BillHiggin

The oft repeated chat rules for the JEC tables: 1) No politics 2) No religion 3) Be nice One person seems to think that "Bite me" is nice. The appointed agent of the table sponsor disagrees. Guess who wins this argument.

Yikes - all this talk about the method of east's explanation seems to have bypassed the important step of determining the truth and a ruling. I believe that North's representation of East's explanation makes sense, and meshes quite well with West's statements. The double was penalty oriented (or maybe pure penalty). However, it was the double itself that misled North, not the explanation! No adjustment!

I too have impaired color vision and agree that the red suit symbols are a problem. What works best for me is dark red outlines with bright red fill, but of course I have no clue how that looks to the rest of the world.

Strongly favor the local standard! There is just so much upside to being able to ask other local players for advice (no, they will never completely trust dad to be telling the whole truth). Even if they do play mostly on-line, I think the ACOL club is much better for B/I than the main room. I think one of my biggest mistakes when I took up the game was failing to concentrate on the local standard. That just limited my options in so many ways. Let me start over, I know what I did wrong!

wat? Pretend that the post actually named me and that my english is not so good. I go to a moderator and say "I think they are making fun of me with this post". It would seem quite appropriate for that moderator to immediately delete the post. If your English is not so good then you should probably realize you may be misinterpreting what you should and shouldn't be offended by. It matters not one bit what the named individual should or should not do. The issue is strictly one of what should the moderator do in that situation.

wat? Pretend that the post actually named me and that my english is not so good. I go to a moderator and say "I think they are making fun of me with this post". It would seem quite appropriate for that moderator to immediately delete the post. It had no substantive content, named an individual and (in this somewhat contrived example) offended that person. Deletion is appropriate. (Of course it is entirely possible that no such complaint actually happened).

I think that deleting a post such as this is a fairly low key approach to solving a potential problem (i.e. if the moderator was unsure, it was probably safer to delete than not). Certainly if the named individual had complained in any way, the deletion would have been absolutely appropriate. It just does not seem worth getting all worked up over this.

OK, I can see that: A = neither vul B = favorable C = both vul with the forum glitch of substituting smilies where none was intended. But, no matter the vulnerability, my only call with 15 cards will be "DIRECTOR"

If you want GMT, all you need do is set your computer to use GMT and that is what you will get from BBO as well. The rest of us will make our own choices.

I see one idea in this thread that looks problematic: That would be using a 3M response to 1N to set trumps and ask for cue bids. If responder has a hand where that seems a useful thing to do, then it really really needs to go through a transfer! He would not see that need if he did not hold an open suit, and that implies that the contract should be right sided via a transfer to protect a possible lonely king in opener's hand. If a partnership feels the cue bid force is more important than the 1-3 majors, 4-5 minors slam try then there are a couple of ways to do it without wrongside issues. 1) Switch the game invite and the cue bid force (1N-3M as nat game invite but 1N-transfer then 3M as slamish). 2) Simply abandon the game invite with a 6 card major (responder either bids game or stops at 2). This allows you to keep the special (1-3)-(4-5) slam tries.

Confessions of an old fart Sometimes we get a thought and do not think it all the way through. I was Jack's partner and must have just eaten a platter of sliders (i.e. became Whimpy). My first thought when he opened 1N was indeed - texas then RKC. But, I then focused on that diamond situation and got a bit too inventive. Why not bid the non existent club suit and see if he can cue diamonds. Bad thinking: And if he cannot, then I will avoid a bad slam (oops, failure to cue does not deny the control, it simply means he feels his cards are wrong for a black suit slam, but old brains can get stuck in the wrong rut). Clearly, I did not catch my faulty logic in time. I am busy writing "Do not invent new agreements at the table" 100 times.

A suggestion that I hope is not too hairbrained: If your partnership is discussing a defense to Ekrens, look at what your defense is to opps bids over your 1N that show both majors (such a Capp 2♦ or Landy 2♣). A simple extension to Ekrens is to use the same defense while pretending -partner opened a 7-9 HCP 1N in front of their bid. Maybe adjust that pretend range if you want to be more aggressive. At least, you will not need to devote extra memory cells to the issue.

There is the problem - "playing wjs". There isn't anything seriously wrong with this method although it is not my favourite. However people introduce these gadgets without contemplating how the formerly easy hands that were covered by a strong jump shift will now be bid. IMHO, the OP represents a particular hole in standard (including 2/1) methods. When responding to 1♥ with a GF hand including heart support and a spade suit which is a likely source of tricks, a 1♠ response basically does not show any of these attributes in a clear way. This means that you have a lot of catching up to do (or you must take control yourself). Other supporting type strong hands with a suit which represents a likely source of tricks get part of the message across with the first bid (at least the strength part - also the genuine suit if it is red and you use 2♣ as a catchall 2/1). I think it makes sense to define a 2♠ jump response to 1♥ as a strong Soloway type bid even when your other jump responses are weak.

What I have seen attributed to Benito: 2M+1 asks then ..2M+2 = 4 card unbal raise any strength .. .. 2M+3 = relay .. .. .. 2M+4 = min, lower shortness .. .. .. 3M = min, higher shortness .. .. .. 3M+1 = max, lower shortness .. .. .. 3M+2 = max, higher shortness ..2M+3 = 3 card, min ..2M+4 = 3 card, max ..3M = 4 card bal, min ..3M+1 = 4 card bal, max

I filled out an ACBL style convention card according to what I think are the agreements with an online partner. I would certainly like him to review it (since "I think" is a less than authoritative modifier). So far we have not discovered the secrets to doing that (OK - we have not spent very much time trying). Anyone know how?

2 my foot. It was the 5 spot! (from J 5 4 2)

Thank you - I believe that clarifies things. Indeed it was an English-American partnership. Looks like it was a "side of the ocean" misunderstanding. Of course, WE have it right :)

My expectation of a Q lead from KQT9... may be a holdover from an earlier life playing Journalist leads. Am I more full of it than I think? My partner felt the Q lead should be from KQ9..., a holding where I would most often choose my 4th best. So lol away!

A friend asks: How to bid ♠ A K Q ♥ A K ♦ A K 8 7 ♣ A K x x He has not told me responder's hand, but since he specified the ♦ spot cards, I am betting on Q fifth there (all the various forms of blasting to 6N worked). Is there any (somewhat) standard way with Kokish to show this much extra?

Now we are in to my area of expertese. Others may carefully choose each call in turn and expertly march on to the optimum contract. I, on the other hand, am constantly dealing with the fact that I made the wrong choice on the previous round of the auction and need to find the best corrective action (which invariably I will regret next round). My strategy is to now assume that my foolish choice last round was actually a stroke of non-idiocy and procede accordingly. In this case, I will assume that my failure to make what now seems so obviously the correct bid of 4♠ was actually correct. Therefore, I will now pass. Note that if I now try to "fix" things by making the catch-up 4♠ call that I will have lost some of the preemptive value but will still have all the risk and maybe a little more.

For the record (and for some more LOLs), responder held QJxx KQx Kx xxxx. At one table opener rebid 4♣ and responder rebid (we must assume while looking at some other hand) 4♠. At the other table opener tried 5♣ exclusion and bid the slam over the no aces answer. Not all bridge crimes are punished. The meek responder from the first table pointed to this auction as "proof" that it was partner's fault.

[hv=d=e&v=b&s=sak532ht8daqjt83c]133|100|Scoring: IMP ... ... (p) 1♦ (p) 1♠ (p) ?[/hv] What is your move and what do you expect p to do over that with any of the possibly useful values he might have? 2/1, assume normal agreements or explain your invention.

Hmm - what is the Guiness record for most subs needed in a bridge tourny?

Hmm - you also assumed that the double was negative (it was not). But, today your partner will flop a singleton ♣ and the highest 3 of the remaining hearts.

Cardinal rule: If your partner says he plays SAYC but no transfers, then you ought to prepare to enjoy the adventures that are about to happen - good bridge is not on the slate today.