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What do the laws say, when in a Teams-Match where you play plenty of boards against the same pair/team (especially if you reach the knock-out stages), and your CC says 5M4+m for a 2-level opening in the majors, and your top class opponents notice that you don't actually open the 5M4+m hands, but only the 5M5+m hands? Does this constitute some undisclosed agreement between you and partner?

Thanks Adam. I've been thinking about the Serious/Non-Serious suggestion in this thread and I have doubts if it will work in the following bidding sequence - 1♥-2♣ 2♦-2♠ 2NT-3♠ 3NT Repeating the ♠ suit shows 5. What does 3NT mean in this sequence? No suit has been agreed upon yet. Therefore - 1. Is it natural, and suggesting a place to play? This seems to be the most logical, suggesting a 5422 or 5431 distribution with opener, the singleton being ♠. 2. Where responder holds a 5431 distribution with 3♠, raising to 4♠ shows a fit and no extras. 3. How would opener show extras?

Much appreciated, Bill. Thanks a ton!

Anyone know if and where the CCs are available for the 2013 Bermuda Bowl?

This hand required us to make some adjustments to our agreements: [hv=pc=n&w=sat864hajt54d8cq4&e=s9hk7dqt976542ck8&d=w&v=e&b=16&a=2n(5/5%20majors%2C%208-12%20hcp)3c3dp3hp4d]266|200[/hv] 1. 3♦ would normally show no preference for either major, requesting opener to bid the stronger/longer one. 2. Opener chooses ♥ 3. Repeating the ♦ suit now by East shows a single suiter, no fit in the majors 4♦ was the last makeable contract. The opponents had a partial in ♣.

Proper agreements should be able to address these sorts of system issues. So, how about this? Once a 2/1 GF auction has been initiated, then – 1. Reverse bids which promise extras are off, 2. Replaced with the agreement for both partners to bid out their hand pattern up to 3NT while looking for a fit, 3. Hopefully by then they have found and agreed on where to play, whether it be ....a. A 5-3 fit in opener’s major ....b. A 4-4 fit in the other major ....c. A 5-3 fit in the other major with responder not excluded ....d. In 3NT with no fit ....e. A minor suit fit not excluded 4. Once a suit fit is found, Serious/Non-Serious 3NT kicks in to show/deny extras, replacing reverse bids/jump bids to show extras 5. With neither partner having extras, after Serious/Non-Serious 3NT, the final contract gets placed Can this work? If not, then please make a suggestion that can work.

This has got nothing to do with Flannery. I don’t play Flannery and have never played Flannery. But I do play 2/1, and this has got everything to do with what I consider to be a weakness/hole/flaw in the 2/1 system which needs proper partnership agreements to address, something which I don’t have. But now that you have put Flannery on the table, let us look at the auction from opener’s point of view. The auction proceeds – 1♥-2m 2♠-? A 2/1 GF auction has been initiated. So is 2♠ – 1. Patterning out, or 2. A reverse bid promising extras, or 3. Both 1 & 2? Similarly, we can look at the auction from responder’s point of view. The auction proceeds – 1♥-2♣ 2♦-2♠ Again, a 2/1 GF auction has been initiated. So is 2♠ – 1. Patterning out, or 2. A reverse bid promising extras, or 3. Both 1 & 2? If it is 1, is responder showing 5♣ and 4♠, or can it be 4♣ and 4♠? The thread was started to find out what others do/recommend in this situation. What are your partnership agreements?

So you are playing 2/1. Partner opens 1♥ and you hold - 1. Exactly 4♠ 2. 12+ HCP What takes preference? Do you - 1. Show the 4-card ♠ suit first, or 2. Do you immediately initiate a 2/1 GF sequence?

I think mikeh's post nailed it. The stronger player can adjust downwards to what the weaker partner knows in all facets of the game, whether it be system, conventions, defensive signals etc (add whatever you wish to this). The only way the weaker player can ever adjust upwards is to raise their overall knowledge, level of play etc.

Is there any way of combining natural weak 2s with Muiderberg hand patterns? The continuation bidding will need to sort out which hand type opener has. Sure you may end up playing in a 6-1 major suit on level 3. However that may not necessarily turn out to be a complete disaster when responder was showing preference for the minor suits. Hopefully some of openers minor suit losers can be taken care of in responders hand.

In two recent tournaments/club games a number of hands came up which met the requirements of Muiderberg. The only pair who used the bid against us failed to alert it. I assumed it was a normal weak two. Only when I saw opener’s full hand afterwards did I realise what had happened. I let it go because the final contract and result wasn’t affected in any way. For the record, this pair opened a 5/5 hand with 7 HCP. Back to Muiderberg: As I saw quite a few hands recently which met the requirements, I may just (only maybe) reconsider my opinion of the bid. To do that, tell me your recommended continuation structure after 2NT. You’ve already given me most of the others. Then while you’re at it, what do you use OM (other major) for, whether it be 2M or 3M? 3NT I assume is to play. 2M Continuations: 2NT = Strong relay to ask for shape/strength 3C = P/C 3D = Invitational 3M = Pre-emptive 2/3OM = ? 3NT = To play?

Then what is the 3♣ bid used for? If you use it as Pass/Correct, then what is the 2NT bid used for?

A question for Muiderbergers: Is a raise to 3M in the suit opened - 1. Invitational, or 2. Pre-emptive?

No matter how good you declare a hand, if you are in the wrong contract (overbid versus underbid, suit versus NT, wrong suit or whatever) you score poorly. First get to the right contract and then worry about the rest. The bigger clubs and all tournaments distribute hand records afterwards to tell you where you should have been. Its easy to track your progress against those.

:)

To bring this thread up to date this post has been copied in from elsewhere. I am still hoping for a detailed answer:

To bring this thread up to date these two posts have been copied in from elsewhere: To which gwnn replied (also copied in):

I think that this is an area where we, and probably many others as well, leak a lot of points. I have jimmied some of the cards from the actual hand to present this layout - [hv=pc=n&s=s532h764d96cqjt54&w=sq84hq982dk83c932&n=sj7hat53daj4cak87&e=sakt96hkjdqt752c6&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=1n(15-17%20HCP)2d(DONT)p2h(Possible%20double%20fit)p2s(My%20other%20suit)p]399|300[/hv] Game is on. However the problem is that West does not know either East's hand strength or actual distribution i.e. is the ♠ suit only 4-cards, or is it 5? My own methods are hopeless here as I have no way of exploring for game. I need to find a bid to announce a double fit and invite game. I don't (DONT) have one? How about your methods? How would you find the game here? Then I can dump DONT.

Victor Mollo is doing his bit to bring about reconciliation in the forums. He wrote about two of the characters in these forums. You can see more here.

Read this DONT writeup from BridgeGuys website. A 5-4 holding is permissible when NV. We were NV. The problem now is that partner may have a decent 3-card raise for the major but is reluctant to do so when overcaller may only have a 4-card suit. How should the auction proceed now? More so when you hit on a double fit. Opener's partner will have squat regarding HCP now. So your side may actually have game on despite the 1NT opening? How do others untangle the auction now?

Thats what I did. I saw Levin/Weinstein (and some others) using it in the 2011 Bermuda Bowl. I don't know if they still play it. :unsure:

That's why I posted the hand. I want to find out the better methods. Tell me yours.

This hand is from our local club last night. What is the best option to defend with this? If it makes any difference to your suggestions, we play DONT. [hv=pc=n&e=sakt96hkjdqt752c6&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=1n(15-17%20HCP)]133|200[/hv]

Quite a lot has been said here about me but I will engage someone in a debate until they convince me that they have a better way of doing things. Before you say that I am inconvincible, just recently I gave the thumbs up to fromageGB for a weak 2 continuation sequence which I thought was simple, effective and required very little memory load. Then Vampyr also gave a suggested continuation sequence after a strong 2♣ opening. Again it’s simple and doesn’t require much memory load. I have incorporated both into my own agreements. On the downside we have the Puppet Stayman sequence as an example. Unless you come up with something more convincing, Puppet Stayman is a loser. What do I gain with PS? 1. I can include 5-card majors in my 1NT bid if it falls in the range What do I lose with PS? 1. An immediate 2/1 GF auction (although this won’t be a problem because you will get to game anyway, but with the GF auction initiated, your mindset changes towards the bidding while looking for the best spot to play) 2. The ability to raise immediately to level 4 with a weak hand but long in trumps 3. Splinter bids 4. Bergen raises 5. Fit jumps 6. Jacoby 2NT 7. Jacoby 3NT And an even bigger downside, additional memory load to uncover a possible 5-3 or 4-4 fit in the major. Another downside not off the table yet we have 2NT for 5-5 in the minors, 5-10 HCP. What do I gain? The entire 1 and 2 levels have been taken away from the opponents. Downsides? I gave a whole list in the thread with a request that all who play the bid give me their reasons for doing so. Thus far not a single one has responded. I don’t really care what you think about my posting style, but from the number of views and the number of replies to many of those threads, it should be pretty obvious to my most vehement opponents that they generate a lot of interest. I haven’t finished debating some of those threads, most notably The Muiderberg Hoax. If you’re following them, you will soon see me back there.

This certainly makes sense. I saw it in this post and wasn't sure what it meant? This guy doesn't post much, so maybe he hasn't seen the question yet.