Jinksy

Surely he should bid the grand on that, if you've specifically asked for support in diamonds. If you needed the king, you could have bid 5N.

I don't see how it can be wrong to open 2♣. We don't particularly fear the opps getting involved (although what's the vul/scoring?), and though we might drag P to the 6 level almost regardless of what he does, it gives us a chance of differentiating between a good/bad 7 (or maybe reaching a NT slam with better play than a suited one). Over 2♦, we have plenty of room to bid 2♠, hoping to be able to rebid 3♦ and then 3(+)♠ if P doesn't offer a fit. I don't like the suit-setting jump rebid of spades when P could easily have something like x xxxx KQxxx xxx.

Maybe anything else is gameable, but there'd be nothing to stop BBO from implementing an opt-out system, or one partition game types into ranked and unranked.

Obviously rating players is eminently possible (the NGS does it reasonably well). I meant 'magic' as in, 'with no reference to actual table results, so that it doesn't have a social impact of the form Timo was describing'. I'm claiming that having ratings is surely a net positive for the online bridge experience. Getting them is evidently a net minus. Weighing these things and deciding that the costs outweigh the benefits is reasonable, but ignoring the benefits altogether isn't, and seems liable to discourage seeking incremental improvements towards the ideal of having useable ratings without social disruption.

There is a fundamental question which BBOskill was trying to address and self-ratings are basically irrelevant to, which is 'how do I get a decent game with randoms?' You can make some guesses based on their profiles, but it's not always that effective - and in any case, you can't (for eg) automatically filter the people you see when looking at tables/tournament registrations etc, to save yourself the hassle of looking at 15 different empty (/Gerber/Benji Acol) profiles before you get to a single one who looks plausible. I don't know if there's any way of solving this without causing the issues Timo is talking about, and I'm not claiming it's a bigger problem than they would be, but I wish people wouldn't treat it as a non-issue. BBO would obviously be a better experience if it could just magically figure out our skill level and give us some options based on it. For what it's worth, abandoned boards don't feel like they would be a showstopper - if dummy has been tabled at the point any player but dummy leaves, BBO could just ask robots to finish the hand (I think it already does this in some cases?), and assign the final score to the players who were there at the start. It wouldn't be perfect, but it should average out over time.

The page here appears to give relative times for the different categories, but no absolute times. The page here gives absolute times, but barely mentions individual rounds. If I want to know what time a particular team is playing, where do I actually need to look?

Assuming not spades, I don't see the point on less than a good strong NT. If P's got anything, we're not missing game. If we X and he gives a positive response, I won't know how to continue.

I pass, because I am a craven in constructive auctions. I kind of like Hrothgar's bid, but I'm going to get upset when it goes 1♠ P 1N 4♥ / X P ..?

I take the point about 2♥ being better as a GF (and therefore 3♥ as setting suit), but it doesn't seem that easy to construct hands where slam is both good and actually biddable. For eg, on the two above, opener would have at best something like QJxxx J98x KQJT -. To most people I would guess that's not an opening bid - not sure about you :P - (and I had to make trumps split badly to give opener any value at all from his J♥).

Would X then 2♥ be forcing for you in this auction?

[hv=pc=n&s=sk95432hq92dk5cj6&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1c(2%2B)p1s2d3cp]133|200[/hv] Playing 5cM with a short club, what's the archetypal sort of hand for P to have for 3♣? Ie is it primarily competitive, presumably non-min, or primarily constructive (ie close to a normal jump rebid of 3♣?) What's the worst hand you would expect him to bid like this on? And, having got this far, what's your next action?

[hv=pc=n&w=sajht542dkqj8653c&n=st976hj83dt2caj32&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=pp1n(12-14)3dp3nppp]266|200[/hv] Macthpoints. Partner leads the AH. Carding agreements are UDCA, giving attitude on the lead of an AQ, else count. What card do you play at trick 1? What are your considerations?

[hv=pc=n&n=sahakjt52da7caj93&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=1sdp1np3hp3np]133|200[/hv] MP pairs. What's your next call? Do you agree with the bidding so far? Also, what, in the abstract, do you think you've shown by having bid this way?

Unless you're having Finnish Christmas pudding.

Personally if I'm feeling lazy, I've never felt like much clarity is lost in '1S 2S' etc.

Yep. I also find agreements go badly when my partner is not playing them, but I rarely think of it as a compelling reason for not taking them up.

If you don't bid in only with unbalanced hands, you might end up playing in 1N with a 5-4 diamond fit. I'm not saying showing unbalanced is better, but presenting just the downside of a particular treatment isn't a good way to figure out its value.

2N? With 3154, opener should rebid 2♠, not 2♣.

Sure, you'll lose to the people in game. But how much of the room will be, after three passes then 1♣ 1♥ / 2♣ (or 1N) ... ? Is east likely to blast game at MPs as a passed hand? Or if he invites, is opener with a dubious 12-count supposed to accept? Heck, I suspect at a lot of tables in a larger room, the hand would be passed out.

I would not have bid 5♥ on that hand, but Wank is a much better player than me - and come to that, than you.

Also after double, P might find a MP pass, which will score well (and apparently N might make it easier/more profitable for him by raising).

I remember reading that there are more possible auctions than possible 52-card distributions. If you design your auction (cooperatively with the opps) to just describe every card in your hands ('twas said), you will always have described the last cards by the 6♦ bid.

One of the reasons the slam is hard to bid might be that it's a bad slam.

2♦ eats a fair bit of their bidding space, and will fetch the right lead from P, should W happen to be playing the contract, so I'll opt for that. If West's 2♥ comes back to me, we'll get a second chance to play in 2♠.

Doubling seems clear to me at MPs - P shouldn't get too excited unless he's really got a good hand, and even if we end up a level too high, -100 is better than the -110 I'm anticipating by passing.