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Longest suit ace

Both reasonable options. I lead the DA also - might start a tap which would be great. Expecting rho to have KQxxxx and pard to have Txx(x) and 7-ish so rho has like 11. Low spade second choice and not convinced I'm right.

Finished second in the NAP B. Had one egregious mistake that might have cost first but oh well. See you in Memphis

3rd Unf MPs Online

T
AKQT972
A8
J52

What do you open with?

Let's say you go 4h (which I did), LHO bids 5C and it's passed back to you - what now? What does partner need to double the 5C bid?

I'd open 1H still but I don't object to 4H in third seat

Now I'd double to show this was a "I meant to make it" bid. Partner doesn't know you don't have a conventional preempt (KQJxxxxx of hearts and out) and so can't really double with a trick or two.

1H, i object to 4h in 3rd. 6H is ambitious but I don't see a need to eliminate the possibility...

r/w MPs sitting North, East deals

K
JTx
AQJTxx
KQJ

(P) - 1 - (2) - 2
(P) - 2 - (3) - ??

At this vulnerability specifically it's basically never right to play for penalties unless they do something really dumb, and while 3C might have been a little dumb...

I haven't clicked the spoiler yet, but I'd put RHO on A-7th of clubs and one other big card, probably an ace, because he'd need to devaluate Kd. So I'm just ignoring him and 3NT is my bid. If I need good scores, then I'd double, but I think that leads more likely to a really bad score than to a really good one.

Now I opened the spoiler and it made me happy

Tough call for partner with the club void. I think 3d is a very reasonable bid. I don't like 3h, because you basically do not have space for hearts besides your damond and club length.

So it is between pass and 3d.I wouldn't be mad at partner for any of these two choices.

So with the ACBL about to take a gigantic loss for scheduling an NABC in Honolulu...

Is the ACBL ignorantly stupid?

Or stupidly ignorant?

Also I had to wikipedia it to believe Curtis Cheek was 60 years old. Dude was at the Louisville regional last year so...dude looks good for 60

I'm sort of in a weird position given that I received a lot of money and support from both the ACBL and the USBF for several years to do things and go places that most people only dream of, so it's totally inappropriate for me to bash them, but based on what I've read and from my own experiences, the ACBL deserves to fail for gross incompetence.

Everyone seems so obsessed with getting young people to play the game. If a young person asked me why they shouldn't play bridge, I'd have no problem pointing them to discussions about how the ACBL is managed. And then I would point out how terrible the community is that discusses the ACBL.

Look I am all for money going to developing juniors and sending them across the globe to play. I am often against the antiACBL community, but I am sorry I am with them on this.

I saw the ****ing arguments. Well if you can afford the whole week, you can afford the $5 increase. I mean I guess that is probably true.

But **** man. I did spend a whole week in Atlanta. Partner and I stocked up on sandwich materials before we drove into Atlanta. We stayed in a cheap roach infested hotel within walking distance to the hotel (no I honestly saw a roach).

I'm sorry but the fact that that same trip would now cost me $140 more because the board of directors wanted a trip to Honolulu instead of having an NABC at a more viable location pisses me off, and that $140 does matter to me

There are similar issues with Magic: The Gathering Grand Prixes (they are open events, usually hosting between 1000-5000 players over a weekend). Basically there is a huge disparity in attendance based on cities. Typically, events in the northeast or eastern Ohio get a lot of attendance, since a lot of people are at most a 6-7 hour drive away. Events on the west coast are sparse, since most people need to fly. The one exception is Vegas, where playing the tournament is probably the least fun thing you do all weekend. Combined with relatively cheap flights and hotels, and it's often the best-attended of all.

Is there a reason that the ACBL doesn't just have a set of 4-6 cities that they can use for each season, and rotate them around? Presumably you can put warm places in the winter, somewhere in the northeast over the summer, and somewhere in the mid/west for the spring?

Or perhaps they can rotate two of the events around and have one nationals in the same spot every year (maybe LV or Philly?)

They do rely on volunteers and people from the district trying to make sure it happens. So it is good for the sites to travel around

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_..._Championships

Table count has generally been fine as long as it has been on the mainland. An 8k table count in Kansas City is fine. Whatever contract they signed with Kansas City site, I'm sure was significantly cheaper than the Honolulu site. 8k table count in Honolulu...oof.

So...playing in a sectional pairs game today after a 9 month bridge hiatus... time to De-rust.

Fmk, I more or less agree with the BW posts by David Grainger and others that the 7NT appeal was greasy. Am I wrong?

Edit: nvm I just saw that you have already explained this at length in another thread.

What do you think of people criticizing polled players that didn’t lead a diamond? Do you think the poll worked the way it should?

I think it's fine to ask for a ruling in all cases, and i think it's fine to appeal if you think the ruling is based on a misapplication of the law or had bad polling or something.

I think it's super ****ty to call the appeal "greasy."

I remember playing with brrrr in a sectional and had opps bid to 7NT when I was sitting there with an ace. I remember auction indicated brrrr should lead to my ace. But yeah after hesitating I realized, well **** I guess I have to double now and hope brrrr gets it right (he did). After the hand brrrr was telling me "dude, you can't hesitate there"

If I offended anyone with word choice greasy (lifted from bw) just excuse my ignorance.

i dont remember that

I think by the letter of the law the ruling is correct, probably, but it troubles me.

The part that feels just awful to me is that Grue's comment puts the leader in a really stupid spot. Without the comment it feels like a cut and dried standard ruling. With it, it feels ridiculous that he can provide AI to the leader that "hey, the diamond ace is the only way we may have screwed this up" and still consider other leads to be LAs. I'm not sure the players polled were given the information about the comment. I certainly think they should have been given that info.

Let's put it this way, if another lead would have worked, but the leader led a diamond as a result of that comment, would they be entitled to an adjustment? I think they would. So now they're in a spot where they're going to be accused of taking some sort of double shot if they don't lead a diamond, but if they do, that's illegal. It's a stupid stupid spot for them to be in.

Yeah this is so hard, and the comment obviously is an (THE) issue.

FWIW, in what I've read, the players polled were given the comment.

lol@punishing joe for being joe.