wank

i suggest you examine an imp conversion table. missing a vulnerable game is -10 or even -11 is possible when you score up your +150 with -660 at the other table. to think 4c is 'safe', assuming it was natural, is just mistaken.

rich people exploit the loopholes to avoid paying tax on their investment income is his (accurate) point i think.

yes 3nt. you know partner has the hearts stopped.

oh dear

lol

noone denies this might happen. similarly, noone would deny that you might turn partner away from a diamond lead from his qtxxx and onto a heart from Jx, or that you might go for 1100 on the hand. it's a matter of weighting the various possibilities as well as possible, not fixating on one aspect. if your weighting gives a different result to mine, then fair enough, but it's silly to pretend there's no downside to any choice.

definitely finesse for the reasons fluffy said. also if the spade finesse is wrong, you might already be losing to a few people who made north declarer and avoided a heart lead off a doubleton. how might they do it? bad players might open 1 spade, good pairs might bid 1c (5cM system) - 1h (spades), north might open 1NT and become declarer by a transfer, north might open a 2D showing 18-19 bal, north opens 2nt because he's your local bulgarian pro playing with a client, etc. these are not very likely, but you can normally find someone who's got to play from the other side.

3d. game might be on. they have a spade fit. i'll be shocked if 3d goes off. what's not to like?

one of the england team from opatija. i don't like saying who, because name dropping often makes you look like a prat, and i wouldn't want people sticking my own name up on a public forum just because i gave an opinion on a bridge hand.

i overcall more than pretty much anyone i know but i think there's lot more going for pass than people are giving credit. given partner's pass, it's unlikely to be our hand - we're shortish in spades so there's a fair chance the opps can outbid us even when we have a fit. i'm not scared about getting creamed at the 1 level. i'm more scared of partner supporting us to the 2 level and getting cracked when hearts are 4-1. this is a situation in which the opps will be happy to take a penalty. considering the vul and our hand having fair potential on defence relative to the shitty offence our poor suit and shape offers, i just don't think it's good risk/reward to be getting involved. i asked a better player than me who passed too fwiw.

you misunderstood. Mgoetze said 'the chance of trumps being 2-2 and diamonds being 4-3 is almost 26%'. i was pointing out you need the diamond finesse too which obviously lowers the percentage, to 13 presumably, but as he had forgot to include the chances of a stiff Q in his original calculation that raises the chances back up to er.. 20ish?

yes if you're playing strong NT and 4cM you have to have much stronger 2/1s, otherwise you'll have a problem over opener's 2NT rebid to show a weak NT and you'll lose minor fits when responder responds in a middle ranking suit. basically a 2/1 should have enough to force to game opposite a weak NT, or to get out into 3 of responder's suit if you want to play that as nf. this entails playing 1nt response as including most 11s, a la 2/1 etc. the big advantage of this method though is you're opening 1M on all your crappy balanced hands (best to play de facto 5cM when 18-19). this is pretty pre-emptive (not just directly, but responder is bidding 1NT often or raising and making it difficult for 4th hand), but considerably less dangerous than opening a weak NT. if you're playing weak NT and opening the major as many people do in england, as helene alluded to, the rebid for strong NT hands becomes very awkward. 1H-2C and you've got a 2434 16 count, what to do? rebid 2nt to start a force and most likely never end up showing your 4 card support? bid 3c and play there with 16 opposite 10 because you could also have a 2524 12 count? jump to 4c and bypass 3nt which is your most likely game? opening 1m solves that problem because you have more useful space to raise partner's major response - you can conflate some of the hands (unbalanced minimums and low end strong NTs) into the simple raise, knowing that responder has space to unravel what you actually have, and the jump raise is now a valid option as it's not taking you past anything critical (be it 4M itself or the space required to investigate slam). my aversion to weak and opening the minor though is because your 1M becomes rare and normally 5 cards, without actually promising it. in fact, the times when you only have 4 are the ones when you're least likely to want to bid up (4333 and 44 both majors), which puts you in a poor position in competition. yes you can do start doing something like fromagegb said and playing 5 card spades, but that's obviously an extra layer of complexity.

yeah you need the kd in the slot, but you do get a little back for stiff q of hearts.

it's a terrible idea. not helpful i know. i'm guessing it's something like 2d = no ace, 2h = ace, 2s = ace, 2nt = 2+ aces, 3c = ace, 3d = ace. i'd just check what he plays 2nt as. it would be obvious to a child that you're pre-empting your strongest hands for very little gain. you try bidding akjxxx akqx void aqx after 2c-3d when you've no idea about responder's shape.

as i wrote previously, there is very little good material on acol. people do largely what they like and if you asked them why, they would have no idea what you're talking about; this includes teachers. lest anyone thinks i'm making this up, i play the national tournaments and sometimes need to know the opps' style. a question normally gets a blank stare and reveals the opps don't know their own style or that there might even be a choice of style. i won't bore you with the explanation but i suggest the following:- with 44 majors you should definitely open 1 heart. with 44 minors both styles are fine and have their strengths and weaknesses, but i think for a beginner it's probably easier to open 1D. the interesting one is 44 reds. fwiw, i think it's much better theoretically to open hearts if you're playing a strong no-trump and diamonds if you're playing weak no-trump. 4 card majors works much better with a strong no-trump imo, but weak no trump is far more popular, again the people playing it will have no idea why they do so. in case i've not made it clear enough, i think the standard of bidding is very low in UK compared to other countries and compared to the quality of the card play.

not your best effort. ns did pretty well against par by passing it out.

responding 1NT to an overcall shows more than it would if you were responding to an opening bid (6-9/10). this is because overcalls are made on lower ranges (you don't need anywhere close to 12 points to overcall and with 18/19+ you normally start with a takeout double and then introduce your suit on the second round). as such a 1NT response to an overcall is normally a good 7-12 or so. however, when the overcall is in the passout position as in the original post, the overcall can be far weaker as partner needs to protect your hand. you might have a relatively strong hand which had no suitable call (12 is ok, but you could easily have 14 or 15. maybe more if you had a lot of RHO's suit and hoped to get a penalty). as the overcall now has an even lower range, so the responses change too. a basic principle for bidding after a passout position call is 'transferred king', which means you in the direct seat pretend you have 3 points less and bid accordingly, and partner who protected has 3 points more. your 12 count perforce becomes a 9 count and you respond 1NT. by the way, if you plan to play more online than face to face in clubs, dump acol and play some sort of 5 major system. also if you happen to be in london 5 card majors are normal enough anyway. aside from not being very good, acol has very little published material, because it's hardly played anywhere outside the lower echelons of UK based bridge.

you pass over 1d and then bid no trumps over 1s. for everyone here that would be 1NT, showing a lot more than 6-9, more like 10-13. if, for whatever reason, you play 1nt as 6-9, you have to bid 2nt.

you ask them. they're supposed to answer questions if they have an agreement.

i did mean it. i have played it myself with partners who like to get their own way when it comes to bidding (not that i'm claiming to play superior methods. i'm lazy and happy to sit down with anyone and see what happens with no more discussions than leads and signals). of course you're right though that its infinitely less attractive by responder, as opener very frequently has a strong 1 suiter to make up his 2C strength, but, well, people like consistency. i might be wrong, but i'm sure i've seen it espoused on here from both hands.

i doubt we can make game after partner's pass. i wouldn't double because i'm nowhere near strong enough to commit to game considering partner's most likely response is 4 clubs. so the choice is 3H or pass. i think the chances of going plus are greater on defence. the argument for bidding is finding partner with enough to raise, despite my doubting it's very likely, but there's also a fair risk of getting sawn off - we are at the 3 level on what will often be a working 11 count with no known fit and signs of bad breaks.

it rather depends what the rest of your system is. for example many people in my locality play 3S directly as 4S, longer diamonds, in which case 4S over 4C would have to be a cue. i believe this is also quite popular in forum land. no reason for it not to apply after 2H. i rather agree with you about bidding 3 diamonds though. still, that wasn't part of our remit.

Real situation.... declarer faints during the hand and drops her cards on the table such that they're visible. unfortunately i don't know the hand, but you can safely assume the defenders will not be challenged after seeing declarer's cards land face up on the table, but let's assume they would have had a problem otherwise. how do you proceed? oh yes i should made it clear declarer was fine and this was very much a momentary thing.

i'd like to be in 7s by north. do i get above average?

4c-4s-keycard-1-kings?-diamonds-another try-spades too - 7nt