[EricK]

Since splitting up with my previous regular partner, I have become a player-for-hire (with a fee of zero) at my local club. I played with a new partner last night. First some mid-hand chit-chat:
Dealer on my right opens 1♦, I overcall 1♥, 3rd hand passes. Partner sits and thinks for a while, and pulls out the "Stop" card. She looks at it bemusedly and says "I didn't mean that card, I meant Double". After we pointed out that she couldn't do that. She reluctantly decided to pass with her 4153 11 point hand. This. surprisingly, turned out to be one our better boards, as I made 1♥ +2 with all games going down.

The previous board against the same opponents had already told me this wasn't going to be a great evening:

---

The lead was the ♦K, and as I put down dummy I jokingly said "You'd better make this". And make it she did. Exactly. With no overtricks. She ducked the opening lead, won the small ♦ continuation with the T, played ♣AK and ♠A, and then played on ♥, with the opponents taking 3 more tricks before reluctantly conceding the rest to dummy. When the hand was over, she said "I was trying to get an extra trick. But I don't think it was possible."

This person has been playing many times a week for years. And she has a reputation of dumping partners who don't meet her expectations!

[ArtK78]

 EricK, on 2015-March-10, 12:50, said:

Since splitting up with my previous regular partner, I have become a player-for-hire (with a fee of zero) at my local club. I played with a new partner last night. First some mid-hand chit-chat:
Dealer on my right opens 1♦, I overcall 1♥, 3rd hand passes. Partner sits and thinks for a while, and pulls out the "Stop" card. She looks at it bemusedly and says "I didn't mean that card, I meant Double". After we pointed out that she couldn't do that. She reluctantly decided to pass with her 4153 11 point hand. This. surprisingly, turned out to be one our better boards, as I made 1♥ +2 with all games going down.

The previous board against the same opponents had already told me this wasn't going to be a great evening:

---

The lead was the ♦K, and as I put down dummy I jokingly said "You'd better make this". And make it she did. Exactly. With no overtricks. She ducked the opening lead, won the small ♦ continuation with the T, played ♣AK and ♠A, and then played on ♥, with the opponents taking 3 more tricks before reluctantly conceding the rest to dummy. When the hand was over, she said "I was trying to get an extra trick. But I don't think it was possible."

This person has been playing many times a week for years. And she has a reputation of dumping partners who don't meet her expectations!

Unless I am mistaken, there is nothing in the bidding box regulations that would prevent a person from retracting a STOP card that had been placed on the table in error and making any legal call without penalty. Regardless of whether I am correct, the director should have been summoned.

Assuming that the placing of the STOP card on the table was a mechanical error and not a thought error, I am absolutely sure it can be retracted. The only justification that I can think of for there being any restriction on the correction of a mistaken STOP card is that the player was intending to skip the bidding and then decided not to do so after putting the STOP card on the table.

It took quite a bit of imagination on the part of your partner to make exactly 9 tricks on the second hand.

[EricK]

 ArtK78, on 2015-March-10, 15:02, said:

Unless I am mistaken, there is nothing in the bidding box regulations that would prevent a person from retracting a STOP card that had been placed on the table in error and making any legal call without penalty. Regardless of whether I am correct, the director should have been summoned.

But she replaced the STOP card with an illegal call (doubling her partner's bid). And nobody tried to restrict her bidding at all (beyond asking her to make a legal call!).

[manudude03]

 Zelandakh, on 2015-March-08, 18:30, said:

Well I hope you are getting paid then! If you want the partnership to work long-term then I think you have some teaching to do. Given that your p does not know the Ro11 another decent temporary option in addition to the two mentioned earlier might be Busso spot leads. Really though, first thing is for the partner to understand standard leads, then find a carding method they are comfortable with that accomodates these.

I tried to do a google search for Busso leads, I couldn't find much. What are they? Attitude leads? The only other bridge related match I found was a cheating system where you knock the table to ask partner to play high . Long story short though, he's one of those people who went out of his way to make a homegrown system without fully understanding the basic national system so trying to teach even basic bidding theory can be difficult (to put it mildly, there is very little upside to any of it). Even though we play twice a week, it's not a partnership I take too seriously.

He also seems to like playing a 2C overcall over 1NT as asking for a 4 card major, something I never understood. When I asked about how I show values in response, his reply was he'll work it out from the opponents bidding....

edit: actually I just checked the EBU blue book, I don't even think it's legal to play it that way, will have to tell him on Thursday.

[KurtGodel]

---

So I was playing at a North London club with a friend just to relax and then this happened. Obviously 2♥ was a joke, but not as much as the defense was. Eventually partner did in fact make 2♥. North had a huge go at South for not leading a club: "I overcalled NT, I must have a stop, lead my suit, not theirs!", South suggested that perhaps North should not have ducked the club ace. North retorted "If he had another club left I needed to duck to keep him out of dummy" (I was dozing a bit as dummy, but was fairly sure the club suit was known, and struggled not to snigger). North gets increasingly grumpy (having broken a record for most mistakes made in one hand) but elects to compromise "Okay maybe it was 70% your fault and 30% mine". Eventually after minutes of bickering (we had finished the round early) they asked my partner (who is respected as a good player at the club) whether they could have done better. He delicately replied: "It's difficult, but you had one or two chances to beat it" (looking at North).

[eagles123]

I don't have the exact hand but something like

---

Yes I suggest to partner afterwards he can just X rather than bid 3D but anyway

This goes 3 off for a top to us and a frustrated North to South afterwards "Why did you bid so much with such a bad hand"

Eagles

[Zelandakh]

 manudude03, on 2015-March-10, 19:09, said:

I tried to do a google search for Busso leads, I couldn't find much. What are they? Attitude leads? The only other bridge related match I found was a cheating system where you knock the table to ask partner to play high . Long story short though, he's one of those people who went out of his way to make a homegrown system without fully understanding the basic national system so trying to teach even basic bidding theory can be difficult (to put it mildly, there is very little upside to any of it). Even though we play twice a week, it's not a partnership I take too seriously.

He also seems to like playing a 2C overcall over 1NT as asking for a 4 card major, something I never understood. When I asked about how I show values in response, his reply was he'll work it out from the opponents bidding....

edit: actually I just checked the EBU blue book, I don't even think it's legal to play it that way, will have to tell him on Thursday.

Sorry, I missed this one. Yes Busso is another name for attitude leads. And don't be too hard on your partner - I also made the effort to play around with homespun ideas before I had even had a bridge partner so maybe he will survive the experience and be the better for it on the other side.

[helene_t]

From the latest EBU magazine:

My partner opened 4♦ and I bid 3NT. The opponents objected. But I had 16 points so I thought I was allowed to reverse.

[manudude03]

After only making 2 tricks on defence with KQx vs Axx despite leading the suit 3 times:

Me: Why did you overtake my queen?
Partner: I wanted to give you a ruff.

This is in the context of a hand where you can be 99% sure it wouldn't be needed even if I was doubleton

[ggwhiz]

 manudude03, on 2015-April-09, 20:01, said:

After only making 2 tricks on defence with KQx vs Axx despite leading the suit 3 times:

Me: Why did you overtake my queen?
Partner: I wanted to give you a ruff.

This is in the context of a hand where you can be 99% sure it wouldn't be needed even if I was doubleton

I had a similar situation where I was the culprit. The opponents had hidden a suit and against 3nt, I lead the K from KQx, partner overtook and fired back the J. I overtook to lead my last one and partner showed out!

The next morning we grabbed a Daily Bulletin and hit the road for the long drive home. My wife reading it said "Hey, it looks like someone else defended that hand the same way you did" NOT!!!

I almost hit the ditch.

[1eyedjack]

 ggwhiz, on 2015-April-10, 09:46, said:

I almost hit the ditch.

First time I read that as "I almost hit the bitch"

[helene_t]

"I do psyche frequently whenever I think p can know I am psyching the opening"

From a partnership discussion on BBO

[Jinksy]

 eagles123, on 2015-March-31, 07:01, said:

I don't have the exact hand but something like

---

Yes I suggest to partner afterwards he can just X rather than bid 3D but anyway

This goes 3 off for a top to us and a frustrated North to South afterwards "Why did you bid so much with such a bad hand"

Eagles

Seems unusual to play X as diamonds there (I mean, I know all the LOLs do it, but I think stronger players use it most commonly as a values-showing X when the opps' NT is weak)

[manudude03]

I heard this on Thursday:

"I thought your club lead was a singleton, so I wanted to signal to tell you to lead clubs".

[ggwhiz]

A Canadian Scottish-Polish pair played in the Boston NABC's and sat down against a Polish pair. Before play started there was a lot of animated Polish being spoken by 3 of them (they were old friends) and on the first hand the Polish pair had one of those 18 bid auctions with everything alerted.

The Canadian Polish guy asks for explanations at the end and gets a long one.

The Scott: I realize this is like old home week but when play begins I DEMAND you speak English.

A Pole: But Sir, we WERE!

[FrancesHinden]

 manudude03, on 2015-March-10, 19:09, said:

He also seems to like playing a 2C overcall over 1NT as asking for a 4 card major, something I never understood. When I asked about how I show values in response, his reply was he'll work it out from the opponents bidding....

edit: actually I just checked the EBU blue book, I don't even think it's legal to play it that way, will have to tell him on Thursday.

You can play any defence to you like to 1NT, so it's certainly legal.
It's also a defence I've seen a number of very good players play, they overcall 2C on some 4342 hand in the hope of finding a 4-3 or 4-4 major suit fit. It's a more honest way of saying 2C shows the majors and doing it on 4-3.

[manudude03]

 FrancesHinden, on 2015-May-09, 08:43, said:

You can play any defence to you like to 1NT, so it's certainly legal.
It's also a defence I've seen a number of very good players play, they overcall 2C on some 4342 hand in the hope of finding a 4-3 or 4-4 major suit fit. It's a more honest way of saying 2C shows the majors and doing it on 4-3.

I've seen him do it on 0454 hands and such planning on pulling 2S to 3D. It made it very annoying if the opponents competed and I have 5 spades.

[Zelandakh]

 manudude03, on 2015-May-09, 10:41, said:

I've seen him do it on 0454 hands and such planning on pulling 2S to 3D. It made it very annoying if the opponents competed and I have 5 spades.

It seems to me that 2NT here should show 0444 plus a non-heart and that that would be a better call than 3♦.

[eagles123]

not really hopeless comment more funny comment but it goes

p 1s 1n p p

I am 1n bidder 1s bidder asks "15-17?"

my p "yes but could be 16"

[barmar]

 eagles123, on 2015-May-17, 13:37, said:

not really hopeless comment more funny comment but it goes

p 1s 1n p p

I am 1n bidder 1s bidder asks "15-17?"

my p "yes but could be 16"

I assume he actually phrased "15-17" as "15,17" (leaving out the word "to").