CSGibson

I think you have found a hand that would be opened by everyone everywhere all the way back in time. Culbertson would be happy with 2 1/2 quick tricks, Goren would open with the 11 HCP & 3 distribution points, Bergen wouldn't even think twice....Maybe Al Roth would apply some super conservative philosophy to think about it a second before he opened, not sure on that one. What's plain to me, though, is that I should open it, and you should open it unless you have a specific agreement with partner that you should not open normal hands.

Nope, I just screwed up the play - I went in thinking I needed the spade finesse after the club lead, and didn't regroup after the 8 of clubs held. Incidentally, LHO was 2=3=6=2, and chose to lead a club because his partner had two opportunities to double for a spade lead and failed to do so either time.

Not the way I play. First of all, if opener has 3 spades, then he may have raised spades initially, and he certainly will bid 3♠ as an accept on the way to 3N in case you have 5. This greatly reduces the benefit of using 2♦ as checkback on invitational hands. In fact, I play 2♦ as game forcing, so I would be more inclined than normal to make a limited bid if I thought my hand warranted it. Here I have 12 working HCP, so I think 2♦ is appropriate, as I suspect we will want to be in game somewhere. Partner's 3♣ call almost has to be 5 clubs; if he were to have to manufacture a bid, a good rule of thumb is to manufacture the bid that gives you the most room in the auction; here, 2♥. That way you have more room to unwind in an auction where you have already had to equivocate a bit. I imagine slam is probably on a finesse on average, and game in clubs is cold most of the time, all while 3N goes down when they attack diamonds or spades and we don't have 9 winners.

Thank you spellcheck. Of course I was judging. Judging does not imply condescention, I wasn't judging it in the sense of weighing its overall value as an idea, so much as judging what possible negative impact could occur from this idea. We all weigh and measure ideas, or otherwise we are parrots, repeating what we have heard before. But whatever, at this point I judge this tangent to be worthless, so I am going to excercise my judgment and stop feeding this line of thought from here on out.

Essentially I view religion as a code of ethics and behavioral guidelines. Followers of a religion agree to try and live by the ethical code, and to shape their behavior in service of that code (or worship of their god, or whatever). To some extent, they let that code dictate their behavior rather than just doing what they want to do when they want to do, or using their own judgment. Athiests set their own code of ethics and behavioral guideline, and follow it. It does not have to be self-serving, or at least no more self-serving than any action ever is (and yes, I know you can argue that every action by every individual in every situation is somehow self-serving.) All I meant is that they provide their own moral compass, and go by it instead of assuming another's, although I understand that is an oversimplification, too - they could borrow an ethical code from somewhere other than religion, it does not have to be internal. I also didn't think I was being condescending - I don't believe that my beliefs are superior to atheism; I don't really have strong religious beliefs to compare them to. I'm sorry that you read condescension where none was intended - my use of harmless was not meant to by synonymous with meaningless, but instead merely an antonym of harmful, in that it does not generally have the negative qualities I outlined earlier as being those I associate with organized religion gone wrong.

Oh - and on the subject of athiesm - I liken athiesm to a religion with one god, yourself, and one follower, also yourself. Its basically harmless in my viewpoint.

It really is an interesting discussion going on contrasting religion, athiesm, and the value of religion and religious institutions in society. While I find MikeH to be both consistent and eloquent in his arguments, I cannot accept the precept - and I am not quoting, but merely stating my interpretation of his view - that the world would be better off without organized religion, or that religion is the cause of an impossibly high number of violent conflicts that would not exist without organized religion. I will take Judeo-christianity in general as an example, since it is the religious viewpoint I am most familiar with: One of the fundamental precepts of the religion is "Thou shalt not kill". That is fairly straight forward. If someone is killing, and claiming that it is for the advancement of Judeo-christian values, then I would argue that they are really killing for themselves, and using the religion as justification, since they have perverted the core of that religion through their actions. In reality, it is almost always about power and domination. Using your philosophical beliefs to justify killing, by the way, does not just extend to religious beliefs, but to anything that can be believed with fervor. Belief in Communism, Democracy, and most other political structures have killed millions when the people espousing those beliefs have sought to impose them upon others. I am not judging those actions, just noting that they exist, and that those justifications of political killings have taken off right where religious killings have left off. The difference is that technology changes the magnitude of impact of each of these justifications, in some cases lessening the impact, and in others magnifying it. Think, for example, of US drone strikes in other sovereign nations, or of a "preemptive" war, or any number of conflicts in east asia as counter-points within the last 60 years to religious conflicts in the middle-east. Its my belief that religious organizations are doing well when they are involved in charity, teaching children about rules for acceptable societal behavior before they have enough experience to make informed decisions, and providing a support structure for a community as a whole. When, on the other hand, they get involved in consolidating power and actively enforcing a belief structure upon people that do not subscribe to their religion, they are harmful to society. You can think of many examples of religious organizations that have gone towards the latter road, I'm sure, but that does not condemn the idea of a religious organization - it just makes me wary of the ones that overstep. Similarly, just because some charities are proven to be fraudulent, or inefficient in their use of resources is not a reason to kill all charities, it is just a reason to do due diligence before affiliating yourself with a charitable organization. Going back to the root of the discussion, I think religions, like any other organization which has the borrowed power of so many individuals at its beck and call, can be easily corrupted. That corruption, in my opinion, has more to do with power in general than religion at its core. The urge to dominate another human being and force them to believe what you believe, whether it be religious, political, or otherwise, will always provide a source of conflict.

I think 4♣ should be forcing after 2♦, with only an invitational hand I would have bid 3♣ the round before. I'm interested in slam with what looks like a perfect fitter.

I do not, but I'm certainly open to suggestions (and I can think of a few myself)

All losses suck. My first ever nationally rated event was the LM pairs in New Orleans, where we were the first or 2nd non-qualifier for day 2. Before that, I was in a partnership leading a 3 day 0-1500 LM pairs in Las Vegas with 2 rounds to go...partner and I each blew a board, we finished 2nd. Last year in Toronto we barely scraped by to the 2nd day of the open GNTs, Meckwell's team chose us. We actaully had a 35 imp lead at the half, but that was gone after the first 6 boards. One of the hands I played in the first 6 against Berkowitz & Cohler actually got written up in the Bulletin for Berkowitz's deceptive defense that, combined with my sub-optimal play, led to a vul game swing. The next day Berk went out of his way to tell my partner & I that at the half, Meck had said that we (my partner & I) were beating them single-handedly (our teammates did well in the first quarter, then had a horror of a 2nd quarter when Meckwell switched to play against them, but we covered them). That impression did not last, we wound up losing by about 70.

I would take the club hook while in dummy with the ace of diamonds. My plan is to try and get a 12th trick out of the club suit (initially), which I can do if clubs are 3-3, Kx onside, Tx or 9x on the right, which looks feasible since no opponent bidding was mentioned, and RHO looks to be long in diamonds. If the club hook wins, I will pull trump (up to 4 rounds if necessary), come back to the J of diamonds, and make my decision on what to do (strip squeeze or Kx) based on the carding and my table feel. If the club hook loses, I have some squeeze possibilities (someone has to keep a spade), so I should be able to read the club suit if it is possible to make the hand.

Now what was the falsecard that's being referred to? That seems interesting. As for the problem, I agree with the underlead of the ace on the auction/hand, seems too likely that this is our best chance at two quicks, which it looks like we'll need to beat the hand.

3N would have been a non-serious slam try. Agreements are to cue controls, except that we don't cue shortness in partner's primary suit.

This is in context of a weak NT, where 2♥ would have shown extras - 3♥ is almost forcing.

to be clear, you haven't agreed to play 3♥ as natural and forcing. If you believe that is standard, go ahead and bid it - my knowledge of this auction is insufficient to say that it is NOT standard, but I certainly didn't think it would be forcing at the table.

[hv=pc=n&s=sj74haqt6daq72c84&n=saq2hkj98d5cajt65&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=1cp1hp3hp4dp4s(keycard)p5h(2%20with%20Q)p5s(K%20ask)p6h(No%20kings)ppp&p=c9cac3c4c5c7c8c2s4s3sqskh2h6h3h8c6cqhas9]640|460[/hv] Feel free to comment on the bidding and play to this point, especially the play if you would have done something different (against relatively unknown opponents - you know that LHO is goodish, but don't know righty at all). What do you do from here (and from here, I mean where the play stops)? Opponents play upside-down count and attitude, top of nothing leads.

[hv=pc=n&e=sak863hakj9742dc8&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1d2dp2sp]133|200[/hv] Playing a standardish 2/1, I've forced a Michaels cue-bid on you for now, if you disagree with that, feel free to say so & explain your reasoning. What is your general plan for this hand?

Very likely seems like an overbid. Even if partner had Q seventh of clubs, 3 diamonds, and an outside king, there's a 50% chance the king is the king of diamonds. 6 is a big enough parlay that I am not willing to try and screw around with the auction to figure it out.

5♣. There is a large difference between a stiff and Jx, both in terms of NT play and potential suit play, and that tilts me toward the 11 trick game.

If you actually bother to read what I wrote, you will see that I said no controls outside of diamonds, not no tricks. But again, building an evaluation on tricks alone is incredibly unstable. This is why systems like LTC were created - to acknowledge the power of tricks, but to also accentuate that with how many losers you have also. In my preferred evaluation, I would consider both HCP and potential cover cards for partner's losers - here, both point to a limit raise.

It's posts like these that overvalue counting tricks. Yes, tricks are great, you need tricks. But your evaluation has to be less simple than that. A classic tricks argument hand: [hv=pc=n&s=sakqjt9h2d432c432&n=s2hakqjt9d765c765&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=3np6nppp]266|200[/hv] North has 6 tricks, south has 6 tricks, together they have 7 tricks after the defense takes the first 6. I guess what I am saying is that a strict trick evaluation is incredibly stupid without also evaluating tempo/controls/losers also. Here you have no controls outside of diamonds, they start with a tempo, and your "tricks" are in partner's bid suit, so he's probably counting some of his length there as potential tricks also.

3N. No 2nd choice.

I don't like game forcing the South hand. yes, the diamonds are great, but why upgrade doubleton jacks and the Q of clubs so heavily? as it is, 3N is reasonable - its not as though 5D is cold, and on a spade lead you just have to get the hearts right.

4♠ is tempting, but I'd probably just go 3 at this vulnerability.

I would give whatever our default agreement is - mine is attitude, and I would give a positive attitude because I want this continued/can't stand a switch.