MFA

1NT, minimum. Rather murdered or hung than robbed.

Sure, if partner is even rebidding 1NT with 15(43) types, then I don't see how I can bid 2♠ without a reasonable suit.

Back in the old junior days, an inexperienced pair played 3♣ = gerber, no matter sequence. So they could actually bid (1♣, strong) - 3♣ gerber! 3♣ followed by 4♣ would ask for kings. The beauty of this was that they could stay low if a lot of aces and kings were missing, which typically happened to be the case B).

I agree partly with gnasher and han. I need a hand more suitable for hearts to redouble. But not the absolute 'nuts'. Setting the min. requirements too low makes it too hard to pass the double as responder, and the XX tends to be much more profitable when we really have the hearts locked up. On the other hand I think that the actual hand with AJxxx, xx, xxx, xxx is too marginal to pass. 'Having an ace + 2 hearts more than promised' is a rubbish argument. I think 2♥XX fails too often and need about a king more to pass. Perhaps a queen would do, if I felt like gambling.

3NT. Practical. Going for a penalty might work and is a fair shot, but I prefer a safer approach to the problem.

Whats the point of making a support double with a balanced hand then ?We are trying to do the right thing in competition. If we hide our 3-card heart support, then it's hard for us, for instance, if LHO competes to 2♠. A support double doesn't commit us to that strain. Here partner should bid clubs, on balanced hands he could bid NT (as jdonn says).

...because I use the weak NT and prefer to be able to scramble out in 2M (2♦).

The event we are talking about is the Danish Pairs Championships. Medals and prize money are awarded. In Denmark we have a general rule of a 30min correction period. Special rules applies for some tournaments, though. shintaro It happens to be so nice that I'm in the committee that makes these rules. So if I don't like them, I'll just have them changed. :) Therefore my question is purely political, how should the rules be? I was not part of the actual incident.

How do you check if the scores at the other tables are entered correctly? <_<

♣T. Small club is also ok.

I agree with gnasher.

No, certainly not I, I'm very far from prefering 1NT to X. If south in practice ended the auction with a matchpoint double then I think NS fully deserve -930 for a throughoutly speculative auction.

Hmm, I'm not sure I understand your post :). But your general point is that the 30min correction period should be the final deadline no matter what? Or? (Absent extreme cases such as later disqualification, I guess).

Pass. Here I don't buy the classical mp excuse of -140 and -730 being almost equally terrible. I expect them to have 9 trumps and therefore a decent field will be in 3♠, if their hands are not too flat.

Our problem is that medals are being awarded 30min after the play has finished, and everybody would leave the playing area shortly after to return home. It's Sunday afternoon. One has to decide, if medals should be recollected and redistributed. And the same goes for the price money (not a very large sum, though). If so, how long time after the event could this be done, if the mistake remains unfound for a while? Masterpoints are the smallest issue. These are registered electronically and can easily be changed. Also, the players are not playing the event for the sake of those points.

Did you miss the point that the 4th placed pair DID check their own score (which was correct) but the third placed pair DIDN'T (and they had too many points due to the bridgemate mistake)? It could very hard for a pair to spot another pair's mistake. I was not part of this incident, but I have some influence on the conditions of contest for these tournaments, so all comments are appreciated.

Right, frequencies/board are posted but doesn't attract much attention because of the private scores. Surely it is a little surprising that this error wasn't caught before but other errors might be much harder to spot just from the raw score. On the internet, one can see the contract also, which makes it easier.

You do exactly what the rules say you should do. I've missed out on a trophy and prize for winning an event due to a scoring error not noticed until the correction period was over (that is, the score was entered correctly on the traveller but entered into the computer incorrectly by the scorer). The results were posted online after the correction period was over. If we had wanted to, we could have stayed at the end of the event and waited for the frequencies to be posted, and then checked them all. We didn't, we went home instead. Right. At our national pairs championships we use bridgemate. After the final session everybody can collect a private scores print, if they wish, and distributions are easily available. We had a situation last year with a misscoring for the bronze medals winners. They had entered wrong directions and +620 (for a top) instead of -620. A correction of this would cost the medals. Nobody has any reason to expect that it was not an accident, or that the players had found out later and chosen to say nothing. Our disappointed 4th place heroes carefully went through their own scores at the playing scene, but it was not until the next day, when the scores were posted on the internet that they found (and had any chance to do so) the mistake of the other pair. At that time everybody was back home after the weekend tournament. What should be done? Follow the rules, sure, but what should the rules be?

I play that non-reverse balances in this situation at the 2- or 3-level are nonforcing. So 2♥ would be NF here. X is take-out and only to be passed with a good 4-card holding. X+bid is forcing except for a preference to the opening suit and invitational raises of partner's reply to the X. So if partner takes a double out in 2♥ then 3♣ & 3♥ would be NF and everything else is forcing (game bids are not, of course). I don't have any short minor openings in my system, but if 1♣ could be three, then I think responder's X->3♣ should probably be forcing. Direct jumps are forcing. (I play 2♠ as invitational and 3♠ as forcing because of WJS, but others might play 3♠ as invitational). Some of all this is nonstandard. The strength requirements for a competitive move should depend on the shape. With a 5-5 in the majors, for instance, one could bid 2♥ with much less than it would take to double 2♦.

While we surely are striving for "full disclosure", we must be realistic. Very often a bid is being made, just because the bidder thinks his hand is worth it. Surely his partner has a better feel for the requirements than the opponents, but this could be next to impossible to explain in detail. Explaining about style is a relative description. But very often the player and his partner won't know where they are, relatively! They are trying to bid sensibly, but may, in a specific situation, have an unconscious style of for instance: - paying more or less attention than usual to the vulnerability - paying more or less attention than usual to suit quality - paying more or less attention than usual to point count - generally being aggressive or passive and so on. They know what to expect in an absolute but not in a relative sense, which makes it very hard to descripe to the opponents. This is a partnership advantage, I don't think there is any reason to deny the existence of it. It's a part of the game. I read this as an out of context attack on unusual (convoluted) systems. I don't share the paranoia. Typically one can get all the relevant information by asking about what other options, the bidder had. This is what they know and therefore what I am entitled to know.

With this hand type (such good spades) it's 3♠ or pass. Here we are good enough for 3♠, I think.

In general, XX should involve partner. If we have a penalty double no matter what, we pass and apply the axe later. XX allows partner to act (3♥ or X). I just don't know if it makes sense to play that way when PH.

5 spades - 7 in a minor or something like that.

2♠. But I'm not far from 3♠. Upgade the clubs to JTxx, and I'm there.

Ken, I agree with your post. The first half of my latest post runs along same lines. But I (and others, it seems to me) think that there is a "2nd part" here. Therefore I don't like your use of the word "period" in your posts. When psyching frequently the line between psychic calls and partnership agreements becomes paper-thin. It's all about if partner has a special reason to expect just the particular psych in question. One is allowed to psych quite a lot in general and partner to figure it out from bridge logic. But using the same psych repeatedly will very quickly transform it into a partnership agreement, where the bid is EITHER genuine OR one's favourite joking hand. One has to be careful. The rules of "fielding a psych" are practical ones. It's extremely difficult to supervise accurately each partnership's use of psyches and when these have turned into partnership agreements. Therefore we go after the abnormal responses to them, making the backward deduction that there then probably is a hidden partnership agreement. This may catch some innocent people, but I don't see a better way. This doesn't mean, however, that the truly abnormal responses are the only legal issue about psyching. It may also be problematic if just the slightest scent of fish makes partner smell it all out while the opponents suspect nothing, because they have no special reason to.