nigel_k

Looks so simple, it cant be the solution. You can make the seq. slightly more complicate, if you add King ask to the seq., to find out about the King of clubs, to make the seq. look more professional. With kind regards Marlowe Heh. But if partner doesn't have ♣K and signs off then you bid 7 anyway, that wouldn't look very professional.

A ten is an honour, though that is a consequence of the way scoring works at rubber bridge rather than an analysis of which leads work best. But I think a low spade does offer better chances of establishing tricks, especially if partner gains the lead next.

Basically agree with Marlowe. A spade is a bit less attacking than a heart but much less dangerous. I'd score: ♠2 100, ♣ 70, ♥ 50, ♦ 20, ♠10 0. I don't see a reason to consider 10♠ instead of a small one. I'm scoring it zero based on its logical merit though obviously it has a nonzero chance of success.

Maybe he spent it overseas or on things with no VAT? And if his descendants get the money and spend it they'll pay VAT anyway so it is a wash in that case. Lest I be accused of ideological opposition to taxes (which would possibly be a true accusation), my main point is that a tax on income or consumption is much preferable to a tax on savings. There are economists all across the political spectrum who will agree with that.

It's much easier to avoid the gift tax than the estate tax because you can give things other than cash or and it's very hard to detect. Let's say A and B earn the same income all their lives and pay the same income taxes. A lives frugally and saves and invests so he can leave money to benefit his descendants when he's gone. B squanders all his money on booze or gambles it away. You should agree with the estate tax only if you're fine with the government imposing a much higher effective rate of tax on A compared to B.

How about 1♠-2♦-2♠-3♦-4NT-5♠-7♦?

Obviously if you've agreed in advance never to trap pass with a strong hand then it's a different problem than the posted one. If partner has a trap pass with a weaker hand I think you still want to double. Sure they might find a better spot somewhere else but we've got enough spades that it's also quite likely they won't. LHO could have a normal overcall and partner something like Kxx K10xxx Axxx x. If partner is not trapping then the hand doesn't belong to us and I wouldn't expect to go plus by outbidding them. But that doesn't mean we have to defend 1♥ for an almost certain minus. We're not vulnerable so the main danger is they double us in something, but it just seems more likely we can push them higher and maybe beat them a trick. I just don't see that the upside of defending 1♥ can outweigh the downside when partner has a penalty pass and we leave him stranded.

If partner has five spades, he'll take out your 1NT into a 5-1 fit. If partner has less than five spades, you probably have a fit in hearts or clubs which you can find if you wait for them to bid spades and then double.

Double. I have a perfectly respectable opening bid, at least on defence. If partner is not trapping, I still expect to do better most of the time by competing than letting them play 1♥. We're only at the one level and my hand is not that different from what partner will expect for a reopening double.

I see this a lot. Something is wrong when both partners look at the vul and form of scoring. There should be a "push seat" with the other bidding straight up and down. The problems occur because partnerships are never sure who is supposed to be pushing. Yopu know the sort of thing, 1NT - 2NT - 3NT that turns out to be a "good" 15 opposite a "good" 7, with both citing "vulnerable at IMPs" It would be good to have guidelines, which suggests a poll. Who do you think is in the push seat in this auction? This is a good question. I have always thought that the first player to limit their hand should not push. They just accept a game try with an above average hand and refuse with a below average hand. So for example after a 1NT opening only responder pushes and after a single raise of a major only opener pushes. Otherwise yoyu do end up with those silly situations where a 1NT opener nearly always accepts an invite. But if neither hand is limited you can each stretch by half the total amount that is justified.

I would have bid 2♥ instead of double. It is too hard if double can be any hand with three spades, for the reasons given by mikeh. Having said that, I am not ashamed of my hand since I have some defence so I would just pass. Interesting question as to what bids in this situation would mean. 5♠ must be a slam try but I don't know whether that implies you can just bid 5♦ or 5♥ with a distributional minimum, or you need extras for those as well. If I had something like QJx KQJxx QJTxx - I would really want to be able bid 5♦ though. So maybe a better hand with the same shape should bid 5♠ and partner can still bid 5NT if they don't know where to go.

My preference is for short suit tries. With no short suit, make the cheapest bid and responder can show their short suit. This has the benefit of being simple and good thin games often have small cards opposite a shortage. If playing 'help suit' tries, I would define it as the suit which has the most losers in the top three cards. So with your example hand, AKT96 K87 6 AJ94, I would have bid 3♥ not 3♣, which works better on the actual hand. Responder has to use their judgment and just include the new information in their overall valuation. So they may bid game with a maximum and no help in the suit. I would play any further bid by responder below three of the major as a further game try, not a cue bid or anything else. This just shows a hand that can't decide whether to bid game or not. If there is a choice of suit then choose the one with the best secondary values.

4♣. I think it's quite close as far as picking the best game, but 4♣ is better on the slam hands.

I didn't like Drury for a long time but am a convert now. The alternatives are 1NT or 2♥ which are both unpleasant, but if you respond 2♣ natural and partner bids 2♦ it's really not that much better. If playing a weak 2♦ opening I think it's better to use 2♦ as Drury because there will be fewer hands you want to respond a natural 2♦. If not playing a weak 2♦ then maybe you would use two suited openings and would not be in this situation anyway.

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=sj10ha872daj9842cj&w=sq9743hkq10954d3c9&e=sa862h3d10ck1087653&s=sk5hj6dkq765caq42]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Bidding was: P 1♦ 2♦ 5♦ 5♠ 6♦ AP Apportion the blame between North and South. The 1♦ opening was standard, i.e. either 4+ cards or 4432. If 5♦ was wrong, what should a 5♦ bid look like?

2♣ opening is fine on strength and 1♠ doesn't really save space if you're going to jump next anyway. I wouldn't feel good passing after 1♠-1N-3♦-3N which makes a 2♣ opening better I think. Also it's more likely tio go all pass when you open 1♠. I'm all for heavy one level openings with 5431 types especially with a five card minor but this hand has a lot of playing strength and two five cards that you will probably be able to show below 3NT. So definitely a 2♣ opening. I prefer to just bid 2♦ on most hands (or a 2♥ positive which doesn't take up space) and let the 2♣ opener describe so would not give a positive here. If I did play a method where I'd bid a 3♣ positive on this, then it would be a good enough suit to play opposite stiff Ace so you might find 6♣ on these cards. Of course you'd still have to make it. After that, I would bid: 2♣-2♦ 2♠-3♣ 3♦-3♥ 3NT-4NT P

I don't think this is a good analogy. It's nearly always better to have agreements than not have them, because the advantage of knowing what you're doing outweighs the disadvantage of having to tell the opponents what you have. And experienced pairs will develop agreements through practice anyway whether they wish to or not. The advantages of detailed written system notes are, primarily that you can study them to help you remember and you can use them in an appeal if needed. The downside is that the opponents can prepare in greater detail and the whole world gets to copy all your good ideas. For many pairs, the disadvantages will outweigh the advantages. So a requirement to fully disclose system notes creates a perverse incentive not to create such notes in the first place. That is, at least potentially, a serious problem IMO. But a requirement to disclose agreements if asked doesn't create any perverse incentive not to have agreements at all.

Regarding the argument that all system notes should be made available as part of full disclosure, isn't this just rewarding people who don't write stuff down but nevertheless have agreements either made verbally or from partnership experience? In fact, people who currently write a lot of their system down might benefit from no longer doing so or even deleting what they have. To have this requirement and maintain a level playing field you'd basically need to make every pair write a book before they were allowed to play. It would also be hard to enforce. If it turned out my partner and I exchanged emails six months ago about a particular situation and forgot to tell opponents, even supposing you somehow discover the emails, what are you going to do about it? The status quo is that you have to know what to ask about and when to ask about it, even if doing so risks tipping off the opponents and/or transmitting UI. Obviously this isn't ideal but I think it's still less bad than any alternative I've seen proposed.

Prefer 1NT the first time and bid 3NT now. It probably won't make though. This would be harder nonvul I think.

I tend to agree with Hrothgar that opening 1NT is better though it is close. At different scoring or vulnerability it would be different though my preference with limited bids like a 1NT opening is that responder may stretch for vulnerable games but the 1NT opener just bids his hand normally. So 1NT is fine in that case because it isn't worth more than an average 17. The actual problem is a tough one. My first thought was I would like to pass, but partner doesn't have many options over 2♣ and might have bid 2♦ on a decent hand and/or with a five card major so pass is not an option and I was leaning towards 2NT. But when I started to construct hands, there aren't that many where game makes. Gwnn's example where partner has ♣10 and ♥Q and the diamonds run is one of them. There are some hands where we might make four of a major as well, eg Jxxxx Kx Kxxx xx but probably there a larger number where we'll go down in four of a major if we keep bidding. It's optimistic to hope that LHO will underlead AK when he likely has another entry somewhere. I now think pass is the best percentage action but don't know if I could bring myself to do it at the table.

My list of factors that make a good bridge player: 1. Logic. Not necessarily mathematical, but the two often go together. 2. Visualization. Being able to form a mental picture of the unseen hands and understand how that translates into taking tricks. 3. Psychology. Being able to see things from an opponent's perspective and therefore limit the range of possible layouts to those that are consistent with the bidding and play so far. Also understanding how a given opponent will likely react to various bids/plays you might choose. 4. Bidding Skill and Judgment. I don't know if this is unique to bridge, or is a more general skill. But certainly there are some otherwise good players who just don't have it. Essentially I mean the ability to grasp principles of bidding such as not bidding your hand twice, knowing when a hand is 'good' or 'bad', and having the discipline to stick to agreements and the wisdom to know when to depart from them. 5. Collaboration/Communication. Essentially how to be a good partner. 6. Concentration and Discipline. This is limited to abilities that you might try to detect in someone early on, which I think is what the op was about - so things like practicing a lot or having parents who play are not included but obviously matter. A competitive attitude might matter at the top level, but I think you can be 'good' (maybe very good) without it. In general, I think the attempt to apply sports psychology to bridge is a bit misguided. The game is really about problem solving and the personal satisfaction of solving puzzles can be a decent substitute for the competitive desire to beat the opponent. As for how you might detect these factors, I really have no idea that isn't obvious.

You definitely don't want to use anything that has to be memorised - not if I am your partner anyway. Though it's good to be able to make a start on showing a two suiter because LHO might jump in a minor. Maybe you can just use your defence to 1NT depending on what it is.

Can't this all be solved by not having separate women's events and instead having separate prizes for the top all-woman pairs or teams?

The problem with requiring payment is that if you set it too high, some people will be excluded and if you set it too low, the troublemakers won't mind paying twice. I don't know if there is a level that works but I kind of doubt it. Then you could have legal issues if you boot someone after taking their money, that wouldn't exist if they had paid nothing. Any of the suggestions that involve a delay between signing up and getting Premium membership suffer from the problem that people can sign up multiple times and just switch IDs if one gets banned. Maybe it could be a 'number of hands played' requirement rather than a time requirement.

6♣. Will bid 7♠ over 6♥, otherwise 6♠.