cherdanno

Yes, 4♦ is tempting, but I think it's too much. Inverted is off in competition.

One of us is misreading the auction. In my auction, my partner showed lots of hearts and more clubs, and LHO showed a (probably unbalanced) 1♦ opening.

I would pass, 7-1 fits probably play better than 5-2 fits.

Josh if your partner opened 2♣ and then doubled 2♠ and you happened to be looking at ♠Jxxxx, would you be confident enough to pass thinking he had a penalty x? Yes.

Obviously you need to discuss this stuff more with your partners. With 8-4 you start with 4♣ and bid 4♠, with 8-5 you start with 4♣ and bid 5♠. If your partner refuses to discuss this stuff then probably he wants to open them all 1♣ without having an agreement with you about it so its still legal.

It wouldn't occur to me to say anything like that. I would say "Our first discard shows blah, later discards are bleh."

So you miss any swing where your team bid 3D over their making 2H (unlike the other table), and could have made given they lead they got? Whereas if the other team bids 3D over 2H and makes on that reasonable lead they got, you declare it a swing on the bidding?

How much time do you spend looking for lost IMPs in the play? To give a fair assessment of that you also have to look at every contract where the two tables were in different contracts, and analyze whether the opposing team would have made more out of the spot your bidding put you in (including giving opponents more rope to make mistakes etc.).

Anyone who thinks there is little difference in cardplay among world class players should kibbitz Brogeland more often. I remember one set where 4 times he made a different choice in play or defense than his world-class counter-part at the other table. Every single time it won him a swing. But of course the vurgraph commentators instead talked about some brilliant bidding (which, to paraphrase Kaplan, consists of questionable or borderline bids that work out). One thing to keep in mind that the difference in IMP expectancy between top teams is small in general. E.g. I would think that among the best 5 teams in the Spingold, none would be favored against another by much more than 20 IMPs. So if someone can create a positive game swing (or another doubled undertrick) about once every two sets, I would consider that huge.

This will be the layout to cash CA (and give partner ruff) IF north didn't have CJ. With CAJ there is no reason to play CA, not to mention it is pretty unlikely for partner to hold 6241 and only bid 3S. Declarer can pitch two clubs and ruff one. But of course I agree Fred would be unlikely to bid 3S with 6241 ;)

If LHO drops the T under the Ace on the first round, you should still finesse, as otherwise you are giving up on all Tx-Qxx combinations with LHO falsecarding (and that falsecard is much easier to find than Phil's QTx falsecard).

I bet compared to bidding 6♦ it cost quite a few IMPs.

Higher than what? Than after the auction (2C) P (2D) 4D? I don't think the devil will be hiring you as an advocate any time soon.

Typo?

How can 3♠ be dangerous when the other table will obviously bid it, too?

I just ran that simulation versus 6-7 ♠, 2-3 ♠ honours and less than 10hcp and 7♥ only makes 38.64% of the time. Uh, I mean RHO having a 3S preempt, not CHO. But feel free to waste more time with another simulation :)

But I don't think you should say "I am just thinking about the whole hand" when in fact you do have a trick one problem.

I'm not sure why I asked that instead of just testing it for myself. Anyway, I see that explanations are, in fact, visible to partner. Now that I understand the problem, my vote would be, in order of preference: (1) Find a way to make the explanations invisible to partner (2) Make the explanations by private chat to the operator and any kibbitzers (3) Go back to using teaching tables, and tell the players not to click the "movie" button Ctrl-K probably works well enough for (2).

Double.

I think it's a common agreement. Maybe "SP unless it looks like we may want to force dummy" is also a common one. In any case, when you have 5+cards it's obviously convenient to play SP as you can request a continuation with a middle card.

Um, Rainer, how often have you seen players jump to 4-card suits over a preempt, when they had a 6-card side suit? Also, it doesn't matter whether 6♦ makes 40% of the time when there is another small slam that makes much more often. I mean, when you have A AKQJ AK AKQJT9 over a 3S preempt, then I am sure 7♥ makes more than 40% of the time. Do you know anyone who would jump to 7♥ over 3S for that reason?

Which position do you think I am opposed to? I thought there were at least 3, gay marriage, file sharing and marijuana? :ph34r: (That qwery_hi thinks you are opposed to)

For those who wondered like me: the hand is on page 2 of the Daily Bulletin no. 10: http://www.acbl.org/nabc/bulletins/2010/02/10/ Beautiful!

If an opponent shows you his cards, that information is AI. Receiving UI puts you at a disadvantage (as you can't make some plays that some of your idiotic peers would miss), and surely I can't be put at a disadvantage because an opponent showed me his cards?

If North knew that declarer was 2434, there would be no bridge reason to switch to ace and another club - it could never gain, and could only lose or break even. If there's no bridge reason to do it, it's not a logical alternative and he's not obliged to do it. I think it depends on the level of the players. I think there are many players that would notice after a slow 2 that the club switch can't be necessary, but would switch to a club without thinking after a fast 2. At a level where players routinely run through declarer's shape before making a possibly dangerous switch ignoring the SP should be allowed. That level obviously starts below Spingold finalists, but maybe not that further down.