bluecalm

As he said but I still like penalty. Some of my bridge playing friends prefer t/o here. Some of them are pretty good players too.

You don't give any dual message here. 4 for example means that you have one of the hands from set A and 5 means that you have a hand from set B etc. All the sets are proper subsets of all possibilities and don't depend on any other information than your hand (so no encryption).

Double will win because 4♠ is often not discussed. I am not sure what 4♠ should mean for example and wouldn't venture such bid without specific discussion with given partner.

I think you guys play against morons too often :-) Still can't believe pass is popular. If you think "we got them" just because you have 2 aces with no real trump stuck there is something wrong with either your opponents or yourself...

wtf ? Did you find some propbet donk to bet against and he requested a panel ?

4♥. Passing is lol to me. You can try it at MP's or against morons but against serious competition most likely they are either making or going for small number when you could make a game/slam.

I think better way to play is: a)smith echo shows honor in lead suit and if it's clear that you can't hold any honor there you signal suit preference (with emphasis on obvious suit for shift) b)give up smith echo altogether and just play suit preference (Krzysztof Martens likes this solution) The reason is that more often than not information about suit of obvious shift is more important than information about lead suit (where situation is more often clear). Most cards played to declarer tricks should be some kind of s/p but you don't always have enough time and conveying this information at first opportunity is often vital. I play a) in semiregular+ partnerships.

All the players are the best of the best as it's Bermuda Bowl final. Only opponents vulnerable. 1♠ - 2♣ - 4♥ - pass pass - pass [hv=d=w&v=e&n=skqh73da87cat8652&w=saj863h94dk2ckqj9]266|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] 1st trick: 4♣, K♣, A♣, 7♣ You lead 3/5, high from xx What now ? (I got it wrong first time but after some thinking I am not sure what's the best play).

Without reading too much into ♥ signal I think partner would play ♥ back without a T♥ as those needs establishing and playing from his side. The most likely explanation of him not playing ♥ back is that he thinks we need more tricks than ♥'s so he opens a side suit which only can be opened from his side. My guess is that he has ♠AQxx and ♥KTxx. Anyway I play J♥ now.

I don't want to bid 3♥ with this hand even if it shows 3M opening bid. The reason is that I just want to signoff in 2♥ after weak rebids from partner. If the hand was something like: x KQJxxxx xxx xx I would be more eager to jump to 3♥ as I want to compete to 3♥ anyway. Having AQ and flattish hand there is no reason imo to assume I have to preempt them and I don't like to turn +110 into -100 without compelling reason.

If you publish some kind of notes it would be easier to find a partner. I would be willing to learn your system for example and try it sometimes on bbo.

As to if 7hcp translates to 2 tricks I have no idea. I saw this "7hcp" stuff in american textbooks (by Lawrence). In Poland we traditionally use 2 tricks with some adjustments bidding position. I didn't mean to say that those 2 methods are the same or that 7hcp translates into 2 tricks. Anyway, opposite 7-8hcp balanced this hand will make 8.5 tricks on average in clubs. 3♣ will make 50% of the time according to my simul.

From what I understand Slavinsky did extensive analysis of effectivness of various leading systems and his system of choice (the one which was the most effective according to analysis) is different than the one Fantunes uses. This is from his homepage http://pikier.com/private/Kombajn.htm (in Polish unfortunately)

Probably the reason my answers don't fit the questions too well is me having 9 tables of PLO going which really hurts my reading comprehension. Anyway according to methods I mentioned this hand will make average of 8.75 assuming "2 tricks" from partner. I dunno about 7hcp. It seems to me that 3♣ is about right but of course this question is not easy to answer. What is even harder to question to answer is what you really should assume and why 7hcp and not 8 or 9 for example. I am gonna run a sim assumimg 7-8hcp soon.

I am not talking about sims here. One needs to assume something in partner hand when making bids. It's needed for 2 reasons: a)if you assume 0 you would never bid with anything b)partner needs to know what constitutes extras in his hand so he won't go crazy "because I could've 0 partner" Now traditional rule in america from what I understand from old textbooks is that you assume about 7hcp. Some polish theoreticians developed much better and more detailed ways of this "assuming" in various situations as well as evaluating strength of this hand. (for example according to those methods our + partner's hand is worth about 8.75 tricks on average here so 3♣ is slight overbid according to them). There is however much better rule which I believe in and I suspect most good players go by it instead of some sophisticated scientific stuff. The rule is: "If you have good 6+card suit and decent hand you show it at first opportunity".

Oh, I am sorry. I automatically assumed the question is about opener rebid. I don't see any need for other bid than 1♥ with that hand. I am happy to signoff in 2♥ opposite weak NT type or any other weak hand so I don't want to go beyond 2♥ on my first bid. I really need to stop posting when multitabling games with more than 2 cards :rolleyes:

I think both 3♥ and 4♥ should be natural with at least 5-4 shape (6-4 for 4♥). All strong balanced hands and other monsters should go through some gadget. Like for example 2 other major which requires a lot of work on system but that's life with standard - in attempt to have a system with "natural" openings you have something which is basically unplayable without tons of gadgetry and work on systemic understanding. For example here you really need to have a way to show: x KQxx AKJxxx xx and: Ax AKxx AKJxx xx Both hands want to be in 4♥. Having one bid for them is terrible not to mention that you need space for different kind of hands within 18-21 balanced and 6-4 ranges too.

Really ? I thouht 15hcp is automatic 3♠ :rolleyes: I doubt there are any 15's that I don't bid 3♠ with (assuming 15-17 1nt opening)

Ratings is difficult and may cause many problems so it's not implemented. On the other hand often players look for decent opponents partners and are unable to find those. My idea to partially solve it is name verification. It would work like that: People send scans of ID's/utility bills (just like at poker sites) and then they would have "verified name" tag. Of course those people would be force to have full real name in their profile. Now my hope is that only semi serious players would bother to go through the process as well as people try to play better having their real name put out there. For one I know I would only play with such people and only choose tournaments for such people having a choice. As to financial aspect (veryfying costs money) let's say that one needs to send 5$-10$ to bbo for verification. It's more than enough to hire a person who would take care of verification. Thoughts ?

Lacking any gadgetry I would 3♠ with this hand. It's not gf hand just worth an invite. If have 3♦ available as minisplinter then I bid that. How he bids 2♠ with that is beyond me.

It's a pity there isn't much (any ?) vugraph history of Meckwell playign matchpoints. I wonder how different is MP play than IMP play.

Ezy pass if 4♥ is just 18-19 balanced with 4♥. As to how to bid I don't know much about standard but I think it sucks to bid 3♥ on 18 balanced cound as well as great 14 with 1-4-5-3 shape or something. According to fast simul (18-19 bal with 4♥ opposite OP hand): 5♥ makes only 56% so bidding anything now is pretty risky.

Yeah it was Kalita. I don't know how the play went. I was talking with my semiregular pd which played on other table (W Gawel) (redds on bbo, we are in bidding contest together). He said Kalita "guessed" spades.

Btw this is real hand from univ world championship in Taiwan: http://ubridge2010.nsysu.edu.tw/result/mat...=4&tbid=4&bid=1 hand 13 Our declarer who is one the best young players in the world (and represented Poland at last ME) guess spades but he was in 7♠. I don't know his reasoning. Chinese declarer played A♠ and went down in 6♠.

1)Find interesting event like spingold final, usbf, bermuda bowl etc. 2)Download .lin files from either vugraph project webpage or from bbo vugraph archives. 3)Format every file that way that you add |pg| tag before every |pc| tag and every |mb| tag; good text editor will do that for you 4)open formated files using old bbo client; 5)click on your chosen player's name, all other hands will disappear 6)click "next" , "next" etc, stop when your favorite player is to play; try to guess what he bids/plays and click "next". 7) repeat ! ... 8)see why you are not Meckstroth or Versace yet ! I have almost all MR hands available from vugraph from this century formatted that way on my hd so if you have problems with those steps pm me and I can email them to you.