Rossoneri

I definitely don't have any experience of high-level bridge, but at the lower levels, from what I've seen myself with my experiences of trying to guide my juniors in my alma mater (equivalent to high school), I've definitely seen quite a bit. My school's pretty lucky to have the national junior team coach (Singapore is very small bridge-wise...) to be our coach this year. From what I've seen, he mainly goes through some of the finer points and details that most of them usually miss or overlook. This definitely helps with training the thought processes. Of course, bouncing ideas off him is another help, even I sometimes "use" him in that aspect. With the U-21 team he mainly goes through boards with various themes, bidding problems and he even has a set of system notes based on 2/1 for them... P.S. Gnome, why do you have to leave the university before I even step foot in it...lol.

I believe there were a group of people who were "stalking" an expert named *****d ****n

I'm interested in trying this out. Hit me up on BBO some time?

totally not. what planet are you from? :rolleyes: Evidently, same as the one I'm from.

As I come from Norway, I can't say they do :lol: But yes I guess you are right, I guess it is just a sad fact with football that when a player is more skilled and faster then the opponents they will be stopped with illegal methods, and mostly get away with it. In that case, never, EVER watch a CONCACAF match. :( This might even apply to some South American matches...

Too weak for me, even at white vs red, though I may take a second look before passing in this case.

[hv=d=w&v=n&w=s862hk76dak7cq862&e=sj74h3djt94cakj73]266|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] At one table, West did not open and North opened 1♥. 3♣ was declared by East and play goes ♥8 by South. If you play the K, North covers with the A, if not, North plays the J and continues with a trump. At the other, West opened 1♣ and North overcalled 1♥. Now 3♣ is declared by West and the lead is a trump. How would you play the diamonds in each of the two scenarios? (Note that the players are relatively new and some of them still pass 12 counts.)

Happy Birthday Csaba =)

Hahahahaha. How many teen girls are there on BBO now?

LOL, that never happened to me last time! (I used to play chess too) Doubt it though, France and Italy have too much bad blood between them. (Cf. Materazzi-Zidane and Gallas' recent comments)

I'm hoping that Romania will go through. Italy and France have produced lacklustre performances, and do not deserve to go through. Times have really changed when the world cup finalists are going to battle it out to avoid getting knocked out in the first round of the Euro!

2♦

Agree that the ruling is reasonable.

What would 3♣ show here?

No. Don't think there is any difference without screens either. Alternatively, Fabian, ask Mr Liu or Dr Derrick.

I once tried to calculate whether it is worth going for an overtrick in a short 8 board match, and the answer that I got was that it is only worth it if the line of play for the overtrick is very close to 100%. Of course, this assumes you go down if you fail.

I may be missing something, but it seems right to me to pass.

The Principle of Restricted Talent. Lost my great partner who improved me a great deal from being totally suck. Well, not really lost, he just got eaten up by Cambridge. Lack of focus. (lost me 20 imps in 2 boards) And yes, the "what did partner just signal?" happens to me every other board or so. Laziness when declaring, taking inferior lines of play that pop up in my mind.

Cannavaro's out! And given all the injuries, and some impressive forms of the underdogs, it wouldn't be that surprising if we have a "surprise winner", just like 2004.

What about hands where 4S makes/going down? Would be interesting to see how many % of hands has 4S and 5H both making or 4S makes and 5H is a good sac.

I think like what you said, best for beginners to have a feel of real world probabilities.

Right, and there I was wondering who was the guy with the same surname as the Man Utd player...

Then what about bogey teams?

I must add: Team captain (not my partner for that round, though I did partner him in another round) suggested I bid 2♠, though he says it's really borderline. He made his decision based on losing trick count.... LOL Ken, I am in a serious need of more adventurous partners...

Partner had: [hv=s=saqj95hkj32d8743c]133|100|[/hv] And yes, Ken, I know about the Herbert Negative...use it when I play Overcall Structure, but for the past few months I've been stuck with playing standard SAYC...and most of them have no idea what Herbert Negative is. P.S. If you are wondering how I went down, I got too excited and crossruffed.