Chamaco

I consider balanced/semibalance hands with 2 suits unstopped as suit oriented; also, hands wuth AKs and little intermediates will often be treated as suit-oriented hnds. Other than that, I'll often open offshape NT hands (and 2D as well).

This is much harder, most times you won't know the shortness and sidesuits length of your opps, as well as how many working hcp they have and in which suits they are located. In practice, I would say that it will be applicable very seldom at the table. For double dummy analyes, yes, but that sounds academic. I would argue that just trying to estimate the opp's wchp and 2 shortest suits is well worth the effort and practice. I fall far short in this effort. I think LOTT/FTL if nothing else gets the improving player to at least to try and count out the opp hands. Any mechanical rules that get us to do that more is an improvement. In fact I would argue this may very well be the most important bridge priority to practice at the table. More important than learning another bridge convention or treatment. Perhaps Lawrence in a follow up book will give us some tips on how to do this. Mike, I know you emphasize the role of counting, and i Know you are right (that is by far the most challeging task for me right now, but I know it will be the most rewarding). However, even the day when I'll indeed manage to count systematically opps hands, I think that most times it will be hard for me to figure out their shortnesses and working points *during the bidding*. Hence, it will be impractical to try to use FTL t estimate opps trick-taking potential during the bidding, to try and assess whether a sac is worth a shot.

This is much harder, most times you won't know the shortness and sidesuits length of your opps, as well as how many working hcp they have and in which suits they are located. In practice, I would say that estimating *OPPS* trick tacking potential with FTL will be applicable very seldom at the table. For double dummy analyes, yes, but that sounds academic.

Justin, I was not arguing about your approach, I agree with it. I was rather using your points to argue that doubling so light at the 4 level is an overbid.

Alright, that was my point: if a bid by pard sets up a forcing pass, and with a bust he can pass, then this hand should pass in the first place because we must set the contract if pard is broke and penalty passes :-) Of course, it would not be the first time opps make a doubled contract, but the disaster strikes if they redouble... No bid is perfect but bidding at the level 4 with the values of a normal opener, despite a void in opps suit , seems too much to me. if I remember correctly the standards described by Mike Lawrence, he brings examples in the 17/18+ hcp range as a minimum to double, even for takeout, at the 4 level.

Would pard's pass really be forcing here ? couldn't he have bid 4S out of desperation with some shape but not much ? It seems to me that, if the pass was indeed forcing, then we should have much more defensive power to X for takeout at the 4 level ?

Which brings back to the folllwing cases. In both cases, the question is: if you by pass 2C, breaking the xfer, bidding 2D or 2H, are you suggesting a misfit hand and trying to improve the contract or are you showing a forward going hand, either superaccepting or showing extras ? Case 1 1D-(1S)-1NT*-(p) ? 1NT*= Forcing, xfer to clubs, either with NFB-type of hand or strong You hold xxxx-KQJx-AJTxx-void Case 2 1H-(1S)-1NT*-(p) ? 1NT*= Forcing, xfer to clubs, either with NFB-type of hand or strong You hold xxxx-KQJxx-AJTx-void

I pass I want an entry to dummy, say a Kxx or QJ10, or QJ in a 4+ card suit.

Remarkably, in most hands the FTL approach gives pretty similar results to the Losing Trick Count. Indeed, FTL is more accurate than LTC in that is accounts explicitly for "working" cards, but LTC is easier and faster to compute. at the table (Also, LTC tends to converge with most ZAR hand evaluations) All in all, it seems to me that using LTC with a grain of salt (e.g. downgrading with hands where honors/shortness are misfitting) tends to be easier and quicker, and produce similar results.

It can be done as a joke, like Hannie did in this case. BTW, this is rather frequent. However, I am much more curious to know why a director should rule differently if an appeal is issued by a self-rated lower ranked players. In this case, I think we can safely assume the TD was NOT joking...

2H. This should show some tolerance, not necessarily a huge support.

Passing is a big risk: if pard has a 13-15 count with 55 in majors or 5413, there are significant chances of game...

Double. Bad shape, but 3 card support for all the unbid suits, and, most important, no wasted values. If pard has support I hop to play the hand along the lines of dummy reversal.

That's similar to the way I used to play Walsh, except that I'd bid diamonds only with a genuine GF, and not with an invitational-only hand :-) But I certainly won't argue the statement that T-walsh is more efficient :-)

What about 6C, at favourable ? I expct it is unlikely pard can produce anything useful, and, if, so, opps are cold for 11 tricks in a suit contract.

Pass. Doubling was already somewhat an overbid.

You might want to read Robinson's "Washington standard". While I agree with all the posters that say that expecting pickup pard to comply to a "standard 2/1" is hopeless, well, this book seems to do a god job in putting together most of the treatments are commonly shared by 2/1 players I could meet on BBO. In this task, the book appears superior to the books by Lawrence, Hardy, and so forth (although the comparison with Lawrence's books are a bit unfair: ML books wee written 15-20 years ago, and they stood the test of time; moreover, as I already wrote, I think that ML books are not books on system but rather on hand evaluation).

Ditto. Playing Walsh, opener can safely rebid 1NT, hiding a possible other major. 1NT gets to played from the right side, responder can better evaluate the potential of the hand, opps often don't know opener's distribution, etc etc.

I bid 1S, even if I am not a frequent 4 card overcaller. The suit quality hopefully compensate. I am much more worried of holding T9x in clubs than of having 1 less card in spades. 1) With this hand type I might never get to show values if I pass. On the other hand, when I double offshape, I like to have extra hcp to compensate for the deviant shape, and this is not the case 2) 1S overcall deprives opps of an entire level of bidding 3) 1S suggests a good lead to pard.

Lawrence's books are interested because they always offer food for thought. However, I also found the book a bit disappointing for a couple of reasons: 1. The statistics are somewhat biased 2. Almost all of the example hands chosen to demonstrate that LOTT does not work features duplication of shape or of values. These are minuses that would impact any hand evaluation method, and ar signs that are in any case hard to detect by most bidding systems (well, excluding relay systems) 3. It is unfair and silly to compare the LOTT with FTL method. The 2 methods have different purpose: FTL attemptsto verify the number of tricks OUR SIDE can make, REGARDLESS of how many thrick THE OPPOSING SIDE can make. So it works very well for borderline hands where we have to decides whether to stretch for game/slam or just stop before it's too late. LOTT, instead, tries to consider the number of tricks BOTH sides can make, and bid, as fast as possible, to a level that not necessarily is to make, but in many cases might go down: in those cases, hopefully, the minus of going down is lower than the alternative contract opps side had available. It is evident that the 2 methods have different purposes, so it makes no sense to say that FTL is better or worse than LOTT.

I think that this had is yet another example of the reasons why after the F1NT, responder can have great benefits by using 1st step except the pref to opener's suit as "Lebensohl/Good-bad". Here I would strongly advocate the use of 2NT as goodbad, giving up the natural NT invite. This way it would be possible to discriminate, in this specific case: - good raises to 3H from bad raises to 3H - good hands with a long minor from bad hands with a long minor - other hand types with good/bad suport in spades We give up the 2NT "to play" when the sequence is 1S-1NT-2H or 1S-1NT-2S (in other squences, responder will have 2X available as "Good bad relay", and still have available the natural 2NT). I am ready to pay this price (occasionally I'll play 3M in a 5-2 fit, I've played worse contracts....).

Hi Arend, you might want to check a similar question/thread I posted some time ago :-) http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...500&hl=transfer

I would like to make my compliments to all the Vugraph staff for the BB coverage. We all know that this year resources were limited and there were quite a few troubles. Despite this, the Vugraph shows were yet even better than previously. A special words for the commentators: in the past I had spent a few critical words about some occasional commentaries I thought were not 100% satisfactory. It in only fair today for me to say that I found awesome all the commentaries I had the chance to watch. Very well done and thanks to all ! :)

Why should it have less than 3 hearts ? Invitational hands with 3 card support usually go via 1NT followed by 3M rebid, even if pard rebids his major.

1) 4S at any scoring/vulnerability. This needs good agreements as to how much will pèlay us for our 1NT bid and what kind of hands shopuld we play pard for his jump to 3S. With my teammates we play that a jumpreboid of opener to 3S shows extra shape but not necessarily a max in hcp. I would expect something like AKxxxx-Axx-KJx-x 2) 4H at any scoring/vulnerability. Our hand is huge opposite a pard that is inviting. Game is on, probably with overtricks. 3) I correct at any form of scoring/vulnerability. I have a single stopper, and my policy with a known 53 major fit is to correct to 4M with 0-1 stoppers, whilst leaving 3NT in with a double stopper. Not claiming it always works, but at least it saves some stresses in decision making;