CSGibson

From my research, playing in the GNT Bs are going to be myself, AKhare, and Straube from district 20, trevahound from 19, Stephen Tu from 21, Ben Lessard from 1, bd71 from 3, and Dustinst22 from 23. Jeff is playing flight A, but his characteristic modesty kept him from pointing that out.

So I'm going to fly out to Atlanta on Monday, I'm going to be at the NABC for two weeks. I'll be competing in the flight B GNTs for district 20 for 5 days (I hope), then on to the Spingolds and the mixed BAM with the same team for both events, myself and my local partner with a pair of scots that my partner knows (I've been calling them the Great Scots! for a while now, exclamation point implied in my tone). If for some reason we are eligible, we'll also do the Wehrner pairs. If anyone sees me in Atlanta, let me know who you are in the forums (assuming I don't already know you) Chris Gibson

That's what I was thinking, yes. Though partner expects a 6 bagger normally (this is slightly less aggressive than my normal partnership), I don't have to have all of my values concentrated in my suit, so partner can't be sure saving is right if I have some extra defense around - I thought 4D was inviting me to the party, especially because we play transfer McCabe over X, letting partner direct me to specific values. With that in mind, I thought that passing would be clear at imps, but that bidding was worth thinking about at matchpoints.

[hv=pc=n&s=st97hj84dakt853c7&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=2dd4dpp4spp]133|200[/hv] Matchpoints You play undisciplined weak 2s in this seat position/vulnerability. Opponents are not well known to you (you are out of your playing area), but are fairly competent by reputation. I guess what I'm really asking is whether the 2♦ opener has rights in this auction, and if so, whether he should excercise the right to sac?

pass. Not tempted with 1/2 of a quick trick, 7 major suit cards, 3 cards in their suit, and only 11 HCP opposite an unpassed partner.

♣. A spade lead is too much of a parlay - it says either partner has the spade ace and another trick, or that there is a losing 2nd round spade and no ability to pitch it on hearts. I don't see that as particularly likely - not only does our length make it more likely that North has spade shortage, but South would be far less likely to bid 6 off 2 quicks in a major, I think - at least, it would give me pause. a club has the benefit of having a clear path to defeating the contract, with the risk of maybe killing partner's 3rd round club trick. Oh well.

On a heart lead there are at most 8 tricks, assuming OP does not go after clubs, and gets the spades and diamonds right - if he goes after clubs, there are 7 tricks. The tempo is vital for the defense.

a two-suited take-out of the major. If the major is spades, can include hearts. If the major is hearts, then minors.

2♥. If they compete further, at least I get the lead I want. X is too risky, partner will be likely to leave it in on lots of hands, playing me for more defense than I have. Plus, matchpoints, hearts scores more than diamonds, and both are equally likely to be right.

3♠, but not comfortable with it, obviously.

3♠ is non-forcing, an offer to play. 4♠ shows extras in context. This partnership does not play non-serious.

also a splinter (not void showing) - but clearly game forcing, as opposed to this one which allowed responder to parse their hand into three categories: accepting game try but not slam suitable (4♠), not accepting game try (3♠), and accepting game try and slam suitable (cue bid). In my mind, 4♥ is a middle-splinter, game forcing, but unwilling to go further opposite only mild encouragement.

[hv=pc=n&s=sajt6hdk84cakq842&n=sq952hqj7daj973c9&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=ppp1cp1sp3h(heart%20shortness%2C%20spade%20support)p4sp6sppp]266|200[/hv] So we got to a good spot, but it didn't feel very sciency. Any suggestions as to improvements to this auction?

If my opponents wished to play such a system, I would never go to the director about it - he might make them play something I like less, like natural.

After experimenting & using viewgraph deals as my deal source for my set game, I was unable to pull hands later using BBO myhands. Is there another way for me to retrieve the hands we played last night?

When she was asking about telling basic systems, I thought Stefanie was referring to the European practice of announcing polish club, precision, etc before a round, not asking if the convention cards had that basic information.

Very few, if any, will do so.

3♣ is awful. I don't like 3N either, but it all started with the horrible 3♣ call.

Thanks. I did open 4th seat, turned out my partner had the worst possible hand with a crappy 4-3-3-3 5 count, things turned out very poorly after opening in this case, was just judgment checking.

1) If you mean would I think twice before reopening with double, the answer is that I would not hesitate to do reopen. I think reopening is marginal, but mandatory for me. Think of it this way: What is the likelihood that they can make 9 tricks with a bad trump split when they don't think they can make 10 tricks on a normal distribution of trump? 2) Its likely partner broke tempo, but not 100% clear. 3) I would reopen with or without tempo considerations, and consider it not to be a LA for me to do otherwise, though polling may prove me wrong.

[hv=pc=n&s=sat7hk92dk972cqt4&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=ppp]133|200[/hv] So typically I tend to follow the rule of 15 when opening 4th chair, but we're playing precision. We open all 11s, most 10s, and some 9's at the 1 level, and are fairly aggressive about preempting 2M with decent 5 card suits if not 5-3-3-2 when we are 4-9. How should that information impact my behavior in the pass-out seat? Does this become a clear pass against normal opponents? If it makes a difference, the systemic opening on this hand for us would be a 1♦ call that could be as few as 0.

I've played a lot of conventional stuff against people who love to throw unsound bids in to see if you can handle it. By and large, they find out that our partnerships can handle it, because we spend lots of time discussing what our bids mean in competition after ambiguous starts, and they inevitably donate matchpoints and imps. We play precision also in my main partnership, and we had the following auction last Wednesday: [hv=d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1c(16/17+)p2c(8+%2C%205+%20diamonds)p2d(relay%2C%20shows%20fit)2sdppp]133|100[/hv] where a decent & imaginative but undisciplined player through in 2S with Txxxx in spades and a stiff diamond to see if we could handle it. With no game making our way except on extreme DD lines, we handed him his head for 800. There is a reason that these actions are called "unsound" - they rate not to work in the long run against competent opponents. All you can do in response is to become the competent opponent who benefits from these actions.

This is patently ridiculous. Partner would not make a space-consuming and potentially confusing cue-bid of 4♦ when he could more clearly start a slam interest sequence with 3♠. 4♦ is natural. I think the right action on this hand is 4♠. I disagree with MikeH (warning sign that I might be about to say something stupid), however, on how to use 4N vs 5♣ - I think 4N is forward going, and 5♣ is a minimum, after which I would pass.

At teams I am happy to pass. At MP's, I'd double (cooperative take-out in most of my partnerships)

The characterization that Indonesia barred Israel from competing is absolute BS. The host country was going to allow Israel to compete, and Israel decided not to when the host company would not go through a little extra effort to reassure them as to security arrangements. Would I like to have seen it handled differently? Yes, but I would also have liked to see Israel and Indonesia be able to set up consulates in each other's countries, too, so I'm not surprised that Indonesia was unwilling to go the extra effort to accomodate Israel.