nigel_k

>The differences between the players at the top level are getting smaller and smaller. I doubt this but have no strong opinion either way. There has been some shuffling of partnerships recently which puts the players involved at a disadvantage until they can re-establish a tested combination. Then a gap will start to open up again. >Thus, to win an event like the Vanderbilt, it matters more and more to have a very good sponsor I don't understand how this follows from the first statement. Doesn't a big difference in ability at the top level mean two of the very best pairs can carry a sponsor more easily? >teams without a sponsor have a good chance of winning even if they have no top pair. A sponsor who plays well like Nickell and has the very best pairs on his team will always be hard to beat. In most cases a sponsor is a major handicap though. Assuming you define 'top pair' so that most of them are playing with sponsors, the above statement is probably true.

Overcall on both. Obviously we have a mediocre suit on the second one but our goals are different when they preempt compared to when they open at the one level. 3♥ is the right way to bid constructively and find our best strain.

Agree with this. Maybe 3♦ is not terrible but 2NT figures to make more often. It's not a 1 or 3 hand - we just won't have nine tricks very often.

There aren't many hands where opener will consume all that space to prevent slam investigation while also ruling out 3NT. I think he has a distributional hand with sub-minimum reversing values, probably will 11 minor cards, e.g. ? ? KQxxx AKJxxx. I wouldn't jump to 5♣ with that hand and a heart void because I'd want to keep slam in the picture. Some players would though and there are other hand types. I would expect to beat it less than 20% of the time, maybe more like 10%. Not enough, especially if they redouble.

Double. It's probably not lead directing though I'm happy if partner thinks it is. Pass would be ok but I think they will go down 2-3 tricks more often than they make. Partner would almost certainly have bid 5♣ when we belong there and sometimes when we don't. The previous bidding is fine.

Just a waiting bid is better than what most people do, but I would suggest the following: 2♥ Natural positive but doesn't need much, eg Qxxxx and a king somewhere 2♠,2NT,3♣,3♦ Natural positive with at least three of each major 2♦ Anything else The 2♥ positive is ok because it doesn't force opener any higher than he was going anyway. It also makes 3♥ available as a negative over opener's 3♣ or 3♦ as you cannot have a decent hand with hearts. Since the other positives have three of each major, opener with a five card or longer major can set trumps by bidding his suit at the three level. There's no loss of space compared to e.g. 2♣-2♦-2♠-3♠, plus responder has contributed some extra information rather than using a full round to just communicate three card support. After 2♣-2♦-2♥/♠ use 2NT as the negative since it's cheap and you likely won't play NT anyway.

Pass. Lead directional.

In the balancing position, it is typical to act with about 3 HCP less and balancer's partner therefore needs 3 HCP more. Accordingly we have 5 HCP. Though it is a pretty good 5 HCP, this is a 2NT bid playing Lebensohl and a 3♣ bid if not.

As usual with these, there are two different questions: what is the best approach and what does/should it mean if undiscussed? I think the consensus expert approach is that a weak responder either rebids their suit or bids the cheaper of 2NT and the fourth suit. After that, opener must bid again but responder may pass opener's next bid. If responder does anything else it's a game force. Maybe I am old-fashioned but undiscussed I wouldn't feel confident that 3♣ is forcing and would do something else with the given hand.

XX. 1♠ close second choice. Would not pass or bid 1NT.

I'm for 16 teams, knockout with long matches, with seeding based on previous BB results. I believe this would actually reduce the element of luck. A short match can swing on a couple of hands - several VPs for a slam on a finesse in the worst case. The best teams also risk encountering a weak team on a flat set of boards where they can't 'harvest' as much as their competitors. With a knockout, the best teams would all get first round opponents they could beat and be rested and ready for the second round. Of course knockouts would be unpopular because half the field would be putting in a lot of time and money just to go home after one match. But determining the team that deserves to be called world champion ought to take priority. Maybe there could be a secondary Swiss event that teams join after they get knocked out of the main event.

Maybe the squeeze needn't involve the diamond suit?

1. Pass. 2. 6♣, but would not have bid this way. 3. Double or 3♣ according to system. 4. 4♠. 5. Double and pass 4♥. Good luck partner. 6. Pass. Partner will expect something like this so why pull?

2♠. Showing a hand too good to overcall 1♠. Double does not expose the psyche clearly enough to enable partner to jump in spades with a weak suit and 2♠ is a more accurate description of my strength and spade suit.

You could argue that saving the life of an innocent child is more important than many of the things our taxes are used for. But opposing state-funded healthcare and also opposing abortion is hard to justify.

Outlawing abortion forces a woman to give 6-7 months of her time when an innocent person's life depends on it. Taxes force people (mostly men) to give up as much as five years of their time and the government then wastes much of the proceeds. Neither imposition is justifiable but abortion is much less burdensome than taxes and for much greater gain per hour spent. To be pro-choice and consistent you have to agree that taxes, and therefore government, must be reduced to a fraction of the current size.

I'm a little surprised that people are so willing to accept the 2♣ opening: i) You need all the space you can get with this shape ii) Since you'll be opening 1♣ you have a better chance that someone will bid iii) If partner cannot respond, game might not make (though it probably will make a bit more than half the time) As it happens, the 2♣ opening didn't contribute to the bad result. With four card support, an ace and a king opposite a 2♣ opening, North should realize that slam is highly likely to make and partner is equally highly likely to have short diamonds so 1100 is a long way off. Double could work but is anti-percentage and there's no need to take such a view when 6♣ should be an above average score. North 100%.

Of the ones with a stiff club, 2♦ on the first two and pass on the last one. Double on all the others. No ELC so may need to apologise if partner chooses clubs.

The whole world would transfer because 1NT doesn't score 180 on that auction. To the people who are worried about 2-3 in the red suits, that is just one holding. Showing the red suits without specifying length will gain on many others. It's a game of percentages. Finally, RHO has to guess too. He could have good clubs but will often just have a collection of high cards. Given we have at least half the HCP plus the advantage of declaring we are a favourite to make. Plus there is no guarantee of avoiding -200 if we pull. Plus if we pass and they pull to 2♣ we are now much better placed than if we tried to show suits without their help.

1♠-(3♣)-4♣ 4♥-5♣ 5♠-6♠ 4♣: agree spades and initiates cue bidding 4♥: cue first round control, denies first round diamond control 5♣: cue (probably) first round control 5♠: nothing more to say 6♠: knows ♦K missing as no 5♦ cue so 7 likely to be too high. This assumes you cue bid first round controls before second. There are fancy methods that combine Blackwood and voids but you don't need them here.

Pass. The term 'save suggesting' doesn't necessarily suggest to me a hand where they will make and/or where the save will be cheap. Partner could have the right hand but he could also have plenty of other hands.

5♠. This could be wrong but it's the best chance to avoid a bigger and more expensive problem later on. Will not act again but this kind of auction implies that partner may do so if he has no defence at all.

I always use 2♣ as artificial in that situation, instead of NMF, because it gives you an extra step and they seldom let you play 2♣ anyway. Anything at the two level other than 2♣ is less than invitational values. There are different response stuctures but I prefer a very simple Stayman-like approach: show an unbid four card major or three card support for partner's major, otherwise bid 2♦, or possibly 2NT with a good maximum. Having said that, I'm not sure that the range of the NT rebid makes much difference to the continuations except that 15-17 will be more playable in 1NT and so giving up the ability to play 2 of a minor is a smaller loss. Please do post more on this and let us know how you get on. Probably the biggest change system-wise will be what you do when they double, or what responder does with a bad hand when expecting a double.

Just to clarify, they played some strange system where West started with 2♣ (not Stayman), East bid 2♦ which just indicated a balanced hand (no 5 major or 6 minor or 5422), West then transferred to hearts, asked for aces and bid 6♦ (yes, he knew they were off two aces when he bid it). It was keycard for hearts so the diamond king wasn't included. Opening 1NT with a small singleton might not be beyond these guys, but for the purposes of this problem you can assume East has two or three hearts and partner one or two. If partner has two hearts, they are either: i) 87 and the ace of clubs ii) 74 and the ace of spades In ii) declarer should not falsecard with the 8 because it makes partner's 7 high In i) declarer might have falsecarded with the four but it's not certain how often he would do this. If anything, the falsecard possibility points slightly towards spades not clubs.

The above quote is from another thread. I just wanted to clarify this separately because I'm not sure I agree with and/or understand what David said. I'd suggest that fielding a psych means you chose action X over action Y where Y is more effective if partner has his bid and X is more effective if he is psyching. This can be done unintentionally, e.g. the possibility of a psych never occurred to you and you chose X just because you wrongly judged it to be better than Y. So in order to know whether a psych was fielded, you have to make difficult bridge judgments about the merits of various actions, the same as when an action is taken by a player who has UI. It's not a clearcut either/or situation. Can I also ask what the director should do in the case where a psych has been fielded? Does intention matter or is it like UI where your entirely innocent normal action can be cancelled if other players would have chosen something else?