Chamaco

Usually, when there are 2 or more lines offering the same %, Suitplay mentions them all, not just one of them. This is why I was puzzled. I agree with the many players that say "Do not use suitplay (or GIB), use your head", nonetheless, when I do see something anti-intuitive suggested by these "bot-programs", I try to figure out whether I am missing out something.

Suitplay provides as only solution (no other line is even considered) the following (see hidden text)

I was kibbing a friend, and the following trump suit was dealt: 98654 AT32 Out of curiosity about the best chances, I fed it into Suitplay and was surprised of the theoretically best line....

I guess it's just my PC. The adobe reader still says it cannot extract some embedded fonts. No big deal, the document is only a few pages long, and the sequences are easy to figure out

A friend of mine has followed the classes held by Giampaolo Rinaldi, the coach of the JR National Italian Team, and he told me that Rinaldi teaches: "When you make a preemptive raise, always support with 3-4 card fit, but beware of raising with a 5+ fit. Most times *good* opps are able to reevaluate to slam because of that"

Marshall Miles in "Modern Constructive Bidding" in the chapter specific on Precision, recommends the style used in the Blue Team Club (2/1 inv+, forcing to 2NT or 3 of a suit, so usually promises a rebid unless opener bids 2NT ). But of course Marshall Miles' ideas are not always represenatative of the most common views :-) BTW, I like 2/1 GF, because I think that - in absence of a strong GF relay - responder should be able to set early on a GF.

Helene , I had missed the post where you referred to this pdf. :-) I cannot visualize the suit symbols, though :) ------------------------------------------------ For the moment, all I can say is that I much prefer to have 1D opening to have strintly 4+ diamonds, and that, when I do have (41)=3=5 with bad clubs, I prefer to open it a weak NT if it falls within range, rather than opening a 3 card diamond suit (unless the diam suit is made of AKx or similar).

we were playing live at a local club tourney, in Italy. Caren (42) is German, and knows some italian, but not that much to be able to discuss these details with an italian TD.

I had a flat 5 count, something like that JTxx-xxx- Jxx- Kxx but I do not really remember the hand, I just removed it from my mind :-)

Uh-oh... I guess someone should change the name of the thread :-) (BTW, I don't have the article here, I'll check during the weekend if Kokish gave credit to you and Mittelman)

What's wrong about a responsive double with the North's hand ?

We did not even try. The director told us that the italian rules TOTALLY forbid psyching a conventional overcall, and he considered this as if it was a psyche. from my perspective, I did not know whether we were wrong or right, but I thought after all it was not unfair to receive a penalty. Caren knows the bridge rules better than me, but nevertheless she did not try to argue with an italiann director, given the language barrier. We just accepted it and moved on.

I was playing with Caren: I alerted the cuebid as "Michaels cuebid", 55+ in majors, either weak or reverse. The original agreement, that we had used in a previous tournament, was that the cuebid would be Michaels. However, Caren had forgot that agreement (she has so many partners who all play different systems ! Easy to forget agreement then! That's the fate of nice people who are very requested as partner on the market :D ). I have to say, though, that we had filled the simplified convention card provided by the local club, BUT there was no space available to fill for defensive bidding, so the agreement was not explicitly written down on the convention card :)

I think losers count is a VERY good method to estimate the power of 2 suiters. With 55+ you often can find an 8+ card fit in one of the suits (yeah I know, we all remember those badly misfitting hands, but nonetheless everyone is still playing 2-suited overcalls :rolleyes: ). Of course, it is important for responder to know the second suit, in order to know which values will be working as "cover cards" (or, to put it in another way, which honors should be considered as "losers"). I usually do when the long suit is in the major, and it works fine. When the long suit is in the minor, the chance of ending up in 3NT short of real hcp is too high 3 suiters are very vulnerable to trump leads, cutting down the ruffing power and diminishing the number of tricks. So, when our trump fit is 54, it is ok to count losers, since usually the opps cannot draw too many rounds of trumps. With 44 fit, it is less clear. In that case i prefer to use traditional methods of hand evaluation. For balanced hands, it's even worse than for 3 suiters. In this case, I usually bid normally, and sometimes use LTC only in really borderline decisions. In any case, usually for balanced hands, the LTC and hcp requirements tend to converge. E.g. Pard opens 1S and you hold Kxx-KQx-KTxxx-xx Using classical guidelines, you have a borderline hand between inviting and bidding game with this hand (10 good working hcp + a doubleton) Using LTC, an 8-losers hand should invite, and the hand has 2.5 spades losers, 1+ hearts losers, 2+ diamonds losers, 2 club losers = about 7.5-8 losers, that is, a borderline hand.

A serious definition involving LTC should explicitly state that: a. LTC works only if we do find a fit so, if we did not find a fit yet, better use it only for hands that are almost sure to have a self sufficient suit like 7+ cards suit or very good chances to find a fit, such as 55 or 65; b. LTC estimates only the tricks we take in offense, not in defense c. therefore, when we estimate a hand, and decide how to bid it, we should consider BOTH its offensive power AND its defensive power. It is commonly agreed that an opener usually guarantees 2-2.5 defensive tricks or better (although I know many pairs are lowering the requirements). The reason why AKxxxxx and a bust is not an opener is that we are not sure we can provide 2 defensive tricks; but in terms of offense, it equals the power of a minimum opener, with it's 7-loser count.

Nuno, you can find some description at: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=7444 Also, you can find at Dan Neill's system page a writeup in italian, as well as a description into the system "Ambra". :-) BTW, Gazzilli was the name of a player from Milan :-)

I am planning to play it in a strong club context, where "Gazzilli" (not Gazilla ! :) ) or "Riton" would make less sense :-)

Hi all, in the book "For experts only", edited by the Granovetters, there is a chapter by Kokish about "rediscovering 1NT forcing". One of the issues he addresses is how responder could be able to bid (discriminate) weak and goodish hands. He suggests the use of some specific sequences, which at first sight might seem unnatural, but that after some thinking I was able to remember under the "lebensohl" heading. The first "free" suit at the 2 level except a preference to opener's major, would be Lebensohl, forcing a puppet to next suit, followed by pass/correct. There are a few sequences (when opener openes 1S and rebid H or S) when no "Lebensohl" is available, as 2NT is the only step. It is conceivable, IMO, to use 2NT as Leb even in that case, since when we do have a balanced invite, we can play 3M in a 6-2 fit Some examples 1S:1NT:2C ....-2D "Leb"= Puppet to 2H, then P/C ....-2H= normal ....-2S= 8-10 with doubleton spades (weak 3 card raise would go via 2D"Leb") ....-2NT = natural invite ....-3x = natural invite (the weak hand would go via leb) 1S:1NT:2D ....-2H "Leb"= Puppet to 2S, then P/C ....-2S= 8-10 with doubleton spades (weak 3 card raise would go via 2H"Leb") ....-2NT = natural invite ....-3x = natural invite (the weak hand would go via leb) ------------------------------------- It seems to me that this fits well in the 2/1 version whenre 2/1 is absolute GF, since it becomes easier to show unambiguously the invitational 1-suiter without bidding a 2/1. I'd like feedback from anyone ! :-)

I play over natural interferencein 2nd hand: 1C-(INTERFERENCE)- ? Responder's bids: - nonforcing, invitational non-jump freebids (even 1NT) at the 1-2 level - jumps to 2H/S show the seminegative "weak 2" handtype - 3-level freebids always show a very good suit GF - 2NT is always 2-suiter, "unusual" - 4m is always "Leaping Michaels" - Double can be: ...- invitational+, classical takeout/neg dbl shape (side 4cM, support in other suits) ...- invitational, balanced, but cannot bid 1NT because lack of stopper ...- any GF hand that has no good suit to jump into, nor 2suiters -cuebid at the 2 level shows 5+ cards in the suit, to uncover psyche; however, as these psyches are rarely made at the 2 level, a cue of a 2-level overcall is "Michaels". --------------------------------- You need agrements also for opener's rebid if 4th hand interference or in balancing seat after 2nd hand interference: 1C-(pass)- 1D-(INTERFERENCE)- ? 1C-(INTERFERENCE)- pass-(pass)- ? I play the following opener's rebids : - nonforcing, non-jump freebids at the 1-2 level - 1NT is natural, showing a about 18-20 (in balancing seat even a good 17, if NV) - jumps show extras with good suit -cuebid at the 2 level shows 5+ cards in the suit, to uncover psyche; however, as these psyches are rarely made at the 2 level, a cue of a 2-level overcall is "Michaels". - 2NT is always 2-suiter, "unusual" - 4m is always "Leaping Michaels" - Double can be: ...- competitive with classical takeout/neg dbl shape (side 4cM, support in other suits) ...- any hand with extras (say 19+) that has no good suit to jump into, nor 2suiters ----------------------------------------------- Conventional defenses vs strong club are another ballgame. You'll need some meta-agreements. In this area, I am curious to hear from other strongclubbers :-)

Probably, when I said "very good" opening, I should give examples: AKQxxx-Axx-xxx-x Is a 6 losers hand, so it qualifies as "very good" opening KQJxxxx-Axx-xx-x is similar (6 losers). I would not jump to 2S with KQJxxx-Axx-xxx-x. With such hand I'd bid and rebid spades, and if pard does not take the push, I'll have no regrets of losing game :-)

as far as i know this is 8 losers because u count half a loser for every queen more than aces, and half a loser for no doubleton. somewhere there is a book called: modern losing trick count, but i dont know who wrote it. (probably it is not as moderen as stated :-)) Ditto. Kxx = 2.5 losers Qxxx = little more than 2.5 losers (nee 2 finesses to work) AKx= 1 loser Qxx = little more than 2.5 losers (nee 2 finesses to work) Moreover, the 4333 shape accounts for more deevaluation (no ruffing power, so the hand MIGHT not be evaluated as with an established fit) ================================ EDITED BY MAURO AFTER READING BEN'S POST I dunno about chicken's post (sounds funny! LOL) :-), but I think it's not so bad to pinpoint the fact that Qxx(x) or Kx(x) is NOT only 2 losers but more, unless we know something from the bidding.

A checkbox/pulldown menuitem specifying: "Sets forcing pass at: - any level - XXX level and higher" might be more compact ?

LTC work decently when we do have a fit, so there are sme typcal situations: a. we do not have a fit (yet) I tend to evaluate the hand according to LTC if I can reasonably think we'll have a fit (or I have selfsuficent long trumps). So, 55, 65 and all GOOD 1suiters are evaluated with the LTC. Good 64 hands are also evaluated with LTC. Balanced and semibalanced are not evaluated using LTC b. we DO have a fit In this case, I use the LTC to estimate wheter we are in the game or slam zone. c. IMPORTANT! Minors based hands When our fit is in the minor, we are less likely to play in a suit, and more likely to end up in NT. So, when we have the minors, I am somewhat more conservative and, in constructive bidding, I tend to bid on "real" hcp than distribution only (LTC does not work well for 3NT) d. "Raw LTC count" vs "adjusted LTC" I use the LTC tables shown in the italian books by Chiaradia, Belladonna and Garozzo. E.g. AQx is NOT 1 loser, but 1 loser and a half. AQJ is half a loser. AQT is more or less 1 loser. Qxx is about 2.5 losers QTx about 2 losers and so forth... Basically you incorporate into the loser count the % of success of the needed finesses/double finesses, etc.

Sorry, of course you are right, I checked better :-)

It does not matter how many tricks are needed or form of scoring. None of the above affect the solution: there is only one way only to play this suit (in isolation from the rest of the hand) Of course the number of tricks matters. If I need five tricks from the suit and RHO plays a small pip when I lead from dummy I shall put the ace up. That's why I think it does not matter, from the practical viewpoint, see hidden text