hotShot

And good bacon is usually called prosciutto, so I am skeptical... Would you accept Serrano?

Maybe, but that is different. The dug "business", don't say they are on a holy war against the USA. The term "war on terrorism" can be abused the to support the propaganda that the USA are in fact on a crusade against the Muslims and to gain new fighter for their holy war. It also suggests that the mighty USA are accepting the tiny al-Qaida on equal terms as serious threat. Choosing a campaign name you should pick one, that does not help your opponents more than yourself.

Calling it "war on terrorism" was a very bad choice of words. War is "A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states." In a civil war it can be between parties. Ideally only facilities and infrastructure used for military purposes and personal are targets, harming civilians should be avoided. The only reason terrorists are not treated like common criminals is because the claim to have altruistic and honorable motives. If for example the French resistance sabotages military infrastructure during the German occupation, that is clearly the case. I find it unacceptable, that terrorism should be necessary in democratic constitutional states like Great Britain (IRA), Spain (ETA) or Germany(RAF). I suspect that a lot of dishonest motives (an urge for power or money, a cruel streak) hide behind the "terrorist" label.

Tough hand, but I would travel the 2♠ road.

You're right, it may be bigger. My focus was on the "fit" discussion, that I find misleading.

How do you define fit? South has 6 cards in ♣ and North promised a balanced hand, usually holding at least 2 cards in a suit. So South "knows" about an 8 card fit in ♣. I can't think of convincing upsides to the 3NT bids (so I don't think it's a good choice), but it's not mentioned that South is a good player, so he probably is not. North has a 5/7 (Edit: was 3/7) chance to have a ♣ honor, leading to a chance to develop the ♣ suite as source of tricks. The ♠ A could be an entry. I don't advertise this as good bridge, but it's not difficult to imagine a hand that fits North bidding, where 3NT is a playable contract. [hv=d=e&v=e&s=sqj96hkqxdkqjxcqx]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] South has 8HCP + some shape, opposite a hand with 15-17. Going for game is aggressive but not unseen. If I don't have reason to think that South statement is not fitting his level of expertise, I don't see a reason not to believe his intentions.

No he can't! It's the consultants job to find what you missed.

Pass, the ♥ are unknown and my ♠ are wide open. Opps will usually lead a major. IMPs don't change anything.

I don't like South bidding, but I guess 3♦ instead of 3♠ would have shown a stronger hand. The double of 5♥ suggests a hand with (more) defense (more ♥'s or ♥ values) power, but South is not that strong to try for slam, and someone told us "The 5-level belongs to the opps". With opps and partner using much bidding space, I think there is not much North can do. So I blame opps(60%), the system (30%) and South (10%).

Richard, you did not think this to an end. If you know you will always appeal, you are also required never to agree to a hesitation etc.

When was the TD called? Now the agreed hesitation can only mean that North considered bidding, in a situation where he could not have more than 6 HCP (East 12+, South 16, West 6+ => 34 known HCP). So I guess I can't allow the dbl. As Steven pointed out, there is not much sense in the explanation why the ♦K should be with North. So I'd adjust to 2♦-3.

From the year 2007 the number of passengers handled by American airports: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport______ 89,38 Mio. 2007 Chicago O'Hare International Airport__________________ 76,18 Mio. 2007 Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport_______________ 59,79 Mio. 2007 Los Angeles International Airport_____________________ 59,50 Mio. 2008 Denver International Airport__________________________ 49,87 Mio. 2007 Las Vegas McCarran International Airport______________ 47,73 Mio. 2007 New York John F. Kennedy International Airport________ 47,53 Mio. 2007 Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport__________ 42,98 Mio. 2007 Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport______________ 42,20 Mio. 2007 Flughafen Orlando_____________________________________ 36,48 Mio. 2007 Newark Liberty International Airport__________________ 36,41 Mio. 2007 Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport_____________ 35,97 Mio. 2007 San Francisco International Airport____________________35,79 Mio. 2007 Minneapolis-Saint Paul International____________________35,16 Mio. 2007 Miami International Airport_____________________________ 33,74 Mio. 2007 Flughafen Charlotte_____________________________________ 33,17 Mio. 2007 Flughafen Philadelphia__________________________________ 32,21 Mio. 2007 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport____________________ 31,30 Mio. 2007 Boston Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport______ 28,10 Mio. 2007 Flughafen New York-LaGuardia____________________________ 25,30 Mio. 2007 The 3 airports of New York (JFK, Newark, LaGuardia) alone reach the 100.000.000 passengers you assumed.

Well the disclosure of west was incomplete, but south contributed to that by asking for imprecise details. I was taught that '5432' although 4 cards is not bidable a suit, so the question asked did not exclude 4 card suits. If the scoring is MP bypassing a minor could be considered common bridge knowledge. Edit: Isn't it common to open 4 card ♦ suite even with 5♣'s? So after a 1♣ opening east would require a 5-card ♦ suit to suggest ♦.

I think that jdonn named the main reason, top-player in serious competition don't dbl without a good reason. Playing on BBO I was allowed to make against so many senseless dbl's, that I would want to have a business redbl available.

Usually the (combined) shape and (combined) strength are well defined conditions for a raise. You fulfill the requirements or not, nothing more to think about. To double esp. if it's penalty requires much more considerations.

Assuming that Lebensohl was actually the pairs agreement, there are several issues to think of: 1. East has UI from the "wrong" explanation that his partner, did not take it as Lebensohl, fortunately partners 3♦ answer transmits the a lot of that information too as Lebensohl forces a 3♣ response. Since he has the legal information that his partner did not understand his 2NT bid, the 3♠ bid seems ok. 2. North knows that the explanation of the 2NT bid is wrong. North has 7 ♦ cards, opener needs 2 cards to open NT that leaves 4 cards for East and a void for South. It's unlikely that East would transfer to a 4 card minor. North did not claim damage, but he was damaged as he could not show his suit or strength. 3. South was missinformed about the 2NT bid, but I'm not sure if it's discouraging or encouraging to show your 8 card heart suit over the 2NT bid, if East has a transfer to ♦. But of cause South can argue that he could expect that he could delay his decision to act until Wests 3♦ response is passed to him. East's transfer followed by a new suit will usually be GF, this should encourage South to think about bidding 4♥. I would let the score stand.

Well the excuse is lame, but before throwing stones on that pair we should consider that they had a reason that they thought deserved some privacy. Maybe a player has health problems, e.g. chronicle pain or was just informed that a close person died or had a accident. I bet you can up with something yourself that would distract you, so that you just know you would not be able to focus on bridge for days. Lets be a little creative here, I bet you all would tell everyone starting with your teammates and your national bridge organization , that you have to go home because your wife had a nervous breakdown when your child had just been arrested for shoplifting. Do you really think CoC could prevent someone from withdrawing is such a case?

Are you sure that playing four-card majors 3♥ is promising 6+♥? Otherwise there is no ♥ fit. My 4cM days are long gone, but I'm quite sure that 3♥ would have promised only 5 cards. Wanting to be in game but trying to avoid playing a 4 level 5-2 fit, I would have bid 3NT back then knowing that partner holding 6♥ would correct that to 4♥ and preferring to be one down in 3NT than 2+ down in 4♥ at MPs. I don't think that the UI suggests to bid 3NT (without a ♠ stopper), but certainly the UI suggests not to bid 4♥! Since other player would have no problem playing a 5-2 fit at the 4 level, this may force me the accept 4♥ as an LA, if this is what the polled players would do. Edit: Many club level player I know would pass here because there is no ♥ fit and no ♠ stopper!

Are those guys that come into the shops to collect a protection fee, not private policemen?

Perhaps this is already there. The interface that I would like to have to download the boards I played, would be a button inside the flash application saying "download myHands". This should get me a single lin-file of a zip-file with lin-files of all hands I played since the last download I made. If I'm lazy I might download my files only once a month, perhaps I do it every time before I leave.

East received the following legal information from his partner: pass (I don't have opening strength!) 1NT ( I have a balanced hand!) 2NT (?,something is wrong ) Or was there any reason to believe that East forgot to alert some conventional agreement? Knowing of 14-15 HCP combined points and an almost sure ♣ fit. Knowing that 2NT can't have any play with his unbalanced hand without enough entries to develop the ♣ and knowing that something is wrong (partner seems to be on a strange trek), I can't think of any other bid than 3♣.

Given your choice I would double. You are strong enough to either keep opps from preempting or to bid 3 or 4 ♦ over opps preempt, and showing ♠ now will allow partner to better judge your combined hands.

The existence of Law 66C shows that the case in question was considered when writing down the laws. But the case is not listed as an example of UI in Law 16A and there is no reference of UI in Law 66C. I would consider this as intentional and assume that it was not intended to handle this using Law 16A.

Did you take into account that B paid a lot of VAT when he spend the money?

ROFL !!.. where can you buy stuff in dutyfree to bring down a plane ? Well I hope you had a good laugh, and I really hope that terrorists share your opinion. But don't expect me to post instructions what one could do with items from the duty free shop, to prove my point.