kayin801

I opened a 10-12 NT sitting E. Partner sandbagged to make sure I didn't have everything BUT the A and then blasted.

Not true. I opened a 10-12 NT in first seat, my partner tried to sign off in 2♥, and south still balanced with 2♠. Unless that was an operator error? No blame obviously cause it's still a reasonable action, but you can't assign 2♥ a score then ;P EDIT: maybe a 1♣ opening would keep them out though.

Surprised that 3♣X is so high (not that I'm complaining :P ) since it looks to me like the defense frequently takes only 5 tricks (sometimes 4!). Or am I missing something?

Yeah, those are the wrong hands. This must be the one where W has 7 solid hearts?

"It's a 3 suited slam forcing takeout obviously, forcing to 6D, 6H, or 7C!"

Where are N/S getting their tricks from? Especially if played in the E, 3NT looks like 5 spades, 2 hearts, and two aces to me before N/S can set anything up most of the time. I thought this was a good hand for a big club... it let us show a sort of 3.5♠ rebid in our system.

I thought a 2NT overcall was obvious with 4th hand... unless that has some conventional meaning for others

South also needs to have a trump to lead... also whoever wins the first diamond also has to have a 2nd trump to lead. North with sometimes be 4261 with the AKQJ of diamonds (okay we can hope, that looks like 3♦ competition to me, maybe 4351), and then on top of that we're still okay if both spade honors are onside? At least there's some extra chances. I'm always confused how much 'human' (in quotes since we're not actually bidding against humans) element is brought into a bidding contest like this. Given his partner opened diamonds there's gotta be a decent chance they lead a diamond, after which we're in good shape. But double dummy I can see why the partscore might be a better score.

Yeah ok. I was asking about hands he would double with assuming his favorite agreements, not the ones I gave in OP. I just want to understand what kind of hands are good dbl's assuming you have the best agreements there. Something like x, AKxxxx, KJ10xx, x maybe, stuff that might defend well if partner has HCP in the blacks and fewer hearts, so our heart honors might cash

and then you give 3 hands which all wants to defend 4♠. What am I missing ? He's saying that given your OP conditions, those are hands that he wants to double with, because he has trump tricks and likely tricks in side suits. He also says that your agreement to do so doesn't make sense. Yes it sucks that we can't X with those hands if we have a different agreement of what X means, but they only rate to go down 1 or so if partner has the preemptive hand so its not a huge loss, and partner will X 4S with some defensive values that he thinks are useful and they will go for a phone number.

I think a lot of people use X as "Bid 5♥ with a preemptive hand but let it sit with defense." Partner is always welcome to come back in with a pass later. Within that context I would still pass and be content to sit for partner's X later. 4S and 5H could both be down if partner has, say, Axxxx in hearts and out. As the agreements are, you have no choice but to pass :/

How good do you expect the hearts to be for 4♥? I imagine that answer is dependent on how good partner's diamonds are. Given we're doing all this flopping around I would hope partner would stop off at hearts with anything good in the suit, even if they REALLY want to play in NT for some reason. With Ax or KQ wouldn't you try 4♥? I'm guessing that since partner hasn't done so, the heart suit is gonna be tough to play for just one loser. Edit: I guess there's cases where we will only need one trick from the suit, but then we need 11 from the other 3...

Partner didn't even want to bid a heart fragment, so I bet they don't have two honors. Something like AJx, Kx, AKQxx, QJx would really stink. I'll let this one go.

I would open the south hand, but it's far from the worst pass I've ever seen. After he passes N/S are screwed.

Additional question for those in the contest: how many pairs are established partnerships and are familiar with the system they are using?

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=sakq1064hj84dj2ck4]133|100|Scoring: MP 1♣-(P)-1♠-(X) 2♦-(P)-2♥!-(P) 3♥-(P)-3♠-(P) 4♠-(P)-?[/hv] 2♥ was just a general game force

I would pass if the diamond spots were 65432 or better. 3♥ seems too much like trying to being a hero to me. I'm tempted to bid 4♣ before 3♥, honestly. At least there's a lot of people at other tables facing the same problem!

Nice! We chickened out and dropped our 10-12 nt that we normally play in 3rd seat any and 1st/2nd white as we felt that the preemptive effect would not be favorable to the conditions of contest. We are playing a strong ♣ with transfer oriented symmetric relay positive responses, 12-14 nt w/ keri, and 2/1 limited openers with Gazilli. I think Josh (sohcahtoa) and I find that once every 2-3 bidding sets we're kept out of a bad game/slam based on the fact that responder knows how crappy our opening hand is :ph34r: It's sometimes tougher to handle freaks opposite 10-12 NTs though.

Yeah, but the people in the upper bracket are "safe" and automatically in round 3, so it makes sense to an extent. The more people that are safe the less people can advance from the bottom bracket Carry-over makes sense at least in the bottom bracket, cause then someone who didn't even participate in the first round (got a zero) could still advance out of the 2nd :) and if you have it in the bottom bracket then I think it makes sense to have it in the top? With a smaller group of people in the top the results should be closer from the first round anyway.

Strong club with a mini NT in first two seats

Pass not forcing, you just overcalled. 2♠ I'm not sure on. If a direct 2♠ call isn't forcing then I think this 2♠ call is.

I got the same thing in mine except it told me I was an idiot if I didn't do that. Pass not forcing on the first one.

Ha whereagles thinks X calls for a spade lead and pooltuna thinks it calls for a diamond.

If there were a $10,000 (or some number) buy-in bridge pairs or teams event at the WSOP each year I would watch it. It seems to me that the lowering of the "status of our game", as JLOGIC somewhat puts it and how the EBL is seeming to put it, is kinda like having an awesome mansion next to some abandoned buildings in a city. Yeah, your house is sick, but look at what it's sitting next to! This is as opposed to having the mansion out in the rolling hills in the countryside surrounded by green grass wondrous scenery. Too bad no one comes out to see it! Before I get flamed for calling poker abandoned buildings I'll just mention that this is the sort of analogy that I think the EBL is using, not my own views. I play poker very rarely and only with friends but it's still an awesome game. (Quick edit to try to not put words in JLOGIC's mouth)

6♠ seems most practical. The only reason I don't like it would be that partner will get off to the wrong lead when LHO plays 7 of something. I play diamond bids as lead directing raises here, though I'm not sure 6♦ would still be a spade raise :P Maybe I'd bid 3♦ and then 6♠. Heck, maybe this will keep them out of 7 and leave us in our making 6♠X!