If you play lebensohl then 4C is natural and forcing IMO, and wasn't interested in hearing partner bid 3NT after a 3S cue?

How can it be minorwood? We don't have anything resembling suit agreement and we need the room to explore suit contracts below game. I swear I have heard so many "and then I bid 4C, which partner thought was minorwood" horror stories it's on my "never playing it" list, which is itself probably an exaggeration of what's right but at least I don't automatically lose 12 IMPs my way.

If you play Lebensohl, 3H is GF, so 4C is natural and forcing. You do not want to play 3NT, so you are interested in 4h/5c/6c only.

As a sidenote, I don't know what your level is or the level of your group, but any player that hasn't achieved expert level yet and wishes to become a better player, Minorwood is something I would advocate NOT to play.

Minorwood has limited value and is a source of misunderstandings. Also the 4-level is best used for cuebidding.
Cuebidding is not a mindless showing of 1st and second round controls.There is a lot more going on.

• Do you have a hand that wants to know or wants to show controls?
• Who should ask aces?
• Think ahead: what responses can your partner give and how well can you handle those responses?
• if you cuebid, when does it show extra values? When is it obliged to show a control? When can you skip a cuebid and sign-off to show minimum values?

A good partnership understanding with regard to cuebidding is crucial and diluting it with conventions is not recommendable imo

I have played bridge for about 10 years, reached the highest league in Netherlands and I think I have never inquired for aces below 4NT.

A good meta rule (from Kantar) is that suit agreement is never ace asking. We play minorwood but only in specific auctions.

This is a really important concept: If a suit is not agreed upon yet, then bids are trying to find the right fit. That is priority number one in the auction, way before cuebidding or keycard you need to figure out what suit you are going to play in.

People often get in their head that something is slamming or minorwood (I would not recommend newer players play minorwood fwiw), but they are getting ahead of themselves. Establish your fit first then you can minorwood or cuebid.

So with that in mind, in this auction 4C says you don't fit hearts, and you are rebidding clubs. Likewise, 4D would show diamonds, since that might be your fit.

.

Great feedback. Partner and I discussed with some other expert players at sectional today about merits of minorwood and such.

For reference, I was not part of that auction. The hands for that auction were:



How do you envision the auction going instead?

First good convention to put in your arsenal is that 4C/D after a weak 2H/S is a 5/5 in the named suit + the other major. So this hand is a perfect 2S-4D. After that I would bid 5H with the other hand as some kind of general slamtry and after 6H convert to 6NT to protect my Ks, which is the perfect contract for this hand.

Second thing is that 3C is LOLBAD. Yes it is extra values, but not forcing, so partner can pass if he has a minimum take out double.

So with the hand I would bid 4C as forcing and in principle setting clubs as trumps. Partner cuebids 4D and you cuebid 4S to show your hole in hearts. Partner is not afraid of hearts, so he proceeds with 4NT, to which you answer 5S (2 keycards + Qc) and partner 6C and a reasonable contract has been reached.

Anyone available for a bbo match tomorrow at 830 PST? I just need a partner. Our gnt team scheduled a practice match but partner can't make it.

This is pbal I think already said that itt

I'm sorted, thanks.

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

-----------------------♠ K 9 8 2
-----------------------♥ 5 4
-----------------------♦ Q 10 7 2
-----------------------♣ 9 7 2

Fun double dummy hand of the day.

West dealt I was north (P)-1S(? stupid stiff K)-(P)-2S-(3C)-4S-AP

Making 5 after club lead and diamond shift.

1 out of 3 matchpoints in small club game.

4S making 5
4S making 5
4S making 5
4S making 6

Wait...how many tricks can EW take?

That North hand is way too strong to open 1S. You can make 4S if partner just has Qd. So I would open whatever you have agreed to open with SF/GF spades and arrive quickly in 4S over any negative from partner.

Also 4S over 3C is a bit lazy, partner can have two keycards and a doubleton diamonds or Qd and 6S is the place to be. I'd bid 3D.

Kxx
Axx
Qxx
xxxx

Also lol east. That seems an easy 4NT over 4S.

"So partner, I have overcalled on the 3-level and you have an Ace, three trumps to the Q and a void. What do you need to support me? Two aces, a void and 4 trumps to the Q?"

Yes, I'm an awful person for being rude to the guy who made the salient, totally not personal attacks of "you have no common sense" and "you just want to hurt the young players so they don't come back and steal everything you can from them" -- telling that guy to shut the hell up and leave me alone was beyond the pale though.

It's because they mod by popularity contest ("the community didn't flag those posts enough so they're OK" was an actual response, but I got suspended even though "I understand you felt provoked" was an actual thing the moderator said).

I'm pretty much over it.

to be fair bridgewinners would be much better if everyone were banned

it has its uses and I'd mostly like it if it weren't for the disturbing cliquiness

i was #picardfacepalming the banning not the banned ;-)

I mean, whatchagonnado

obviously the "solution" is to get half a dozen people to just flag absolutely everything that's remotely annoying and see how long it takes for the policy to change (spoiler alert: it'll selectively change, probably).

don't you know the internets is supposed to be a safe space for the SJW snowflakes?

Meh

It's more annoying that it's selectively enforced (either by the mod or the community depending on your POV). If it's no personal attacks, fine; if it's more free, fine. But if you are more popular in the community, then a popular guy can say "**** your *******" to an unknown and then in reply they say "leave me alone jerk" and you ban the second guy, you're a blithering idiot.

seems exploitable. let me know if i can help.

I'm not really much of a bridgewinners fan, I think it showscases some of the reasons the game is struggling. It has the potential to become better though, especially if it focuses more on the business side.

being repeatedly rude

is that the same as repeatedly being rude?

lolbridgewinners. I miss the BBF days but BBF was never as big as bridgewinners, they have a monopoly (much like BBO, but I think the BBO people do a great job other than their software), so I guess we are stuck with them.

I like the people involved in bridgewinners but I also don't agree with their modding decisions, and I think their community is basically toxic. For as much **** as 2p2 gets it really is a great forum imo, it's hard to get internet communities right.

Watching the Fargo premiere was weird. They clearly have a big time bridge player on their writing team. But they also had someone say we need to make this bridge talk more interesting.

"Hey we're a team, I always can tell when you are about to lead a heart or a backwards finesse." or something like that

The bridge action was pretty dead on. They had bidding boxes, they had a board with cards in it. MEW opened 2C, her LHO interfered and MEW bid 3NT and Ewan McGregor laid down a 0 HCP hand. Apparently if MEW and Ewan won the tournament they were going to get sponsors.

Episode 1 was titled law of vacant spaces
Episode 2 is titled principle of restricted choice