gdawg01

Hi all! I recently relocated to Seattle and am looking to starting a fun partnership, since I really playing live bridge and would prefer to do so with a regular partner. I am a reasonably competent intermediate (I think ;) and am quite happy to learn and discuss bidding ideas and the play of the hand. I am looking for someone who's at my level or (preferably) a bit better so we can learn and grow together, and kick some a** ! :-) The only thing I really dislike is at-the-table post-mortems. In a previous fun partnership in Denver, my pard and I regularly went after the game to drink beers and shoot the breeze, which was almost as important as the game itself :P Thanks!

Thanks for the detailed responses, Mat and Adam. Very useful. A couple more questions : 1) Is it better to play 1C - 1N as semi-forcing? Frequently after responder denies a four card major with the 1N, opener will be stuck rebidding clubs (they will almost always have 5 because with 4-4 in the minors and a minimum hand, opener would usually open 1D), so is it better for that 1N to be semi-forcing? 2) Given we bid 1N (15-17) with 5 card majors, consider again the auction 1S - 2H - 2N. 2N should show a 18-19 point balanced hand with stoppers in unbid suits, right? I say this since with a minimum opener, I could always rebid the 5 card spade suit in this auction. 3) After the auction 1S - 1N, what is 2N by opener typically? What would a direct 3N be? I remember Roger saying something about this to me a long time back on BBO chat but unfortunately have lost all memory of it. Thanks!

Hi all! I had a few questions about rebids with minimum hands in 2/1. 1)Assume you have a 12 point opener and 5 spades with 5=3=3=2 / 5=3=2=3 / 5=2=4=2 / 5=2=2=4 shape, and partner bids a forcing NT. Especially in the last two cases where we have a 4 card minor, is it correct to choose 2m as the rebid or to rebid the spades (even though we have only 5)? 2) Again, assume a 12 point opener with the above shapes, but now partner bids 2H. What does 2N by us show? 3 of a minor? Are either of these reids associated with extras in opener's hand or is our primary rebid just showing shape? Thanks for the responses! Girish

Thank you for the suggestions, Jan! I plan to watch the trials for sure and will make a special effort to think through the hands.

Josh, I looked at the GNT C of C and the format is like what Phil suggested. No idea if scores carryover but I do not think they do.

Han- That is the plan. Solve a lot of problems, bid a lot online, and especially make sure everything on the CC is understood. Stephen- Good points. The bit about phantom sacs is something I have been guilty of (avoided that trap somehow in Vegas though!) and that I will be careful about.

Thanks Richard, Han, and Frances for the useful advice! I need to particularly remember the "try not to post-mortem between sessions" bit. The "be way better at bridge than your fellow competitors" is powerful advice but it might be a tad too late to achieve that by July 21 :angry:

dkharty -- Thanks for the advice. The number of times I have said to myself -- just don't do anything stupid - and then done exactly that! Re being well rested, I am going to make sure I arrive the Tuesday evening before the GNTs so I can turn in early and not be tired. CSGibson -- will keep your points in mind too. I was wondering what flavors of systems we might encounter, but from bd71's post, it appears as if it will predominantly be SA(YC) and 2/1. That said, we will make sure we know at least some basic interference structures over precision 1C, etc. bd71 -- Thanks for the comments! Will keep them in mind.

hehe pooltuna, okeedoke!

Thanks everyone for the good wishes! Very useful information and tips too! Girish

Hi all! My team and I won the right to represent District 17 in the GNTs Flight C. This is our first time doing this, so any advice on preparation and tips on how to do well would be much appreciated. Also if someone who has already been there could tell us what the usual format is for the 5 days, that would be great too! Thanks! Girish

Trumpace, Nice problem. I have not given it much thought so I might be way way off! (Maybe I should have peeked at Han's solution :P) That said, I think I would : Draw 3 rounds of trumps. Play off the hearts and on the third heart, discard a diamond. Cash the Ace of diamonds and keep Qx in dummy. Then lead a low club to the 10 or the Queen. If it loses and a heart is returned - I have a spade in dummy to ruff and toss a club from hand. If it loses and they kindly return Diamond king - I am through since the queen is good for a club discard. If a low diamond is returned, I put up the queen and hope it is not covered. If it is covered, back to dummy via the spade to try another club finesse. Ofcourse I am down if all three cards (K of Dia, K and J of clubs) are in the wrong position, but can see no way out of that. -G

thanks Ant! The doublesqueeze site has precisely what I need. G

Hi all! I cannot find a link online that goes through the initial responses and further continuations after a strong 2C opening. Can someone post what they play / think is useful to play? Thanks in advance! Girish

Yea, walk the dog did mean a pass or 2d, followed by bidding diamonds at every (possible) stage. Justin, interesting point about the lots of defense bit. 4D, I must admit, never occurred to me ; I only thought of pass, 2D, and 5D.

East deals and sitting South, you pick up this : [hv=d=w&v=b&s=sxxhkdaqt987654cx]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] The bidding goes (from East) : P - P - 1H - (your bid) fwiw, I blasted 5D, got whacked, and made it when pard kindly showed up with Kx diamonds and AKxxx of spades! From my view, they might have had a doublt fit in clubs and hearts, so I went for an immediated 5D. Comments / criticisms welcome as always. Girish

Fluffy -- Point well taken. Given all those bids were completely undiscussed, I chose to make a "practical" bid. I would not have posted this if I thought blasting 6N was a good idea. Also, I was quite clear what I would take 4C as, my partner was doubtful. :-) Nigel -- it was a good field. We scored a grand 2 MPs out of a possible 8, beating two pairs who ended up in 6D+1. The more I think about 2H after Jeremy brought it up and several others (you included) suggested that route, the more I like it. Neilkaz -- thanks for a very detailed reply. I looked very briefly (as I was at work!) into XYZ and XY-NT, and will study them more when I am home. They do seem like awfully good tools to game force at a low level and allow for further hand description without absurd jumps.

pretender, with both those hands, he has 1 KC to show and I will know we are still missing one, so given our methods (or lack of them!) I cannot try for 7 anything as we might be off the A of spades. I meant the 7N bit with respect to his actual hand that I posted here.

@pretender : The rationale behind bidding 1D was that since partner had opened, he was not going to pass this. I figured I would let him know about the diamond suit, then figure out what to do when his bid came around to me! With anything else, I would have probably responded with 4N RKC (yea, he might have construed this as support for his second suit but in this case, that would not matter as he would be in 7N :)) and found 7N; it was the 1N that exposed the gaps in agreements / how to force at a low level! G

After 2♥ I think opener should show his ♦ support then you have an easy 4NT RKC. If instead you argue he should still bid 2NT, then 3♣. Now he should bid 3♦, you bid 4♦ (still forcing obv), and he will cuebid a major and you bid 4NT RKC. If he decides to never support diamonds, you can bid 4♦ over whatever he bids and this should set trumps for RKC over his M cuebid again. Something like that. Ah, ok, thanks!

We need to get A LOT of this "simple" stuff sorted out :) Meanwhile, I seem to have missed a rare opportunity to bid 7N directly after 1N, sigh.

Jeremy, That was indeed my quandary at the table : How to make a low-level forcing bid that we both accepted as forcing and then find out more..The point about us not being on the same page is quite valid :) This was a new situation for that, however, as we normally specialize in the "keep bidding on with known misfit until the other gives up" approach! To continue -- after 2H, and pard bids 2N (should he not? Assuming we are on the same page etc.), I agree 3C is forcing. I must confess I still cannot see how we get to 7N from there though! Girish

Thanks, aquahombre ; the idea that you and Jeremy talk about of having an immediate force with 2H makes sense to me. So when you talk about strong jump shift responses (we play WJS so far for all such jumps), are you suggesting making these two 1C-2D and 1H-2S strong only, or playing SJS in general? Good points, Jeremy. I confess 5N crossed my mind too but again -- not having discussed it as GSF or anything - I did not bid it. However, the worst that could have happened is that pard would bid 6N I suppose.

[hv=s=sqhaqdakqj43cat85]133|100|[/hv] Assume SAYC and for the purposes of this question, Geeber, RKC 1430 The scoring is Matchpoints, and both vul, if it matters. You pick up the above hand and are trying not to drool over it when pard opens the bidding with 1C ! Our bidding went : 1C - 1D (me) - 1NT At this point, we had no real "gadgets" available other than trying 4C and checking for aces and then kings, or RKCing. My worry with 4C was not being sure what pard would take it as (he told me later he would not be sure it was Geeber); as for 4NT, I thought he might take it as quantitative asking him to bid 6 or pass, and if he pegged me for 16-17 pts, he might well pass with a min 12-13 point hand. So I paused for 10ish seconds and bid .... 6NT, ending the auction. We were cold for 7 as pard held : AKx Kxx xxx Kxxx Ideas on what the heck to do with a hand like this? :-) I thought of bidding a variety of confusing (hopefully forcing) stuff like 3S, 4D etc. fwiw. Maybe I should bid an immediate 4NT and on hearing 5C (1 or 4 kcs), bid 5N and then onto 7NT from there. Thoughts / criticisms appreciated! -G

Justin, I used the same email link too, a few weeks back! I will send you the hands again.. -G