bid_em_up

1) Must be a comedy hour. Or a gross-out contest. But, I would do it for say $10k. 2) Couple million. At least. 3) Not gonna happen. 4) They will pay me for singing? Yee Haw, and I been doin it for free all this time!! (Avid karaoke singer, here). Pay me whatever the going rate is. 5) How do karaoke singers get to be 25% dumber? 25% of nothing, is, well...nothing. :) Ok, realistic answer, it would have to be enough to cover the rest of my life long expenses. See #2 for estimate.

1) Assuming you are playing 2/1, a direct 3♠ over 2♣ is non-forcing. It is invitational (you had the 2H FSF bid available to you but didn't make it). So no, 3S is not a better way to proceed. 2H is correct. 2) Given that partner did not XX 2H, so he cannot hold the heart A, he must hold the diamond A to have any semblance of an opening bid, imo. And he didn't bid 3C to show 5-5 in the minors either. I'm inclined to just bid 6S. Feel free to check on the diamond A if you wish.

deleted. never try to solve problems like this @ work. :)

You can effectively rule out 7 anything. Partner cannot have the heart A or he would have xx'd under the given conditions (under item #2 in the original post).

Justin, I certainly respect your opinion/belief that it cannot be forcing since opener is somewhat limited. But, if opener didnt want to force, why the heck is he moving off of 2♦? Where is he going? What is point of bidding 2♠ if NOT expecting another bid from partner? He certainly isn't offering 2♠ as an offer to play. After all, he has already shown 9 minor suit cards, and responder has shown no spade cards. Now, if you are claiming that partner must be some 15-17, 3-1-5-4 hand, pass of 2S is ok. But if it doesnt have to be this specific hand pattern, I think it must be forcing. Personally, I think the 2-1-6-4 hand should have bid 3D anyway.

Thanks for sharing, Winston. I'll have to take back my phrasing that I cannot understand why anyone would want to own a gun. Strange that this guy was released on bail. But OK, I'm not going to post jokes about the American justice system here. It could probably have hapened in Europe as well. Helene, you state that you find it is strange that the guy was released on bail. This may be part of the "problem". In a justice system, such as ours, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a reasonable doubt. Unless the crimes you are charged with are so heinous that bail is out of the question, or you are considered a flight risk, the American justice system almost always grants bail. Now, that bail/bond may be so high that you can't afford it (effectively meaning no bail was granted). But you are usually at least given the opportunity to post one. Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again. This, imo, is ridiculous, but the courts allow it to happen for a variety of reasons. If the courts would lock these SOB's up the first time and not let them out, then maybe we wouldn't have the crime problem we do, nor would we feel the need to be able to protect ourselves from these hoodlums. In which case, the gun-ownership issue might be become less of a concern to many law-abiding citizens who otherwise would not feel the need to own a gun. The hoodlums know the prisons are overcrowded and it is unlikely they will be given much punishment for anything other than the most serious offenses. And thats assuming they even get caught. When they are actually sentenced to time in prison, life in jail for them is a better life than they have on the streets. Jail is frequently referred to as "3 hots and a cot" in street terminology. Meaning they get three hot meals and a place to sleep. They don't have to work. They are provided with medical care. For a lot of the U.S. subculture, this is the ideal life. There are even some people who will commit crimes deliberately TO BE arrested for this reason. They would rather be in jail where they are essentially taken care of and provided for, than to perform in the "real world" where they would need to actually get off of their lazy asses and go to work. This mentality is hard to perceive, especially if you have never witnessed it (maybe you have, I do not know). But our jails are overflowing with people who would rather take the easy way of stealing from others, than the way of working to earn them for themselves. Sad, but true.

I wasn't being serious.

This is true, but....the opponents provided the defense, which said XX showed this hand. Since the defense that was provided by the opps was illegal, its their fault that pard had to make an illegal bid, so we should now be allowed to bid freely as we choose. The result gets adjusted to 3C making. :)

For the record: There have been some good extensive studies tracking gun ownership over time in the United States. 1) During much of the early history of the US guns were extremely expensive. 2) A gun was an incredibly valuable piece of property. 3) Not many people could afford to own them. 4) Those who could had good records. 5) For example, many wills in the late 18th and 19th century described the disposition of people's gun after their death. Here's the simple version of the results: 6. American gun culture didn't have all that much to protection against Indians or hunting. 7. American gun culture has lots to do with the American Civil War. More specifically, when the Civil ended, the US had a bunch of big factories designed to produce lots of weapons. The price of weapons dropped enormously. Equally significantly, the owners of said factories started looking for ways to encourage folks to buy lots of guns. Funny, that's not the same U.S. History that I learned. 1) True, but there were other methods of payment besides cash. 2) True, but not necessarily in a monetary sense. They were essential to survival and the protection of personal property vs. both man and beast. You do remember, bears, wolves, coyotes, and other animals that used to wander the U.S. unchecked. don't ya? 3) Absolutely false. Where the heck do you think the Revolutionaries got their weapons from? The govenment? No. They fought using their own personal weapons. Those that could not pay in cash, would use some other form of payment. Grains, sugar, furs, meat (and many other things) were all exchanged for guns, bullets, gunpoweder. It was not strictly cash and carry then. There was a lot of barter and trade. 4) Yea, sure. In most cases, at that point in time, a "good" person was thought to be someone who owned property. If they could afford to own property, they also had a gun to protect such property. But what about stage coach robbers? (Before the civil war). Remember the Alamo? Before the Civil War. Defended by regular people who certainly weren't wealthy and yet took their own weapons. The French-Indian war? Trail of Tears? Little Big Horn? and many others. 5) True. 6) Bullcrap. If you were to say "modern gun culture" doesn't have all that much to do with Indians or hunting, I would agree. But from the 1600's to the late 1800's, it had a LOT to do with it. They were almost essential to survival if you were not living in a city or if you were travelling anywhere. 7) Somewhat true. They had to have a market or their product would have no use other than to sell to the government, and the government wasn't buying as much after the end of the Civil War. The founding fathers originally wrote the Right to Bear Arms into the U.S. Constitution to assure that the USA would be able to protect itself from further invasion. So that at any point in time, a militia (or army) could be called together to protect and defend the USA from England, France, Spain or whatever other EUROPEAN nation (with their own guns) from attempting to resieze the land that the founding fathers had just fought for and won. Now, there is no way in hell they could have anticipated things like semi-automatic 9MM handguns, or AK47's, or M-16's being available for use by the average citizen 230 years later. They used single shot muskets that took a good 30 seconds to a minute (or longer) to reload for each shot. Machine guns were unheard of. I have no problem with banning the sale of AK-47's, or M-16s. No civilian needs that kind of firepower at their disposal. I don't think anyone outside of possibly the police force really has a need for a semi-automatic pistol, either. I could tolerate a ban or restriction of sales on those, as well. But plain shot pistols, where you have to pull the trigger each time in order for it to fire? No. Do I own one? Not currently. Will I own one again? Only if one of two things should occur, either 1) my current living situation were to change in such a manner that I believe that I need one to protect myself, or 2) the government, along with the gun-control nutcases were to attempt to totally ban legal sales of such weapons. Now since I don't currently feel I need one to protect myself, I don't own one currently. However, I also recognize that there are people living in situations where they may need one, and I would not tell them that they couldn't. It is neither my business, nor my place to do so.

I think I would have rather died by gunshot.

I said it before, I will say it again. There is nothing that can be legislated in the U.S. that will prevent anyone, who wishes to obtain a weapon for destructive/criminal purposes, from getting a gun. If they are bound and determined to commit a crime, they will find a means of aquiring a gun. It is that simple. You currently can go to any metropolitan city and for less than $200 buy a gun, if you choose to do so. The more money you have, if you don't get robbed first, the more likely you are to be successful in your attempt to purchase one. You may drive the street price of the gun up by "outlawing" them or making them harder to aquire legally, but you will not succeed in removing them from our society. Given this scenario, knowing that the criminal will likely have a weapon, and seeing such a weapon, if the guy is simply robbing me, by all means, hand him the wallet. But if he is breaking into my house in the middle of the nite, or I just saw him shoot the guy next to me.....why should I not be allowed to protect my family, my home or myself? And if, in order to do so, I feel that I need a gun, why shouldn't I be allowed to purchase one legally? I have nothing to hide, I am not going out to commit any crimes with it. Trying to restrict my access to legally purchasing a gun is just turning me into a criminal, because again.....if I want one bad enough, it will be obtainable, even if I had to do it illegally.

It's hard to tell when you are being serious and when you are kidding... I went to ask.com and typed in how many people are killed in the U.S. by guns every year? Then I just scanned the results, having no idea how reliable any are. The numbers in order are 40,000 40,000 30,000 11,000 (five years ago) 34,500 90 a day (= 32,850) I heard something like your statistics about 10 years ago. It seems like a lot more now, which leads me to believe it's growing still. One number is the number of homicides committed by a firearm each year. The total provided by the CDC is 68350 for the years 1999-2004, which is about 11,500 per year. The other number appears to be all deaths by firearm (accidental, suicide, homicide, other) which the CDC says is 177,000 for those 6 years. That averages to about 29,500/year.

You are speaking of the threat of something that could happen. I am speaking of something that has been, is, and will continue to happen. I went to a search engine and found two different websites claiming 40,000 people in the U.S. are killed by guns every year. If a nuclear threat coming true would kill 3,000 people, that is less than 1% of the people killed in 10 years (in just this country) by guns! And it hasn't happened anyway! And you aren't even speaking about considering these threats equally, you said anyone equally as scared of guns as of nukes is off their rocker. Unbelievable! Phil was, I believe referring to the morning of 9/11, not a nuclear threat killing 3,000 people. The total in 1 day for Hiroshima is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 140,000 people, and 74,000 for Nagasaki. And that was with only one bomb on each location. How many do you think could be killed by a lunatic with access to multiple nuclear weapons? 1 million? 10 million? The populations weren't as dense in 1945 in those cities, as they are now, in say, oh New York, LA, Tel Aviv, London or Paris. His point, from my perspective, is that he is more concerned about a madman having access to nuclear weapons and isn't afraid to use them, than he is about being concerned with the average law-abiding joe owning a gun.

Tell this to the gentleman down the street from me, who is living in a $300,000 condo, ritzy country-club neighborhood, mid-50's, with his wife, who one afternoon got a knock on his door. He answered it (evidently, he already had his weapon in hand), to find two crackhead hoodlums trying to strongarm their way into his place of residence. They had driven from miles up the road, seeking a place to rob. Note, this was in the MIDDLE of the day, not even at night. He shot them both. Good for him. One of them died in the street, about 3 blocks from where I live. Hurray, that is one less scumbag on the face of the earth.

About 100 times more afraid of legalized concealed weapons! I don't want just everyone to be able to own a gun. And please change Iran to North-Korea, unlike what everyone wants you to believe, Iran wants nuclear power plants. I suppose you believe the world is flat and the moon is made of cheese also?

1. Banning of all civilian ownership and use of handguns, semiautomatic weapons, and automatic weapons. 2. Registration of rifles and shotguns. ............... I would oppose any effort to ban rifles and/or shotguns, except those which are either automatic, semiautomatic, and easily convertible. Hunting, target practice, and defense of the home are legitimate activities. Peter And a handgun, semi-automatic, or automatic can't be used for the defense of the home? They can't be used for target practice? These statements appear contradictory to me. Besides, a handgun is more likely to be used for defense of the home, by its very nature. They are easily stored in an accessible location for use in an emergency. I could agree with banning automatic weapons, however.

Nonsense. Handguns are easily obtainable on the street, if you know where to look or who to ask. Sad, but true.

What difference does it make if it was a student, or just someone over the legal age (in the US) to purchase a gun? It was not a "machine-gun". It was a semi-automatic pistol. Granted, they can be fired rapidly and reloaded quickly, but there is a difference. And why has the guy lost touch with reality? You don't think that if one of the teachers had a weapon also (or one of the other students for that matter), that they might have been able to shoot this guy before he could continue his spree? Now, I would not want all teachers everywhere being armed in our schools where kids might gain access to the gun, but the point is certainly valid. Besides, no gun-control law anywhere is going to prevent someone who is psychopathic and hellbent on destruction from finding a means of committing some atrocity, if they really wish to do so. Gun-control advocates who believe otherwise have lost just as much touch with reality, imo, as the people who claim the teachers should have been armed.

There are freedoms to drink alcohol. Why do you think otherwise? There are restrictions against driving while under the infuence of alcohol (as there should be). Certain drugs need to be legalized, imo, but thats another issue. I agree. If you wish to own a weapon, then you should be required to prove that you know how to use it, prior to being allowed to own one. This is absolute hogwash, however, and a terrible reason to advocate gun control. I owned a pistol at one point in time. I sold it, due to the facts that I did not have any training with it, and I had a young child. You never hear of anyone being shot by a burglar with the homeowners weapon. There are frequently stories of the homeowner shooting the intruder however. But, the most likely scenarios of death or injury by one's own weapon, unfortunately, are by far those that occur when either the owner accidently shoots himself, or when a child finds the gun and is playing with it. I was more concerned with the chance of my child finding it and playing with it, however, which was the deciding factor in selling it.

I think you have enough defense to be able to beat 1H, but it is not the hand to make a trap pass with. You would like to have a 5th trump, making it reasonably certain that partner can/will reopen with a double. When holding 4 trumps, there are no assurances that he will be able to, even if your style is normally to reopen with X. I think that either 6C or 6N are likely making. You would have to beat 1H by 5 tricks to outscore 6C and by 6 tricks to outscore 6N. Achieving this is unlikely when holding only 4 trumps, since RHO can easily have 6 or more. He will take at least 2 trump tricks on length alone. Better to begin investigating your best spot immediately with this hand, imo.

4♣ wasn't a choice as well? :blink:

Sigh, I can't take this discussion again!!! Suffice to say that if it promised a fit in the given partnership, the problem wouldn't be here. Not only that, but even if 2H does not promise a fit (it may or may not have one), the double at least lets him know we are willing to defend and reevaluate his hand for defensive purposes. Partner will usually pull with an undisclosed fit and we can then bid game, otherwise we take our likely plus on defense.

So your bid with this hand would be? My initial bid would have been a direct 4H and not X, showing excellent hand, at least 5-5 (usually 6-5 or better) in spades and an unspecified minor, partner bids 4N to ask which minor. Partner should bid 4S on xx or better of spades, imo, unless his minor suit holdings are such that he would prefer 5 of either minor. I can't give a good answer for what I would bid now as I would have boxed myself in (essentially, I committed the hand to spades, unless partner bid clubs) when I originally doubled. Under the conditions given, I guess I have to bid 3S, and yes, it should be forcing. If I am going to double and then bid over partners freely bid 3D, then new suit should be forcing. The issue I was attempting to address was the original posters statement of "You started with a DBL because you system does not allow you to show 2-suiter S-C in this position." This implied (to me, at least) that his system allows him to show 2 suiters in spades/diamonds, or both minors, but not spades and clubs, which puts his system in a bind (or so it would appear) when he holds this particular hand type, even when not this strong. I would bid 3C directly on a weaker hand that is 5-5 (or even 6-5) in the blacks on this auction.

Maybe you would have caught up to Ben in that amount of time. :lol:

I am sure that there exist certain individuals in addition to myself that resemble my avitar. The artistic relatative that drew the sketch originally was certainly staring at me. Twas at a wedding reception, so one cannot assume that he saw exactly what he was looking towards. Later, as I was attempting to teach myself AutoCAD (engineering drafting software), I used that to transcribe the sketch from its napkin - stroke by stroke. Large quantities of beer were invested in the effort. A pic of Jerry can be found here: http://www.jerryhelmsbridge.com/images/Pic...Bob_Hampton.jpg http://forums.bridgebase.com/uploads/av-5846.gif Jerry is the one on the right. I rest my case. :P