GreenMan

THIS.

It makes sense to keep black for one of the suits. Possibly the diamonds are blue because red and orange look too much alike? The result feels bizarre to me, since now there are effectively three "black" suits and one red, but my color vision is unimpaired AFAIK so I'm speaking from a position of privilege here.

I doubt anyone would say that there's no causal link between how many trumps you have and the number of tricks you can take. Unless you can make a case that causality runs in the other direction, or that some third variable has causal effects on both. To me, Lawrence is simply saying that the correlation is not strong enough to rely on.

"no connection" and "related tenuously and indirectly" are contradictory. Lawrence appears to be saying "no connection" as hyperbole, then qualifying it. (Obviously if trumps were not related to tricks at all, then a 1-1 fit would produce the same # of tricks on average as a 6-6.)

Lawrence hasn't made that claim as far as I know. Cohen focuses on the mean and ignores the standard deviation. Lawrence highlights the SD as a corrective. The question IMHO is whether the high variance in the equation means that the Law causes as many problems as it solves. I believe it does, once you have enough experience to apply more sophisticated evaluation techniques. Cohen's work helped me get through an important formative period, and I do think it's useful for beginners and low intermediates, just like second hand low and so forth.

That may be the default style where you live, but not other places. Hence the question.

Let's see, 3♥ implies 4315 or 4324, 2NT implies 4234. The first is a 1.5-card lie on average, the second is a one-card lie. So 2NT is probably better. :) Also, we have no ruffing value, so notrump is more likely to score well.

There are valid reasons to bid 1NT here, but only if you and your partner have agreed to do so, as nige1 indicates. Without an explicit agreement of that nature, bid 1♠.

We can but hope! I missed your threads and didn't mean to repeat, but maybe it'll do some good after all. :)

The app works OK on my Samsung tablet. I prefer the Web version on a regular computer, but the app will do in a pinch.

Could we have choices as to what sounds we hear and what we don't? I hate hearing the thwuff sound every time a card is played, but if I turn it off I also don't get the alert sound for private chats or, when playing, the "it's your turn" alert. So if we could at least turn off the card-played sound alone, that would make things much more pleasant.

Or, alternatively, you see that declarers who failed all took different lines, and no one broke the contract on their own, suggesting that your own defense wasn't in error. It's a weakish negative inference, but it's not worthless.

"Sorry, partner, my fault, I assumed you had your bid."

Yes, I meant to mention that as well; thanks for bringing it up. Also, I always put down the trump suit (if any) first, and the strong suits before the weak suits, so partner isn't thinking "You DO have something, right?" People who put down half the trump suit at first and save the rest of it for last "Just kidding, partner" deserve to die lonely deaths.

Negative splits is a good thing, right? :)

Believe it or not, I think you CAN leak points as dummy. I see dummies toss the cards carelessly on the table with cards hidden or suits of different length taking up the same space side by side. I always take a moment to be sure that all the 3-card suits are the same physical length, and that the difference between e.g. a 3- and a 4-card suit is the same as between a 4- and a 5-card suit. This saves declarer a tiny bit of mental effort that will add up by the end of the event. One partner has said appreciatively that in the time we played together he never misread one of my dummies. We had a bit more success than you would expect given our MPs and experience, and I like to think this was a small part of that.

There, there.

Every day in the Vanderbilt and Spingold. Four quarters of 16 boards, two quarters to a session.

"Mice try, rats succeed."

Long trials such as the U.S. had this year effectively eliminate the chance that teams much below the skill level of the top few will qualify. Among those with the chops to win, the trials may be somewhat random, but I don't know anyone who has argued that second-rate teams have survived, or could survive. But again, this mainly works for NBOs with deep pools of talent. If you have a noticeable drop-off after the first, say, four to six pairs in contention, then long team trials become less useful, especially if those pairs are all on different teams. IMHO.

Just don't call him late to dinner.

I disagree with this point "Why are you leading when I am the declarer?" is perfectly clear. It appears East would not have done anything different no matter what West said, because East was not paying any attention at all to what West was saying.

Good point that a trials process aims not only at "best team this year" but also "better teams in later years". I certainly think it's been good for U.S. top-level bridge, with less familiar players breaking through in the past several years.

I didn't mean to say it should be, I meant that I expected it would be. :) Whatever the individual members' priorities, I can't think of something that would be more important to the organization as a whole.* Of course organizations don't always do what one might expect. *Setting aside things like financial considerations, which I envisaged would be accounted for under "best possible".

Seems to me that any NBO's goal for the WC would be to have the best possible showing by their representatives, and you'd think that would mean having the best possible team. In the U.S. and other countries there are up to a couple of dozen players among whom the differences are quite small, so you avoid the politics of a selection committee by having open trials and effectively letting the players sort it out. If your tolerance for politics is high and for surprises is low, you go with selection by the NBO.