Jlall

I like them vul because weak jump overcalls vul are so rare.

Good way to show a forcing hand with spades!

3H 5D 1S

Even jdonn wouldn't pass!

I'd pass

nope

Why is finding a 53 spade fit not a plus side of bidding 3S? I definitely think partner would X (and pass 3S) with min (13/14 etc) 51(43) hand types rather than overcall most of the time.

Ken you are clearly almost a good bridge player, if you would just not do stuff like bidding 3N on hands like this...

yes easy 4C.

You don't need agreements for obvious things. (2NT) 3NT 2NT = 20-22. What is 3NT? Certainly not to play. Wow this is the best post you've ever made ;) Wd.

Happy bday dude

Starting at about age 12 when I used to play on OKB a lot, I always liked to play against Grant because of what a great player he was. He immediately took an interest in me, and often would give me advice on hands in private (even though he would always be playing pro at the time, and have to worry about giving his partner advice as well), and invite me to play against him. One time his partner failed to show up, and rather than log off he played with me for several hours and then talked to me about a lot of the hands. He did this just to help a young kid who idolized him, and his kind act really touched me. Imagine Michael Jordan playing 1 on 1 with someone he met on the playground for free and helping him with his shot. During that time when I was having a lot of personal problems Grant would always take the time to ask me how my life was when he saw me at a tournament, or email me if I was MIA for a while. He would never judge me but always offer me his wisdom about life and being a bridge pro. Once I dropped out of school he'd usually be hassling me to go back :D I was lucky enough to get a professional engagement with him a couple of years ago at the San Diego regional. It is very standard to stay at a hotel at a regional obviously, but Grant insisted that I stay with he and his lovely wife at their house and insisted that he would pick me up from the airport. He also invited me to come early and he showed me around San Diego, and we did a bunch of bidding problems together. As you can see the common theme of Grants relationship with me was genuine kindness and selfless behavior. He never had to do any of the things he did, but that's just the kind of guy he was. I'll never forget that. Edit: Also, I'm sure I'm just being overly sensitive but is the water cooler really the right place for this? It almost seems disrespectful to consider this "non bridge related," and I know that the Water Cooler is less read than General Bridge Discussion.

Yep, the whole transfer after transfer thing was a good lesson for me, at best saying that I came up with them was ambiguous (I came up with this type of idea independently, but not so surprisingly I was not the first!), and at worst it was fraudulently implying that I was the first to create them. In reality I was just naive and careless. I'm glad Han gives me the benefit of the doubt but when writing things publicly I should really be more careful, sorry. An amusing story about this is when I moved to New York and I was about to play a regional with Kranyak he said "I play this awesome system that I made up, after jacoby transfers the next bids are transfers..." lol. I pointed him to my blog and of course he said he was the true inventor and that I copied him :) Sorry to derail but just thought I should clarify, I will update that blog post if I remember how to clarify this point also :) As far as I know Kleinman, Rodwell, and possibly Kranyak, and I'm sure many others had this idea before I did. FWIW I play them differently (and more efficiently) now also, and I'm sure awm's system is even more efficient; the version posted in my blog was quite crude. And another side note, to those I told that this jlall account was not actually me, I didn't lie, but I know the password to it.

second one

pass