Chamaco

Matchpoints, all vulnerable Playing precision with (12)13-15 1NT, you deal, and open an artificial strong club (16+). Axx-AJxx-Axx-Axx 1C-(1S)-2D*-(p) ? After the overcall 1S, 2D is natural, 5+ cards, nonforcing (about 5-7 hcp). What do you bid ?

I such cases, if the system is known before the Vugraph broadcast, I suppose it would be worthwhile to ask to some player who knows the system (Moscito in this case) to participate to the comment ? I am sure that some BBO friends would have gladly volunteered to explain to the audience the bidding nuances of Moscito .

I play 1♣-1♦ 1♥ = generic strong hand (19+ or 4- losers) and responder's 1♠ = aceless 0-4 hcp. Justin, in the context I give, your xfers seem nice for responder's 5-7 positive, but how do you give the balanced 5-7 GF hand ?

La movimentazione era perchè UNA di queste soluzioni realiza il contratto anche il caso di surtaglio finale a quadri (a riduzione avvenuta): quella in cui Nord puo' avere 2 carte di quadri e il dichiarante effettua impasse a fiori. Black man suggeriva che tale soluzione non funziona se Nord ha 4+ carte di quadri: infatti in tal caso, il surtaglio precoce in un colore nero batte il contratto. In altre parole: non è necessario evitare IN ASSOLUTO di essere surtagliati, ma è necessario cnsentire il surtaglio solo al momento giusto, da qui tutto il rimestìo :) ========= [Editato] Mi faro' regalare un pallottoliere per Natale.... :)

Nella linea che ho scelto io (impasse a fiori), non è necessario trovare la 33 a quadri. Infatti, dopo aver tagliato una picche, e una fiori (in seguito all'impasse), anche se N surtaglia il 3o giro di quadri, non è un problema. E' comunque messo in mano, purchè il taglio del 3o giro di quadri venga effettuato con un'intermedia alta che forzi un onore di Nord. Se il K di fiori è piazzato, è sufficiente che nord abbia almeno 2 quadri, non necessariamente 3. Il caso i cui Nord abbia la 4a di quadri, non è un problema: [Editato] ===== [Editato] Se Nord ha la 4a di quadri, e la quarta in atout, mi surtaglierà il terzo giro (precocemente) o a picche o a fiori, quindi la mia linea non funzionerebbe.

Senza gadgets particolari dichiaro 3 quadri. Nonostante i valori concentrati, la mano non è abbastanza forte per chiudere a manche opposta ad un appoggio minimo, e anche la nostra distribuzione (6322) è poco promettente.

Quindi stai suggerendo di passare da un nick.. BIG ... a un nick.... SMALL ? :)

This is so true ! When you know your teammates, you can sometimes anticipate what has been done in the other room and take right decisions. This is impossible if you don't know their style ! Alain I would say that the style issue is more or less secondary for world class pairs candidate to the World Title: at that level, I would think that, say, Meckwell would not have trouble figuring out what Greco-Hampson or Gitelman-Moss or Zia-Rosenberg would bid at the other table even if they haven't been teammates before. I would think that the main point is the "team feeling", e.g. compatibility, comradry etc etc. Avoiding competition between pairs, supporting teammates during bad periods rather than beating on them, etc etc, all that stuff, I am sure everybody knows what I mean.

Yes, that is the key problem. In order to know what to expect from a 3NT respnder rebid after the Xfer, it is important to know what a new suit at 3 level would be. There are many ways to play that, and I am not in a position to claim I know which is better, although I have my own preferences: I like that a 3NT rebid is not necessarily a balanced hand, for a simple reason, e.g. showng my second suit without a specific purpose (slam) many times helps more the defender on lead than pard (in most cases he'll bid NT anyways or 4M anyways, regardless of our second suit). It seems to me that on balance, it is more frequent that hiding the second suit leaves defenders in the dark than the times that it helps declarer choosing 3NT when it's right....

In my experience, what can be really boring is not the topic itself one teaches, but the way you teach it. I can imagine that a live class held by Luis would be great fun even for a group of unskilled and unmotivated players, regardless of the topic. Having said that, there will bbe definitely some sets of topics that would be more fruitful, and a teacher that has the gift to entertain students will be successful in keeping their interest alive.

Hi all, with my teammates we play real diamonds precision (1D = 4+, unbalanced), and we play support doubles in 4 sequences. a. 1D-(p)-1M-(overcall) E.g. only 4th seat overcall b. 1D-(1X)-1M*-(2/3X) E.g. opps bid and raise c. 1D-(1X)-1M*-(1/2/3Y) Opps change suit d. 1D-(Dbl)-1M*-(1/2/3y) E.g. 2nd seat makes a to dbl and his pard makes a free bid Please note that in sequence b, c, and d, 1M* is not 5+, but 4+, F1R, unlimited. ============================ THE QUESTION 1. Do you agree on the use of support double on all sequences ? 2. If not, why ? 3. If yes, up to which level, in your experience, is it more useful ? Thanks all! Mauro

Hehe... We already got also Justin's vote ;)

Arclight, of course I agree on what you say, but I think that, if I had to pick priorities in improving card play techniques of beginer/intermediates, I would focus on other areas first, and I join the crowd of people who suggest focusing primarily on counting the hand. Besides counting, I'd focus: DECLARER PLAY - first on card combinations and percentage plays, with special attention to the topic about combining chances. - secondly, entry management - thirdly, timing (the hardest of all, IMO) DEFENSE - thorough analysis of opening leads - second hand plays and 3rd/4th hand plays (especially at the first trick): when to cover and when not - inferences (from counting of course) and signals - discarding technique (when opps run a suit): that's where many many tricks are blown everyday =========== There are lots of nice topics in card play left out from the above, but I think a serious coverage of these would improve radically any serious student, if accompanied by practice at the table.

E' un problema di riduzione in atout. Devo ridurmi in un finale con 3 atout (stessa lughezza rimasta a Nord), in cui potro' muovere dalla mano cuori per la messa in mano. Ho bisogno di 3 rientri, per poter tagliare una quadri, una picche e una fiori Ma per tagliare una fiori, ho bisogno di a. scartare la fiori di mano, utilizzando uno dei rientri a quadri, (e quindi i rientri diventano solo 2; e in piu' questo presuppone che Nord abbia 3+ quadri) OPPURE b. ricorrere all'impasse a fiori Purtroppo se cerco di evitare l'impasse a fiori, devo fare tre giri preliminari di quadri scartando fiori e non tagliando quadri, e non riesco ad accorciarmi in atout perchè il 3o giro mi è servito per scartare fiori. Pertanto DEVO sperare che il K di fiori sia sotto impasse, cosi' ho il terzo rientro necessario per la riduzione in atout. Quindi: 1- K picche e picche taglio 2. piccola fiori alla Q, A fiori e fiori taglio 3. 3 giri di quadri tagliando in mano, non temendo il surtaglio; N si fa un onore quando vuole, (spero per lui la Q, fra Dama e Jack preferisco sempre farmi la Dama :) ) ma è messo in mano.

Sure, but then also your previous post that said "Reading books is good, no doubt about it, but there is no substitute for practice, practice and more practice at the table. You don't improve your bidding, dummy play and defence, let alone win tournaments, in your study or in the library. " was out of context. The fact that practice is the best followup to the things we learn is certainly true, but since the title of the thread was to list "Topic for an intermidiate level course", one instructor cannot tell his students only "play play play": it simply is not a topic :) The thread is on the specific topics to be taught by an instructor, and to my opinion Arclight listed many good references from which select topics and examples for the targeted audience, and he hit the nail on the head with respect to the title of the thread(although I agree with you about squeezes).

Precisely - that's the problem. If responder was allowed to pass with a yarborough, you wouldn't need these safety mechanisms. You could then spend your time (and bidding space) worrying about something more important. Every advantage has a price to be paid. In my opinion there are many pluses that justify this effort: 1) anticipating the real suit rather than opening strong club or such, avoids the usual problems in competition 2) allowing for weak responder not to promise necessarily something makes it problematic also for opps to stick in; the guess is 2-way, and often responder is able to make an intelligent decision; 3) as i said, many 2/1 players tend to respond very light to 1 m opener even if that should promise a little something. they have learned the hard way that keeping the bidding alive with light hands is often good opposite a 1m opener. Of course they also need safety mechanisms, but that happens even with strong club opening when responder has a yarborough. 4) with the proper tools (Gazzilli-like relays), it's possible not to waste much space in uncontested bidding; whereas, if the bidding becomes contested, we are much better placed having anticipated the real suit of strong opener. =============================== Not to say the forcing opening is perfect, but in my view the cost-benefit analyses, including the relative frequency of hand types (especially when opps might preempt our strong club or similar) is on the plus side.

Hi all, I'd appreciate feedback and cnstructive criticism on the following hand that occurred in a team match. Thanks! :) ======= Team match, We are VULN, opps are Non-Vuln RHO deals and opens 1C (better minor) and I am dealt: Qx-KQJx-Axx-KQJx If I were playing natural 1NT overcall, I might downgrade the hand to 17 (for ♠Qx) and overcall 1NT, but we play Raptor so I double. LHO Redoubles and pard bids spades. We did not discuss if her bidding spades should promise 4 or 5. RHO passed and, being in doubt, I bid 1NT, which was doubled -2, a bad swing. Summarizing the bidding: RHO....me....LHO....pard 1C......X.......XX......1S p........1NT....X.....all pass Pard held: xxxx-x-xxxx-xxxx Questions: 1) Should 1S promise 5+ length in spades ? I think so, and in that case I'd have passed. 2) I suppose that with the given hand, my pard should have passed, and we would have ended in 1NT X - 2 anyways ? Or should there be a runout mechanism ? (e.g. scramble in the diamond moysian here)

Flame, my point was to be seen NOT in the classical 2/1 context (where, I agree with you, opener would often go oveboard after a 1-level response), but in the Fantunes system (which is a sort of 2/1 with forcing 1-level openings). In Fantunes, if opener hears responder bidding at the 1-level, he still expects a possible yarborough, and there are some safty mechanisms to be able to stop. What I am saying is that 1-level forcing opening seem good to me, as long as opener knows that responder can be broke. I think the gains and the losses, including frequency considerations, make it worth playing.

I am not sure if I agree with the principle that most bad responder's hands are better off pass the 1-level opening bid. Even in a Precision context (with REAL diamonds, unbalanced, and NOT with a nebulous diamond opening), as responder, I try as much as I can to find a bid even when I am broke. Many times this preempt opps and not pard, who also knows I might be broke and won't go overboard. Using this tactics, it's more often opps who have to guess whether I am broke or I do have something, and decide whether to be conservative (and risk missing game) or be aggressive catering for game prospects (and risk going overboard). In many hands the extra round of bidding usually can stop at a reasonable level. Of course sometimes this approach backfires (e.g. sometimes opener has a harder time to double opps) but on balance I would say that it loses less than it gains ... In a "natural-ish" context, I much prefer the forcing 1-level opening than the approach by which a 1-level opening should promise something but responder cannot withstand passing with Qxxxx-x-Jxxx-xxxx when pard opens 1m. This last example (responder very weak with a 5+ major) is rather common, and a source of big troubles if responder is indeed expected to have something. Finally, I would add that even many strong club/diamond system shall force responder to bid at first round and after opener's rebid we might find ourselves in a 16-0 contract too high. That's life :)

Hey JB, remember that, as an italian motto says, "The mother of the idiots is always pregnant". Sometimes we've got to thicken our skin to do the things we enjoy, and however, running away from such people won't help, we'll always find others of the same time somewhere else, and we cannot just quit doing anything just to avoid them. So all the better go on doing the activities we love, possibly ignoring obnoxious behaviours.

Pass. Opps are in misfit, my trump holding cannot be picked up without losers by declarer if dummy (as likely from his preempt) has 0-1 spades.

My impression is that it applies more to IMPS than in MP. Many times, both 3NT and 4M (more rarely, 5m) will be makeable: i thses cases, often being in 3NT will be a bad MP score whilst irrelevant at IMPS. However, some times, there will be 9 tricks only in any denomination: this will be a less frequent case, but very heavy in terms of magnitude of swing at IMPS; instead, the relatively low frequency of this case will make it less appealing at MP, unles there are quite clear signs to think that the hand is NT oriented. At MP we are more concerned of the frequency of gains/losses, at IMPS of the magnitude. I think that, very often, these ambiguity arises at the 3 level, after opps preemption: I would think that the background in those cases refers to the fact that if we have a stopper for 3NT, pard often won't have it, and if we look for a suit contract despite having the stopper(s), we shall never find 3NT when it's right. Basically the idea is: bid 3NT if you got the stopper, you still dn't know whether we have a major suit fit, but we do know we have values for game AND a stopper. If we do not show a stopper and try for a suit contract, pard (who ignores we have a stopper) will bypass 3NT when it's the best spot. The real risk, in those cases, is risking to miss slam in a suit contract by preferring 3NT.

Ditto.

Many players do not play fast arrival here, and in this style, the 2H rebid does not show/deny any extras. I do not think that slow arrival is so much more complicated once used to it :rolleyes:

Pass throughout, I don't think it's close.