cherdanno

After you have found a fit, doubles are for penalty, not for takeout.

I can't believe anyone would not double 1NT with the West hand. You may have 500, and you are describing your hand very well (maximum pass, balanced). I can only see an upside to doubling.

It's just not likely enough that partner is unbalanced. Double.

1♣ 1♥ 1♠ swish, what have I gained? Besides what Roger pointed out, there are two more benefits to opening your best suit: If you open clubs, partner will devalue club shortness. If you open diamonds, partner will devalue diamond shortness. Obviously, it's better when partner devalues club shortness (and with his actual hand partner has an even more obvious 2♠ bid after the auction 1C-1H-1S). The other is that in case there is a slam, showing your best suit is even more important, as you always need good trumps to play slam (so for slam purposes it is more costly to lose a fit in your best suit than to lose a fit in another suit).

Pearson be damned. I open because it's an opening hand.

This is really an automatic 1H bid. You have only 5 hcp, but you have - an ace - an AJT-combo - in a 4-card suit, which is even - partner's suit, and - you have a singleton, while knowing you have a 4-4 fit. The hand is at least as good as your typical balanced hand with 8 hcp.

Owen also has 29 posts (olien), I guess Ben just made a typo.

1) 3♣. 2) 3N 3) I have no defense when partner passes but I think I am still just about worth a double. If partner has no high card, they will make, if he has one or two, we will beat it, and if he bids it will cost 4 IMPs or it will gain a lot. Seems about worth it.

They live in the snow, what do you expect? They also have the best chess player, 3 of the best 10 bridge players in the world, a junior bridge team that won a gold medal recently on top of the best winter athletes, and they have a basically tiny population. It is just unreal how good Norway is at everything for it's size. Snow activities and indoor activities, two things that probably coorelate very strongly with how much snow they get. I bet they do a lot worse in the summer olympics! Btw, country that does worst in olympic medals per capita? India :) Well, Norway isn't only a small country compared to the US, it is also small when compared to Canada or Sweden or Germany or Austria. But of course they have the most beautiful coastline on the world, too.

Hmm I think both of them have an easy 4♠ bid over 4♥.

I would suggest passing the double of 3H as suggesting doubt about a heart stopper. I would even suggest that's the normal way to play it.

Do you have the hand wrong, or does partner not know how to reverse?

I think doubt-showing XX works well when you have clearly defined what it means. So when opponents are clearly doubling for the lead of a specific suit, then XX says - I have worries about that suit, but - I also have extras, so if you have it stopped we may make overtricks, and - we may also make whatever we may be running to.

Cutting costs is hard, always. But from what I read it seems like the senate bill is really trying to. Here is an excellent summary: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archiv...-journey/30619/ As for why there is not more malpractice reform in the current bills, I think the story is this (from The Economist):

Yeah if I could show 6H 3S and an invite then I would do that, but bidding 3H just misses too many games when partner has 5 spades, I don't think this is close.

Might go slamming if pard does NOT have a heart stop, though. Not sure how, but it would be fun. Yup, that's why we bid 3♥.

Pass pass pass.

Says the person who - first had to "stabilize his random generator" until it was working properly, and - missed the obvious difference between the two possible ways of ensuring that South has at least as many hcp as everyone else.

Nope :) Seriously, there are many ways to make mistakes with such a program.

Is the ability to play in 3C more important than the ability to show both 5 card major and force and to get out in 3 of a major? Obviously Andy is playing transfers starting with 3♦, so he gets all 3 of them. Also obviously, Han meant to say "3♦ is forcing, and opener is required to bid 3-card major suits" aka inverted puppet stayman, so he also gets to do everything.

You can always remove people from your friend list - they don't get a notification, so most likely they won't ever notice.

If you really even consider bidding 3♠ with this hand, I don't understand why you wouldn't play 4♣ as natural. I wouldn't have bid 3♠ with the actual hand. Given that South bid 3♠, I also think North is too good to bid 4♠. Edit: I guess I should have said "I am not used to the style with 3S as good suit good hand" rather than "very good suit useful hand". So I guess 3S is in range for this agreement, but still North can really go on over 4H.

The moderators.

Huh? If LHO has KJx, and if you play him for KJx (or cater to it), then Ace and a spade out is necessary to avoid two spade losers. Maybe you shouldn't only look at the spade suit...

Oh come on. You think 2NT was natural game forcing? Or it was an inv+ diamond raise and the OP forgot to tell us?