ggwhiz

Any regular partnership of a decent skill level gets to 2♠ very easily and when your partner owns a raise to 3♦ (as they do here) they will punish it more often the better they are, especially if you do this when red. If your mission is to club the baby seals, so be it but you won't be graduating to tougher fields this way.

Indeed. The most hopeless bridge student I ever had was the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The 2nd worst spoke 8 languages and gave security briefings to Nato before being appointed as a Citizenship judge. Brilliant people that were hopeless in so many ways. My favorite was Pierre Treuill, a multiple National Pairs champion and an actuary. He got a call from his bank about bouncing a check and found 6 months worth of paychecks in his dresser drawer. Once went into work and when he couldn't find anyone to go to lunch with found out it was Sunday. His wife phoned the club to tell his partner that Pierre can't play with you today cause he can't find the garage door opener (and apparently had no idea how to open it otherwise). And dozens more that are the stuff of local legend.

The biggest difference is in card play. Meticulous attention to detail such as declarer facing a lead of low to the Queen winning the Ace from Ace King and always hiding as many cards as possible for as long as possible from the defence. Having the vision on defence to win trick one and switch to a club from Jxx into dummies AQx catching partner with the King and enough time to capture that trick later but not too late. Inspired plays and falsecards are written up far more often than bids imo.

Apparently not or they were hedging on a double to direct a lead. Very unclear what lead a double would ask for and given that an invite got a minimum response and then bid game anyway I think the fact that partner has a little something of interest is AI and don't feel constrained. With the clubs under control communication rates to be their problem and I'm tempted to lead a small diamond. The ♥K could be the last time I'm on lead and subject partner to repeated endplays.

It's a partnership agreement that you need to make and didn't have. My partnership decided on sound openings with 12 counts opposite forcing to game and damn the torpedoes. We would still open 1♠ with a singleton somewhere and a 6-4 or at least some 109's outside (per Helene's take) with the east hand but 2♠ with that one. Otherwise, take your lumps. If you can't game force with THAT 12 count you better not play for $$.

Basically the same but we use 3nt to show a good hand for spades but flattish and 4♦ to show 3 spades and a quality 5-card suit.

Nice touch having most of the planet celebrate your birthday at midnight. :D

Hard to see the GOP initiating impeachment proceedings but no longer impossible. A bipartisan effort in that direction is on the way at least. This guy is heading towards more of a threat than the Cuban missile crisis was. I'm watching Leon Panettas take on this and the look on his face is one of impending doom.

This has the makings of a disaster. Why would I want to declare it? Besides, someone can turn the dummy for me while I go to the bar.

You can Force to game, Just compete or Invite game but often you only have room to do 2 of those. Sometimes a general values showing double is not appropriate as in your examples. On 1 you can invite with 4♦ giving up on 3nt, maybe more attractive at imps and if you cue 3♠ I suppose you could pass if opener bids 4♦ but are stuck in 3nt or forced to game if they bid anything else. That's by agreement in that when we can't handle all 3 of the approaches above, Invites is what we choose to lose and most common in my neck of the woods. The competitive option of 3♦ is most frequent and most important as it can be a pretty scrappy hand trying to bump them up.

This guy threw his hat in the ring for the Chief of Staff job and I think he would be perfect!

This all applies to the first 1/2 of a KO match but when I'm up 30 I want to be in identical contracts for the most part afterwards. There are many examples of strong teams in an NABC event up 40 or 50 playing the last segment to bend but not break, prevent defence in football etc.

Are your opponents playing the same methods? Given the state of the match they won't be downgrading anything at the other table so doing so here is just putting another swing board in play.

pass period. My heart holding sucks and if I double my only likely plus is if partner bids only 2♠, float and everything breaks right. On a good day rho is short in hearts and we can go plus right here.

Many years ago a Canadian expert held something like ♠AKQJxxxxx, ♥AQJx and his rho opened 1♦ He overcalled 1♥ intending to bid 5nt (graded gsf) next to find the ♥K and played it there, down a couple.