Leaderboard

A double for us is penalties. A pass is forcing and would be our choice on this hand. It is also reasonable to agree that the first double is take-out, in which case you double. The key thing is to have firm agreements with partner.

As a general rule, a cue shows support when you don't need it as a general force because either - a negative double is available - you can make a forcing bid in an unbid minor and there is little risk that partner takes that suit too seriously - you can make a forcing pass - you can redouble So for example 1h-(2cl)-3cl This shows support because a generic strong hand could double or bid 2d. For pairs who play 2di as nonforcing it can be a bit awkward as they might have to bid 3di on a 4card suit, but it is considered important to be able to show support. (1h)-1s-(p)-2h Here you rarely have a hand worth a force without spade support, in the rare event that you have you must bid 3cl or 3di. Unless 2cl and 3di is forcing of course. So 2h shows support. As Stephen says above, not everyone agrees with this. 1di-(p)-1s-(2h) 3h Here, dbl is commonly played as showing 3card support while 3cl is about 16 points so not forcing. 2nt may be forcing for some pairs but it's not practical to have to bid 2nt without a heart stop as 3nt should be played by partner. So 3h is the only way to bid a strong hand without support and without heart stop. A strong hand with support can just bid 4sp. You probably don't have a hand too strong for 4sp when you opened 1di. But you may agree that 4♠ denies a heart control and that hands with heart control can splinter or bid 3♥ first and then 4♠. (1♦)-x-(p)-1♠ (p)-2♦ Here, there's nothing that is forcing so 2♦ is the only bid you can make with any rock-crusher. It tends to deny 4-card spade suport as you will almost never have a hand too strong for 4♠ on this auction (unless the 1♦ opening was a psyche).

Opener - (overcall) - cue bid of overcall, is 100% strong support for opener's suit (most commonly limit raise+), because hands without support have negative doubles and new suits (if not playing negative free bids) to force not having support. (Opening bid) - overcall - (pass) - cue bid of opener's suit, is *usually* support for partner's suit, but it might not be depending on: - if you are playing some advanced scheme involving transfer responses (which sometimes shift raises to a different bid) - whether you have some method of forcing with another suit or not (for some people, cue is 100% support, you have other methods of forcing in other suits, like say jump shifting, or playing new suits at certain levels F1, or playing a transfer scheme; for other people, all their new suits are NF, and jump shifts might be fit-showing, so they have to include some non-support hands in the cue bid) Now, in response to the above cue bids, if the bid support is a minor, people will strain to show stoppers in the opp's suit anyway, because reaching 3nt is a high priority even with a minor fit, since 9 tricks is often easier than 11. Less so with major fit, though with flat hands and the opp's suit well stopped 3nt should be offered. Cue bids by *opener* though, after responder has shown some suit of their own, are assumed *not* support, and just show a strong hand often looking for a stopper for 3nt. This is because there are usually a plethora of other ways for opener to show a raise (raise to 2, 3, 4 levels, jump cue as a splinter), but no other way to show just a huge one-suiter of their own. Also cues on later rounds of auction by responder/advancer are often gropes for 3nt, when the cue isn't of the first 2 types mentioned above.

I just heard a striking writer complaining about shrinking income because of changes in the way streaming organisations compensate them. She said (inter alia) that: "Our door is open but the ball is in their court" "Our demands are extremely reasonable" If they keep their door open and the ball is smashed back into their court it might hit someone in the living room causing unreasonable damage.

I think you can get better results by putting that same amount of effort into a non-relay system. Going a step further, I think one of the main ways relay can be very good is because you have discussed the meanings of your calls with your partner at all, instead of just winging it. I do like scans and denial cue bids, but they come with a host of other questions (if you have shown your shape in standard, why not play them there? Plenty of XYZ sequences have complete shape and strength descriptions, as do certain 2/1 and reverse auctions. Denial bids or control asking bids can also be more descriptive after preemptive or jump auctions. Also this is primarily relevant for slam territory, and slam simply isn't on very often). Edit: I got a bit curious again, so I pulled up the last 96 boards on vugraph by Woolsey - Bramley (since I think they play KK Relay over 1C). They had 2 relay auctions, both of which ended in 4M making 11 tricks (identical to the other table). Incidentally they also missed a grand over a 1♣-1♦ start that was found at the other table after a 1♣-1♠ start - presumably an upgrade in a strong club system?