xcurt

Read the history of bridge at the world level. People cheat. That is axiomatic. If you're seriously considering deliberately violating the ban, then go play in the side game, it may be bridge (as in entertainment) but it's not bridge (as in sport). Also, if you do violate the ban, and someone remembers that you advocated deliberately doing so, then you should expect to be in front of a C&E committee when, as will eventually happen if only by accident, you are caught.

I'm a little late to this thread, but I really hope people aren't advocating just ignoring the rules because they don't suit them. The entire playability of bridge as a sport depends on trusting that everyone is competing honestly. Also, as much as I take issue with both the financial and corporate management of the ACBL (and let's not kid ourselves, by any reasonable measure of corporate governance the ACBL gets an F), I think that this ban must have roots in some top players knowing that phones are being used for illicit purposes.

It looks like we bid 1C-1H; 4H-Pass. T1: S2-6-K-3 (by the way, we should have unblocked the S9 on this) T2: ST-5-x-A I will play a H to the A and a C to the Q. If that holds I will cash the CA. If the breaks now look reasonable I will try to eliminate the black suits ending in my hand and pass the D8 (not the 9, I don't want LHO to be tempted to cover).

True, but the contrapositive is not necessarily false.

The 2001 LV Fall NABC didn't run over two weekends. I remember eating Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel steakhouse. I'm pretty sure that was the second day of the Swiss and the Reisinger. Evidently the story was that bridge players don't gamble/spend enough so they wouldn't give the ACBL two weekends. So there must be some demand at that time.

cash HQ, lead a small spade. LHO may pop with Hxx thinking you have stiff Q (consistent with RHOs count card). That theme is well known though, I really like OPs theme. Agree with this. I'm in game with 23 HCP, I'm not chancing going down by playing 3 rounds of hearts. Even if +620 is only 60% of the matchpoints I'm laying 2:1 MP odds.

Diamond. If I did lead a club, I would lead the CJ. If partner's only card is the CQ, I'd better not remove his club guard, since I will probably be forced to keep spades in the endgame.

Some edits thanks to later posters especially gnasher. Interesting that none of your experts mentioned the third line, cashing the ace first. If the suit is 5-0 you cannot take 4 tricks. If the suit is 4-1, you can take 4 tricks if RHO has stiff K (cash the A, come to hand, lead to the T), or 1 4-1 break. That looks like the only way to take 4 tricks when the suit is 4-1 assuming we don't divine to finesse the T after (starting in dummy) x-K-x-x. If the suit is 3-2, then we get the following. Low to the T wins whenever the J is in LHO's hand, plus whenever the K is doubleton (Jx {3 cases}, Jxx {3 cases}, xxx {1 case}, KJ {3 cases}, KJx {3 cases}, Kx {3 cases}). Thats 14 3-2 breaks, or 47.5%. Low to the Q wins whenever the K in in RHO's hand, plus whenever the J is in LHO's hand. Specifically we pick up RHO holding (Kany {4 cases}, Kanyany {6 cases}, xxx {1 case} and xx {3 cases}). That's 14 3-2 breaks or 47.5%. Cashing the A wins picks up the first 11 3-2 cases listed above for low to the Q, plus Jx {3 cases}, plus the one 4-1 case, totaling just over 50%. I'm getting more appreciation for the work J-M Roudinesco did! I could well have missed a case or two here, I probably need my head examined for trying to work this out. I used to own a copy of Roudinesco but no more. Unfortunately it seems to be out of print. If someone knows where to come by a copy, please let me know. By the way, such preference cycles ( eg A > B > C > A ...) are known as Condorcet cycles in the literature on voting. curt

You left out * play a ton of hands; then analyze them Online bridge is excellent for this.

Don't claim on a squeeze against the second worst pair in the room. You'll spend the break listening to the director tell them they can't ask you to play it out.

The only thing I'm sure about here is that 4NT is natural (or you need another way for responder to become declarer in 4NT). Second most important is the decision between 4N and 5/6/7C when responder has a hand. Even playing 4C shows AK, KQ, or AQ 8th, why can't responder have something like SAK, HAQ, DKQJ, Cxx (make up the rest of the offsuits however you like). You need to know which of the honor holdings partner can have: CKQ -> play 5C CAQ -> play 5C at IMPs in case C are 3-0; play 4N at matchpoints CAK -> play a slam Put me down for modified Blacke. Playing 4C specifically shows 2-honors-eighth I would make the responses as listed instead of the usual 0/1-/1+/2-/2+/i should not have preempted in the first place. 4H -> missing the A 4S -> missing the K 4N -> does not exist 5C -> missing the Q curt

I would take line 3. T1: CA T2: CK T3: HK T4: Spade x-x-J-x T5: Spade x-x-Q-A T6: CQ and you pitch the heart T7: H->A T8: SK [hv=n=sxhjxdxxc&s=sxhdakt9c]133|200|[/hv] North to lead. with no trumps out and declarer needing the remainder, LHO is caught in a criss-cross ruffing squeeze. This line also has good chances if RHO has A, xxx, ???, AQxxxx (but you will probably go down if RHO has A, Qxx, ???, AQxxxx). Curt