ritong

hi there:) farfie and i would be delighted to represent BBOF

hello yunling imo, showing two suits at once is better regarding competitive auctions- we all know that many expensive boards are generated by wrong décisions with undisclosed double fits- this rejoins your third point yes, more informations to opponents if hand belongs to them i m not sure this can be avoided. regarding 5/3 fits in other major, the responder can have a complete picture of the opener's hand via a 2NT relay, including 3514 shape. friendly henri

imho, answer is : we are 95% sure.. east might have concealed the spade 3 from the start, seeing the whole thing coming and simulating club 10xx- that would be a very deep play, for sure- now, it might be an answer to ben's question: rodwell finessed because it was possible that east was out of clubs.

hi guys are we 100% sure east has four spades and not five?

hello i would understand enough for slam, willing to discover a minor fit 4/4. it seems that sakurakan is so contemptuous about bots that he does not credit them for having heard about stayman.6 hearts is better than 6 NT here.

hi! i certainly agree with fred about the arithmetical side of his demonstration however, the fact that lho has got an early ruff basically means that he led to get one..do we all do that with a potential trump trick?

i think hamdi has a very identifiable style :) how so, "some other internationals"? :)

how come no one mentions the fact that, most of the time, the declarer has a two suiter on this auction? by two suiter i mean at least 5/4 , and the rest of the time he has 6+ spades therefore, i would not consider opening a blank ace as criminal in this particular situation, with two ideas in mind 1) avoid to lead his likely second suit, i.e. diamonds or 2) get super lucky and hit my partner s single or Kx if the suit i pick is declarer s side suit, or even grab our four possibles tricks when he had possible pitches. of course, all that is very speculative, but leading a trump or a diamond looks scary to me, anyway scarier than an ace. also, there is a miniclue in the fact that rho did not try to find a possible 4/4 fit in hearts, so my definitive choice would be club ace.

if i desperately need a good board, i would consider 3 NT on the second one, hoping to hit a case where the number of tricks is the same in both denominations, or opponents mislead, or are shocked enough with the dummy to misdefend.

was it? disparate quality and top suit longer?

hi guys! thanks ben for highlighting this hand, although it was some kind of a frustration to discover the dummy .. i even risked an " o_0? " which, for me, is a sign of intense stupefaction ;) keep in mind that i opened a real monster at the one level, and it turned out well since we established clearly the trump suit at a relatively low level, so i was happy with my initial decision (hence the frustration). what about blackwood? two things 1) it is not available if opener holds a void(not the case here, admittingly) 2)say you use it here, because you do not have a void. what if pard answers one key with 5♦? would you be sure that a 5♠ queen ask will be clearly perceived? what about 5 NT ? well...is there really a possibility that it means " pls pard pick a suit " ? i think no, frankly. is there a possibility that it means "hey pard, i hold ♠ AKxxxx ♥ Hxxxx ♦ - ♣ AK and i do not see an other way to check the top ♥s" ? i think yes, frankly. QED :P kudos for the nice lil convention, ben. very comfortable.

matchpoints scoring. for all the reasons i gave, with a slight decreasement to "b", i certainly would use the beast. reason e) comes into the picture if it turns out bad heh

hi there:-) my five cents for that one: 1m pass 1M pass 3NT represents a flat & fitted hand, with which opener intended to rebid 2NT, so 18/19 balanced. most probably a huge majority of pairs have a way to show flat fit, although i like this solution because it allows to stay in 3NT with two balanced hands, and it leaves room for responder to launch control checking at the four level if he wants to. it looks like space consuming proceed, but it establishes fit and defines openers structure & strength with maximum speed. bad side is it makes it more difficult to find a better lateral fit, and concerning the minor strong one suiter, frenchies play a constraining 2♣/2♦ strong opening arsenal which deals with this handtype. to answer initial post, i do not recommend to use that with a new partner:p

i m very happy this topic comes up, because i have for long a desire to see the teamgame structure evoluate some in the sense of comfort. thirty years ago, it worked that way : people arriving to the club and interested in TG contacted a specialized host, who held a list . when 8+ ppl were gathered , two captains were designated, and drew (with a cardpack, the biggest card choosing first) their teammates. what i imagine for the site is a kind of specialized chatroom, with an access to lobby to contact people directly or via lobby chat, and a board with eight places to register people, either by themselves or via the organizer. settings managed by organizer, people leaving for a reason or another (say disconnection...) easily replaceable by other persons present in the chatroom, etc.. believe everybody gets the spirit of this stuff. and when the eight boxes are filled, avanti ! on decision of the orga, for example (launching button ), or under the actual form of invitation sending, to avoid " hacking" of non-aware people B) think every necessary features already exist, and convinced everybody would appreciate such facilities..is often hell to set up a TG currently.

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=7444 (have to scroll some ;)

hi :-) han quotes me in his initial post (riton 2!♣ is my baby), so i guess i have to add my two cents here ;) the disparity of answers indicates there is no really obvious choice, and this is the basic sense of the artificial 2♣ rebid han evocates, meaning " i m stuck". this will be followed with 3♥, depicting a hand between 1♥ 1NT 3♥ and a strong opening. frenchies have two strong openings, 2♦ game forcing and 2♣ which is either 22/23 balanced or any "strong two". this hand belongs to the last, so would be treated that way by a french style tenant. there is a thread called " gazzilli" on this forum where you can find about riton 2♣. friendly henri.

hello :-) people who follow vugraph shows know that raptor is of my pet gadgets. this hand is too powerful to use it, imho. i would overcall 1♦, waiting for next round .

bon anniversaire dude hope we can share & "pig out" some prawns with mayonnaise one of these years :-)

hello :-) vugraph boards & comments can be found via "explore bridge " in the main lobby, then " bridge library ", then " vug archives ". i have to admit that , sometimes regrettably , technical considerations can be replaced with some debatable tries of being funny by some of our guests. however , these people devote part of their time and energy to a common enterprise , which is broadcasting bridge events on BBO , and pure technical comments would probably become quickly somewhat boring . if some of these comments hurt you , i can only apologize for this and hope it will not happen again . please consider that we cannot have every time big shots like our own fred, or eric kokish, or larry cohen, or the rosenbergs , or a dozen of others who will forgive me not to quote them . in any case , when we are lucky enough to have one or several among these "stars ", the panel includes also at least one less performing actor who , almost inevitably, will try to share with others his brilliant humor . my humble opinion is that is part of the " game ", and my hope is you or other "victims " will take it for what it s worth, a smile :-) friendly henri.

hi justin . i like to share virtual table with you . the "at least for a while " part says it will be possible again . waiting for that , hoping luis " rock'n'roll" argerich will be online at the same time . bon vent a toi . henri

maybe :-) i prefer creedence clearwater revival - your saying of bertrand russell looks to be clearly indicated for me, besides...

mm... in any context , sexy is a synonym for seductive :-) not sure about " what you get for..." . i bid in polls like i do at the table , is the goal of a poll imho . at the table, then , i do not suspect opps are trying to trick me with a phony 1nt ( anyway, if one among you folks never bid 1nt on ♠Qx, he/she can throw the first stone at me), i can see that i have six net losers and i hope my cue bidding part covers three of them one way or another . an other way to perceive it is : my part invites , my hand seduces me, i accept. finally , in the " at the table "view, we play several hands . in my experience, it is not a bad thing opps are convinced you are a barbarian :-)

looks plain OK to me, arend :-) my plan is not to inflict a dozen of boards written in small letters , but rather to expose a "new" concept , which is adaptable to already existing systems, like ben did, for example . to be digestible, the " new " thing has to be easily definable , and you did that quite accurately , i think . direct bids are " pure " , transit by 2♣ indicates some " flaw ", to be defined with the third bid . ah, and according to this i do not think three level bids after having used the gadget are forcing , but as said before , the tool is adaptable.