brianshark

1st hand is a direct 4♥ bid. 2nd hand is a 2♣ response followed by a 3♥ bid after a minimum rebid (showing a 3 card limit raise). On the 2nd I may bid 4♥ instead of 3♥ if we play particularly sound openings, partner is a particularly good declarer, or the opps are weak.

1. Invite in NT 2a. 3♦ 2b. 3♦ 3. 1♠

Bid as per your agreed range. If you don't like it, complain about your balancing 1NT range after the round/session. That's my WTP response. I play 10-14 or 11-14 with most so I double.

We play weak NT.

Sorry, one too many diamond which I hope won't change anyone's evaluation too much.

These two decisions were thrust upon me by two seperate partners in two seperate competitions a few months apart. Partner is known to be usually fairly sane and a fairly strong player, in both cases. 1. IMPs, favourable, you hold: ♠A962 ♥AJ74 ♦ AK87 ♣T You are playing strong, 5, and a polish 1♣ (which includes all hands with 15+ pts and 5+ clubs (unbalanced) or any hand with 18+ pts). 2♣ would be precision style. We don't play namyats if it matters. Partner deals and opens 6♣s, RHO passes, your call? 2. IMPs, all vul, you hold: ♠AKQ3 ♥Q84 ♦ 76 ♣AKJ8 You are playing weak, 5, 1♣ is 2+. 2♣s is strong and we don't play namyats either. You deal and the auction goes: 1♣ - 1♥ - 6♣ - Pass ??? Your call.

♠Qx ♥Jxx ♦xx ♣AKQJxx Imps, nobody vul, playing weak and 5 and a short club and strong 2♣. What's your call in 4th seat after 3 passes?

Good luck guys. Hope you do well in it. I'm going to try and put a team together and enter next year's event.

No, a centannual celebreation comes every 3 days or so. :P

I haven't read the whole thread yet, so my line may be said already or may be refuted already: I'm going to play the ♦9 and if it loses, win with the A. Then I'm going to cash the ♥A. Assuming both follow small, I'm going to cash the ♣king and ace and ruff a ♣ with the ♥J. Assuming it all works so far, I'm going to lead a ♥ towards dummy. If LHO shows out then I play the ♥K, ruff a ♣ and exit in ♥s. If not then I simply finesse. I win most cases by picking up the ♥ suit or force an end-play except that I'm back to a 50% finesse guess any time that: - Either opponent has 4 trumps (no end-play possible) - Someone has a singleton club (but not RHO if he started with exactly 2) (they ruff my 2nd club... then I just draw trump and take a finesse) - LHO over-ruffs the 3rd ♣. - RHO has 4 clubs and ♥Qx (has a safe club exit after I finesse ♥)

I think having 2 quick-tricks is important. So I'd be happier to lose the club Q or spade J, but not the heart K.

Justin has often, on these forums, said how it's best to avoid any situation where there could be a double game swing. That, and the fact that in a recent teams competition, I was partly responsible for 2 seperate double game swings means that I'm going to bid 5♥ here. Twice burned, thrice shy.

Pass seems right.

4♠ for me. Slam might be on, but virtually impossible to find unless you can show the void in partner's suit, which you can't.

GIB psyched a control showing cue-bid against me the other day. He had Jxx. I guess GIB psyches from time to time. I'm impressed.

I voted one diamond because the diamonds are clearly longer than the hearts by a good 5-10 pixels.

Is that really true? That's ridiculous.

I like knocking doubled part-scores. It's one of my favourite things in Bridge.

Holding 10 pts, our partnership rates to have half the points in the deck and holding 4-4 in the Majors, our partnership rates to have a slight advantage in terms of major length, which means we have a greater than 50% chance of owning the best partial, which means the deal being passed out rates to be bad. Also, partner can see you are in 3rd seat non-vul as well so shouldn't go overboard competing to the 3-level for the partscore.

Assuming 3♣ shows extras (else there is no problem) then I will NOT bid 3♣. I don't think the soft values in my short suits are that great.

This is constructive at all forms of scoring, even playing 2/1 not promsing a rebid.

2 sensible auctions: 1♣-1♥ 2♠-3♦ 3NT (If 3♦ is artificial) 1♣-1♥ 2♠-3♣ 3NT (If 3♦ by responder would have been natural)

This is an opening hand. 1♣.

Dbl is explicitly 15+.

For completeness, 1NT was weak NT (I thought I specified that before but I see I forgot - sorry), responder held 4 hearts, a singleton spade, I think 6 diamonds to the QJ or something, and a scattered 8 count. I have no idea what he was planning to do. Maybe in their methods, 2♣ followed by 3♦ is a weak sign-off?