sfi

In my experience, MUD gives you all the information you need, but one trick too late. Typically, when you lead high partner knows you don't have an honour in the suit. When you lead low, partner knows you don't have a doubleton. I tend to prefer low vs. suits and high vs. NT, but it's never perfect.

Several points of note here. At IMPs, you generally want to be more aggressive when bidding vulnerable games, not less. It turns out to be worth bidding games that make well below 50% of the time when vulnerable and only about 50% when not vul. If there is a real risk they will double you, you need to be more conservative in your decisions, but there is nothing about this hand that suggests that is likely. West is correct in downgrading the CQ. Calling it useless is overly negative, but it certainly isn't worth the full value. The aces and kings are good points though, so it looks like a fine 3S bid. East may only have 8 points, but they do have 6-4 shape, a fit, a singleton club (this hand is probably a full trick better than the same hand with the minors reversed), and lots of playing potential. It only has 6 losers and there is no real reason to think that this is a mis-evaluation. Given that a typical opener is about 7 losers, East has an easy raise to game. Slam needs way too much to be a good spot - 4-1 spades or the KH offside both beat the slam immediately and you may still go down if hearts don't break well. There's a lot of work to be done for 12 tricks, so missing it when you do make 12 is fine.

Individuals can be a bit silly at the best of times, even face-to-face. In the most recent one I played, partner opened 2C, explained by 2D as an artificial waiting bid, and then passed! +150 in the 4-2 fit turned out not to be our best score. The point is taking them too seriously is hazardous to your health. Learn to enjoy the randomness, and remind yourself that they play against you twice as often as with you.

Johnu was spot on in his assessment of the mistakes in evaluation on both sides, as well as the fact that North has shown a very good hand on this sequence. Your solution was to cue bid a non-existent king, which didn't seem to work anyway. Your insults are unwarranted.

A passed hand's 2/1 can't really be game forcing - it can't even be forcing if it's a natural bid. What is important, IMO, is that the passed hand has to respect any forces from partner. Opener's hand is unlimited, so the limited hand shouldn't really be taking that sort of unilateral action. So the question is what can North bid to show a good hand? I would rate the options as: 3H - even in a non-2/1 system this is better played as forcing. This is especially true when responder is a passed hand, because North can just pass with a poor opener. 4C - obviously only useful if a cue rather than a splinter, but probably necessary if 3H is not forcing. 3C - not terribly useful, but at least it's forcing and the hand does have values there. North can support hearts next and South should get the gag. 4H - only if I have no other bid that will ensure I reach game.

Meh. I'm still comfortable with my choice.

I am reminded of this picture.

I knew I'd eventually find someone that agreed with something I said on this thread. ;)

This question lies behind the reason people are willing to play non-leaping Michaels in these sorts of situations. My response is when I don't have a solid or near-solid suit that is likely to provide tricks in 3NT.

Surely anyone above a rank beginner has thought about which one to play many times, and doesn't need to hesitate at the table. Unless it's an obvious enough hesitation that everyone notices it (and possibly comments on it), I'm going to play the hitch to mean 'I need to think about playing my singleton in tempo so he doesn't work out the honours are split' or for them to be playing games.

Well, good news (for me at least) is my regular partner doesn't think it's clear that I am totally lunatic, and may be intrigued enough to run a simulation to determine whether or not I actually am. Basically, the question of whether the three good things that can happen: Partner bids 3NT and it's right Partner has 5+ spades and it's better than diamonds Partner has 4 spades and the Moysian plays well enough outweigh the bad things, particularly: Not finding a diamond fit when it's right Getting too high when partner bids clubs The bad news is he's likely to be trying to show how bad my double is, so I'm starting off behind even before the simulation is run.

You can make it stop by yourself by simply not clicking on it. Just because xkcd has a cartoon about it doesn't mean it's a categorical imperative.

Cool. Both methods were used in Australian tournaments until recently - it seems to have totally died out about 3 years ago. I haven't played much elsewhere lately so I didn't realise we were making another small attempt to change the world.

That makes sense - I realised after I posted that nobody has gotten kicked out of our tables for a while now. As long as there are easy ways to turn off the time limit, I care much less how long it is.

Wildly unlikely? I would have thought partner having a stopper and a 9 count is fairly normal. True, if they raise it's somewhat annoying and I may wind up misrepresenting my hand. I'm still not convinced the double is anti-percentage though.

I double in the hopes that partner bids 3NT. If partner bids 4C I just have to overbid with 4D (although maybe I can pretend we're playing equal-level conversion and it's systemic). Over 3S I'm probably going to pass, but this is the worst-case scenario. It seems like the frequency of a succesful 3NT bid from partner, along with the chances of getting to spades when it is right, outweigh the frequency of missing diamonds when that's the right spot.

Is this particularly Australian? It just seems normal after playing in events with it for so long. Even in major events, tables don't move when they play one next to them - everyone just learns to keep their voices down. In a recent 9 round swiss event, we played 6 of the 8 adjacent tables (out of a field of 56). Good thing we are fairly quiet. :)

The thing that really struck me as antiquated playing in New Orleans last year was having to stand in line to register for an event. Every tournament in Australia (including major club events) have pre-entry, usually online. Even if you register at a tournament for an event starting later in the week, you do it beforehand at a separate desk. It's much easier for the directors, who don't have to deal with money, know table numbers, and can ensure the games start on time.

a. Early on we moved to a weak (11-14) NT and put the 15-17 range into 1D. That makes the 1D opening 4+ diamonds or a strong NT. b. We just open all hands with 4 of a major and 5+ clubs 2C. In theory this should cause us problems but in practice it almost never does - in fact opening 2C is a small positive position for us. The only shape we have to worry about is 4414 and we open 1H with this. It comes up so rarely that we haven't even added system to find out about it. c. Natural works fine. The most recent place I found some ideas about a more structured approach is in the Meckwell Light notes available on Daniel Neill's bridge site. We have adopted bits and pieces, but it seems like a pretty good approach while not being all that complicated.

At first glance a diamond looks normal. I want dummy to have fewer entries to potential club tricks than it does at the moment.

As I said before when this came up, I primarily play set games with people I know. Any time limit is annoying, for a number of reasons. Reducing the time limit would make it much more annoying. People play on this site for many reasons. So I question the validity of your attempt to speak for the vast majority of BBO players.

Indeed. And yet people continue to engage...

BBO simply requires a web browser with Flash installed. Firefox and Safari certainly both work on the Mac, and I suspect most other browsers will as well.

What does 3H show, and what other ways does partner have to show strength? Everyone appears to be assuming it is invitational, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that.

In my experience, declarers play the low trump in this sort of situation all the time, both when claiming and in actual play. There's no way I would expect a reasonable declarer in a serious event to try and claim all the tricks, nor would I rule for one who did unless they actually indicated the Jack in some way.