hotShot

Since I prefer bidding up-the-line, 1♦ is a nobrainer to me. If you agreed to play Walsh (even passed)) you can benefit, because bidding 1♦ now and bidding 1♠ over partners 1♥ has to show the strongest possible hand. Weaker hands would bid the ♠'s first.

Whatever South intended 5♠ to mean, it did not promise all lower 1st round controls. 100% North

Thanks! So you get 70-80% of the electrical energy that was produced with an efficiency of about 40% from fossil fuel. To me that cycle has an efficency of about 32%. But obviously i understand efficiency a little wider.

Are you sure it is "efficient" and not just without an alternative to store large amounts of energy?

If you can afford a Volt and if you have money to spare, just put some solar cells on your roof and gain the energy you need to drive. You'll be a poor man, but you'll have a good ecological feeling.

Heart attack (if no known heart disease exists)with young athletes usually has one of the following 2 reasons: - To much/ to early training during a virus infection, this leads to a Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) - Blood-doping / EPO-doping (the blood gets too viscous because there are to much red blood cells or causes a thrombosis) Since there is a lot of money involved both explanations have merits.

We use: 2♦ 0-3 HCP (Game might be impossible) 2♥ 4-7 HCP (Gameforcing) 2♠ 8-9 HCP (Slam is not impossible) 2NT, 3-of-a-suit 10+ HCP balanced/5+card suit This does not take to much bidding space esp. when responder is weak. Both opener and responder know how much bidding space is left.

The explanation "strong" does not imply "Michael's Cue Bid". So there is definitely MI and at least incomplete disclosure. But what is the damage? North did not claim that he was damaged, so we can assume that a deviation in bidding can only occur after the 3♦ bid. South did not claim that he would have dbled 3♦, stayed in 3NT or to make another bid.. South did not claim a different line of play. South claims to be damaged, but does not tell us what he would have made differently. South does not even state if he thinks he would have bid or played differently. If South can't tell how he was damaged, he most likely was not damaged. No damage no score correction.

Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't the seating rights in a team match define what team has to disclose their agreements first? I thought that the team that has to take seats first, has to define their system first too.

Writing the post it did not occur to me that it could be understood as a single occurrence, I just wanted to avoid the distraction created by a discussion on what number of occurrences would establish an agreement/experience. So of cause I agree with you that the first occurrence, although it is a partnership experience, does not create an agreement. If a player psyched a 1NT opening, when he's holding a 3♦ preempt, it this save just because the last # times he had done it with ♣? If a player psyched a ♥ Cuebid, is it save because he only psyched ♦ and ♣ cuebids before? This is what I meat with similar psych and I'm sure we can agree about that. There is room for a discussion about this scenario: A player frequently psyched a suit over a t/o dbl, is it a new kind of psyche if opps use a "suit bid" as t/o instead of dbl?

Actually it's quite simple. If a player of a pair psyches often, the psyche gets part of the partnership agreement. This means that psychers partner has to alert any bid his partner has ever psyched before. Don't forget to check if such an agreement is allowed. Not only does this make psyching a lot less attractive, the failure to disclose the possibility of a psyche is a misinformation whenever a psyche happens. If the psyche should damage opponents, the TD can now adjust the score because of the MI. If a player often passes forcing bids, they are in fact nonforcing and have to be alerted and disclosed accordingly. Again if a psycher has passed a specific forcing sequence before, there is a implicit partnership understanding that has to be disclosed. The failure to alert is again misinformation. So as TD you need to record the psyches so that you can prove that a similar psyche has been done recently and establishes a partnership agreement. After that you check the proper alerts, if they gave a misinformation and benefited from the psyche, you can adjust the score. Edit: I forgot to mention that it's not allowed that bids are forcing / nonforcing depending on whom of the partnership makes them. So if one often passes forcing bids and he other does not, this might be a violation of system restrictions. Because the 2 players seem to play different systems.

Rik, first of all my point was that, if you did not use the UI, there is no legal base to correct your score, if it happens to be good for your side. How do i know that responder stretched? - When you look at the statistics. e.g. when opener has 13 HCP, the other 3 player have an average of 9 HCP. Roughly estimated holding 9 HCP has 11% while holding 13 HCP has only 7.3%. Without considering sense, it's about 30% more likely to be 9 HCP than 13 HCP. - It does not make sense to make a nonforcing raise when your are strong enough to bid game yourself. Now what if responder has the wrong shape. How can having to much trump support be a problem? It's more likely to cause consideration, if you're only having an 8-card fit instead of the promised 9-card fit. So I would think that a stretch is more likely, than deliberately trying to miss game/slam by making a nonforcing bid. But if you can give me a good reason to do so, I'm willing to change my mind.

I'm not sure you are right here. The laws are about restoring equity. So if the bidding goes: 1♠ - 3♠ ? Now if 3♠ promises 10-12 HCP and 3-4 ♠ we would expect opener to bid: - 4♠ with 15+ HCP - pass with 11-12 HCP With 13-14 HCP opener would judge his hand and pass with some hands and bid 4♠ with others. If responder hesitates prior to his bid, one would expect that he somehow stretched his hand to make that bid. Off cause you need to know what alternative bids like 2NT, 4♠ or 2♠ would have shown. The systemic meaning of 3♠ e.g. 10-12 HCP 4+♠ is allowed information to opener. The fact that partner stretched is UI. So if responder has the choice between pass and 4♠ (or any slam move he might want to make) he is not allowed to pass. If opener had the choice and is forced to bid 4♠ and it makes, than he did not use the UI. So there is no infraction and the score stands. Remember the laws allow to create UI but forbid it's use.

I think this case is simpler. We have to consider 2 cases: 1) the systemic meaning of pass was forcing. Than we have to decide between dbl and 5♠ which is demonstrably suggested. Fortunately we don't need to discuss this case since the OP redefined the problem that pass is not forcing. So we take a look at case 2: 2) the systemic meaning of pass was nonforcing Any hesitation prior to a nonforcing pass, can only mean that partner thought about bidding something. So bidding is suggested over passing. Both dbl and 5♠ are suggested and if pass is a LA the player has to choose pass unless he has enough extra strength to eliminate pass as an LA. In this case he is not that strong so pass is an LA.

The question is, where these top player an established partnership? I would guess not. North could reopen with dbl or 3♣. One of these must be strong and forcing while the other is competitive. An established partnership would know.

This would depend on the agreed system. I prefer to play a system that has 1 level opener with a useful upper limit. In that context it's easy to open weak, because partner will not expect to much. In a context where 1 level opener are only defined by a lower limit (e.g. many would open a 25 HCP 2-suited hand on the 1 level), partner would tend to overestimate my holding. This would require a lot more caution with weak 1 level openings.

There are much better experts in Law than me, but I think this is a violation of Law 40 A 1 b I'm not sure if the opponents you are playing are a condition of the current deal as stated in Law 40 A 2

Helene all options except Supenova and asteroid impact are in fact manifestations off human stupidity.

Eddy Kantar has written a booklet "The Forcing Pass in Contract Bridge" According to this a forcing pass situation is established, after your side has issued and accepted a game invitation. Now if partners pass was forcing, then the LA's are dbl and 5♠, and I don't think that one is more suggested than the other. If partner had a preference he would not pass. If the partnership does not use forcing pass, or this situation is not suitable for a forcing pass, then "pass" should be considered.

(1) Your bids are AI for your partner. (3) It does not matter what you bid now, the information your partner got from 2NT is still perfectly legal for him. I would think that you are allowed to make agreements (don't forget to alert) for such cases, but aren't these mistakes to rare to make such an agreement worthwhile?

I've been around almost as long as Free and I share the impression that the tone has gotten harsher over the years. Among the 100 members with the most posts there are some, that have been mobbed away. We've lost high quality posters before, and I guess it's perfectly normal to have active and less active phases here in the forum. I can even understand that one does not what to comment on topics that boil up over and over again. How many "bbo and rating system" threads did we have this year? We have 7216 members in the forum, but we don't know how many of them actually posted this month or this year. I think the number or active posters this month is less than 100.

Well many people are on vacation, and I could imagine that the weather outside for many does not suggest to stay online.

Obviously 5NT can only show 3KC with queen, if the trumps where ♣ or ♦. Since South is thinking that 3♥ set trumps to ♥, to South the 3 keycards can only be ♣A, ♦A and ♥K and the Q must be nonsense. 7NT is probably a try to punish North for lunatic bidding. If multiple selections where possible I would select: Don't you have anything better to do? What an idiot! He just got lucky and I would like the unavailable option: What an idiot! (North)

If one player of a partnership forgot about an agreement, it's almost unavoidable that this pair continues to bid without misinforming their opponents. There will be either a failure to alert or they gave a wrong explanation about their alerted bid. Without screens there will be an additional UI problem. So the TD almost always has a law available that allow for a score correction. But we have to remember that the TD has no BIS (Bridge Investigation Service) or TSI (Tourney Scene Investigators) that can prove what really happened. In a serious event, the TD could rely on screens and system descriptions submitted in advance. So there would be notes and system descriptions available.

Strong? I think we should measure him by the standard he set for himself. He wanted to win the tour. Without the team trial and the accidents on the third stage, where would he be placed now? Well he's in 2nd Place now. That is at lot better than other so called favorites like Menchov, Sastre or Evans. And I think he said he would not take a guaranteed 3rd Place, so if he can make 2nd or 3rd that would be within his measure too.