TylerE

Lots of terrible directors "believe" lots of things. Doesn't mean I care (other than to appeal as high as necessary should such a ruling actually be made at my table, REGARDLESS of who against)

3N

Pardon us for not reiterating things we have complained about, very specifically, for years, when BBO obviously does not give a flying fig about user experience.

If I was teaching rank beginners, I'd teach them EHAA. No conventions. *Maybe* a basic Stayman. Certainly no blackwood. Let them development judgement. The nice thing about playing 4cd suits + mini NT is that you don't NEED any conventions for basic constructive bidding.

I honestly don't understand how this got past any sort of approval process. I'm 36, don't wear glasses, and have a hard time reading it.

Wow, i didn't think it was possible but they made it even more Fisher-Price and cluttered. Why am I suprised? And all the fonts are too thin and hard to read. Please please please revert this. It's a disaster for readability.

It's a treatment I would pay my oppoenents if they agreed to play it.

Or play reverse flannery, so responder is guaranteed to have a good hand if 5-4.

It's also showing a fit for partner, a very UNpenalty like property.

I'd rather open 1NT with that than reverse.

On what basis do you believe this bid should not be allowed? If I were east/west I would begging all my opponents to bid like this, especially red. +1100 available against 3Hx.

I think you are being rather optimisitic. Lance Armstrong won 7 Tour de France's while doping. Probably at least half the rest of the field in those races was too...

Bad bidders make bad bids. I bet they also refuse to bid 3N with an unstopped suit in an uncompetitive auction.

The fundamental flaw in that article is that it assumes always 1D when 4=4 and always 1c when 3=3. I think that is a flawed style. With ♦xxxx ♣AKQx I'm opening 1♣, with ♦AKx ♣xxx, 1♦. I like partner to lead my suit, or at least not be _afraid_ to do so. Leads are important. More so than a borderline "fit" in a minor that we don't want to play anyway, unless perhaps we're going slamming.

> I wanted to ditch the 1♣ could be as short as two, on the basis that the only time it will ever be that short is with the 4432 weak NT hand, which is very infrequent. I would rather open 1♦ with that shape, which makes little difference overall Ironically I think this is the best argument FOR opening a short club. Just pretend that 1C shows 3, know that 1D shows 4. If you end up the occasional 5-2 !C fit.. c'est la vie.

1. I don't like bidding a sacrifice at imps with two virtual sure defensive tricks. If I was going to take a shot, I'd rather bid 3N and make them figure out what's right. Can always retreat to 4!C if doubled. 2. Normal I guess. 3. At IMPs I'm just going to pretend I have another jack and open 1NT. Easy game from there, and partner's hand is the exact reason I think this is right. After a (not at all unlikely) 1M response I want to bid 2.5M, which I obviously can't do. 3M is an overbid, but 2M is way too pessimistic. So, split the difference. Whether it makes or not is frankly immaterial. With an 8 card fit in a major and 25 highs, I want to be game 100% of the time at imps.

I agree with the first part of your statement, and disagree vehemently with the second. Opener reopening here, with that hand, at that form of scoring, at those colors, is the definition of insanity. Begging to turn +50 into -200, lose 6.

That would be an aid to memory, illegal under basically any set of bridge laws, ever. No different from looking at your CC or system notes during the auction, which, obviously is illegal.

You really should have mentioned that that was with/against GIB. Any resemblance to real bridge on an auction like this is purely coincidence. For instance, any human player will really straight to respond to 1♣, especially holding a major. On the actual hand, I would think many club players would open 3♣ on the W hand, and bid 2♥ over 2♣ directly. Playing with GIB I would bid 4♥ over 2♥ with barely a second thought... GIB does quite poorly on these auctions, and any attempt to show a strong hand after doubling inevitably ends in disaster.

My personal favorite set of responses is as follows... 2♦: basically waiting, but promises an A or K 2♥: As above, but denies an A or K. Not necessarily a bust, could in theory be as strong as QJx QJx QJx QJxx or similar. The point is it denies a quick trick, which often lets opener rule out slam immediately. If we do end up exploring, responders cuebids are now unambiguously shortness. 2NT: 3 kings and at least semi-balanced. I'm not a fan of control responses in general, but I like this one, because it will very often rightside 3N/6N. Other bids: Natural, good suit. Minimum being something like AKTxx or KQTxxx.

Is anyone surprised? I have never seen software that gets so consistently worse with every single release. The Windows software that hasn't been touched in 10 years is still by far the best.

It seems to me there are basically two rational plays... either play 3 rounds of spades or just just take the !H hook immediately. Not sure which is superior.

Playing with and against GIB, this is an easy 1NT for me.

Player A and B both invite player C. What happens?

Poppycock. That isn't what anyone else thinks it means. Universally to expert players it means that it's nominally forcing, but dead (usually balanced) minimums are allowed to pass. Everything else you said in that post is also invented out of whole cloth with not a slight resemblance to expert (or even intermediate) bidding.