rogerclee

Ah ok, in my head I was thinking what he meant by a 1.5 NT rebid, not a 1.5 NT opener. Anyway here are some pros to playing 1N is 18-19 1) You get to stop in 1N or 2m or 2M opposite a bad hand. The lighter you respond the more useful this is. 2) You have more room to determine if 3N is the best game (or even if you have slam). 3) It's not clear that you should even be bidding 1N with a 12-14 bal hand with no support. If partner has a good hand and you have no fit, it could be very profitable to just double them. If partner has nothing you probably don't want to play 1N anyway. Here are some cons: 1) You can't show a "good 1N" bid or a "bad 1N" pass. Occasionally you will miss game or get too high due to this. 2) LHO has extra space. He can show spades cheaply and has more options to show values. Also an auction like 1D P 1H X P 1S P P 1N X is bad for you.

What is a 1.5 NT opener?

If we are 6331 and partner has 5+D and 4+C, then: If he is xy54, then his probabilities of having (0, 1, 2, 3) spades are (8.9%, 35.8%, 40.3%, 14.9%). If he is xy55, then his probabilities of having (0, 1, 2, 3) spades are (17.6%, 46.3%, 30.9%, 5.1%). If he is xy65 then his probabilities of having (0, 1, 2) spades are (33.1%, 51.5%, 15.4%).

deleted

Note to self, all doubles against Josh are for penalties. :ph34r: Playing penalty doubles against Josh's 3rd seat 1M openers is not the way to stop him from opening 1M light.

I think we simply view this double differently. You seem to want to play it is highly penalty oriented, but I think that playing this double as just "I can't bid anything" is better. Even though in theory this makes me more exploitable to unsound preempts, in practice I've found that my opponents are quite conservative about coming into my 2/1 auctions.

heart

2S > 2D >> 3S

Isn't partner forced to double with 2335 and no diamond stopper (for example)? You are right.

What was the double? I would assume takeout but doubling 3H and then doubling 3S is a little unusual.

My examples were not meant to mimic your situation, just to illustrate a point. I will try one last time. Obama wants to come to town. There are 4 million residents of Los Angeles who may potentially be opposed to this. A bunch of rich old people donate $5 million to make this happen. You estimate that about 500000 people in Los Angeles might be inconvenienced by this (yourself included) and are politically inclined enough to donate to a campaign to stop this from happening. That is, the 500000 people have to donate an average of $10 each in order to stop Obama from coming. You would personally be willing to pay $30 to see Obama not come to town. By donating $30 to this cause, there are three possible outcomes: 1) The other 499999 people donated an amount greater than $5 million. You are out $30 for no reason. 2) The other 499999 people donated somewhere between 4999970 and 4999999 dollars. Your $30 is the difference between Obama coming or not coming. 3) The other 499999 people donated an amount less than 4999970 dollars. Either nothing happens or you lose 30 dollars, whatever the rules of the game are (it wasn't clear to me from your original post what was going to happen, but I guess in your situation you simply keep the $30 dollars). How much should you donate? If you want to stand up for what you believe in, $30. If you rationally judge situation (2) to have basically 0% likelihood of occurring, you donate $0.

Let's play another game. Every eligible voter in the US is given a piece of paper and writes down how much he is willing to pay in order to select the US president in 2012. Nobody can see anyone else's paper or talk to them about it. If you write down the highest number, you pay that much and select the president. If you do not write down the highest number, you pay that much and get nothing. How much would you write down?

How much money would you pay to select the US president in 2012? How much money would you pay in order to vote for the US president in 2012? Are these numbers the same?

It's not a cooperative game, residents don't "donate" as a single entity. utility(Obama not coming to LA) > utility($100 to me) is not the same as saying I will pay $100 to a cause to try to prevent Obama from coming to town, even though my donation probably has no effect on the entire donation pool given that I am one of about 4 million residents and thus cannot have any meaningful impact on the total amount donated. In real life people do not make decisions like this, but in an economics textbook they do.

I double

lol

Why will partner rarely accept? We made a slam try opposite a hand that was willing to defend 4S undoubled! He doesn't need much to accept. For example it would not occur to me to sign off with x Qxxxx KJxx AQx or something. Also what kfay said is true, partner knows we didn't splinter so will be very careful about bidding on with a doubleton spade. In fact there are no hands with a doubleton spade that I think are consistent with passing 4S where I would now bid slam over 5D.

5D. I thought for awhile if 5C can gain (gives partner a last train step) but I think it's not worth it.

Are you looking to play a very detailed system after 2/1 or just to learn solid fundamentals? Anyway Hardy's book is good for neither of these things.

Do you mean you are lucky to have only 4 cards in the majors (given that you have 9 diamonds)?

I don't know a whole lot about this subject but: 1) A lot of the huge figures that people read about actually come from long term incentives for CEOs. If it says a CEO of some company made x millions of dollars in stock options some year, it is usually a result of a long term incentive plan, not just one year's work. 2) Management talent is actually in high demand. A lot of foreign firms are willing to pay American executives millions of dollars in order to recruit them and modernize their companies. Consequently American executive salaries must be high enough to convince them not to work elsewhere. 3) CEO pay must be tied to company performance, because paying a CEO by what he does doesn't really make any sense; it's not observable. Thus the theory says to tie their salary with company performance in order to motivate them. It's also why CEOs of successful companies get paid a lot of money. Also the idea that people should be paid according to their effort works neither in theory nor in practice. Not saying there isn't anything wrong with the way CEO pay is handled in America, but basically, it's not as ridiculous as it looks from first glance.

[14] Special 3rd and 4th suit auctions - 1H-1S-2C-2D = Weak preference to 2H or art game force - 1H-1S-2C-2H = Constructive preference from one of Fred's old convention cards. IMO it's very useful to be able to show 2 different kinds of preferences in either a natural or strong club system (where "strong preference" in a strong club system can be as much as 12-13 depending on how light you open).

IMO you must be able to show specific 5422 shape and either min or non-min.

Double. Too flexible (with a bad heart suit) to bid 3H, too good (with Ax of clubs) to pass.

You may change cards "in the same breath" without pause for thought. Basically this means you are allowed to correct yourself if it's obvious you literally just called the wrong card.