bid_em_up

Right or wrong, I'm playing 2C xx'd. :blink:

Huh? If his hand contains 0pc and I usually have 12 for my opening then this would be 4♥ on 12pc when vul. I'm not sure if it's a good buisness. Huh?? As best I can tell, the original auction was, (p) 1H (4C) 4H (5C) Of course partner can be bidding 4H on 12 hcp. Still not sure what you are attempting to get at. What is partner supposed to do holding: AQx Kxxx Kxxx xx? Pass? Double? Nonsense. He bids 4H. So I still do not see what your point is, sorry.

Lol, ben, couldnt have said it better myself .| .| \|/

Personally, I would be more concerned that the auction is about to go 1D-(1S)-x-(3S)-p-p-?. Now are all the doublers willing to bid 4H on the hand? If not, what action do you plan on taking? I think an immediate 2H, while a slight overbid, will help partner decide what to do when this is the case.

Personally, I dont feel that it is a question so much of whether or not the hand "qualifies" for a reverse (it is a 16 count, for cryin out loud), but more of a problem with where the high cards are located and suit quality. If the hand was; x KQxx KQx AQ10xx and I dont think anyone would raise serious objections to the reverse. Its only a jack shy of the reverse, and all other options seriously distorts the hand. In this case, the reverse would be the lesser of all evils. On the given hand, we are presented with 4 choices. To me, 1H is not an option as I play 5 card majors and partner will never believe I have longer clubs than hearts, if I open 1H. 1D is out, because like mike, opening 1D guarantees 4 in most of my partnerships and a later bid of 2C will be 5♦4♣ . I open 1C with 4♦5♣ as well. This leaves several flawed choices, imo. Opening 1N (and I assume on the auction listed for the 1N opening that the 2H bid is transfer by pard, not a 2H overcall by LHO). As long as we are willing to take the consequences and cooperate with the transfer when partner transfers to spades (hopefully he has 6+), I think this is a reasonable option, although I would not be happy with it at the time. If it was a 2H overcall, and pard bid 2S (leb) over 2H, again I will pass and not be happy. Since partner is weak, he rates to have more than 5 spades. Opening 1C and reversing into 2H, certainly describes the hand pattern and approximate strength, but I am certain that given the quality of the club suit, I would not want to play 3C opposite a small doubleton, which could easily happen. Nor would I like to end in 3N on some misfitting hand where partner is expecting a source of tricks from the club suit. And last, since opening 1C and rebidding 2C would tend to show 6+ clubs, it is flawed as well. But....if partner cannot take another call over 2C, we have probably not missed much. I think the 2C bid can be made with up to 15/16 hcp, given that we did not open 1N, did not reverse, and did not bid 3C. Partner should be aware of this fact when making his next call. So, of all the options, I think opening 1C and rebidding 2C or opening 1N are about equal, with the reverse a distant third, followed even further back by 1H. Opening 1D will never win the race (much less cross my mind). :) At the table, I would be inclined to open 1C and rebid 2C, because it never seems to work out when I open 1N with a stiff.

Stephen, Try defending the suit when declarer has no club pitch coming from dummy and you may see why the first club is ducked by LHO in the following layout: [hv=n=sxxx&w=sax&e=sjxxx&s=skq10x]399|300|[/hv] Remember, the defenders don't know that declarer is about to pitch a club from dummy on the other high diamond when the first club is played from dummy (although they may certainly suspect it). If declarer does not have a pitch coming, declarer will be left guessing whether clubs are 3-3 and even if they are, is the Ace onside (play the Q the second time) or is the J onside (play the 10)? If LHO wins the first club, declarer has no real chance other than to play the 10 the second time (dropping AJ tight doesnt count). You force him into a winning position by taking the first club. (Even if clubs are 3-3, if declarer plays the Q the second time, he has another club loser when he has no pitch from dummy coming). Since West knows from his holding that any finesse of the J is going to win, he needs to try to give declarer a losing option. Therefore, the first club has to be ducked by West. Now....declarer takes his club pitch on the other high diamond. He then crosses to dummy via the diamond ruff, and leads dummy's last club. Now it becomes a fascinating game of chicken and psychological warfare. If the original holdings were as listed above, when RHO plays small on the second club lead, declarer will probably decide that no defender can possibly duck twice here and play the 10 losing to the A, and declarer will romp home but oops....if the original holdings were as they actually are, and you managed to duck the last club from dummy smoothly.... And if declarer decides that maybe, just maybe, you did duck it twice, so plays the Q but oops, partner did duck the A the first time. And in the cases where clubs are 3-3? it wont matter as declarer just wins (or loses) this club to either hand, and then ruffs one in dummy and claims. Making either 6 or 7.

If partner has the Jack of hearts, going up with the ace beats the contract. I was answering his question in regards to the statement "If the hearts are solid declarer, after I duck, can ruff 2 clubs and a spade before being left with only high trumps, surely" If the hearts are solid, partner cannot have the heart J. :) But i will edit my post to reflect that. :)

You miss that going up with the Ace gives you absolutely no chance of defeating the contract [edit]> when the hearts are solid. If you duck, declarer has to decide if a strong defender on his left has ducked the club A the first time, leaving him to decide whether to play the Q the second time playing for Ace onside (in which case he will make) or the 10 (in which case he will go down). If you can manage to duck the 2nd club off dummy smoothly, declarer is very likely to play for the latter. How many defenders are strong enough to do so when the stiff is led from dummy, without stopping to think about it? If you hesitate, the show is over, and declarer will make. And while I agree that it is unlikely that declarer is actually holding KJ10x of clubs and has played this way, I simply cannot understand his bidding on the hand that he is actually holding. So I was trying to figure out what problem there could be. :)

Try A♣, Ruff ♣, A♥, ruff♥, ruff ♣, ruff ♥, ♦ to K, AKQ♠, at this point you have 10 tricks in the bag (assuming no overruffs), and if spades were 3-3, you can claim the rest. If spades arent 3-3, you still have the chance that the hand that has 4 spades also has 3+ diamonds to score two more diamond tricks. If anything is likely to be overruffed, it is the 3rd round of hearts, which may be RHO's natural trump trick from Jxxx. Hopefully, this hand will not have another club to force you with. You can still win his return and draw the remaining trumps (assuming no worse than 4-2).

This is not the same thing. In your scenario, those marketers are targeting "hip" products to a "want it now" society, with slick advertising being one of the most effective ways to reach that core demographic. Bridge is not something you can go to your local dealership or store and buy to take home for immediate consumption. It is a lifestyle activity. Try comparing the time/effort/money necessary to convince a new retiree (or older divorcee or widow/widower) to take a bridge class against someone who is 28, just married, working full-time, recently bought a house, a kid thats 2-3 and another one on the way. Which one is more likely to be seeking new activities to occupy their time? As one of the latter, I can tell you if it wasnt for the internet, I could not play bridge. I do not have time to go and spend 3-4 hours at a local club, nor can I afford to attend out of town tournaments. I am fairly certain that it will not take near as much time/effort/money to motivate a sixty year old who has recently retired from work, kids are now grown and moved out of the house, and has more free time on their hands than they know what to do with as compared to the 18-34 year old in the above scenario. They, in many cases, are bored and/or lonely, and already actively seeking new activities to occupy the extra time that has been derived from their lifestyle changes. Especially ones that are social in nature, relatively inexpensive (at least at the club level), and easy to do. I, myself, am a member of a local spades meetup group. Many of the people who belong to it say "I would like to learn to play bridge, but I dont have the time" or "I learned to play in college but I dont....." District 7 publishes a newsletter about once per quarter (other districts may do this as well, I do not know). In it, they list recent life masters and usually give some general information regarding the person and who their favorite partners are. I cannot begin to tell you how many times the words "Learned to play bridge at a young age but was only able to pick up the game again after kids were grown ", "Learned to play bridge in college, but recently took up the game after retirement" or "just picked up the game 3 years ago after...." are included in these testimonials. Mind you, I am not saying that no effort should be spent on marketing to the younger crowd. Anybody that learns the game of bridge in their earlier years is certainly a potential future ACBL member. If they learn the game as a teenager and stick with it, great! However, it is my sincere belief that if the ACBL truly wishes to increase its membership base over the next 25 years that it should be concentrating its efforts more on the influx of the large amount of retirees due to the baby-boomers, people who will be seeking new activities as opposed to those in the 18-34 crowd whose plates are already full. And the bottom line in regards to HUM systems in the ACBL is the older crowd will not want to participate in the "free-for-all, anything goes" environment that is continually suggested as a means of attracting new (younger) players to the ACBL. As always, jmoo.

The rule in question was not introduced until after I made my submission. It was my interpretation that one of the posts (not necessarily yours, I believe it was by awm) was making the argument that since the current GCC only requires 3 cards in a minor suit to be considered a natural opening..... The rest was derived from that.

Having just read all of this, my head hurts. Will add more later, for what little it will be worth.... (EDIT)Ok, its later now. First, in the case of opening 2D to show 4 diamonds and 4 hearts, I believe that the terminology stating "An opening suit bid or response is considered natural if in a minor it shows three or more cards in that suit and in a major it shows four or more cards in that suit." applies to an opening bid at the 1 level (not the 2 level), but I could be mistaken. However, the additional phrasing on the midchart of "4. Any call that promises four or more cards in a known suit, except that weak openings at the two-level or higher that show hands with two suits must be no less than 5–4 distribution in the two suits" specifically precludes opening 2D on 4-4 hands even in midchart events. (And they are certainly prohibited in GCC only events). Second, while I fully understand that BBO (and its forums) have a wide variety of participants from around the world who are used to being allowed to play whatever conventions/systems they see fit, many of these same participants attempt to make arguments that the ACBL should allow these conventions/systems in all events, or at least part of the GCC. I believe this is just absurd. My personal observation is that vast majority of ACBL players are non-serious players, who have never heard of transfer openings, multi 2D, Romex, or any of the other things listed in these discussions, nor do they ever care to. If they cant remember that they are playing transfers, or splinters or michaels, how can they possibly be expected to be able to deal with Multi? Transfer Advances? They cant. Nor do they want to. Its that simple. (Sad, but true). If you make the game less enjoyable for what is the majority of ACBL players, you will end up alienating your core base, who will then cease to participate in events they no longer enjoy, due to what they feel are the destructive methods being employed. Additionally, in sectioned events, why would it be "fair" for one section have to compete with the one pair who happens to be employing any of these methods, when all of the other sections arent facing at least a modicum of the same? At this moment, there are approximately 3000 members logged into BBO. Of these, only slightly over 700 are from the United States (and I imagine the percentages stay fairly consistent throughout the course of the day, but again, I could be mistaken). And yet the ACBL has over 150,000 members. (I would be interested in knowing the total numbers of BBO members from the US for this purpose or what percentage of BBO members are US based.). Where are the other 149000 members? At home, going about their daily lives, not caring about bridge on the internet, or going to play at their local club game for social purposes, or they are not computer literate. (Again, sad, but true). It is my general observations that the majority of people playing bridge in the US are a) probably much older than the rest of the world (read over 60), B ) have no interest in having to deal with complex bidding sequences or conventions, and c) if forced to do so, they will find other ways of spending their time/money as they will no longer enjoy the pastime of playing bridge. Many have argued that the ACBL should be promoting these methods as a means of attracting younger players or it will die out. I respectfully disagree. Over the next 25 years, the US population aged 60 or higher will increase by approximately 25% (78 million) according to current US census projections. In the meantime, the average life-span in the US is continually increasing (at least according to the statistics I have seen). It is the rising baby-boomers the ACBL really should be targeting to increase its membership, but again, that is just my own humble opinion. No offense to the younger crowd, but I started playing when I was 18. I received all kinds of strange looks from friends when I mentioned that I played bridge. "Bridge? Isn't that an old folks game?" was a common response, and it is reflected at every participation level, with the possible exception of the Nationals. Club games, Sectional and Regional tournaments are dominated in participation by people over 50, imo. Mind you, I started playing over 25 years ago (meaning I am now in my mid 40's), and I am still frequently one of the "younger" crowd at any club game or tournament. Granted, this could easily be different in other parts of the country, but I suspect that it is not. Realistically, the younger US population usually will not have the time (due to job, family, etc.) or the money or the interest to participate frequently in bridge tournaments. They simply have too many competing interests to make bridge a normal part of their lives, and any attempt to attract larger portions of this demographic is doomed to failure in the US. However the rising baby-boomers over the next 25 years will begin to have, each year as they retire, more time on their hands in which they begin to seek new outlets to occupy this time, and usually more money to spend on discretionary activities than someone say, in college or just out of college, making attempts to reach this demographic more likely to be successful. Finally, please dont infer that I agree with all of the current regulations. I do not. To some degree, I think that there should be ACBL events where you can play whatever you desire, but only as seperate events and advertised accordingly, so that you may choose whether or not to participate in such an event. And I must say, that I find it encouraging that Fred, Jan, Josh, Richard, Tim, et. al, can discuss issues such as addressed in this thread and their subsequent responses with at least (what I have perceived to be) a reasonable sense of decorum. While I can certainly understand why Fred was, um, irritated? with Richards stance and his means of addressing it, I also get the impression that Jan was not quite as irritated as Fred was. (I could be wrong in that assessment, however. Maybe she was and her writing simply didnt reflect it). And I dont think it was Richards intent to insult Chip Martel or Jeff Meckstroth (at least I hope it wasn't), but simply an attempt to show that the means of getting adequate defenses approved is flawed, and his frustration/aggravation with the process. Personally, since I have never attempted to accomplish any of this, I found this whole interaction fascinating, in terms of revealing the processes that actually occur "behind the scenes". As always, jmoo.

Ok, but personally, i think 4C should imply 6-5 in my two suits (not just 5-5) and partner should attempt to correct to 4H whenever possible instead of bidding 4S, unless his spade suit is playable opposite a likely void. It also allows him to have some input regarding the final contract by evaluating his hand better. As always, jmoo.

Aren't [hv=s=sjxxxxhxxdaxckxxx]133|100|[/hv] or [hv=s=sjxxxxhxxdaxckxxx]133|100|[/hv] normal hands? Seems to me if you bid 4♥ and he passes (which he probably will), you just missed a reasonable slam. At least bidding 4♣, gives him the chance to show a diamond control, if he has one. No? Tell me Luis, what am I missing?

4♣ I fail to see why this is even a problem, unless opener just bid 4♥ and thereby ended up missing slam.

Ok, wrong phrasing. Sorry. Certainly there are losing options for a small club, I just consider them to be less likely to cost than the heart lead. Who is to say that clubs isnt the suit to get the tap going in, if you are going to create a force? You hold 5 of them as well, remember? I feel that the heart lead rates to give declarer two tricks in the suit more often than not, and that leading away from this holding is more of a losing option. That, and I'm not certain deciding on opening lead that we should be attempting to tap any hand is the correct analysis of this hand, even IF partner hold 4 trumps. Declarer can still hold 4 ♠ and be on a dead minimum NT opening. As always, jmoo.

I suspect that most of you will hate yourselves in the morning when dummy shows up with Qx♥ and declarer has Axx, or vice-versa and you chose the heart lead. Both opps have shown semi-balanced hands, with dummy holding invitational values and declarer declining the invite. My vote goes to small club, retaining control of the suit. Who knows maybe partner has Kx, or Qx and dummy has Kxx and declarer will misguess, or just a small doubleton and we can give him a later ruff. In any case, I dont believe a small club can lose... but a heart certainly can. And it certainly rates to be better for the heart to be led from partners side of the table. As always, jmoo.

Why did partner not give count on the club? Surely they would holding the heart J and a small doubleton club, or 10x (and possibly Jx). While it says, partner would give standard count, if they could be bothered to give anything; they are defending a slam, and it is imperative to give count here if you can overruff the 3rd round of clubs. Since partner did not, either, A) they cannot overruff the 3rd round of clubs, or B ) it is because they hold Jx or Qx with or without the heart J or C) they were just too lazy to defend properly. In the case of A) the worst ducking can cost is an overtrick, in the case of c) partner should apologize immediately for not giving count holding Jx of hearts (sorry, I expect my partners to defend properly in this situation), so the only remaining viable case is B ). When partner holds Qx or Jx, ducking wins 100% when partner holds Qx and rates to break even when he holds Jx (assuming you duck both clubs smoothly). If you cannot duck it smoothly, now you're forced to play the Ace and another club hoping partner has the heart J, as declarer will not misguess. And I still think declarer would open whatever g/f bid his system allows on: x AKQxx AKx KQ10x As always, jmoo.

I'm inclined to say, bid 3N like a man and pray I dont get doubled :) 3N minus 3 undoubled is still better than -730 or whatever 3S x'd making is. Then if I do get doubled, run to 4C. However, I'm a mouse, and pass and lead trump. :)

At this point declarer is known to have started with at least 5 hearts, 1 spade, and 3 diamonds. Surely he doesnt not have more than 1 spade, and you have placed partner with 6 diamonds, meaning declarer cannot have any more. So, does declarer have 5, 6, or 7 hearts? And are they solid? Surely they must be. x AKQxx AKx KQxx x AKQxxx AKx KQx x AKQxxxx AKx KQ x AKQJx AKx KQxx Its hard for me to imagine someone not opening any of the above hands with whatever game forcing bid their system allows. So I rule them out. I think this leaves declarer with one possible hand that is consistent with the bidding and play to this point. x AKQJx AKx KJ10x Assuming we semi-trust declarers bidding to have 4 clubs, why did partner play the 2? She must have a doubleton and the only holding that makes any difference that I can see is Q2. You must duck and let partner win the Q and return trump, limiting declarer to one club ruff in dummy and scoring your A later. (Winning and returning a trump at this point is fruitless, as declarer will have no losing clubs remaining). So I duck. But, I've been wrong before too :)

Huh?

Why cant they just put up a fence to keep the dog out? Try complaining to Animal Control instead of the police. Yes, Animal Control is usually a function of the police department, but not always. Most towns these days have leash laws or will confiscate animals that are on the loose, and hold for the owner to retrieve, usually with a warning/citation and a fee. Subsequent incidents with the same animal, may result in heavier fines or the owner being declared unfit to own the pet. The trick is, in some cases, the Animal Control officer actually has to see the animal running free. Simple solution, catch the dog and hold for animal control to remove. If all else fails, as a last resort, steak laced with rat poison can be quite effective. :o

On hand one, I am tempted to bid 5H and then correct 6C to 6S, but would worry about partner reading this as a heart void and bidding 7 with a losing heart. So 6S it is. How much do you think partner needs (assuming he is 5-5) for 6C to make? Give him xx x xxxxx QJxxx and there should be reasonable play, any more than this is icing on the cake. And I believe he does have move values than the hand above, since he sat for the X of 3N. I suspect the 3N call was a tactical bid, and now that we have exposed it, I think we have to show the huge fit with clubs. 6C seems clear.

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