joshs

Did anyone actually survive to tell the tale? I didn't think so, but I can't actually remember. If no one survived it will be more than distorted - it will be fiction.... But I hear it was very well done. :P

Most bids tell, they do not ask when partner is unlimited. If you think 2N asks partner to bid game in NT if hes max, you are wrong. Partner is unlimited, and we are still in the process of describing our hand. The way bridge is, we have 1 way to bid 18-19 balanced with no primary fit. Balanced hands bid NT. There is no way to bid that shows 18-19 balanced with anti-positional values. You either show your 18-19 balanced, or you don't. Can you really not see why showing this hand type is MUCH more important than distorting your shape in hopes that partner can bid NT AND it will matter? 2N here is not a descriptive bid. Do you see why? Partner is limited in both values and major suit holdings. 2N will be bid with various shapes and hand types, and just requests that partner bid 3N with a max, and either pass or sign off in a minor with a minimum. Compare this to when partner bids 1 of a major, where he is unlimited in both of those areas. Now you must define our hand type. Thats an interesting theory, and it happens to be one that I mostly subscribe to, but thats all it is, its a theory. I am waiting to see you open 1N on Ax Qxx AQxxxx Kx opposite an unpassed hand or 2N on AQ KQxxx KJxx AJ. Since your contention is that all bids tell opposite a hand that hasn't limited himself. I contend that all bids tell within the context of what is known about partner's hand, and the meaning of all bids depends somewhat on what partner has shown. For instance, when 3 suits have been bid, NT bids tell. They say someting about stoppers in the 4'th suit, and sometimes strength. They do not tell about shape. In general I see the following tednancy: players have no problem taking a hand without NT shape and bidding NT on it, but seem to have a problem taking a hand with NT shape and bidding suits with it. I don't completely understand this, and I am one of the biggest advocates of showing hand type at your first opportunity. So maybe I think the problem here is that we disagree about what a 2NT rebid shows? I think it shows a hand worth 18-19 (e.g. inv) that is balanced and has stoppers in the unbid suits. It is sometimes bid on hands that are close to this (semi-balanced, stiff honor, no stopper or partial stopper in a suit, etc.) but that is a decision that that is the lessor of some number of evils, but is not what the bid shows. Some hands are imperfect for any action.... Next you are going to tell me that after 1D-(1S)-x-(P) you all are going to rebid 2N because you happen to be 18-19 balanced.... (I think 2N might be a better bid in this auction with the stopperless 2 card spade suit that when the opps haven't bid, since partner's stopper, if he has one, probably remains a stopper with LHO likely having the spade values).

BTW, if you held 2344 shape with 2 small spades and a balanced 16 count and you somehow knew that partner had more hearts than spades (for instance if both opponents hearts and spade holdings each fell on the table but while the other opponent was away from the table), I think opening 1N is a mistake. If you played a weak NT and partner responded 1H to 1D I think rebidding NT is a clear error....

Comparing a notrump rebid with a notrump opening my not always be fair but is fair in this case, because I am only discussing the distinction as it pertains to holding xx of a suit and the rightsiding concerns that flow from that. You said it yourself, with 1444 shape all rebids are something of a misdescription. With a 2344 18-19, a 2NT rebid is not a misdescription. When you hold 16 balanced with a small doubleton, you have the same concerns about rightsiding the hand as dealer that you do on this hand after 1♦ 1♥. In both cases, there is a clear systematic choice. Sure, I also don't like 3♣ because it complicates the auction, and doesn't let us stop short of game like 2NT does. But it is absolutely masterminding. Opening a minor suit denies a balanced 15-17. Opening a minor suit and failing to rebid 2NT denies a balanced 18-19. The fact that there may be an undesirable aspect to your systematic bid or certain advantages to other bids is simply tough noogies, you aren't entitled to fish around for a spur of the moment made up solution. Well you are entitled since you paid your entry fee, but I think from a partnership and systematic aspect this is a judgement that neither player should be entitled to make. Likewise with your example at the end. It's one thing to misdescribe when all bids misdescribe. That is not the case on the original hand. 2N does misdecscribe. It suggests playing in NT from yourside, which is something you don't want to do. I don't see why the natural meaning of 2N "I want to invite game in NT" is less important than the hand type meaning. If you opened 1D on Ax Kxx AQxxxx Ax and raised a 1N response to 2N, are you masterminding? I just think you are inviting game in NT and happen to be 1 card away from normal shape. If you miss your diamond game or slam because of it, oh well. Is 2N or 3D the % bid? I personally think 2N is the % bid, but its very close. I don't consider either to be masterminding.

BTW, I think people misunderstand the strengths and weakness of 3C. The main strength is that you can get to 3N from partner's side. Occasionally you might play 5C when you belong there. It almost never helps finding a 4-3 heart fit becuase your hearts are too strong and the decision to play in a 4-3 is always made by the player with 4 trumps. It can hurt you by bypassing your last reasonable spot in 2N. It can hurt you by getting to 6H when you are off 2 spades. I think this hand might want to lie about the trump Q if keycard occurs, since it does not have the playing strength promised.... Note: I am not arguing in favour of 3C, I just don't think its a stupid bid either... personally I rank 2N,2C,3C in that order but its very very close between them.

Well I definitely disagree here. Comparing a NT opening bid with a NT rebid is not a fair comparision. Would anyone open 1N on x AKxx Axxx KQxx? Would anyone rebid 1N with x AKxx Axxx Qxxx after 1D-1S? The difference is: you have information about partner's hand, so you have two distinct objectives: 1. describe your hand type for best exploration of strain and level 2. take the most tricks possible in your Final contract- here wrongsiding a contract is a concern, as is finding a playable part score if thats where you belong is also a concern While in the case of the 4441, 1N is a misdiscription, its not that clear that 2C isn't also somewhat of a misdiscription, so bidding the cheap playable spot of 1N is a reasonable bid, although hardly clear (if partner later bids a slam expecting his AKQxxx of spades to be running, its "your fault" for bidding 1N). In this hand after opening 1D you have information. The information you have is that, since partner has more (or equal) hearts than spades, that spades are a major weakness for NT, and you definitely don't belong in NT from your side. So you have to weigh a. misdescribing your hand by 1 card (value a) for b. increasing the number of tricks you will take in a NT contract if thats in fact the strain you belong in. I think jump shifting and then showing 3 hearts is reasonable since the point of it is to get to NT from partner's side if possible. I don't think jumping in hearts is reasonable, since we might belong in 3 other strains. I also think bidding 2N is fine but its ironic to be strongly suggesting a strain (jumping in it) when you know its wrong to be playing that strain from your side..... If you held AQxx xx Jxx AQxx And the auction went with the opps silent 1C-1D-1S(flexible stlye, can rebid a major or 1N with a balanced hand)-2H-> no one would be arguing about a 3D bid here even if it implies 4135. Yes our actual auction does more than imply a 5431, but still you are lying about only 1 card because your other rebid really is flawed as well.

If the culpret is the neighbor not the dog why isn't the question whether it's ok to kill the neighbor? Yes is it ok to kill the neighbor (or something less serious aimed at the neighbor, perhaps burning down his house?, or in equal measure to the crime at hand poisoning him?) to protect your health and safety, given all other options have been exausted. If so, what are the standards? Now when Todd says "property rights should be absolute", I am not really sure what that means, since your property rights (you own a dog and the dog runs around and does things like dogs do) can infringe on others "property rights". Also, in order to protect my property rights, without each of us killing each other over every little thing, we pay taxes (which sort of takes away from your property) in order to insure there is an infrastructure capable of settling these problems (e.g. there is a police, a court system, etc.), so inherently being party of a society involves some relincuishment of your property rights via "a social contract". So part of the question is: a. in the abstract without such a social contract, what are you morally entitled to do when someone else threatens your health or safety (or property or whatever) b. having made a social contract, but the governmental authorities don't act, do lwe lose whatever ability to act that you would have had without the social contract?

Since I am not sure we are getting to the fundamanetal issue, lets forget about the dog. I don't think the culpret in the story is the dog either, its the owner. Lets say your neighbor was dumping his garbage (including some really foul stuff) in your garden and in the area where your kids play and you kids have been getting sick, and you have strong evidence but not 100% certainty (can we ever have that?) that continual exposure to your neighbor's garbage is hazardess to your kids health. I am assuming that everyone agrees that we should be able to take legal actions to stop him, but voice up if you disagree. Usually there are laws already in place that should protect you but not always. Suppossing that the police and other public officials ignore your pleas (your neighbor is too important in town?), what can you do? What is morally legitamate to do? How much proof do you need that youe health is really in danger to take what kind of actions?

Perhaps the dog was sick? The doctors seem to think the dog is responsible (the symptoms are close to a dog spead disease).

Maybe people didn't understand the situation. My friends have a garden in their backyard, from which they grow most of their food. They also have an area in there backyard where the kids play. The dog threatens there food supply and their kids health and the dog's owners don't care. There is not 100% proof the the dog is responsible for the kids getting sick, but there is evidence for it and the 2 doctors they consulted believe the dog is responsable. The parents can't wait until there kids get very sick and they can prove responsability to act, they have to act in a pro-active way to protect their kids. So what should be done? Now the second situation was the hypothetical that despite taking the extra-ordinary steps of moving, my friends could not escape the dog. This did not involve the neighbors moving. It did involve complicity on the part of their neighbors. Perhaps this was a mob harassment thing. Apparently I am the only one here from New Jersey...

Please help my friend out. My friend's neighbor has a dog. The dog leaves his waste everywhere, including my friends garden and where my friends children play. The children keep getting sick. They have complained to the neighbors and to the police but nothing has been done. a. Is it in the legal/moral authority of the township to put the dog to sleep? b. if the town continues to do nothing, can my friend take pre-emptive action before his kids get really sick? Can he kill the dog himself? c. suppose my friend sold his house and moved, and the dog owner followed him to the new house with his dog, and the dog continued to threaten his kids health, can something be done then?

I am on a different months panel, so I guess I will provide my problems when I get them... 1. 2H. Is this a real problem? 2.A. 1N B. 3H forcing. This is the handtype that prefers the 5-3 to the 4-4 (spade losers might go on the clubs). 3. Whatever Josh actually did at the table is probably wrong in principle (you did hold this hand last month, right Josh?), but I will pass the x anyway. I can be -550 like you. 4. With 6-5 or 6-6 in the majors, I don't really care for a negative x (with 6-6 it would be aweful), but if you make a negative x you have to bid a 6 card major next. So East 100%. East's passing 3D having made a negative x is terrible. 5. West 100% of 0. I don't think anyone did anything terrible, but the patient died anyway. Opener can make the traditional rebid of 2N with the spade flaw to show hand type, but it may wrong side NT. He can underbid with 2C or overbid with 3C. Responder didn't do anything wierd. He certainly wanted to play 5D opposite 1354 shape...Basically opener took a view, and it didn't work out. Was the view a mistake? I don't really think so.

It's romantic. That's not enough for you? I have a girlfriend, I don't see the advantages :P B) She may decide that she prefers gerben since he is more romantic....

1C: 11-14 4+H, may be canape 1D: 11-14, 4+S, may be canape 1H: 15+ unbalanced, 16+ balanced ART 1S: 11-14 minors 1N: 12-15 balanced 2m: 6+ cards, 11-14 After 1H: 1S 0-4 OR no 5 card suit and 5-8 1N ART GF 2 level, 5 card suit 5-8 After 1H-1S 1N 15-19 2N 20-21 2D,2H,2S, 3C 15-19 ish 2C 20+ unbalanced, 22+ balanced, ART After 1m, Bid the major as an ART GF (relay continuations) bid the 1 under step to ask for a 5 card suit, a rebid over that is NAt and INV others natural and non-forcing etc.

I only open that playing a strong club. A few of my partner's (Timo Erkoc for instance) used to yell at me everytime I passed a 12 count, and thats not that infrequent playing a standard system.... (I probably open about 90% of balanced 12 counts)

What is our goal in this discussion? Perhaps a reasonable goal is to minimize human suffering. If we are causing GW and do nothing and the worst projections happen then sea levels rise, people's houses are flooded, arrable zones shift perhaps decreasing world food production, deserts expand, etc. However, if you cut CO2 emissions by enough to make a difference then you would do serious damage to the world economy and a worldwide depression is not very good for human suffering either. To me, the latter is more of a given than the former. Before I do something that I know is going to result in suffering, I want to be damned sure that the suffering I know will happen will be less than the suffering that would happen if we do nothing. To me, I would require "beyond a reasonable doubt" sort of proof before I would accept restrictions. I don't believe that level of proof is out there when the issue still being debated by climatologists. Personally, I'd try to put fusion power on the fast-path and make sure we can switch to a fusion and fuel-cell economy before we run out of oil. This kind of economy is basically a zero-emission economy. If we know we are going to transfer to this kind of economy in 50 years then we need to ask how much damage would we do to the climate in the meantime if GW were real. The projections I keep seeing are "over the next century temperatures will increase..." All these projections assume we'll keep belching the same emissions that we are now and to an even greater degree. Thats intresting that you understate the potential negative impacts of global warming, and overstate the potential negative impacts of envoronmental regulation. Personally I think exactly the opposite: a. Environmental regulation can't have a significant long term negative impact on the world economy (rather it forces innovation) as long as its not done disruptively (starting next wednesday no one is allowed to consume oil) since the control feedback system is purely human behavior (e.g. we certainly can adapt) b. Climate change can have a significant long term effect on humans/the world economy, since the control system may well be out of our control (e.g. if the polar icecaps melt so much that most of the major cities are underwater, and so that our food supply is deicimated, we may or may not be able to compensate for this. Anyway, this is all a classic risk assessment problem. We need to assess: a. what is the likelihood of each of a number of bad things happening b. what are the consequences c. what can we do to prevent this from happening or from mitigating the consequences, and what would that cost (or alternatively what is the probability distribution of consequences associated with the mitigations) Since there are great uncertainities here, the usually strategy is to consider a distribution of liklihoods, and of consequences, and be somewhat conservative in assessing the odds of really bad consequences occuring. E.G. If your table was: 50% of the time nothing much happens 29% of the time a few cities are lost over a period of 20 years, and the standard of living in the world goes down by 5% 20% of the time our food supply is cut, and many cities are lost so 20% of the human population is lost, and the standard of living goes down by 25% 1% of the time there is mass extinction And you have uncertainties so that that last consequence might be as much as 5% (say thats your 95% confidence bound) you might do your analysis assuming slightly conservative %'s since the conseqeunces are so severe...

Hey Bill Flannary isn't that bad a guy, but didn't one of the hyjacked planes start in Pitssburgh?

I thought for about 1 second before passing. Maybe less. This hand has horrible values. A terrible Primary suit, unsupported Q's, one of which is in a doubleton and AK tight which is also a slight downgrade. I think that this is worse than a random ten count. So unless you open random ten counts, I think pass is clear.... Note: This hand evaluates to 9.5 in my evaluation methods, without taking into account the AK tight which is a slight additional downgrade. K&R gives it 9.4. Thats about right.

There are different styles on a. how much is promised by 2S b. how much is needed for a forcing pass My preferences are: a. the 2S bid may be shaded by about 2 points relative to a game force, but not much more than that. (This is stronger hand requirment than the common "does not promise a rebid style" where 2S might be KJTxxx Ax x xxxx) b. all game invitational+ bids, that were not based on a fit, establish a forcing pass if neither played had a chance to limit themselves subsequently to sub-game values So here we are in a force even after 1H-2D-2S-3D by the way I like to play. Note that the auction had gone 1H-2D-3D-6D, b would not apply. c. game invitational bids in a suit, establish a forcing pass at the 5 level or higher if neither player had a chance to limit themselves subsequently to sub-game values So here 1H-2D-3D-6D would be a forcing pass situation Note that my c, is a somewhat agressive agreement that will lead to some -550's and the like, but I think its worth it to be able to sort out if we prefer declaring or defending in the 95% of the cases where we go plus from at least one of those two options... In some partnerships, I play that the c situation sets up a forcing pass at all levels. I find this useful, especially at mps, but it is agressive. I actually prefer this agreement, especially if you systematically have a way of showing a mixed raise, so the limit+ bid is never shaded.

My belief is that if you want to play ELC, xing and correcting should still promise extras, just not the 17 count or so normally associated with that sequence. Also, with a doubleton in the low suit, you don't need quite as much extras as with a singleton. So for instance over 1S: With 3451 you need about a 15 count to x and correct With 2452 you need about a 13 count to x but at least 15 to plan on xing and converting, Note: with this shape you really can't convert except at the 2 level and often with this shape you don't convert even at the 2 level. Even with these extras, your dummy will be a dissapointment With 1462 type you can get away with xing and converting on about 12-13 if you have prime values.

1. 4N (2 places 2 play). All my values are offensive, I have offensive shape (5431), and partner made a taekout x. If partner was being frisky this might even be a good save. 2. Pass. I expect to beat it, but I am a. not positive b. don't want to encourage partner to lead the Spade A c. its possible that partner was bidding 2S based on an extra spade rather than sound values

Mark me down as a passer and I don't even think its close. Some people seem to think this hand is worth a 2.5 heart call, and thus 3 isn't such a stretch. I think this is a 1.5 heart hand, and you will get too high (and maybe in the wrong strain) by bidding here. If partner is still interested in game, he can x or bid. With a balanced hand, and transferable values he should x even without shortage here. But with primarily defensive values and length in there suit he should just pass it out. I also think a 3H call here should be a 5 card suit with very very rare exceptions, and this suit/hand isn't one of them.

Let say you missosrted you hand the first time and had AJx AQxxx Kxxx A, and passed, now you have an absolutely textbook x of 3C. A penalty x of 1H, with shortage in clubs, and good all around defense. The actual hand is not that far off, although KQxx in hearts in not the best holding when responder is likely short in hearts.... I still don't think the first pass was that bad if white vs red, since you have no clear bid, and great defense.

I usually play that both players first bid suit is NEVER rkc except when a second suit was strongly raised (a splinter or something else that shows 4 card support and slam interest). For instance in 1S-2H-4C, kickback applies, but it applies in few other sequences that start 1S-2H. In my more practiced partnerships we have more detailed agreements about when a trump suit was firmly set. As an example, I have never played that 1S-2H-3H sets trumps. I usually play that hearts are trumps unless the next bid is 3S or 4S, in which case spades is trumps. Responder can have 5H and 4S and want to show his 2/1 suit before agreeing spades. 1S-2H-3H-4S shows something like AQxx AQxxx xx xx for me. And so on. But it was a funny story!

How about a wine tasting at my place on Sat evening, June 10'th? We will taste a few shiraz's from my collection, a port, and some other goodies. (the number of bottles I open will depend on how many people come...)