brianshark

Wolff is mainly useful if you frequently respond quite light (with 4/5 points), which some experts recommend, especially if you play 5 card Majors, and/or short ♣, where you might want to respond with a 6 card major suit and 4 points or so, in an attempt to find a better part score.

I think North's 6♦ bid was also systemic... it's just the response to the Q ask when holding the Q and an outside K. I don't like blaming methods. 99% of the time, it's the misuse or misunderstanding of the methods that are at fault. And this isn't that 1% time. 100% of the blame to South's Queen ask.

I won't lead ♣ as I don't want a ruff, I won't lead ♥ as I there is a greater chance the ♥ strength is in my right than any other suit. I see no reason to lead trump, it could blow a trick, even if you lead J. And I reckon a ♠ is safest as most of the strength rates to be on my left so there may not even be a finnesse for declarer.

TBH, I think 3♥ shows your hand, and though it's unfortunate your p has a hand without a clear bid, he should still make a move with 9pts opposite your 16-19.

I play 2/1 and in my partnership, an inverted minor is 10+ and is just forcing to 2NT or 3 minor, so 2NT by either opener or responder can be passed.

If you can justify that partner would have bid the grand had you shown both the K and Q, then you can bid the grand based on your mis-bid. But if you can't, then a mis-bid is no longer a defense. Regarding the grand being obvious or not, the real killer blow is that you could have bid the grand before you bid 6[DP], but judged not to. And since you learned nothing new of partner's hand after your 6♠ bid, I won't blame any appeals committee for assuming that your change of mind was caused by the hesitation.

Even though we have about one and a half defensive tricks... I still think it's weak enough for the jump to 4, but I'd do so reluctantly, and only because there's no better alternative. (Not quite strong enough for 3♦.)

1. Transfer to ♠ and get out or raise super-accept 2. 3♠ 3. I'll chance 3NT 4. I'm a passer...

As far as I know, for a reverse you need the equivalent of 16.5 points or more (not just a mimimum medium hand... if you get me). I'm sure 3♦ would explicitly deny the ability to reverse, thus denying 4♥s or 4♠s. So, as was said, a distortion as well as an overbid. Plus, your ♦ suit is crap.

I hate 4♠, so so much. Punts have their place, but this one is done for all the wrong reasons. The 2 reasons you take up loads of bidding space by pre-empting or punting are: 1. If you can't find out scientifically whether game makes, but the odds favour it, then punt it. 2. If opps 'own the hand' and you want to take away their bidding space, then you pre-empt and force them to guess. Now look at this situation (in post 1): Sitting with your stack of points, and defensive values, it's a fair assumption that your partnership 'own the hand'. If you jump to 4!s, you are doing the opps work for them... you are forcing yourself to guess (between partial, game or slam / or between declaring or defending over a sac) without them having to lift a finger. By way of analogy: Consider if you are in 1st seat with 17 pts and 6 good spades... the odds are that 4S is the best contract, probabilistically. But you don't just punt 4!s with that "just in case opps find a good sac or learn what to lead" and the like, you are likely to own the hand so you bid slowly, preserve bidding space, and find the optimal spot... and hope the opps don't get in your way as they will do the opposite. You definately don't want to pre-empt your partner, as he could be broke, or have enough for slam and there is a fairly easy way to find out. Plus, you want to find out about his hand to make the "bid on or double their sacrafice" decision... or better yet, describe your hand and let him make the call. I will involve partner in this auction by doubling then bidding 3♠. I also have respect for 3♥ if it asks for a stopper for 3NT in your methods. In fact, I almost think it's better now that I think about it more.

RHO has many options to GF with distributional hands (5-5 and the like), which together with the lack of cue-bidding by the Key-card bidder suggests that they are both balanced or semi-balanced. However, this also makes it more of a possibility that the opps stopped short of the Grand based on points rather then because of a missing keycard. If p has a keycard that isn't a finessable trump King, the ♣K lead will almost certainly knock the slam, even if opps have AJx tenace waiting for you (cos it's less likely to go away). However, if p has no keycard, then conceding an extra club trick may well cost the contract where a more passive defense (like ♥J) wouldn't. I'll still always lead the ♣K, because if p has jack, or dummy AJx, the lead hasn't costed anything, even if p has no keycard.

One time after examining the movie of the previous board, I was clicking into the main client again when at that second it became my turn to bid, and the pass button suddenly appeared in the main client right where I was clicking! What misfortune! :) Misclicks will happen no matter what though. I understand why people dislike having to reject dubious undos, but I don't remember ever being in such a situation myself. I just never reject them. I'm usually either playing in the main bridge club, where I don't care, or against friends in a friendly game, or playing against respectable intelligent opps who you can usually trust not to abuse the feature anyway. (The kind that play to better themselves rather than to win.) I don't see why a minority of contrary people who reject every undo, and cheaters who abuse it frequently, should allow the rest of the us to not have that nice little feature, that most of us would be ashamed to misuse.

1. Penalties... I play strong NT... you compete both on points and distribution, but you double on points, so 15-17 means the amount of times you want to penalise rather than compete is proportionally larger than if you played weak NT. (I think.) Also, I don't like risking passing with game on, hoping partner can re-open with a double to collect a penalty... it's a bit of a gamble. 2. Take-out... an obvious usage playing penalties above IMO. 3. Penalties... p has shown a balance of points and can panalise one of opp's suits... he needs to know if I can penalise their retreat suit. 4. Take-out... no point playing penalties here really. Based on the above 4 cases, the hand after the overcall doubles for penalties, and the hand before the overcall doubles for t/o. I think this makes sense?

If declarer has ♠ATxxx and ♣Qxx then the only defense is hoping that P has a singleton heart. So win with ♥A, cash ♦K and ruff ♥, cross to ♦A, ruff ♥, ruff ♦. (Or something like that) On the other hand, if P has ♣QJ or QT, and a doubleton ♥, then the only defense that can let it in is by winning opening lead and ♥ back or allowing myself be end-played later in the play. But I think it unlikely that declarer has 4 ♥s, or that P has the ♣Q. However, if P has the ♠T, then all I need him to have is ♣JT or J9, then declarer has 4 ♠ tricks and 2 ♣ tricks... so as long as I keep him to 1 ♥, then we knock the contract. But I can't see any way to avoid being end-played (or giving up a ♦ trick) by a sufficiently expert declarer. I must be missing something... So I guess at the table, I'd play for scenario B/C, by ducking the opening lead to give the declarer every chance of making some sort of mistake. But I don't know what's the theoretical best defence.

Regarding finding good matches, I find myself rarely playing in the MBC these days. I do sometimes when I want a relaxed game. And I don't expect much of my opps and p (though occasionally I play with fairly good players there). If I want a serious game, I'll almost always: -Find/Start a Teams Match (the standard in them is usually higher than the MBC average standard) -Find a paid tourney (hit and miss - but I have a few favourites) -Enter some of the BBO teams leagues (great games there) -Play with GIB (good practice, very solid and doesn't make much mistakes) -Consult my friends list Regarding stability of players, I don't think that as long as a player is willing to finish a hand, that leaving after 1 board and going elsewhere is necessarily that bad. The pull of the MBC is primarily that it's convenient and you aren't tied down. If you don't like your opps, or your regular p comes online, you can leave. I think if you want stable games, join teams games and tourneys. I don't like people leaving in the middle of a hand in the MBC either, but it's not that a big deal, doesn't happen often, and regulating against it is unnecessary imo. Regarding players ranking their peers, this is a bad idea imo for the simple reason that I would only trust very good experts (probably the top 5-10% of BBO populace), to actually be good enough to read the deal, see your perspective, and evaluate how optimal or sub-optimal, how lucky or unlucky, etc, your play actually was. The rest would be too temperamental, too focused on the outcome, or simply not good enough to see who made what mistake, to evaluate properly how good or bad a player is.

I like the term "Serious and Competitive club' as it suggests that people are there to play seriously... that they are going to take their time, declare/defend properly, tank if necessary, etc. Maybe be descriptive and explain that you're expected to play properly, take your time, etc. That people go there for good practice. Not meant to exclude people who aren't experts, but people who won't take things seriously. (Skill classifications can be done within the section... set table for "Beginner or Intermediate only", or "Adv+", or whatnot). And I really don't think there should be further classifications. I think the "Main Bridge Club" should stay for everything else. It can be renamed "General Bridge" or "Relaxed/friendly" or whatever. (My favourite is "Relaxed bridge club") Further distinguishments such as "Fast Bridge", "Precision only", etc, should probably be made with the table description field instead of a different club. The problem is if you try and fragment the bridge populace into categories, such as Beginner's club - Intermediate club - advanced club - expert's club - friendly club - fast club - serious club, etc, then you get a mess. No one knows where the line is drawn and people will move to the extremes. There should be a main club for everything, and different clubs to cater for 'outliers', rather than to try and 'categorise' the bridge playing populace. Or we can leave it the way it is, because it's fine! :)

But you can pre-empt your partner as well as your opponents. Partner could have a healthy share of the remaining points as well, in which case, a slam might easily be on.

I for one am slightly disappointed that they are using their own bidding systems instead of the standard one each team captain came up with, for the pairs and teams events. I'd have liked to see a competition where the random element of having the right bidding system for the right situation, and the skill element of having and remembering one comprehensive enough, are removed. Instead, it would have been a competition based almost exclusively on judgement. Not that there's anything wrong with complicated, innovative or even radical bidding systems in general, but the change would be nice. Just to focus on the at-the-table judgement aspect to see how these world class players compare. "In the open room, the US struggled to describe their hands and ended up in the inferior heart slam, whereas the Italians had just the convention to describe south's hand..." ...has it's entertainment value, but I sometimes prefer to see... "The auction in both rooms was identical up the point where xxxxx for the US judged his hand worthy of an invite, whereas yyyyy for the Italians decided to be more conservative."