cherdanno

And why did he bid 4♣?

So responder can psych stayman without any danger? Better make sure your partner doesn't read this post or you may have to alert 3♣ :)

Uuuuh yes! X and 4♥ are both blindingly obvious.

I have an easy rule for competitive auctions - 3NT is always a suggestion to play.

Yes 3S is forcing, this is how you look for slam with clubs and 3-card spade support in SAYC.

Yeah ♠J, don't understand anything else.

Indeed (43 minutes better?), and you should be glad you aren't reading my posts after a German-Dutch final :ph34r:

I thought sliding in from behind with both feets is a red card. (Although seeing the replay I am not quite sure whether it's the foul I meant.) About the Iniesta "dive" - yeah maybe he could get up sooner, but I also know it hurts to get hit with studs, and it would take me much longer to get up. I take it you play soccer and get up right away when you get hit with someone's studs?

ooooooh so now we all try to bid like hanp?

If this is a bidding contest, I blaim South. Looking at his hand, he should know that the right contract is either 2♦ or 7♦, so he can't jump to 3♦.

Besides de Jong's chest-kick there was also a very bad tackle by (I think) van Bommel earlier where he slid with both his feet into a Spanish player; I was surprised he did not see a red card for that. There were quite a few similar fouls that weren't quite as bad and got a well-deserved yellow card. Overall I did think the Dutch were way too aggressive, I thought it was ugly to watch and given that they were twice lucky not to receive a red card in the first half I also can't believe it's the percentage play to make.

rogerClee - cherdano Oh and I vote for no notes allowed. (Just because we don't have any, of course ;) )

I don't think partner should bid differently, I certainly thought that this hand was possible and was afraid to pass. Of course, there are also similarly strong hands where slam is hopeless (any hand with 2 slow diamond losers), so probably passing is still right, as partner can also have a little less (not much less, as then he would jump to 4H first planning to double 4S).

At the end of the day - let me guess - we will all learn how to finesse the transitive form of "finesse". (Sorry 'bout that.)

I always thought finessing the queen means playing the J from AKJ or s.th. similar, it wouldn't have occurred to me anyone would use it differently

I don't think you have ever mentioned transfers as a possibility in this auction (or similar ones).

Yes thanks a lot to Aberlour, this kind of stuff is actually more work than it looks. (Especially with some [name removed]s out there, always changing their vote at the last second.)

This seems sensible/fair to me. You don't want to punish people too badly since they might accidentally disconnect (has happened to me and probably everyone), but you don't want to let people cheat to gain an advantage. This approach seems like the best. Or maybe let the remaining player choose whether to finish the hand himself, or let GIB finish it?

What an ugly final. Congrats to Spain and to mich-b.

Indeed. Pass on the first round I can understand, but 2♠ on the second round I really don't.

6 hearts: 45.8% 7 hearts: 55%

About the MP/IMP question: I think there it is much better to use MPs. You can't really do an IMP bidding contest unless you are willing to give lower weight to partscore hands than to game hands, which need to have lower weight than slam hands.

Question 2: Do you know what the expression "prisoner's dilemma " refers to? Question 3: Do you understand how "prisoner's dilemma" applies to doping? Mike, don't answer those! What are you worried about? Have you ever seen Mike answering a question? Or did you mean "don't post a reply to this"?

Mmmm, 62% votes for 1NT at this point! The forum is better than you think!

More bizarre things have happened: - I do think doping cyclists honestly consider themselves innocent - and in a way that's fair. At least in the late 90s (some would say until today) everybody knew that everybody was doping, so it was fair game, and they were just keeping up a public face of not using it since otherwise the sport wouldn't be able to sell to sponsors. I found it quite telling that when an athlete was caught doping, other athletes would react outraged, while when a cyclist was caught doping, his colleagues complained that it's always cycling that gets targeted, there is doping in other sports too, etc. - Maybe he just wants to prove to history that he could dominate both in the era of doping, and in the era when doping became too dangerous (conserving blood samples seem to increase the risk by a lot). - It doesn't make sense for him anyway - more to lose than to win for him IMO.