Blue Uriah

What were the hands? I'm curious how 4♥ can be "trivial to bid" with the right information yet neither player could bid even 2♥. To WellSpyder: it's not usually good bridge to wander in on crap balanced hands when you know partner has, at most, an equally crap balanced hand and could have substantially less.

Sorry, just that when you used the phrase 'it costs nothing' you sounded very much like people who do those things I mentioned earlier. The Orange Book doesn't cost nothing and the 1000th copy being free doesn't change the fact that the 1st copy involved a lot of hard work - work which was paid for ultimately by the EBU members.

It sounds like you're arguing in favour of downloading free music, buying pirate DVDs or not paying your TV license. Once the content is produced, it costs nothing to make one additional copy so what harm can it do?

I don't know the details of the specific case, and I've never even seen the software, but I must say that the above appears to attribute blame unfairly. If the documentation is inadequate, you can't expect the users to understand what they're supposed to do. I wasn't blaming him, just saying that there wasn't anything wrong with the system or policy as he implied - rather he simply wasn't doing it right. If our members can't use our software then that's certainly our fault entirely and as I said before we're putting some better help resources into place to hopefully fix that. Cheers, Michael, an arrogant lying incompetent lazy girl

Yes. Almost 250 clubs now have access and we have received over 200 test submissions. There are bound to be a few issues with a project this size but most people seem to be happy. So what you're saying is the name you tell us doesn't match the name we have on record. Obviously we won't accept this. Why would this surprise you? We don't want people being credited with points and so on that they didn't earn. This sounds like it may be a bug. It's not one I can replicate or anybody else has mentioned but these things happen. I have emailed you separately for more information. This is just a case of you not understanding the options - you don't have to put in all the details for a guest at your club. An updated 'help' section should come online soon and you may wish to look at that so you can see how it all works. Actually, we replied to your first submission on January 15th. It then took you over three weeks to resubmit, by which time we had several hundred other clubs to deal with. I'm sorry if there was a delay but it was only fair to deal with submissions on a first-come first-served basis and you were at the back of the queue. Two whole days? Thanks so much for the note, Stefanie. We think so too and appreciate the compliment. Cheers, Michael

Why does the ♠Q defeat the contract? Can't you just ruff one club, draw trumps (with no losers) and squeeze East in everything? What am I missing?

Are you looking for realistic hands where you can actually reason that the ♠Q is best, or just a double dummy solution? The latter seems quite simple, but here's one: [hv=n=sjhak97652d3c10963&w=sq98h43d97cj87542&e=s72hqj108dqj10652cq&s=sak106543hdak84cak]399|300|[/hv] I suppose that if the auction was some long revealing relay affair you might decide that the ♠Q was right.

As far as I can tell, the requirements for a strong-only 1♣ and the strong option of a two-way 1♣ are identical at level four, so this shouldn't have anything to do with it.

I think they should. An Acol 2♣ shows an excellent hand and if people go around bidding it on merely decent hands without telling the opponents about it then they have every right to be aggrieved. A Precision 1♣ claims only to show a good hand and if people go around bidding it on hands which are pretty good, maybe not quite good enough in terms of HCP or RO25 but plenty good enough when compared with other hands that do fit the definition then it's hard to see that anybody has really been damaged. Frankly, I'm amazed somebody even called the director. The trouble is that the legally defined minimum for a strong 1♣ is exactly the same as the traditional minimum for a strong 1♣ - there's no room for manoevre at all. If every Precision pair played a 17+ club but decided to upgrade a few good-looking 16 counts then there wouldn't be a problem but people have been playing a 16+ club since the 50's.

If you're willing to lose the ability to bail out to 3M through transfers, you can play Gerry. There's a lot of crap in the linked page, but the 3♣ and 3♦ responses do let you untangle all the major suit combinations. Or just play 4-card Stayman. That solves all your problems nicely. How often do you actually hold a 3154, bid 3♣, hear partner respond 3♠ and make 4♠ when 3NT would have gone down? Puppet Stayman always seems like it's aiming for a very small target to me.

It's not a question of what North "feels like", it's a question of what he did. If I knock my bidding box over and the 7NT trump card appears face up on the table, I haven't bid 7NT, because the 7NT card didn't arrive on the table as part of an intention to make a call. Likewise, if I pick up my cards not intending that action to represent a call, I haven't called. That's a poor analogy. Knocking your bidding box over probably isn't part of the procedure for making a bid in your jurisdiction. Picking the bids up from the table might well be - if not explicitly so, then by common habit.

If the 4♥ "cue bid" denies a spade or diamond control, then signing off in game seems reasonable. You can't really expect him to make a slam try with his 11 count which he's already treated as if it was strong. East can do what he likes, unless he has UI or is making bids based on a CPU. Passing 5♣ looks weird, certainly. Raising to a mere 4♥ when partner is supposedly showing a "strong" hand looks very weird too. But making rubbish bids isn't against the law and neither is having a guess that partner (or you) got the system wrong. It would be another matter, of course, if when East explained that 3♥ was natural, West sighed loudly and then quickly bid 5♣ in a manner that suggested it had better be passed. But we weren't told that.

I agree. Otherwise you can never bid 2♥ without the right values. Either it doesn't work out and you get a bad score, or it works out and you get adjusted against. You might as well bid 1NT and silence partner - at least then you have a chance to get lucky.

Well, obviously the over-reaction is ridiculous but it is a little annoying when somebody starts thinking in a position like this. LHO is misleading you and, although this shouldn't hurt you in a bridge sense, you waste mental energy and time because for that thought period you were planning the play based on a presumed 4-2 break. And once in a while, if you're having an off day, you miscount because you were sure the suit was 4-2, even though you later had evidence to the contrary. There are plenty of ways for LHO to think about things while making it clear that she's about to follow suit.

Doesn't the law quoted apply only to the claiming side? The fact that East was about to play a heart wouldn't have entered into the claim, so in my view the claim couldn't be "clarified" to include it. Only plays by the claimer should be taken into account because they might give a clue as to what the claim was. Lose one trick.

But it sounds like it was more a case of A: loud disruptive arguing B: loud disruptive arguing A: more arguing B: argue argue A: argue argue B: argue A: You're a *****ing idiot B: I refuse to play against you now. In which case B can jolly well grow up.

Sounds like West had a genuine reason to think and so has done nothing wrong. North took a view that the huddle showed strength, but he was wrong. That's no reason to adjust the score.

I would double. I wouldn't expect to beat it a lot, but I would expect to beat it. (And I am not allowed to save in 8♣, anyway.) What's the story? Rik Did East have 12 hearts? :( It wouldn't be a story unless 7♥ was cold. :(

Why would you want to open either 2♣? It's just awful bridge...

Doesn't this mean that, according to your system, you deem the first hand to be weaker than the second hand? It may have more HCP but you don't think it's good enough for a third seat opening, whereas you do think the second hand is. I think the word 'may' in the regulations is intended to stop systems such as 1♣ showing either 0-2 or 16+, with Pass showing 3-9 or whatever. Here, the opening bid "may" be weaker than pass. It's not true that it "must" be weaker than pass and it's also not true that it "is usually" weaker than pass.

I think you're the one mistaken here. Have you never heard the term "balancing overcall" before? Interestingly, this is so uncontroversial that they don't even feel the need to define the word 'overcall' in the EBU Orange Book Glossary.

Is it so rigid? By my calculations, AKQJ987 is worth 7 tricks about 98% of the time. And that's not considering the possibility of a trump promotion on some layouts. That maybe crosses the border into "clear cut" territory, but I don't think it's far off. Clear cut means that you will obviously take 7 tricks and it's so unlikely that you will take 6 that it's not worth thinking about. When you start to say instead that it's very probable that you will take 7 tricks, then it's no longer clear cut.

Intriguing. It just occurred to me that I'd completely misread this part of the OB. I thought it said second worst trump break, not second best. If you have an eight card suit opposite a void then the second worst break (4-1) is also the second best, but with seven cards that's not the case. KQJxxxx. The OB has it as 4 CCT (which must mean a 5-1 break) while the L&E minutes have it as 5 CCT (4-2 break). KQJTxxx. OB = 5 CCT (5-1 break), minutes = 6 CCT (4-2). KJTxxx. OB = 1 CCT (6-1 break), minutes = 2 CCT (5-2). Is it possible that the Orange Book intended 'second-worst' but accidentally wrote 'second-best'?

If only there was some kind of magical website which let you type in things you were looking for on the internet and it told you where you might find those things... :P Seriously, just google 'internet explorer spell checker' and you get half a million hits.

I think this is the board (not rotated for convenience).