FM75

p - 1♣ 16+ 2♦1 - 2♥2 2N3 - 3♦ 4 4♦5 - 6♦6 1) 5+♦, 8-10 points (did not open) 2) Control Ask 3) 3, A=2, K=1 4) Trump ask 5) 2 top honors, 6th. Looking at our hand, partner must have AK♦ 6) This can go down only if E leads a club toward an AQ holding, or opponents can ruff the first trick and make the club Ace. Opponents know only that North has 2 top honors, but not which ones and that he holds an Ace and a King, one of which must be a diamond. South's minimum strength is known and he chose to look for a diamond fit.

I did not even notice the Friends/Followers until I saw this thread. Even then I had to look for it. My normal Who's Online is the Sort by category tab (Mentors, Authors, BIL, Family, Expert, Precision, and uncategorized friends). Friends/Followers is on the Sort by name and Sort by status tabs. I guess it is nice. Frankly, I am not losing sleep over what other people think about me. So no drama here! That said, one of my favorite non-fiction books was http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/0393320928 . Thanks to BBO for asking my opinion. It is nice to know that you care. Keep up the good work. More non-speedball ACBL, if you can. :)

Logoff after changing your settings. That has been mentioned several times and in many threads. Don't just click the X or close. Once you have saved your settings, then you can just close the window afterwards.

This hand is an example of a hand that probably plays better in a precision system. 1M somewhat under-describes the strength of the hands as an opener. It is a solid strong club opening hand. In OCP a likely auction ends up in 6♦ 1♣ - 2♦ (8+hcp, 5+♦) 3♦(trump ask) - 4♣ (H6th where H = A,K or Q) 4♥ (control ask in ♥ - cheap bid) - 5♥ (1st round control Axx or void) 5♠ (control ask in ♠) - 6♦ (2nd round)

I was not clear here. We do not have an asking bid in this auction after the control ask. So 4 hearts by south would be to play. I like your 4 spade idea, but with trumps unset, it is not clear how north should take this - in our current system. So I invented a 5 heart call tossing the decision of whether to bid on to opener. In this instance, he will know that south has the trump Ace, but he won't know much else, except that south chose the strain as required. Thanks for your comment. Something I should discuss with partner. :)

2♦ (16-23, any 4441) 2♥ (basically denying any 6 card suits 2♠ (16-19) 2N (relay, where is singleton?) 3♥ (singleton spade) 3♠ control ask 4♦ (6 controls A=2, K=1) Thinking... If p has the single spade king, he can't be counting that in the 6 honors...So it could be Aces in spades, diamonds, clubs and no kings. but with 4-7 hcp in hearts, diamonds, clubs. Otherwise it is two aces and two kings, but not the ♠K and we have not agreed trump, but I know he has spade singleton and he knows, that I know. Trumps are not agreed. 4♥ is to play, 5♥ first or second round control and slam interest. 6♥ should have good play

5♦ What is the worst that could happen? P is 1=5=5=2 - Pessimistically off 2? Sorry Larry, abandoning LOTT on this auction.

I have been studying data science of late. As a result I am far less impressed by Bird-Anthias than I was after their first book. While I believe that some of what is in there makes sense, had they been data scientists they would have published their results in a fashion that their research would be reproducible. Their second book was even worse, with clear errors every few pages. The publication of the second book was horribly sloppy. Does that suggest that their research was as well. Frankly, I have to say 'yes'. I tried reproducing some of just the statistics from the first book, not even including the double dummy analysis. It was hard to match - and of course not reproducible, because they do not give the seeds used int their random number generators. They also do not give the specific rules for point count, distribution, etc. Their research would not warrant publication by any data science publication - and they would be broadly criticized for the unreproducible results.

I played around with this earlier, including the variable name suggestion above. I am a bit puzzled. I would see if you can get each type to work separately. Once you get each to work, then try combining. If you have trouble with each, continue to narrow it down.

Now if only that were available on a Mac!

You can model your bidding agreement and measure distributions using Dealer or the BBO dealer. Refer to the documentation for setting up your scenarios. If you can't figure out how to do this, perhaps it would be advisable to discard the concept. Mike Lawrence trashed the "short club" opening for about 20+ pages in one of his earlier books for partnership and bidding considerations. If you and your partner can't conjure up counters to his thesis, it probably should not be part of your agreement. It is pointless to consider distributions of a single opening bid in a vacuum. Your bidding system needs to be complete. The "vague" opening bid in a system needs to have have treatment that allows for rational bidding (unopposed and apposed) for all opening bids including the vague one - e.g. 1 diamond in a strong club system. (Just supplying your 1NT range is not sufficient, but it is pretty critical. By the same token, using a strong club, 1 club normally shows nothing about suit distribution - you could be void in clubs and open 1 club.) Any measurements that you make must be based on random hands, what would be bid on them, leaving your vague bid as "open this with an opening bid that does not meet the standards for another opening bid". It should also take into account dealer position. Vulnerability also enters the scheme. If opener is not dealer, then 1 or 2 opponents had the chance to open, and your partner may have had a chance to do so.

You need to join BIL. If you have already done that, you may need to register for the teaching table. If that fails check with Maureen, "hallway" on BBO.

I am not sure what the question is here. If the question is whether a finding of a court was "correct", then it is clear that nothing in this thread has cited any primary (legislative) nor secondary (case law) for working out a correct legal decision. I am not a lawyer. But in US law, both would be relevant in a trial or even the settlement of a complaint.

Some times you just are unlucky. The 1♥ bid does not seem like a "waiting bid" so much as a Cambridge Hearts treatment: Cambridge Heart Complex After the sequence 1♣-1♦ a rebid of 1♥ by Opener is either natural, promising a 5-card or longer Heart suit or showing a strong balanced hand. In either case it asks Responder to rebid 1♠ unless they have one of the special hand-types listed below. Over Responder's 1♠ bid Opener now clarifies their hand-type and range, rebids in NTs promising strong balanced hands and any other bid being 100% natural and confirming the Heart suit. The full scheme for showing balanced hands is as follows 1NT shows 10-12 balanced (Non-vulnerable) 1♦-1x-1NT shows 11-12 balanced (Vulnerable) or 13-15 balanced (Non-Vulnerable) 1NT shows 13-15 balanced (Vulnerable) 1♣-1♦-1NT shows 16-18 balanced 1♣-1♦-1♥-1♠-1NT shows 19-21 balanced 1♣-1♦-2NT shows 22-23 balanced <----- consistent with your partner's hand. 1♣-1♦-1♥-1♠-2NT shows 24-25 balanced1 ♣-1♦-3NT shows 26-27 balanced1 ♣-1♦-1♥-1♠-3NT shows 28-29 balanced <--- Oops. partner passed my 1 !H bid once, and we still made 6 spades. Not a happy team result. For more, and the exceptions, see: http://bbo.pigpen.org.uk/1c.php

Hmm. Seems like upvoting Fred's comments is simply not possible. so +1 for them here. I have played A=attitude, K=Kount with a regular partner against suit contracts. It does not come up often that one wants to lead K from an AKx(x) holding. But if the "real" Fred disagrees, then it suggests that our partnership needs to do some research!

math - schmath! What responsible republican would want Joseph Biden to be president! Uh oh, Is race, not politics, the issue? Or are there democrats disappointed in Obama? Let's go to the record - never mind... Gitmo is still full of prisoners even in term two. Republicans have to love the dude.

An interesting revival of an old thread. I am curious whether helene_t's methods have changed much. I suspect that she is far more advanced today than when the question was first posted. Whether counting cards in a suit, or tracking which ones have been played, it seems clear to me that what you really need to know is what is missing. So counting remaining count in a suit, or the remaining cards in a given suit(s), seems to be the most efficient - because the amount that you need to remember decreases. Remembering the opposite increases what you have to track. (It is easier to remember Q85 is missing, than AKJT976432 have been played or I can see some of them.) That said, perhaps if your memory is more "photographic", I am wrong.

Seriously? How long do you expect the species to exist? Forget about the fact that the sun will die. Prediction about the future is hard. (Yogi Berra and others before him.) But this one is easy. Eventually the income ladder will flatten out at 0 (pick your currency).

For the most part, I agree. But a data scientist would strongly object to their publication. 1) They do not supply their data for independent review. 2) Their experiments are not "repeatable" (exactly) - can't reproduce the exact deals that they used. 3) Their experiments are not "repeatable" (even approximately), because they do not specify the constraints imposed on the deals. 4) They do not compare their results properly against a "null hypothesis". Was it better than the alternative - with respect to both correct predictions as well as false positives and negatives? By how much? I laud the approach. I have criticized elsewhere the poor proof-reading - and obviously the errors missed in the second publication. Kudo's for a scientific approach to the problems.

Hand of death. Our auction (a super-precision strain) would have started with an amorphous 1♦-1♠, 1NT and we still don't "right-side" this contract. But even if we do, doesn't it still come down to the same guess? I do like "unblock the King". If you did that, would it fool your opponents? Seems like the auction, and your partnership holdings, pretty much guarantees the ♦ lead. Unless spades are 3-3 does it even matter? Next board.

You won't find a plausible suggestion about respiration. That said, the human population is an integral and driving part of every model. You also will likely have a hard time finding any "politically correct" suggestion for reducing the "driving part". We must live longer (not die from preventable disease or bad nutritional and exercise regimens), use less energy, breathe less over our life times, and the world will be a happy place matching some 19th century ideal (one that we are comfortable with and are not willing to consider whether a change from it might be better). OK "use less energy" is a simplification. It does not take into account the relative impacts of dramatically different forms and reliability of the sources available, nor the duration of them. Sustainable 1) a term which universally is used to describe the energy requirements of the planet and its energy resources, without respect to the fact that our sun will eventually die. 2) a more local term used by "hippies" who espouse "buying" (growing) local, without any metrics demonstrating true understanding of the systemic costs. Simplistic example - n thousand people making trips to two sources of "produce" at distances x and y, versus n thousand people making 1 trip to one retailer and two sources making trips to one retailer, or n thousand consumers purchasing from a distributed retailer who delivers to all of them on a single trip (the milkman, BITD, Amazon, today). Cheers. Think about it!

So much better than all of the alternatives! :) Cheers.

Maybe the auction should start with 2♥ by opener? Does it help EW find a makable game? Probably. But EW make game here, so long as a heart is not the opening lead. After opener passes, I don't see any problems with the auction.

The news is encouraging. Good to hear. I hope it continues.

I know this is in the natural bidding section. It is an interesting problem, natural or otherwise, I think. Playing a strong club, the auction might likely be (p) 2♣ 1- ?? Would that inhibit a heart psych? Get a 2♦ overcall? The resulting bidding could still get interesting. Perhaps 2 hearts doubled is for penalty. Perhaps a trap pass comes into play since responder knows that opener might have a 4 card major (spades, nearly certainly) and will get the chance to bid it, or rebid clubs cheaply. My partner and I have lebensohl available against the 2 heart overcall (or even 2 diamonds - but we would normally double 2 diamonds since it stole an artificial query about whether opener had a 4 card major). 1 11-15 hcp, 5+ clubs in a good suit, possibly including a 4 card major.