Vilgan

X was pretty wretched, and the defense that followed wasn't much better. I'm guessing with the "self described expert" comment you were the partner who had to put up with this nonsense?

I'm pretty sure that some Districts have a considerable outlay when they host an NABC. District 25 (New England) sets aside funds for the NABC, spends them during the NABC, and then replenishes during the years between NABCs in New England. yeah... everytime I've heard discussion of funding for an NABC, it is assumed that it will be very expensive for the hosting district. Districts do things like tacking on a dollar to entry fees for the NABC fund, hold special games for funding, etc. I'm not personally familiar with how the whole process works, but it seems unlikely that so many districts would need to raise money for NABCs if it wasn't costing them a pretty penny to host.

-> 6♠. -> not sure actually. Probably 6♠. At matchpoints our auction would likely go: 1♠ 2♥ 2♠ 2NT 4♠ 4NT 5♣ 6♠ or 1♠ 2♥ 2♠ 2NT 3♦ 4NT 6♦ avoiding 3♣ might or might not be a good idea. In north's view, the hand is likely heading towards 6NT/7NT or 6♠/7♠ and if its NT he wants to play it.

Double by south there seems pretty standard. 0% to south, 80% to N 20% to E/W E/W made it harder for north to make the right call, but bidding 4 spades when you aren't sure what partner has seems a bit risky. It does seem like one that you need to screw up to really get hammered home though. If north hadn't been in this position before, the error of bidding 4♠ is less evident.

seems correctable (with UI to partner), but it really seems like yet another argument against the stop card. It seems like the stop card is used a significant amount to "wake partner up" rather than to take care of the opponents. I've seen people pull out the stop card, put it down, stop, look significantly at their partner to make sure they got it, then put down their special bid.

we play the jump as stronger and the 2NT 3c 3s as invitational. Pure partnership thing tho, as I've played the reverse with a different partner.

I was that person. And no, we did not end late. I don't know that you are allowed to end late in the early days of the Vanderbilt. Time on the clock was 2 minutes for the 2nd quarter when we finished. We compared, turned in result, and phone lady was gone.

Its not 3 keycards when partner told us to ignore the A of hearts :)

This. Fairly trivial to bid with XYZ. I think 2♣ and 2NT both have merit. I don't see a problem with 2NT, although its unfortunate we caught partner with a dead min as now they can't bid 3♥ on the way to 3NT.

I only made 6 on this hand at the table :) No helpful diamond overcall though clarifying the risk of a diamond rough.

First round of the Swiss finals yesterday, we sat down against a nice young couple we'd played against a lot.. this was the 4th day in a row we'd sat at the table against them. Auction: 1♦(1) - X - 2NT - p 3NT - all pass 1: could be as few as 2, 11-15 points The Q of spades was led, and here were the hands: [hv=v=n&n=sxxhqjxxdaq9xcaxx&s=saxxhat8dktxxxcjx]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] So I ducked the first 2 spades (the Q and J led from west). East discouraged in spades (trying for a club switch) but west guessed wrong and switched to a heart. A small heart off dummy got the 9 from east, won with the Ten. After thinking for a bit, it looked like there was a nice squeeze on east if he held the KQ of clubs and the 4th heart. So... small diamond to dummy, small heart to the T, then I cashed my 5 diamond tricks and east pitched 2 spades and 2 clubs. Cackling to myself, I now played the A of spades and discarded a club off dummy leaving this position: [hv=v=n&n=sxxhqjxxdaq9xcaxx&s=saxxhat8dktxxxcjx]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] I excitedly watched east's final discard, waiting for the inevitable small ♥ or club honor to drop. Sadly east discarded a club. I cashed the A of hearts (dropping the king), crossed to dummy with the club A, and cashed the Q of hearts. So like... I could have dropped the K of hearts earlier, as it was K9x the whole time. However, I DID confirm it via the nifty squeeze :P It was my first time ever having the criss cross position (with the count rectified already) actually come up at the table. Soo... 2 questions: 1) Do I get to count this as having pulled it off, even if I just used it to confirm the correct play? 2) How often does the criss cross squeeze actually occur? I don't remember having seen it before, even when others were declaring against me. Anyway, was really cool. Still wish east had held 4 hearts though, which would have made it even cooler! :P

Definitely a forcing game defense.. ♥ or ♦ could be right. I'll probably just default to the heart 9 with the agreements you described.

Funny that this story is here, as I too got passed in what I felt was a western cue for the first time yesterday :P 1♥ - p - 1♠ - 3♠ all pass Only went down 1 in my 4-1 fit! The opponents were held to their 5 spade tricks (5-3 break and partners 6432 of spades weren't winning any tricks). I would have taken your 3♣ there as natural though especially when not discussed.

Seems like an idea that will have trouble getting off the ground as the main attraction is for the clients and potential pros who don't have tons of name recognition yet. I can see why people who have already made it wouldn't be interested. It puts them under the microscope a lot more than normal. If they make an error, there is a good chance their client won't notice. Or, if they do, it may not be a big deal. However, with a place where people can comment about them then it can put a lot of their choices under the microscope where they may not like it. Just about everyone will make a mistake from time to time.. but memory fades while comment boards are eternal :P If they sometimes vent a little, they might feel more pressured to keep it in... which is good for the client but probably more stressful for them. For the big boys.. I don't know that there is much attraction to having a publicized rate either. Seems like the rate would be whatever the client will pay and may vary depending on client. I have no clue how this works though, so I could be totally off :P I definitely don't think it will get off the ground if there is a hefty fee. It seems to offer little that is attractive to people who are already successful... so why charge them heavily? I'd think a 10$ lifetime membership for everyone interested (pros and clients) would be more appropriate. It won't make whoever puts it together oodles of money.. but on the flip side, it shouldn't be crazy amounts of work either.

Our teammates had a somewhat amusing bidding issue yesterday in the National Swiss. 1♦ - p - 4♥ - p ? They play 4♥ here as exclusion w/ diamonds as trump. The person bidding exclusion has an easy bid, as depending on partners keycards he can easily bid 5♦, 6♦, or 7♦. Their partner had a bit of a quandary over the exclusion bid though, as their hand was: Qxxx ATxx AKxxx void A lot of things ran through her head. She thought about 6♣, for odd number of keycards and a club void.. but she had 2 keycards. 5NT would usually show an even w/ a useful void.. but she's not sure if its useful and partner won't have the space to find out what which suit is the void. She ended up just showing 2, and partner put it in 6. Unfortunately for our team, the void is useful (her partner had KQ in clubs) and its pretty much a trick 1 claim. The heart void in the west hand and the club void in the east hand were not the only voids in the hand. I was sitting S and had a diamond void. My partner was the most "balanced" of those at the table, with a wimpy singleton spade being his shortest suit. Fun hand. None of us had experienced the issue of answering exclusion when we have a void of our own before ;P

I was semi against the cell phone ban before, but after Houston I friggin hate it. 2 bad experiences: 1) I decided to be a "good boy" and check my cell phone for the Vanderbilt. Paid my 2 bucks, okay whatever. We used pretty much the whole time as it wasn't a cakewalk match, but we won so we got the evening off. I came out, eager to retrieve my cellphone, call the girlfriend, call friends to arrange dinner plans and the lady who was in charge of the cellphones was gone as was the box of phones. I had to come back at the start of the evening session to retrieve my phone. This was pretty aggravating. 2) Day 2 of the imp pairs, I talked to my partner as I arrived at the playing area about 40 minutes before game time. He said he was 15 minutes away and would see me at the playing area around 20 minutes before it starts. I left my phone in my car and headed into the hotel. 5 minutes till game time.. no sign. Game time starts... he is not here. 5 minutes into the round.. he has not arrived. Now, had I had my cellphone... I could have hopped out into the hall to find out where he was or what the problem was. It was 5 minutes into the round and I had no clue if he'd be another 1-2 minutes, 20 minutes, was in a wreck, whatever. That sick nervous/not being able to do anything but wait and hope feeling sucked. He ended up showing up 7 minutes into the round and we finished on time, but going back in time 15 years to the experience of not being able to call was really unpleasant. So ya... the ban sucks. In the 2nd position.. had I ignored the ban and left the phone in my pocket I can't really tell my opponents brb, calling partner on my cell to see where he is.

Bit of a disagreement in our club to the alertability of light openings. For people playing a system who regularly open light hands, what is the point at which it becomes a pre alert? I'd heard "if you can open with 8 hcp more than "extremely rarely" then it is a pre alert" in the past, but no clue what relation that has to the rules (if any). Any sort of reference to the laws would be especially awesome, as 2 different tournament directors in our district are giving 2 different answers. Thanks!

A few things here: You should win partner's spade continuation with the K of spades and then follow with the Q of spades. Tell your partner you have something in diamonds. It doesn't help on this hand, but its a good thing to at least be aware of. Just saying ♠ and a ♠ leaves out a lot of information you can communicate to partner. Continuing with a 4th spade is risky. The most obvious risk is that declarer is 3523 and your diamond trick just went away. Even if declarer is 3532, bad things can still happen as you saw when partner was squeezed out of one of his minor suit guards. Personally, I'd have just exited a diamond. Its the one suit (outside of trumps) where we might still take a trick. It certainly doesn't give away anything, and leaves declarer to solve trumps (if there is any solving to be done) on his own.

This is matchpoints... so 2♠ doesn't seem like a very good idea. I like double best, 2♣ and 2♥ tied for 2nd, pass a close 4th, and 2♠ a distant 5th. Disadvantages to 2♠ imo: if it goes 1♠ 2♠ 4♠ ?, partner is going to fail to double a lot of times when they should. If the spade suit needs to be played for less losers (assuming we are short/void), they will know to play in that fashion. We painted a gigantic X on our head by pushing to the 3 level vulnerable without a guarantee of even having a good fit and our heart suit blows. There are like 3828342 hands that LHO could have that will lead to an automatic penalty double at these colors. At least if it was imps, there'd be less risk of a double (imo). Finally, for all that risk there seems to be a low chance of gaining by bidding 2♠. If the opponents bid game.. it is the wrong colors for a sacrifice. Hell, we even have the wrong hand for a sacrifice. Maybe we will get LHO to stretch to 3♠ and they go down when they could have played 2♠ making (or down less). That could happen.. but it doesn't seem like a percentage result. Maybe I'm just overly double conscious, but I make a lot of my bread and butter off doubling opponents who make bids like 2♠ here, and I'm not too eager to hand out a gift of my own on a silver platter. By all means, if the opps look like shaky players.. 2♠ is an easy call. I think it'd be rather questionable in a strong matchpoint field though.

A kids show that makes bridge "cool" would be the ultimate win. It certainly worked for Go in Japan with Hikaru no Go. Here is a quick BBC blurb on that:

Agree. The problem with passing on #1 is that if you pass and then bid 3NT, it will be obvious that you had a penalty pass, and LHO will lead a ♣, by bidding 3NT directly, it's not nearly as obvious, and at MPs that's all the difference :P. Why is a spade lead a good thing? We have 2 stops, but could easily have trouble hitting 9 tricks before they knock out our stoppers and cash their spades. I think there are many many hands where we could defend 1♠ X'd for 200 where 3 NT would not make. My personal choices were: 1) p 2) p (am I a wimp? I am gonna feel like an arse if partner leads K from Kx in spades) 3) 4♥

4♦ and pass camp for me. Its definitely one of those hands that gets people salivating. Its also one of those hands that many people fall in love with and push too far (imo).

48% 2/1 and 48% SA in my area. Since I quit playing precision locally, we have 2 precision pairs as well as 1 Schenken pair. There are also 2 pairs who play a system they built, and neither system/pair is very impressive. Oh yeah, also 1 ACOL pair. We have around 4-5 weak NTers as well. Typically a 14 table session will have 1 pair playing weak NT. As the average age here is around 69, there are also some 16-18 NT openers but not as many as might be expected. The surprising thing (to me anyway) though, is how few people play certain conventions. The majority do not play support doubles. Kickback is crazy rare (not sure if any other partnerships use it). Fit Showing Jumps do not exist. Many claim they play RKC, but only 4% (or less) know about the followups like the Q ask. Obviously everyone plays stayman, but nobody knows how to do followup bids to it. Lebensohl over NT interference is played by a few, but the other incarnations of Lebensohl (like over 2M - x) do not exist. Not saying my area is crazy weak. We have solid players that tend to do reasonably well in regional events both locally and at other tournaments. However, pretty much all of our solid players are of the "old, experienced, play almost no conventions" type.

er... oops ya, auction seems fine then until the final pass by S. I don't see how 4♣ could be anything but heart support.. but it really ought to show a control which is nonexistent in the S hand.

I was looking at a list of recent bridge books, and a few interested me. If you have read any of the following books, a review would be much appreciated! :) 1) Gary Brown's Learn to Play Bridge. Thinking about giving this to a friend w/ spades experience but 0 bridge experience. 2) Stewart's World of Bridge 3) The Lone Wolff by Bobby Wolff 4) Duplicate Bridge at Home by Gitelman/Horton Thanks for any comments/insights! :)