JanM

My mathematical expert says you didn't provide enough information :). Is the doubleton or the AKQx in dummy? Which of the opponents is playing first to each trick?

I think that there has been an enormous change in how the internet is used today and how it was used as recently as five and certainly ten years ago. Yes, mailing lists existed ten years ago, but not very many people were comfortable with using them. About ten years ago, some of us tried to introduce a mailing list for the ITTC (the committee that works on Conditions of Contest for the Open Trials) and it completely failed - people wouldn't use it, the committee continued to send out emails to an email list maintained by a few different committee members (so the list wasn't always identical, and if people replied to an email, the reply usually just went to the person who had written it). A few months ago, we tried again, and the committee members are now happy with the mailing list method of communicating. I'm not sure when the ACBL started having a website, but I do know that it has expanded a lot lately (including having a page about C&C that says what the C&C committee is currently considering, although I agree that page should have more information). I expect that expansion will continue. I also expect that reasoned requests will generate better responses than vituperation, but maybe I'm wrong. Thank you for the links to old Midcharts - I didn't know that sort of thing was available and was trying to remember what it looked like when first drafted and when changes took place. It seems like more than 8 years since approved defenses were required, but I guess it just feels that way. There's always going to be a conflict between people who want to play new and different things and people who don't want to deal with them. Originally the Midchart listed a very few specific bids for which there were recommended defenses (the old "Yellow book") plus some general things that the committee thought would not cause problems (really the only ones were a call that shows 4+ cards in a specific suit, but isn't both weak and a 1-level bid, and defenses to NT openings). That was in place for a while and some of the methods used were difficult to deal with, so people complained that this was "too hard." The committee responded to that by requiring that defenses be pre-approved before a method could be used. You don't like that I guess. And I'm not going to change your mind. I think if we get a place to post all of the methods that are submitted with their defenses, you'll be surprised by how bad some of the defenses are. But it is, at least where ACBL is concerned. They've been working on the website, but it's still not the easiest place to find things. When I was on the Hall of Fame Committee, I was constantly trying to find the link to the Hall of Fame. I still have to remember that it's under "About ACBL" but at least there's now a link. And about approval of new methods, there is now a description of what has to be included in a submission of a method and defense: Would an example be an improvement? Of course. Will we get one in the near future? I don't know. But this is more than used to be available, so hopefully we're moving in the right direction, even if slowly.

I'm not sure how that could have been avoided without running into what had been happening before (maybe you don't think it was unclear, but I know people who convinced directors that what they wanted to play was "listed on the Midchart" and thus allowed, despite the fact there wasn't an approved defense). The current Midchart includes the following statement, which I would have thought made it clear that new methods could be approved: I think you're getting that from the statement on the Defense Database page that "The committee is unlikely to approve requests for artificial openings that do not promise length in the suit bid or any weak openings for 2 board segments." I have already said that I agree that it would be better if the things that had been submitted for approval and the responses to those submissions were public. I think you are wrong that nothing has been added, although you are probably correct that nothing has been added for 2 board rounds. As far as I know it's legal for 12 board rounds. It was approved only for 12 board rounds, along with a bunch of other things, because it needs more discussion than there is time for in a shorter segment. I'm sure that if the standard now being applied were applied to the existing defenses most, if not all, of them would fail. But I think you're also being unrealistic when you say that dealing with subsequent rounds of the auction is always going to be difficult. The best way to provide a defense that people can actually play is to try to get back to something "normal" as quickly as possible. So, for instance, our defense for 2♦ showing Majors, although it's missing a lot, does say that after (2♦)-DBL which is usually a balanced 12-14 HCP hand-(2/3M), the bidding is the same as after 1NT-(2/3M natural). That way the defenders are back on reasonably familiar ground (more familiar for weak NT'ers of course). No one is suggesting that an "optimum" defense is required, just that the defense needs to be adequate and mustn't leave people at sea in the middle of the auction.

I suspect that the actual correlation is a different one, and somewhat chicken and egg: there aren't any WC players because there aren't any WC players. People get better when they play against better players. That's one of the reasons that BBO is so great - you don't have to live where there are better players to have an opportunity to play against them. And of course that's also why a lot of top players come from a few geographic areas. Certainly the someone could well be the ACBL webmaster. I'm working on persuading the defense approval subcommittee and the C&C chair that such a web page would be a better way to handle things than what is now being done. If they agree, hopefully the ACBL webmaster will set up the web page. I also think it would be better to have a clearer link to where defense submission is discussed and a better explanation about it than is now on the ACBL website. It took me a while to find "Convention and Defense Approval" - it's on the Defense Database page, which I suppose makes sense, but wasn't intuitively obvious to me. I also now understand someone's statement in a thread on here that the defense approval committee isn't approving new things. What is actually said is: "The committee is unlikely to approve requests for artificial openings that do not promise length in the suit bid or any weak openings for 2 board segments." That's not a clear sentence, but the "for 2 board segments" is supposed to modify the whole sentence. You're unlikely to get an opening that doesn't promise length in the suit bid (especially if it's weak) approved for 2 board segments. That doesn't mean you won't get it approved for longer segments. I don't know about all of the members of the approval subcommittee, but I do know that Chip is no longer a member of C&C (for which I am grateful on the first Monday & Tuesday of each NABC when I don't get waked up early). "Candc@acbl.org" goes to an ACBL employee (who it is seems to change over time; I don't know who the current person is), whose job it is to forward emails with proposed defenses to the defense approval committee and to forward emails about other things to the chair of the CandC committee or maybe to someone else who is best able to deal with the question, as well as redirecting emails that should have gone someplace else.

Not surprisingly, I obviously wasn't clear. Richard's suggestion is quite different from what the USBF & WBF do. The reason I discussed the fact that the WBF/USBF method (basically having the players in an event serve as a convention & defense review committee) doesn't work very well was to point out that even when you have very interested parties involved, they don't seem to want to work on reviewing unusual methods and defenses. I therefore don't think that having bridge players at large submit defenses to proposed methods will work. And of course there's also Tim's point that it isn't really in any one particular player's best interest to make sure there's an adequate published defense to a proposed method.

Jan, do you want me to repost the letters from Conventions Committee members saying that they don't want the METHODS to be allowed in North America and (essentially) state that they won't approve any defense? Of course, the entire point is now moot since the Conventions Committee eliminate the clause in the Midchart that sanctioned transfer opening bids at the one level. In some ways, its almost a relief. Nice that they finally had the balls to do something openly. (In case you don't recall, this was the same Midchart revision from a ways back that you explained really wouldn't have an impact on the methods that folks were able to play) I really don't want to get involved in arguments over history. I'm sure you think the Moscito proponents were reasonable and I'm sure that Chip & Jeff think they were reasonable. Whether the antagonism that arose from all of that will prevent part or all of Moscito from being approved for the Midchart I don't know. However, I do know that you are wrong that the re-writing of the Midchart changed the rules about what could be aprroved. The Midchart used to contain a list of types of methods that would be Midchart legal if a defense was approved. That list, which was there to provide examples of methods that would be appropriate for the Midchart, confused people (including you, I guess; certainly some directors) into thinking that the listed types of methods were Midchart legal even though no defense had been approved. The Midchart was therefore re-written to list only those methods for which no defense was required (such as defenses to 1NT openings) and methods for which there is an approved defense. That re-writing did not change the general purpose of the Midchart and did not mean that things that had previously been listed as appropriate for Midchart approval weren't. What it (hopefully) did was to make clear to both players and directors which bids are currently legal in Midchart events. Other bids will be added to the list when defenses are approved. The Midchart doesn't "sanction" methods unless they don't need a defense or there is an approved defense. That transfer openings at the 1-level can be Midchart legal is demonstrated by the fact that there is an approved defense for a 1♥ bid showing a 1 spade opening.

I agree that it would be great if some of these hands could be shared - probably most helpful and perhaps least likely to be negative for those whose hands are being analyzed would be if Justin could choose several hands that illustrate a typical kind of error and post them all in one thread.

Of course, that's not the best defense, although it is clearly the simplest and most intuitive. Best (IMO) is to play that DBL is T/O of the suit shown and the cuebid is Michaels.

When you posted the request for defenses to 2♦ Majors, I went to look at what we had done (not recently) for WC teams. It wasn't complete enough to be worth posting, whether because it was done for pairs who didn't want much, or (more likely) because for WBF events, you are not allowed to have a written defense to 2♦ Majors - you have to memorize the defense. When a defense has to be memorized, we always try to keep it as short and simple as possible. A defense that is appropriate for an expert pair who have discussed lots of similar situations when they have to memorize it isn't adequate to hand to an inexperienced pair when they can look at it throughout the auction. So even though we are more than happy to share our defenses with anyone who asks, Chip couldn't have just "whipped out" the defense we did for 2♦ Majors and put it in the database - it isn't an adequate defense for that purpose. Not because it's too complicated, but because it doesn't include the exact things that you asked about with regard to several of the defenses people posted. What happens next round? What happens if the opponents bid something? etc etc Of course, in some cases the fact that a defense has to be complicated to be adequate is the reason no defense gets approved, or the method gets approved only for rounds of 6 or 12 or more boards. The problem with multi, for example, is that the defense has to be sufficiently complicated that it takes too much time when only 2 boards are played per round. And don't tell me it's played everywhere and no one has a problem - of course they have problems, they just take the occasional zero because they had a misunderstanding on defense rather than spend the time to develop an adequate defense and then memorize it. Look at how many US experts just use the inadequate ACBL defenses instead of working out something better - even when they don't have to memorize it. Those multi defenses would never be approved today of course - they're completely inadequate and are only allowed because of history. If I wanted to crusade for something it would be for multi to be barred completely until someone proposes an adequate defense :).

Only with his wife. This is backward. The exception for responses to opening bids was in place long before transfer responses to 1♣ were even a gleam in my eye. That we didn't have to get them approved was certainly one reason it was attractive to adopt them. But they didn't become legal because we wanted to adopt them. It's not as easy to defend against a transfer opening as it is to defend against a transfer response. I know you think that adequate defenses have been submitted. But the defenses that have been submitted haven't been complete.

As I've been reading this, I've had a lot of thoughts, but haven't had time to try to formulate them. But let me try a bit. I guess I'd better use more than one post. So this is generalities and Richard's proposal. I'll try to do some specific answers next. There was a time when I'd have agreed with Richard that letting the "interested parties" formulate defenses and vote on which was best would be a great approach. But I've been disillusioned about that by what has happened with the somewhat parallel scheme we use for the USBF championships. Those events are Super Chart, so pretty much anything goes (yes, there are some exceptions, but whether you happen to agree with them or not, I don't think they're relevant to this discussion). The USBF systems rules are that if you're playing something not GCC legal for which there isn't an ACBL approved defense, you need to post a full description and a recommended defense on the USBF website at least 4 weeks before the event in which you plan to play it. The other players then have one week to object to either the description of the method or the defense. If no one objects, everything is deemed adequate. When we put that procedure in place, I thought that after all most of the best players and systems designers were playing in the event and they'd have a strong incentive to review the submissions and object if there was something missing. But it just doesn't happen. No one ever objects to things. No, that's not fair - one or two people have mentioned that someone disclosed a method on their System Summary Form (the USBF addition to the ACBL convention card) that should have been submitted in advance with a recommended defense but wasn't. When that has happened, the USBF Systems Committee members or DICs (depending on the timing) have ruled on whether the method should be allowed and we've required a defense. But the overall method isn't working - people aren't reviewing and questioning either submissions or defenses. Why? I don't know. Maybe because the sophisticated ones know they'll be able to handle things at the table. Maybe because no one bothers. Notice that this is consistent with Tim's experience when he posted methods and asked for suggested defenses. Just one other example about why I don't think people will bother to respond to requests for defenses. Sometime in the past (sorry, long enough ago that I don't remember when), one of the pairs on a US women's team asked me about a week before the World Championship if I could suggest a defense to an opening bid being used by Auken & von Arnim. I went to the WBF website to look at the Brown Sticker Form that had been filed. Instead of suit symbols it had Greek letters and the copyright sign (I'm sure all of you have seen those - the things you get in some fonts when you use option-c,s,d,h for suit symbols). Not the fault of the pair who submitted the form, but of the conversion program that had been used to make a PDF from it to post. It used to happen a lot with things posted on the WBF site for convention cards. I'd asked for corrections to the Open cards weeks earlier, and gotten them. But here it was one week before the event and NO ONE had complained about the Auken-von Arnim card, which was completely unreadable because of the bad conversion. Presumably no one had bothered even to look at it, what's more try to determine whether the Brown Sticker method had been adequately described and the defense was adequate. And as far as I can recall, it was the ONLY Brown Sticker bid being used in that event. I guess when we ask a large number of people to come up with things, everyone just figures someone else will do the work. In the WBF case, for the Bermuda Bowl, they're usually right - either Eric Kokish or Chip & I do look at everything and object to inadequate descriptions or defenses. But for the Women's, they're wrong. My guess is that for Richard's proposal they'd also be wrong - no one would do anything, whether for the somewhat self-serving reasons Tim suggests or because they're not interested or because it isn't worth it for any one player to bother since they are so unlikely to encounter the particular method. It's like many things - they only get done if someone has a strong enough incentive to do them. For defenses to unusual methods, it seems as if the way to incentivize people to create them is to say that the people who want to play the method have to come up with an adequate defense or they can't use the method. The proponents are the ones with enough incentive. Their opponents have some incentive, but not enough, because each individual opponent knows that the odds are s/he won't actually have to defend against the method. So the way ACBL does it actually makes sense. What you're objecting to (or should be) is that there isn't enough "transparency." I think the reason for that is that this has been going on longer than there have been good ways, using the internet, to share things widely. I don't think even those of you who are most virulent against the conventions approval process would suggest that ten or fifteen years ago the approval committee should have sent emails to everyone who might be interested (how they'd identify those people is a whole other question) about each submitted defense. Now, of course, if someone could be persuaded to develop a web page, it would be easy to do that. But when the process started, it wasn't. So now there's a process that has been going on for some time - people are told to submit their methods and proposed defense by email and someone at ACBL (a changing someone, which is another problem) sends those out to the conventions approval committee and they email each other about the problems & then respond to the submitter. The submitter sometimes thinks nothing is happening because the committee members are corresponding privately. The committee members sometimes think someone else is thinking about it when in fact they've decided to resign from the committee. The ACBL person sometimes decides to ignore communications. People think that defenses have been proposed when in fact they haven't. Other people propose completely inadequate defenses (look at what Tim got in response to his request for defenses to 2♦ Majors) and don't understand why they aren't approved. The conventions approval committee feels as if they tell people over and over that they have to deal with the second round of bidding not just the bids immediately over the opening bid, but of course they're telling different people each time. So my bottom line on process is that the basic process that's in place is fine, all that's needed is more transparency (post the methods and proposed defenses when they're sent out to the conventions approval committee; post the committee's comments; let other people comment if they want to; post the approval or non-approval). I think this is something that could happen and I'll try to suggest it to the people who might be able to make it happen.

I'll add my vote to David's on which cue should show which suit, although with a little twist. I think that having the cheaper cue bid show the 4th (i.e. our unbid) suit is usually better than having it show either the lower suit or the opened suit. That's because we need more room when we haven't yet established a fit. I do have two exceptions: 1) if the cheaper cue is below 3 of the opened suit and the higher cue is above it, we use the cheaper cue to show support, as that allows us to stop in 3 of the opened suit; 2) if the cheaper cue is below 3NT, the higher cue is above 3NT and our opened suit is a minor, we use the cheaper cue to show support, so we can stop in 3NT. Of course in both of these "exception" cases, the cue bid that shows support is not as strong as the cue bid that shows the 4th suit. I wouldn't expect an unfamiliar partnership to be on firm ground about UvU, though. Nor, I confess, is it something I'd tend to discuss with a new partner if we didn't have much time before playing. In that situation, which I gather is the one David was in, I have no idea how to interpret a cue bid, except as not natural. I guess that's why some of us have many pages of notes defining agreements, most of which never seem to come up :lol:.

I have no idea why that happened. I navigated to the card by going to the USBF website and clicking on 2009 USBC and then on Teams Entered and then on Chip and then on "ACBL Convention Card," but when I got there I copied the URL, which was what I pasted into the forum post. Just now, I tried copying and pasting the link into an address box, and that worked, but when I copied it from what I had pasted into the forum post and pasted that into an address box, it didn't work. I have no idea why. Maybe try typing instead of cutting and pasting from the post? The URL is http://usbf.org/docs/2009usbc/acblcards/MartelStansby.jpg Maybe I messed up when I pasted before, because I just clicked on the link in "Preview Post" and got to the convention card - sorry! Hmmm, now the original link also works. I have no idea why that funny "Access Forbidden" was coming up for a few hours. EDIT: I now know why the link didn't work - the USBF site has a prohibition on hot-linking images in order to save on bandwidth. It's been temporarily turned off because of something I did wrong someplace else, which is why you can now click on these links and get the convention card. I was right that typing in the URL would have worked even when the "Access Forbidden" page was appearing. My personal favorite NABC was Buffalo, but I don't think there are any plans to return there soon B). Wasn't Boston reasonably close to Rochester? Or is my geography-illiteracy showing?

http://usbf.org/docs/2009usbc/acblcards/MartelStansby.jpg One of the reasons NABCs move around the country is to make it affordable for most people to attend them sometimes. Hopefully, that will happen for you.

That's a good idea, Ken! Now ask your BoD rep to present it to the board. B) the existing regulation does not, afaics, preclude tournament officials from having electronic devices in the playing area, only players. Give 'em all an iPod. :D An iPod wouldn't be good enough, since there's rarely internet access in playing rooms (if you think what hotels charge for in-room wireless access is expensive, you should see what they charge for meeting room access, it's usually about $400 a day). But an iPhone... Seriously, the TDs mostly have radio intercoms and the press room has internet access.

I don't think the convention card is in the purview of the C&C committee - I think it's management, or the tournament department or something like that. Having said that, I have a feeling that it falls under the "if it's not broken why bother to fix it" rule and won't be changed in the near future. As a non-windows user, I've never tried to use the ACBL's convention card generator - I have a Word template that's now a Pages template (Word finally lost me when it refused to recognize suit symbols) that I use to print convention cards that have big print and little wasted garbage. Follows the format of the ACBL card but isn't exactly the same - the only comments I ever get about it are compliments, so people don't seem to mind the slight format variation in exchange for print they can read. If I were starting over again, I might use a spreadsheet instead of a WP program, but when I first did it I was more expert with Word than Excel. As I think I've said before on these fora, I don't think that there is anyone on the C&C committee who's against having minutes taken and published. OTOH, there's apparently no one on the committee who is interested in doing minutes, and apparently ACBL isn't providing a support person to do them. Minutes aren't easy. For example, compare the minutes of the USBF ITTC and those for the WITTC. To get to minutes for each committee, scroll down the page to Minutes and click on the ones you want. The ITTC minutes are extensive, cover everything that was discussed and are wonderfully accurate. They're also produced within a week of each meeting (if they're later getting posted, that's my fault; I see that I need to get current ones posted). The WITTC minutes are skeletal, often get corrected, usually appear about a week before the next committee meeting. But they're better than the C&C minutes that don't get done. To the best of my knowledge, C&C meetings are open to anyone who wants to attend them, as are most ACBL committee meetings (except Hall of Fame when the committee is deciding on nominees). They're usually held on Monday and Tuesday mornings at NABCs and the time and place is listed in the Daily Bulletin. Why don't some of you who think the committee is so secretive and unresponsive go to a meeting and see what is discussed and how the committee functions? The main C&C committee won't be discussing specific conventions or the convention charts, of course. That's done by the small (and apparently shrinking) and overworked conventions approval committee.

Believe it or not, Ron, there are some people who don't enjoy creating defenses to unusual methods that they encounter very rarely, but do want to know what their bids mean when the methods come up. I happen to enjoy creating defenses, but then I spent my working life as a tax lawyer, and I can understand that other people don't find that an enjoyable "game" to play. Of course it's better to have developed or at least discussed and understand the defense you are using, but having someone else's defense, that has been found to be adequate, is better than having to invent something on the fly when you encounter the method.

Perhaps you should review what you originally wrote: Your original quotation states that the the reason there is no defense to this 2♦ opening is that no one has bothered to submit a defense. This is horseshit. 1. The Conventions Committee has stated that they are refusing to look at any new submissions. No ifs, ands, or buts. Just how long has the CC been "Studying" the submissions process? Two years? Three? 2. Ekrens 2♦ is an extremely common preempt outside the US. I'd be shocked if no one has submitted a suggested defense. I know that I've submitted defenses to very similar openings. The CC has refused each and every one. (Wouldn't it be nice if this process took place in an open and transparent manner?) I'd well aware that you threw in a caveat about submitting an adequate defense, just as you're aware that the Conventions Committee has deemed that there is no such thing as an adequate defense to all sorts of methods. I do not believe that a defense to 2♦ showing a weak hand with both majors has been submitted. Nor do I think that the Conventions committee has refused to review defenses. In fact I know that they have reviewed some recently. You are correct that there are some methods for which it is probably not possible to submit an adequate defense. I do not think this is one of those.

It was my impression that at least most of the players who were told they could play this method were told so before the Midchart was revised to make it completely clear what is and is not allowed - allowed methods are now listed in the Midchart. 2♦ showing a weak hand with both Majors isn't on the list, so how can anyone argue that it is allowed? My "claim" of why this 2♦ bid isn't allowed may seem ridiculous to you, but it is the fact - no defense has been submitted and approved. As far as I know, none has been submitted.

I have personally told one of the East-West players that this method is not Midchart legal (and why) at least 10 times. I have consistently encouraged him to submit a recommended defense, but he (and the partners with whom he plays it) have not done so, preferring to continue to play the method even though they know that it is not Midchart legal. I know that Chip has also discussed this with them many times; perhaps that influenced his decision to encourage his teammates to appeal; I don't know. The reason it isn't Midchart legal whereas 2♥ showing the same type of hand is legal is because someone submitted a defense to 2♥ but no one has bothered to do so for 2♦. It is the responsibility of the people who play "unusual" methods to know whether they are legal and if they want to make a method legal they need to submit an adequate defense.

OK so you think that we can still play 6♦ after this start. I understand that normally a bid of 6♦ after a 2♦ bid would be a suggestion to play or just to play, but after 3♠? I wouldn't be worried about being able to play diamonds, but I would worry about whether 4NT was Keycard for spades or diamonds. Partner's jump "agreed" spades for Keycard, but I made a 2/1 and then bid 4NT at my next opportunity. My main concern would be whether partner and I are on firm ground about this, since as long as we are, and given that 3♠ showed a solid suit, we need 3 spade keycards for the grand. If partner shows 2, am I confident that's the AK of spades and not the A of spades, A of diamonds? In both of my serious partnerships, I have pretty complete agreements about which suit is key and on this auction it's spades (4NT is keycard in 2/1 bidder's suit only after a minimum rebid by opener, and one partner can "agree" a suit by showing a solid suit). But I'd still worry :).

It is not how I would normally calculate the self-inflicted part of the damage. But your way of thinking is certainly reasonable, and I see that maybe I should change my view. It seems to me that the wording of Law 12C1b cannot stand on its own. A method of calculating the adjusted score should be published so as to avoid disagreements. Whether this is an issue for the WBF-LC or the RA I cannot tell. 12C1b doesn't stand completely alone. 12B1 says: "Damage exists when, because of an infraction, an innocent side obtains a table result less favorable than would have been the expectation had the infraction not occurred" Here, the expectation in the absence of an infraction (assuming that there was one) was for NS to be +450. After the infraction, that expected result was unchanged - if S had not made the serious error of failing to draw trumps, NS would have been +450. The reason NS obtained a less favorable result was because of the play, not the contract. True, it seems unfair that the punishment for taking 10 tricks on a hand that is cold for 11 is 11 IMPs instead of 1 IMP, but that doesn't change the fact that the infraction didn't cause damage; the declarer play caused it. edited to use quotes instead of blue font because didn't work so I don't know how to make the font blue. Edited by Blackshoe as an experiment to see how to color things. It seems you have to close the "color" tag (with slash color in brackets) even though the "color" tag starter doesn't get the asterisk to remind you to close the tag that other tags (e.g. bold, or quote) do.

Interesting thread. There's no doubt in my mind that each expert has propensities that his partner and most of his expert opponents know about. So I'm sure that if you chose a field of the top 20 players in the US or the world and put them in random partnerships and had them play something like 20 boards, each of them would be able to do a good job of identifying his partner at the end of the session. On the other hand, I'm equally certain that if your 20 players played an individual, where they played 1 or 2 hands with each other player, and thus experienced each of the other players for 3 or 6 boards (1 or 2 as partners, 2 or 4 as opponents), they wouldn't be able to do a good job of identifying each other. That's just not a big enough sample size. Expert propensities are more subtle than those of less expert players. They don't make serious mistakes of the kind listed in the opening post. What they do is more subtle. Some of them compete more aggressively on certain kinds of hands. Some are more or less likely to psych. Some lead aggressively, others passively. Some tend to make the technically correct play all the time, others go for psychological advantage even if that involves a slight technical minus. Some like to use Blackwood, others prefer cue bidding. Some often psych cue bids, others never do. Those sorts of differences are pretty well known to their peers, but they don't come up often.

I gave this to Kit Woolsey last night, and his comment was "why did I lead the J?" :)

Some of us find it important not to waste energy when partner is playing the dummy - doing something non-bridge related helps with that. I'd rather have my husband read a book when I'm playing the dummy than raise his eyebrows at something I do, or even try to hurry me up :). And I find that I play better if I relax when I'm not supposed to be concentrating (between rounds, when partner is playing the hand). I used to do needlepoint, but my eyes are no longer good enough for that, so I do crossword puzzles or read. I certainly don't intend to be rude, only to improve my chances of playing well when I'm supposed to be involved.