Apollo81

5♠. The fact that partner didn't double 2NT is enough for me to not want to double them in 5♥.

I'd bid 3♥, but I'd pass if the ♠T was a small spade.

4♥, I don't think this is an under (or over) bid

Am I the only one who would have opened 4♦?

agree with previous posts

♥A, getting a look at dummy will help here.

Thanks! I didn't think of this and it increased my number of hands by 4-8 per 25 minutes. Wow I'm shocked if it's that much lol. Just how slowly were you playing your singletons before?!? GIB was playing them pretty slowly. I admit I took your "let GIB get count" suggestion too to get this improvement. My PC may also be performing better now, not sure.

Thanks! I didn't think of this and it increased my number of hands by 4-8 per 25 minutes.

If you can stay on the red line NW of the city, that would be the most convenient option. The host hotel is on the red line (Woodley Park stop) NW of the city center. edit: I just tried looking for condos & B&B's on hotels.com, maybe check out the "Kalorama Guest House" it is very close to the playing site and advertises a $109/night rate. I don't know anything about it other than that.

Puppet Stayman and all followups should be delayed alerts, the same way that Kickback (if not a 4n bid) is a delayed alert. That way there are no ethical problems whatsoever.

3♦

The auction was reasonable up till 4♥. Instead of how it went, I think it should have gone 4♠-5♣-5♠-pass, or opener might even pass 4♠.

Pass Frankly (although I agree with the auction so far) I'm happy that I didn't go for a number in 2♥.

By a passed hand it is clearly a non-forcing bid, as are all other bids by a passed hand.

My bid of choice with the East hand would be 4♣, forcing leaping Michaels. I don't think slam can be reached after that; it's likely that West will bid 4♥ p/c and that East will pass.

I think it is very obvious to bid slam. Opener's hand is money after the 3♦ bid. If he gets even a whiff of slam from responder he should fully cooperate.

I agree with Roger's line. LHO has already shown up with the ♠A and ♣A, and likely has another club honor as well. To me this makes it extremely unlikely that he has anything in hearts.

Huh? I'll bid 5♥ and hope partner makes it.

I would open it, I don't consider it a light opener, and I would not open it a 10-12 NT at matchpoints were I playing that.

I'd pass. Axxxxx is the worst suit for a preempt since if partner has a singleton, their side usually can't make that many tricks in a suit contract. Since 2♠ is out, the only other option is 1♠. With more playing strength such as a seventh spade or AJTxxx in my trump suit I would open, but not with this hand.

The point of this treatment is that you want to put overcaller on lead even if responder has the suit stopped. If opener has nothing in the suit it's break-even (to just bidding 3NT), but if opener happens to have Hx or Hxx, overcaller often can't lead his own suit without blowing a trick (but his partner could lead it safely).

I think the OP was asking about work productivity, not personal productivity.

When I work at home, I VPN to my office computer, so it is pretty similar (most would say identical) to being at my office computer at work. However, I do notice a little bit of lag, particularly when I am using an IDE for software development. This is very irritating, and causes a significant loss of productivity when it happens. Interestingly, this only started happening when I changed from a 15.4" monitor running XP to a 17" widescreen running Vista, despite the Vista machine having much better RAM and processing power. I'm not sure what the source is: it could be the display drivers, something Vista-related, or something else. On the flip side, if I am doing other work tasks that don't involve an IDE (of which there are many), I am more productive at home. This is because I feel that if I'm posting on BBO etc then I can take credit for the time if I'm in the office, but not if I'm at home. Thus when I'm working at home, I tend to actually be working. Moral of the story: if I am working at home, I make sure I have work that doesn't use an IDE.

In the reward tourneys I usually pass any hand with less playing strength than a good balanced 15 count, most of these just waste time if partner cant open when you could be picking up a game or slam on a later board. I think I usually finish in the 16-18 hands range, not counting the passouts. I've heard anecdotally that opening XNT or 4M whenever halfway reasonable seems to be a decent strategy, but can't comment on that from personal experience. The biggest problem I've noticed with GIB is that it doesn't act the way I expect when I double unless the double is a very, very clear situation. Don't expect it to interpret doubles better than an intermediate player would.

Just out of curiosity... What if the student is using my computer? What if the student is a family member that lives in the same household (e.g. spouse, child)? Still not legal?