jjbrr

Solid 5 card suit and cards all working together? I think if you call it balanced then upgrading is quite clear. Many yarbs opposite make slam. Those yarbs won't bid over 3NT, and of the ones that will many (most?) of them will contain long ♣, right? Also, how many 3-suited 25 counts with a small x somewhere don't have many yarbs opposite that make slam? I don't see how that's an argument for upgrading NT by 2 points.

I don't understand why you called this 27-28... perhaps you could share?

wow, I have no idea what that means check=pass raise=raise check raise. seems obv to me. I'll PM you a link to the song, MarkDean

I would have thought this shows extras and I'm not sure I like your treatment so much. It seems there are more hands that need to be able to show extra strength than the 4207 minimum hands that need to bid 3♣

S can't pass 2♥ S can't double 5♥ Oh, are you asking about getting to grand? W could start with 2♠, but I don't think getting to grand is automatic on this hand. Also, whoever only made 5♥, I blame them too. This hand was a comedy of errors. Edit: and actually if I'm reading the post correctly, west doubled 5♥, not south. So I blame NS for not calling the director.

bing blang blaow check raise is in the house

you have a lot to learn... never hit old women. only hit young insecure girls to show them who's boss. they like that. old women just get loud and obnoxious.

Ya. 6♣. Lots of info available from this auction.

Heh, I don't think we actually disagree on this subject. I was simply offering more reasons and often the biggest reason that people don't perform well. Obviously I believe you can do things to increase how well you play on average and also decrease your variance, such as sleeping/excersizing/whatever floats your boat. I do think that if someone slept 6 hours instead of their normal 8 and had a bad session, it's more likely due to natural variance than the missing 2 hours of sleep, and they're likely to attribute too much blame to the missing 2 hours of sleep. That being said, it's clearly better to get 8 hours of sleep than 6 if thats what you need. Obv if you take some extreme and you got 0 hours of sleep or someone close to you died or something there is no chance you're gonna play well though. Ya I think everyone who cites "tired" as a reason is more or less saying the same thing just in different ways. I would never attribute a bad session to 6 hours of sleep; I would attribute 10 days of 6 hours of sleep with 3 sessions per day as a reason for being exhausted at the end. My play is noticeably and undeniably worse in this case, and it is not just a case of greater variance but that the mean decreases a few points on the 1-10 scale.

I thought airlines consider plastic bags and purses and such to be personal items, which I would hate to see people charge for. I was refering to big unchecked bags: those with wheels, big duffel bags, oversized backpacks.

pass and double. I'll correct 2NT to 3♣, bid 4♣ over 3♣, and bid game over anything else.

and furthermore I think charging more for unchecked luggage would be consistent with most airlines' pricing models that try to extract maximum value from businesspeople and last minute weekend travelers, who are more likely to carry a day bag on board and not wait for luggage.

I think I disagree. I have a problem with travelers getting a discount to inconvenience everyone around them when the alternative is to check the luggage and not inconvenience anyone except themselves when the luggage doesn't arrive on time. It seems to me that the privilege to handle your own luggage and therefore make a speedy escape from the airport while hassling all the other passengers on board should come at a price.

Fluffy: Here is a cat in a wizard's hat to calm your nerves http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/6539/49500366.png And here is a ram. http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5121/34770791.png Hope that helps!

only 3♥ about 60% of the time? wtf?

I'd just bid 2♠. If 3♠ is a mixed raise, I think this is close and would probably do that.

this is the type of garbage i like to overcall 1♠ with but not anything higher.

i use a service called sidestep.com to book my tickets for whatever. just like expedia or hotwire search for the best available rates for whatever flight you want, sidestep searches all the services to figure out which one is offering the best deal. you might want to check it out.

I agree with Phil. I can easily recognize the sessions where I have more decisions than others and therefore more room for mistakes. But when I legitimately feel like I'm performing poorly, it's almost always a result of being worn out at the end of a tournament, and while the automatic plays are still automatic, some of the other plays become too automatic when they shouldn't be, which results in errors.

ya it would tilt me so much if we got to 4♠ and you put down AQJT9xx in a suit you've only bid once so that we could play in a 4-4 fit

lol. also, clif bars are fantastic. i take them with me when i go hiking.

4♠

i have my money on mickelson

Tired is 8 of them. lol. i play my best bridge probably early-middle of a long tournament. thats generally because the first few days I'm either rusty or tired from traveling/time zone differences/whatever back home. By the end I'm just drained (isn't that completely normal?) and miss some spots or miss some inferences and start to drop tricks. Generally the Sunday Swiss is a big waste of time for me, mostly because I'm tired but also because I enjoy it much less and have to worry about traveling back home and stuff.

4♥ and i don't see a second choice