joshs

That would confuse me also, especially when you have a nice descriptive 3S bid available the 2'nd round to show strong trump support and a strong 2/1 suit... But keep in mind you will not always be able to show the 4 card support if you 2/1, so you have to figure out what is your most important feature: is it the 2/1 suit or is it the 4'th trump? The main question in determining if you should 2/1 or bid jacoby or splinter with 4 card support and a 5 card suit is: how important is it that partner has fitting honors? If you 5 card suit is xxxxx, then you prefer partner to have a singleton in the suit, and you should show the 4 card support immediately. You don't want partner to like his Kx or Qx holding in that suit. If your 5 card suit is something like KQxxx, AQxxx, KJxxx where a fitting honor is golddust then you should definitely 2/1 in preference to jacoby or a splinter. Holdings like Axxxx is not great for a 2/1 since a singleton opposite is good and Qx or Qxx is bad. With this kind of holding its often better to show the 4 card support directly (your most important feature). On the other hand KQx opposite your suit is golddust and you will never work that out unless you 2/1. With AKxxx you should generally 2/1 since 1 honor opposite soldifies the suit. But the holding is still good opposite xx or a singleton, so with a strong 4 card trump support you should bid agressively with this hand. With Kxxxx you should 2/1 even though you have a worse hand than with Axxxx since a singleton opposite is bad for you, but either the A or the Q opposite will improve the suit greatly so you need your partner to evaluate his hand.

OOH, I forgot his birthday. At least Eli remembered....

I am really boring, but I usually play a pretty narrow range for 2N: 3m to play 3M naturalish and forcing, but sometimes I intend on correcting 4M or 3N back to a minor (non-forcing). You raise this with 2, you bid the other major with 3 card support (or 2 card support, a void and a super hand). In this way you are finding out shape information without relays... 3N to play 4m pre-empt 4N pick a minor 5m to play Now what I usually play is for 4H to be rkc in clubs and and 4S to be rkc in diamonds (you can bid 3 then 4 if you just want to play there). If you play a wider range 2N then I do, I think these should just be slam tries, not rkc, or something like optional rkc: step 1=min (then next step re-asks keycards) step 2= 1 no Q step 3= 1 and Q step 4= 2 no Q step 5= 2 and Q step 6 = 3 no Q etc. The optimal steps depend a lot on the range...

Ken, I am not sure about your notion of simplicity. For instance, if price's go up 2% and you earn 6%, you are really making only 4% in constant dollars, while if prices go up 8% and you make 6% you are losing money. All calculations should really be made in constant dollars (accounting for inflation). In constant dollars, an ARM has the same interest rate every year (and thus is not risky) and a fixed loan is in fact quite risky. What eliminates the risk for the fixed loan for the borrower (and adds significant risks for the lender) is a quirky asymmetry in the mortgage contract: If the mortgage contract was I give you this amount of money and you give me this many payments of X amount, we would have a symmetric contract. In fact, the lender has prepayment risk: Lets say I lend at 5% and 2 years later the rates are at 6%. Well then the lender is losing 1% on its money (in constant dollars) relative to the original contract. On the flip side if I lend at 5% and 2 years later the rates are at 4% then it may appear that I am gaining 1% (hence symmetry) but in fact a lot of your customers refinance, so you only gain the 1% on a fraction of your loans. Therefore, when borrowers have a right to prepay, a fixed rate mortgage will result in a loss if you charge the customer the prevailing market rate for capital. So what happens is that you have to charge more for a fixed loan OR eliminate the borrowers right to prepay. Hence there is necessarily a cost to eliminating the risk. Most of the changes to mortgages in the last 25 years: a. made them more appealing to investors (who did not want huge interest rate risk, and wanted to know when approximently they were getting there money back) b. thus making more money available for people to buy homes c. thus made mortgages cheapers and enabled a lot more people to own homes Further, home ownership has always been one of the primary vehicles of capitalism: Hernando de Soto, for instance, found that 75% of all companies were started with money borrowed against that person's home. P.S. I highly recomend Hernando de Soto's book The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else Having said all that, the industry certainly went too far and allowed too many people to own homes. So the situation has changed from: Old: That evil bank didn't lend me any money because they said I couldn't afford it (I have seen this scene in 100's of movies over the years ) New: That evil bank lent the guy money despite the fact that they couldn't afford to pay it back I think both descriptions are silly. I personally like the modern attitude which is "lets set up a good risk management scheme to help allow us to make more loans." Its just a question of keeping everything in balance...

Yeah you need to live in the home for 2 years to avoid paying capital gains taxes on the selling price (although its prorated if you live in the home for part of it) if there is in fact a gain....

Personally, I play 1M-2M-Jump Shift as a side 5 bagger that is interested in slam, so that partner will evaluate cards in my suits, and aces, but nothing else. If you have a 5431 or a 6331 hand interested in slam you can start slowly and see what partner does (unless you play some kind of 2 way tries that includes a short suit try).

You are missing one important item: income taxes. Yes you have to pay a property tax + insurance, but you work that into your monthly mortgage. Here's a calculation I made for myself. I can put $200k down and get a mortgage on a place for say $3k-$4k/month. If I do that, the govt will basically kick in about $1k/month in tax savings. If I rent instead, I can receive say 5% on my $200k (at zero risk) and rent for say $2k a month. So you'd think by renting I earn lets say just under $1k/mth in interest the other way. But, I now have to pay taxes on the interest I earn! And I'm achieving no equity. So income taxes are really set up for owning rather than renting. The main interest deduction applies when I buy a home and live in it. There are deductions assocaited with second homes (for instance the property tax is deductible, so efectively you are only paying 2/3 of the property tax rate and you can deduct maintance or depreciation ) the rules are slightly different. I think there are deductions assocaited with interest on rental properties, but I am not certain exactly what the current rules are. I beleive its: If you pay income taxes on the monthly rent you can write off the mortgage interest. So if you want to apply a factor of 2/3 here you can, but you need to apply it to both sides (income from rent * 2/3, and interest on the mortgage*2/3). The accounting here needs to be consistant.... Now if you are deciding to buy a home for personal use instead of renting, you do need to include the factor of 2/3. So in my DC example, you monthly costs of buying are: 500K paid to your self (so we don't count this) $3500 in interest (which we multiply by 2/3) $900 in inurance and property taxes (also deductible so we multiply by 2/3) +Maintance +Lost Interest on equity (Downpayment+ the $500/month you are paying to yourself in principle) So this is 2/3*$4400=$3000 +Maintance and Carry Cost This $3000 is more then the rent, so you need enough HPA to make up the difference as well as making up for the carrying cost and maintaince. If you have bought and are renting out the property, like I said, the calculation is similar except that the rental income is taxable (which makes a big difference), so its similar to doing the whole calculation without the taxes modulo a factor of 2/3 on both sides of the equation, if we are just trying to figure out which of income and costs are larger...

Yes you have to do the calculation carefully, and also include the carrying cost for your down payment (which you could have gotten a tresuary bill or stocks or a CD or whatever with that money)..... Let me give a DC example. My friend has a 1200 Sq foot home in Alexandria is currently valued at about 750K. With 20% down (150K), you would get a mortgage for 600K. Let me assume 7% interest (Jumbo loans have higher interest rates) and we have monrthly payments of $4000/month. Of this $500 is principle, so that part is effectively paid to yourself. Yet you are paying $3500/month in interest plus about 900/month in property taxes and insurance, plus whatever maintaince costs you have. Further, absent home price appreciation you have tied up $150 in the house instead of getting 5% interest on it which is $7500/year or about $600/month. So even if you are paying $0 mainatance, you need to rent this propery out for $5000 per month to break even. I assure you that the rental values is half that. You might buy the house and rent it out, but you are betting that your equity is increasing by at least an additional $2500 a month do to home prices going up.... 800 Sq Ft Condos downtown which would rent for $1500-$1800, sell for $400-$500K plus a monthly condo association fee. Just run the math, buying is much more expensive then renting ...

Gerben mentioned the mayor reason. And depending on the laws, the bank will get the house and sell it, but this does not mean (!), that you got rid of your complete loan, at least in Germany you still owe the bank the missing money, ... unless you declare your self bancrupt, which requires that you make your finnacial situation public, and you are under surveilance for a couple of years. With kind regards Marlowe PS: And of course you may not get your house back at a cheap price. Afterall an auction is open to all. It doesn't work this way in the US. There are two types of foreclosures: Judicial and Non-Judicial. A Non-Judicial foreclosure is used in 99% of the cases. The property is put on the auction block and the bank can bid up to the value of its loan + costs. It is a relatively quick process - 4-5 months, but the bank can't go back after the borrower for any shortage. The property is the only security for the loan, the bank can't go back and get a 'default judgment'. If after the property sells and the bank still hasn't collected its loan, its SOL. Rarely, the bank will have a huge shortfall, and the borrower will have a significant financial statement where it pays to go back and get a judgment for the balance. This assumes the loan documents allow it, and the borrower has something to go after. It is also a much slower process, since the 'judicial' foreclosure doesn't get any priority on the court calendar, so it can take 18 months or so. Actually there are two distinctions: Judicial vs Non-Judicial Forclosures is one The other is Recourse vs Non-Recourse loans You sort have combined the two into one idea The standard mortgage contract is a recourse contract. That is you have borrowed $X and have agreed to pay this money back. If you do not, the bank lays claim (holding a lien) to your property and sells it. Giving them your property does not eliminate there claim for $X. If you borrow 200K, and they foreclose, and sell the property for 150K you can still sue for a definciency settlement for the other 50K. Now having said that, this doesn't happen much for two reasons: 1. Most of the western states (including CA) passed laws back in the depression against definciency claims on home mortgages. These laws effectively convert to mortgage contract from a Recourse to a Non-Recourse loans. Note though that these laws really are mostly in the western US. 2. Most people who default don't have any money, so its a waste of time and money (legal costs) to go after them.... For Judicial vs Non-Judicial see: http://www.all-foreclosure.com/judicial.htm Its really mostly about the forclosure process (and property auction process) and disposition of the property and not about the debt.

The person who buys houses and rents them out is usually not bothered by fluctations in the value of the house. He will not be the one walking away from the property. If anything, he will be out buying more properties at the (now) distressed/fire sale prices. People who buy properties for rental purposes, usually will: 1) know the market 2) look for houses for sale from people who were already in a distressed situation (divorce, loss of job, bankruptcy, etc.) where the property can already be purchased at 30-50% discount. 3) Is normally more concerned with cash flow (a steady income stream) that pays the mortgage 4) understands that with the passage of time the house will probably reappreciate eventually. He doesn't care if other $200k houses in the area are now selling for $150k, as he most likely purchased his property for $150k initially. He doesn't intend to sell the property (at least not in the near future), but instead to rent it for a long period of time having someone else pay essentially pay the mortgage on that property for him. In the end, he has a house that has been paid for by someone else, all the equity in the home is now his, and he has steady income stream at this point of whatever the rent is. Well, sometimes its hard to tell the difference between someone who initially intends on using the property to generate rental incomes vs a flipper (someone who intends on reselling the property as fast as possible). But having said that, there are very few individuals who buy a property only for rental purposes these days because property values in most of the US currently are so high that the mortgage payments exceed (and often by a lot) the rental value of the home (also note you will have vacancy's some % of the time and you have maintainance costs, so you need to be making a significant profit the rest of the time to make up for those factors). Thus even the renters are usually just spectulating on the housing market, while trying to reduce there costs by renting out in the mean time. Basically they are betting that the gains from HPA make up from the losses from renting. see: http://www.housingtracker.net/affordability/ for median rent to mortgage payment ratios for major US metropolitan regions. The other thing to note, is if someone wants to buy multiple properties to rent (or buy an apartment building to rent) they usually set up a Limited Liability Company so that they can default if there equity goes negative without any consequences for themselves.

Defaults typically occur when two conditions are met: a. The person has negative equity (owes more than the home is worth) b. The person is unable to make payments Condition a is a logical necessity since if your home is worth more than what you owe and you are "considering" defaulting you have a choice between 1. defaulting, getting nothing and having your credit rating ruined or 2. selling the home, collecting the difference between what the home is worth and what you owe, and preserving your credit rating Since 2 is better in all respects then 1 you always choose 2. Now, even if you have negative equity, you still might (rationally) choose to not default if you think the value of your credit rating exceeds the difference between what the home is worth and what you owe. Now as a matter of psychology/ideas about responsibility and so on, most people will not default even if they rationally should (negative equity exceeding value of credit rating), hence condition b is almost a necessity. What happens when home prices drop is that: the number of people who can't pay stays the same, but out of those, many more of them will meet condition a and not have equity in the home so they have to default since they can't sell. I hope this helps. Note: One of the common scams in recent years is appraisal fraud. Person A has a home worth 400K He agrees to sell it to person B for 500K while getting an appraisal saying the home is worth 500K. Person B gets a loan for 500K (0% down) by a bank who believes the appraisal. Person A gets paid the 400K A and B split the 100K. B skips town and defaults. (Probably B did this scheme multiple times at the exact same time, so that these transactions did not occur on his credit report)

Well over a 15-17 NT I am not inviting with less then 8. Over a strong club I am forcing game with 9. It would seem that only making your semi-positives with exactly 8 doesn't seem efficient. So lets assume your semi-positives are something like 5-8 or 6-8. Hence you are too high on 15 opposite 6. And this is a frequent occurance....

weeeeeeeeeeee I will practically always lead diamonds here. Yes partner can have anything here, but usually partner has a very strong suit, and the rest of the time partner has entries, and in 3rd chair partner might even have a min opening hand. With KQTxx a low spade might work out better, but thats just random luck, it will more often give up the game going trick or a key tempo.... If partner is vulnerable, I expect partner to always have a good suit....

Wow I would never lead a trump. If the opps bid exactly 2 suits on the way to game, I will almost never lead anything other than one of the other 2 suits (OK maybe an AK if I think partner might be able to ruff or a singleton if partner likely has some values....). The fact that diamonds are probably coming in (Axx onside) makes a passive lead all the worse. Out of all the times where the attacking lead blows the suit, a lot of the time the trick was going away on the long diamond anyway.... I think a club lead here is clear.

Says who? I thought I had never met an American who played it as anything but preemptive. From other countries I'm not that sure. I would still have bid 1♠ on the hand in the original post though, I would want either that hand with another spade or maybe the same shape with KQxxx, which seems like about the right playing strength to me. Really? It was like that when I learned bridge. Perhaps the range here has changed. I am certain that its still played as a 6 card suit (pre-empting on a 5 card suit when partner might have a x then bid again hand might not be the best idea....)

The standard meaning for a double jump over a takeout x, is a 6 card suit and about 7-9ish HCP (maybe slightly less with approriate shape/location of values). In this auction a hand like KJxxxx Kxx Qx xx would be pretty typical. Its sort of the equivalent of a mixed raise. Enough trumps and values that you expect that you will have to compete to the 3 level anyway, with playing strength at the upper end of the single jump range.

Well the cheapist bid is 2S, so what do you propose bidding with Qxx Ax Axxx Axxx? I can understand you wanting to re-arrange the meaning of the bids, so that the cheapist call is the cue bid (heart support or flexible with no 5 card suit), although that has its own problems since typically you need more space on a potential misfit then you do when you have a fit or semi-fit for partner's overcall....

So I looked up unusual vs. unusual online in two different places. Neither indicated that the 2NT bid in the auction 1m-(2m) was for minors. In fact one place specifically said it was natural. Then I looked in Root and Pavlicek's "Modern Bridge Conventions." They have a section on "invisible cuebids" which states that 2NT in this auction is natural. Their method seems to differ from unusual vs. unusual as most play it mostly in that lower cuebid = limit raise instead of lower cuebid = lower suit. They have a brief blurb on unusual vs. unusual that says nothing about the 2NT call. In any case, while agreeing that 2NT here shows something like 5-3 or 6-3 in the minors with more length in the minor not shown by opener is certainly a reasonable agreement, I am not convinced that it's a standard part of unusual vs. unusual. Certainly I would not assume this meaning without discussion (even opposite a strong partner). Well practically everyone these days plays x then 2N as natural and INV, so its a bit redundant for 2N direct to mean the same thing.... An initial double is penalty. That's standard u/u. It has nothing to do with any type of 'invite'. Mind you, I don't think this is optimal. What??? Penalty of what??? In the auction 1D-(2D) they are currently in diamonds, are you saying x is that they can't make 2D?? In U vs U the x of 2D is: "I have a good hand, and am interested in defending". (This is very similar to xx after 1X-Dbl-? if you play new suits as forcing). Every natural 2N bid (except maybe those with 4+ card support for partner) fits into this category.... If you have 3334 shape, and you x 2D and partner x's 2H are you unhappy??? Quite frankly, if I was 3244 I would probably still be reasonably happy defending in most vuls. And if you were not you can always bid 2N/3N next, so what is the loss?

So I looked up unusual vs. unusual online in two different places. Neither indicated that the 2NT bid in the auction 1m-(2m) was for minors. In fact one place specifically said it was natural. Then I looked in Root and Pavlicek's "Modern Bridge Conventions." They have a section on "invisible cuebids" which states that 2NT in this auction is natural. Their method seems to differ from unusual vs. unusual as most play it mostly in that lower cuebid = limit raise instead of lower cuebid = lower suit. They have a brief blurb on unusual vs. unusual that says nothing about the 2NT call. In any case, while agreeing that 2NT here shows something like 5-3 or 6-3 in the minors with more length in the minor not shown by opener is certainly a reasonable agreement, I am not convinced that it's a standard part of unusual vs. unusual. Certainly I would not assume this meaning without discussion (even opposite a strong partner). Well practically everyone these days plays x then 2N as natural and INV, so its a bit redundant for 2N direct to mean the same thing....

Well its balanced and weaker then an INV so pass is normal. 2N is the other option if you play this as typically 3=5 and not 3=6 (2N=minors in U vs U...)

I understand the thinking, but if you want to use 3♠ as shape-asking, I suggest that you revamp your responses to J2N altogether rather than develop a shape ask that only applies when opener has a balanced minimum. I would be afraid that using 3♠ as shape asking is going to bump cuebidding too high. You are, in shape-asking, going to cater to as many as 9 possible shapes (5332s, 5422s, and 6322s). Even with nesting responses, you are going to be at the 5-level before you can begin to differentiate between QJxxxx xx Axx Ax and Qxxxx AKx Ax xxx, and I suspect that it would be relatively easy to construct sequences where you are simply too high, especially on different slam-interested responding hands. Frankly, if you are going to all this trouble out of concern about shape, switch methods to using 2♣ responses to 1Major as artificial gf, with relay responses (I can send you a very good scheme :) ) More pragmatically, my view is that using 3♠ as a request that opener evaluate his slam-suitability in context is far easier than asking for shape and then hoping to find out whether he likes or dislikes his hand. The key is the 'in context'. The point was: what is the advantage of using 3S as "how do you like your hand?" compared to using 3N as "how do you like your hand?" and if 3S is "how do you like your hand, what is 3N". Also, since the space issues are different over hearts and over spades, is it worth it to be optimal over spades, if you can't do the same thing over hearts. I think there are a number of structures suggested in this thread: a. 3S how do you like your hand 3N natural b. 3S trump Q bid 3N how do you like your hand c. 3S Do you have extra shape anywhere (3N=some 5332, 4CDH=natural, 4S=6Spades) 3N how do you like your hand and so on. I was playing a, but I like both b and c better but note that these schemes don't work over hearts since you have 1 less step available. Note: A lot more definition can be given in the various sequences if you allow run ons. For instance in one partnership, I have jumps to 4M available over 2N and over 3D One was used to show a 7222 dog min The other to show a 6322 dog min including the trump Q (which loses value after a 10 card fit comes to light) And then I can later show 6322 min without the trump Q... There really is lots of space in the sequences.

Well that is not what anyone else here means by a 1 suited hand. The definition of a one suit hand for purposes of this discussion is a hand where you know what suit you want to be trumps. By this token: AKQJTxxx Axxx - x is 1 suited (even though you have a side suit) But AQxxxx AKx Axx x is not one suited, in that it might be right to play in a diferent strain...

This part scares me, frankly. You need cards. You continue to need cards, and yet you want even more shape definition? If a 2NT call initiates a series of shape asks from which you cannot escape, then perhaps a different start would have made sense. I personally would have started this hand with a 2/1 2♣ call, but only because this would be possibly semi-artificial with trump support and because 2NT Jacoby is not available for this type of hand. Just to contrast, follow the actual auction on these hands: 1♠(minimum opening it turns out)-P-2♣(GF, possibly art'f.)-P- 2♦(natural, but sometimes a fragment)-P-2♠(spade fit, GF, not right for a picture jump)-P- 2NT(poor trumps -- not two top honors)-P-3♣(two of the top three clubs)-P- 3♥(heart control, not two top diamonds)-P-3♠(two of the top three spades)-P- 4♦(not serious, does not hold the third top club, Ace or King of diamonds)-P-??? Responder now knows that Opener has no club honor, the diamond Ace, and the heart Ace or King. So, he bids 4♥ LTTC, seeking "more." "More" is clearly present if Opener has two top hearts, one of which is the Ace, and the spade Queen. The spade Queen and the heart Ace might be more. The spade Queen and the heart King is very slightly more. Opener needs to make a judgment call as to how much "more" justifies him taking charge and how much more should be buried pending Responder making one last stab. IMO, heart King plus spade Queen is reserve-only values, justifying a signoff. But, that approach is not necessary here if the partnership can ever get out of pattern bidding. You can pattern bidding yourself to death, but you will never learn about any honors that way. Ken its clear I don't care about pattern here when I have the Q of every side suit. I was musing about the best use of space here. There is a lot of space between 3H and 4S to work out high cards. But there are many hands which I do care about shape (e.g is partner 5332 5422 or 6322 or 7222). The one thing I absultely don't care about is what method works best on the given hands. I am interested in what bids/sequences should mean. For instance, is my actual sequence a demand to bid slam with a heart control? Is there a sequence which shows the lack of a heart control but isn't a demand? What hands should cue-bid over 3S in my actual auction? What is the difference between 3S and 3N (and is 3N natural?). And so on.... Its nice that you have a 2C bid on a 2 card suit available on this rare hand with 5 card support. Personally if I held Qxxxxx Axx Ax Ax opposite we would be in a grand slam after you 2/1 in clubs, and then show 2/3 tops in clubs and admit to the AK of spades and a red king. Its nice that the sequence worked on the actual hand (so should any sequence if I didn't run a red light later in the auction) but I don't think its partnership bidding...

I mostly agree. My 3S then bidding on over 4S was inconsistant. I should either bid 3S and respect 4S or start Qbidding immediately, to focus on the heart issue.

I have always played these as intermediate. I think thats pretty standard for 3 of a minor (since most methods do not let you overcall at the 2 level with a minor) but there is a case to be made for playing 3M differently. In the balancing seat these should all certainly be intermediate.....