Chamaco

If i had to play a system a la KS or a la Fantunes,, I would strongly try to convince my pard to play the following: 1NT = 12-14 (any 5332, many 5422, frequent 4441) 1♣ = either clubs unbal OR 15-17 bal 1♦= either diamonds unbal OR 18-20 1M = natural Now the sequences 1m:1M become: 1♣:1M ? 1NT = 15-17, max 3card support 2M = 4 card support, minimum 2NT = artificial H raise, a la Jacoby (as used by Ben); relays may follow. 3M = unbalanced reverse raise 1♦:1M ? 1NT = 18-20. This is forcing 1 Round. It can still have 4 card major as well as 4 card support for pd. Checkback sequences follow 2M = 4 card support, minimum 2NT = artificial H raise, a la Jacoby (as used by Ben) In this case the use of 3M might be redundant. Or, one may as well use 2NT as raise with fir in 18-20 bal, vs 3M raise as unbalanced reverse. There is plenty of room to improve on the idea, but basically the main point is to include the 18-20 balanced hands in the 1D opener (as in Nightmare), freeing the 2NT jump for the artificial strong raise of the major.

Had I meant to be unethical, I would not have posted here. I posted exactly to have feedback on this issue. Now it is much clearer that the failure to alert by pard is in fact a UI, a thing that did not occur to me at the moment, despite the fact it may seem obvious that had partner alerted I would have passed her penalty. And yes, I would have passed in that case, so I indeed took advantage of the UI.

I am not nearly good enough to be able to judge anyone's bridge technical skill. But I have long time experience in the world of chess and I have read A LOT of bridge books (sadly though: had I not read I would have some excuse for my low standard of play :rolleyes: ). And from my experience I think I can say Fred is for sure a superworld class in clarity of explanation. The clarity of the Bridgemaster deals is outstanding, and so were the great "Deals of the week". Such clarity, in my view, is unequalled in most of the bridge (and chess) literature, at least for players of my skill. Alright, one may say, "Using the electronic medium, and having time to spend to construct deals, anyone could do that". Firstly, I would disagree with this statement. Secondly, anyone that had the luck to view Vugraph Shows where Fred was commentator,, will realize that he has this abilty as a natural gift: only a naturally gifted player can decompose the hands so quickly in their main points, and in a few seconds point out immediately to the lesser players the core, the "soul of the deal". Mauro

Specifically for the 1H opener this sounds an improvement. However, it would force my pard to memorize 2 different sequences fo 1H and 1S openers. The way we play she only needs to remember "2D = waiting, 2M rebid = club raise". Less efficient, but less prone to memory failure. Well, in Mike Lawrence's Style (as opposed to Hardy's), rebidding the major does not guarantee nor denies a 6 bagger. According to ML, 1M:2m 2M can be just a "waiting bid". This is the meaning of the 2D bid: a "tempo bid" saving space. Dvid_c got it right: it is not meant to be a relay starting an asking sequence, just a space saving bid. All opener's rebids past 2M are natural (either single suiter, or 55+) "distributional reverses" (5-5.5 losers). 2NT rebid by opener is natural, but -EXTREMELY IMPORTANT - ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEES ALL SIDE SUITS STOPPED. A 5332 with one or more side suits unstopped will never rebid 2NT (This is Mike Lawrence style). An alternative use of 2NT is for 64 hands and distributional reverse(3C then asks second suit), to discriminate from revrse single suiters and reverse 55+ hands; with a bal 5332 one could then simply use the waiting bid without too much loss. A raise of responder's minor guarantees a non minimum hand (at most 6-6.5 losers) and Hxx or xxxx support. A raise of responder's major only shows xxx support, even with a crappy hand. All hands that do not qualify for such rebids will have to use a waiting bid, which will be the major rebid OR (in case of responder's 2C), the 2D waiting bid. Bottomline: one of the major 2/1 styles gives up the bid to show 6+ in the major, so, if it is wrong, it cannot be *that* wrong :-)

I think 4S should be surely RKCB for something. So here is my (elementary) thought: solution 1) 4S = 6 keycards RKCB for BOTH suits (in this case, both red kings are keycards) steps are 03 - 14 - 25+1Q - 25 +0/2Q solution 2) 4S = since it's the lowest step, it is RKCB for the lowest suit (diamonds) 4NT = RKCB for highest suit (hearts)

Alright I know there are pros and cons in the 2D relay. I will consider the comments on this, I am sure that I have somethink to rethink. However my main question is the following: once at the 4 level in a non agreement sequence and opener has shown a 2-suiter, how to ask RKCB for one suit or the other ? Thanks ! :)

Remember, we are applying 2/1 sequences to Precision opener, so making responder captain vs a limited opening may be not (too) bad, I guess ? :) On the other hand, the 2D rebid saves a lot of bidding space. In this case this bidding space was "eaten" by the 3NT jump by responder: perhaps I'd rather rethink the idea that a 15-17 (or 16-18) responder should jump to 3NT. It does help when responder has an 18+ and starts low, so if he rebids over a signoff he's got extras. But it worked badly here. I know, my worry was not how to interpret 4D. My worry was how to ask keycards in diamonds to look for aces AND the D King. In another hand I might be more interested in the H keycards. So, apart from this specific hand, I'd like to have 2 different RKCB ask for one or the other suit.

Hi all, last saturday I had an awkward bidding sequence and I would like to work out a better solution. Team game, all vuln. Pard opened a Precision 1H (max 15 hcp) and I held ♠AQJ♥Qx♦ATxxx♣ATx Ou agreements for 2/1 seqences are: 1) 2NT is Jacoby 2NT 2) 2/1 guarantees a good 5+ card suit, GF 3) 2C is GF , EITHER with 5+ clubs OR balanced. For some reason, I felt to consider this a balanced hand, and instead f bidding 2D I bid 2C. This turned out badly as we'll see later. After 1H:2C, our followup is: - 2D = relay (asks whether 2C is balanced OR with clubs; typically opener has a minimum, featureless or with 6+ hearts) - 2H = artificial raise of clubs if responder has clubs - 2S/3m = 55+, distributional reverse (5-5.5 losers) - 2NT = natural, 5332 , all suit stopped - 3H = distributional reverse, one suiter My pard bid 2D. So after 1M:2C 2D - any suit rebid shows a hand with 5+ clubs and the (eventual) second suit - NT bids show the balanced GF: ....- 2NT = 12-14 OR 18+ ....- 3NT = 15-17 So I bid 3NT. Now, after 1M:2C 2D:3NT 4D:? I was in trouble. I wanted to ask keycards. We agreed to use Kickback. However, when the kickback suit is ambiguous (has been bid by pard), we use the next unbid suit as kickback. So I bid 4S, "thinking " it was for diamonds. But my pard did not really know whether it was for D or H. SO HERE IS THE FIRST QUESTION: NOW, IN THIS MOMENT, HOW CAN I DIFFERENTIATE RKCB SPECIFICALLY FOR H VS RKCB SPECIFICALLY FOR DIAMONDS ? (I know I wd not be in such trouble had I responded 2D instead of 2C, but that's life) In any case, bidding went: 1M:2C 2D:3NT 4D:4S 6H:7D Pard had: ♠x♥AKJTxx♦QJTx♣Kx And DK was onside, so all was well. But still we need better agreements... Comments ? I mean, the fact that 2D was better became obvious: I'd rather have comments on how to discriminate keycards in one suit vs the other in the 4 level NON AGREEMENT sequence. Ty a lot !

The inability by pard to raise immediately your minor is certainly quite a price to pay. If pard can raise immediately, it is BY FAR tougher for opps, rather than having 1 free round of bidding. Otherwise, an effective scheme vs 3NT broken minor is: X = strong with both majors. 4C = good hand (often slammish) with H, pard will relay with 4D if slam interest 4D = good hand (often slammish) with S, pard will relay with 4H if slam interest 4H/S = good hand single suited, not slammish As one can see, the immediate 4m preempt (especially diamonds), consumes 2 precious steps for opps slam bidding. So I guess all this boils down to how often one uses Namyats vs a minor preempt, which in turns relates to how relaxed are the criteria to open a Namyats. Yes there are player who do that routinely. Not sure whether it is a winner, though: it increases the frequency of occurrence of a bid which wrongsides 3NT, as well as selfpreempting our side when we hold a major. However, if quite a few strong players use it, there must be a reason :)

Something is at: http://www.hipard.com/ Not very elaborated though (I mean, the current BBO CC is no worse)

Hi all ! Hi have seen recently a growing interest by members about a better management of BBO convention cards. Also, there has been a thread recently by Fred/Uday suggesting that burden on the BBO server will be increasing to a danger level. In view of the above arguments, I wonder whether it would help to store all the members' profile information AND convention cards on separate web pages, probably on a different server. This would save space on the BBO main server, as well as many accesses. In order to access a player's profile, one would click on an hyperlink, that would point to the profile web page, much similar to how yahoo (or BBFORUM) profiles work. Also, this would save a lot of implementation and design details for the future: the layout of a profile page or of a convention CC page could be modified quickly with most any webpage editor. Dunno whether anyone has already posted this, just my 2c anyways :)

Ok, thanks. The reasoning is clear to me now and I find it fair to opps. Sorry, my mistake in quoting pard's hand. Pard had a SPADE singleton and xxxx as trump support in H.

Hi all ! I have a ruling question on the following hand. Saturday I was playing a team match at the local club, between friends. I was south, Red vs white. RHO (East) was dealer, and opens 3S. E.........S.........W.......N 3S.....4C(1)....4S......Dbl p........5H.........p.......p Dbl all pass I held x-AKQJx-Qx-QT9xx My pard (North) had x-xxxx-AJTxx-AJx Playing in 5S doubled, i lost one spade and one club (CK was offside). At the other table the score was 5SX-1. Let's go back to the bidding: - my 4C bidding was Nonleaping Michaels (55 or better in hearts+clubs). My pard had totally forgot, so this was unalerted; - pard's double was unagreed; - after I pulled pard's double, everybody thought a lot before bidding - before the lead I told opps (and pard) that I had a 2-suiter: at this point East got mad "Ah that's totally different, I would not have doubled, and/or maybe my pard would have bid 5S!" - I replied that, after all, I had bid in a close to natural way my suits: even without a nonleaping michaels agreement, my bid, if natural, should have shown some 65 2-suiters or so. Also, I had taken my risk to bid 5H by myself, risking to play in a 5-1 fit. Pard was unaware of my bidding just as opps. - nobody in the 8-some had a convention card. Everything endd there, because in was a team match between friends and unofficial, but I am wondering what would have been the proper ruling here. Thanks all ! Mauro

It is likely that it was a BBOITALY tourney then. In the BBOITALY tourneys they apply the rule enforced in Italy, where you cannot open at the 1-level with <8 hcp, not even as a psyche. DISCLAIMER: I do not agree with this rule, just quoting so that you know where you will (or won't) be playing.

QUESTION TO THE 4C BIDDERS I like this agreement (4C over 1C in the balancing seat shows a major 2 suiter). But what when opps opening is a major and you have a major-minor 2 suiter ? In thois case, bypassing 3NT is risky, if pard is in misfit with our major. E.g. 1H-p-p-? And you hold ♠AQJxx ♥x ♦AQJxx ♣xx

For me it is often very difficult to judge when I could/should double for penalty: 1) a partscore at IMPS (especially at the 2-level) 2) either a partscore or a sacrifice by opps when we are red vs white, at MP pairs, and we have values close to game but game is not sure. While for many pass situations there is a lot of study material available, penalty double has considerable less material available to relatively unexperienced players like me (Lawrence's book "Double" is not very enlightening on this topic). There is a chapter in SJ Simon "Why you lose at bridge", but that's about it. There seems to be a new book by Bloehm out, specifically on penalty doubles and sunbsequent play by defenders, can anyone comment on it ?

This is a very interesting thread, and I am actually confused about the issue, looking forward to hear experts' replies. Why am I confused ? Mostly because of Mike Lawrence's suggestion. He says that in the balancing seat, a cuebid of opps suit is NOT Michaels anymore, but a generic forcing bid for a battleship. Also, according to ML, 2NT in the balancing seat would be a natural 20+ hand. His argument look sound (4th seat needs no longer preempt nor anticipate his shape. However, I wonder what to bid with an unbid 2 suiter (especially 55 major) and a non minimum opener, say 14-15 hcp. Such hands have considerable power, but doubling for takeout with 55 usually spells trouble; on the other hand, a single up-the line overcall tends to show a minimum/marginal opener, whereas a jumpbid shows a 1 suiter. So I still wonder what to do with good 2suiters in the balancing seat

This is easily solved using Kaplan Inversion: responding to pard's 1H opener, 1S denies 5+ spades, 1NT promises 5+ spades. In the 1H-1S(no 5 spades), opener rebids 1NT if he holds 4 spades, otherwise a 3+ minor or rebids his major, just as in common 1NT forcing auctions. Unfortunately I recently learned that Kaplan Inversion is not legal anymore in ACBL. Perhaps it was banned by a Flannery fan to help the survival of this opening :-)

happy birthday Mike ! ;)

I voted for 2C, as others here. - 2H: In order to reverse I want to guarantee no less than 5-5.5 losers, and the hand is 6 losers (1 spade, 1.5 heart, 3 diamonds, 0.5 clubs) so it does not qualify. -2D: Suit rebid is ugly. -1NT: I like to guarantee 2 cards in pd suit if I rebid NT: if I bid NT, by system agreement, pard with 5 spades and a weak hand will almost invariably rebid his suit counting on a 5-2 or better fit. So the hand does not qualify for a NT rebid. All in all, it seems we all agree the hand needs to be distorted, and "promting" AKJ to a 5 bagger does not look that bad, IMO.

Compliments to Richard (Hrothgar) ! Quoting the following article: "Signs of life in ACBL ? Richard Willey, a bright young bridge player, has just announced he will battle for the next ACBL presidentship. Richard has long been known for his fights against any form of bidding limitations, as well as his involvement in the enforcement of ethical principles. Willey has declared: "It is time to shake a bridge world where the power is concentrated in a few hands. Our aim is to popularize a new concept of the game, where the methods allowed and rejected will not be a private issue decided by a few folks, but rather a decision based on the participation of all the members!". The news of Willey's project has quickly spread through the bridge world. Some comments: Ben Riddles:"That's great: finally I will be able to play in ACBL-land my meta-preempts: 3 clubs as an odd number of cards in spades (1-3-5-7-9-11-13), and 3 diamond as an even number of spades (0-2-4-6-8-10-12). Misho likes this, although the ZAR evaluation varies quite a lot. I will run some simulations and post a 13 KB thread on this" Ron Lel:"Having 2 bottles of 1943 Dom Perignon opened for you Richard. Too bad you prefer beer, I'll have to get drunk alone." Frederick Staelens: "I am happy for the US bridge players and for myself. He will have less time to torture me with all those relays: I never understand whether he has 6=3=3=1 or 7=5=1=0" Roland Wald:"I am pretty sure he will win: anyone for a 2-Coke bet ?" Phil Clayton:"The best news in bridge after the election of Schwarzenegger" Slothy: "The second best news in bridge. The very best would have been the election of a pretty woman, but so goes life" Quoted from the: Bridgeguy's site

Yes, I will not pulll. If you run to 2H, you will get dbled. That willnot necessarily be better than 1Nx. Do you pull with xxx,xxx,xxxx,xxx? You dont, do you? SO the reason you pull is that you take it as unbalanced hand. In my understanding, adopting the policy of not pulling partner's double without a clear direction has merit, but it has impact on the requirements for doubling. If with such hands you are not allowed to pull, and should leave it in, then it seems that doubler must be pretty sure to set the contract or in any case avoiding ovetricks, even if he hits a broke partner. However, I have seen in earlier posts of yours that you agreed with Juniy Zhu's suggestion to lower the requirements of double to 14 hcp. But, if you say that doubling with 14 is reasonable, then it is probably better to scramble with a yarborough hand, no?

Hi Flame !! I like the book you mentioned (to be fair I have to say I like most Kelsey's books). However, I only want to point out this: if you like typical and practical hands, of the sort that arise at the table, I have found that Terence Reese' books are great. Among others, "Play these hands with me" is a book that - for an intermediate player like me - is incredibly well suited. It's like you say: in most "teaching" hands, there is only one or two techinical difficulties, that are easy to detect and diagnose (not necessarily to solve). In hands at the table (and in this book), instead, it's not to easy to make a plan, and that is the sort of hand that for non-experts are more difficult: no clear immediate plan.

Agree. There are occasional wrong partscores, although some pairs (eg Meckwell I believe) prefer to use 2M jump responses to 1C/1D openes to show 54/55 hand types in the majors, exactly to avoid missing those partscores (and yes, this is also a price to pay, you lose the jumpshift for other hand types)

I voted 2H. That's my agreement: if opener was balanced, he would have bid 1NT even holding a 4c Major. I play that - 2S here should guarantee 4 card support. I could live with 2S holding a singleton, but the hand seems too balanced to me; - 1NT should promise a stopper; if NT is an option, I want pard to receive the lead - I am not happy of 2H rebid but if pard can reopen, we might find a better spot. - I play XYZ, so 2C and 2D would be artificial, 2H and 2S natural, 2NT = slammish 2suiter H+C, 3C = signoff with long clubs (usually longer coubs than H), other jumps = slammish 1/s suiters