France has a strong presence on BBO.  I used to play a lot with Pierre-Yves Guillaumin, an excellent player, but I cracked a few too many French jokes (Why are there so many trees on the Champs-Elysée? What do you call a million Frenchmen with their hands in the air?, etc.) and our online friendship has cooled somewhat.  So I was delighted when he accepted my invitation to play a few hands this morning and even more delighted when an old friend from Ottawa, Waldemar Frukacz, rang in to play with his regular partner, Piotr Klimowicz.

First board out of the box: A98 / - / KJ754 / AKQJ6 all white, in 3rd, you open 1 Diamond, pard bids 1 Heart, you bid 3 Clubs, pard bids 3 Diamonds.

Now what? 

I always seem to face tough problems on 1st boards.   I bid 3 Spades and pard bid 3NT.

Well, that wasn't much help.  Now what?

One of the weaknesses of my game is that I can be pretty unilateral in ambiguous auctions.  Instead of guessing what partner means and hoping that partner can guess what I'm doing, I just tend to place the contract.

So I bid 6 Diamonds.

I did not buy very well:

T642 / Q9873 / QT3 / 4

On the bright side, no game makes with good defense and I managed to get out for down 1.  Only lost a couple of IMPs.