gordontd

Easy? I don't think so. When was the last time you saw a player with both their hands from two different boards out at the same time?

It'll be happening - it's listed in the calendar, and I'm directing it!

The director was correct. The small spade was not exposed inadvertently, it was played deliberately.

Isn't South always declarer? :)

North is correct, but East may change his card.

Was it a slip of the hand or a confusion of the brain?

I could give you an example where opening a minor allows you to reach a superior 4-4 major fit, rather than playing in 1NT with 15 opposite 6, and I expect you could give me a counter-example where strong NTers reach their major fit with 12 opposite 10. None of this is really significant.

Have you told us what was the TD's ruling that the AC upheld? It seems to me that the double of 2♥ is alertable, but I can see no connection between that and the inferior score that EW earned by virtue of West failing to follow his own system. I cannot see that anything would have been any different if East had a suitable hand and made a takeout double.

Would this have been any different if, in a strong NT context, opener had 18 & responder 7 or 8?

When you frequently write things like: it seems that you do claim to speak for them.

I use the 7 table Hesitation Mitchell frequently, and have never needed guide cards. If I have a half table I put the missing pair on table 7, so that it's mostly NS pairs who sit out. I check that the right pairs move/stay at T7 for round 2, and thereafter it looks after itself.

Yes, it would be simple, and would mean that doubles of opening bids, opening pre-empts, and negative doubles would need to be alerted. Doesn't sound good to me. The first sentence is not far off what we have. The following sentences would once again make negative doubles alertable. We used to have that, and they were one of the main sources of complaints about our alerting regulations. I'm pretty sure our incorrect alerts of doubles are well below 50% anyway, so your suggestions would make everything worse.

I think Nigel's posts would be more accurate if they had a blanket substitution of "most", "many" or just "players", with "Nigel". Then the many for whom Nigel purports to speak could indicate their agreement with him by means of the "+" button.

They did this last night in a match of the first division of the London Super League. Only dummy appeared to notice. :)

I agree.

I've seen precisely this thing happen once before (I wasn't the director) and the solution that was adopted was a practical one for a club game: new board-sets were introduced whenever a pair were due to play boards for the second time, and they were scored as fouled boards so that very few artificial scores needed to be given.

Or the people who say that for them the ten is not an honour.

As with other contexts, they provide you with a pre-emptive raise and a way to show a forcing raise, as well as more room with a limit raise (if you can find a way to make use of it). One advantage of this in a weak-NT context is that it's easy to play them while allowing a side four-card major. Opener rebids a side-suit with an unbalanced hand, or rebids 2NT (game forcing) with a balanced hand. 1m-2m-2NT-3m enquires about four-card majors. It then follows that an auction such as 1♦-1♥-1♠-3♦ shows five hearts.

2♥

The biggest problem with the Impossible Negative is when there's intervention over it. Then it can be hard to distinguish between a weak hand with support or an Impossible Negative. Does a splinter bid now promise an Impossible Negative, or could it be a weaker more shapely hand? And what about when your Impossible Negative bid has extras?

Incendies, which I saw a few months ago, goes straight into my list of all-time favourites. Shortly afterwards I saw The Separation, an Iranian film, which was also pretty remarkable.

She's an American speaker, but speaks pretty good British English, albeit with an accent. I think the post in question was just stream-of-consciousness irritation.

South was declarer? So North's cards are on show? So West overtaking the HQ guarantees a loser for their side? Why would he do that?

The older ones do, but more recent firmware corrected this to say East or West.

Strange idea that you might only show six of your cards with your rebid rather than nine, and risk playing in a 6-1 fit when a 4-5 fit might be available.