bid_em_up

Playing with a competent partner, who opens 1♣ in first seat, and the next hand passes, you find yourself holding: [hv=s=sakxha10xdk10xcj9xx]133|100|[/hv] Partner's 1♣ bid can be only two cards (5542 methods) and you tend to bid 4 card suits up the line (non-walsh). Our Inverted minor raises are considered Game Forcing unless it is determined that you have no stop in a given suit, in which case it is possible to end in four of a minor. Please try to answer based upon these methods, regardless of what methods you happen to play. If you chose "Something Else", then feel free to explain your methods or reasoning along with intended followups. What is your call? Thanks. (There may be a companion hand later, for further discussion). As a follow-up question, assume you bid 3N. Does the 3N bid imply a club fit or not (especially given the above methods)? Feel free to elaborate on why it does or does not.

Phil, It is not totally impossible to implement. Difficult, maybe, but not impossible. A GPS system or something like OnStar could calculate and transmit the amount of mileage driven each month, and then you could be "taxed" or charged for the number of miles driven. There is some talk in the state of North Carolina to moving towards exactly this type of tax/fee structure and eliminating the gas tax altogether. I think it's a bad idea, but I would not be surprised to see something like this implemented in the next 10 years.

Unlikely, imo. Try reading some information on the trading of commodity futures. From what I have seen, the huge run-up in the price of oil, had more to do with speculators trading futures than it did any actual supply/demand issues. The supply & demand issue is what has brought oil prices back to more "normal" levels (along with the speculators facing margin calls due to falling prices.) Not only no, but hell no. Dear Professor, Please excuse any misspellings I may have. I recently had cataract surgery in one eye, and cannot see a dang thing with or without my glasses at the moment. Thanks.

I think you made a grave error by not bidding 5D (at a minimum). Without knowing your hand, it's impossible to say whether you had a better bid than a simple raise to 5D.

coat them in fiberglass filings. I had an answer, but I think I like Matmats better. :lol:

And if East pitches his diamond instead of ruffing?

Phil, I do not play Wolff. Could you please give me an example hand that would have a slam try in the other minor that failed to bid that minor first? Since I don't play it, this treatment strikes me as odd.

How did the auction go? 4S all pass? or something else?

Dwayne , do you really believe this? You have at least a 9 card club fit on this auction, partner should be 5♥/6+♣. I'm more inclined to bid 6♣, than 4N to play.

As a resident of NC, I will assure you that atheism, or "guilt by association" with an atheist group, is a negative factor in a candidate (in this state, anyway). It doesn't matter that Kay Hagan professes Christianity, the point is she is accepting funds from a group of non-believers, and thats a bad thing.... (Or so the thinking goes). And, just to be fair, Kay Hagan's ads regarding Elizabeth Dole have been some of the most misleading ads that I have ever seen, so she doesn't have a lot of room to complain.

Ho Hum.

I really don't understand any option other than 3H. If you play NT, it would be better if it was played from the other side of the table. The control rich hand is suit-oriented. In 2/1, the 3H rebid shows 17+ hcp, 6+ hearts, and this is exactly what you have. Why bid anything else when you have a bid that describes your hand perfectly? jmoo.

I think I would play a spade to the Ace at trick 3, and run the heart Q. It seems like my objective here should be to limit my heart losers to one whenever possible.

3N. No. YW.

I thought the IOpener was already standard equipment on the GString....

Sean, Artificial systems and Psyches defense need preparations with regular partnership. On BBO mostly pick-up partnerships. That's the reason i wanted to keep the balance. Thanks Hamdi There is a difference between an artificial system, and a natural system based in 2./1 (or SAYC) that opens 5542. I play the latter. I open 1C with a 2 card club suit only when the hand patter is 4432, any other time it is completely normal 2/1. You appear to be trying to disallow this, and that is wrong. 1C is alerted as "can be 2 cards", the opponents are told "We play 2/1, 1C can be 2 cards". There is absolutely nothing artificial about this. The other point you appear to be trying to make is with regards to "controlled psyches". It is fine (normally) to disallow these, however to out and out ban psyches of all kinds is against the rules of bridge also. There is no defense to a regular psyche, you just need to learn to play bridge.

I look at it a slightly different way. You bid 100% of the hands, but in many cases, it will not matter how good (or bad) your bidding is necessarily. I would estimate that 85-90% of the time, your bids are clear cut, whether you are going to pass, preempt, etc. The hands where system and/or judgement in the bidding actually make a difference will make up the remaining hands. At extremely high levels of play, this is a significant difference, but for most people, it is not what they should be concentrating on to improve their game, imo. You will defend, on average, 50% of the time (or in my case, what seems to be more often). You will play only 25% of the hands, and will be dummy the other 25%. So of the three, I consider defense to be the most important aspect of the game and where an advancing player should concentrate their efforts to improve their game.

I think it is 100% wrong to upgrade this hand in an intermediate field, regardless of how you "value" the hand. Assuming you consider yourself better than the field, you should want to be in the "normal" contract, and let your declarer play win the board. jmoo.

I think if 4S is a better place to play, maybe he should have made a negative double instead of 2N. Did you ask him why he didnt make one?

deleted, I misread which hand was dummy.

I won't say that I am an expert partner, but our (fachiru's and mine) agreements are as follows (he did not give a full explanation, imo): We play 4 way transfers. We have no direct invitational raise to 2N available. 2H in response to a stayman inquiry, does not deny 4 spades, a 2S in response to 2C denies 4 hearts. A bid of 2C does not promise a 4 card major as it is the only way to invite with a balanced inviational hand that does not have a four card major. Under these conditions, it is my opinion that the hand making a stayman inquiry with four spades MUST bid 2S (after 1N-2C-2H) to show that it has spades, in order to cater to the 1N opener being 4-4-(3-2). Fachiru doesn't agree. So the question really is: Under the conditions above, does the 2NT rebid deny a 4 card major? He says it does not deny one, I say that it does. If you had 4 spades, you would have bid 2S. Some people may choose to rebid 2N (denying four spades), and they are within their rights to do so, but then I think they also realize that they are varying from what their systemic bid should be. Thats a different story. Otherwise, you end up in 2N/3N down 2-3, when a 4-4 fit spade fit was available.

Double seems clear.

So you're going to overcall 1H on: Kxx 98754 AQxx x Surely its right to pass initially with this hand, then bid 2H in the balancing position.

The fallacy in this logic is that you assume just because someone has negative equity that they will automatically walk away from the home. They still gotta live somewhere. As long as they can make their payments, and aren't able to sell the home without doing so at a loss, they may as well remain where they are and wait for the market to recover. The majority of the 10 million people will likely do exactly that.

Am I seeing the same hand and auction that everybody else does? This is the hand I see: ♠xx ♥AK ♦AJ109x ♣KQJx. This hand is a full jump shift, no matter how you look at it. In the passout seat after 1♦-(1♠)-p-p-? You either double, then bid 3C over 2H or you make the jumpshift. To simply bid 2♣ is a major underbid. As I stated earlier, my preference is double to allow for the possibility that partner has made a trap pass. If this is not the hand everyone else is seeing, can someone please provide what they see instead?