[mike777]

 AL78, on 2025-June-24, 16:11, said:

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Do you not play X here as invitational and 3♠ as competing the partscore?

Excellent question

[akwoo]

 AL78, on 2025-June-24, 16:11, said:

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Do you not play X here as invitational and 3♠ as competing the partscore?

These are SIMPLE rules for doubles. As I said, they are neither optimal nor what I would play with a partner willing to remember more stuff.

[mikl_plkcc]

I have just found out another club which starts to offer weekly IMP games. I am calling up my partner and hope to play some regular games there to see if its level will be more suitable for me.

[P_Marlowe]

mikl_plkcc, on 2026-June-22, 17:17, said:

I have just found out another club which starts to offer weekly IMP games. I am calling up my partner and hope to play some regular games there to see if its level will be more suitable for me.

Good luck, and remember, have fun.
Success comes, but it should be fun.

[blackshoe]

One of my XOs in my first ship used to say "If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." Of course, one day I said to him "I am having fun. Does that mean I'm doing it right?" He said no. :-)

[mycroft]

Are XOs (or senior chiefs, for that matter) ever satisfied with how good their shipmates are? I kind of feel from my (very) limited experience that they're natural bridge partners...

[blackshoe]

heheh.

[mikl_plkcc]

I have got my first significant positive at my regular club with my regular partner today, +41.17 IMP / 26. Out of the 26 boards played, there was one board played at 1♣, one board played at 1♦, which both ended up positive. My old-fashioned discipline worked well today.

Our worst board was a board which hit a system hole after opening 2NT as we didn't have any agreements to show a minor oriented hand, and a slam was missed. Other mistakes include having opened a 6-card 3♣ with a hand enough fur a 1-bid so we ended up playing 4♣ going down instead of 2♣ making, and raising 1♠ to 3 with a 3-card invitational hand when the opponents doubled, but fortunately no slam was available.

Our best board was one where I doubled our opponents trying to outbid our 2♠ runout in the following sequence:
1NT - (X) - 2♥* - (X) - / - (/) - 2♠ - (3♥) - / - (4♥) - / - (/) - X which ended up down 4.
Another win was my double of a strong artificial 2♣ opening (I had 6 ♣ starting with the K) confused the opponents and they ended up misunderstanding each other and ended up in a bad 3NT contract:
(2♣!) - X - (XX) - / - (2NT) - / - (3NT) as the strong hand thought that the XX showed values, but the one redoubling had a 5431 short in it, and it went down 4 vulnerable undoubled.

[awm]

mikl_plkcc, on 2026-July-24, 16:47, said:

I have got my first significant positive at my regular club with my regular partner today, +41.17 IMP / 26.

Congratulations! And on the night we showed up to play as well! I was going to try and say hi after the game (we were sitting the same direction and so didn’t play each other) but you disappeared fast. We wound up 2nd but it wasn’t very close (especially given we got something of a windfall on the last board to even reach 2nd).

[mikl_plkcc]

awm, on 2026-July-24, 17:01, said:

Congratulations! And on the night we showed up to play as well! I was going to try and say hi after the game (we were sitting the same direction and so didn’t play each other) but you disappeared fast. We wound up 2nd but it wasn’t very close (especially given we got something of a windfall on the last board to even reach 2nd).

I left about half an hour after play concluded but my partner disappeared fast.

I played today at another club as well as TfL is now running a promotional fare that I can travel for £1.75 all day long on a weekend, going there after I ran an orienteering race in the morning. Unfortunately I made a blunder at the last round playing 1NT, miscounted an important suit, and they got aggressive bidding a game trying to catch up their ranking (with bidding sequence / - 1♥ - 2♦ - 2♥ - 4♥), which was makeable double dummy but not completely laydown, and only got an average result today.

[barmar]

 mikl_plkcc, on 2026-July-24, 16:47, said:

Our worst board was a board which hit a system hole after opening 2NT as we didn't have any agreements to show a minor oriented hand, and a slam was missed.

Many casual partnerships don't have good methods here, so I expect you had company. I'll bet some of the pairs that bid the slam just blasted to it and got lucky rather than using scientific bidding -- this is not uncommon if responder has a long minor.

[awm]

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At our table, North opened 2♣ after two passes and Elianna overcalled 2♠. In general we like to intervene in opponents' strong auctions, on the theory that most (good) pairs will land on their feet if we pass throughout but may not be so comfortable in competition. Here it may have helped them though, South bid 3♦ and then tried 5♣ over North's 3NT, to which North bid 6♦.

With that said, it didn't seem so difficult to reach a slam holding nine points and two five card suits opposite a balanced 24. In a strong club field, 7 of the 13 NS pairs who played this board reached a slam (5x6♦, 2x6NT, 5x3NT, 1x5♦).

The hand below was our worst result, which we managed in the very first round.

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The double of 4♦ was perhaps optimistic (hoping for an unlikely pass); 4♥ would've worked better (although it doesn't make). My choice of 4♠ as West was unfortunate; I was thinking that if I have to play a 4-3 fit, it will likely play better in spades than in hearts. North's final double is of course a bit speculative, but he definitely caught us on this hand, for -500 and 10 IMP loss against the field.

This was the only really major mistake from our side (we did give few overticks on various boards as happens at IMPs from time to time). Opponents did some good things against us though (like bidding 6♦ on the board at the top of this post and bidding 3NT with a 4-4 spade fit on a board where it's the only making game).

[pescetom]

 awm, on 2026-July-27, 13:18, said:

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At our table, North opened 2♣ after two passes and Elianna overcalled 2♠. In general we like to intervene in opponents' strong auctions, on the theory that most (good) pairs will land on their feet if we pass throughout but may not be so comfortable in competition. Here it may have helped them though, South bid 3♦ and then tried 5♣ over North's 3NT, to which North bid 6♦.

With that said, it didn't seem so difficult to reach a slam holding nine points and two five card suits opposite a balanced 24. In a strong club field, 7 of the 13 NS pairs who played this board reached a slam (5x6♦, 2x6NT, 5x3NT, 1x5♦).

To avoid the deprecable "standard" 2NT quantitative response to 2C, I always insist on playing that as minors 5-5 instead. Which of course never comes up, here that it finally does I would be apopleptic if RHO poked in 2S. It's then a difficult choice between Pass, 3D and 5NT although I think I prefer Pass (we have decent methods over 2NT and 3H).

[awm]

Are we Michael's good luck charm? We have this thread about his struggles to get above average, and then the one week we show up he's first overall!

But since then it seems he's back to -25 or -30 IMPs per session.

It's not like we could've given him good boards directly, since we sat the same direction throughout.