wyman

It follows from his point that government should legalize and regulate everything that's both illegal and dangerous, but which would be less dangerous if regulated. Otherwise, he assigns blame to the government for any injury sustained as a result of the dangerous activity/substance/whatever. I assume he also blames the government for any immigrants killed by coyotes or otherwise as a result of human trafficking and any who die escaping from places like Cuba, since if we just had an open immigration policy, they would be better off. I also assume he blames the government if a guy gets an STD from a hooker, since if we legalized prostitution, then the hookers would have to register with the health department and maintain a clean bill of health. And maybe you think we should have totally open borders and legal prostitution. And that's fine. My point is simply that some things -- not necessarily those, and certainly not poker -- should be illegal, and people who do things that they know are illegal do them at their own risk. Government taxation and regulation of online poker would certainly be positive effects of "legalization" (note this is in quotes because its current legal status is unclear). But to say that the government is to blame for people being robbed by the owners of an online poker site is just silly in my opinion.

Anyone with a lot of time on his/her hands who wants to read more about this might try the 2+2 forums. The News, Views, and Gossip subforum has several threads on this. The signal-to-noise ratio is a bit lower, but the volume is massive, so there's a lot of signal in there.

I don't have a problem with capital punishment in theory. In practice, though, it's pretty clear that (a) it's not a strong deterrent, and (b) we're just not "getting it right," whatever that means. In this case, it's my understanding that all of the courts -- based on the evidence and on the law -- made entirely reasonable rulings, even in the appellate stages. And a lot of this hubbub was anti-DP people seeing an opportunity to fight for their cause. Totally rational behavior on all sides. We can't have high courts overturning small courts' decisions unless the law wasn't followed. Many judges reviewed the proceedings and said that the "new evidence" (witnesses recanting, primarily) was not sufficient to grant Davis a new trial. We have to have some amount of faith in the judges' ability to make decisions. If we don't, we need a new legal system. If we don't like their application of law, we need to change the law. We have a system in place to do this. A man was executed yesterday in Texas, one of three white men who tied a black man to a truck and dragged him to death. And in this case, the race wasn't incidental; it was the motive. Do I have sympathy for the convict? Hell no. Do I think he deserves to die? Absolutely. However, 2 of the convicted were sentenced to death and one to life in prison. The decision seems arbitrary (in particular not related to their roles in the crime). And studies have "shown" (in quotes because I haven't read them, and -- while I'm not claiming that they are wrong -- I don't trust the mathematics of social scientists in general, so I'd want to see their methodology before I start claiming things as fact) that there are racial biases in the way the death penalty is applied. I wonder if there are the same racial biases in terms of sentence lengths for robberies and drug offenses. I have a problem when death sentences (or any sentences, really) are not applied consistently. At least if we're going to assign sentences randomly, have them be truly random: have the convicted spin a wheel of destiny or something rather than letting a biased jury pool or judges (again, if the data suggests that they are biased) make a recommendation. But really, I feel like we should just put a moratorium on the DP for now. Not for philosphical or moral reasons. I just don't see the upside, and the downside is pretty evident, since we're obviously applying it suboptimally. It's polarizing, and we spend a fair amount of political and legal energy (read: dollars) on this. Volunteers, bleeding hearts, advocacy groups, and all of our emotional energy could be better spent on other causes.

I understand what he's saying (and I am *hugely* pro online poker) but saying something like "oh, it's the government's fault. If blow was legal and therefore regulated, this guy wouldn't have gotten a bad 8 ball and OD'd," is a little bit loaded. And if anyone here has money locked up on Tilt, I'm pulling for you. glglgl

This. If you have something that doesn't resemble a textbook 3S opening, there's no law that says you have to pass. But you and partner need to be on the same wavelength about this. You also may have issues if partner does not bid 3N in tempo and you bid again.

Yeah I know partner doesn't have the SK. Just wondering if this is a clear count situation. Also, perhaps for another thread, is there some sort of theoretical advantage to standard remaining count as opposed to UD?

I'm surprised no one has addressed what partner's club 9 means. I'm still not sure when one would play it from 93. In any case. It looks like if declarer has 2 clubs only, he'll be able to ruff the 3rd club back, draw trumps, and cash the diamonds out, pitching spades, unless he has 0 diamonds or 1 diamond and I hit it now. However, with 1 diamond, he'd have gone to dummy earlier and taken spade pitches rather than risking an offside HK and a spade thru. So unless declarer has 0 diamonds, I'm not beating this if he has 2 clubs. If he has 0 diamonds, I just have to not lead a diamond. If declarer has 3 clubs, I can just cash my 2 tricks in the blacks (surely declarer does not have a spade void and partner 8 to the K). So I'll cash the spade ace first, then play the club J. This way, even when declarer is cold, we don't concede unnecessary overs.

A trump from partner's side means 0 club ruffs for declarer. A trump from our side leads to 1 club ruff for declarer. (trump won by declarer, ace and out a club, now another trump on which declarer flies ace and ruffs a club) The key here is that partner has some diamonds, so the 4 can't be bottom of a doubleton. It has to show the queen (partner would play high from 3 small). Partner will know, when you lead low to his queen, that you needed him on lead for some reason. When he thinks about declarer's tricks, he'll see the impending club ruffs and realize that a trump return is called for. Hopefully. You'll then congratulate each other on a very nice defense and on your +300 MP top. edit: incidentally, my first thought here was a trump also, because I saw the club ruffs coming. It wasn't until I thought about partner's shape that I saw that he must have the DQ edit2: there is a danger that declarer has a stiff diamond I guess. Then your diamond gets ruffed, ace and out a club, trump, he flies ace and ruffs 2 clubs (ruffing a diamond back for the 2nd club ruff). In this case, declarer's getting like 1 club, 2 club ruffs, 3 diamond ruffs, the ace of trumps, and the ace of hearts for 8 tricks, whereas a spade beats it sometimes. edit3: but at MP you have to go for blood anyway, since +100 loses to all partscores your way. And if partner has 4 diamonds, looks like you are making 3 or 4 diamonds (losing a spade, a club, and a heart or 2 perhaps).

If my opps were droolers, I don't think it's worth 3D on the first one. It's not clear some people listen to the auction at all. 4th best always. I'd probably just bid 6S in this case. If RHO has the ace he's not leading it, and if he doesn't, he still has to guess to lead diamonds. In a weak single-session sectional field, 6S+1 should be good for most of the MPs anyway if I'm missing the grand. If they were conscious, I think I'd sting (i know, how level 2 of me), intending to get somehow to 6S. On 2, I want to J2N to get the fit out there, but I am really fearing a 4D call by P. She can hold xx/J10xxx/AKQxx/x or --/J10xxx/AKQxx/K and I won't be able to tell. I'm captaining this hand, so I'm going to go with 2C and try to keep it low.

http://i.imgur.com/o6q7q.jpg

+1

I would also.

One of the better players on this site (from another board):

Interesting. I think by our agreements 1C (2H) 3H 4C is NF, but that might be very suboptimal. (edit: i see that this could suck if opener has a balanced min with Kxx in hearts or something and has to bid 3N but you have some ratty invite.) Also since AH asked, 3H (for us -- I am always open to bettering our agreements) is ostensibly a diamond raise, though opener's priority should be to show a heart stopper.

Fair enough han. It is a little shocking to me actually. I figured that most would cue with an invite, especially with a 6 or 7 card diamond suit, to keep 3N in play.

Just curious what you guys play 4m as after: 1m (2M) 4m, as in 1D (2H) 4D. We are simple folk mostly, and our meta-rules for mwood are: 4m=RKC if we've established a GF and agreed the minor (even as with a splinter, a 'superaccept', a positive response to a slam try in the minor [as in 1N-3D; 3M], or otherwise). 4m is never mwood if it is the bid agreeing m, even where 4m is forcing. So I'm wondering if this also should be mwood. I don't really see what else one would use it for, so I figured I'd ask.

For my regular partnerships, 4N is quantitative in all auctions where we haven't set trumps and where we have a cheaper forcing raise available. Here, since I can cuebid to show a diamond raise (and later keycard), 4N would be quantitative. Double is my second choice, but these auctions can get muddled up quickly after a X (both due to opps interfering and partnership misunderstandings), and I think 4N is both the best description of my hand at the moment and the least likely bid to cause a misunderstanding.

I would have strongly considered 4N quantitative.

I'm just curious now. In a similar situation, if (at teams) south had finessed for an overtrick instead of taking a safety play to make his contract, would he be entitled to redress? What if east had fumbled in a situation where the bidding indicated that he had a singleton? And did I understand correctly that you'd not give south redress had east said "I'm sorry, two cards stuck together" at the time?

"However, players should be particularly careful when variations may work to the benefit of their side." I will defer to others' knowledge of common rulings, but there have been many discussions on here in which people get nitty about the differences in wording between "should," "must," "may," etc. Regardless of his actual holding, it's clear east had no problem playing the small heart here, and any error/difficulty that east had in extracting the card was purely mechanical. So I'm not sure why it's more plausible that east slipped up and pulled the heart queen and put it back to pull the small heart than it is that east accidentally pulled the card next to the small heart, whatever it was.

At the table, I made an error and placed 4 spades with LHO. Since she didn't lead an honor, I supposed the honors were split and played the J of spades from hand (won by the ace on my left) and then ducked a spade, hoping RHO would have to win the king. This line is far, far inferior to that which MrAce suggested. Pitch a spade on the diamond king and continue as before: jack of spades and either a spade to the Q (playing lefty for both honors) or duck a spade (playing righty for Hx). I actually don't know whether it's better to play LHO for AKxx or for split honors (I suspect split honors). But pitching the spade gives you the added chance of 3-3 spades. You can ruff the 3rd spade in hand and finally score the SQ. On this deal, the spades were 3-3 with honors split. As pointed out in the thread, this is very likely; otherwise, RHO has 10 cards in the minors, and it's likely he'd do something over 4H. We scored -100 for half the matchpoints (the rest of the NS pairs were either -120 or +100, so I assume we took the first 5 hearts in 2 or 3NT and that was the end of that), but this should have been a top had I thought harder about the hand.

Is that in the laws or just a de facto agreement among directors/players? Or is the sensitivity of the situation going to be used to impugn the credibility of the defender? Sounds argumentative, so I apologize for the tone, but I'm seriously asking.

Is there anything East can do to extricate himself from this situation, or does declarer have a freebie here? Sometimes by a mechanical error, east will pull two cards, or they will stick, or something. I think east saying "sorry, no problem" opens another can of worms. If he had said, "sorry, two cards stuck together," or something similar, can the onus be lifted? I don't necessarily disagree with a ruling for declarer in this case, but I sympathize with east (if he's believable) and don't think that declarer should get two bites at the apple. In general, though, I thought it was only a violation to intentionally vary tempo in a manner that could mislead declarer. Varying tempo by accident, or because of a mechanical error should result in no adjustment; after all, you're allowed to take inference from the tempo or mannerisms of the opponents only at your own risk. Or am I mistaken?

Yes

Also: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/47204-defaults-for-doubles http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/46023-penalty-doubles/