xcurt

Adam got me with that mirror diagram :(. And I thought the whole point of the hand was to take the "practice" finesse in diamonds, when in fact it's just given to you. It would be a better problem played from the other side.

4♦ so that when I bid 4NT next it's the Blacke, in case we have all the aces. More likely we don't have all the aces, and we are going to be playing 6NT. I think a direct 4NT is natural and quantitative here.

Isn't this not going to work (unless south has specifically KJ, A??, xxxx, Kxxx) For instance T1: H ruffed T2: DQ T3: H ruffed T4: CA T5: H ruffed and now you're going to lose a diamond ruff (unless south is 4432 in which case you have other problems), a club, and two trumps. It seems to me that the point of the hand is to protect your fourth round heart loser by running south out of hearts to reach partner. The auction, assuming the double was a support double, together with the lead, make it seem like south has K?(?), AKx, xxxx, Kxx(x), which would give north something like Jx, Qxxxxx, x, xxxx. If you pitch on the first heart and south switches to a diamond, you get something like T1: ♥A T2: ♦Q now you have to play like this T3: heart ruff T4: ♣A T5: heart ruff T6: ♠Q making if you pin the ♠J out of the north hand (losing the heart at trick 1, the ♣K, and the ♠K. You can't do the following T3: spade toward dummy, south must rise or you just take a second round of spades and play diamond winners T4: diamond ruffed by north because north can tap the table again and you come up 1 trick short T5: heart ruffed T6: ♣A T7: heart ruffed and now even if south began with 3 trumps, he will ruff the fifth diamond as you shed your last rounded suit loser, for down 1.

On 1 it looks like I need to play the ♦Q at trick 1 to keep control. Assuming I'm not immediately down, I would play a heart at trick 2 and stick in the ♥T. If I go up at trick 1 and pitch the other diamonds on the clubs, they can tap my hand enough that I can never take a heart trick (maybe one heart trick if I can set up a third-round winner, and someone has 2-2 in the majors). I won't be able to crossruff enough either, with only 3 minor-suit tricks I need to make 7 spade tricks, which isn't happening. I haven't thought about the other two hands yet. Edit: my quick reaction on 2 is to go up, pitching a club, and run the ♠Q. On 3, I would pitch a club from dummy at trick 1.

And I should probably not analyze hands at 2 am :(. One interesting point is that declarer can execute the throw-in using either black suit. You need to defeat both the spade throw-in and the club throw-in. Defeating the club throw-in is easier, just cash one high club before giving up the lead. Defeating the spade throw-in is trickier, you need to play spades counterintuitively by continuing with the ♠Q (or the ♠T) -- if you play a low spade at trick 2 (or trick 3, after a high club), forcing partner to part with the ♠J, declarer takes the second spade and throws you in with a spade. Momo's partner unblocked the ♠J under the ♠Q, and declarer missed his chance by not taking trick 2. Anyway, nicely done. It's always satisfying to find a problem difficult enough that you get only one reply, yet still one with a solution that is (close to) demonstrably correct. I should probably have posted the hand with a 1NT opening and Stayman auction, since that places the hidden cards with a little more certainty. Of course, if I opened 1NT I wouldn't have learned enough about the enemy hands to do anything other than hook the ♥J. When my opponent switched at T2, I could take the heart finesse anyway, with the vigorish that if LHO held ♥QT9, which is necessary for the endplay to work, I would make the hand anyway when the high spots all fell.

I guess I should say "very nice defense." I was confused by you saying you couldn't beat it facing a 3244 closed hand with ♥AJ. You did state both key plays, so full credit :o. You're right about cashing the club first being an improvement. But 3NT on ♣xxx(x) would be weird (although maybe normal after my pd bid like he had something else).

Almost very nice defense inquiry. But you do beat the hand when declarer is 3244, provided you do two things remove dummy's club by cashing one high one play a high spade (not the low one) You can do these in either order, and then exit with a third round of spades. When declarer cashes all his winners, you reduce to a club winner and ♥QT9. Since dummy is heart-tight at this point, declarer has to play a heart to the ace and duck down your remaining high club, but you can now exit ♥Q to pin the ♥J and force declarer to let you win trick 13 with the ♥9. My hand was ♠A72, ♥AJ, ♦KJ95, ♣Q964. Handviewer. Yes I downgraded my 15-count (but I could have easily not held the ♦J). By the way, momo1947 defended correctly on this hand, single dummy. Very nice. You can follow the line recommended above with GIB's trick-by-trick analysis here: Handviewer

The auction at our table was insane, but I'm going to force it on you. The problem will come in the defense. [hv=d=n&v=b&n=s984hk872daqt72c8&w=skqt5hqt9d83cakj5]266|200|Scoring: XIMP[/hv] P - P - 1♦ - x xx? - P -P - 2♦? P - 2♥ - P - P 3♦? - P - 3NT - AP T1: ♠K-4-3-2 T2: ? You play UDCA and the K was not your power lead (as far as I can tell, since I was the declarer here). What now?

I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that the World Open Pairs truly is an open event. Pretty much anyone is allowed to enter (the only exceptions might be those whose entries are rejected due to past bad behavior or cheating). I don't think the ACBL or USBF even gets involved except perhaps to warn WBF that particular players should possibly be considered unwelcome for the sort of reasons that I mentioned above. The World Open Pairs is really a great event - if you happen to make it to the Finals, the bridge is as good as it gets. Assuming that I am right that just about anyone can play, I strongly suggest you do so during the 2010 World Championships in Philadelphia :unsure: Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com I can echo everything Fred has said. Play in the Open Pairs, or any of the other world events. I was lucky enough to make the finals in Montreal, and it was truly an awesome experience. I may be a tad biased, but Philadelphia will be a great spot for a world championship, so save those dates now. October 2-16 2010 Well I would sure love to play in that event, but right now I'm trying to figure out if I have time to play the LMPs this summer (and the playing site is 9 mi from my house!).

3♥. If partner bids 3♠, I can cue 4♣ and partner should be well placed to count tricks. If partner fails to cuebid spades, I'll bid 6♥ over 4♥ and I'll bid 4♠ over 4♦, then 6♣ over whatever is next. Then partner will bid 7♦ with solid diamonds.

Other than that 500 masterpoints is a counting statistic. A 1 handicap is a rate statistic. There is a big difference. Which brings me to a big complaint I have about the USBF/ACBL entry process to the World OPEN Pairs. In the past (I don't know if this is still the procedure) there is some kind of selection procedure, at least in part based on high finishes in some of the national pair games. Since the cycle is fairly long, and for me it would be time-prohibitive to play all the NABCs in a cycle AND the Worlds, it's not really an Open event, at least for Americans.

3♥. I used to go low on these, but this hand is going to play really well. Even into a bad break, our offsuit tricks are early so they won't be getting ruffed off. Partner is aceless so he isn't going to cooperate, we have to force him to get to game. Finally, the aces protect us from getting doubled, so we can fully enjoy the IMP odds we're getting from being vulnerable.

For those playing a lot of bbo moneybridge, how well does GIB play? How much better does is play if you give it more cpu (Uday or Fred?). Is it the best computer program? I tried wbridge5 since it's free and it's hopeless, I cannot believe it honestly won the computer world championship once or twice, it was so bad I'm not going to pay money to try Jack if Jack lost to it on the computer worlds. I'm not interested in playing with the computer, I'm interested in writing a bridge program btw.

On the first, I got greedy and was seduced by the chances of nailing LHO, who was out there on all the hands, but got lucky and avoided the double most times. Agree the doubles were bad. In the event, we landed in 4Dx facing K9xx, xxxx, Jx, T9x, good play held the damage to -100. I guess I have to own up on the second. I overcalled a steaming 1NT. Partner had no sense of humor, -800.

Two hands, both XIMPs. LHO is a maniac. 1.Favorable, 4th seat, Jx, AT, AKQxx, AJxx P-P-1S-x 1N-P-P-x P-2H-P-? Agree with the first two doubles? What now? 2. The very next hand. Unfavorable, 3rd seat, KQ, Qx, AKJx, J96xx P-1H-?

The US is (geographically) really really big. A league just isn't practical, you won't get enough cross-comparisons (although most of the top pros now live in a few states, which, coincidentally, are the ones with no personal income tax). Also, the NABCs are now so populated with top-flight foreign talent that using the results of the NABCs to determine positioning points has gotten increasingly problematic. Finally, at least this year USA1 has no sponsor, and USA2 has a sponsor who is a very fine player in his own right, who just happens to have enough wealth to get top-flight teammates. I don't really have a problem with this, I guess it's difficult to figure out where draw a line between the top-flight playing sponsors (Rita Shugart winning the Reisinger 4-handed a few years in a row comes to mind, or a pair like Platnick/Diamond -- not sure which one is sponsoring there -- but they were very good players as juniors) and some of the ones whose job is to avoid revoking.

The IMP odds on doubling 1NT are so favorable, too, that I really like the option that let's me try to nail them when it goes 1D on some random 11 and 1NT on some random 5 or 6, and now they're in the same pickle they would be in if we opened the weak NT and they made an ill-advised overcall.

It's done Steve Robinson no harm over the last week. He has been opening 5 counts at the 1 level has he? ;) Steve moderates the D6 bidding forum, and about every other month there is a problem where you are asked what to do on round two, after you opened 1M on 5M-6m, or you opened at the 1-level on a 9-count, 2 controls, but 6 losers. The panel complains about the round one action, which gives Steve a chance to espouse his ideas about the value of the opening bid and the relative value of bidding a major over a minor. I'm not sure Steve is correct, because a lot of this is about the implied odds. If you aren't getting better results when you hit your hand, but you are getting worse results when you miss your hand, then maybe you shouldn't be acting light/offshape. Then again, his team is USA1, right now, so... On the actual hand, I would just bury the hearts and open 4♣. That gets about 90% of my hand across, which is more than any other later action would accomplish, and maximally preempts the opponents. Well, maybe not "maximally preempts," but 5♣ is just asking to hand over a big number of IMPs when we miss our hand. The opponents are going to drive us to the 5 level with their spades quite often anyway (and if we choose some lower action to start the hand, and partner doubles them out in 4♠, can we really sit anyway), so we are only going to want to play hearts when partner is specifically x5x1 without the ♣Q.

If declarer is ax jxxx qx kqxxx pd is toast if we play a heart at t2

It's in the bulletin.

I think it's clear 3♠ is forcing. Playing a style where 3-level bids can be just correcting the partscore is hopeless.

How does that necessarily place us ahead? If clubs split poorly, those people will possibly set up diamonds for 11 tricks where we end up with 9. Because if clubs behave, you're on a diamond-spade simple squeeze for 12 tricks. If clubs don't behave, and we finesse, as you point out, we make 10 tricks, not 11, so we still can't beat these pairs. Even discounting the falsecard from ♣JTx, LHO will have ♣JT tight 1/3 of the time he plays the ♣J or ♣T. I don't think the falsecard is as hard for a decent west to find, if he knows your range from the likely 2NT rebid, and he knows from tricks 1 and 2 that hearts are cleared. Playing the ♣A lacking the ♣K makes no sense with solid diamonds and spades, with that hand declarer would try try to strip squeeze the opponents into leading away from the ♣K. Also, clubs will behave, a priori, roughly 2/3 of the time. The lead doesn't change that, much, since we have 8 cards in both minors, LHO is an ovewhelming favorite to have at least one major with at least 4 cards.

So it is better to give in to the players' bad behaviour than making them follow rules? Amazing. It's a good thing people thinking like that are not in congress... Yes that's exactly what I said. Thank you for your fair and accurate quote so that we could have a reasonable discussion. Hanoi, let's say you were playing in an event like this and you thought maybe one pair were using the break for nefarious purposes. But you have the "right" to insist they stay at the table. Let's say you enforce that right against only the one pair you suspect. Now you have de facto accused them of c******g. If you enforce the right against all pairs, everyone will wonder why you are being so difficult.

When posting hands please give the auction no matter how ugly - it matters. We are ahead of other tables where west might lead a spade (even if we bid the suit, he could have JT97 or so and the auction might have been 1D-1S; 2N-3N), since those declarers will probably safety the diamond into the west hand to ensure 11 tricks.

Why isn't anyone considering the likely damage in 7♦? I'm betting on 1400 away, which means the save is a very bad idea over an opposing 6M. We aren't playing BAM. I'm going to bid 4♥. If I'm really lucky, I'll move them to spades, where we have a chance to set their small slam on a ruff. That's not happening if the play in hearts. Maybe I should go post in the psyching thread now.