TheZerg

ups ~ and now i see the other hand ;D Opener's hand was AJTx Kxxx void KJxxx at the table - after 1C (2S) 5C if i am the opener i will pass 5C (missing the slam) he already promissed something very similar with that type of hand (ok - he has only 6 loosing tricks, not 7) and partner made a preemptive bid (maybe he shoundt) it is quite probably that the 5C was made on C length and S shortage but what guaratewes us we dont have two or three loosers in H and C after that bidding i know usually is not a good ideea to preempt 5C after ops preempted before :) so 5C should be made on a very weak hand (espec since the 4-th player didnt bidded yet) when the preemtor is absoultely sure 5C dont make and trys to put some pressure on ops (4S by ops being a sure thing, 4th player having to choose between pas/dbl/5S/cuebid+ at a very high level)

acol: 1C (2S) ? 9 Ax xxxx Axxxxx since opener promises 4-card C and denies weak nt there are huge chances for slam (big fit, 7 lossing tricks, 5 good controls), only the thing that may stop us from biding is is partner wanting to wack 5S (i doubt that p is missing two aces) scientific method may start with some cuebid (i initially tought 3S but several players sugessted 4S and that seems sligtly better as both 4S and 4NT minimize ops chances to find maybe a good 6S save) less schentific method is to bid directly 6 and hope for the best - afterall there is a >>75% chance that the slam will make :) (ops wil have less info, drawback is you may lose 7C if p Axx Kxx AK KQxxx will pass)

average/level computing an average (imps/mp) for each category of players (novice/beginner/etc...) seems a v nice ideea, so one can look at his averages (e.g. clicking movie from lobby) and find if what he wrote in his profile about his level is a gross misstatement or not adjustment/level what does a handicap system? it penalizes my ops for playing better then me and it rewards me for playing badly ;) not a great incentive to improve anyone's game though it will be quite fun to play vs star players and consistenly win every time they make 4S+1 while the rest of the field does only 4S ;D if we want golf-like equilibrium, we might consider having deepfinesse compute the par score for each deal and comparing our results with that (but afaik since DF is not owned by fred's team there are some limitations in the way it can be used)

about: 1nt raptor seems a fun method, but how do u bid 15+ balanced hands? i've played with a friend nt for takeout and powerdoubles (any 15+), but those doubles seemed to work as bad as possible (comparing with regular TO dbls) maybe was our lack of experiences but i feel that bidding only points without shape information is quite bad in competitive auctions