[chasetb]

---

EDIT - MPs, partner is an average player at the club.

[mikeh]

In 'standard' bridge this opening was always used to show 12 tricks, with the only hole being in the trump suit. If I opened 6♥ I would hold something like void KQJ10xxxxxx AKQ void.

Now, it will come as no surprise that I have never opened at the 6 level in 40 years of bridge.

While the traditional usage may be of such narrow specificity, I don't understand why we'd ever use any other approach. Say we hold a hand worth 11 or 12 tricks...why turn this into an immediate guessing game for partner? Yes, we get to pre-empt, but most of the time we can make a slam the opps DON'T have a good save or they won't find it. In the meantime, a wrong guess here is very expensive. 30 imps could swing on this guess, and we could almost certainly have had a slower and more precise means of posing and answering the question.

[nige1]

chasetb, on 2013-July-03, 12:43, said:

---

IMO Pass = 10, 6NT = 2, 7♥ = 1. Partner should be interested only in heart honours e.g.
♠ - ♥ A Q J x x x x ♦ A K Q x x x ♣ -
♠ - ♥ K Q J x x x x x x x x ♦ A K ♣ -
♠ - ♥ A J x x x x x x x x ♦ A K Q ♣ -

[jjbrr]

Yeah, mikeh is right. If partner is willing to open 6H on just some random hand that looks like a 6H opener, there's not much discussion here.

ETA: If a specific ace is enough for partner to make grand, 4NT opener asking specific aces is an effective method!

[ArtK78]

I have a basic rule which has served me very well over the years.

If partner jumps to a slam (a natural call - not a conventional call), I pass.

There have been very few instances where it was wrong to pass a jump to slam.

In the case of an opening slam bid, I agree with Mike. Unless I have a trump trick for partner, I will pass. And if I do have a trump trick for partner, I am going to bid one more unless I can come up with a very good reason not to (one of which is my basic rule).

[JLOGIC]

I would expect partner to have something like 9 solid and AKxx or 8 solid and AKxxx, but honestly it would be hard to fault partner if he had 9 solid and AQxx or 8 solid and AQxxx and chose to gamble it out. If partner is missing an ace and the rest of his hand is solid he would not open 6H, as jjbrr says he can just find out about the ace if thats what he needs. IMO he should just treat AKQx as solid and be done with it, so with a hand like --- 8 solid AKQx x he should find out about the CA and bid a grand if we have it imo. It's possible he chose to be tactical with that hand type in order to shut them out of their cheap save, esp if a 4N opener would not ask for specific aces, but whatever, overall I think grand rates to be bad on the expected trump lead.

I will say I hate these "rules' like we should just pass because partner didn't involve us or jumped to slam or whatever. Passing with QJxx of diamonds and the same hand would be awful imo. We can take inferences from what we expect from partners bidding and attempt to make the best call based on that. Yes it's true since we are r/w there are tactical implications and partner might bid 6H more trying to shut them out of a good save, or with a hand like 7 solid AKQx and 2 small clubs etc.

There is another hand type for partner also, non solid hearts like 8 to the AK and AKQx of diamonds which would be a pretty poor grand...maybe if we bid we should bid 7D lol.

[jandrew]

chasetb, on 2013-July-03, 12:43, said:

---

Why, in this opening message (and in so many others that I see), is the hand graphic so small that I can not read it even on a full size computer screen.
What am I doing wrong?
How can I resize the graphic?

[MrAce]

jandrew, on 2013-July-03, 14:34, said:

Why, in this opening message (and in so many others that I see), is the hand graphic so small that I can not read it even on a full size computer screen.
What am I doing wrong?
How can I resize the graphic?

Check the font size of your browser, maybe that helps.

[jandrew]

MrAce, on 2013-July-04, 02:29, said:

Check the font size of your browser, maybe that helps.

Nah! No difference.

The graphic shows the "Rewind" button, the "Previous" button and (about) 20% of the "Ne...." button.
Although it does show all the hands and the bidding area, they are so small as to be unreadable.
If I zoom the whole screen I can read the content, but I can see no more of the buttons.
Obviously the graphic is being compressed when it is originally sent or when I receive it.
What to do ??

EDIT:
Now here's a thing.
The above description was based on what I can see when using "Microsoft Internet Explorer".
But now, when I use "Chrome", I can see only the South hand (not all four) and the bidding area - and they are much bigger.
But, there are no buttons at all.
I must go and look with "Safari". I shall be back.

EDIT AGAIN:
Curiouser & curiouser.
Here I am using "Safari" and the graphic is exactly the same as under "Chrome".
Surely there is some browser or BBO expert out there who can explain.

[inquiry]

jandrew, on 2013-July-04, 02:57, said:

EDIT:
Now here's a thing.
The above description was based on what I can see when using "Microsoft Internet Explorer".
But now, when I use "Chrome", I can see only the South hand (not all four) and the bidding area - and they are much bigger.
But, there are no buttons at all.
I must go and look with "Safari". I shall be back.

EDIT AGAIN:
Curiouser & curiouser.
Here I am using "Safari" and the graphic is exactly the same as under "Chrome".
Surely there is some browser or BBO expert out there who can explain.

All that is shown is the south hand and the bidding area (it shows NS as vul--- red, and EW as nonvul -- white). The bidding is 6H by north, pass by East. Then the south hand. There are not "buttons". So perhaps with chrome and Safari you are seeing what you are suppose to see. I can not explain or guess what is wrong with IE for you, but many people see what it is suppose to look like even using IE (I find compatibility mode with IE works best, but see the normal hand layout with either format).

[jandrew]

inquiry, on 2013-July-05, 07:20, said:

... So perhaps with chrome and Safari you are seeing what you are suppose to see. I can not explain or guess what is wrong with IE for you, but many people see what it is suppose to look like even using IE (I find compatibility mode with IE works best, but see the normal hand layout with either format).

OK.
I am, using IE10 and I see no difference with compatibility mode.
I shall learn to live with this, and swap to chrome when I need to.