wyman

Vote for pass rolling in after Justin bids 2S. Though his vote will make me far less surprised when it turns out I'm wrong...

18-19

If partner's bidding 3-forcing-diamonds, and I have Kxxx support and xx of the suit that opps bid and raised, no, I will not pass partner's double here. I would have raised diamonds last time.

1c 1h 2s I was asked last night if this was a WJS. That would be quite a weird agreement!

I play the 2H is GF in this auction, and I know a number of others on this forum do as well, so while it's not standard, I don't think it's unusual at all.

Studies about PE are inconclusive, but D? Lots.

Jerry Nelson (aka Count von Count). Arguably gave many of us our bridge beginnings...

I'd bid 5S, but I'm not confident at all that it's right.

Thank you for posting this. My knee-jerk reaction was "2S WTP?" and I'm really surprised to see some posters I really respect in the pass camp. But this, I gather, means that I need to tighten up a bit, even if I'm still always bidding 2S with this particular hand.

...and that we accurately describe our hand so that we might find the right strain ...and that by showing positive values we might bid a game ...and that we don't leave partner guessing when 1Hx comes back to him

1S

God, 57 is so young. Sorry for your loss, Timo.

One way is Data-->Text To Columns (you'll then have to click "other" and type '/' (no quotes)). This will turn A1 into A1/A2/A3, separate fields for M-D-Y. Another (if all of your data is mm/dd/yyyy, e.g., 01/01/1993 not 1/1/1993) is to grab the left 2, right 4, and middle 2 starting in position 4 and convert to date: DATE( RIGHT(A1, 4), LEFT(A1, 2), MID(A1, 4, 2) ) [The DATE function takes (Y,M,D) as args] edit: bah, this was in #8. I'm 0/2 :(

I just tried this in openoffice and it worked fine. Is the cell a 'text' cell? If the values are just strings, I'm sure you can parse the string around the '/' so that you get new columns with mm, dd, and yyyy, and then you can recombine them into the desired format in yet another column. Does this make sense, or is it mumbo-jumbo? edit: errr -- beaten to the punch by #3 and #4 :)

Jesus, thanks a lot Phil. Now I just read it too. I'm like twitching over here. I was really rooting for him to be a JLall gimmick trying to get Han to snap, but the guy even ID'd himself in his signature and seems to have been completely serious.

"Idle Fifth," right?

Yeah it is safe but I don't think an intermediate works that out quickly. I think it's super weird that he didn't pitch a spade anyway, since if declarer has the A he has AJx and the spades are coming in regardless. So maybe I shouldn't give him credit for thinking at all. LHO's ♠108 suggest strongly that he's 3622, so restricted choice says I should drop anyway I think (not knowing anything about opps, I'd expect to see randomization from ♦76 before seeing LHO play the ♠108 from A108x or seeing RHO pitch from ♦Qxxx).

You have to do this early if you're going to do it, since you've cut communication to the 4th diamond after you've cashed 4 clubs. I was just looking at this lamenting that I couldn't switch the ♦9 and 8. I can't decide really. I think the field will hook, but it strikes me as really odd that after seeing the S10/8 from partner, RHO would pitch a diamond from Qxxx when he has a pretty safe spade pitch. Declarer has 6 in the bag, and partner has 3 heart tricks still. It can't be right to pitch a diamond. He must have looked at xxxx and been like "could it be wrong to shorten my diamonds here? No, my spots are repugnant anyway." I'll go out on a small limb and drop here. Hopefully partner will understand if I'm wrong, and I think the odds are 50/50 or close enough that I don't feel bad trusting my instinct. Hamman probably disagrees though (per Mike Giesler's comment in gumperz's thread re: table feel on BW):

"I thought double denied 4S" -- partner thought he had QJxx opposite your shortness, but still decided to try for 11 tricks (is the other Phil's point).

Ha, yeah that was my thought too. "Well, I beat X, who beat Y, who beat Z, who beat Meckwell in Gatlinburg!"

How come GIB's system includes weak 2's in 4th chair?

Actually, I wonder if you can play the 7 T1, then the 8. Now, something weird is clearly going on. You can't really have a doubleton heart here. I guess the other option one could try to craft is a situation where partner sees declarer's 9 and realizes that it can't have been right (in fact, it would be silly) for declarer to play the 9 from the holding you're suggesting declarer has [but it's not immediately obvious to me what the right way to do this is, if it's indeed possible at all]

The ability to play 2H on a hand like this is one of the reasons I like having a penalty X available over a strong NT. Now that we're here, though, I wonder if the ♥8 at T2 would have made partner wonder why declarer would false card from J9xx. [i guess it is free, though, so why not?] It's gonna be tough for p to get this one I think.

Yes. With a good suit and a bad hand, you sort of expected to be in this situation, no?