Chamaco

With invitational hands with doubleton support you can preference to the 3 level. I prefer this occasional 5-2 fit rather than not being able to discriminate my minors one-suiters. Another option of keeping 2NT as Good-bad is taking out of the 1NT forcing the invitational balanced hand. This can be done without much trouble if using: a1. 2-way 1M:2C = either clubs GF or balanced invitational; OR else a2. using Gitelman (or Lawrence) 2/1 style, use 1M:2NT as natural INVITATIONAL rather than natural GF bal. b. regardless of using a1 or a2, inserting the GF balanced hands in 1NT forcing. This way you can use 2NT as "Lebensohl" in the 1NT forcing sequences.

I am not fond of the use of 3NT for 4333 raises, because of frequency issues, but for once my hands fits in this system agreement, I'll use the bid :-)

This auction is a textbook example of why here 2NT should be used as Good-bad or Lebensohl or whatever you want to call it to discriminate a good 3D rebid vs a bad 3D signoff offer.

Hi Wayne :-) No, natural 1 of a suit is natural. Xfer starts with 1NT and end with the suit below opener's suit. Yes, actually it STARTS with 1NT. Yes and no. The bottom range of such hands shall pass, the top range can use a negative double or invite with 2NT. More or less the scheme you wrote down is what we play, exceopt that our xfers start at the 1NT level and higher and do not apply to out 1-of-a-suit responses E.g.: 1♣-(DBL/ 1y) ....1 of a suit: natural, 4+ card, forcing 1R ....1NT: good raise of ♣ (inverted minors style) ....2♣= bad raise ....cuebid = 55+ inv+ in unbuid suits .... 2 of a suit = NFB (if jump to 2M, it's a weakish jump = about 9 losers, 6+ card suiit, but not totally preemptive) .... DBL = negative double, includes ............a. classical neg X hands ............b. the top range of what would be a natural 1NT response (good 9 up to 11). With a natural 1NT response of 6-8 hcp, we pass ............c. "normal" GF hands with a 5+ not selfsufficient suit .... 3 of a suit = strong JS, self sufficient suit

Oh right :D I'll immediately duck a diamond then.

My line in hidden text.

Agree more or less with all this post.

Over a 1m opener, with my pard we have recently switched to: 1. xfer response after overcalls of 1 of a suit: these allow to raise with a bad hand and with a good hand; so we do not need the cue for raising opener's minor 2. NFB at the 2-level; X include classical neg X and GF hands without a selfsufficient suit; 3. cuebid is "Michaels" = 55 or better in the remaining 2 suits, invitational+ ==================== This hand fits well with the scheme: I would cue showing the unbid 2 suits. Sorry, I know this is not a thread on methods, I apologize in advance :-) Without these agreements I'd show diamonds.

Bridge is a bidder's game, but as they say, "Over a preempt, if they fixed you, stay fixed". Even at MP, I won't risk a double or bidding diamonds. If pard was trapping, it happens, next board please :-)

At MP, I'll try 1NT. At IMPS, 2C if it's natural, otherwise, if playing some version of Checkback, I'll use whatever form of signoff to 3C used by the system.

I interpreted it the same (opps bidding and raising hearts), and passed.

No it implies not enough values to raise immediately :) Great huh? I disagree. :) In Mike Lawrence style, bidding 2S is a temporary catchall, can be: 1. a strong hand, even a reverse without the right shape for bidding past 2S. In this case, it is often a hand with long spades whose texture is not worth a jump, or a strong 5332 without the right stoppers to bid 2NT/3NT. 2. a minimum hand Once opener rebids 2S but later bypasses 3NT to bid 4D, he is showing a good hand, so he is excluding the *weak* part of the catchall 2S. So he can either have a semibalanced reverse or, much more often, a 6+ card spade suit. In any case, I expect opener to have a good, non minimum hand, and more often than not 6 cards in spades.

Was South playing with EW or with N ? LOL How could he pass holding 6 hearts ? LOL

He did, but you can choose to penalty pass with long or strong trumps. While at lower level, xxxxx in opps suit is not enough to penalty pass, at the 3+ level, it becomes much better. If pard has indeed the values required for a 3-level t/o DBL, we should grab our plus score. A takeut double does not always mean you should take it out.

If I trust my pard, that's an easy pass. In our agreements (based on Mike Lawrence books), we do not X in direct seat at the 3 level, unless holding a 15+ count and/or 3+ defensive tricks. With a normal semibalanced minimum opening (12-13, bad 14), we'll pass. So, counting pard for 3+ tricks, I have no troubles in passing.

I like the rationale for bidding 2S ("bid where our strength is"), but I disagree with responder's signoff of 5D. Responder should probe for slam trying to checkback for a heart control. Of course you need to have a tool for that: - you cannot bid 4S because that should be to play. - that leaves the choice of 4H, 4NT and 5C to you to ask pard to bid the slam with H control. Not using other fancy gadgets for minors slam bidding, I would say that responder should bid 5C, when opener should bid the slam if holding a heart control.

That's close. At MP, the 2♠ rebid "sounds" better, IMO, given the poor quality of opener's diamonds (albeit a 4 card raise can never be bad). At teams/IMPS, probably delivering immediately the diamond fit can simplify a lot the look for a diamond suit slam. I look for slam. My hand is well worth a distributional reverse, despite the spades misfit.

LOL, the reasoning sounds pretty funny: for the same reason we should not open a 12 count because we expect to win only 4 tricks LOL.

I am not keen about using Axxxx as fitshowing. Of course it depends on what the pship agreed about it. The way I play it, my pard will expect at least 2 of the top 5 honors and will reevaluate a lot even Qx (and quite often Jx) in the sidesuit, and that does not seem appealing to me, given the posted hand. This hand looks like a 2NT raise to me.

I agree passing this hand: it has no aces and no tens, and is considerably weaker than hands A and B :-) I would also pass the hand you posted while opening hands A and B :-)

Phil, the hands where I am worried are the hands where respnder is WEAK and would love to play in a 44M fit *at the 2 level*. If u use 2H as stayman here, you can fit a 44 H fit only at the 3 level. Instead, using canapè opener rebids when opener has a 4m+long minor allows to stop safely in a partscore at the 2 level, even when responder has a bad hand. I agree that when responder has a forward hand, then one can use the 2H relay :-)

I played B/C for a few years but we added aspects of Super Precision with the canapes. If not playing canape sequences, you need some kind of staymanesque call by responder like 1♣ - 1♦ - 2♣ - 2♦ (2N replaces 2♦ to show diamonds) and 1♣ - 1♦ - 2♦ - 2♥ (2N replaces 2♥ to show hearts). The 1C-1D-2C sequence can use the same scheme one uses over the 2C opener. The problem is more the 1C-1D-2D, where the lack of space makes it uncomfortable to: - look for a side 4M - offer a better partscore - check for max/min of opener.

Playing strength/shape. Add 1 more club or trump, and the same hand becomes worth a 4C bid. I like to think of it in tems of losers (7-losers = 4-level FJS, 8.5-9 losers = 3 level FJS), but I know it's not so popular ;)

1N is ok, but in my experience 5422s will very often play better in a suit, Justin, I can see that when deciding to OPEN a hand 1NT. But do you think having the 4 bagger in OPPS suit makes also the hand best suited for a suit contract ?

"Vanilla" Precision is a sort of slang word for something like "Precision for dummies" :)