Just saw this one. This is probably completely wrong, but here's my go at it:

I think S sort of has to be 4603 here with something like Qxxx/KJT9xx//AKx.

If that's the case, im winning on the board, taking a diamond hook, K, hook again and running the diamonds pitching clubs. End position looks something like this (pitching J on the last diamond):

5
A 5

Q J

K J
8 2
2


LHO has to keep Qx of spades, xx of hearts, and the K, so they need to unguard one of those.

If they unguard the club, A, Q, pitching heart, squeezing S in the majors.

If they unguard the spade, K, J, squeezing LHO in the rounds.

If they unguard the heart, 8 to the A, 5 to squeeze in the blacks.

I think this line requires you to keep the 2 in hand on the first heart trick to avoid a blockage though.

EDIT: I don't think you have enough entries to play for RHO to have the Q anyways, so this might be the only line, given you need to take two diamond hooks always.

I'm playing GNT B quals in a couple weeks. My partner is insistent on Rusinow leads. I'm happy to do it, but is there any theoretical advantage that it has?

I have been playing Rusinow leads for 35 years. I think they are clearly superior to standard or A from AKx.

The big edge you gain is that when partner leads an Ace, they are looking for an attitude signal from you, since they never have the king, you signal attitude towards the king, whereas with ambiguous AKx, you would encourage with the Q or a doubleton.

You should revert to standard leads when you are leading partner's suit.
You should also lead standard if you have preempted and are leading a side suit. In that spot, you 'never' have an AK and are frequently leading shortness.

My more experienced partner has preferred us to play Rusinow for a year or two now, this is a good summary why. To be honest with all the gadgets we play it seemed upon first adoption that it was merely to bamboozle opponents who didn't ask about leads and carding.

We also don't play them at the 5-level or higher.

You should continue to play them 5 level plus, as leading an Ace without the King is often right.

Other exceptions

You couldn't respond to a 1 bid
Partner opened 2NT or higher

Hi - any suggestions on an online bridge teacher for a small group of people, some of whom played 20+ years ago, some have never played a hand of bridge ever but have good card sense? Ideally would set up a weekly group lesson over zoom or something similar. Thanks!

I don't know of anything specifically, but I remember the ACBL's "learn to play bridge" tool is actually decent. Other than that, maybe create some teaching tables on BBO?

https://www.acbl.org/learn_page/learn-to-play-bridge/

Also, my parents got me KJ's 2020 Polish Club update book.

Although the ACBL hates multi, does it have any issues with the 2C opening? That shows 4-9 (6-11) HCP with 4/4+ in the majors.

I've never seen that bid really used before but think it might be quite good.

That bid would only be allowed in "Open+" events, with segments of 6 boards or longer, so, basically, no.

Same with Multi 2D though anyways right? Like if you want to play Polish in the US, basically has to be NABC+ events.

Also more broadly, why does the ACBL hate multi 2D so much? Like it seems like a pretty basic and non-destructive convention, so I don't really get why it's not kosher.

That is a great question. Some background on the issue. This will be TLDR for most but...

Around 1993 the ACBL legalized Multi for some of its higher level events. Unfortunately, at that time, the powers that be decided it was a good idea to introduce a requirement for suggested defenses. At first, this was something the players were supposed to provide.

An an early event under those rules, I was playing Multi. My opponents had agreed to use our suggested defense. However, when it came up, they didn't look at it, because they had a hand they wanted to make a 'natural' takeout double of diamonds!. We got a poor result, and appealed.

The committee said our defense was too complex, so we lost.

The next step was the committee decided to write their own suggested defenses; Multi users were required to provide these defenses. As an aside the defense we suggested became known as the 'simple defense'. Delicious irony.

Things were still quite restrictive. The books created an air of difficulty to most players. However, Multi was still allowed at all open NABC events and top level regional events.

The next step in the process was the elimination of Multi for 'pair games', since the suggested defenses do slow the game down. (They also create oodles of Unauthorized Information).

This was the state of affairs when I joined the Competition and Convention committee, the body that makes suggestions to the BoD about such issues. This was the Spring of 2015.

One of the major reasons I joined was to try to get the Convention charts updated. I was appointed chair of the subcommittee for this in the Spring of 2016. We had a very forward thinking group. We wanted to reintroduce Multi to NABC pair events, plus the Reisinger. We also wanted to slowly phase out the defenses, which we felt might destigmatize the dreaded Multi.

However, we didn't even get past the C&C level. There was a strong sentiment to keep the suggested defenses, and to keep status quo. A straw poll of the bridge committee of the board saw a unanimous vote for keeping the defenses wherever Multi was allowed.

Also, at about the same time, the ACBLs influence on the WBF convinced them that allowing a written defense to Multi was a good idea. At least there, you need to bring your own defense.

That brings us to today. While we still allow Multi in some events, the future is not bright for any progress in that regard. We were successful in making the charts much more liberal than they were, although there are still other areas where ACBL is Big Brother.

Why does multi require its users to provide defenses, when other artificial bids (like Prec 1C, 2D, Std 2C, Michaels/Unusual 2N) don't?

I guess progress on this front happens one funeral at a time, but it's still sort of baffling that this bid (which incidentally opens up more systems) is so hated. I'm honestly surprised the ACBL hasn't banned something something from precision to just force everything to play some form of SAYC/2-1 but maybe that's too cynical.

Far too cynical, IMO. The new charts did allow for use of more conventions; in particular freedom starting at responders first call.

The bigger picture problem is that the ACBL is trying to cater to 2 groups. 95% of its members just play in the local club, and the very occasional tournament. It is this group they are trying to protect.

For the other 5%, more liberal rules are optimal. This is where the Open+ chart comes in to play. While it is not as liberal as my subcommittee would have wanted, it is an improvement on the game from before 2018, at least in my opinion.

I'm not sure I follow this. Say 95% of players just play in their club. That means 95%+ of the bidding interaction they have is going to be some form of "casual" systems that they are accustomed to. In practice, the actual number is probably something closer to like 99.9%+ since in most systems, even the weird ones, most bids are fairly similar to standard ones, and few pairs in that 5% are actively playing something Open+. I would expect most serious pairs to play some modified form of precision or 2/1. Obviously if you allowed multi, it's going to get played more, and maybe you have more Polish coming up, but I still suspect that will be in the vast minority of serious players.

It seems weird to penalize pairs that want to play and practice with something different because one out of every 20 sessions, one rando in the room gets confused by the 2D bid.

On a different note, how is Multi worse than a Michael's bid that shows an unspecified minor? Seems like it would have similar issues, except one suit is known, and the offending bid is an overcall.

The difference between Multi and Michaels is that at least one suit is known, which makes all the difference.

Multi is/was very popular in Netherlands and I think everywhere else in Europe as well, so that they gave it an exception to the general rules of highly artificial systems. Also the defense against it is extremely easy to set up. I've always worked with dbl on 2D is 13-15 balanced, natural overcalls and take out doubles vs 2H/2S. That's all you need really.

In the US they seem to be more nitty about multi. lolUSA

The lack of a cue bid makes multi a bit more difficult to defend. It's all well and good to have initial actions defined, it's the follow ups that make it more difficult. I am not saying this is a good excuse for limiting its use; on the contrary, a system that is hard to defend should be a part of bridge.

Is there a reason the standard 2C is defined so sharply? Like why can't someone open it with

A K Q J T 9 x x x x
Q x
x


This was an actual club hand that happened a month or two ago, and my dad was warned by a director for opening it since it didn't have 14 hcp. I guess in Open+ we need to alert our 2C "could be weaker than expected" if we open the above? Seems pretty insane though.

Like if anything, being able to open that on a wider set of hands seems totally fine? My original understanding was that the 2C bid was for hands with 22+ HCP or a hand within one trick of a game, but I guess it also requires 14 HCP at a minimum. Throwing a bid into an opponent's 2C bid is often times even more destructive than against 1C, and it seems like a weak part of the 2/1 system broadly, so I'm not sure why the ACBL wants to limit its usage.

I think that is a really bad 2c opener. It is possible the hand actually belongs to the opponents. There are like 3 grand slams you have no defense against if one of the opponents is void in spades.
So imo this is a preempt (4D). That said, it is an extreme hand and no opening bid really is capable of correctly defining it.

The problem is not the 2C call itself. It is more about disclosure. Most people have 'real' hands (with defense outside of their suit) when they open 2C. It is a step in the right direction to be more permissive with 2C (and to have actual guidelines for players and directors).

Countermeasures to one suit no defense 2C openers would be quite different for the defending side. Alerting 2C for these hands makes the playing field more level.

So for the first time ever I made it onto a GNT district team.

So yeah friend of mine asked me to be on his GNT team.
Friend about my age and we are still trying to find a good time this summer for third summer of smashing some Final Fantasy game (8 and 9 were last two summers, leaning towards 7remake).

But yeah we didn't that well. But old curmudgeon that I talked into bbo at start of the pandemic did qualify and going to joining their team.

Well...let's go...

know any good bridge youtube channels?

I have never used Youtube as a medium for bridge, so I don't know.

The best way to learn bridge is to think about a problem yourself and then discuss it with your peers, if possible players that are better than you. Discussions with better players will often damage your ego as you find out that you were probably quite wrong, but you will learn loads and get better quickly.

Any kind of bidding or playing hand, just post it here and several of us will be able to comment on it.

You will do much better to post hands/problems on BridgeWinners. It is the 'Facebook/Twitter' of bridge.

There is a fair bit of bridge content on the site, but you do have to wade through (really just ignore) the cheating/covid threads.

The three names I would drop is Peter Hollands, Gavin Wolpert and Rob Barrington.

Will also throw out newtricksbridgeclub. Their videos are either tutorials, or over the shoulder with some expert games. Their tutorials goes largely over cardplay before even touching bidding.

Is siegmund still in Alaska? I am in anc for a bit and wouldn’t mind a bridge game with a nonrando.