cherdanno

We all know that cuebid by Responder shows support for Opener's suit ( limit raise or better ). But I don't think it works the other-way-around for Opener's cuebid. 3H! is a general force, to be clarified later. It is asking for more info with the first priority as asking for a Ht-stop. You are ignoring that the auction is game forcing and pass is forcing. If opener is balanced, he should always pass (and responder will bid 2N with a stopper unless he has s.th. more important to say). If opener has support but no shortness, he bids 3♣. If he has a long spades, he rebids spades. You never need to bid 3♥ unless you have a distributional hand, and it is clearly more useful to make 3♥ a well-defined bid with a distributional hand in case advancer makes a preemptive heart raise.

I think you shouldn't read too much into this. They were just psyching, and as they were psyching they just might the bid that would make it toughest for opponents to find their minor suit fit (over 1H 1S they have TWO possible bids with 2344 shape and a 16 count, over 1H 1N they have NONE). This is a different situation than when responder has a 5 count, where finding the right spot is more important (as it might just be our deal opposite a minimum). In particular, I can't imagine anyone would play 1H 1S 2C 2H as promising values. Ok, I don't want to make statements about anyone, but I can't imagine Meckstroth or Martel were playing this.

I think not bidding 4♥ on the first one is terrible. RHO hesitated, so maybe LHO can't act when he might want to, so we are already ahead of the field. Of course, I may just be missing out on what kind of genius bid might work here.

Charisma and handsomeness more than makes up for bad spelling!

I think I agree with Josh. I have had a (reasonably good but not so experienced) partner where I certainly got a lot more information from UI than a panel who were just told about a hesitation would realize. I would think at the table it might be quite possible to guess whether responder was quite unhappy and just trying to escape into a better partscore (hoping that partner would pass), or just had an evaluation problem between an invite and a game force.

Heart.

Well, declarer can be 6=5=1=1 (not such an unlikely shape on the bidding), we have a heart trick, and they have ♣AK. I agree with the club though.

Well, Justin knocked down 2 and 3. I would also be skeptical about 1, I would understand constructive as "good 7 to 10", maybe frouu can clarify. Obviously 5 is rather questionable (it will be quite important for them to get the right lead). But assumption 6 is also very unrealistic, and it changes the odds for trying for game dramatically. When partner has 3 spades and 7 hcp, good opponents won't often let us play 2♠. In that case, our "loss" of 6 IMPS in 3♠-1 may well be a win 1 against 3♦+1 at the table where you passed.

I think you should post in the A/E forum if you think the thread will be interesting for A/E posters. If you post in the B/I forum you are still asking for the input of A/E posters, and you will often get it.

Very true. Those with more experience than a few days will typically understand it as specific king ask, however.

Uh-huh. Coin tossing doesn't work so well either, it has about a 51-49 bias to land the same way it starts out :) http://news.stanford.edu/news/2004/june9/diaconis-69.html

That would produce some ridiculous results in the comparisons for the other tables, though.

1. 4♠ right away. In your auction I pass I would double (and hate it). 2. I would double, but passing is fine. However, I don't understand passing over 2♣, what is wrong with 2N? It's not like that would be forcing to 4N. If partner has ♣KQ-6th and another king we want to be in game!

I would assume this is just a typo in GIB's system file.

The ten only picks up one singleton, the 9 offside, whereas low towards the jack pick up any singleton honour onside (two splits). You mean low towards the 8 - if an honor appears on the left, we go back to hand and play low towards the 8 unless LHO shows out.

I've only used gerber in a auctions where the opening was NT, my partner wants to play more. What are the good players using in slam bidding in addition to splinters, cues, rkc+ and where is gerber used? I also play exclusion (very rarely). I don't play Gerber except over 1N or 2N openings. I also have the fancy agreement that making more cues shows more slam interest. Oh ok and sometimes if there is little space, the only available cue just shows slam interest, not a control. More gerber would just gerberize me. Oh ok, 5N is often pick-a-slam, and sometimes somehow related to trumps. I never quite know and would probably be better off just playing it as pick-a-slam <_<

I can't believe anyone is seriously suggesting (3). I would ask, not to alert partner, just to find out which is right. (Yes I have once seen a CC that wasn't 100% correct.) Why create a messy MI information when it's not necessary? Maybe partner will look at the CC later, but given the missing announcement, will assume I thought 2♣ was Michaels? What is the problem with asking? Assuming the CC is right, they will say its short, I will bid 2♣, and partner knows it shows clubs. Where is the UI problem? Ok, if the CC is wrong, I may have given partner UI that I have clubs if I asked in the wrong tone. At least in this case I have created an interesting Ruling problem to post (Is UI still UI when it is due to a question I only asked because of MI on the CC? New thread anyone? <_< )

Wow so far I completely disagree with every single answer. 5♠ IS JUST A GENERAL INVITATION TO 6♠!!! You have only one bid available to invite slam with a spade one-suiter. Surely a general invitation comes up more frequently than the "I have 2 heart losers" case, or the "I need and ace" case? I don't think I have quite enough to bid on here.

Do you really find this number so hard to believe? There are 45 million without health insurance. Is it so hard to believe that not having health insurance increase your risk of dying by 0.05% per year? That would roughly correlate to health insurance increasing your life expectancy by 1 year. Sounds like a pretty reasonable estimate to me.

A system that distinguishes between balanced and unbalanced hands and adjusts the point strength according to the balance-type is not a HUM per se. But in Wayne's system he did not mention balance. In his system a hand with 9-10 HCP without a major may be balanced or unbalanced. And those hands are quite probably stronger than some balanced 8 HCP hands with a 4 card major. Therefore HUM. I think you missed my point. In K-S (the way I understand it), there are many unbalanced hands that are opened with 1M, that would be passed if the longest suit was a minor - even if you made them a point stronger.

Then Kaplan-Sheinwold (with solid minor openings) is HUM too? ("1 m openings are always sound -- in points if balanced, in quick tricks if unbalanced. 1 M openings may be shaded." - http://www.bridgeworld.com/default.asp?d=e.../ksupdated.html )

So you are against any form of health insurance?

But that was always an illogical position. You cannot require insurance company to cover pre-existing conditions (i.e. to take any new customer) without a mandate for everyone to have health insurance. Otherwise, it would be very attractive to avoid buying health insurance, since when you find out you have cancer/are pregnant/... you can always buy insurance then. It would cover all big medical fees except for true emergencies. I agree that there is not enough cost cutting in the bills yet. The tax exemption for health insurance benefits would have to go, or get capped, but that is politically infeasible :) Given that is impossible, it would be nice to give a tax benefit to cheaper plans with higher deductibles (basically a portion of the salary that would typically be spent on deductibles should be tax free). Public option seems like a clear win-win and is popular, but can't get past health-insurance-money-rich senators :huh:

bid_em_up, need a drink? Your misuse of "LOL" here is discrediting a very useful tool, btw.

I used to play this (with Han and inquiry). It works well whenever - opponents overcall spades or clubs, and - there is an unbid major and an unbid minor. In fact we played it up to the 3-level. I still think it's sound, we just dropped it at the time because we wanted to simplify things.