fromageGB

Here's another twalsh auction as I bid it: 1♣ - 2♣ (44xx 11+) 2NT (declining the invitation) - 3♣ (F) 4♣ (can't bid 5♣ because East is unlimited) - 5♣ (not interested in slam opposite expected 12/13)

I don't speak Swedish, but are your non-forcing bids normally this strong? 3♣ rather than 3NT might have been my bid.

And reverse flannery is, I read, a sequence of 1♦ 2♥ for the first two bids? That really helps responder pick a minor to play in 2m when opener has xx55 both minors, as is quite common with an unbalanced diamond. I agree with you about bid frequency, though utilising a particular sequence for an otherwise awkward hand is not a bad idea. Another objection to reverse flannery in conjunction with an unbalanced diamond is that opener's possible shapes are restricted, and methods that allow opener to describe his shape to let responder pick the contract are better than taking up bidding space to let responder show his shape. It may have more validity with a traditional better minor.

I mean your 1♦ 1♠ handling is overloaded because you can get your given options into a multi-1NT, but there is no room for including the 3-suiter short in spades into it. That hand has to bid 1NT because (even if you are happy to make it multi and hence rule out a possible 1NT contract) you need responder to be able to choose a 2C/2D/2H contract. You can include this and drop one of your other options such as showing 3 spades, but that swaps the problem. If you are happy with responder with either major responding 1H, and the problem is just opener having 3 card support for only one major, then you could adopt a 1♠ response as specifically 54xx or 45xx. (I use that bid for responder having extra strength (responder Gazzilli) whereas you do it the other way round with opener Gazzilli for extra strength.) Perhaps something like this : (f = forcing, nf = not forcing) (Opener's "strong" = Gazzilli, "weak" = less than that; and responder's "strong" = Gazzilli positive (probably GF)) 1♥ f = either major, or both majors 44xx 1♠ f = both majors 54xx or 45xx After 1♦ 1♠ ... 1NT f = denies 4 card major, any strong (gazzilli) without , or just diamonds, or diamonds + 3 cards in one major 2♣ nf = both minors 2♦ f = 33xx 2♥ nf = 4 hearts 11-14 2♠ nf = 4 spades 11-14 3M nf = 4 cards 15/16 2NT = 4 cards either major 17+ After 1♦ 1♠, 1NT ... 2♣ f = 45xx 2♦ nf = 54xx 2♥ f = 54xx After 1♦ 1♠, 1NT 2♣ ... 2♦ nf = weak, denies 3 hearts 2♥ nf = weak, 3 hearts 2♠+ f = any strong After 1♦ 1♠, 1NT 2♦ ... pass = to play, denies 3 spades 2♥ f = any strong 2♠ nf = 3 spades

Not a 5cM or NT strength tragedy at all, just a tragedy of not agreeing what your methods are. Playing "balanced club" style where 1C can be doubleton never leads to problems AFAIK. Playing transfers you again need agreements, and one of your options appears to be that, with "jump to 2NT over 1♠".

I think "system" implies "frequency", so if the majority of your constructive auctions involved relays you could describe it as a relay system. The occasional relay bid everyone makes (some more than others) is not that frequent, so this does not describe the system.

One of the troubles is that the blue book does not seem to say what canape means. Anyone who plays 5 card majors will presumably be alerting a possible 3 card 1♣ opening if partner could be possibly following with a natural 4 card major on his rebid.

Would it be a better comparison if boards were switched for part-rounds? For example, in an 8 table 3-boards-a-round, rather than switch the last round, you switched the first board on round 6, the second board on round 7, and the last board on round 8?

Silly to announce anything than "could be a singleton" or whatever, and indeed I believe the EBU regs expressly deny you the freedom to say anything different. If you alert and announce at the same time, people will think you are nuts - well, they wouldn't if you said it denied 3 spades as well, but certainly explaining a denial of 5 cards in a different suit goes against the principle of EBU alerts, which is to alert anything which a basic acol player would not do. If you are in the awkward situation of not knowing how an acol player would bid, then you sometimes get it wrong, but probably your typical hand for 1♣ would be opened the same in acol, dependent on NT strength.

I think it depends on the meaning of the 1♠ response, and in your methods you seem to want to squeeze in too many descriptions. Playing 1♠ natural with some partners, I prefer 1NT to be "natural" and show the 3-suiter (like Helene's). However, it may be useful to consider - when responder has a less than invitational hand and bids a natural 1♥ - that when you have a 3-suiter short in hearts you can describe it such that if there is a spade fit, responder can stop in 2♠. Similarly if he responds a natural 1♠ you should be able to describe a 3-suiter short in spades (your current problem) such that if he also has hearts he can play in 2♥. (Opener with long diamonds, or both minors, is not a problem.) Considering that, it seems that whichever major a less-than-invitational responder actually bids, you can always find a fit in the other. Therefore, how about looking at the idea of responder bidding hearts with either or both majors? This frees the 1♠ response to be inv+ hands, and with this you have more room to be able to explore. Could it be of help to you, if you can free the 1♠ reply in this way? Obviously your continuations over both 1♥/1♠ would be considerably altered, but you may be able to do what you want. My preferred methods are simpler, but use this approach.

From what I see, I think it is a common beginner* mistake to count losers when deciding to open or overcall a hand. This style of counting is ONLY suitable when you have prime support for partner, and only then when you cannot decide by other methods of determination. * "beginner" includes people who have been playing for 30 years

From your description of the options included in the 1♦ open, I would be thinking along the lines of not showing a 5 card major, but showing 3+ major(s) or diamonds. If hands (a) and (b) are going to be bidding that suit at the next bid, © is your only concern. How about a sort of transfer walsh style : pass = denies any of the others XX = 3+ hearts only, may have diamonds 1♥ = 3+ spades only, may have diamonds 1♠ = 4+ diamonds and no majors, 1NT = both 3+ majors, ...all the above being not strong enough to invite game opposite the intermediate opener, and 2♣ = any hand strong enough to invite game, and sort out the denomination later. This should let opener make a sensible rebid. As responder's bids showing a single major may or may not have diamond support, should it be the wrong major, you want opener of type © to bid 1NT or double RHO to show that, then let responder act sensibly.

While I am totally in favour of definitive regulations rather than a woolly (mis)interpretable aspirations, I think this is impractical. Would it be half the lines on a convention card, half of all possible bidding sequences, or that the probabilities of hands meeting those different bidding sequences is 50%? Maybe there should be no restriction if it cannot be simply described. If you wanted to have a card that only applied at Green against Red, 2nd and 4th seats, Thursdays only, but not after 8 pm, then as long as you present the appropriate cards at the beginning of the round, why not? Or you can do what the majority of people do, and that is have no card at all, just alert/announce/explain as required. Even that latter is more than most people do, the regulations being as they are.

If (some) people are happy to open a natural 1NT and have this include a 5 card major, without alerting, I don't see how anyone can object to a responder bidding a natural 1NT including a 4 card major.

How is it a problem? A correspondent noted earlier that 3rd seat may bid 4♠ (maybe NV on nothing but a long suit) before opener gets a chance to bid 4♥ if he accepts, or 3♥ to not accept. He is in an awkward situation of your own making. Even 3♠ is a problem. Let's say that without intervention your 4-card invitation of 3♣ is defined as up to 12 and your J2N 4-card support is defined as 13+. (The exact split is not the point.) After 1♥ (p) 3♣ (4♠) he may know the best call is double (penalty). After 1♥ (p) 2NT (4♠) he may ask for aces or make a slam try. If you combine both those bids into a Jordan 2NT, how does he proceed after 4♠? If he doubles and you have the 13 hcp hand and bid on, it is the wrong decision half the time. My 4 card invitation IS 3♣ (3M-2), and I see no reason to alter that - more useful than a fit jump over a double, I reckon.

I was thinking more of the 2NT bid, which concerned the OP, where 13+ is more of a deterrent than Jordan's 10/11+ anyway. With other hands, such as your limit raise, is it better to bid Jordan 2NT rather than 3M-2, which is slightly more preemptive? Is a fit jump really more useful than a splinter, which is probably more likely on the double? I can see you may agree that the rigours of a new suit 2/1 could be usefully shaded a couple of points, or say that these also imply major support, but I do not see the need to abandon your 2NT. Rather than expanding the meaning of one bid to encompass wider ranges of strength and content, putting opener into a hopeless position if third seat actually bids, why not keep your tighter definitions so that partner knows what to do when put under pressure?

Zel - please explain a little more (using denial) on the post#10 example where a strong hand (slam-interested) hand bids first, with C+D controls, and a limited partner may or may not have H. After spades have been agreed in a GF situation with a 3♠ bid, the strong hand bids 4♥, and presumably partner bids : 4♠ = no heart control 4NT = heart control and I am ace asking 5♣+ = heart control and I am giving my ace reply as if you had asked ? Or is this 4♥ a case of turning a DCB into an asking bid, and if it is an asking bid, what is the question?

I think my approach is common, and that is "ignore the double". Bid 2NT. You probably have a very well-defined map of raises and specific meanings when unopposed, so why bother to remember something different and inferior over a double? My 2NT (or rather 2M+1 in my case) is 13+, 4 card support, and partner knows where we are going. I expect the reasoning for a different bid is that it is not often do you have that hand after a double, so you could have a different use. My argument would be that (a) when you have that hand, partner needs to know it, and (b) there are no gaps in our standard methods (that occur to me) that could be plugged by having another bid.

No criticism needed, it sounds like you are very security minded anyway. Certainly VB makes you hooked. Years ago I wrote VB excel macros for managing the interclub teams, then found of course I couldn't use it when I parted with microsoft.

I find it practical. "To help you out when you lose the password" is the way your identity can be stolen, and your bank account with it. It is even more important when the "password" per se is requested as three random characters of your password. While this circumvents keystroke loggers, it is just a 3 character password from a hacking point of view. The follow-up answer to a secret question is therefore your opportunity to use a real password. Yes, if you lose it you will have to visit your bank manager with passport and proof of residence etc, but I dare say you'll get there in the end. Which is why I have my encrypted passwords at hand, in the safe, in the computer, and backups offsite. I expect auto password handlers may cope, but I don't like that idea, especially if "synched" to the world. Are you 100% convinced that the CIA or whatever does not have a backdoor? Or the software provider?

Other security ideas I adopt : Never do banking from a mobile. Not only does google know everything (even if you run your phone on cyanogen and turn off everything you can, you can't stop google), a phone is insecure. When a site has additional security questions such as "where were you born", never use the true answer, and use a different answer for each site. In fact, as there is no atlas verification (in this example), I can and do treat this as just another password of various random characters. Not only is this extra security, but it makes it impossible for anyone with access to your email account (should that be lost) to ring the bank and claim to be you who have forgotten your password. Your true partner's name, mother's name, date of birth and such stuff is semi-public domain and will be known to an impostor. Do not access banking from any site other than your own house and own computer. If you do access your (non-bank) email from a holiday wifi, or with a mobile, change the password afterwards asap. OK, I may be paranoid, but I do not use software password completion. With keypass, 1password, or any such aid all your eggs are in one basket. If that is hacked, you have lost everything. I think it better to use a collection of random characters for passwords, the longer the better (one of mine is in excess of 25), and to record these in encrypted form on paper and in a document on the computer (and in the safe). You can devise your own inversion, grouping, transposition, reversing etc method (unrecorded) that you mentally use for all passwords, such that the recorded characters bear no resemblance to the actual password, and is pretty unhackable even if someone broke in and stole my sheet of paper and the computer. When I lose the mental decryption capability, I will be handing my financial affairs to someone else! But for less important passwords, I use a common one that I easily remember. I don't mind if someone breaks into a website to see my purchase history of USB memory sticks.

Actually I would not recommend Kubuntu as it uses the KDE desktop environment, and this is definitely not for beginners. (I'm using KDE in Manjaro right now, and I like it, but it needs experience.) Plain vanilla Ubuntu is brilliant, easy, automatic. If you don't like the look of the unity desktop and want something more like microsoft, try Xubuntu, and try ubuntu mate. Or Zorin OS, which is based on ubuntu, but while I can praise ubuntu's support and updates, I have no experience of Zorin.

It's just a simple setting to make once only - no excuses. Firefox menu - preferences - privacy, then "accept third-party cookies" = "Never". While you are at it, "keep until" = "I close Firefox", and for any exceptions you must keep, put them in the "Exceptions".

Another thought on security is to have an email address which is not one you use for anything except access to those websites that need to access your bank/investment accounts. I can't help thinking that less used is more secure. My fromagegb account can be hacked with no consequence.

Thoroughly agree with the comments, but a couple of technical issues : 1) "Man in the middle" can spoof the HTTPS security, I believe, and the only way you'd know is by checking the fingerprints of the certificates each time you use a site (I don't), but I'm sure this was just a feasibility proof and not something you'll come across. 2) Firewalls do not prevent outgoing data unless you have configured exactly which programs can do that (and I have not done so), and the only way you'd practically know is to rigourously check logs that are switched to verbose mode. (And I don't.) I think the only practical method to prevent trojans is use software that has integral high security, and be careful in what you do.