StevenG

When you talk about "the economy", do you mean a set of numbers? Because I take the view that the economy should be something with a purpose, and that that purpose should benefit the people within the economy. So, in my view, suppressing wages does not benefit those people who have lower wages than they would without the immigrants. I don't see the other measures that are quoted as necessarily of value, either. Sometimes we are told that immigrants pay more taxes than they receive in benefits. Yet, we are not told what the effect is on benefit payments to and taxes received from the native population. Sometimes we are told that, on average, one immigrant creates more than one job. I find that so counter-intuitive that I cannot believe the truth of it. But, even if it were true, so what? The jobs created are essentially non-productive jobs - teachers, nurses, police, etc.. This is economic activity, not wealth creation. (An elderly person with dementia also creates jobs in the care industry, while clearly no longer being of any economic benefit.) I take the view that the balance of trade is the key statistic. It is still massively in deficit and shows no sign of ever improving. As a country, we consume far more each year than we create. That is not a sustainable position and population growth only exacerbates the situation.

Where do you expect to build these cheap houses? What do you think happens to land prices for building plots when such land is as scarce as it is? Why should any developer build cheap houses when they can sell expensive ones?

No, people think the most important thing is immigration. There is a housing shortage which is getting worse all the time. House prices are out of control and the average person can no longer expect ever to be able to afford to buy their own home. (That may not seem important to a continental European, but it is part of the British psyche.) What houses are being built are often so tiny that people only buy them because there is nothing else. Business, in general, supports the EU because open borders mean a supply of cheap labour which suppresses wages at the lower end of the labour market. Not surprisingly, those British nationals who have lost their jobs, or are working under really awful conditions for low wages don't regard this as a good thing. The last recorded "net migration" figures showed a yearly inflow of about 320,000 people. It is impossible to manage that sort of population growth year on year. (Many suspect that the real figure is actually much higher since the figure does not reconcile easily with other government statistics.) Of course there are some who also object to immigration on racist grounds. I deplore that, but nationalistic tensions will always surface when the traditional ways are put under such pressure so quickly, and people will vote accordingly. It is wrong, however, for people to confuse anti-immigration policies with racism, when analysis shows the damage done by high immigration levels to the quality of life of many people.

Diamond for me. We're not told where this deal took place but if it's an English club game with random opps, I'd never trust them to have bid accurately.

We have 29 points maximum, and a lot of controls missing. Slam looks unlikely to me, and I don't understand why people think it so likely. It's matchpoints, so 3NT looks much more sensible to me.

Does the positive expected value have any real meaning? Presumably it still includes winning a jackpot at impossibly small odds. If you recalculate with those odds at 0, rather than 1 in 45 million, I would presume that the expected value goes negative (does it?), or becomes so trivially positive the whole thing is a waste of time.

Absolutely. All we need to do now is let the computer evolve naturally over millions of years. Perhaps someone should start a breeding programme.

I don't really follow this. The auction might go 1♠-P-1NT-P-P-P, in which case we're likely to get +50 rather than +90, or +100 rather than +120, or even +150 when we have play for +400. Or it could go 1♠-P-1NT-P-2♥ or 2♦-P-P-P, when they are almost certainly in their best spot.

Although -ise is modern British usage, it is fairly recent. I transcribe 19th century parish registers and almost invariably see the -ize spellings used, especially "baptize". Although we British tend to get annoyed about Americanisms, most of us are not aware of how recently spelling and grammar became standardised. I've occasionally come across forms I consider "American" (like "gotten") in old documents; I'm probably a bit more tolerant as a result.

4♠ looks automatic to me - a 6-loser hand with 4-card support. (Assuming no nuances to East's pass)

I do not like to publicly use the "c" word, but I checked out Timo's West at the time. He(?) was on plus 300 imps over 100 boards. He cannot be a novice, therefore he must be psychic. :D

Presumably East thought 3♣ was natural, and therefore there was no reason to alert. Without knowing why West bid 3♣, it's difficult to comment further.

I can see that 11 tricks are almost certainly easy if partner has the ♠K. I don't see how we get 11 tricks if partner doesn't. There are unlikely to be (non-trump) entries to hand to ruff diamonds, and a trump lead would make life very difficult.

With the distribution and the top clubs, I'm not convinced that pass is a LA, even at matchpoints. I think the choice is between 6♥ and double. I'm not going to say that either is suggested and I'll let the score stand.

It's easy enough to find the hand and check out the opponents. Both mainly play free individual tournaments (as was this), and there's no sign of them playing any other hand together. OP just got shafted this time by bad bridge, but there's nothing suspicious.

It's not actually that difficult to look at their profile. The "Most Active In" field gives a strong clue.

1. ♥K 2. ♦5 3. ♠Q 4. ♠10 5. ♦5

That used to work quite well when Gerber was alertable. If the expected alert did not happen, it was emphasised by a long hard glare. Partner got the message. Fortunately that method no longer works.

Does your partner know?

Just imagine how often you'll be marked down for not knowing that 4♣ is always Gerber.

I know a player who fits the description of North. Last time she opened 2♠ against me, she had nine (yes, nine) spades.

I prefer MPs. At cross-IMPS, wild results produce significant randomisations - and there are a lot of wild results in a club game. You sometimes see results something like 5 pairs getting -3 IMPs for the par score, with one pair getting +15 when their opponents self-destructed. 5 x 40% and a 100% is less unfair. As manudude says, the average club player doesn't understand scoring anyway.

West had GBK that SOS might have been a possible agreement, had they had an agreement (which they didn't). That's not the same thing as having an implicit agreement.

This cannot be the case as they did not have an agreement that the redouble was SOS. The correct explanation was "no agreement".

I've never knowingly played against Smolen in over 20 years playing club bridge or better.