hotShot

It depends... If you are referring to Lt. Com. Data use "is".

Well don't mix me up with Codo, it was derived from his suggestion. I agree that with your sample hand many people would bid 4♥. I think it's not good enough, but this an individual decision. (Qx should be downgraded, as many evaluation systems suggest.) I would need more information on the involved players to decide if they are aggressive enough to risk that.

Well I don't know about you, but most player I know would not jump to game holding QJT xxxx QJx QJx (9 HCP no distribution, no quick tricks) after partner simply opened 1♥. EW are vul, so it much better to double or play then for -2 than to sacrifice in a hopeless 4♥. It's IMPs and opps red, so north has to be quite confident that playing 4♥ is the best choice.

Echognome, the LAWS are aware of the fact, that BIT does not automatically mean UI. As one example: Every time you exercise your right to request full disclosure from your opps, you break the tempo. Since this is allowed and clearly not every BIT leads to UI. You seem to argue that BIT is automatically UI, and I'm sure that you are wrong about this. A BIT is no violation of the laws, giving an UI is no violation of he laws only, even using opponents UI is no violation of the laws. Only using partners UI is a violation of the laws. If partner produced an UI you don't have to make the worst possible bid. The laws require you to pick the bid, that among the logical alternatives is least likely to be suggested by the UI. 1) The BIT prior to the 4♥ bid, did not carry an UI. Even if it did, we would have to think about LA's. 2NT (unalerted!) is a preemptive bid, and it is common bridge knowledge that you don't preempt over a preempt. So 4♥ should be a sound game try, opposite openers minimum 1♥ bid. Since openers hand is much stronger than that (extra trump, a void, good controls) pass is not a LA here. South can't jump to 7 something right know, because north can have lots of wasted values in the minors, he needs to investigate about that. And he does that by starting a cue bid sequence. 2) Asuming there was a BIT with UI prior to the 5♥ bid, what are south LAs? North did not show any control in the minors, maybe north indended this as a sign off, but to south this is good news! So passing 5♥ is not among the LAs to choose from. South intended to investigate the slam/grand optinons all the time, why should south stop this plan, after getting a positive signal (little minor wastage) from north? So now south is continuing his cue bids with 6♣. You ask how can south know that north is not holding: KQxx Axxxx Qx Qx? He does not know, but south has 5♠ tricks (if the ♠ are not 4-0) and he can drop one of north ♦ on his 5th ♠. So south won't loose a trick in ♠,♥,♦ or ♣, guess what, he makes 7.

First of all, let us assume this is an established expert f2f partnership with written system-notes. In this partnership 4♠ is a well defined bid and north is well aware how further bidding is agreed. In this case you can assume that north was looking for a better bit than a discouraging 5♥, so partner will expect a hand that is better than minimum. Seems to me that this actually happened in an online tourney probably with a pickup "BBO expert" partnership or even weaker players. We can expect that north has no idea what 4♠ means: ace, shortage, should he bid blackwood, what type of blackwood do we actually play or is 4NT a trump cue lots of stuff to think about, not to mention incoming phone calls, doorbells or other distractions. I don't think that a hesitation is as meaningful as in the first case. But pass over 5♥ is no LA with south 2. suited 4 looser monster. North jumped to game over a possibly minimum 1♥opening and west promised to hold the minors. A major doublefit is very likely and ♥ is a 9+ card fit. Just calculate the ZAR-Points. South is void in ♣ and if north does not have wasted values there, a grand seems possible, something you want to be in playing IMPs. So 6♣ seems an obvious choice, since you can force to 6♥ anyway. And after that wasted values in ♣ and ♦ are highly unlikely.

If you are strong enough to bid the longer suit first and the 2nd suit later, bid the longer suit first. If your are not strong enough to bid your longer suit first, bid the 4card suit. If you agreed Walsh or Canape style, alway bid the 4 card major first.

Lets do some math here: The other table makes game +420 you go down 1 -50 => you loose 470 => 10 IMPs The other table makes game +420 you make one more 450 => you win 30 => 1 IMP This means in non vul. both you need to make 91% of the overtricks to brake even for the loss you make, if the contract fails. The other table makes game +620 you go down 1 -50 => you loose 670 => 12 IMPs The other table makes game +620 you make one more 650 => you win 30 => 1 IMP This means in vul./? you need to make 93% of the overtricks to brake even for the loss you make, if the contract fails.

Never rise your own preempt! Next to north 4♥ bid everything else looks like a small error.

My program scans all lin-files in a given directory, to perform the analysis. This way I could use vugraph files and files from myhand archive of well known WC players. To get a valid score more than 400 boards are needed (player will be dummy in about 100 of them). Most GIB errors are lead errors or happen during the first tricks. GIB errors that happen later are usually percentage plays that unfortunately don't work, while a simpler line would not have failed.

I would not adjust score. North did not hesitate prior to 4♥, north was waiting for an explanation of 2NT. If the facts are as stated, this is a clear fact. South can't see norths clicks on a bid, just the appearing explanation. In fact stating to the table "that opps won't explain 2NT" is a hint to LHO and partner that there is no hesitation from north at all. What legal information does south have: South will expect that opps 2NT shows the minors. North did not show minor stopper to reach a NT contract, but promised a hand that better to be played with trumps. South started cue bidding 4♠, and north bid 5♥. North did deny having a minor cue bid, so he does not have ♣A and in case of mixed cues ♣K and♦K are missing too. Even Qxx as a minor stopper is unlikely to be in north possession. Now to reach the strength necessary to bid 4♥, ♥A and ♠K are very likely. Over 6♣ north did not show anything, so now it's definite that there are no minor wastages and it's even more likely that north holds good values in ♠ and ♥.

dbl is negative here. Online I would simply bid 3NT to describe strength and promise ♣ values.

North has a normal opening and no reason to bid on over 3NT. The south hand could bid on, but I don't think it's a "must". South has a 5 loser hand opposite an opening, which is very often enough for a slam, and IMPs the loss between 5♦ and 3NT is much smaller than the gain of 6♦ vs. 3NT. But to try this, you need a system that allows you to investigate about a ♦ (minor) slam without passing 5♦. If you used 4♦ as RKCB, you could continue: 4♦ - 4NT (2A no♦Q) (Best possible answer) 5♦ (still not enough) - ? I think with 2 kings north should bid 6, with just a K and a Q he should stay in 5.

Except he won't because he will expect a weak hand with five-card trump support for your leap to 4♠. When you agree to such weak raises (which is a good idea), you have to include an agreement how to handle strong hands. If there is no agreement (as stated above), you don't play LOTT raises.

At IMPs I would simply bid 4♠. You partner should have 12+ HCP and 5♠, so your minimum combined holding is 24+ HCP and a 8 card fit. Fast arrival should show a minimum hand with support, about what you have. If your partner is not minimum, you will make it, if your partner happens to have 18+ HCP he can still make a move to slam. There is no need to help your opps, by telling them more about your distribution and strength.

I have done that and posted some results of that a while ago. But the system is limited to play and ignores bidding completely. It is less significant as one might think. WC's and gib produce error rates of about 0.4 errors per board. Intermediates make about 0.8 and beginners reach 0.9+. I had a few pickup partner with rates larger than 1, but i did not play enough boards with them to make the results mean something in a statistic.

A fair rating is bridge is much more complex than e.g in chess. This is because: - in one table bridge there is no true winner - the best player don't have to get best score - the "first" boards of any new partnership are below standard because of insufficient agreements - any tournament result is a function of the field, so an average score is meaningless if the field does not stay the same - you need a significant number of boards to make sure skill is more important than luck - there is no undisputed way to transform a pair/team result into an individual rating Ratings based on boards played in MBC with partners or opps changing every 2nd board are worthless. Ratings based on tourneys with 3-6 boards played are worthless. Ratings based of tourney results with 12-15 boards played and more than 30 tables are worthless, because you play so few opps, that the field each pair has is almost completely different. So most boards played online are of no valuable use far a rating system. Maybe team games on BBO could be used to get some sort of rating, but what about those players you rarely play team?

Let me repeat: - your partner bit a non forcing 2♣ showing 5+♣ with a weak hand - knowing about your ♣ fit, you suspected a doublefit in the minors, so instead of preempting 4♣ at once, you decided to leave lots of bidding space to opps and help them to find out about their doublefit in the majors. - after opps found out about their doublefit in the majors and that they can bid game and that they are holding a very good (for them) trump break against each of your minors, you sacrifice in red.

1. Playing all the top tricks first, wondering why opps get the remaining tricks. 2. Overbidding strong hands. 3. Underbidding weak hands. 4. Failure to realize the combined potential/strategy of both hands. 5. Passing with intermediate hands first and than feeling they have to force endlessly later.

With a regular partner, 2nd seat overcall of a preempt are very sound, so this is a clear pass over 3♣. 4♦ would be RKCB for ♦, so this would be my choice so i can pick up the extra information on the way to 5♦. With a pickup partner this is a simple 5♦.

With a regular partner, I double here, because our 2nd seat bids over a preempt are very sound. With a pickup partner, who would overcall a preempt with any possible hand, this is a clear pass.

We don't routinely log private chat (except for chat to/from our acbl TDs). We don't log private chat except when we think there might be a problem with a particular username. Maybe we'll rethink this all at some point but nothing rates to change in this area for a while. Perhaps adding vugraph operators would do the job.

I expect opener to hold 4♣ and 4♥ usually with a 2434 or 3424 shape. I expect my partner to have 5♦ and since my ♥s won't make much tricks I'll try to develop partners ♦ by leading the J♦.

He will be more polite to a client than to a fellow pro.

That humans and storks are in a predator-prey relationship? And since we're not hunting them... <starts yelling and running around in circles panicking> Don't panik :) and read: "Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologie", 2004 (18); 88-92 On the other hand i've seen Hitchcock's "Birds", maybe you're right. :)

Lets assume for a moment that vaccines would double the autism and ADHD. But what I would like to know is, how many children died from illnesses or took permanent damage because they did not get a vaccine. Did they forgot to mention that? If e.g. 0.1% of the kids with vaccines risk autism and ADHD, but 10% will die from getting a disease, what would you choose? Years ago I saw an interesting statistic with almost perfect correlation. I showed the correlation of the human birthrate and the population of storks. Guess what conclusion could be drawn ......