rather more common than a 4144 2-count. Look at it another way: in an uncontested auction many partnerships think it worth using 3♣ or 3♦ to show a "mixed" 4-card raise. Does the intervention really make it less desirable to be able to show this hand? No, if anything, the intervention makes it more desirable to show this hand. But... after interference not all the raises that one would like to play are available anymore. In theory, you could play 3♦ as some type of artificial raise after a 2♣ overcall, but then you have the same problem when opponents overcall 2♥. And I think it is better to have one system than many systems. So, you want 3 bids to describe something like: - Kxx xxx Kxxx xxx (the "normal" raise) - Qxxx xx AQxx xxx (the mixed raise) - Qxxx x xxxx xxxx (the weak raise) and you have only 2 (2♠ and 3♠). Something has to give way. Fortunately, in many cases, you can bid 2♠ first and than bid 3♠. The question is what category hands should use this auction? Obviously, the choice is between the mixed raise and the weak raise. With a "normal" raise you don't want to bid higher than 2♠. I think you can make a case for both choices. From a pure constructive point of view (assuming the opponents don't bid anymore), it would probably be best to bid 2♠ with the weak raise of category III. It has about the same playing strength as a "normal" 2♠ raise whereas a mixed raise definitely has better playing strength than a normal raise or a weak raise. But the opponents are not likely to stay quiet when you have a weak raise and bid only 2♠. Now you can still bid 3♠, saying that you have a weak raise, but the opponents are much better placed in deciding whether to double you or whether they should go for their own contract. On the other hand, opponents are a little more likely to stay quiet when you bid 2♠ with a mixed raise. That's too bad, since you can't finish your description of your hand. But if they still compete, you can complete the picture by bidding 3♠. So, concluding, if you play in a field with quiet opponents, bid 2♠ with the weak raise. But if you play in a field with busy opponents, bid 2♠ with the mixed raise. I think opponents are getting busier and busier. That means that I choose to put the mixed raise in 2♠. Rik

That is the exact problem that I have with the Dutch practice. It makes it practically impossible to disclose your agreements. In this case, you could make up something like: "The book says that he has a non constructive raise, but he often doesn't follow the book." The real problems come with the notorious Ghestem convention. (1♠)-3♣. This shows the reds, but obviously occasionally someone has a long club suit instead. If you would disclose that properly you would get to: "Red suits, but he forgets sometimes and then he has clubs." But an agreement "Red suits or clubs" is disallowed in many places, since it is a brown sticker convention. So, in short, don't ask me. Ask the Dutch Bridge League. Rik

In The Netherlands, the ruling would go against you. There, they would rule MI, since you don't have an "established" agreement. After all, you stated that partner, although you have played with him for several years, still messes up basic precision auctions. In that case, it doesn't matter what your convention card or system book says. If your partner messes this up regularly, the "book agreement" is not considered your actual agreement. So, in The Netherlands you would probably get an AS of 3♣ with 3 overtricks for +170. Personally, I don't agree with the Dutch interpretation of the Bridge Laws. But they do have a point. Rik

If West couldn't see that the card was played because it was blocked by the screen, then that changes the matter. Then West has an easy to prove bridge reason for the delay. But weren't West and South sitting on the same side of the screen? Rik

It's a Philips MSX 1, which btw. is still working :) Very nice! 80 K RAM and 32 K ROM, I noticed. My ZX Spectrum had 16 K ROM and 16 K RAM, but I was in love with it. I will never forget the sound of saving or loading your programs to cassette tape. It was somewhat like a phone line modem, but with the added sound of the wheels of the cassette player moving. If my kids would see one, they would probably not recognize it as a computer. No mouse, no DVD drive, no speakers, no flat screen monitor. - "How do you get on the internet with it?" :) Rik

Well, I understand. But my point is, with a 3 card inv raise: - If you bid a 2/1 intending to show support later, you run the risk of playing in the 2/1 suit, sometimes without a fit, when a major fit might be available. There must be a fit in responder's suit. You cannot (at least should not) open on a four card suit and not have something in every other suit. What is a real problem is the fact that you may get to the wrong partscore. If opener has a subminimum with a five card major, you will end up playing in the 8 card minor fit, rather than the 8 card major fit. Yes, here you are right. This is possible (and actually occurs). That is one reason why I like Drury. But I wouldn't state that "one must have the tools to cope". My most important reason for playing Drury is that it is a very anonymous game invitation, where you aren't even forced to the 3 level. The auction Pass-1M; 2♣-4M is one of my favorites. You are more than half a trick ahead of Pass-1M; 1NT-2x; 3M-4M. Rik

Are you talking about a ZX80, ZX81, a ZX Spectrum or a ZX Spectrum+ from (Sir Clive) Sinclair? I imagine that if you would put those on e-bay, a collector would be willing to pay for something like that. And no, I am no collector, but my first computer was a ZX Spectrum. I was about 15 then. This makes me feel like a very old geek. Rik

I would like to add that the TD needs to make the movements of boards in such a way that at both tables in the match the exact same boards are played. Every now and then there will be a duplication error. As long as both tables in the match play the exact physical same board this won't cause any problems in the team scoring. Then, when there is a duplication error, you only need to throw out results from the Butler scoring, which is of secondary importance anyway. The guy who duplicates the boards for our league matches is notoriously sloppy. This guy also duplicates for our club games. Because of this guy's sloppiness we "duplicate" only one board set in our pairs games. (This gives us the advantage of having hand records.) In the club team games we need more board sets. But we make sure that the same physical board is played at both tables in the match. (These matches use the green boards, those matches use the yellow ones.) When we play league matches, boards are thrown out regularly because the boards were misduplicated and the TDs don't want to carry boards from the closed room to the open room and back. Obviously, players are not allowed to carry the boards from the closed room to the open room either. I think these TDs have their priorities reversed. Since I am a TD myself, this lack of drive to do things right makes me itch. Rik

Oh yes, it does. The TD is supposed to make sure what the actual meaning of Double is. Asking North why she bid this way is an excellent way to figure out what North idea about the meaning of the double is. She could have responded that double shows majors or a good hand. She could have responded that Dbl is the only forcing call. That implies that it is the bid to make with a strong hand (since North evidently didn't know that she could have passed). All kind of good things could have happened to the TD. That makes it a very good reason to use this kind of a question when trying to establish the facts. Rik

If you don't play Drury, I guess opener is barred from opening 1M on 4 cards, no? Not on a good 4 carder. You mean you're ok with driving to the 3 level on what could be a 4-3 fit? How would that happen? Now I happen to like Drury a lot, but I don't see how you will get in a 4-3 fit at the 3 level if you don't play Drury. As long as the PH responder doesn't jump to the 3 level with 3 card support, little can go wrong. If responder has 3 card support and less than invitational values, you will be playing 2M after 1M-2M. If he does have a maximum pass with 3 cards, he will either: - bid 1NT (semiforcing) and he gets to play there. - bid a natural 2/1 (5+ cards) and gets to play it there. Of course, if opponents still enter the bidding, he can still bid 2M, but after that, it is opener who is in charge. As long as opener won't go to the 3 level, responder shouldn't either. Rik

I play x-y-NT, so I have other problems. The short answer is that it is whatever you agree on. But if you don't have an agreement, my partner and I have general rules that solve these types of problems. Two that help out here are: 1) The slow route is stronger than the fast route. (This applies to these kind of auctions, fourth suit forcing auctions, cuebid auctions, TO double auctions, etc.) 2) When we are below game and need to have a forcing bid, a sign off bid and an invitational bid, but don't have enough room to fit in all the meanings, then we drop the invitational meaning first, then the sign off meaning and keep the forcing meaning. Rule 1 means that going through 2♣ is stronger (when we don't have a specific agreement how we show the hands). Rule 2 means that 3♣ is: - Forcing after: 1x-1y; 1NT-2♣; 2x- - Sign off after: 1x-1y; 1NT- I am not going to state that these rules are the best for every situation (which is why we have rule '0': "specific agreements overrule all other rules") but these small general agreements have kept my partner and me out of a lot of trouble. Rik

Count me as 3♠, wtp. Rik

For an absolute beginner, I agree. And even for something less than "absolute." But in my opinion, as I see it, players who should be progressing to "advanced beginner" or "intermediate" are still clinging too tightly to rules at the expense of developing judgment, e.g. C players at the local club who are coming up on life master and still base all opening decisions on Rule of 20 - no accounting at all for tens and nines being better than threes and twos, aces and kings being worth more than their "equivalent" in queens and jacks, honors in long suits, etc. But do you think that these players would have learned anything at all if they weren't taught to count HCPs? I think these players would have played very poorly all along and wouldn't have gotten anywhere. They certainly wouldn't get in the neighborhood of LM. they probably would have quit bridge before their first masterpoint. Some players have a talent for the game and they will realize that bridge is still about tricks and not about points. Others will never get to that point and they will remain walrusses. But a walrus still beats a complete nitwit. Rik

Do I really have to answer that? How do you think I would handle that one? I suppose that question is as rhetorical as mine. Nevertheless, I would rather throw the STOP procedure out of the window then force people who actually follow the rules and use the STOP card (ok, one time too many) to make a ridiculous bid. My ideal would be that players just routinely pause at bidding occasions where they could easily have a bidding problem. Usually, that would be after a jump bid, but there are plenty of non jump bid situations where you can expect tempo problems. But practice is that many players don't even pause after a STOP card has been pulled out. Rik

That's probably true, but relying on the guidelines probably slows down the development of those instincts. I come down on the side of trying out your judgment, even if it's a short-term loser. See what works and what doesn't, and try to figure out why. That is not my experience. If you have a guideline, you can use it for a while. After some time your experience will tell you in what way the guideline needs to be adjusted and now your judgement comes into play. In that case, you are starting out on a pattern and adjust for deviations. If you don't have any guideline at all, you are simply guessing what to do. It will be hard to recognize a pattern at all and you will not learn how to judge at all. One of the simplest guidelines in bridge is the counting of HCPs. We all know that bridge is a game of tricks and not a game of HCPs. Nevertheless, we all count points. After a while, we realize that (e.g.) honors that support each other lead to more tricks than scattered high cards. We also realize that quacks in partner's suit are more useful than quacks opposite partner's singleton. And we realize that aces are generally undervalued in the 1-2-3-4 point count. With experience, we can adjust the guidelines of counting HCPs. For an absolute beginner, it is very difficult to decide whether he should bid (and what) if he wouldn't have the HCP guideline. The same holds for more experienced players on other guidelines, whether it is the LTC, LOTT, rule of 9, ZAR point count, the rule of 11, the rule of 15, or whatever. These guidelines are setting a mark. And your judgement can tell you how your actual situation will be different from the mark. Rik

That certainly would make sense. But I really hope that this will never be a regulation or law. In practice there are many cases where people obviously use the stopcard by mistake (often with some giggles at the table). Recent examples that I encountered were: 1♥-Pass-2♥-STOP 4♦; ... STOP 4♥, giggles all around. and Spades are set as trumps, early in the auction. Science follows. Then comes Blackwood: 4NT-5x 5NT-6y ... STOP: 6NT In the last case, the 6NT bidder's brain tells him that he leaped past 6♠, which was where the auction was heading originally. The 'leap' made him use the STOP card, even of there was no jump in the auction. The same goes for the 4♥ bidder. He meant to jump to 4♥ all along and had his bid mentally ready. He just needed to pause for 10 s before he could make his bid, even though he didn't have much to think about. After the 10 s, he did what he intended to do all along: 'jump' to 4♥. Except of course that it wasn't a jump anymore. While I agree that there is some (pretty vague) UI crossing the table in these cases, I would be very much against forcing the 6NT bidder to bid at the 7 level and forcing the 4♥ bidder to bid 5♥. And a long time ago, I actually saw an auction where diamonds were set as trump. It ended with: 7♣ (offering a choice)-Pass- STOP 7NT How would you handle that one? Rik

My answer: 4♣ is a cue agreeing diamonds. 4♣ promises a club control, otherwise you would bid 4♦. 4NT is quantitative. Rik

At first, your thinking should be: "This is a ♣cue in support of hearts." After that, you will realize that partner doesn't have any other cue available below 4♥: 3♠, 3NT, 4♦ and 4♥ are all needed as natural bids. This means that 4♣ cannot be linked to the club suit anymore. (What would you bid with a good hand, heart support, but no club control?). Therefore, it is a general bid showing a hand with heart support that is too strong to bid 4♥. Rik

3♥. To me, 4♥ shows a hand that is weaker and more distributional (think of a weak two in hearts or a 3♥ opening). With a hand that was just about too weak for a normal 2♥ overcall, I bid 3♥. Rik