pooltuna

assuming no ♠ lead I would imagine the probability of the opposition holding of ♥Q or ♥Qx would well outweigh the probability of the opposition holding of ♥Qxx or ♥ Qxxx. Of course you do have a ♠ loser but you are never going to have to guess this position except on opening lead. Of course my real problem is the 4♥ opening call but assuming S was even expecting something like this if you change the N hand to [hv=s=sqxhakjt9xxxdxcqx]133|100|[/hv] Now what do you compute the slam odds to be?

IMO no. That would be just bad luck not bad bidding (well as least lucky bidding to get to a %age slam)

Well the normal lead here(with this hand) IMO is the ♦Q. However the probablity that this costs 2 tricks is substantialled reduced as the dummy is unlikely to hold Kxx and declarer Tx(x). You need partner to hold 2+♦ or you are likely to be really screwed on this hand. If declarer holds Kxx or even KTx you will still score 4 ♦ tricks so I would probably lead the 4th best ♦ This does really well when partner has Kx and declarer T9xx

100% North assuming he opens w KQJxxxxx y z or similar, 4♥ in first seat. Not opening the N hand 1♥ creates too great a disparity in possible hand values to get to slam.

finally something I agree with

With the west hand make a sensible rebid of 2NT unless that promises something ridiculous in your system for this auction.

I think the question is best answered by what partner did not call....3♥, presumably asking you if you had a stopper! Now if he was only interested in game he should have just bid 3NT himself or 3♥ if he needed a stopper. Consequently IMO 4♣ is forcing and looking for slam.

question 1] Not sure don't care since 2♠ will be our best shot for game queston 2] no question 3] see answer to question 1

Not sure if your LHO is playing a non standard version of michaels but the 2♣ looks like an attempt to be tricky but he would have had to look into your hand to guess the ♠ position. My guess is that he either has only 4♠ or is playing partner for H or Hx in which case the H is a 2 to 1 favorite to be the A or K rather than the J.

fortunately or unfortunately you will most likely be getting a ♥ lead which should also be resolving the ♥ problems :) Count me as a 5♣ caller as well. of course partner will put down 3♣ and a stiff ♥ unless I bid 6♣ when he puts down 3 small ♥ and a stiff non Q ♣ :)

Partner's inability to make an X is a bad sign for making anything at the 5 level or higher and while I have 1.5 quick tricks I am inclined to pass and try to beat it.

3♦ only because I have no immediate ♠GF

My gut is that partner could be stretching so I make a card showing X

4♠ for me. IMO Kx helps a long suit try plus I have a 4th ♠ that I probably but did not have to have..

I really hate the 1♠ opening with the N hand at these colors. It would be interesting to see how the bidding would go after a 2♠ call.

This looks like a good reason to follow my gut. Good players will be trying to jack you around into making unsound decisions. BTW I think the chickens are actually those who bid 4♠ trying to take out insurance against 4♥. This is of course not to say that 4♥ is definitely going down but that I think the numbers are in our favor for a pass.

cleeeeee? Maybe it wasn't worth noting. Anyway yes, they are . (hidden) It's true that my first post was made without thinking much about the problem though. Seems to me that the lines are nowhere near the same when you're in 6 or in 7! you've gotta lead the B/I astray sometimes to make it interesting :D (BTW not surprisingly I agree with you)

I knew that nail sharpener would come in handy sooner or sooner B)

Han....maybe you could set up the first part of this answer as a macro....then life would be so much less stressful for both of us :lol: I don't know about that B) That puts a lot of stress on you cause you are no longer allowed to display your humanity and be wrong :)

I don't think you can blame BBO or any of its employees as tournaments are essentially run by individuals with the minimum amount of required BBO oversight.

Well I have done some mild surveys in the past. In the downloadable BBO program it is possible to selectively show both skill level and country and as a curiousity I chose several countries which I thought had excessive levels of experts. As I recall at the time of my inquiry India had on the order of ~50% of their online players in the expert or higher class whereas the Turks, Italians, Bulgarians were on the order of ~30%. The lowest were the Norse countries which ran in the lower 20% range. This data is about 3 years old. Recently I have had irritations with players who start their handles(online names) with "0(zero)" and a quick check showed that approximately 85% of players who did this were self assessed experts. As a point of interest I think the level definitions chosen by BBO are significantly biased to the high end of the Bell shaped population that is BBO. In essence the BBO expert and world class definition would have to be stretched to near breaking point to cover 5% of the BBO population. Consequently self assessment is less effective than it might be and is abused routinely as a result. Tooona, what do you do in your free time for fun. I was between online tournaments one Sunday morning :lol:

Likewise, I have used them all except WC at some point.

Absolutely NOT! Play a card the instant you realize all of dummy's cards are equal, I don't think this is illegal or even unethical as your RHO ought to be thinking about the hand as a whole. This gives you some possibly not useful insight into RHO's problems with the hand. However, THINK and plan before you play a card from your hand.

Well I have done some mild surveys in the past. In the downloadable BBO program it is possible to selectively show both skill level and country and as a curiousity I chose several countries which I thought had excessive levels of experts. As I recall at the time of my inquiry India had on the order of ~50% of their online players in the expert or higher class whereas the Turks, Italians, Bulgarians were on the order of ~30%. The lowest were the Norse countries which ran in the lower 20% range. This data is about 3 years old. Recently I have had irritations with players who start their handles(online names) with "0(zero)" and a quick check showed that approximately 85% of players who did this were self assessed experts. As a point of interest I think the level definitions chosen by BBO are significantly biased to the high end of the Bell shaped population that is BBO. In essence the BBO expert and world class definition would have to be stretched to near breaking point to cover 5% of the BBO population. Consequently self assessment is less effective than it might be and is abused routinely as a result.

:lol: You've made good ameliorative steps so I suspect mikeh will believe you when you said you didn't understand him. He hopefully realizes that a) English is not your native language (although I think you do pretty good) and b)English is a bitch of a language to learn.