Chamaco

A good initiative would be that 4 experts sit down at the table and explain their thinking aloud to the kibitzers during the bidding and play. Of course the bidding should be "standard-ish"

I am ready to play in the 5-2 fit in spades with HH doubleton, and pard did make a free bid of 1S. I'll start with Double (yes, even playing support doubles, I lie on the 3rd spads, but it's more flexible to hear pard's rebid), and if pard does not bid 2NT, I'll bid 4S since we are likely to have nothing wasted in diamonds, and anything pard provides in the side suit should help.

Yes, Bart (or equivalent) is best here. Without agremeents, I pass, and raise to 3C when opps compete. I don't want pard to get excited, my void in his suit is a danger signal: if I raise immediately to 3C and pard bids 3NT, what shall I do ? If he does bid 3NT, he is likely to have such a wastage that 4C and 5C will have little play. However, even passing 2C can be a big risk if pard has a 15-17 hand.... This is yet another example showing the need in 2/1 or similar of a Gazzilli/Riton 2C for strong-ish hands....

say east returns the spade 6

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=st8hajdjt52cakj84&s=saq3hqt873dk963ct]133|200|Scoring: IMP 1H-2C-2D-2S-2NT-3NT[/hv] Like it or not, you find yourself playing a tight 3NT contract after opening a marginal hand. The lead is the 2 of spades (attitude lead from unknown length), and East covers dummy's Ten with the spade king . You can curse the bidding later, but right now, what is the line that offers most chances to make ?

at my club, they play 2D/2H = xfer to H/S, either 1 suiter or 2 suiter + a minor X = long minor 2C = Landy 2S = 4S + unknown longer minor 3m = 4H + longer minor bid 2NT = minors 2suiter

All these points are true, however, all these points can be easily taken care of, with some "behavioural rules". Something like: advanced + are allowed to attend silently. The teacher would proceed with his class just assuming as a target the "normal" BIL group, advanced + would be treated as guests, but in his lecture the teacher would not have to tune the level and the tone of the lesson as a function of the advanced players in the audience. ========= Finally, one critical point: I understand the decision of not allowing advanced *if the teacher himself* asks to restrict the audience. But, I am pretty much convinced that there are other instructors (e.g. Luis, OliverC and others) who would not necessarily restrict the level of the audience, at least provided the advanced + shut up. An "a priori" restriction is INDEED, imo a HUGE discrimination. But again, it's a private club, they have the right to do this, just as well as I have the right to say that this seems really bad to me.

why, luis? doesn't the beginner/int club do that? is it discriminatory? Yes, it's discriminatory. Luis classes and OliverC classes would be useful also for advanced +. For instance, OliverC has been teaching Precision, with alfa, beta, gamma, omega, (etc etc) asking bids, and the strategy for chosing one or the other asking bids. And Luis classes are also of a high standard. Don't you think this would be useful to advanced+ ? yet, an advanced cannot attend the BIL, for the sole reason to be advanced. I think this is STRONGLY discriminatory. But all right, it's a private club, so we have to cope with it. But I don't like it the least bit.

This hand has clearly a huge ODR, that is, if pard leaves the double in, the score is likely to be not so good as if we play the hand. I can imagine that, when we do set opps significantly, we may have a laydown slam (just give pard a couple of honors). If 2S is not Michaels (e.g. as Mike Lawrence suggeets), then the cuebid 2S shows a semi-GF hand. I think that, despite the fact that the hcp content is not up to the requirements for a semiGF bid, the overall playing strength (about 3.5 losers) justifies a semiGF bid, provided we play a suit contract.

The "serious 3NT" indeed denies a spade cue, but does NOT deny a club control. Using "serious" 3NT , the immediate cue bypassing 4C would DENY a good hand (in the context of being a passed hand), so the serious 3NT can STILL have a cue in clubs, but too strong for an immediate 4C.

Ciao ardf !! Mi sembrava che la mia linea funzionasse - almeno con picche 5-3 - anche quando trovo onore secondo (sia asso, sia dama) a quadri in ovest, sempre a patto che il K di cuori sia in est. in tal caso, dopo aver smontato sto rientro, ovest non ha rientri nè a cuori nè a quadri per incassare le sue. Se cosi' fosse, bisognerebbe aggiungere come percentuale i casi in cui il K di cuori è in est, e in ovest trovo Qx o Q secca di quadri. A occhio e croce un 15 %. Tuttavia, è sempre problematico il caso delle picche 4-4 :(

These 2 questions get my vote: penalty doubles of partscores at IMPS, and high level decisions. This would be a very good initiative by JB: there are plenty of classes in the BIL that would be useful to advanced+, but unfortunately such players are excluded from the club, perhaps such players bring diseases. Hence I think that such initative would cover the gap for eaching/mentoring/help improve players too "strong" for the BIL (or at least rejected from the club) but who still have a long way to go... (Please note I do not consider myself advanced, but I either leave "private" or "advanced" in profiles, otherwise it's almost impossible to be accepted in decent games, given the fact that the rest of BBO also overrate their selfranking.... and the rules of the BIL club are such that if you go around labeling yourself stronger than intermediate, you cannot attend the club even if the classes would useful. )

Yes but when you do pass 1m with a bad offshape opener, you are pretty sure that -if it's our hand and oard has an awkward hand (e.g. unsuited for a double or overcall), he can balance with 1NT even without a full opener to protext our side if we have passed with a good hand, and we'll get to bid again. The availability of the balancing 1NT vs 1m opener is not a detail, is fundamental and radically changes the odds compared to when opps open 1NT When opps open 1NT, if pard is in the balancing seat without a suit to bid, he'll be under considerable pressure (balancing double with a balanced 10/12 can lead to bigtime trouble) , and this will lead to many partscore losses: the same would not happen after 1m openers.

I don't know abroad, but in Italy, for specific conventions/treatments, you cannot play them unless Prealerted. It is the responsible of the player playing an unusual method to MAKE SURE that the prealert is done with anticipation before the actual play starts, and simply offering the CC is not enough. I think an automatic popup window would replicate this procedure without too much hassle, no ?

This is not a particularly difficult situation. In fact it is very similar to the auction 2x (preempt) followed by two passes. I'll balance if I have a doubleton in x, or a decent five card suit I can bid at the two-level. Otherwise pass. Note that partner is in a pretty good position here too. He knows that: (1) opponents don't have game values, since RHO is signing off (2) partner doesn't have 15+, and doesn't have an opening hand unless he's fairly balanced. Partner can easily pre-balance with a double or a bid. Sure in principle you might miss something if the opponents have found a suit where we both have length, and the values happen to be evenly divided. But this is the same as when opponents open a preempt -- it doesn't happen all that often, the opponents usually go down a bunch, and fairly often our game wasn't playing all that well anyway because suits aren't breaking so well for us and we have somewhat mirror shapes. Adam , I agree with you that this specific kind of auction seems to pose no threats in terms ol losing *GAMES*. In fact, as you point out, in those cases, the distribution in not very favourable. However, don't you think that the *partscore* battle is hard ? Especially at MP, and when they are white, letting them play an undoubled partscore is often undesirable, no ? In those cases, even in a 5-2 fit, I have found that many times playing undoubled Nonvuln, is odds on for a good Matchpoint result for the weak notrumper, because at this lower level, the fact that shape is not favourable is often less relevant than for a game contract.

I believe that is what the "Convention Card Summary" is intended for... I guess so, but it's fundamentally different the summary from the prealert. in the prealert you give info of unusual leads, and, at least at the real table, the prealert is displayed immediately BEFORE the hand, so that opps can quickly try to create meta-agreements for unusual situations. ==== For example: in every REAL paper copy of a CC, there is an initial summary of the system and general approach. Yet, specific treatments or unusual methods REQUIRE an ADDITIONAL prealert to opps, despite the fact that there is a written summary in the CC. Reason for this requireent is to allow opps to prepare a method BEFORE the play starts vs our unusual treatments

I think it would be nice to have a popup window with all the PREALERTS at the table when u sit down. Things such as: NT range, ultralight openings/response, unusual 1/2/3 level openings, special carding, and other specific toys. the popupwindow would appear automatically at the table as opps sit down

Kaplan suggests that pass is best response to pard's double with virtually any balanced hand: he states that most often, allowing opps to score 1NT X (hopefully not too many overtricks) is the least of evil compared to running and be doubled. of course, if they pull out the blue card, it gets tough...

Some coments: 1. I agree with other posters who comented that it's weird to see a passed hand responder to the strong club taking charge and being the one who asks shape and the like 2. However, I do not think that the use of serious 3NT by passed hand is competely out of place. It might be used to show a max or minimum hand. After opener has shown club shortness, I would expect x-Axxx-Qxxx-Axxx or Qx-Axxx-xxx-Axxx These hands seem to offer good slam chances, so the simple use of RKCB should give the appropriate info. Please note that I do NOT expect pard to bid a serious NT (consuming a full 3 level), if he has an indifferent 10 count.

I always thought this would make sense. However, I stumbled in Edgar Kaplan's book on Competitive bidding, where he has a chapter on bidding vs strong and weak NT. He says that, regardless of the NT range, he wants a natural double to be heavier, if anything, in the balancing seat, as opener's values are sitting offside. If this is true, this tends to either: a. suggest lighter action (say a *good* 13) in the direct seat, to avoid being stolen b. keep direct seat quite sound (say 15+), but give up on the 13-13/12 games. ==== Just thinking aloud, I'd love feedback on this

I think that whatever the choice, it is not so clear in this specific circumstance, because IMO there was an initial distorting bid: the 2D bid was A LOT underweight, so pard's double is assuming more defense than I promised. Correct me if you disagree, but I think that in standard, 1m:2m should NOT be a preemptive hand, and have more defense than this hand, so pard is doubling assuming we can contribute something. In the given hand, I do not think that the heart suit is enough to justify the pass here. ========== However I agree that, *in general*, this double should be passed, but oinly if the responder really has his 2D bid.

Vabbè mi propongo come volontario per ... figura barbina ! :)) Abbiamo 2 prese sicure a picche, 2 a fiori, e 1 a cuori. La riuscita del contratto sembra richiedere che che le quadri siano divise 3-2 con onori divisi. Inoltre in alcune linee sarà necessario che il K di cuori sia nella mano "non pericolosa". Molto dipende dalla divisione delle picche: a. se le picche sono 5-3 (la lunga in ovest), possiamo interrompere le comunicazioni, laasciando che la difesa realizzi una sola picche, se smontiano l'ingresso in ovest finchè abbiamo il fermo. caso b: Picche 4-4 In entrambi i casi, credo che mi debba comunque rassegnare a perdere una cuori. La priorità sembra smontare il rientro in Ovest a quadri (qualunque esso sia), finchè ho il fermo a picche, se le picche sono 5-3. quindi, liscio una picche, prendo secondo giro e gioco cuori all'asso a J di quadri a girare. Se ovest contnua picche, gioco cuori al J., sperando che il K di cuori sia a destra; se fa presa, continuo quadri giovcando per il secondo pezzo in Est, e creandomi dei rientri. Se le picche sono 5-3 con quadri divise E onori a quadri divisi, E K cuori in est, alla fine faccio 4 cuori, 2 picche, 2 quadri e una fiori. Lo so, devo sperare in molte cose :-))) Se le picche sono 4-4, pero', perdo 2 picche, 1 cuori, e devo sperare che a quadri sia Est ad avere la Q, per non dover perdere 2 quadri

Well let's say that I had a similar impression as Cherdano, especially after the posts on LOLs (little old ladies) in another thread, but sometimes the written communication might be tricky, the message that gets across is sometimes.... a "misbid" ;)

1) do we have an alternative call to show our values ? This is very important, especially when the decision is between 1NT and pass. The policy I use to choose is: pass ONLY if I am willing to pass over pard's reopening double. For all hands that wopuld NOT penalty pass pard's takeout, I'll try hard to find a bid (usually a 4 card major overcall OR an offshape 1NT). 2) often the texture of our suits will be critical to suggest playing in NT or choosing another tactics. That is true. Overcalling is risky, but also not showing our values when we have a chance is risky: by choosing some other call than 1NT, we often lose games when pard has some 8+/9 count. The problem is that, compared to Kelsey's days, nowadays almost everyone opens very lightly and responds on nothing. For example, until some years ago, the 1NT overcall in the sandwhich seat was considered way too dangerous to be used as natural, and was therefore used with artificial meanings; however, nowadays, people open more and more with 9-10 counts and respond with 3-4 hcp, or even less, so quite a few good players use the NATURAL 1NT in the sandwhich seat, a policy that would have been labeled as foolish until 15 years ago. So, I think that regardless of the inclination (bidding frequently 1NT or frequently passing ofshape hands), there will be always some hands where this will lead to a loss: but my own inclination is - generally speaking - to take the risky action immediately, at a low level (the principle "in-quick/out-quick")

1NT In a world of light bidders (open and respond ultralight), I use the in-quick/out-quick approach. Passing risks either to be stolen blind, OR that we'll feel the urge to show our values when the auction is at a higher level. I might consider passing only if I were sure that opps open and respond ultrasoundly (e.g. opening guarantees 12-13 hcp and responses guarantee 6-7 hcp).