brianshark

I pass.

Cue you're club void. Repeat if necessary.

I would pass and let partner make the last call. On lead, I'll lead my heart A I guess.

Maybe the guy is more comfortable dealing in decimal than fractions. Maybe a % fits better into his sentence. (eg. "It was a xxxx game.")

I'm not thrilled with the idea of bidding with this hand tbh. I think I'm going to pass. Game seems quite unlikely.

While the use of the word 'cheating' is a little extreme, the essense of the message, that people playing a natural 2♣ opening really really need to alert it, is sound. It was just a poor choice of words. Aren't people over-reacting just a little?

I'm the other pass voter. It looks kinda minimum.

I'm going to bid 6♦ and then if they bid 6♠, I'll sell out.

My first impression of this was basically Rolan's impression. But on further deliberation, I'm starting to believe that the Lebanese are in a much tougher situation than any of us can easily appreciate. We are all more used to societies where we have a right to protest and our protests will have some sort of impact. If the Lebanese play against the wishes of their government, maybe we don't fully appreciate how severe a risk that is for them because we don't have such an oppresive government. And maybe if they refuse to play the tournament out of protest, the effect they will have on their government's policy is zero and the net result is that they just won't get to play big bridge competitions. So what are they to do? Maybe the best scenario they can hope for is to play, but not turn up against Israel and accept whatever punishment the tournament organisers give them, hoping it is not too severe. I bet no matter how severe a punishment we dish out to them, the above will be their best scenario. And that if we threaten them with expulsion from the tournament then the result is just that there won't be any Lebanese team. And that would just be a shame. I'm still undecided, but I think more sympathy for the Lebanese is called for.

I vaguely recall hearing that the Turkish keeper got a two match ban because after he got sent off, he went to the dugout and sat by his team mates for the remainder of the match, which he can't do because a sent off player is not allowed in the technical area. I don't know this for a fact or anything, I just recall some commentator or pundit saying something along those lines.

Odds from PaddyPower.com bookies: Number of goals (90 mins): 0 or 1: 7 - 4 2 or 3: 10 - 11 4 or more: 3 - 1

Easy to criticise the selection process now that they are not doing so well. But the fact is, Mme Lavazza and her money has selected pretty damn succesful Italian teams for years now. There was always going to be a reshuffle of the team because of Bocchi and Duboin's imminent split (imo the strongest pair of the Italian team) and because it was felt the team needed a reshuffle anyway. So what if the first attempt didn't work out? Hardly a crime to give Sementa-Angelini a try. Assuming the Italians don't claw back their 20 imp deficit in the last 4 matches, I'm pretty sure once the squad becomes Duboin-Sementa, Fontoni-Nunes, Versace-Lauria, they will go back to winning easily and often.

Ghestem has to be the worst convention for the sheer number of accidents that ghestem players use. Even otherwise good players mess it up from time to time, usually costing plenty of imps. I hate DONT and any such convention that sacrafices the penalty double over 1NT, even strong NTs. I dislike Gambling 3NT because it wrong-sides the contract, makes defence fairly easy for the opponents and because people bid it on non-solid suits all the time. Regarding other conventions that people are bashing: 2/1: The improved slam bidding gains many imps. Occasionally you can get too high in a partscore hand but in practice, these times are fairly infrequent. I like it. Flannery: I have played this for a while. It only came up 3/4 times over a few years. It's never cost imps. It's never gained imps. It usually results in the auction 2D-3NT or 2D-4H (occasionally transferring declarership) for a push board. Unnecessary but harmless. Capp/DONT: My personal preference is to play a 1NT defence which allows a penalty double which is why I dislike DONT. Everyone here plays Capp and it works just fine. Though I prefer something simple like 2C=Majors, rest natural. Gerber: You need a way to ask for aces over a NT bid. There's nothing wrong with Gerber if used only in situations it needs to be used in. Gerber in a suit auction is silly. Gerber when you actually want to know if pard is min or max is silly. Specific Ace Ask: I play this. This has never come up. Bergen: This works fine if played properly. Support Doubles: I've never had a problem with them. But I doubt I'd have a problem without them either. Transfers in various situations: I highly recommend them if you are sure you and your pd know your system. Transfers save space and are more efficient means of describing your hand. I'd play rubensohl if I knew it and I knew my partner knew it. I'm sure transfer overcalls and transfer pre-empts and transfer responses to 1♣ and transfer advances and whatever work well. Weak 2D: When used as a constructive descriptive bid instead of a pre-empt (as weak 2s were originally intended) works well. Though my preference would be to play weak 2-suited openings and weak multi, or maybe bad weak 2s and constructive multi or something. Puppet stayman: I can't remember ever losing imps because the extra info helped the defenders find a killing lead. I can remember plenty of times we elected not to use puppet (by choice or by not playing it at the time) and losing imps because of missing a superior 5-3 Major fit. Kickback: Never played it, but it seems like a good idea in minor suit auctions. I don't bother because of the extra memory load and the situations where it is necessary don't come up all that often.

I am very much in favour of some use of video refereeing in football. My personal belief that the best case for using them is for judging off-sides because that is where the most (in terms of number and impact) mistakes are made refereeing a game. In terms of the logistics of videoing the incident, well one only needs to look at Rugby Union where decisions on contentious tries are, at the discresion of the match referee, sent to the television match official who has a million and one camera angles to consult to determine the outcome. The integration of this into the game has been seemless and widely regarded as a success. Can't they do something like that in American football when the coach challenges a refereeing decision? I'm sure other sports have other examples of how doable this move is. Logistics is not the problem, it's people being unwilling to change tradition that are holding it back. I for one would encourage what I believe would be a positive change. I watched the Italy-Spain match in the Old Town Square in Prague on the big screen. It was a great atmosphere. I was half-rooting for Italy but I suppose I'm happy Spain are through as they seem to be the only out-and-out attacking football team left, what with Portugal and Netherlands out. I also hope Turkey continues their great run. Their late comebacks have provided so much entertainment. With their 13 available men for tonight's game, I'm eager to see if the 3rd choice keeper comes on as a striker and scores the winner in injury time. ;) Of course I won't be watching the match because I play 5-a-side on wednesday evenings, grr...

Add a king to the heart suit and it becomes a minimum weak 2 (playing normal weak 2 / pre-empt style).

The more I read, the more I'm convinced diamonds is probably a better spot.

Lol, seriously? Why do you make comments like this? If you added a single jack the the hand I bet you would say "What on earth would you do instead of doubling?" Sorry yeah, I didn't consider that it might be good enough to double first. It just didn't cross my mind. I just looked at it and saw a typical max vulnerable overcall (which I still think it is) but maybe it's a better hand than I gave it credit.

Partner wants to play in 3♣. I'll let him.

What on earth would you do instead of 2♥? Anyway, I'm bidding 5♥ now.

Transfer to hearts and then ask for keycards, and then ask for kings if necessary.

Winning is sexy so do whatever it takes to win. Even if it seems mundane.

Just to clarify, "she" refers to my team mate who was an opponent of responder at the other table. Repsponder himself was a "he". Also, when you say cancel the board, do you just mean for this match, or all 3 matches which played the same boards?

IMPs, All Vul, Teams You hold ♠- ♥Kx ♦AK98654 ♣9863 Your partner opens 2♣. This is either a weak 2 in diamonds or a strong balanced hand of 25-26 or 28+ or a GF single-suiter or 3-suiter. For better or worse, you respond the artificial, waiting, passable 2♦. Partner jumps to 4♦ showing a GF 3-suiter with shortness in diamonds. You have no agreements about continuations. (Yes, this is probably not the greatest method in the world) 4N would be to play, 5NT probably some sort of pick a slam. What do you bid? ===========Part Two Below========== The setting is a 6 team single round robin with 2x10 board matches over a weekend. At the other table, the auction went something along the lines of: 2♣ - 3♦ 3NT - (tank)4♦ 5NT - 7♦ (with fairly standard methods, 5NT confirmed as = GSF) Now imagine that at some point earlier in that match, a player at another table was a bit loud and said "7♦ makes" while yelling at his partner after they found themselves in 5♦. At this point, a player at another table loudly "shushs" them. A significant portion of the room heard this. That includes me, but I forgot it pretty quiclky afterwards. When I'm concentrating my memory of everything, including what I held in the previous hand, is pretty terrible. The tournament director was immediately called by one of the opponents once 7♦ was bid and she explained that she heard the "announcement" that 7♦ would make. Her partner concedes that the auction is a reasonable one. Both opponents and the responder in the above auction admits to have heard the player at the other table (responder was, I think, the one who said shush). The opener in the above auction did not hear the shout. That was not questioned by anyone. Someone mentioned something about him being "tone deaf", probably not literally but he hasn't the greatest hearing anyway. It is also worth noting that at our table (the auction in the first part, which ended with a 6♣ call by me), my LHO immediately excused himself from the table just before the opening lead was faced to speak privately to the TD. He returned and play continued. Partner held something close to: ♠AKJx ♥AQxx ♦Q ♣AKQT I'm not sure about the opponents cards but everything broke and 7 is cold in ♣, ♦ and NT. So given the facts, what is your decision as TD?

My first impression is to cash the heart ace. RHO probably has the heart K, and if not then he'll probably have the spade ace and game is fairly cold anyway. Even at MP, the bidding tells me this way seems right.

Pass. Not good enough to raise ♠s.