rogerclee

Yes.

KTxx Jx A9xx K9x Ax xx KJT JT8xxx You deal all red at matchpoints P 1H X 2D* 4C AP 2D = 4 card raise, about 7-9 points Feel free to comment on your decision to bid 4C. Your LHO is a competent but not great player, he leads a lowish diamond spot and RHO puts in the 8. You win in hand with the K and advance the CJ, your LHO playing low smoothly. How do you play?

Agree with 4H, which shows a very big hand, often with 4 spades. We have a very big hand which we have shown. I would now pass, having shown my very big hand.

I think we need east to have the DK and west to have the DJ to make, but then we can always make assuming we can read them. It's very unhuman for east to discard down to 2 spades and to stiff his DK in the endposition (And what if we don't have the DT? West can help by contributing the D9 if he has it to deny JT though). If that's the case then we will have a count on west's hand (whether he keeps 2 spades and DJ or stiff spade and Jx of diamonds) and then we can just play accordingly.

I am always driving to 6C with this hand, for better or worse.

Why are you the downvoting police? Do you also think you should be able to upvote/downvote a post twice, just because your opinion is more important? Maybe we should give you the power to just cancel out any number of reputation on a post that you feel is not particularly noteworthy in one way or the other. You should only upvote posts you want to upvote, and downvote posts you want to downvote. If all we do is upvote or downvote when we think a post is neutral but has strayed from neutral reputation, then the integrity of the reputation system gets compromised. Imagine this scenario: I make a post, and 5 people hate it, 5 people are ok with it, and 1 person really likes it. Under your system, a person who hates it downvotes me. Another person who thinks it's ok (but not good) upvotes me because he thinks I deserve 0 rep. This happens back and forth 5 times, and then 1 person who likes it upvotes me to a final rep of 1. Why should I finish positive on a post where there were 5 times as many people who hated it as who liked it? Now take the same number of people, but the 1 person who liked it read it first and upvoted me. Now the 5 people who are ok with it read it and decide it is not worth +1, so they make it 0. Then the 5 people who hate it read it and then make me finish with -5 rep. This is a 6-rep swing based just on the order of people who read my post. If your point is that you think some people's "rep" votes should count more than others', so that random up/downvotes count less than up/downvotes from regular/highly repped posters, then I agree and this has been stated by others. However that is not the current system which is implemented, and trying to artificially create that system by abusing your ability to rep is not the way to go. Obviously for this hypothetical post which 5 people hate and 1 person likes I deserve -4 rep. If we just do what you are doing, then the integrity of the reps get compromised. Something like what you are suggesting only makes sense if you think your opinion is more important than other people's. While I guess that is true for most people, it is obviously bad for the general public, on average, to support this kind of behavior.

1) 3S 2) 4H

I would never bid with the south hand at this vul, looks like a normal pass to me. Doubling with the north hand seems very bad to me, what are you guys trying to accomplish? Defending 3Sx is likely to be a disaster, and in all other cases we probably just want to play 6D. Yes slam could have no play but I don't see how we can ever not bid it. Good practical hand evaluation by the original poster, IMO.

Just because I wouldn't double doesn't mean I would pass. 3D seems like a fine bid.

FWIW I would bid both hands the same way. Why is this a bad slam? On a heart lead we are making if south has at least one honor (or on a high heart lead maybe we can reconsider). On a diamond lead we are making if south led away from the K or just basically on a club hook (or K + long hearts if you want) if north wins. On a club lead we are basically cold if he led away from the K (north should have the DK, and even if he doesn't we still have lots of chances) or if the red suit squeeze comes in if he didn't (the red suit squeeze is almost 50%). On a trump lead we win and run the CQ, if it loses we just play for the red suit squeeze, and if it holds we can either just guess diamonds for 2 tricks or failing that, play for a red suit squeeze.

I agree with awm.

Disagree, to me by far the worst set is actually the base set. It contains many cards that are simply not well thought out (bureaucrat/chancellor/mine/moat/woodcutter/thief/adventurer) relative to the rest. This is understandable, as in the beginning it was difficult to see how far the game could go. Even Alchemy is a stronger set to me (for online play, in person Alchemy can slow down the game way too much). You say the Intrigue cards are more powerful in general like that is a bad thing, it's the way the game should be played. The base game gets boring after awhile mostly because thoughtless treasure based decks were way too powerful. Of course it is good to start with the base set, though. It is the least complicated by far, and trying to introduce someone to Dominion by even playing Intrigue is probably not a good idea.

I'm not a great player, but I enjoy it a lot, and I found out there is some overlap between Dominion and bridge players. Does anyone here like the game? We should play on isotropic sometime. I play some other board games too, but Dominion is my current favorite right now. Edit: Isotropic link: http://dominion.isotropic.org/ This is a really great implementation of the game. It takes all the bad parts about dominion (shuffling, counting, etc) and automates them. Also, you don't even have to register.

My strong advice is that if you think serious 3N could possibly be on in this sequence, you should stop playing this convention and take some time to discuss exactly when it's on and when it's not.

I think a really big divisive issue on this hand was, what constitutes a serious cuebid? Every partnership can determine that for themselves, but it's definitely something that needs to be discussed when you agree to play serious/nonserious. This sounds obvious but I have been involved in disasters when me and my partner didn't agree on this. For me, an average 4513 14 count on this auction is a minimum serious cuebid, say AJxx AQxxx x Kxx

I'm probably out to lunch but when I responded to this I definitely thought I had the CK.

I seem to have a 6 card spade suit with good spots, good shape, and 6 to 10 high card points. Bridge is an easy game sometimes.

Where did awm or anyone say or even imply this at any point in the thread?

The 3-day North American swiss only has preduped boards on the last day. The top teams on the second day of the 2-day swisses get preduped boards, but not everyone does.

Aaron you have provided a lot of evidence that the 20VP scale is capable of selecting a winning team which did not play the best bridge. If this is your only point, then I think we can all agree with you and move on.

I saw a hand where Balicki (playing with Zmudzinski) did not open something like KQ98xx Jxxx Ax x in second seat playing Polish Club. It doesn't prove anything, but I think whether or not you open these shapely 10 counts matters less than most people think.

I play 3H shows a hand which has some values but is not willing to bid game by himself. As for explaining how I plan to bid every game which is good and stay out of every game which is not, I will not reveal that secret so lightly! You will have to purchase my upcoming book, How to Play Bridge Perfectly, coming to Master Point Press next month.

Disagree!

I don't get stayman, we only want to play hearts if partner has 5 and stayman will not give us this information.

Sorry this was like the 115th board against Meckwell, I was pretty out of it by then, I think RHO played the club 8 then a low spot then the 9 but I can't be sure. I was never told they had any special leads during the middle of the hand, they lead 4th best against NT in general.