bluecalm

YEAHBUT... we are playing imps and if they make that's -530 while if we don't make it's often -100 or -200 so just because probability of them making is below 50% (or chances of our 3nt are below them going down) doesn't make pass a winner. This is the problem from polish forum. Most of the people pass. I wouldn't. Still waiting for some more opinions before reconsidering :-)

I was thinking one ruff and one spade lost. This is very difficult as in standard 2♥ rebid is basically in 11-17hcp range so 3♥ sometimes has to be bid with 8. That's why with 10-11 I think many people would consider 4♥ especially with good values. Maybe my assumptions are a bit too loose but still i can't imagine it changes too much. Imo most of dummy range has 2-5 or 1-5 majors.

[hv=pc=n&s=s973hkjtd983c9752&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=2dp3hdp]133|200[/hv] IMPs 2♦ is weak two in either major 3♥ is pass or correct dbl is takeout. What now ?

It's amazing that you could be so sure to call standard idea of taking our winners before declarer establish his long suit a "fantasy". Even in double dummy simulation (assuming dummy has 0-2♠, and either 4hearts with 10-11hcp or 5hearts with 8+hcp or 6hearts with 5+hcp and declarer has 5-4/5-5 or 6-4 in majors) club lead has significant edge but remember that in double dummy play declarer always get the trumps right anyway which is not true in real play and which is an argument against trump lead. I would say: weak pattern recognition. Looks like texbook example for aggressive lead. Opponents showed 5+ card suit on the way to their game with 8+ trumps. I can't prove it but intuitively the most common scenario is spade setting up with either one ruff or without any (dummy has 2 of them or declare has enough high cards so he needs only one ruff in dummy, for example AQJxx to x). 2 spades in dummy and 3 in partner's hand also looks like the most common layout.

?? Looks like basic stuff to me. Declarer's plan will be to draw trumps and establish spades which gives him more than enough winners as we can see that spades are breaking. We should take our minor suit winners before it happens. ♣ looks the best to me, but A♦ could also be right.

It doesn't work. The system may look pretty but they will have too many chances to double your 3♠ (or make interference from lack of this double) on normal deals when you want to play 3NT. Additional accuracy achieved from freeing 3NT bid for other uses will never make up for this.

2NT - ? 3C = stayman, promising 4cd major 3D/3H transfers, accept with all hands except super accepts, next other major is SI 3S = both minors, at least mild slam try 4C/4D = natural slam try 2NT - 3C 3D = no 4 card major 3H = 4 hearts no 4 spades 3S = 4 spades 3NT = both 4card majors (then 4C is puppet to 4D for natural slam try and 4D/4H are transfers either to play or to bid rkcb later) 2NT - 3C 3D - 3H/3S = smolen; with strong 5-5 bid 3H and if partner doesnt bid 3S then bid 4C/4D as slam tries with 5-5 majors or 4H with signoff; jumps to 5C are 5-4-4-0. new major is slam try after both stayman and transfer; new minor is natural slam try after which 4NT is negative and other bids are cuebids (or kickbacks if you fancy to play this). 2NT - 3NT is natural and to play (of course, any system which doesn't contain this is weak imo) as 2NT - 3C - 3D/H/S - 3NT. This is imo the best system after strong 2NT and it's also quite simple. IF you want to be able to bid all 2 suiters and all 5-4-4-0's you could add that 4H/4S bids are 5-4-4-0 with major void and 5-4 minors but I don't think it will ever come up.

Where is invite to 3NT without 4M ? I can understand not using it all, putting it into 2♣ is bad though (because you give away all the info and you will lose more because of it than you will gain from being able to play 2NT). My favorite structure is: 2NT = natural 3♣ = diamonds 3♦ = diamonds, invite to game 5-4majors are in stayman and then 3♦ asking for major 3's which is much better than Smolen (because you are never in 5-2 fit at 4 level even if 1NT opener is 2-2-(4-5). This is all good if you don't care about finding 5-3 major fits. If you do (which probably you should if you open 5M-3-3-2) then I would play the same structure with the following changes: 2♠ = clubs or invite to 3NT (bad, but not as bad as putting it into stayman) 2NT = diamonds 3♣ = puppet 3♦ = diamonds, invite to game (this way 2NT - 3♣ is a hand which want's to be in 3nt opposite AQxxxx/KQxxxx) Also imo: 1NT - 2♣ 2♦ - 3♥/3♠ should be shortness and 3♦ should ask for major 3 with 3♣ being some kind of slammish ask;

I agree that W looks like insta pass at imps. Seems like we are collecting 500 quite often and sometimes game doesnt make = +EV. 4♣ is crazy. I would prefer to bid 3NT if anything, this looks like the most likely game. As to E I don't know. 4♠ looks normal, but you never know what works in those auctions and what's the best way to bid.

Or 3-3-4-3 or (2-3)-4-4 with packed majors or (2-3)-3-5 any. It's of course all system dependent but even playing 1D as 5+ I could have those distributions so I guess standard bidders could as well. Also it doesn't matter that much. We need a bid to let partner bid 3NT if he has hearts stopped but 3S is still needed for 6D-4S.

And gnasher's rules: OK more or less but in defense "don't lead this" doubles are modern style + Yes, one of the best rules imo. Bad imo. 1D - pass 1NT pass pass 2H dbl = ? Should be t/o, extras, something like 3-2-3-5 not penalty Was discussing it recently we settled for t/o :-) but both are playable imo. + + but Italians play it as t/o. I saw auctions like: 1S - 3C* - 3S - dbl = t/o - some points and some support. They play Ghestem. One more thing to discuss is: 1S - dbl pass 2H pass pass dbl Classical way is penalty, imo t/o is way better because: 1)we may want to compete with 2-2-4- 7-9pc 2)we want to be able to double them if we have trump stack behind them, playing penalty double here it's impossible; Even for 2) alone penalty double here is weak agreement often played by pretty good players (like some reigning world champions ;) ).

Should be changed to "major suit fit" because auctions like: 1S - 2D - 2S - 3D 3S - dbl should be t/o, extras I am not a fan but it's classical way to play. Modern style eis that it doesn't matter much if we are in force or not and doubles are t/o. Really ? 1D - pass 2NT (limit) - 3H dbl should be extras/to If you want to play penalty doubles in those auctions just make general rule "when we are in force double is penalty". Really ? 1D - pass 2D dbl 3D - dbl = ? You want to play it as penalty ? :) OK

Do you prefer matches being decided by using unauthorized information then ?

My impressions bridge wise from the matches I watched: -Meckwell are out of shape as they made many cardplay mistakes; I saw k's of hands on vugraph from them and it was very unusual I wonder what happened; -cardplay in general was at very high level, especially declarer play -competitive bidding (fighting for partscores, finding saves) was at very high level I especially enjoyed our forum hero display in this respect -slam bidding is at very low level; some prominent pairs just use rkcb (or 100 varietes of it) and bash slams on most hands and lack methods of inviting, finding fitting values etc. I was shocked seeing some auctions, Italians and Polish guys seem to have big edge in this area. It will be very interesting BB. Two strong American teams, fresh and strong Italian team and I think Polish team will be very dangerous too (Narkiewicz - Buras, Kalita - Gawryś, Martens - Jassem). I have trouble deciding who to root for so I just hope the winners will show amazing bridge :)

That's the trick. I can play much better if I play slower and if I take one hour for every play then my cardplay will be on elite level. This is true for most semi-decent players. The system as it is now punish the players who feel obligation to play reasonably fast and reward players who take 3 minutes for every card (we have some of those in Poland). As to the pace of USBC finals I really don't think it was particularly slow but of course it's subjective impression of mine. Bridge doesn't benefit from sponsor's money who want the game to be fast so why make it this way ? Just make it fair and enjoyable for all which require everybody having similar amount of time to use.

Slow or not the point is that it should not be possible for one pair at the table to take significantly more time thus gaining unfair advantage. I think one solution is to have some kind of bridge clock at the table. While it's not possible probably to make it similar to chess you could use it the following way: -after dummy is tables declarer is allowed 60 seconds think time and defender 20 seconds after card is played -every pair is allowed only one 90 second tank a hand -all other plays must come in at most 30 seconds You just click a clock if opponent start thinking. It can be easily extended for the whole segment where one can for example choose: -two 3minutes tanks -12 90 seconds tanks Or something like that. Constructing such a clock is very easy and probably even chess dgt clocks could be used. The key for the solution is to break prisoner dilemma like situation which now gives advantage to people who break the rules (everybody hates them for that but they still have advantage). We should stop thinking in terms of stopping slow play in general and start thinking about ways to punish/stop slow play of any given pair. Solutions which doesn't address this just won't work (7minutes per board is one example, it doesn't matter how much time there is per board, it matters how much time one pair could take). Personally I don't mind slow play at all. There is a lot to think about in bridge. What drives me mad though is that just because someone is taking a lot of time other people have to play faster to catch up. It shouldn't be the case.

Congrats :) Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch the second half of the match. I will be rooting for you guys in coming BB. Remember that you haven't won anything yet ;)

Congrats ! I watched most of the hands and you guys are playing great. Good luck in qualifying to BB :)

looks like 60 imps going into last segment. Owning reigning world champions like that must feel great. I am sure Lall - Grue performance will make Meckwell reconsider few things ;)

24imps with 30 boards to go. Bathurst huge favorite now :)

It seems that those long matches really wears players off - a lot of seemingly simple mistakes made by US anchor pairs. Maybe they should post on the forum too ;)

Lall - Grue owning Meckwell pretty hard tonight. Go go go go :)

Dont pass 1♦ opener without diamonds ;)

Seems like BBO crew is doing quite well. JLall sucked out in the brackets as well to get a chance to eliminate Meckwell before some rando team eliminates him ;) Goood luck !

The reason are spectators who love comparisons, butlers, analysis how different players solve same problems etc.