WellSpyder

Help, please! I think I have accidentally crossed over into a parallel universe...

Sounds like pran had his irony detector switched off. That, and he expects pairs to carry around all 9000+ pages of their notes.

A bit surprising not to see pass as one of the options in the poll. Perhaps I'll try my hand at answering Nigel style (but without quite so much of his innate generosity): 3N = 10; Pass = 8; 4♠ = 5

What does partner bid if he wants to decline this invitation to 4♥?

Good point! And maybe a 3♣ bid isn't all that unlikely - it is what happened at the table when the hand under discussion chose the gross underbid of 2♦.

I can post the full hand in due course if people are interested, but I thought it was more interesting as a general problem than in the context of a particular deal. I was actually the 2♣ bidder, so didn't have to face this problem. But I was sure that the 2♦ bid chosen at the table wasn't the answer! Not entirely surprisingly, it led to a missed game. I wasn't entirely sure what to suggest instead, though, since I also felt strongly that the hand was too good for 3♦ (though I see that isn't quite such a universal view as not bidding 2♦). I can see that using 2N as some sort of Lebensohl (or reverse Lebensohl) could be quite helpful here, but I must admit that I've never really thought about doing that over a minor, even though I do play 2N in this way with some partners when oppo have bid and raised a major over partner's TOx. But it feels like the mainstream choice is between X and 3C. I suspect neither will leave you feel entirely comfortable about the continuing auction, but you have to choose something. As I read the responses here I was quite taken with wank's preference for X, simply to keep the auction low and to give you more chance of sorting out where you are going, but mikeh also seems to have good arguments for preferring 3C.....

if you have a different reason then presumably the answer to gnasher's question is "no".

[hv=pc=n&e=s84haq2dak743ct75&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1cd2c]133|200[/hv] Imps. What call do you recommend? Oppo are playing 5-card majors with a 15-17 NT, and 1C could potentially be a 2-card suit if outside the 1NT range. (I was going to include a poll, but couldn't decide what calls to include in it!)

You might not want to order seven quarters of a pound of fish. But what about sweets? Do you still have shops selling old-fashioned loose sweets by the quarter pound? "I'll have seven quarters of lemon sherberts, please" Or what about thinking of currency? I might have one dollar and three quarters in my pocket. Or I might have seven quarters. I would expect to be able to buy the same things with them, though...

It might help if we could agree on the most neutral way to ask the question that opening leader's partner wanted to ask, but "are you passing?" sounds OK to me. Something rather similar happened to me a few weeks ago. My partner and I had agreed hearts in the auction, and I then cue-bid 4♠. I was somewhat surprised when partner passed this, but mentally shrugged my shoulders and started to write down the contract while waiting for the opening lead. My partner interrupted with "what are you doing, partner?", and only then did I realise that LHO had actually doubled the cue-bid. The TD was called, and ruled that the auction wasn't over, but that there might be UI considerations to take into account. Of course, the wording chosen by my partner in this case was unfortunate - I assumed partner meant "what call are you making?", but oppo assumed he was saying "what the **** are you doing passing this out?" In any case, it was clear to me that passing out a doubled cue-bid was not an LA! I think exactly the same ruling applies to the current case. The auction clearly isn't over, but there is potential UI. I think in the current case it is extremely unlikely that partner's question will demonstrably suggest one action over another, but that argument can come later. In the meantime, the auction continues....

Isn't the problem with that that both sides in this debate have made false claims? So is everyone a fraud?

I assume the reference is, for example, to players whose partner gives a wrong explanation of their bid. That is an irregularity, but of course you may not draw attention to it during the auction, and indeed not during the play if you are on the defending side.

No, I don't think so - though others are, of course, free to think differently. I think there is a very meaningful distinction between realising that a bid is insufficient, and realising that it isn't the bid you thought you making, and either realisation can precede the other - or happen in the absence of the other ever happening. In my experience the vast majority of insufficient bids are not caused by pulling the wrong card, and indeed the majority of 25A bids are not insufficient, either.

Another solution in a weak-NT system is to play the double raise as a bit stronger than this, and to use 2NT instead to show the real junk raise of say, 0-5.

No it doesn't. It starts when West becomes aware of the fact that she has pulled the wrong (bidding) card - if, indeed, she has.

Good point! I'm happy (or at least willing) to accept your correction. But that, I think, is an eminently quibble-able point. (Or, to be more precise, I think you are wrong here. But since the distinction is unlikely to matter in practice I'm not actually planning to quibble....)

Just to say that I recommended this post because I loved the comment, not because I thought it offered a counter-argument to gnasher's point. As far as the actual case is concerned, I think those who have already posted have got it spot on. There is UI that partner was happy to correct 3♠ to 4♠. OP is therefore subject to the normal constraints imposed by UI. The UI surely suggests raising (to 4♠ rather than 2♠!), but that is only a problem if passing is a LA, which it may well not be.

Surely that is clear, Phil? There were five 510s, seven 1010s and one 1310. So assuming Siegmund's score was one of the seven 1010s he scored 8/24 available MPs (English scoring) or 4/12 (US scoring). His score for the event was obviously well below 33% for this to be an excellent score. :)

I think you may have slightly misunderstood the regulation gnasher quoted. To me, it implies that a pause for thought at T1 by 3rd hand if declarer does not himself pause for thought will never be regarded as potentially misleading, even if 3rd hand does not need to think about T1. But it does not imply the converse, that a pause for thought at T1 by 3rd hand if declarer does pause for thought will be regarded as misleading if 3rd hand does not need to think about T1. It is always legitimate for 3rd hand to think about the whole hand at T1, so it is simply invalid for declarer to assume 3rd hand is thinking about T1, even if he is clearly thinking beyond a pause already made by declarer.

While I agree with the rest of your post, I don't think the second sentence in the para I have quoted above follows from the first. While thinking and falsecarding are indeed both entirely acceptable, it doesn't follow that both together are also OK if you have reason to be aware that the hesitation could mislead declarer. I'm sure one of our TDs could quote the relevant law.

[Perhaps proving lamford's point about the average player....] Will the TD necessarily allow a negative double to be substituted here without penalty? Not everyone plays that a negative double guarantees 4♥s, particularly if the hand is strong. I thought perhaps Gordon was thinking of 2♥ as a bid that could be substituted without penalty.

I find it interesting that helene describes my thought processes on this hand almost exactly. (I did then notice that the defence would be in a bind if I set up the heart trick, but my reason for thinking about a heart at all was to try to knock out what might be the only entry to the danger hand.) I wonder whether there is a relatively normal order in which bridge players' brains process a problem, or whether most people run through the possible clues/themes in their own way.

Great line for a signature, if only I had got round to working out how people put those quotes there....

No doubt I will not be regarded as representative of club-level bridge in England either, but I do play a reasonable amount of bridge at club level and I don't think garbage Stayman would come as a surprise to anyone I play against. It might not necessarily occur to them to make the bid themselves, but I don't think anyone has ever made the assumption that a Stayman bidder must have invitational values. If nothing else, many club players probably assume as a matter of course that 2C in response to 1N followed by 3C simply shows a hand that wants to play in 3C.....

How about "15-17 including adjustments for distribution"? This shouldn't take too long, and gives oppo a chance to ask about your rules for distributional adjustments if and when they want to.