BillHiggin

Perhaps only annoying, but it bugs me a lot to see attempts at lists get distorted when using the common list numbering system of lower case letters followed by closing paren marks. i.e. a) works fine :) was typed as "b" ")" but will show as a smilie c) works fine again Smilies are cute, but this one gets in the way of reasonable posts. Can it be fixed?

Justification for the 1N bid = "it was my turn to bid" On good days, we get to the play portion before we endplay ourself.

When all bridge players demonstrate the ability to consistently count to 13. Not thinking is just too much easier than thinking. Certain types recognize this and realize that it can be very lucrative to attract a large number of non-thinkers to their church (would you rather seek donations from thinking people or from maleable lambs).

Agree with Matt, but I have always called them undisclosed. That's perhaps a bad term because it suggests that I know what splinter partner has but I just won't tell the opponents. ;) Anyway, I agree with Ken, this question should be asked before you decide to play it. Partner blowing up is completely unreasonable. I also prefer to play low/middle/high, I find it easier to remember. Ambiguous splinter does not contain the negative connotations. As for the "standard rebids". The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from (I know this should be attributed to someone, just do not know who).

I always get confused about that. "Shape" is easy. But, what is "body" and "texture?" One or both I thought referred to high pips, but now I'm confused. LOL Shape is what my wife used to have Body is what she has a whole lot more of now Texture - hmm

From what I saw, serious practice was something zia was saving for another day.

When I make a penalty double. Really feel good when I hold a couple of jacks and a stiff spade - RHO opens 1N (p) 2C (p); 2S (p) 3S (p) - with the invitational auction, I know partner holds a very decent hand and a spade stack - when opener accepted, I doubled. As declarer misguessed each critical suit/card in turn, I just kept feeling better and better :)

Me thinks there has been way too much focus on the poor explanation and not enough on the clearly evil intent in the question. The idea that West merely wanted to know what North was basing his decision on does not hold water. West asked because he intended to imply that he did not know where the queen was. His request for further detail simply confirms his deceptive (and illegal) intent.

Of course that is an option. Fred, please determine which information you want everyone except Bill Higgins and a few other color blind individuals to see and use color to encode that information. "The abuse I am used to - it is the waiting for it to begin that is intolerable"

As a person with less than perfect color vision, I would prefer that colors be used strictly for aesthetic purposes and not to contain coded information. Even with the ability to choose colors, it is difficult for me to go thru all the combinations in the current windows client for names and backgrounds and not end up with some condition that results in a near invisible name (font color and background combination that is hard on my miserable old eyeballs). Even the four color card symbols in this forum cause me trouble. (after all, it is all about me).

We would call something like that a rating system (which does not invalidate it). Perhaps it is really only quite similar to a rating system since such ratings would start from scratch at the beginning. Typical components needed to compute a score (rating) would be: Accumulator and counter - the parts whose quotient is the rating (the counter might count comparisons or boards depending on how you wish results from small sessions to relate to results from large sessions). Predictor formula - may be based on current ratings or not (maybe just predicts 50% or 0 Imps depending on scoring pref) Corrector formula - determines the amount of adjustement to the accumulator for each comparison/board (can be either a simple linear adjustement or something more complicated like a moving average which would count later results more significantly than early results). Simplest cases result in average MP/IMP per comparison/board with a qualifying cutoff. Of course, if a player actually plays strictly with a single partner then they will each end up with identical scores. Under the conditions given, this might lead to a form of abuse where pairs that do well early end up bidding for the best pro ringers for the run to the wire. This is simply one of the defects of rating systems.

Practice is invaluable. When young (a very long time ago) and learning this game, I resolved to try to count out the hands every time that I was dummy. That resulted in the counting process becoming an easy habit rather quickly. Now, I do lose track some of the time - blame both the years and the beers.

When I was 40, I married a very pretty lady in her late 20's. No wonder my chances of earning a star are near non-existant. O well - I made the right choice!

That is pretty much my preference. Based on "whatever we do over 1N (2D-capp) is what we do over (2D-ekrens)" where we pretend partner opened a 7-9 1N in front of the ekrens bid. Dealing with most preempts based on the expectation of that much strength opposite seems about right and at least gives partner a reference point to work from.

Q.1 I don't try to define this scale because it seems too one dimensional to me. Poker players use more two dimensional descriptions like "tight aggressive". A similar term I like for bridge is "controlled aggression". However, I know a B/I player who always seems to plan play according to "how best to get out for down one" - a true pessimist. Q.2 I think balance is most important. If one player is too aggressive (optomistic), his partner will be forced to adopt a more conservative style or forever overbid. But a cautious bidder will, over time, force his partner to become too aggressive. A balanced partnership will have nearly equal aggression by both (slightly optomistic) and that seems best.

MY choice would be to bid 1N (but there is some Hidious Hog blood in me). Either 1♥ or 1N might work out better on any given day (and neither should be subject to much criticism). 1♦ definitely does not deny a major at all in SAYC. Some partnerships agree to Walsh responses to 1♣ which means that the diamond suit is skipped in favor of a 4-card major with either less than game forcing strength or less than invitational strength (both agreements are playable) and others choose MAFIA where not bidding a major denies having one (regardless of strength). These are not "standard" SAYC agreements. I would choose 1N because of the absolutely flat shape and the slow (no-trump oriented) values in the three card suits.

In my favorite system(s), it is a puppet to 2♦ with a weak diamond hand or some invitational hand (xyz). 2♦ would be artificial and GF. Admit that this is kind of waffling around the actual question, but the ability to "have the cake and eat it too" is nice. In auctions where opener's rebid has been 1♠, there are some invitational sequences (in my preferred version) that have defined meanings yet are probably not wise choices - but my olds-timers addled brain can at least remember the meanings (and on good days choose some other course of action).

"hired-gun-pro" is a bit extreme. I played with him once (my only face to face bridge in 25 years), and there certainly was no issue of funds changing hands. I believe he runs a bridge club, and may offer lessons. He is not a pretentious person (in fact, a nice guy). Yes, he does live in Alaska! I have even heard that there are people living in Norway or perhaps more surprising in Greenland.

I have less than perfect color vision (I have never passed a color blindness test more sophisticated than red/amber/green traffic light type). The red cards are a real issue for me. They appear brown (and not that distinct from the black cards - but at least the borders are not a problem for me). The regular BBO display uses a red that is easy for me (yes - it does look red - I think, but then I have never really seen what the rest of you see).

4♠ I have gone down before! This is based on a reasonable but aggressive partner. If he is in love with very light openings, then more caution is appropriate.

So, after the rookie made the very non-expert lead from ♣Qx... we have an expert sub step in. Fuget about it.

I will cash a top diamond at trick 2, and then cash all the heart honors in my hand. Now I lead another diamond and duck if LHO has not played an honor yet (but cover if he produces one). Assuming LHO has not produced a diamond honor (if he has, I win in dummy and lead towards my ♦10 - paying off to the brilliant false card from QJ9x), I win the return (whatever it is). I will cash one high spade and play a club to dummy. Cash the diamond honor. If diamonds are 3-3 then claim. If RHO has the long diamonds, then he is subject to a show up squeeze when I cash out my round suit winners. If LHO has the long diamonds, I must fall back on the spade hook. I gain a little on the show up squeeze when I drop the doubleton offside ♠Q.

My rebid? Heck, I already got my "lead director" in didn't I? Either I am missing something or partner's aversion to subtle slam tries is not the biggest issue for our partnership.

Strangly enough - Ken's explanations make more sense than the OP.

South is too strong to settle for less than game. 4♣ would be a splinter in many partnerships.