shyams

How often does one get to do this? [hv=pc=n&s=sk3hakt2dqt76c942&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1c1sd1n(Silly%20bid%20by%20GIB)ppdpp2dd2s(2-card%20fit)ppdppp]133|200[/hv] Playing against bots, the human South players used DBL as the only call in the bidding. I don't recall ever encountering a sequence like this where I doubled four times, bid/passed zero times in the bidding phase. Probably over a 100 people got to experience this exact sequence in a tournament organised by Diana_eva The full board is here.

Agree! I liked what I saw when I logged in today

1. You are absolutely spot-on when you point out Krugman's condescending style and tone. I find him often annoying and occasionally boring. I read his stuff because his knowledge of economics is probably a million times mine. 2.A. I understand your assertion that a $1,400 cheque will make no difference to how & how much you spend. However, the $1,400 will matter hugely to some people on the lower end of the financial ladder. To them, it is almost a sink-or-swim situation. It is worth noting that the US economy is largely driven by Consumer Spending and people who receive such an amount will spend more. People who don't really need the funds will likely contribute (statistically speaking) by spending more than usual. 2. B. I don't know how a "means-tested" programme can be administered efficiently while ensuring that deserving people definitely receive their cheque. There is a certain simplicity in keeping the programme more broad-based. I simply don't know enough about this topic to comment with any degree of certainty. It is worth nothing that there is a known issue with "means-tested" programmes if they are based off your 2019 tax return. The adverse economic impact of Covid occurred in the 2020 or 2021 tax years and it is quite possible that incomes in these years for large swathes of Americans are well below their 2019 income. The Govt. risks not helping these people if they rely on a 2019-income based test. 3. Re. the stock market and other assets. You are absolutely correct to be worried about the bubble in a variety of asset classes and the impact of rising debt levels. However, the debt levels causing this worry are not US Govt. debt. Instead there is a growth in the private sector borrowings for which the Federal Reserve's liberal monetary policy might be to blame. The US legislators authorised the Fed to "print money" in order to save the corporates during the first Covid relief bill which may have exacerbated the indebtedness levels. In my opinion, there definitely is too much debt in the US Economy and there is also too much of money sloshing around artificially inflating all asset prices. One never knows how and if/when these risks will create a massive issue to the global economy.

Let me attempt to explain how incremental debt does not matter right now. Caveat: I am not an economist, an Econ major, or an expert in this field. Any economics courses I attended as a student have all faded from memory years ago. Many have come across that analogy which equates debt with "borrowing on the nation's credit card". This pernicious analogy permanently distorts readers' mind which is one reason it is used by politicians and deficit-hawks. Our life experiences also help reinforce the negativity embedded in that analogy --- many have either personally borrowed on credit cards and found it to be painful OR know people who have experienced such pain. So it is very easy to have negative views about debt. Let's amend the above analogy to something more aligned with current reality. Instead of "credit card", imagine a "special loan" where the effective interest rate is on amount borrowed is currently negative!! and is likely to remain negative for a few years. Imagine also that the borrower who can avail this loan is a 40-something year old with a steady source of income that is sure to rise (although slowly) in the coming years. Would this person wish to borrow? Even if the amount borrowed goes largely towards spending on vacations, clothes and such -- i.e. things that do not create long-term assets in the borrower's life? I think a reasoned view would be: YES, let's do it. One can deal with the principal repayment in the coming years, especially as this loan will actually earn (not cost) interest in the first few years! This is what the US Federal Debt situation is at present (p.s. also true for the UK, the EU and other well-developed economies). The yield/coupon on borrowing is lower than the inflation rate --- which causes the Govt. to have to pay smaller amounts in future. Now I know the analogy is not water-tight and it should be easy to poke holes in it. However, the essence is true. When interest rates are so low as they have been for over a decade, the Govt can err on the side of excess and yet be all right despite the incremental borrowing.

:lol: :lol:

Yes. I think the responses so far give a good idea of some of the reasons. I recall one of the reasons I underled from a non-trump suit with the Ace was because I was hoping partner had a doubleton. I held the bare trump Ace and when I won it, I continued with the (previously underled) Ace and a suit continuation. I feel that the situation described by smerriman, i.e. making declarer guess from KJx, is much more likely to occur than other situations.

If I were bidding with one of my regular partners of the past, we probably will not reach this. However, we definitely would not be playing this in 3NT. As West, I think it would be normal/automatic to invoke Smolen after the 2♦ response to my Stayman. Now, if East-West have some artificial bid or agreement to show a slam interest (e.g. 3NT by West as mild slam try), then it is possible for East to reevaluate and sniff out the slam. Otherwise, I cannot think of anything specific.

I'd bid 2♥ and not worry about it too much. Like mycroft says upthread I'll pretend that the ♠Q is worth its full value.

Actually the play of cards to tricks 1 and 2 gives away the show.

I suppose if someone wants to give me $1400 I'll take it. But I would be hard-pressed to give an argument as to why the government should do so. Others need it. Some desperately. If Re[publicans cannot bring themselves to acknowledge this, it is hard to take them seriously. I agree. There is another thing that President Biden did which can be used as a political escape route while leaving the GOP looking bad. That was when those GOP Senators met up with the President and his key advisers. These Senators were present on behalf of the entire GOP and they categorically said that only $600 is possible. This allows the Dems to claim something like "Look, the other side was insisting we compromise at $600 but we refused to settle for anything less than what we asked for in the first place." What remains to be seen is whether the Dems will use such (somewhat dicey) positioning statements to obtain political mileage with the voters. Also, Sen Schumer has begun Senate proceedings to include many of the President's promises as Budget Reconciliation. This is a very good development. They now have to keep the pressure on those 2-3 wavering Dems to ensure that the unamended Budget Reconciliation passes through the Senate. From what I read, the process is slow but at least it is guaranteed to succeed --- provided all Dems vote in favour of the main Budget and against any wrecking amendments introduced by the GOP.

I said that in March & April of 2020! I didn't saying anything like that once he was unquestionably the Dem nominee for President. Here's what I wrote then: And you know what? Biden came close to losing! This is despite the significantly higher deaths caused by Trump's inaction. Here is our exchange from April 2020 where I said Biden appeared weak.

Where is Biden? I am surprised that he has not made more addresses to the American people. I recall his people saying Biden is like the new FDR. I'm not ridiculing it (although the comparison is a bit of a stretch). The one thing that impressed me about FDR (based on what I read about the situation) was his superb leadership skill and his ability to totally control a situation. I'm afraid Biden has adopted a bit too much of the softly-softly approach; he's falling behind on his agenda to be the next FDR.

Isn’t Noah Smith glibly conflating Alex O’Keefe’s tweet “on power struggle” with AOC’s tweet (and Sen Cruz’s) even though the two are largely unconnected topics? Alex talks about revolution, seizing the means of production, etc. whereas AOC and Ted Cruz are merely pointing out the hypocrisy involved when Robinhood steps in to protect the mega-rich hedge funds even as even as the very same 'Hedgies' talk(ed) about “fairness” or “open/transparent market” or “short-sellers help regulate the system” in other situations. I vehemently disagree with this interpretation. The large masses of people speaking out in favour of the day traders are doing so to ensure the hedge funds don’t rig the market against these day traders via some underhand methods. The rest of the article --- where Noah stretches the tenuous connection further --- does not merit too much analysis. It has its basis in a faulty premise and if one pulls away that premise, the rest of the talk is irrelevant. This is NOT about populism.

Many years ago, when playing with a regular partner, I too had an agreement that pass is "to play". We used to play MPs significantly more often than we played IMPs so we had tried to customise our bidding system to it. The thesis (if I recall) was based on 1m redoubled not being enough to make game so if it turns into a (redoubled) partscore battle, we had agreed to defend such that we minimise the overtricks. I don't recall if it ever worked, but I do recall that we did some simulations/analysis then and had found that passing "to play" was not a disaster.

The hand came up in a Robot tournament and was held by the Robot. It bid 2♣! The result: 2♣x -2. 500 to the bad guys and a 28% MP score for me. https://tinyurl.com/y4snku2p

There was a short period of time some 3-4 years ago when I won some 20 Robot Rebate 55% games in a row. It made me think I was really gifted. In reality, it was just a lucky streak I guess. I think there was a time when I tracked my performance on Robot Rebate 55% and discovered that I would make the 55% cutoff under half the time which meant that my expected loss per 55% game was 0.5 BB$. I was sure that I did not have the skills to win consistently at this game. However, I still used to play it often mostly because I used to think the skill levels involved were very high. I didn't really find myself enamoured by the Reward game. The skills were so materially different that the few times I tried, it just didn't work for me. I had heard that one of the past BBF posters (jdonn) was an absolute master at Robot Reward. He probably made enough BB$s out of the game that he never had to buy them from BBO ever again. Finally, I agree with smerriman that Zenith Daylong is now much more appealing than Robot Rebate 55%. The only downside here is that you can only play once a day --- unlike Robot Rebate 55% which is available many times an hour.

I need some inputs, both on a question of style and re. what you'd do with this specific hand. This occurred at MatchPoints. 1. Which suit do you bid here? (if at all) [hv=pc=n&s=s943hkt8d974c8642&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=pp1ddr(max%20pass.%20Hoping%20to%20punish%20NS)?]133|200[/hv] 2. Assume you have a generic horrible hand (like the above) -- with some 3=3=(3-4) OR (3-2)=4=4 type distribution and nothing that stands out. What is the preferred course of action in such scenarios?

This is utter bullshit used to backtrack from previous misstatements or poorly constructed points.

I'm only allowed one upvote, I feel it is not enough to say what you write is spot on. This is awesome! Thank you.

Yeah, I liked it too. Have bookmarked it and intend to watch a video or two every day. Thank you, Lovera.

We're only in Jan yet. We still have 11 months in which the robots might find "better" ways to perpetrate even bigger horrors upon us :)

That's so sweet of you. I was expecting something firmer/harsher like what you wrote in another thread: It's good to be regularly reminded that what I (and many others) have been playing all these years isn't the real game.

My last post on the reddit investors saga How WallStreetBets Pushed GameStop Shares to the Moon (Bloomberg: Link here) By Brandon Kochkodin If the above is interesting, please do read the rest of the article by following the link. Also, please don't get involved in these type of deals. They can be incredibly toxic and can turn very hugely loss-making very quickly!

More on the "small-time traders" vs multi-millionaire/billionaire hedge fund owners saga. 1. Yesterday, the company that owns the trading platform which was mainly used by all these reddit/r/wallstreetbets traders decided to unilaterally ban their own customer base from trading in some specific stocks. * This effectively released the pressure (at least temporarily) on the hedge funds. And the stock prices of many companies targeted by these "small-time traders" dropped sharply during normal trading hours. * The CEO of the trading platform came up with some flimsy excuses as to why they are banning these trades. I guess it is within the realms of possibility that Wall Street insiders leaned on the firm to act immediately "or else". * Surprisingly enough, these actions to break the back of the hedge funds has gained so much positive goodwill from numerous sources that some law firm decided to slap a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the customers and against the company for their arbitrary actions. 2. Now Janet Yellen is being dragged into the controversy although most Dems on this forum likely did not come across this news. It seems one of the mega hedge funds that actually stepped in to save the other (smaller) hedge funds has paid $ 800,000 to Yellen in "speaking fees" over the past 3-4 years since she retired from the Fed. (Fox news story linked here) Although I am not interested in the "recuse yourself" storyline being pushed by Fox, the point about her objectivity on the matter does at least deserve some critical attention. Prima facie I would believe she's done nothing wrong here; however, the Biden administration might benefit by displaying a standard that they are not infected by "the swamp".

Oops, I responded to the previous point without this registering in my head! :lol: