Chamaco

Is pass unthinkable ? =============== EDIT: I miscounted the hcp B) With an 18 count I'd start with a double, like a man :)

I am sorry but I fail to see how any bomb can be a "moral weapon"... To me it sounds at least as paradoxical as a "happy car crash", a "perfumed piece of *****", or a "funeral party" ... This, regardless of the reasons that are claimed to justify dropping a bomb.

Nor really. In most textbooks Michaels cue and U2NT followups are dismissed rather quickly. Inverted minors- you said it. Even 1NT forcing sequences are not standard at all. And the level of details at which the followups of a negative double are discussed is akin to the level of detail (poor) of the discussion of J2NT sequences. This applies for the vast majority of textbooks on "standard" 5 card major bidding. This is like saying "we should all know how to drive. But most people don't. So better of not having a car". As I said, it's a paradox: we should learn to drive, and we should learn the conventions we think are useful. So the real question is how useful is a treatment, in this case the artificial 2NT raise. If we attempt to support our views with examples, we can also view things the other way around: e.g. most world class pairs have an explicit, immediate artificial forcing raise (no matter if 2NT or other), so that might suggest they have a reason for this AND the results witness it works :angry:

Italian ♠ Picche ♥ Cuori ♦ Quadri ♣ Fiori

This argument is overrated: it indeed applies to 90% of the most common conventions. Think of it, for an occasional pair, even the followup after a negative double is not really defined according to a standard... :angry: Just to mention a few other instances, this applies for most doubles, 2 suited overcalls, inverted minors, and even 1NT forcing sequences, and many more occasions... This does not mean we should play without conventions (yes, we can claim to give up conventions as the usual paradoxical "boutade", but - quite frankly - if we are posting here on the BBF, we *know* we are never going to give up a substantial set of conventions): it just means we should know our stuff. This has a lot of possible drawbacks too, both in a silent auction as well as in a contested auction. There is a urgent need for a balance-of-power raise that IMMEDIATELY signals the presence of a 9 card fit.

Anyone who embraces the concept described by Jeff Rubens, the "In and out" principle, will often base his bidding and re/de-evaluation, assuming his pard has points in the suit bid. If one indeed adopts the In & out principle, the corollary of this, of course, is that bidding empty suits leads to poor hand evaluation by his pard (and often poor results), even if it's systemic. Because of this I am becoming more and more fond, at least in borderline situations, of bidding suits where there is honors concentration, rather than bidding empty suits. Balanced hands with equal length in minors are - at least to me - a good example where i beieve it pays off to be more relaxed in terms of promised length but rather prefer the suit quality approach. BTW, there is a chapter about thi concept i the excellent book by Kit Woolsey "Matchpoints, where he suggests that "not being slave of the system" but allowing ccasional 4 card major opening as well as occasional deviation in 1m opening can be a winner, if used with a grain of salt.

Fou Rire - Richard Galliano

Serving diced pork meat with TOFU flavor to a vegetarian pretending it's the newest veggie product. :rolleyes:

yes, though that stripe-tail monkey double comes to mind. Stripe tail double ? Want to double to keep them out of slam when you are in the passout seat ? LOL

This option (Kaplan inversion and 1NT rebid = "Gazzilli") is used in Buratti-Lanzarotti's "Nightmare" system

Duke Ellington- Caravan

In my opinion, 3H is a waiting bid, which says little about hearts, but more about diamonds. 3D would be used to show real support for diamonds (at least xxx), suggesting the fit, so that opener might then either show belated spade support, or try 3NT, or investigate game/slam in diamonds.

Yes, I think so... There are 2 ma downsides in F-N: 1. hard to start invitational auction opposite a 2-level opener, especially 2M, which further restricts the room for investigation. As a result, thos 12 hcp vs 12-13 hcp games are hard to find.. all the more so for 12-13 hcp opposite a good 10-11 hcp with a fit 2. as a result, when opener opens at the 2 level and responder is in misfit, responder often has to guess whether: ... a. try to look for a better strain, risking that opener will rebid his own suit at the 3 level, very dangerous ......b. try to look for game, risking again a misfit at the 3 level, or else passing, finding out later that there indeed exist a side fit that would justify optimism in bidding game (or at least a better partscore). Limiting the number of hand types that will open 2M means limiting the number of times our constructive auction will be awkward; but it also means to limit the number of times we will preempt opponents. I cannot really tell which pros and cons are most significant...

Waiter tips in the US is a habit that is integrated with the policy of low salaries. I have known some euroopean freinds of mine, who tried both policies, as waiters, and they told me : "You know what ? I much prefer the US system: if business is low , ultimately you'll struggle or get fired both in the US and in europe; but when you do strike a place thatt has some moderately good business going on, , in the US, you'll get some real money even as waiter, whereas it wil be much more difficult in europe (unless yo work in theose "De Luxe", high society places)" Now, if I had to pick my most annoying pet peeve about US, I'd rather destroy all "coffee to go" places as well as the related mugs ! hehe ;)

Bingo... This is a good choice for one of the worst (wurst?) inventions ever. What idiot came up with the idea of putting mayonnaise on perfectly good hamburgers? I've actually divided the US into different mayonnaise zones. I keep careful track of those states where they consider it standard to place Mayo on the burger. i still remember the first time I got surprised with this. Shudder... Well, I am not a big fan of mayo (e.g. burger alone will do), but I find extremely disgusting ketchup itself.... :)

Could the 2NT bid by responder be used as artificial good, forward-going, spade raise (as opposed to a blocking 2S) ? Or is the price of giving up a natural NT invite too high ?

Choices, in order of preference: a. trump b. diamond c. low spade d. low club

Ok, so you are saying that 2C would be forcing 1R and basically substitutes the cuebid in "natural" systems ? That's fine. Now another question. Let's assume you have the same hand type (good hand, no support for pard's spades, no stopper), and the opening bid had been 1C. What is the forcing bid ? Is 2C here a natural cuebid ? What would be the meaning of 2D ? Would 2D show diamonds, natural, or xfer to hearts ? Would 2H be a good spade raise ? ================================== Final question: in this framework, what is the general plan to handle, say a hand like the following when opps open clubs and pard overcalls spades ? x- AKx-AKQJxxx-xx (if you have better example, please show them , I am not good at constructing hands)

In standard you can just cue, promising - usually - a semibalanced hand that MIGHT have -or not- 3 card support (or, alternatively, a huge game/slam going hand). Often the 5-3 fit will play well even in NT. The 4 card raise can go via 2NT (and various other kind of raises- FJS and Robson-Segal stuff...) Well, the 1NT bid can be shaded, so I thought of biddding 1NT without a stopper but, couple of issues: 1) after all, rightsiding the contract seems to be a major issues for lots of people (last time I played vs you and Han you were playing a xfer advance system whose most useful feature seemed to be exactly that, e.g. putting on lead the most dangerous opp...) 2) 1NT is a limited bid; many play it as 8-11, but, no matter what rang you choose (according to the overcall style), there will be hands too good for a 1NT call, hands that would love to be able to stop in 2NT or 2M if pard is broke. These hands need a 1RF bid 3) rare enough, but still to be considered, especially if opps open light: slamgoing hand in a minor there will be hands without a fit in the major that might foresee slam in a selfsufficient minor. Hence the need for a forcing bid without a fit for overcaller's major In "standard" (is there any??) the forcing bid is the cuebid.

I received the following reply from the Italian Bridge Federation, whose reply was quite quick: "........ non vi sarà alcuna difficoltà a prendere il volo delle 21,20 perchè il turno delle 15,30 finirà intorno alle 19 e l'aeroporto di Verona è attaccato alla città, quindi di veloce raggiungimento. Cordialità Niki di Fabio Segreteria FIGB" "... there will be no difficulty in catching the 21.20 flight, because the 15.30 round shall end around 19.00 and the Verona airport is really close to the town, hence it can be reached quickly"

I have written an email to some people of the Italian Federation as well as to the email address of the Verona Bridge Club. I don't know Verona nor anything about the location/organization of the event, however, perhaps they might give some useful answer. If they do, I'll let you know.

I have toyed with such a scheme, but I was puzzled by the following question: what do you bid with a 2-4-3-4 hand (e.g. only 2 card support) that has all of the following ? - no stopper (does not want to bid NT from the wrong side). This is fundamental to me, I do not want to bid any number of NT without a stopper. - invitational + values opposite the standard for your 1-level overcalls (say advancer has 12 hcp), so that you want a 1RF bid without promising fit and without promising a 5 card suit ? The answer to these questions revolves on the use of the meaning of 1NT and 2C. There are many players who believe that 1NT should be natural (e.g. the price of giving up the natural 1NT avance would be too high). If this applies, then it seems to me that we are left with 2C as the only 1RF bid without support without a stopper ? Is it how you play ? And, even more important, how would you bid the same hand-type (balanced or 4441, good hand, no stopper, no support) if the opening bid had been 1 club ?

In Hannie's defense, I-ABC was supposed to stand for "Intermediate-Advanced Bridge Club". I think that he originally thought that he was attending a lecture geared at level, hence the reason for asking questions. I think that most of us would agree that BobH's lectures are not actually at the I-ABC level, hence the initial frustration we may have felt about the subject matter/tenor of his lectures. However, Bob is doing something useful for bridge (teaching beginners) and so we should encourage him to continue doing so, as onerous as we may find starting a new thread to debate some specific topics. I cannot tell what is right or wrong, I can only state what I would do or not do under the same conditions. Regardless of the level, I would hardly ever contest in public a lecturer. If I think a lecturer is explaining something I disagree with, I might at first raise a question in public, because I might think it can be of utility to everybody. But as soon as I realize there is a disagreement on the basis of the matter I would try to talk privately the topic, to avoid start a debate in front of other students. Just my own opinion, for what it's worth. Nothing personal, I think Han is really a cool guy, I just disagree with what happened, that's all, we all do sometimes things that other people would not do.

Just came back from Tango dancing, therefore... Osvaldo Fresedo's "Vida mia", the version with Dizzie Gillespie on a trumpet solo... cheers Mauro

There has been a considerable amount of sourness in this thread about Bobh's lessons. Personally, while I disliked the aggressiveness of some of Bobh's replies, I disliked even more the attacks he received here. I tend to think that the biggest mistake was BEFORE this thread, and was made, unfortunately, other BB Forum friends, who attacked him. Especially, I think it was a mistake by Han to participate at Bobh's session as "student": Han's level is clearly superior to the I-ABC students (proof is that he often mentors), and it can be only embarrassing for a teacher (such as Bob here, but anyone else) to have another comparable level player to be sitting in the lessons, especially if such player starts a debate on some topic. This does not justify th sourness by both sides, IMO... I just hope it all fades awy