gszeszycki

I will arrive around 145 pm for system chat

I am all in favor of heads of all kinds of agencies deciding to pass rules/regulations w/o showing them to the ones that will be affected by those rules/regulations. How else can I get a chuckle reading about SB???????:) too bad government idiot rules can be dangerous.

trick 1 ruff (yay) trick 2 heart ace trick 3 club to ace Hoping for 11 split trick 4 dia K pitching heart If clubs split 11 trick 5 low heart ruff (you never know lho might have started with a doubleton K or a singleton) trick 6 small trump to dummy trick 7 Now I think the heart Q intending to take a ruffing finesse seems right since it seems reasonable lho has at least 2 spades (dia ace seems too risky with a singleton) 2 hearts 1 club 7 dia seems reasonable so only 1 vacant space left vs a TON for rho. this is only a small improvement over Zelandakh If clubs fail to split flip a coin and good luck

The 4s bid is indeed odd but the 6s bid is other worldly bad. Once p has been warned you have a no defense distributional hand that x is done with malice (and a mallet) leave it in.

future reference I will play with anyone:))))))))))))))))))) all I ask is they show up maybe 10 min prior to match to discuss carding system etc.

available

trick 3 I will try the top dia with the intention of pitching a heart (I no longer have to worry about 2 heart losers) if rho has (a highly unlikely) 3 dia or fails to ruff. If rho does ruff I will overruff and bang down the spade A and another spade. If lho stated with Kx they may feel endplayed and defend improperly (nothing wrong with giving the defense a chance to make a mistake). Worst case scenario we should have enough dummy entries to take the club finesses and lead toward the heart K (if needed).

x and intending to do nothing over any simple rebid by p (except raise 3h to 4h). Why this point of view with so much? It is because this hand is actually slightly WORSE than p expects you to have on average. Does that sound bonkers? Think about it lho passed p passed and rho preempted. Lho and p on average with have around 6.5 and the preempter probably closer to 8.5. So our average hand is around 18.5. P will know this and bid accordingly. This is one of the main reason preempts work so well they force opps to rely more on averages than specifics.

it is not hare to work around the dealer being stuck at north but it is ESSENTIAL for new players to pay attention to vulnerability and allowing a choice of random vulnerability (a choice that is not available) seems to be the way to go BUT even the 4 choices given do not work program seems stuck on none no matter what choice I use. If this is the wrong place for this tell me where to put this concern

got it ty for giving the imaginative side of my brain (it was smoking) a work out happy holidays

COME on all take advantage of rare opportunity to play against some of best players in the freaking WORLD. This weekend should be especially good since JEC will probably be bloated with imps after slaughtering me in the morning session so they will probably be sluggish.(sigh)

PASS yeah yeah yellow belly coward -- ostrich I've heard them all. I have even managed to bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak a few times when I made a pass like this at the table. What the heck do we expect to gain by bidding ANY number of clubs. It seems to me all any club bid will do is encourage the opps to reach a game they might otherwise miss. They should have around 22 HCp max so they seem slated to stop in a partial somewhere UNLESS a short club encourages lho to get a bit feisty and they then proceed to bid a probably easily making game (3n 4s heck 5d). Another problem is that irritating 1n bid BEHIND p. That means p hcp are worth probably close to half their normal value AND since rho looks like they have a balanced hand the odds in favor of rho holding 3+ clubs has risen considerably which means going for a number has risen considerably. I hear so many complaining the opps might actually land in the right strain and we lose a part score battle (this does not scare me one whit). What scares me is the possibility we get hammered in clubs vs the opps actually making only a partial. Can we shut partner UP? what if they have no sense of humor about our 3c bid and do something not realizing just how decrepit (though long) our club suit is. There they are looking at aces and a couple of clubs and you can see them wondering if they should gamble 3n. If you can picture this then you might get a good example of what 3c should look like AQJTxx (at these colors).

It is good to see all of those donations to BBO forum are starting to pay off with top notch advertising GO BBO FORUM POSTERS

What happens if you merely bid 3h vs taking control? I realize it becomes partnership dependent now but try to avoid using a tool that will most likely not give you the information you need. You have no idea how strong/weak opener is at any time during the bidding and it is indeed unfortunate opener is near minimum. Don't beat yourself up too much but try and avoid grand slams w/o some clear idea on just how you intend to make it. over 3h maybe p can show a second suit or bid 3n to show [extra (now going to 4n would seem right) values].

The concept here is we have NO CLUE how many controls opener has when they rebid 1n and no simple way to find out. The next best thing is to try and show where ten (+)of our cards are located (!H !C) and let p decide if they have a slammish hand or not. The bidding we are going to describe uses something called the Principle Of Fast Arrival (POFA). POFA essentially means when you know where you are going go directly there. If you go slowly somewhere it shows extra values. 1d 1h 1n 3c* How the bidding proceeds depends on what opener bids next. If opener cannot bid 3n our hand becomes much better mainly because opener has limited "wasted" power in one of our singletons. For the time being we will assume opener bids 3n. We still have no idea if they hold Axx Jx Axxxx QJx it would be super superb and we would have 13 tricks off the top. If opener holds KQJ xx KQJx Qxx. Now the 5 level could be in jeopardy (if you were to explore for slam) if !H split poorly. 3n 4h NOW the reason for the bidding has been revealed. By bidding 3c first THEN going to 4h responder has used the Principle of Fast Arrival by SLOWLY arriving at 4H. Responder could easily have jumped to 4h earlier in the bidding but by choosing to go slowly they have shown extra values. Responder is asking opener to look at their hand (in context of the bidding) and decide if it looks slammish or not. The !S and !D ace are superb values along with anything located in !H/!C. Opener makes the next decision go or no go.

trick 6 instead of ducking to the K rise with the ace trick 7 spade to ace trick 8 ruff a spade trick 9 ruff a club trick 10 ruff a spade trick 11 diamond and no matter what west does we will score up our 8th trick though I admit the ending reached in the problem certainly is cute:)

GOOD QUESTION:) Looking at the nature of your hand can also help determine if playing in a 44 fit might be beneficial vs a 54 fit. There appears to be no plausible benefit so searching for a 44 fit seems like a waste of time. Change your distribution to 4423 or 4432 and there is plausible reason to search for a 44 spade fit. The hand in question should have no worries concentrating solely on hearts as trump with the only problem being how to proceed. All systems are different so one must choose a tool that fits the overall system and I cannot possibly cater to every conceivable system. Once it has been decided looking for a 44 spade fit offers no likely benefit we need to determine just how strong our hand is vs the opening 1h bid. IMHO I would not stop below game but is it best to just blast or take time to try and show WHY we want to be in game (the 4 card support + short dia)? I would go for the splinter on the theory that the 5 level "should" be safe if p has an appropriate hand to start searching for slam. I would be even happier if we happened to be playing mini splinters (all NOINT jumps to the 3 level are splinters) because it leaves more space to explore and thus less danger. After the splinter opener is so strong and hand so perfect opposite our short dia they will be searching for a grand but signing off in 6h when they find we are missing 1 key card. There are other routes to 6 but none as easily clear cut as the splinter route. IMHO treating this hand as invitational (especially at IMPS) will doom you to a huge disadvantage over your bridge career. If you like to open "garbage" (Kaitlyn S) then be prepared to get overboard sometimes do not sell your side out of games for fear this is one of those stinko openers.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKK BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK PASS This chicken has no idea who can make what and at these colors guessing to be aggressive (especially against a (semi) strong 2 bid normally leads one down the path of doom. We have described our hand pretty well so why not let partner make any final decisions.

Given the bidding this HAS to be a solid spade suit with virtually nothing else suggesting possible slam. I would have started with 4n (normal blackwood) and bid slam if p showed up with at least 2 aces. I do not expect much support for this action but I does not take much to make slam and maybe we can keep the opps bidding at bay by seeking slam right away. While I would bid 5s over the x I have some sympathy for those that want to try and x the vul opps. The problem is most likely the very hand p wants to x the opps with is the type of hand we make slam (and maybe even a grand) with.

What kind of hand are we expecting from the dummy? Was this the monster preempt with no chance of making (we might be making 6s or more if that is the case) OR was it a bid with a chance at making. One might expect the latter to look something like void Kx(x) Axxx(xx) AKxxx(x). It is possible for the opps void to be anywhere BUT it is much more likely to be a major suit void since a long major suit might score better than diamonds and the opp made no effort to introduce their long suit (simply because clubs will score no better than diamonds and diamonds rates to be a better contract. Thinking this way it seems logical to play lho for a void in spades and attack using the heart J. Who knows maybe we will even score 3 heart tricks off the top (not to mention it might be the only way to score 2 heart tricks)(unavailable with any other suit lead). If we are assuming the bid to be lightner I would try a low club since it seems hugely unlikely lho is long in spades.

QUOTE IMP teams. Systemic agreements are to not let them play in 2m undoubled. Partner's X of 2♦ would have been optional - neither pure penalties nor pure takeout (so his pass is consistent with either of the latter). UNQUOTE Partner is strong so game is a real possibility. if we examine the evidence we find p has 3-5 spades 3-5 hearts (but probably not both (5) since a 3d call is probably available for that) 3-5 dia 0-2 clubs. Our hand is worth zero on defense so that means p will be defending by themselves. On offense we might have a spade ruff (or two) and be able to use the entry(ies) to take probably successful finesses. The bidding seems to indicate pure penalty since it is totally unreasonable to assume p has a tox with a max of 2c. SOO does the pure penalty mean p expects to always have 6+ tricks in defense or is it merely a strong suggestion that 2d x looks like our best spot? At MP where just defeating 2d is probably worth some MP, x seems ok. Imps though is another story. Unless 2dx is slated to down 2 (p can take 7 tricks in their hand) bidding 2h will rarely be a horrific result and may allow us to make a game. That is what the risk vs reward concept means. 2H is not necessarily the end of the bidding since p can still come back with 2n 3n 3h 4h 2s (even 3d then we wish we had passed). With such a horrific hand for defense it just seems prudent to run flee scurry for cover and hope to survive. Another consideration is it possible p meant the pass as TOX for the majors (since south showed both minors) we do not know for sure. If p is showing the major suit tox then leaving 2d in might be a disaster with them making and our side having a heart game. Without a clear understanding of this particular auction it seems much clearer to bid 2h due to the fog of war. 2h = 7 p = 3 x = 1

defense is HARD the backs of the cards constantly confound the defense. I really do not want rho on lead if possible right now because I have a lot to do and not many entries to work with. At trick 3 I would try a low spade toward the 9. Rho will not win the J (unless they also have the ace or get the heck out of that game asap). This means it suddenly becomes possible to set up 3 spades due strictly to guile at no expense to entries. The second benefit is it starts to cloud the issue for the defense since it appears we have the spade ace (even if w wins the J). If w does win the J they may try something heroic (like a club or dia) which will at worst give us back our spade trick and maybe give us a significant advantage (if they return a club). If the 9 holds does anyone wish to guess what the position of the outstanding spade honors are?

Most cue bids are done for one main reason: someone wants to explore slam and they do not have enough information to take over the bidding. Most cue bids are merely controls (including singletons) that show at least 2nd round control of the suit bid. Early cue bids are designed to make sure slam is not hopeless before getting beyond game and then proceeding to explore further after the 5 level seems safe (unless someone can take control sooner). Grand slams can be bid via cue bids if enough information needs to be exchanged. With your given hand I would cue bid 4s since You still need extras from partner in order to bid 6. As best I can tell your p did nothing more than have a preference for clubs and maybe a smattering of hcp. The 4h cue bid is not normal in the sense that most partnerships do not consider shortnes nor the Q a cue biddable feature. So you are at best at a guess as to which type of feature partner is trying to show. The size of the trump support is also a factor over which you have no idea. Your 4s merely keeps the bidding alive while letting your partner know you cannot comfortably take over slam bidding despite knowing all the suits are controlled. Cue bidding 2nd round controls is not perfect since it is feasible for a partnership to cue bid 3 kings and get too high at the 5 level but it happens rarely. this is a huge subject overall but just keeping the above in mind will help you make many sound decisions.

I will show up just in case you need someone

spade Q The bidding was suspect at best (w/o knowing the opps agreements when using MSS). There is a pretty fair chance Rho has reached with 3n bid. While P may not have a ton of values it is easy for them to have spade length making the spade Q a huge favorite to not give away contract while having a strong chance to set it. A low heart while more aggressive has a much greater chance of giving declarer a trick in an otherwise unmakeable game and it is very unlikely the 4th heart will be sufficient to set the contract spade Q = 10 low heart = 5 pretty much everything else = 0