Jlall

Finally a hand I would open 5m with!

I think this is a mirage, because partner is extremely likely to have a singleton club anyway, and partner doesn't know if our red suit is in hearts or diamonds, so it's not like he can make an educated decision about whether he wants to play clubs or our red suit. If you bid 2♣ and convert 2♦ to 2♥, presumably this shows something like 2434? Or is this some other hand? 2C then 2H is 2-4

I think it asks partner to pick a red suit.

Is that the right way around? I think you should be more cautious at matchpoints than at IMPs. Losing 500 against a non-vulnerable game is unimportant at IMPs, but awful at matchpoints. Yeah but 3H getting passed out and going minus when you could have gone plus when partner has a misfit and some values is really bad at MP and not so bad at imps.

Why would we ever expect them to bid 4H on this auction?

w/w and w/r MP for sure. w/r imps for sure. I guess w/w imps also.

Thx Peter. Yeah I think I will just leave it up to the people if they want to post any/all of their hands + what I said I am totally fine with that. Really I just want to help the 10 who signed up, there is not really anything attached other than that, and it's not a self promotion thing for me. I really don't want people to be nervous or overwhelmed feeling like their mistakes are in the limelight. So, just for the record, I am totally fine if anyone participating in this posts my thoughts, and if you rather wouldn't that is fine, I will not show anyone. Also, Gnasher and others, if hands get posted with my thoughts on them I would be happy for you guys to critique/discuss my comments! Would be kind of cool for me actually. I am obv fallible and might well miss some stuff. Again this is not supposed to be about self promotion/ego boosting for me, or writing a book, or anything like that, and I am happy for it to be discussed if you think I am wrong/have made an error. Will be good for my game! And lol at the thought of 100 hands bid my way! I used to play in teaching tables and bid all 4 hands objectively with what I thought the right sequences were. It was pretty funny to get a taste of my own medicine! Only thing scarier would be 100 hands bid kenrexford style imo :wacko:

I was not planning on posting any of the hands. I don't want to make the people involved feel uncomfortable or like their mistakes are on display. Even if I leave out the names, you have a list of 10 people and using myhands it could be easy to figure out who did what.

lol, the OP is sooooooooo wrong also.

3N

Pass

Well passing is lol.

pass?!

You have to lead the SA, you could very easily just run 7 spade tricks down their throats. I would have overcalled 3S.

4d ldo

gwnn Little_kid TimG Vampyr gdawg jkljkl cherdano y66 h2osmom vesuvius That's ten, thanks all. If you are on this list, don't feel rushed to do your 10 hands. Also, do NOT cherry pick hands. I'm trying to show how much there is to mundane hands! I don't want all book hands lol. People know they mess those up, but it doesn't really matter since its a couple of percent and its so infrequent. There are many many situations on normal hands where you can gain a big edge frequently with just sound play, and people don't. The idea is to shed some light on these hands, hopefully. But really, I just want an accurate, representative sample. I promise there will be lots to talk about either way :)

gwnn Little_kid TimG Vampyr gdawg jkljkl cherdano 3 more spots available.

I'll go with a sleeper pick: Uday. Uday is not well known for being a very good player because he is much more well known for his work with BBO, but he is definitely very strong and could easily win this (sure fred is better but the edge is smaller than people would think, and uday will play high variance going all out for the win in the end whereas tbh I think fred wouldn't care that much, and would be concerned about not ruining his partner's possibly good games). If just betting on a win rather than a high finish, this might even give uday the edge over fred. Ofc there are many other world class yellows, I won't mention them all but I will say I used to play quite a bit on BBO with ritong and he is legit a great player, and even better for an indy! Old fashioned bidding combined with not dropping tricks and giving clear signals. Best way to play an indy.

I really feel like the human element is often missing in the laws forum. There is no us vs them mentality with players/directors, you all have the same goal, keep the game running smoothly. 99 % of the time the director can just move the boards in this scenario. It would take at MOST 45 seconds extra, and that is being generous. But if it's really one of the 1 % of the time where the director cannot move the boards himself, he has this cool option, COMMUNICATING THAT FACT! Director: Can you please move the boards? Player: No can you? If the director really has a legit reason not to, just say "look I'm really sorry, 99 % of the time I would move them, but I really can't in this case, if you'd please do it this round that would be a big help to me" Sure, the director didn't flex his big muscles of power here, but there is no way this approach can fail. No human can reject something said like that. In fact, the player and director have just bonded, the player having done something nice when kindly asked to. I mean I really doubt this was one of those 1 % of the times since the director had enough time to issue a PP and get into a pissing contest, but that is such an easy way to handle it if it was one of those times. Getting into a pissing contest is stupid, obviously the director wins, but to what end? Again, we are all working as a team to keep the game running smoothly and with no problems. Doing things counter to that goal seems quite sill. I agree with those who said there MUST have been history here, but it sounds like the director had it out for this player for sure which is why he took this stance. It also seems like the player probably had it coming a little bit, but this whole episode was silly and unnecessary. Common kindness, respect, and the magic words of "please, thank you," combined with advanced phrases like "I really appreciate that" go really far. Saying move the boards or I will PP you and I'm well within my rights to do so is completely losing the human element imo.

*** gwnn Little_kid TimG Vampyr *** 6 left.

Also, keep in mind I'm going to be after you for every trick, so even if a hand is just for an overtrick still try your hardest (or play matchpoints so the tricks always matter, but that's a whole different way of thinking about things). This is not practical in the real world, but since you have 10 hands to be judged you can give it your all even for overtricks :P In fact, I imagine a lot of time the hand will be about an overtrick. That is fine, the point is for you to realize where you are making errors, whatever kinds they might be, and regardless of the actual results.

There is room until 10 people have applied in this thread. This is a forumer only offer.

Also, please remember that these will be very in depth, and 100 hands is going to be a LOT, and I travel to tournaments every month, and play every day in general at the club or at a tournament. Basically, I'm kind of busy, but I will make these a priority. Just cut me some slack if you think it's taking me a long time, I won't forget about you I promise :P

Hi all, It recently occurred to me that there are certain areas of card play, especially declarer play, that are never addressed. These are the nitty gritty, nothing special hands which make up 95 % of hands. People make huge errors on these hands without even thinking anything of it because they can spot an entry shifting squeeze a mile away. The truth is if you read lots of books, or hands on the forums, or whatever, you do not get a realistic sample, and you get good at squeezes and such, but still learn nothing about stuff like which honor to win at trick 1, how to make the opponents mess up, or even stuff like proper PSEUDO squeeze technique. Basically there are a ton of situations where people don't realize what they're doing wrong, and they don't want to ask. I want to try and show people what they're missing. I am offering to analyze 10 hands, trick by trick, from your point of view and what you should be thinking about / what you should do differently. The first 10 people to apply can get in. You can apply and then create this set of 10 hands later, that's fine, no great rush. All that I ask is that you play 10 hands of your most serious possible bridge, no distractions, and ideally with your regular partner, but not really necessary. People playing online are so used to being able to say "well, I was distracted, it's impossible to play my best online" etc. That kind of thinking just facilitates you to continue to play losing bridge, or not be able to introspect properly. I don't want any excuses, in fact there will probably be almost no dialogue between us, I will just send you a (long) analysis of the 10 hands. Try not to be dummy a lot :P I will not say ANYTHING about the bidding, no matter what it was. Contrary to popular belief, bridge is much more about not making cardplay errors than people would like to admit. Yes it's really that simple, don't drop tricks and you will win every time. The fact is most bidding judgement scenarios are much like a coinflip, there is not very much to consistently getting those right, plus you will inevitably get some wrong. We are probably talking about 1-2 % here and there, not a big deal. However cardplay errors are not subjective, it is just wrong, and people routinely give up a HUGE edge there (like taking a 20 % line instead of a 100 % line, whatever, even giving them a tougher time defending so that they misdefend ~5% more often because you did that). Who cares if you open this 11 count, or invite or jump to game with this hand, if you are routinely dropping tricks left and right (which everyone is?) Once you are a part of the top 4 teams in the bermuda bowl, you can start addressing your bidding again and saying stuff like "good judgement on partials is what seperates the best from the rest." Maybe it seperates Italy from USA or vice versa, but what seperates YOU from winning is simply that you make too many mistakes ROUTINELY in cardplay. So apply here, email me the 10 hands in some reasonable amount of time (but not pressured, like 1 month to get em in, I don't want to incentivise people to give me a bad sample of hands under time pressure, that is not what this is about). No excuses, no discussion of the bidding unless it's something I need to know (use the alerts pls), bidding will only be used to draw inferences in the play/defense. This is open to anyone of any level, everyone makes routine bad card plays, even strong experts. If you are a complete beginner, that's ok, though my analysis might be much less specific and more broad since that's what's needed at first. Also, as a good faith gesture I want everyone to apply to say "I will not do ANYTHING out of the ordinary in the bidding for the next 100 boards, because that's all Justin wanted." If you are about to make a fancy bid, remember that you can't, you primsed me! Just doing that in the bidding and making your cardplay much more solid will make you win 4x as much, no joke. I think once you do this you will realize how important routine cardplay situations are, and how unimportant fancy bids are. It will be hard to admit to yourself that you are really making this many mistakes every deal, but just be honest with yourself if you want to get better. Stop reading these fine judgement whatever hands on the forums, spend more time going over your own hands or posting hands you're not sure about. This should be a good start, obviously I'm biased but I think this could be a great learning opportunity to anyone of any level. Finally, when you send me the 10 hands just make sure to tell me what kind of defensive signals you use. Signalling will not be the main importance of this unless you are already a strong expert, but obviously I will need to know. If you know your opponents signals, sending that to me is necessary also.