PhantomSac

Really? STEPHEN TU?!?!

Yeah sounds like you played random rather than best hand. Alternatively, maybe in the free ones people bail if they start out badly? Dunno, never played a free one.

Why didn't partner bid 2♠ over 2♥? That's much harder for them to double. That's certainly true. On the other hand, partner had a terrible hand with a lousy suit, QJT of hearts, and in general a pretty low odr. But maybe I should have posted partner's problem. So? It is MP w/w and he has 5 spades. Passing is good if both 2H and 2S are down. That is such an extremely unlikely scenario (14 total tricks in the majors?). If 2H is making 2S will be fine, and if 2S is making 2S will be fine. People are not doubling 2S nearly as often as you think. But isn't there a decent chance that a like-minded partner will bid 3S over 3H because it's MP, w/w? It seems really backwards to me to not bid 2S because partner might bid 3S over 3H. Because of this, it's better to pass and likely not get to 2S to begin with? Just bid 2S with a very wide range to force them to 3H and then figure out what to do. Sure having a wider range will cause partner to not compete to 3S enough sometimes, but it's more important to push them up and find your spade fit more often. I will take less accuracy for competing to 3S over defending 2H or playing in 3m instead of 2S more often any day.

Maybe 1N should be artificial in this auction and showing something? Though I think it is needed when you have like 19 with 6 clubs and balancedish.

Primary message is you have an opening hand with clubs and diamond tolerance imo. You can be 4045 or 0445 or 2245.

Yeah given our T9 of hearts I would consider doubling 4D to be a big mistake.

I meant the best punching MMA fighter could not beat the best boxer at his weight class in boxing. Obv a WC MMA vs an average boxer would be no contest. The best MMA fighters typically have strong backgrounds in wrestling/BJJ because as you said they are the most important foundations, but also because as a person world class in BJJ or wrestling, your clearest path to fame now is going into MMA. If you were a world class boxer, you wouldn't have made the switch to MMA most likely, you'd have stuck with boxing. So because boxing is less important in MMA, and also because world class boxers were less likely to go to MMA, generally boxing is these guys worst discipline. Also I'm sure a guy like Fedor etc could learn better form if he was actually to go into a boxing match, much of their boxing is super aggressive without any defensive form because it's just a prelude to getting guys down onto the ground (and then pound them while they're on the ground!) Definitely a strong ground game is where it's at!

Auction looks good, I would lead a spade against 3N X (seems automatic). East might have bid 3N instead of 3H, but I think 3H is fine/good.

Because if partner is 2533 with 12-14 you're an overwhelming favorite to make 1N, so there's no need to play 2 of a black suit in a 4-3 or 5-2 fit 1 trick higher?

And as far as staying power, if boxing has stayed this long (yes I know part of it is that it's rooted in american tradition), MMA definitely should imo. MMA is just a much deeper and more difficult sport. You can punch well? Let's see how you do when a guy tackles you and puts you in a choke hold! You can wrestle well? Let's see what you do when a guy has great takedown defense, and then beats the hell out of you. You fight pretty passively? Let's see what happens when a guy keeps kicking your leg until it's broken. It is so much more diverse and there are many more skill sets needed. Nothing against boxers ofc. It is also "cool" to me that the best MMA fighter could probably beat anyone in a real fight, whereas that's not true of the best boxer (and the best boxers would get destroyed in an MMA fight, even though the best MMA fighters would be destroyed in a boxing fight with boxers, real world fights are not bound by rules like boxing is).

This is not really true, MMA is huge and far surpasses boxing (which I don't think many would consider a niche sport), and wrestling. For instance, back in 2006 boxing PPVs netted ~100 million, and MMA netted ~>200 million. Now, MMA is on mainstream networks at primetime hours (like CBS). It is certainly the biggest fighting sport. Does it compare to other sports? I read something that said UFC.com gets more hits than NHL.com, and is approaching the level of NBA.com. UFC nosebleed tickets are sold for about $200 a ticket, good tickets are easily 4 figures. The UFC franchise is worth $1.3 billion (and UFC is not the only MMA company). EA has made a UFC game (may not seem like a big deal, but EA makes the biggest sports games out there, and they're all major sports). It looks like >4 million people consistently watch the CBS fights in real time. MMA has a large worldwide following, not just US following. Over 100 countries watched UFC in 2009. The thing the MMA sport needs to do is have one main league, like the NFL, NBA, etc. Right now the way it is structured, their biggest hero and champion is not really known by as many people as he should be, because UFC tries to screw him on his deal. Still guys like Brock Lesnar and Chuck Liddell are very well known. MMA is still in its infancy, once they band together and market it better and especially once there are more heroes that people want to watch (think what Fischer did for chess, and Ali for boxing), I think it will explode even more. Right now there is a huge growth, especially in the number of "casual" fans (like me) making it less of a niche market. But it's still already immensely popular.

If 1S showed 5 I would just pass now.

3C

had a similar problem this morning when I held[hv=d=e&v=b&s=sq8hakqjxda10xcak8]133|100|Scoring: IMP RHO opens 4♣[/hv]RHO dealt and opened 2♥ I elected for the X and 3NT rebid Consequently I would X and rebid 4NT if partners chooses not to pass 4C X p 4S p 4N is keycard, sorry.

Stiff queens are gross, as far as 6511 this one is really arguing for defense... I would still bid 5D though, sometimes they misjudge over it and sometimes I run good make when they could make heh. Could be a disaster whatever I choose.

4H, don't really see any other option

Sorry if I'm being a bit dense, but if West unblocks in trumps and I cash ♠AK, don't I have five hearts, four spades and an ace? Note the title of the thread heh

lol ok, you're a superexpert! Guess you overcall on a 21 count since partner will respond as if you had opened at the 1 level also!

Well, sortof. It's also worth thinking about the situation where after cashing 3 rounds of trumps & 2 spades, you play the A♦ attempting to strip West's exit card in advance of the trump endplay. (obviously DD you don't need to cash the AD early) Yeah I was just thinking of this as a double dummy problem heh.

Have you had it? It's nastyyyyyyy (and not in the good way) haha. Keep it in Quebec :P

AFAIK -100 is a good score vs a partial! -50 is ok too! And we might make something if we catch a decent fit which is pretty likely given that partner didn't overcall 2S.

2N and X. I considered 2D on the 2nd one but I want to give partner a chance to bid 1N, and clubs might be the right spot, so 2D seems a bit rash.

I still don't know what you're talking about. Jeremy said: Jeremy also said: (bold emphasis mine). I simply questioned this assertation that 4N shows 2 spades. I wondered what one would do with a slam try that didn't have two spades. In my mind, 4N says nothing about spades, and simply shows a slam try in diamonds. Jeremy later said: Ok cool, glad that was established. Jeremy then said: What? You're the guy who said 4N has the specific meaning of a doubleton spade, and diamond support, and a slam try. I'm the guy who said 4N has the meaning of diamond support and a slam try. My meaning is less precise than your initial meaning (which you later agreed was wrong). How am I the one who is trying to have "perfectly accurate bidding." You said something about partner not being able to bid 6S over 4N... well duh, I don't think 4N said anything about spades, so why would partner bid 6S? You said something about bidding 5H with spade support, how do you have a hand with spade support that is now trying for 6S/driving to the 5 level, but couldn't even raise to 2S to begin with? You have said that there are very few hands with a stiff spade that can try for slam in diamonds, and asked me to give an example. I gave one, and you said: I don't understand what that means? My point the whole time has remained that 4N says nothing about spades, so I don't know why partner ever bid 5S over it. I simply gave an example hand where 4N had a stiff spade. I don't know why you think a doubleton spade is more likely than a stiff spade, a stiff spade with long diamonds is very strong on this auction, much moreso than a doubleton spade. As I said, a 4N bid is rare with any hand, but I can think of many more hands with a stiff spade that have upgraded to a slam try now than with a doubleton spade. Most of the time you had a trap pass of clubs anyways. It seems pretty moot though, as long as you agree that there are some hands where 4N is bid with a stiff spade, then you don't think that 4N shows a doubleton spade. To reiterate the only points I've made are that: 1) I don't think 4N shows a doubleton spade, or says anything about spades (you agreed) 2) I think there are hands where 4N would be bid with a stiff spade (you implicitly agreed by agreeing with point 1). I'm not sure why you think that those 2 points mean I think there can be perfectly accurate bidding? I think that 4N may or may not contain 0, 1, or 2 spades, spades is out of the picture, you're simply saying "I have a good 5D bid." I don't think partner will ever bid 5S or 6S over it.

Just noticed another cool variation. Say you forgot to ruff with the 2 at trick 1 (oops!). You can still recover. Play three rounds of trumps, if west doesnt unblock then we just endplay him (unblocking our spades via a pitch on the clubs). So say west unblocks. We pull the last trump. Now we play a spade up. If west doesn't unblock we can go ace and a small spade endplaying him. So again he unblocks the SQ. Now we cash the AK of spades, and lead a diamond up. East must split, and we simply duck. If east plays a diamond we hook for +1, if he plays a club we pitch a diamond, and west is endplayed, again for +1. We are ok doing this if we play only one round of spades, but we are not ok if we play 2 rounds of spades because we don't have the entry to play a diamond up anymore.

Assuming you mean this to be a double dummy problem: I'm sure you remembered to ruff trick one with the 7 not the 2 if you started the play as you described. After that just play 3 trumps and then play a spade, then put LHO in with a trump. They will be forced to give you a club trick and that's your entry for the long spade. If you forgot to keep the heart 2 however, west could unblock his trumps (!) sacrificing a trump trick, but gaining 2 extra tricks.