bid_em_up

Is this what the cat in Heinlein's "The Cat Who Walked Thru Walls" is supposed to be?

Me too. Especially for that part about West banging down the heart King when he doesn't have it. :P Ok, seriously. You do not say what East pitched on the diamonds or what kind of discarding the opponents are playing. But surely he could find some manner of discarding to indicate the spade Q, right? The other logic would be you have shown 7 points in diamonds, and you could have the heart Kxx(x) or the spade Qx(x) but you can't have both. But if you had Qx(x) spades, you would have unblocked the spade Ace earlier otherwise, you would have no entry back to your hand when West holds up the diamond King until the 3rd round and exits a diamond and would be unable to score your 10th trick. However, if this is the case, west cannot prevent you from scoring your 10 tricks, even if his partner has KJ10x of hearts, so the heart switch must be wrong. If East failed to signal with his pitches, he gets 100% of the blame. If East did signal correctly, and West didn't follow instructions.....well, then it all goes to West.

Roland, I can understand your feelings and frustrations with others rude behavior. Far be it from me to idly sit by and take abuse of this nature. If I was one of the vugraph operators, I would either pack my bags and go home (or back to my hotel room), or I would provide the person(s) in question with a directive to go find someplace extremely hot to spend their time or suggest that they go somehere and have relations with themselves. Which, of course, explains why I would never last very long as an operator. :P But I can understand where you are coming from. With this in mind, please take what I am about to say as the thought provoking question it is intended to be (it is not intended as an attack towards you, even though I realize in the written medium, it may appear that way). Why can't you be bothered? If you do not have them banned now, it only condones their continued assinine behavior in the future. It also gives the appearance to others who see people acting in this manner, that this sort of behavior will be tolerated on the site, which in turn, encourages people who otherwise never behave like this to begin to do so. I understand what you mean by "you choose to spend your time on more important things", but ......as Barney Fife* says: "You gotta Nip it, Nip it, Nip it in the bud." Meaning that, if you do not take care of it now, it will just continue to get worse. Posting this on the forum will accomplish nothing in regards to putting a stop to this kind of behavior. Your post may, however, help to alleviate your frustration level, in which case it is understandable, but it does not solve anything. The people behaving in this manner will never read your post and they are the ones who need it the most. By claiming that you are not able to be bothered with having such users banned, to me at least, you are sending the message that you are willing to tolerate continued abuse of this nature or that you are willing to allow it to continue and probably even get worse. Unfortunately, since you (and your other commentators) are the only ones who can see the private chat messages directed to you, we, as other users cannot assist you in having these miscreants removed from BBO. These are likely the same people who make rude and obscene comments at playing tables. I think most of us would prefer to see these people removed from the site anyway. We can and do report them for behavior of this type at playing tables. I would respectfully request that you reconsider your position of not spending the time necessary to have these people banned. I realize that most (if not all) your work as well as that of your operators and commentators is volunteer time. While having to spending additional time to ban these people should not be part of your "job" (especially when you have more important things to do like most of us), if this behavior is not "nipped in the bud", it is possible to reach the point where you can no longer find operators or commentators, since they can't be "bothered" to comment/operate, if they are going to be abused in such a manner. And not having these people banned now, will just contribute to further abuse, likely in even worse manners, which leads to an never-ending downward spiral in the future. Respectfully, Just my $0.02 worth. *For users who may not know, Barney Fife is the bumbling Deputy Sheriff on the Andy Griffith Show, or Mayberry RFD, played by Don Knotts.

I think he is partially asking if a "warning" on BBO carries over to the forums. I believe the answer to this is "no". (correct me if I am mistaken though, Ben). It is for warnings to users of the forums. I would expect a warning to be given for inappropriate forum postings/violations of forum rules by the moderators. If your warning level were to reach 100%, I would expect that poster to be banned from the forums. I believe the bars are there as a means of letting a poster know what their warning level is, and how close they are to getting banned for forum posting violations. However, it is not clear what weight any specific warning might carry, nor does it indicate how that weight/percentage is defined. After all some offenses are clearly worse than others. Do the moderators assign a percentage to each warning? Or is each warning a "set" (i.e. 20% or 25%) percentage, so that after 4-5 warnings for any infractions, you are automatically banned? How long do warnings last? Do they ever drop off your "record"? I don't have any, nor do I expect to incur any, but then life is just full of surprises, ain't it?

1) "Our teammates were hopeless on half the boards." What it really means: "We royally screwed up the other half." 2) "His "topclass partner" is a madman." What it really means: "I wish our opponents were not smart enough to double him when he bids like an idiot." :)

Reverse the question. Is it ethical that by saying 22+, you are making it obvious to your partner that 2N was intended as leb? You had no agreement regarding 2N being leb, right? Therefore, you should have no expectations that partner is holding 22+. It would only be 22+ in a leb context. It is quite likely that if partner doesn't think 2N is leb, then they would take 2N as natural with a stop and a range of 8-12. So 3N would only be 15-19 or so. You do not know what partner is thinking about, so thats not really relevant. If you have agreed leb but partner has failed to alert, the explanation should be 22+. If you have not agreed leb, then you should not be bidding 2N as leb anyway hoping that partner will work it out. :) And when you do, the explanation of 3N should be given as if 2N was natural, since that is how partner SHOULD be interpreting it. Since you had no agreement, your answer should have been either "15-19" (the normal interpretation of 3N) or "we have no agreement". The latter is preferred. jmoo.

I think we are confusing (or at least I am): "I would like an explanation of *ALL* the bids in the auction, bid by bid", which is essentially a review of the auction and the meanings of each bid. versus: A general inquiry of "Can you explain what this auction has shown?". The first case clearly is not allowable, imo. It would constitute a review of the bidding. Asking about a specific call as a defender isn't allowed as it could direct partners attention to a potential problem. In the second case, its easy enough to say "My hand has shown ABC, and dummy showed DEF." This is vague enough to not direct attention to any one specific call, nor is it a complete review of the auction. In this scenario, I (as a defender) do not have to be able to "remember" or prove that I "remember" the auction for a general explanation of it. I'm not sure which of the above two cases you are claiming is correct, Blackshoe. :)

Nowhere in what I wrote did I say anything about a step=by-step explanation, except to say that is not what is required by the laws, nor should it be expected by a defender. What are you going to do as declarer? Tell me "if you can recite the auction to me, so proving that you remember it, I'll answer your question"? My response to that would be "You're not entitled to a review of the auction." And my response to that would be, "And neither are you, and I am not the one who has the problem. I will be more than happy to explain the general auction to you, if that does not satisfy you, then feel free to call the director. What would you like to do?" After rereading 20F2 though, it does not appear that defenders can even ask questions regarding specific bids anyway. It says: "Either defender at his own turn to play may request an explanation of opposing auction" So at best you can only ask for an overall explanation of the auction, ie, tell me what this auction has shown. You are not even allowed to ask (as a defender) what the meaning of a specific call is. Only declarer can inquire regarding the meaning of a specific call.

2♥ should be suit preference for diamonds. Your count and exact cards are known at this point, and none of your spots are necessary to guard anything. Any card you play at this point should be suit preference. The heart J would be a strong suit prefence for spade, the heart 2 is strong suit preference for diamonds. The heart 7 would indicate that you have no real preference for either of the other two suits (either because you have no holdings in them to prefer OR because you have something in both suits). You could indicate a slight preference by playing the heart 9 (spades) or the heart 5 (diamonds), but most times you won't have this many options available to you to be as clear in your suit preference signal. Even if you did this, it takes an extremely competent partner to work out these subtle inferences. I would have bid 4H over 3C.

Good question. :) I wondered the same thing myself.

Essentially, I think the laws do say it. Although somewhat intuitively. So you can only ask for a review of the auction, up until the time you play to the first trick. After this point, you can no longer ask for a review. This means you have to remember the auction in order to be able to request explanations of the auction. Otherwise, there is no point in having subset C above. If you can't remember the auction, or simply wanted a review, you could always ask for an explanation of the auction and force the opponents to provide you with what amounts to a review of the auction. You can, as a defender, inquire about the meaning of specific bids, or the entire auction, but I would interpret this to mean that you must be able to actually remember the auction yourself. So, if you as a defender were to say "I'd like a review of the auction" during the middle of a hand, the answer by declarer can clearly be no. If you as a defender, said "I'd like an explanation of the X call", declarer should provide one. If during the play of the hand, you want an explanation of the entire auction, then I think you had best be able to remember it, as you are not entitled to a review (that right expired after you played to the first trick). And a review of the auction is exactly what you are getting if you don't remember it, and then ask for an explanation of it. I think you can ask for the meaning of a specific bid, or an overall (general) interpretation of the auction as you mentioned above, but you cannot request a step-by-step explanation of the entire auction if you do not remember what the auction was. jmoo.

If partner does not have either a spade fit or a heart fit, where does he think we are getting 9 tricks in 3N from with our 1/2 stop (giving our side one full stop, that is lost on the opening lead)? The only other place is clubs and we know that partner knows the clubs are not solid. He is missing the ♣Ace, so he is not expecting to play 3N on the basis of providing tricks from a good club suit, since from his perspective, there is a loser in his suit. Therefore, he absolutely must have a fit for one of our suits with the 3D bid. I think that partner has bid his hand quite strongly, and in the context of the auction we are too good to simply bid 4C then pass. After all, we would bid the same way up to this point if our hand was: A10xx KQxxx xx xx (except we would bid 3H over 3D). In the example hand, we have an extra Ace AND a stiff in openers suit. I think we should bid 4D now to show the stiff and cuebid 5C over 4H. Our hand is about as good as it can get in the context of the auction. I will pass 5H though. :D

One point that noone has really touched on. In my partnerships, we will not open 10-bad 12 counts in 1st/2nd seats. It makes makes for sounder evaluation in the subsequent auctions, especially when opponents interfere. If you know partner has a "sound" opening, it becomes easier to double the opponents or judging how far your side should be competing a little more accurate. As a result of this, we will open hands lighter in 3rd/4th seat (almost any 10 count) to compensate for the sound openings (to protect part-scores).

I think this is more a matter of: 1) your skill level 2) your comfort level with opening this type of hand 3) your partners comfort level with opening this type of hand 4) your ability to accurately evaluate later auctions 5) how well this type of opening fits with the rest of your system. Personally, I consider this hand to be an obvious pass. Others will claim it is an obvious light opening (possibly even missing the club J).

Ok, I admit it. I didnt look at the spots. B)

Of course, Kathryn has good suggestions, but if you manage to create an entry to dummy, then there is no problem. B) I would normally not expect the heart 9 to hold if you play it, however since we do have 10 hearts, it is probably best to play small from dummy at trick one hoping for a stiff J. Even if the J is played on your right, all is not lost. I'm pretty sure you will make this on a psuedo-squeeze. Especially if you have not indicated your club void and spade holdings in the auction. Cash all the hearts but one, followed by the AK♦. You will be down to four cards. Your hand will be K10x of spades and the last trump, dummy will be AK8♣ and the 8 of diamonds (having pitched all of dummies spades). By now you should have a pretty good idea of both where the spade Ace is and whether or not it has been blanked. If you know it has been blanked, lead a small spade, if you dont think it has been or are unsure about it, play the spade K. It is practically assured that the AQ will both fall on this trick or that the hand winning the spade A will have to lead a club to dummy. There may be another legitimate line....but it won't be as much fun. :)

Yes.

How much do you pay people to defend like this? It must be a huge sum, since my opponents usually cash their 6 club tricks when both me and my partner show out on the third club.

God I hope this is not some Steely Dan Crap. Phil needs a Rock and Roll advisor. :D Actually, that is Stealers Wheel. Not Steely Dan....

Because it makes no sense to pattern out when partner just showed 6+ clubs? Either you have a club fit or you dont. If you dont, you can pass 3C (on a bad hand) and hope partner can make it or bid 3N yourself or rebid your original major. But if you have a real good fit (like here) and a reasonable hand, aren't you better placed by being able to start showing controls immediately? It seems to me that any new suit bid after 3C needs to be control showing and fit showing with the minor suit as probe for 3N/5m/6m. Just a guess.

5♦

I think if you would have overcalled 3N over a third seat 3D preempt initially, then you need to bid 3N now to stay with the field This logic leads to everyone bidding 3x after you open 1NT because you will always bid 3NT and not take advantage of the info you ahve already been able to exchange with partner. No, it won't. I will not ALWAYS bid 3N. There are hands where you would choose to defend. Have fun guessing when I am defending and when I am not. :P

OOPS. Never mind. I did not realize this was IMPs. At IMP's I would defend, at MP, I would bid 3N and worry about it after the opening lead and I see dummy.

Nah, really good pards hold: Ax AKQJxx xxx xx :P

1) No. Conditional. See below. 2) Yes. 3) Cry. 4) Exactly. :P #1 is conditional as to your partnership meaning of 2S. If it is explicity seeking a spade stop for 3N, then ok. Some may play it as cue agreeing hearts. I prefer to bid out my pattern first, then hopefully bid 3S asking for stop. Partner has show a good 6+ card suit and if it is missing an honor it is likely to be finessable in LHO's hand. I'll bite the bullet and bid 6C now. We should have 11 or 12 red suit tricks (by ruffing 1 heart if necessary), plus the club Ace. It is still barely possible partner has the spade Ace.