el tombo

I bid 4N - I like bidding

Before we get to the hand I think the bidding needs explaining. With this partner (who is 15) we play no cuebids, standard blackwood, A completely natural system, Acol, 4 card majors etc... Partner is North who opens I am South who responds 1S (Pass) 2H (3D); 3S - 4C 4S - 4N 5D - 7C 4C = Natural 4N = Standard 5D = 1 Ace 7C was an attempt to get partner to pick the best grand slam. I was worried about the spade suit quality and I thought partner had less than 3 hearts so I didn't know 7H could be on. I realise blackwood was probably a waste of time with my hand (The south hand) but 7C was passed out and we missed 2 cold grands but here is the hand anyway: S: KQJxxxx H: AJxx D: x C: x S: Ax H: KQTxx D: - C: AKQTxx Lead: 9 of Spades I reasoned that the Diamond overcall by LHO ment that they probably didn't have 3 small clubs so I played for clubs to be 4-2 onside by cashing the Ace and King of Clubs then crossing to table in spades, ruffing a spade, cross with a heart, ruff a heart, cross with another heart and run spades for a trump coup. What are your thoughts on this hand? Was 7C wrong from my point of view? Should I play for trumps to be 3-3 (which they were)?

What seat? I bid 3N if partner hasn't passed yet and pass if he has already passed. Partner and I open most 11 counts so we are only worried about missing game if he has 10 pts or a good 9 and will get too high, vulnerable if he has less than that IMO.

I play 4th suit forcing as forcing to game (Is this a bad idea?) and 2N as lebensohl so 3C is definitely non-forcing with any partner I play with.

I thought an elopement was where you have a trump loser and 3 side suit losers (for example), needing 10 tricks, but you ruff with your small trumps so that you make 10 tricks and they end up having to ruff one of their partner's tricks. I may be wrong. I read that this play was called a "coup en passent" in Andrew Robson's book of Endplays and Squeezes

I bid 3H. In acol the opener will either have an unbalanced hand with 5 hearts or 15+ points. With 15 or 16 points balanced he would pass 2H (although game might not be great if he had 15 points and a balanced hand). I play Acol quite a lot and in the Acol club, Andrew Robson once conducted a lesson. He said "you must be agressive with limit raises in Acol because it is too easy to miss game if you have borderline hands and choose 2H". If you post your partner's hand we might be able to see if he was right in going to slam (It might be already posted and I missed it)

Since I open most 11 counts, 3D hasn't got much use for me as 10-12 points so I would elect 3D as I am a maximum for my previous bidding and I also play Acol with 4 card majors so partner must hold 5 diamonds or 15+ points (since he would open 1C with 4-4 in the minors and 4 of a major with 4 of a major and 4 diamonds) and would open 1N with 12-14

I have old habits from my 40-year old maths teacher who taught me how to play so maybe that is why I am so conservative

I did consider protecting with 2S but I didn't like the vulnerability and decided my hand didn't have much playing strength

I said the overcall would be on the 2 level because when I passed, the bidding went as follows: Pass (1N) Pass (2D); Pass (2H) All Pass As for cardsharp who said "I don't see any British Junior passing this hand", I passed this when it came up in an acol club league match with my England squad p (Me being 15 and p 13) and we lost 1 imp because we missed 4S which gained 7, although it was quite a bad contract, making on two 50-50 chances and a friendly spade layout (KJ doubleton onside in this case) Partner's hand: S: xxx H: Kxx D: Kxxx C: AKJ Your hand: S: QTxxxx H: xx D: AJ C: xxx I would not expect p to raise 2S but I just wondered whether I did something wrong. As it turned out, the opponents went off 2 in 2H so we had a good score compared to the preempters who left it in 2S so I was happy with my decision. I don't know why but I tend to be a lot more passive than most juniors and they moan at me a lot :)

S: QTxxxx H: xx D: AJ C: xxx Board 7, South to open, All vulnerable

I'd pass and lead a diamond. I don't see much chance of making a game because of the short hearts and lack of points. A club would be pointless because a ruff would remove a natural trump trick

Well then what about if there was a system where you get a level assigned depending on how well you play (eg if you are intermediate and you win a tournament, your level goes up but if you do badly your level goes down). People have probably suggested this before and I see why BBO isn't doing it (people would be discouraged from playing if their rating was low) but there could be an option to set it as private.

I haven't played in one before but I agree with what you are saying, what annoyed me about the $1 robot races were the prizes below $1. I had $3 left and I wanted to see how long I could keep going but I was annoyed when I got $0.90 as a prize for one tourney. What good is that? How do I enter a tourney withh $0.90? I think that the old way was better.

On BBO I spend most of my time in the Acol Club and occasionally in the BIL. The vast majority of people in those clubs are rated as intermediate and the problem I have is that the actual skill levels of those people range from people who miss game with 29 points combined and those who are training up to be in the England U20 squad, having attended a few training weekends, like my partner and I. I am not the sort of person who is fussy about who I play with but I believe that it would be a good idea to have skill levels as Upper Intermediate, Intermediate and Lower Intermediate so that people get a better idea of the sort of standard their partners are at. For example I was playing with an "Advanced" person the other day who had never heard of splinters. I bid a splinter, based on the fact that they were Intermediate and would know what it means and then they raised me to the 6 level. This example is a bit extreme but hopefully you get my point.