Yeah, maybe. I feel like everyone ended up having what I thought they had.

2d and 3d unavailable to support spades?

Looking at this again, I can now follow the auction correctly

I think just bidding 4h to play is best, its probably the right spot but if its not we can escape to 5d or let ops make a catastrophic competitive decision

Two pusillanimous spades, followed by 3H if I can. Theee small diamonds are not a good look for being aggressive.

Both my card play and Bidding are awful. I've been playing with the BBO robots and cheating by using the hover over the bids to see what my bids mean.

Not sure which is the more efficient improvement first?

fwiw I have the following books:

watson on play of the hand
take all your chances
how to play a bridge hand
2 over 1 game force
two over one system (mike lawrence)
standard bidding w/ sayc
25 bridge conventions
bridge bum

In terms of playing with people they'll notice the bidding more

In the long run getting the play stuff right will help you immensely in the bidding because you'll have a better idea of what hands are capable of

the best way to get better at bridge goes like this. 1 get a partner. 2 play in a club. 3 play whatever system you both agree on but never ever deviate. 4 play only with the same partner until you both fully trust each other. 5 wash rinse repeat. know this all sounds boring and not a good way to get a well rounded game but you will improve leaps and bounds faster than just playing to play.

Switching out the heat sink/fan on my CPU seems to have sorted out a lot of the overheating issues I had which seemed to be huge on BBO for whatever reason, so I should be about if anyone wants a few deals anyone (s/n still FrankerZ, on euro time so not ideal for most here)

Could my partner have 5/5 black or would he have overcalled something else?

I like 2H here. In spots like this where I can make a descriptive, but mild underbid or make a nondescriptive bid (2D) that shows the strength of the hand better, I prefer to make the accurate description. It puts me in a soooo much better spot later in the bidding. My hand is limited so I can support spades later and my hand will be crystal clear.

Where are all the clubs? How often does the auction drop dead when a suit in which I have none has not been shown? ll take that chance.

I swear my phone keeps changing chucks auction, I give up

1 - Play regularly - robots are not ideal - I like playing with random partners on BBO much more than the bots because at least they make human sorts of mistakes

2 - Don't worry about the system stuff - evolve from a simple base like SAYC rather than load up on a bunch of detailed conventions - you can crush all the way up to an expert level knowing a simple system with your partner very well

2H was the play

Full hand

♠ J 10 5 3
♥ 9
♦ 8 4
♣ Q J 10 9 8 2

♠ A Q 9 7 4
♥ 10 7 4
♦ A 6
♣ K 6 5
N
W E
S
♠ K 8 2
♥ A J 8 6 5 3 2
♦ 9 5 2
♣ —

♠ 6
♥ K Q
♦ K Q J 10 7 3
♣ A 7 4 3

I just tried 4S, but the split doomed that

Don't worry about conventions at the start. Just worry about solid bidding and play. If you take two world class players, and force them to play no conventions, and make them play a club game. They still absolutely crush the club game.

.................................♠ 10 8 3
.................................♥ Q
.................................♦ A K Q J 10 6 5 4
.................................♣ 3

♠ Q 7................................................. .♠ A K J 9 5
♥ K 10 4 3............................................♥ J 9 8 5
♦ 9 8................................................. .♦ 7 3 2
♣ J 10 8 6 5..........................................♣ 7

.................................♠ 6 4 2
.................................♥ A 7 6 2
.................................♦ —
.................................♣ A K Q 9 4 2

Double dummy problem. Lets say it is w/w. What is the par result? This was a hand from the club.

We beat 3sx for all 13 tricks and +2300 on a dummy squeeze at the Palm Springs regional, lol.

Looks like 4D is official par to me, as EW make 8 tricks in a major.

4D is what you would think...but nope

Well I'm gonna need some explanation, because I don't think it's 4Mx EW but I could be wrong...

Its not...

Oh haha

Yep, obviously a completely double dummy contract. But I still had a laugh looking at the sheet after the game.

merry christmas, yall

Ya, merry christmas, bridgers of POG.

Off to semi-direct my first game tomorrow (today). Got a director who knows whats up to set up the game before she has to make a flight. Just up to me to run things from there and email the results since it is a ST@C game. Seems simple, but knowing me, looking forward to screwing it up some how .

"Director, I only have 11 cards"