StevenG

Of course we don't do American bidding. We're not American. edit. That sounds intentionally rude. Maybe, at the time, it was meant to be. But wnen we're asked a question about bidding from England, we should assume standard English methods. I'm sure that if anything weird was being played, we would have been told.

I'm obviously being rather naive, as I don't understand how the hesitation deceived East. What bids were available that SB might have been thinking about? Also, since SB seems, according to the narrative, to have been thinking about the bridge for 6 minutes plus, he must have had a bridge reason for thinking that long. Lamford seems to be drawing a parallel between an irregular club partnership involving a very weak player, and an international partnership under no time constraints. There is, of course, no comparison.

Since we don't have systemic full employment, people do not, in general, choose this life.

Yes, very common here (mainly in the lower level clubs - but if dummy is making coffee for the defenders as well as her side, it would be very unhelpful not to. :) ) As Rik says elsewhere, the defenders are nearer dummy.

I'm passing. Where are the spades?

This type of argument ignores the effect that immigrants have on the rest of the population. How much less tax do people pay when they are in a lower-skilled job than they might have been had the high-skilled immigrant not blocked their career path? And what happens to the dead-end unskilled jobs that often only the poorer immigrants are willing to do?

I thought they were playing simple Blackwood. There is no trump suit in simple Blackwood.

This seems to happen more and more. I think about this question assuming it's a genuine bridge question, and then this ... :angry:

Deleted - rubbish

That's been puzzling me too.

I come from an Acol background, so things are different, of course, but I'd expect partner to bid 3♥, asking for a stop, after my 3♦.

3♦

If you do not give a child US citizenship, it does not follow that they become the citizen of another country. To where do you deport the child?

Why is 5♦ so unlikely to make? We are highly likely to have 11 tricks on top. In which case opps need both to have three off the top and to find them. Surely, at vul, partner is likely to have something useful to go with his A♦.

How is the director to decide whether a person is an average club player?

Is it really?

I've only occasionally seen experienced players do this, but when I have, it's been because they are, unfortunately, starting to "lose it". They remember that a 7-card suit means to pre-empt, but don't recall the bridge logic behind it, and that you don't (normally) do it with values. Under those circumstances, I don't see that recording it would be very useful.

If you're playing leb, what's wrong with 3♥?

The vast majority of players will never look at the Blue Book. Of the rest, I would assume that most are like me - we look at it for clarification on specific points. It seems strange to remove the detail on an issue because someone who is not interested in that detail will probably never read it.

I'm not convinced the deck is drawn randomly. I've noticed that my "doubletons" (is there a proper term for them?) seem to cluster far more than should happen by chance. In particular, playing mage, Flamestrikes nearly nearly always seem to be three or four cards apart at most. On average it should be 10.33 cards apart. I seem to be especially unlucky against strong decks (last ten cards, two Flamestrikes, two Ice Barriers left, along with other health restorers and a Polymorph), and especially lucky against obvious complete noobs. It's probably paranoia, but I do wonder if the deal is sometimes fixed in favour of players who spend real money to make purchase of high value cards seem more essential for a player to do well.

We have had a reply from a good player who knows the N/S pair. We know that they are the class of player who will take out a take-out double. I'm not sure why this debate is continuing.

The question for me is whether it will get rid of the big decks around rank 20 by encouraging them to get to a more appropriate rank, or if it will make those ranks harder by encouraging people to play ranked who normally don't.

None of the ordinary club players in my clubs ever play that sequence and few, if any, would have any clue what it meant.

It used to be the case that 1♣ (pass) 3♣ was alertable 1♣ (1♠) 3♣ was alertable 1♣ (x) 3♣ was not alertable if 3♣ was weak. Has that changed?

I find it remarkable that important decisions are made using an index that is so easily manipulable.