jallerton

Surely it can't be right to bid the same way with 4-6 and 6-4 in the minors. How is partner expected to judge which strain to select?

As a matter of course, do you expect players to call the TD whenever there has been an incorrect use of the 'stop' card? Well it's not quite that simple. West should either raise to 3♣ or cue bid 2♠ (though I have known some poorer players to pass 2-level overcalls on hands like West's). If East chooses to bid 3♦ next then West should envisage 4-6 in the minors opposite and should not want to play in 3NT. Perhaps West will jump to 5♣. East's options now might depend on whether West bid clubs or spades on the first round. By the way, you state that "East has no UI", perhaps on the basis that South was the one who pointed out to East that 2♣ was not a jump. However, West presumably didn't alert 2♣. Isn't the failure to alert 2♣ UI to East?

Congratulations. I can understand why you are excited. You'll get to play against the "#1 PLAYER ON THE PLANET"!

Are you seriously suggesting that synchronised swimming is a sport?

It seems random because it is random which particular information from the round robin stage happens to become extraneous. The teams play a lot of boards during the group round robin stage. During that time, every team will have matches where the team plays well and/or is lucky (resulting in high VP scores), and other matches where the team plays relatively badly and/or is unlucky (resulting in low VP scores). Will a team get to carry forward its high scores or its low scores? In fact, later posts have revealed that some of the information from the group stage against non-qualifying teams was used in some sense. Maybe, but in these championships they did not play a complete round robin in the final stage of the tournament. I agree that the teams finishing 8th and 9th in the group stage are likely to be too far behind the leading teams to catch up, but my point was about the scores carried forward by the leading teams from the matches against the teams finishing 8th and 9th in the group stage.

Which method is "this method"? You curently play your 1NT response to 1M as 100% forcing. Do you have an agreed meaning for 1M-1NT-2any-3NT? Let's say that you currently play this sequence as showing 13-15 balanced, without 3-card support for partner or any 5-card suit. If you now switch to "semi-forcing", you can no longer afford to respond 1NT on 13-15 balanced in case partner passes 1NT. This doesn't necessarily create a hole in the system, but you need an alternative way of bidding these hands (starting with 2♣ or with 2 of your lowest 4-card suit, for example). In fact, playing my preferred version of "semi-forcing", the sequence 1M-1NT-2m-3NT does exist: it shows a maximum 1NT response, perhaps one which has been improved by Opener's rebid. As Opener tends to pass 1NT with a (sub)minimum opening bid, Responder can take advantage of this inference on the next round. JLOGIC was explaining that if Opener has an average balanced 13-count opposite an unexciting 12-count, he might bid 1S-1NT-P playing his preferred version of "semi-forcing" whilst playing a forcing 1NT response the auction might go 1S-1NT-2C-2NT-P. Playing my version of "semi-forcing" the auction would go 1S-1NT-2C-3NT-P or the equivalent. Similarly 1S-1NT-2D-4S might be played as 13-15 balanced with 3-card support if you playing forcing NT. Playing "semi-forcing" this cannot be the case, so for me it shows a hand with 3-card support which was originally planning to show a limit raise but has been improved by Opener's rebid.

It's perfectly playable to play all of Opener's rebids and continuations exactly as you do currently over a forcing NT response. The only differences are: 1. Opener passes 1NT with a (sub)minimum balanced or semi-balanced hand; and 2. Responder can obviously no longer start with 1NT on any FG hands (e.g. 13-15 balanced might start with a forcing NT, if available). I wouldn't worry too much about playing in 1NT when Responder has a limit raise. Sometimes you would have been better in the major, but other times you find that your 1NT= beats 3M-1 at other tables.

Do you have many national tournaments in which people from all parts of the country travel to participate? Spain is not a small country, so travelling from one end to the other is a long way to go to play just one session per day. It would certainly be helpful to the national team if Spanish tournaments were to change their format to 2(+) sessions per day. Perhaps you need to play in more foreign tournaments, but you don't necessarily have to go all the way to North America; there are plenty of decent standard tournaments in Europe. Playing lots of boards on BBO might help the auto-pilot, but many people don't concentrate at the same level when playing online, so it may not be the best way of practising. If you do use BBO, play against people you know to be decent partnerships. The slightly unusual thing about the European Championships is that each set is of 20 boards. With screens, that is 2 hours and 50 minutes without a break. It's definitely worth replicating this format in practice matches, so that you can learn to concentrate as well on board 20 as you can on board 2.

It may seem logical, but it creates such strange scenraios. Imagine that teams A, B, C and D are in the same group. The group results include the following: A & B tie 15-15 A beat C 25-5 B beat D 25-1 C beat B 25-5 D beat A 25-5 C beat D 16-14 Teams A and B are the top 2 teams in the group (in joint first place) and qualify easily. At the end of the event, A and B are the top two teams overall. By co-incidence, they have achieved identical scores against teams E,F,G,H.I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P and Q. Teams C and D are borderline qualifiers. They finish 9th and 10th in the group stage. Scenario 1. C&D finish the group stage on the same number of VPs but C goes through on a split tie. Now: Team A gets to carry forward 25VPs from its match against C, but nothing from its match against D. Team B gets to carry forward 5VPs from its match against C, but nothing from its match against D. So A is 20VPs ahead of B going into the final stage. Scenario 2. D finishes the group stage 1 VP ahead of C, so now D is 9th and C is 10th. Team A gets to carry forward 5VPs from its match against D, but nothing from its match against C. Team B gets to carry forward 25VPs from its match against D, but nothing from its match against C. So now A is suddenly 20VPs behind B going into the final stage! So you could have a situation where D making an extra overtrick against an out of contention team, creates a swing of 40VPs in the relative scores of A and B in the final ranking! Also, picking up on MickyB's point, B would have been better off beating D by fewer IMPS! Compared with Scenario 1, if B had beaten D 25-5 rather than 25-1, D would have progressed at the expense of C, thus increasing B's score in the final ranking by 20VPs!

Yes, the format is fun for spectators, giving them reasons to root for lots of different teams. Unfortunately, the format is less fun for the players, particularly those who get on the wrong end of the random carry forward - or not - of particular scores from the first round robin.

That can't be it, as there are no EBL events solely for gentlemen/men/males/blokes. There is an Open event (open to all) so that would pair with Restricted or some similar word.

Sorry, Paul, apparently it is impossible to avoid offending people whatever one says these days! I was taught that "lady" is a polite term so I am very surprised if any female adult objects to the word. Do you know if any of the people you refer to are planning to watch the tennis at Wimbledon next week? There is a popular competition called the Ladies' Singles. Will the Scots be supporting Andy Murray in the Gentlemen's Singles?

If playing your suggested style, do you keep your 1M openings up to strength? If playing 2/1 responses as game forcing, it doesn't seem right that 1M-1NT-Pass could be a 3+ point range. I think this style works better with a (13+)14-16 1NT opening in 1st/2nd seats.

I see that the Turkey Open team and the Turkey Ladies team are both doing well and yet not a single entry predicted either of these teams to be in the top six. On reflection it was possible to work out that this was a mistake. Anybody who logs on to BBO regularly should know that there are more Turkish experts than there are experts in the rest of the world put together!

Sorry, Justin, but I have never claimed to be an expert in Ladies' Bridge! Anyway, you and I had the Danish Ladies in 6th place, so we only lose one point. I'm more concerned about some of my other predictions!

I think double of 5♠ here shows spade support, suggesting that partner compete to 6♠ over 6♣. Presumably 5♠ shows a spade void, so why would you want to play double as asking for a spade lead? If you must agree to use double as lead directing, it should ask for a specified unbid suit. Then, if partner remembers this, when you pass he will often lead the suit double didn't ask for. Although I play WJOs over 1-level openers, I prefer to play (2♣Precision)-3♠ as constructive because: (i) (2♣)-2♠ cannot be as wide a range as (1♣)-1♠; partner will often pass 2♠ on hands where he would have kept the bidding open over 1♠. (ii) having to double 2♣ on a decent single-suiter in undesirable. (iii)the 2♣ opening is quite well defined in strength and shape and pre-empting is less likely to give the opponents a problem.

Interesting. Over a 1st seat pre-empt I'd expect partner to have (at least) a doubleton club most of the time because of the lack of a 4♣ bid. Now partner has made a passed hand double, I expect partner to have a singleton club, ergo clubs is most likely to be a 7-3 fit for the opponents.

The trouble is that: (i) 3♥ covers a wide range of strength, which we may not be able to properly clarify later; and (ii) Partner may be expecting 3-card support, particularly if 3♥ over 2♦ would have been non-forcing. In my opinion, it's better to bid 2NT on the previous round; then partner will have a good indication as to our hand type and strength. Yes, the ♥AQ are nice, but the rest of the hand is poor, and the opening bid is a devalued currency these days. We probably have no 8-card fit to play on in 3NT. This saves some space when Responder has a game force, but it's only playable if your system has another way to show weak/intermediate single-suited hands with spades. 1♥-P-2♠ can be used to cover some of these hands, but probably not all.

France started very strongly, but despite fielding the "#1 PLAYER ON THE PLANET" in the last match today France seems to have lost it 25-5 to Wales. The adverse swings do not seem particularly unlucky either.

Fair enough, Sven, but you are the director. How do you determine the answers to questions 1,2 and 3?

I'm surprised that nobody has put Spain in the top 6. Do you guys know who Fluffy is?

My entry: Open: 1. The Netherlands 2. Italy 3. Poland 4. Sweden 5. Israel 6. Monaco Ladies: 1. France 2. The Netherlands 3. England 4. Poland 5. Sweden 6. Denmark Seniors: 1. Poland 2. England 3. France 4. Italy 5. Germany 6. Denmark

......but if the small countries you mention do not make it to the second stage, Italy's results against them do not count in the final ranking.

I think you may be right about fewer prizes, but what do you mean by "significantly lowered" entry fees? According to the EBU diaries: 2010 Spring Bank Holiday Entry Fee - Full Congress £84 2011 Spring Bank Holiday Entry Fee - Full Congress £88 2012 Spring Bank Holiday Entry Fee - Full Congress £93

Yes, indeed. On average, the TD costs are 20% of entry fees. I suspect that the main reason for the high 30% figure for the Brighton Congress is the very expensive prices being charged by Brighton hotels.