brianshark

My understanding of it is that you have a hand which you know wants to be playing at a certain level (eg. 4 of your Major) but you have a strong inclination that your opponents are going to bid a lot as well. Walking the dog means to initially bid your suit on lower levels than you intend to end up (even if it is a non-forcing bid, as a somewhat calculated risk) for one of two main reasons: - Trying to convince the opponents that you have overbid with a hand worse than you actually hold (because you didn't bid high right away) in the hopes they will let you play your contract, perhaps doubled. - Allowing the opponents to "get their hands off their chest" at a lower level and allow you to play your contract at your desired level when you eventually compete to it. In this case, you suspect if you bid to your desired contract right away, the opponents will probably be forced to bid over you and you think that will be to their advantage.

'Intelligent' life on our planet has been around for less than a million years. 1/14000th the length of time the universe has been around. How many countless civlisations could have risen and fallen even in our own star system before we came along and we would have missed them. And space is so big that you have to think in logarithmic scale to appreciate how far away things are... linear thinking doesn't quite cut it. There could be intelligent life on every second earth like rock around every star and we wouldn't have a clue they are there. We can't even see extra-solar planets the size of earth yet (maybe soon). Then again, whatever initially started out organic life could have been statistical fluke, unlikely to be replicated no matter how many planets and stars are in the universe, and the only thing we can do in the search for intelligent life as we don't know it is to define what 'life' means and what it means to be 'intelligent'.

I don't understand why Frances is playing in 4♠ instead of 4♥. My auction is identical to Helene's. I think this is fairly normal and I'd be surprised to see something different. And 4♥ should surely make?

I think this case should come down entirely to a poll of what a poll of peers would do in the given situation. Indicentally, I hate it when directors or appeal chairmen ask people what they would do without hesitation and then what they would do with hesitation. What they would do with hesitation should be completely irrelevant when deciding whether a call had logical alternatives.

2♦ does not show a minimum. It denies a shapely maximum. So you can still have a non-shapely maximum or a shapely non-maximum. I would open this 1♠, not 1♣ and in fact I find myself downgrading far more hands into 1x openings than I do upgrade hands to 1♣ openings playing strong club. (Also, why is this in B/I forum rather than non-standard systems forum?)

I dislike the dogs idea and stuff that is typical to many forums such as military ranks. And the tax idea is decent enough except some of those taxes only exist in the US (or at least in nations that are a federation of states). It should either be funny, or bridge related, preferably both. I quite like the card play techniques suggestion. Maybe: Cash a trick, finesse, backwards finesse, end-play, unblock, squeeze, etc.

I'm bidding 3♦. I would bid 4♦ in 3rd seat.

3♣ seems like what you should bid now, but it's almost impossible for your side to find 3NT if it is correct no matter what you bid, unless you just bid 3NT, and just bidding 3NT is very likely to be wrong.

Yes, you can't really think for longer than you need to for the sake of trying to get him to pass if you think that his pass is better for you. But it seems wrong to conclude you have been fixed by your relatively quick thinking time. Your RHO is taking an inference at his own risk. And who's to say that his decision to balance wasn't a disastrous one for him. Maybe on another day you have an abbysmal hand and are hoping your opponents bid again, due to your quick analysis you bid it fairly quickly (which is at your own tempo) and your opponents incorrectly conclude that you have your bid and bid on which is a huge mistake for them. You are certainly not obliged to bid really slowly to tell your opponents that you don't have your bid. I think the point is, you have to bid to your own tempo whether you want them to bid on or not.

The win-by-2 rule is just there so you have to win by the smallest margin possible where the person who went first doesn't get an inherent advantage. 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (8-6) is still a sliver.

I also didn't like the way he suggested "11-15, Majors" instead of "flannery" because it in itself is not sufficient information. Also, I noted how he said that there wasn't a lot of space to put in your description but do the best you can. Why not just put more space in the alert box. It's such an annoying restriction that causes abbreviated and often confusing explanations. And I find it weird to encourage full disclosure and then have feature which restricts full disclosure. The only counter-argument I can think of is that people might start writing essays and there could be too much information on the screen. I personally have no problem with that whatsoever. Perhaps there is a technical reason though (too much memory required?)

Why didn't south overcall 1♠?

Assuming you can't double for t/o the second time, I would just pass. Maybe pard can double them himself, maybe he bids a new suit after my "take-out pass". Maybe the auction does not stop in 2♦ either. 2♦ passing out would be unfortunate but such is life.

I might have bid 3♣ with responder's hand over 2♥, and showed my ♠ support later. That does approximately the same job, but you might find 5♠ that way instead of 5♥ doubled.

At least nobody voted for natural, not forcing. :) I voted for 'no standard' because while I play this as auto-splinter with most people, I would never dare make this bid with any random expert no matter how knowledgeable I thought they were for fear of disagreement. But it seems there is an 'expert standard' after all.

My main concern with passing hands like this is that the auction may be above the 5-level by the time it comes back to us. Eg. Partner may have a similar hand with hearts and waltz in on the 5-level over 4♠. If that happens, not only would I be scared to bid more in case it's void opposite void, I'm not even sure partner won't assume my new suit bids aren't fitted. I think it might be better to get your suit off your chest as early as possible. Once I bid, I'll pull a penalty double to 5♦, but any doubling higher than that then I'm just going to pass and hope it's a misfit deal.

His doubles are: t/o, extras and more extras in that order. The 3rd double in particular has heard you are minimum with preference for spades, yet he still has no clear idea of where to play. You can bid again with extra shape in the form of extra spade length, or a long, undisclosed side-suit. But lacking those, you're default action is to pass.

Swiss fields are designed to find the best team (and the worst team). They are not accurate at placing the intermediate teams, no matter what jiggery-pokery you do on the last round.

I think the hand is worth a 3♥ limit raise only. I think the fact that it has a 5th heart brainwashes people into thinking they have to bid to the 4 level because the LAW tells them to, or because they would do so with worse hands (pre-emptively). I think this is a rubbish hand with too many jacks, terrible shape, 9 losers, and the only redeeming feature making it worth a limit raise is the fact that it has the 5th heart.

On the first, of course the hesitation suggests double would be more succesful than pass. But I think dbl is clear and I would hope a jury of peers would agree so there should be no adjustment. On the second, it hasn't been established that 3♠ was not systemically a limit raise. You were told it was a limit raise, and neither west nor the convention card disputed that fact. How can you rule misinformation?

I'm undecided. On one hand you have a minimum, length and wasted values in your LHO's suit and no aces. On the other hand, you have a 6th spade, all your honours except for the ♦Q are still working. (Unlike others, I think the ♣K and ♥Qx are very useful values if partner has the aces required for slam.) Assuming we play 4♥ as a general slam try rather than specifically a cue, I'm still going to bid 4♠, but if partner has 3 bullets and the heart K (or a ♦ void instead of one of those) it's not hard for him to picture you with what you have and make another slam try, in which case I will co-operate.

I'm going to pass, even at IMPs. On a bad day, they make. But on most days we get 200 or 500 and we are unlikely to make anything at the 3-level. We are unlikely to have an 8-card fit at the 3-level, there's a chance we might not even find our 4-3 fit depending on what methods we play (who doesn't play lebensohl here?) and we're almost surely going minus. I'm fairly confident passing is the correct move in spite of the risk they make 2♠.

On the surface, my unqualified opinion is: On table 1, the director should have been called immediately. Then the TD would have let East take back his pass and replace it with 2♦ if that was his wish. By not calling the TD, EW forfeited their right because to be allowed to change later would be a double shot. On table 2, I thought you are allowed to fiddle with your bids before you make the final decision. I thought a bid wasn't made until the card is sitting on the table in front of you. And while obviously there is UI on west who knows his partner had a close decision between pass and 2♦, East's 2♦ call should be allowed. So in my opinion, both calls were wrong. :)

With the agreement that the 2♠ bid above shows a heart raise, I would assume it's the same for the other auction. Without any agreement, I would have assumed it is natural on the basis that bidding responder's suit should be natural if you have a cue-bid available of opener's suit which you can use as the artificial raise. I know a lot of people play 2 different ways to raise, but without this agreement you have to remember that advancer also knew you had no agreement about two different cue-bids, so I doubt he would have risked an ambiguous forcing-raise-type-bid if he could have cue-bid opener's suit as a clear cut forcing-raise-type-bid. So I would assume that his bid shows the hand he has no other obvious bid to show... natural.

Yeah, pretty much. Your hand becomes a 'bad' 8 count I suppose because it now has less than the average number of high spots, so I suppose it's more of a problem than a clear bid. I know there's not a world of difference between the 2 hands. But you have to draw a line somewhere and say what's good enough to invite and what isn't, and opposite a 1NT bid, the ol' 4-3-2-1 point count with a decent 5 card suit being worth a point, and a few 10s and 9s being worth half a point is just as good as any. You can't really get any more accurate without peering into your partner's hand to see where you want to be, and even then you may need to peer into your opponents hand. And even then you may need to know what they will lead or how they will defend.