wank

What does 3c show, some sort of checkback? That's pointless. Anyway yes i'm going to investigate slam. If i can't bid 3c productively , i'll have to bid 4.

lol you do undeerstand that east bid 2 hearts to show hearts, right?

obviously north's got no option but to bid as he did, whatever methods are in use. i think south knowing partner has a game force despite not having spade support or enough in the opps' suits to bid 3nt could make a slam try. however, it's not obvious there is one available without forcing to the 5 level - is 4 hearts a self-agreeing cue for spades or a strong hand with diamonds? tricky. perhaps the solution is for south to break the transfer in your methods. opposite a weak hand with diamonds or a spade raise, you have a pretty good hand and you must be expecting a club raise from opener so it would be helpful to show your extra shape. off on a tangent, i detest weak jump overcalls. i'll mark this down as another would be victory for intermediate.

there are lots of lotteries out there with different rules. the australian keno lottery is very doable i heard.

i'm not letting them play it. i'd bid 6c the first time, just in case it puts them off.

most of the people who hate gambling don't understand what it really is. it's just an exercise in maths and risk-reward, much like investing money (yes even in a pension - you're just delegating the choice of investment to the pension company) or buying insurance. of course the odds are normally against the customer (as they are when you buy insurance), but as with the lottery rollovers, with a little selectivity one can find opportunities with a positive expectation. those very same betting shops which have FOBTs also often have very generous offers on horse-racing bets as a loss-leader to get people through the doors to play the machines.

as i do frequent LBOs (betting shops), i've had plenty of opportunity to observe the people playing these machines. interestingly they adopt a very different strategy to casino roulette players. in the shops they almost all cover around 80% of the numbers, albeit to varying degrees, rather than the casino punters who normally restrict themselves to around 15%. i suspect this is to do with the nice graphical representation or where your money's going and the ease of touching the screen to spread it around. anyway, this means they're betting considerably more per spin which is of course fantastic for the shops and bad for the punters' wallets.

yes opener's never going to have great hearts. considering you don't have many ways to set hearts as trumps and bid on, it's a bit of a waste to utilise 5h to differentiate between a narrow range of crappy holdings. as for what 5h should show, it sets hearts as trumps and should have a spade control after 3S. you don't have the space for much science here. fwiw some people play 1d-1M-2c as forcing. i don't know the logic behind that (i suspect it has something to do with opps never letting you play 2C when it's your optimal spot), or the follow-ups. it may or may not help on hands like this.

obviously you're in a force so playing double as 4 spades or take-out is very inefficient. it's more common to use pass and double to differentiate between having some modest values and having crap. it doesn't hugely matter which way round you play it.

no the machines oryc was referring to are not like fruit machines/US slot machines. these are machines for playing roulette and other such table games and allow stakes of upto $150 per spin. it's all computerised so it's much faster than similar games in a casino. in england they're only legal in licensed betting shops (traditionally designed for horse race and sports betting), but we have a much more laissez-faire attitude to gambling here so you're never more than a few hundred metres from a betting shop (or 5) even in very small towns. there is however a limit of 4 machines per shop.

obviously rho has diamonds, not hearts. i presume as you didn't bid 4h over 2h that you think your hand's too strong, ok. so now you bid 4d.

north underbid. he can jump to 5h over 3nt.

the best i can come up with is something like a kjtxxxxx xx xx. he has no way to set hearts and wheel out keycard and the 5 level isn't safe anyway if you have the wrong cards. i think he has to have a spade card for his 3s bid, otherwise he could bid 3h, 4h to show a slammy hand in hearts.

2c p p p is the worst sequence for a 2c overcall and, no, it's not uncommon.

partner's limited to about 7 or a bad 8 points, less with a 5 card spade suit. just pass - you don't care if partner has 4 or 5 spades at the 1 level. you've described your hand nicely and by passing you're 95% telling partner you only have 3. if they compete with 2d you can consider doubling again - you don't have enough to make game, but you do have enough to fight harder for the part score considering your extra shape suitability (this would pretty much guarantee this exact shape - you'd only pass 1s and act again with a singleton diamond so you must be 3415 if you can't support spades). as for what 1 spade from partner shows, it rather depends what double of 1 heart shows. doubling 1 heart traditionally shows 4 hearts, in which case 1 spade just shows 4+ spades. if you play that double of 1h is take-out, there are still 2 ways to play. you could play 1S as 5 and double as 4, to make doubler's decision easier at the 3 level, or you could play it as takeout denying 4 spades, something like a 2344 8 count where 1nt will very often be better than 2C. as for the initial double as opposed to 2c, 'eating room' is a silly thing to talk about when you've probably got the best hand at the table. you should be more worried about the opps taking your room. if they do, it's much less of a catastrophe to miss your club fit than your major fit.

unless they have a fit it's better to bid earlier. if we smack 2h in the passout they're in a great position to double us, having found they've got no fit, and there's a good chance it's misfit for all sides and we're endplaying partner. it's much harder for them to get us if we can stop in 2m.

wtf? double's insanely aggressive. white at matchpoints? oh, yes, i'm in.

no he's not. if he has a hand to pull a double, he has a hand to bid over 5c.

i wonder if those people who whine about gambling also buy insurance

obviously you shouldn't play double as penalties, but if that's how you play it you have to double anyway.

double. i wouldn't call pass ridiculous, just extremely tame. 1nt is obv a capital crime.

i was wondering where TheHog had disappeared to.

if we were playing some obscure method where 2c isn't game-forcing, i expect the op would have told us.

2c would have been a gross overbid. as for what to do now, i prefer to double, because if i pass, partner will almost certainly double and i won't know what to do.

i hope you apologised to partner for distracting him with your slow bidding.