PhantomSac

3C shows 4 clubs so thats perfect to me.

6D is clearly the worst bid, cuz its lol... I mean w/w with nothing...??????????? 5H is lol with all defense and balanced and no offense... 5D is quite bad, but nothing compared to 5H and 6D imo. FWIW 4H instead of 4D is bad, the hand is too good for 4H which is usually min GF or max LR...but compared to the rest of the bids it's whatever.

2C, I have 2 suits, this is a non problem to me.

3S, i don't like to agree with either jdonn or clee so i compromise here.

Yeah I definitely agree, but obv there is no perfect or even close to good bid on this hand (like I think 3C should always have 4, 2H should be 2, 2N should be stronger, etc), just thought it was an option if we are gonna bid. Also I think most people would play it as FSF like you, I usually play it as nat though in this auction.

Curling needs it's own thread, like cricket B)

Easy to construct some auctions but my take: After 5S, north can bid 7H, certainly after 6D. Look at it this way, 5S is a grand slam try for hearts. North has the best possible hand, especially for a grand, that he can have in context of passing a 3S bid. 4 Keycards and a stiff etc. Anything more than this, north would have bid over 3S directly. So if partner is trying for 7, and you have your best possible hand, you should bid 7. FWIW I would have overcalled 3N with the north hand, and then I have no idea how my auction would go. I can see getting to 6D, 6H, 7D, or 7H depending on my system and whether south insists on diamonds or tries for a heart fit. I just think the way your auction timed out, over 5S north should bid 7H.

agree with pass ainec

What do you think about 2D? Do you play that natural by a PH? Seems like a reasonable way to keep the auction alive, though it might dissuade partner from bidding 3C with a 5-5-2-1 max since it sounds like you're 5-5 probably.

I would double but it's definitely close since they could make 2 overtricks, and they could redouble also (if LHO has a max with both majors stopped he should redouble...or do they play DOUBT redoubles? B)). On the other hand, it's good to have some semibluff doubles in your range, because you might induce RHO to run even if they're making. If you only have lock doubles then they can always run, of course they might not know this especially if they haven't played often vs you. Then you have the added equity that you cause them to go down with your double, either via taking 5 spade tricks, or 4 + a trick based on the lead, or even 2 spade tricks + you can shift or whatever. Even if they successfully run, it's quite possible that they would have made had you not doubled, so it's still a gain.

Yeah lobowol is real

Clee has so much peotneiatla and intelligence its r diculous.

I'd lead a cleeeeeee

Why is 3C probably not making? Anyways it's a completely normal bid.

No, only because people don't know how to bid :) LDO was just an inside joke, I have long believed it to be "ldo" to play a new suit NF, and a jump shift natural and forcing, but a lot of people make fun of me for this simplistic approach. Call me crazy but I think being able to bid a strong hand with a suit is more important than being able to make a fit jump, or a weak jump when you already have a way to show the suit, or whatever.

Always amusing that people are so outraged by sponsors, but they love watching their favorite stars play so well. The level of the best bridge players would not be nearly as high without sponsors.

This would definitely be my ideal solution. However, world championship events are already like 2 weeks long I think. Making fewer boards each day while keeping everything the same amount of boards would make the events even longer, which would cost the organizers more money (playing space), and the players or federations more money (hotel rooms/food etc), and a lot of people are not pros and have jobs so it would make it even harder for them to take time off work to go etc. You could make it less boards per day and also less boards total, but then you increase the luck factor (less boards = more luck obv), so that also would not be ideal. It just seems like a really tough problem to me.

I like the 1S bid, the pass is atrocious. Even if you don't like 1S, it is certainly a marginal decision (19 points, but stiff honor in partner's suit, no 5 card suit, 13 points outside the suit you open + JS in is meh, pretty bad hand overall), whereas passing 1S has absolutely no merit.

2D is not forcing, which makes 3D natural and forcing, LDO? Maybe people who play new suits forcing after an overcall disagree, but if you think 2D is NF it is strange to me to not have a way to force in diamonds. 2H is a cuebid, 3H is a mixed raise. Diamond bids are not cuebids once you've passed diamonds and then start bidding diamonds.

I mean, yeah like basketball and football would be a good example of sports where the players often get to sit out so that they can regroup/catch their breath. At the end of the day it's pretty arbitrary whether you want your sport (not that bridge is a sport to me obviously) to have large teams where the players don't play often/some are always on the bench, or small teams where everyone plays all the time, or something in between. Obviously everyone playing all the boards would increase the importance of stamina and emotional control, and having larger team would increase the importance of depth etc. I'm fine with the bridge rules, and honestly if anything I would like bigger teams like 8 people. My reason is just that I think it sucks that the finals of world championships and often even the Spingold/Vanderbilt are pretty bad bridge, much worse than if the teams had played early. I am not saying that the people who reach the finals are bad, they are much better than me, I'm just saying that stamina is a huge factor already. I don't want it to come down to which team is playing less badly by the end, I'd really like to see the best bridge team playing their best bridge fight it out for the championship. If we had only 4 person teams, I think this problem would be amplified. The bridge by the end would be even worse (relative to the level the players are able to play when not fatigued), and the winner would likely be the team with the most stamina. IMO bridge should not place importance on stamina, it should place importance on bridge skill. Right now I'm fine with the balance that exists though, but I'm sure it's all a matter of personal taste. I really disagree with you saying that stamina is not an issue at all though. Maybe your bridge gets better at the end of a regional because you are tuning distractions out, but that is not at all relevant to top level events. It is way more tiring, and the players at that level are used to tuning out distractions already. In the spingold for instance, the play often ends at 1 or 2. The play is very slow and behind screens, and the level of focus and concentration is much higher, and the level of opposition and pressure faced by their plays/bids is also much higher. It is really grueling. I often play 3 sessions a day for 3 weeks straight 4 handed including drinking/partying/flying etc, and I am never as tired as I was during the final 8 of the spingold on a 4 handed team, and at the time I was 19 and in much better shape than I am now (but worse bridge shape probably). The comparison is really not close in my experience. Hopefully Fred or someone who has gone really deep in these events can share their experience about this.

The problem is probably that GF is a bit of an overbid, sorry to be a point counter but SIXTEEN. That being said, given that LHO doubled, partners bid is a freebid. Obv it doesn't show the nuts or anything, but partner isn't going to stretch to bid unless he has a good suit, he will often pass with 5-6 which he would have responded with. Also I don't think he'd bid a bad 4 card spade suit after a takeout X. All that plus the fact that we can describe our shape (3-6) if we GF whereas 3H might miss out on spades leads me to bid 2N.

You cannot: A) Bid 1D with 4 hearts and longer diamonds invitational and B ) Bypass majors over 1D to bid 1N and C) Have no way to show 4M 5+D invite over 1N. Those 3 do not mix, so you have to change any one of them meaning either: A) Bid 1M with 4M 5+D invite or B ) Don't bypass majors over 1D or C) Have a system over 1N where you can show 4M 5+D invite Solution B is very unpopular, as far as I can tell it's pretty even whether people bypass diamonds with invitational hands or not, but certainly those who do not bypass will use solution C, often in the form of 2 way NMF. As long as you have these 3 conflicting aspects of your system and don't fix one, this will be a recurring problem for your partnership.

I've always been a believer in passing. You could miss a game but bidding anything just leads to a minus way too often. Even though partner could have 17 (or even 18), it is quite infrequent relative to how often he has normal minimums.

That's why we're such a good partnership ♥

To a bot, a double negative means a positive. :P No it don't!