rbouskila

Looks more like a game force to me, and has even slam potential after a 1♣ opening. bidding it does look hard though, there's no easy way to get both your diamond length and clubs into the picture. playing XYZ, I'd probably bid it 1♦,2♦,3♦; not playing it, guess 2♥ then 3♦? It's almost strong enough to do a Marshall Miles style Soloway jump shift, at that. Not quite strong enough I guess. Edit: Would have rebid 1NT with your p's hand, but that's a matter of style.

Would lead a heart, but would lead fifth rather than fourth, since I don't really expect it to matter for partner, and might cause declarer to play his ace on the wrong trick.

Yeah that's what I meant, only the last few cards, when partner knows you have them and that you have the option of cashing them in any order. Sorry if I was unclear

Does anyone know of any defensive carding conventions when cashing out a long suit? I just watched Sveindal-Auken vs Pottenger-Rimer (board 25, round 6A): East (Sveindal) got on lead (vs North's 1NT, with 5 tricks to N-S) in this position: [hv=d=w&v=e&n=s8hd64cj92&w=sakj2hdca5&e=s9hda9852c&s=st76hdckqt]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] East proceeded to cash all his diamonds in descending order of rank; on the ♦5, Auken pitched the ♠A, and also pitched the ♠K on the ♦2, thereby giving up the final trick to dummy's ♠10 One can certainly argue (in fact Roland Wald did) that the discard of the ♠A indicates the ♠K and the rest of the tricks as well, but in the given situation, could there be any inference drawn by the order in which East cashes out? After three rounds of diamonds, everyone has the count in that suit, and therefore the order of playing them out could well convey information about the remaining cards in East's hand. My suspicion is that Sveindal was sort of trying to show he had a spade by his ♦8-5-2 play, but that they had no such agreement. Does anyone here?

http://www.bridgeworld.com/default.asp?d=b...=bwsall.html#VB

Some of us have more refined palates than an infant That seems to me like a way to say we spend our whole lives teaching ourselves to like foods we don't really like :) cf. coffee, beer =P

Some of us have more refined palates than an infant

flaky crust, golden apples, vanilla ice cream ... obv % play

It may sound that way to you but isn't. I mean honestly, we've all been playing these sequences for a while, and we all have our own interpretations of what they are/should be. I was, and am, interested in seeing what other people think; agreeing with someone is not rewarding them, nor is disagreeing with them punishing them in any way. Unless you think I should have just posted the question and then recused myself from further conversation, without making any comments about what I believe to be correct.

Gnasher, I totally agree with your assessment of the auction. Thanks. FWIW, what happened was partner thought 2NT promised stoppers in the unbid suits, and therefore 3♦ was unambiguously a slam try, and I was not only showing ♥Hx with 3♥, but implicitly cooperating with his slam try with a maximum hand. I had something like xxx, KQ, AQ108x, xxx (yeah it's a fairly shitty opener, but add ♦J and the point stands), and to me 3♦ was natural, either a slam try or uncertainty about which game. I showed my strong heart doubleton (maybe he has a good five-card suit and a distributional hand and 4♥ is better than 3NT), and over 3♠ I was never bidding 3NT without a club stopper. We ended up in 6♦-2.

Most people rebid 1NT, but they are wrong, what you should do is use your judgement and see that xx Ax KQ10xx KJ10x is a 2 suiter (2♣) while Qx K10 Axxxx Kxxx is a balanced hand (1NT) That's very cute, but frankly if you evaluated it as a balanced hand before it should still be a balanced hand to you. In the realm of your normal 2254, I'm rebidding 2!C. If I have a weirdo with strong doubletons and weak suits such that I'd pretend it's balanced, I'm still pretending it's balanced and rebidding 2NT. I strongly believe that rebidding anything but 2NT preempts partner out of his planned subsequent rebid at the 3-level. When partner has a hand with hearts and a minor, 3♣ preempts him out of bidding clubs and 3♦ prevents him from bidding either minor. @OleBerg, if you wantonly rebid 3♦ in this sequence, I hope for your sake your partner rarely has club slam tries :D That said I'm interested to hear what you think "a good reason" might be. I would never rebid 1NT with any six diamonds, no matter how bad they were. Note that this auction started 1♦ not 1♣, so a 3145 is impossible. In that context I'd countenance a 3♣ rebid. Edit: which bid I think should specifically show _exactly_ 3145.

I'd rebid 2♣, not 1NT, with 2254.

1♦ - 1♥ 1NT - 2♦ (1) 2NT (2) - 3♦ (3) 3♥ (4) - 3♠ (5) System is 2/1, 2 way checkback. I am West, and rebid 1nt with hands with 4 spades and many hands with 3 hearts. I have some questions about the auction: 1. GF. 2. Question: Is opener ever allowed to rebid anything other than 2NT here (assuming he has a normal weak NT hand and not 4 spades or 3 hearts)? 3. What does this bid show? 4. What does this bid show? 5. What does this bid show? Edit. Specifically, is anyone promising slam/slam try values yet, or is it possible that we could still just be fishing around to try to find the right game?

I'm not going to spoil matmat's fun by giving you guys everything i deep finessed out of this hand, but you are both right so far -- however, what if East, having figured out to unblock, unblocks BOTH jack and ten of clubs? you guys can try to figure out what happens. Oh, and matmat's line led to an even wackier ending.

Incorrect. WAY fun with a double dummy solver. :)

I think it's pretty self-evident that a game with large amounts of money involved will be more interesting to watch. Either make it normal for there to be cash prizes at bridge tournaments (big ones--possibly the various bridge organizations should be going after corporate sponsors for tournaments), or we could go back to playing rubber at tournaments...

Hey all, got some funny competitive situations for you to think about. Playing unusual vs unusual, after 1M-(2NT)- X: penalty-oriented, able to penalize at least one minor 3m: (one of these is a forcing raise in M, one is a forcing bid in OM, depending on your agreements) 3M: competitive raise 3OM: competitive bid in OM 3NT: to play, probably not much length in either minor or you might X now, let's make it a little weirder: 1M-(2NT)-P-(3m)-P-(P)- ? or 1M-(2NT)-X-(3m)-P-(P)- ? Mike Lawrence's book on competitive bidding dealt with the meaning of some of these delayed actions; he also referred to Amalya Kearse's Bridge Conventions Complete. Unfortunately neither book is in front of me and I was wondering 1. if anybody had said books handy 2. if anybody had any of their own opinions? Here (if I recall right, which I'm probably not, and certainly am recalling incompletely) are the ones from Mike Lawrence's book: after initial pass: delayed 3NT: shows a stop only in the minor LHO bid; to play if opener has a stop in the other minor; not enough length to double 2NT for penalty delayed double: a stop in the unbid minor, asking for stop in the bid minor I have no idea what a delayed 3OM or 3M might be :lol: after initial double: X: obviously penalty 3NT: to play with something like 1.5 stops in m but length in om my guess for 3M and 3OM would be: 3M: a hand that wanted to double 3om but can't double 3m, maybe 3 card support for M, probably less than GF in M 3OM: probably similar, wanted to double 3om, but with competitive length in OM 3D after LHO bids 3C: no idea. well, it's fun to think about anyways :)

so I always get a kick out of the ACBL appeals committee rulings. anyways, i just had to share this one. how awesome is bobby wolff's commentary at the end? ♥ what a guy. -raph

I am with Fred here. I think vugraph can be an excellent spectator event, especially if well-commentated, but 75% of the interest is gone if it's not live. If you know who won with half an hour left to play, are you really going to watch the rest? I mean, you may, but the suspense is gone. There's no comeback to be rooting for anymore. Last year's sports games might have been great, but who's watching the reruns today?