hotShot

I'm sure that at regionals and nationals the play is much more serious than in the MBC of BBO. If such a nonsense like 7NTXX-13 would happen, the TD could disqualify a pair and adjust the score. If a board is played at a table where one player uses the Windows client, the results need to fit the limits of the Windows client. Anything but a complete change would unnecessary complicated, and could lead to system faults.

I blame South.

Since you did not state, that 3♥ asked for ♥ stopper, I don't think that 3NT guarantees/promises a stopper in ♥. So I guess I chicken out to 4♦.

The most important thing a beginner should work on is declarer play. The ability to defend depends on your understanding of declarers play. The ability to evaluate your hand, depend on your abilities in declarer play. If you think you get much of the declarer play right, start working on your defense. You are defending twice as much as declaring, so work on leads, signaling and the other aspects of defense. Don't waste to much time on modifying your bidding system, there is not much sense in bidding contracts that you can't make because your declarer play is not good enough. If you think that you are good enough at these, that you might want to study alternative evaluation methods. Lets face it, there is a majority of player out there you can't properly evaluate distributional hands. Some even have decades of experience. I'm sure most of them usually don't post on this forum. The usual 4321 point count with 321 extras for void,single and double is by far not good enough to deal with distributional hands. Most experts have their instincts to rely on, their judgment works without numerical aid. Zar-points are helpful for people who feel that their judgment with distributional hands is not good enough. They can learn from Zar-points that distributional hands are very strong. Once you have a feeling for it, forget about Zar-Points and trust your judgment.

In real life, you have established partnerships and I doubt that a player who wants to visit the club again, would intentionally go down 7 or punish his partner by bidding 7NT on nothing. With random partnerships without agreements the variance of the result is big. With players of very different strength the variance will be even higher. With a higher variance more results should help to seperate the signal from the noise. If a board has a "right" contract that almost everybody is in, a score of exactly 0 would be nice. The relative score is unaffected. Indeed there is no obvious solution how to do it with XIMPs, while using Butler scoring this is simple.

1) ♦A 2) ♥

I would consider it general bridge knowledge, that when you are behind, evaluating your hands more aggressively could be part of the strategy. If they know that they are far behind, than you know that you are in front. More interesting is the question if they are allowed to chance agreements, esp. in events where you have to enter your system description / CC in advance so that everyone can prepare defenses.

If responder bids 2♠ and opener has ♠, than opener will pass 2♠. If opener has ♥'s bidding will continue. So if responder wanted to play game opposite ♥ with a max and stop otherwise, than 2♠ is the bid that stops in 2♠. Most Multi player I know won't correct 2♠ simply to 3♥, since ♥ is set as suit whenever bidding is going on, opener uses the bids 2NT, 3♣, 3♦ and 3♥ to show suit quality and strength. Over this answer responder can bid game or sign off. Whenever responder bids 2NT he does not have the good ♥ bad ♠ hand, he's got to have an invite to game in ♠.

Opener should not have more than 1♠ and 2♥ (I suppose that 2♥ showed 5 cards). So his minimum hand should be more like: x xx KQxx AKxxxx But of cause 4♣ it is.

Obviously that needs to be specified more precise.

5♠ and I think I'm closer to 6♠ than to dbl.

Where did you get that from? I have never heard anyone suggest that it is forcing, and certainly in traditional Acol fewer bids are forcing than in most modern systems. The only reference I have to hand is Crowhurst's 1974 book 'Precision Bidding in Acol', which lists this sequence as non-forcing. Well I won't insist on it, my ACOL days are long gone. I'm not even sure I still have that book. It was a modified ACOL with strong NT with suits being bid line up.

I'll transfer to ♦and show ♣ afterwards.

I think in tourneys there are more than 16 results / board. And Helene I guess you agree that in statistics averaging over more counts is usually better, although at some points the improvement is minimal.

I would suggest you start a little smaller. There is no need to remember the full tricks. Actually you don't even need to know all the cards that have been played. Assume that your long suit it is: AQJ98432 somehow divided between dummy and your hand. The only relevant cards that your opps have are K and T. And the only information you need is: Are they still out there and who holds them. So you can focus on 2 cards in that suit instead of 13. If you only have 65432 in a suit, you can almost forget about that suit completely as any card is bigger than yours. Count DOWN the missing cards in your long suits. And it's probably better to count the other suit down too, just to keep the irritation minimal. Think in patterns: Assume that all suits are as equally divided between opps as possible (unless bidding suggests otherwise of cause). Whenever you lean something from the play, modify that pattern. Lets assume that you have 8♠, 6♥, 7♦ and 5♣ This means opps have 5♠, 7♥, 6♦ and 8♣. So that with the assumption that e.g. LHO has 3334 and RHO has 2434. Now if LHO leads ♥2 against your NT contract, and this is 4th of the suit update that to: LHO 2434 RHO 3334. So step by step you will get the right shape. If that is almost automatic, you can work on more.

You can't blame someone because he doesn't reach your posts/day. :P

I think that is about the meaning of the 2♠ response in multi.

What would you suggest? careless, frivolous I think one problem was that the real estate bubble has been growing since the 50th. That made it difficult to recognize it as a bubble and for many people involved in home loans, it was their life time experience that house prices can only go up. But I know that European experts have discussed that bubble as close to the burst since about 10 years ago. So I don't think it was a big surprise for all. I understand that mortgage rates in the US are adaptive, they change whenever the risk or the interest rates change. Around here they are usually fix for 5 or 10 years. Someone with a job and a tight budget, who could pay with mortgage rates without a problem, can get into big trouble if some of his neighbors can pay their home loan, and their houses are sold below the former market value. Suddenly the risk for his mortgage grows, his rate is adapted and his budget explodes. So I think adaptive rates destabilize the system.

This one will be tough. Opener has UI that partner misunderstood the bidding, but he has AI that says about the same. Opener is stronger than an average maximum weak 2. I've seen 1-level openings that where weaker. I'm not sure that pass is a LA, I would not consider to pass.

You find that everywhere. No chance to claim that for Americans only.

It seems you are using the Windows program and not the Web-Interface using Flash.

In ACOL it is forcing (F1). I think in SAYC it is NF. So perhaps you should specify the context a little more.

When a bookie estimates the odds wrong, he will either be broke paying his customers, or nobody takes his bet's. So he has a vital interest to get them right. The important lecture from hrothgar's example is, that the creator of the security tranches, evaluates the risk, without taking any risk himself. Anyone buying the insurance would have a lot of costs to do an accurate risk estimation himself. So a sensible regulation would enforce that only XX% can be insured, the rest of the risk stays with the one originally giving the loan.

1♣ - 1♠ - ? and you hold something like Qxxx AJxx xx xxx. Partner can bid pass, dbl or 1NT. If your agreement is that "dbl" shows ♥ and ♦, than you have to bid 1NT or pass. If your agreement that "dbl" shows 4+ ♥, than you can make a different use of 1NT (e.g. stronger hands) and pass. 1♣ - 1♠ - X - p ? Now if you play that openers 2♦ is a reverse (the logical choice ♣=>♦), than weaker hands have to bid 1[NT] even if they don't have a ♠ stopper. If you want that 1NT promises a ♠ stopper, than you have to pass, rebid ♣, bid 2♥ with 3 card-support (if 3334) and 2♦ cannot show reverse strength. In both cases your partnership has to pick it's poison. Edited: Optimized using helene_t's input.

The question is does the GF guarantee 2 cover cards?