hotShot

I think, that if you can transfer to the minor you should. We play that bidding a new suit, after partner executed the transfer, is natural and at least GF. Partner can bid 3NT, 4M and 5m with minimum hands or show first round controls in the remaining 2 side suits.

It's not my impression, that among biologists evolution is controversial.

Flash is optimized for great graphics on a desktop, saving energy is not part of the design. Running a flash application would empty the batteries within 1-2 hours. Flash is a native application on the device it is running on, it is a main target of hackers these days. Allowing flash on a mobile device requires a lot security modifications. Implementing security works best if the software and the system is under control of the same manufacturer, obviously Adobe and Apple are separate companies and do not wish to share their knowhow with each other. Having control about hardware, operating system and software is a key element of what makes Apple's gadgets special, they can't give that away.

I dbl and play ♣AK2. I hope that this will keep opps from ruffing to many of our ♠ tricks.

Obviously 3♥ is an overbid from North and North has to take almost all of the blame, but South bidding is no really good either.

I done some experimenting comparing card play against DD play. The result was that experts lose about 1 trick in 4-5 boards to the DD-Solver while beginner lose about 1 trick a board. If 2 beginner pairs play, the declarer will often get 1 more trick than the DD-solver, because when 2 opps lose a trick each and the declarer loses his average trick there is still an overtrick left. The subjective impression is that they underbid and have to work on their bidding. If an expert declarer plays 2 beginner opponents, his average gain will be about 2 tricks/ board, this is enough to compensate for being in the wrong partscore or game. Bidding is almost irrelevant.

Doesn't the bidding 1♦...2♣...3♣ limit West as to weak to reverse? If that were the case, wouldn't Easts 3NT deny slam interest?

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Ages ago, there was a post from Fred explaining who gets a star, what behavior is expected by stars and what could cause a star to be withdrawn.

In your profile settings, you can choose between: Search Settings View New Content Method "Show all content I have not read" (which seems to be what you want) and "Show me all new content since my last visit" (which is the default)

Didn't it take the Council of Chalcedon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon) 451 to get the existing Christian churches to reach some fundamental consent, about the nature of Jesus, building the base of the separation of the East European church at the same time?

I think that West underbid this hand. Edit: To be specific I would have bid 3♦ instead of 2♦.

My "bad" solution to this problem is that partner and I agreed that in situations like this we take any unalerted bid as natural. I don't know if this would work in ACBL, but around here it is consitent with most of the alerting regulations. If opps misinformed us by not alerting we let the TD work it out. This way partner does not need to ask to clarify the bidding situation. SCs are no solution, because if partner takes the SC to study it, it creates the same UI and I will have to look at the SC too, creating even more UI.

It's not so much a problem with the software (at tournaments the TD can do a lot). If you play an informal game with your friends, you will deal with bad claims and plays out of turn in a cooperative and friendly way. Somehow you will solve the problem following the laws or "house rules". A bridge site can either hire a number of TD's and implement software that allows them to do their job, or that allows the players to solve he problem on heir own. It seems logical that a site with TD services will require some payment to cover the costs. The questions is should there be simplified laws to guide the players if a problem appears e.g. playing in the MBC. Or is it possible to find regulations that could solve problems automatically. If a board would be played often enough a software could do an automatic poll by searching for identical bidding sequences up to a possible use of an UI and find possible bids and percentages how often they were chosen. Sooner or later a bridge site might try to come up with an automatic TD. (There are already automatic adjustments on BBO) The question is, should WBF, EBU or ACBL try to be the regulating authority or should they allows software developers to implement their wild ideas how to approximate the regular laws.

I can accept that an upvote is better than a "I agree with X" posting, but if we assume that most people do not intentionally post nonsense, than a written explanation why something is wrong is a lot more helpful than a downvote.

The problems to solve in online bridge are: Absence of a TD Misinformation, caused by the lack of agreements Alerting, Announcing and other regulations differ a lot worldwide. Misclicks during bidding and play How to handle disputed claims What to do if a player is disconnected/leaves during bidding and play. There is no way to enforce a rule to prohibit the use of memory aids. Online tournaments allow movements and scoring that would be difficult to handle in the real world.

South knows his side has a ♦ fit, so when deciding what to bid over RHO's artificial and forcing 2♦, the choices are to make a bid that is not covered by agreements or to pass, a save move since South will be able to bid again over LHO's bid. Once opps revealed a suit they wish to play in, South is in a better position to make a decision. Maybe 3♣ could be non forcing now, but NS are still in unagreed territory. Introducing a new suit prior to showing fit, should promise a good hand. So even if one would think of this was an error, I would not think of it as severe enough to deny them redress for the misinformation.

Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer asked 926 biology teachers at american high schools and only 28% teach that there is proof for evolution while 14-21% favored creationism and ID. http://pandasthumb.o...ontrols-am.html

Lawyers have little respect towards laws, they believe that there will be a loophole in their favor. They should be taught that this attitude is wrong regarding the laws (and principles) of nature. But then, they could get a jury to make the decision ........

I guess you are aware of he fact that Chinas economy is growing with more than 10% a year. Estimate how man years will it take for Chinas 1.3 billion people to produce a sufficient number of engeniers so that they no longer need to buy technology from other countries? Won't that make them to a big contender for e.g. Germany? I guess you also know that Chinas industries is using it's profits to buy the rights for exploiting Africa's natural resources and that China is about to stop it's exports of rare minerals to other countries. So do you really think that e.g. a country like Germany is capable to stand its ground on its own? Perhaps after thinking about that you can accept the possibility that after losing costumers, exports would drop and difficulties accessing natural resources it will led to further loss in competition, leading to a significant drop in the peoples economic situation. To me it seems better to combine the efforts of about 501 million Europeans (Number from Januar 2010) to improve the chances to stay "significant".

The Swiss managed to be one the the most significant banking places in the world. A lot of the less significant countries in the world are in Africa, so losing significance is often related with economic loss and with the loss of political influence in the world.

The cultural differences withing EU Europe are much smaller than some seem to think. Check historical maps of the Roman Empire and see that Greece, Spain,, France and parts of Germany and England have been "united" more than 2000 years ago. All of Europe is used to Christian beliefs and ethics. Of cause there are differences, but they are small compared to e.g. Asia. Do you really think that "China Town" and "Gods own country" are culturally closer than Spain and Germany? The Euro was/is a political project to simplify comparisons between the countries. The idea was that if the people can discuss prices, income and taxes this would accelerate the harmonization of fiscal and social standards. Even the crisis will work in that direction. France has raised the retirement age last year and I am sure that Greece will have to raise it as well. Many people are not aware yet, that population size has influence on worldwide economic and political significance . China has more than 1 billion people, Greece has a little more than 11 million. Only a united Europe is big enough to stay significant. And yes some experts expected trouble, but the financial crisis accelerated the problem.

I need to know more about EW before I make a decision. Ever heard:

Agree with this :)

The numbers indicate that you play a 12-14 NT. Does that mean that you open balanced 12-14 hands with 3 cards in ♣ with 1NT and that you weak NT never has a 4/5 card club suit?