Chamaco

I disagree. These combined hands have a much better play that most 22-23 combined counts lacking aces. However, depending on which system of bidding you use, you have the chance for a safe retreat in 3 diamonds, which is a fair contract after all (e.g. if you play a form of checkback, a sample auction may go): 1D:1S 1NT:2C (invitational) 2H:3D Even the second sample hand you posted will play better in 3 diamonds than 2NT and there is a way to get there. The point is to stop thinking of points (sorry for the joke :) ). But rather consider the overall quality of the hand. Controls are of utmost imposrtance, and points as Q and J often are of no value at all (untile they are reevaluated). Shape is also of more importance than a 2 pouint count difference if those hcp are Q or Js. inviting with a 4432 10 count ? Yes, if the 10 count is Ace and Kings, because Aces are worth more than 4 hcp. Yes, even opposite a 12-14 NT. Inviting with a 9 hcp 5332 ? This is stretching the limit, and I wrote it before. I wrote that it is a borderline action, and that it depends on many issues (most important, fitting or misfitting honors). Yet, even in that case, you have a safe retreat to 3 diamonds. If you read carefully my post, I wrote that one should use the right tool at the right moment. i am not a ZAR "adorator", blindly using it every time. I think the two hands are of a much more similar playing strength than the hcp diufference expresses. The first is more defense oriented and is worth about a max for a weak NT (about 14). It will accept any invitation by responder. The second has a higher ODR ratio and is worth a miniumu weak NT (about 12). It will pass any invitation by pard. I would open them both, despite what ZAR says of the first. So what ? I use the right tools in the situations where I think they work, I do not care about the war of religions between a system and another. the point of my post is that ZAR is not such a novelty nor so crazy: it incorporates well known traditional concepts such the importance of controls and the Losing Trick Count. Some times it works, some time it does not. It is just another tool to be used under the right circumstances: try using a shovel to mix your tea, and you won't have much success :-)

In this case it is your partner that should reevaluate his hand. His hand is a nice 10 count with good controls. Controls matter much more than spot cards. Partner will invite to game, and opener will accept the invitation, just like ANY 14 count would. Same here: responder invites with a good 10 count with no wasted quacks, opener accepts as before. I do not see any problem with these 2 hands. Note that in both cases, using ZAR points responder's hand is well evaluated here as invitational hand (22-25 ZAR). Here too, this hand is a 9 countwith a 5 carder. Using ZAR, it amounts to 9 hcp + 3 controls + 8 length points + 3 points (long suit- short suit ) = 23 = invitational hand. This may be a stretch, but, just as you mentioned, here game IS a stretch, so it is fair. THE POINT IS THAT IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DOWNGRADE THE HAND, YOUR PARD MUST KNOW HOW TO REEVALUATE HIS HAND, BASED ON SHAPE AND CONTROLS. The first 2 responder hands you posted are nice invitational hands, not NORMAL hands, responder must know how to deal with them. The 3rd (BTW evaluated as invitational by ZAR) is borderline, but so is the chance for game (and the spade lead is far from unlikely, regardless of what you open). The value of controls is something that has been acceopted since a long time, it certainly is not a singular feature of ZAR evaluation. For example, the Kaplan-Rubens evaluation system rates the following hands as: QTx QJ9x AT8x Kx = 11.30 xx Axxx Kxxx Axx = 12.00 So, if the primary importance of controls is a gross distortion (which I do not believe it is), it is not peculiar to ZAR, but it is common to many other systems of evaluation. The point is that Aces are worth more than 4 hcp, and Q and J s are worth less than 2 and 1. This concept is well known from much before ZAR. Sure. It is absolutely obvious that the hands have to be reevaluated during bidding. And good players know that Queen and Jacks (and even tens) are the honor-types which are more prone to be reevaluated when fitting with partner's suit. It is well described in the Jeff Rubens article on "In and Out" principle of hand evaluation. This concept is certainly not under discussion: but it applies to whichever system of hand evaluation you will use. Even ZAR evaluation systems reevaluates the hand based on the fitting / misfitting honors. So the final examples you mention are not conflicting with the view I am expressing :-) These hands have no evidence neither against nor in favour of ZAR points (or whichever hand evaluation system), nor dealing with the deeavluation/reevaluatio issues I discussed previously.

This hand is terrible. Opening it a 15-17 NT is really bad. 4333 and no aces it is worth a 12-14 NT not more, despite the tens and the 9. Amd, after opening it either a weak NT or 1C, I would pass throughout if pard does not force me to bid. Much better to defend. Ok, the above comments of mine were given BEFORE checking the Kaplan-Rubens evaluator (http://www.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff/knr.cgi) The k&R evalkuator rates the hand 13.75 hcp This is also a pretty bad hand, and opening it depends on your standards. Even many people who do not play Roth-Stone, will pass that kind of hand, because it is worth less than 12 balanced. It lacks controls. I'd much rather open xx-Axxx-Kxxx-Axx, e.g. an 11 count with good controls rather than this. The point is, controls matter more than intermediates. In any case, this is a borderline hand, which I'd open, but considering it a stretch; i'd open only for the "in quick-out quick" principle. And if pard goes down, I'd apologize to him for my overbid. I wrote the above without checking K&R evaluator, now let's see how it rates the hand: 11.3 hcp All in all, such balanced hands are evaluated in a similar manner by K&R and ZAR points. As fare as the rest of the post is concerned, I agree that misfit hands are overvalued by ZAR. It's up to you to use the right tools for hand evaluation at the right moment: even if you use Goren points to evaluate a 6-5 hand, you won't have much success. Or if you use the Losing trick count or the law of total tricks for notrump contracts. I think of ZAR as a tools very useful for distributional hands: you may hit a misfit and get a disaster, true. So what ? Almost any freak hand is at risk of losing something, often large swings: going for a number in a doubled contract can be as high a risk as missing a slam that you would have found using ZAR or LTC. The fact that ZAR suggests pushy actions with a 6-5 and 2 Kings is not in contrast with other much more accepted theories such as the LOTT or the LTC. Of course it requires a calibration by pard because ZAR openers do not promise any defensive strength, so doubling opponents will need extra defensive strength by responder. But nothing comes for free. Truth is that we like to remember only the disasters (or potential disasters) that support the theories we are fond of ... :wub:

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but this hand looks built for the "Gazzilli" convention, where opener rebids 2C which is either natural with clubs, or a "half reverse" hand, too weak for the 3 level, too good for a 2 level rebid. Reponder rebids 2D artificial with any constructive hand (about 8 hcp+), bids something else with negative hands. This solves the issue here, where rebidding 3H has too much side wastage, and 2H is an underbid.

If you play vs good players: 1) they'll double for sure and u'll have to run to 4 clubs anyways, disclosing in any case your hand 2) if after you run, they bid 4 spades, your pass of 3NT (which should show some values) may as well get partner to double their 4 spades Bridge is a partnership game, sometimes gambles do work, but many times deception strategy will deceive partner rather than opponents. Making the "honest" bid will sometimes miss the opportunity for some nice stealing, but at least the decisions will be shared together with partner rather than being one-sided. The natural bid here is 4C right away. Sometimes we want to make a smart bid at all costs, but I do not think it's the best path to effective bridge in the long run.

If 1NT becomes the final contract, it is OK with me. My problem is, what if pd has a hand (almost) strong enough to force to game? I know, you would say "pd then should check back if I really have I stopper". To me, it is absurd to check back while my NT already says stopper. And I hate too much gadgets which takes away the natural meanings of some bids. When I bid (1)NT, I guarantee stopper (at least Kx or Qxx). And if pd wants to check on slam, he will know I have some honor(s) on opp's suit. For the hand given on the thread, I will bid 2C and apologize to pd if it leads to a bad contract. I also hate "checking back" for stoppers after a NT bid which should have promised a stopper. I love to bid NT without stopper in front of a limited partner, who won't raise me to game so we'll just play 1NT. But when game may be on I want to describe to pard where my VALUES are, being more flexible on length than on honors location.

Since I cannot hope to earn my place due to bridge skills, i may try to corrupt you folks by cooking italian food ... :P

In the first auction, we KNOW with virtual certainty we do not have values for 3NT: pard has made a passable bid (2 clubs) before bidding 3NT. In my opinion this makes it a clear rescue to 4C. In the second auction, pard has made a strong bid, so I agree that we should credit pard for a strength that may give 3NT some play.

auction 1 4C. This is not a slam try, but a rescue. auction 2 4C would be stronger hand. It was much better to jumpshift preemptively to 2 spades or 3 spades after opps double. As it is, I pass and rescue 4C if they double us.

Just to clarify my thoughts: I do believe that after 1C-(overcall)-? it is better to give shape. Here the "tempo" of the bidding is different, since if opps have a fit they wuill anticipate you (e.g. they can jump raise much safer at level 3/4), it's totally different from situation 3 where you have had the chance to show control without interference. My whole thread was referred to auction that start 1C-pass-CONTROL SHOWING RESPONSE, e.g. AFTER PARD OPENS ONE CLUB AND RHO PASS, CHOOSING BETWEEN SHAPE-FIRST OR CONTROL/SHOWING FIRST so it was restricted to discussing "situation 3". Of course the points you raise here ar of utmost interest too :-)

It is nice to know that there is no pressure on independent tournaments organizers, especially based on business issues. It would be an outrageous thing if it was so.

Preempting more frequently after a big club and a positive response necessarily means doing it lighter than usual, and taking more risk than usual. My point is: there is a difference in preempting in different situations: some preempts are more effective than others. As more and more info are exchanged, it becomes more and more dangerous (especially at IMPS) to preempt because opps have more elements to decide whether or not to penalize. This applies even if the info exchanged is only hcp and controls, without shape involved. 1) Opening Preempt: opps did not exchange ANY info so far. Most damaging. 2) Preempting after opps opened but before responder bid: still damaging but less than at point 1. Can be very dangerous opposite a limited opener. 3) Preempting after both hands bid: even if they did not exchange SHAPE info but only hcp (16+ by opener) and controls by responder, now they know a hell lot more. They know they are in a GF, and the control response often helps determining the likelihood for slam. So, at MP preempting here may pay off, but at IMPS not so sure, since even playing the wrong game often makes anyways, AND there is the added advantage of being able to choose for a severe penalty to opps. So it is not a sure thing that 4th hand preempt will certainly work, and I do believe it may be true the opposite, at IMPS (not at MP). In situation 3, I am suspecting that an expert pair of big clubbers will often collect penalties at IMPS from the frisky preemptors.

This sounds weird to me. In my opinon bidding 2 diamonds should show 4 diamonds, suggesting to play in a 4-4 fit rather than the already known 5-2 fit in spades (1NT MUST guarantee doubleton in spades). It makes no sense to plan to rebid 2D to suggest a likely 4-3 diamond fit hoping that pard a corrects in a 5-2 fit seems a bit weird. If this is the doubt, then I believe the choice for a weak responder is between passing 1NT or rebidding 2 spades.

Well, I've seen Miami mentioned, so I'll start by saying that I live in (sort of) the "italian Miami" = Rimini, a beach and party town on the adriatic sea :-) My name is Mauro (born 1967), and after having played competitive chess for over 20 years, I found intriguing to explore the world of bridge. What really intrigued me was the interaction with a partner: playing chess you have the freedom to take all the decisions, playing bridge you don't, but you are enriched by the interaction with pard... I started playing about 4 years ago, while I was living in California, and moved back in Italy 2 years ago: so part of my bridge background is US, but since I moved in Italy, I had the chance also to include some more "italian influences". :-) I like to study bridge, and I do that a lot during train commuting to work: as a result, my skills have improved mostly in the area where study alone helps more: bidding. I also study card play, tests, books, etc etc, but the rate of improvement there is much slower, as one not only needs to get concepts, but only playing many hands help. Other interests: chess, jazz (Charles Mingus above all), alternative music (Tom Waits and Paolo Conte rule...), Tango dancing, european cinema (Fellini and Bunuel), sports (soccer and bike), motorbike, good wine :-)

Assuming pard's 1 spades shows 5, I'd bid 2 spades. If I have to lie, I'd rather raise pard's 5 bagger with Ax if he would expect me to raise with xxx, rather than lying on a stopper or risking a misfit in clubs. No choice is perfect, I go for this one :P On the other hand, if 1S shows 4+, I join the 2C crowd :)

N should have acted on the 1NT forcing bid. I would have doubled.

I answer only for sequences where the trump suit has been clearly agreed. Let's say HEARTS are agreeed. Then 4S is always RKCB. Then 4NT always substitutes the suit used for kickback (either as cuebid, or EKB, according to your pship agreements). In other words the most common cases are: 1) during a cuebid sequence, 4NT is a cuebid in the kickback suit (e.g. if clubs are trumps, diamond is the kickback suit, and 4NT is a cue in diamonds; if diams are trumps, hearts is the kickback suit, and 4NT is a cue in hearts); Some extra agreements are needed for minor suit slam invstigations, where sometimes 4NT can be played as a sort of "Last Train", but this is up to ptship agreements; 2) if you use Exclusion Blackwood, when hearts are trumps, 4NT can be agreed as EKB excluding spade Ace. 3) the most confusing case is when the kickback suit has been previously bid by a pard, especially if it is a major suit; e.g. assume diams are agreed, and kickback suit id hearts, which previously has been bid naturally by you or pard; then you need precise agreements as to whether: a) having greed a minor, bidding the major is never to play OR b ) when the kickback suit has been bid by one player, showing a 5+ card suit, it cannot be kickback but is a natural signoff; in that case the kickback suit is moved to the next higher non ambiguous suit; 4) you need to agree whether jumping to the kickback suit without previous agreements sets trumps and is kickback or not. E.g. 1S:2D:4H Is the jump to 4H kickback for diamonds or not ? If it is, you can play that a jump agreement to the minor suit itself is asking for cuebids, whereas a jump to the kickback suit is keycard ask If it is not, then you have to play that a jump to 4 of the minor is RKC

It seems to me that the underlying statement of many posters here is that after 1C-pass-ANY CONTROL SHOWING RESPONSE-? 4th hand preemption will most of the time result in a damage for the big clubbers. Are we sure about it ? Preempting is fun, as it is fun to watch opponents annoyed, but it can result also in many big penalty. Increasing the frequency of preemption will increase the penalties resulting, and there must be a threshold where the payoffs are reversed... At MP, I may agree on the effectiveness of increased preemption frequency: we may cause opps to find the wrong strain and score 400 instead of 420; we may go down 500 instead of 620. As we know, the cost-benefit justifies risks. But I don't have such an evidence at IMPS. In a team match, after 4th hand preemption, a good pair: - many times will be able to find a reasonable contract iusing the normal devices used when opps open a preempt; actruially, in the big club case, they will be better placed because they alreeady know the no. of controls, so there is no risk of passing out undoubled opps. Sure, some of the times you'll play 3NT when 4 of a mjor is better, or you'll end up in a moysian when you have a better contract available. (But even then, many times you'll be able to get away with it and collect your game score) Some other times you'll miss a close slam. These are the minuses. But there are also pluses: many opponents will try preemption on rubbish, just to hinder the bidding machinery. But in those cases, a good pair has good devices to penalize them. I suspect that collecting the penalties of frisky preemptor will at east even the chances compared to some losses in the bidding accuracy for the right game contract when you have no clearcut slam values. Let's not forget that penalizing phantom sacrifices are worth slam values. I remember reading somewhere a declaration by Meckstroth (must be "win the Bermuda Bowl with me") who says that they gear their bidding system towards penalizing often opps preempting the big club. And, since against these step responses the frequency of preemption will increase, and the quality of preemption will be lowered, it is likely that the number and amopunt of penalties inflicted to opps will also increase. One more point is worth mentioning: after responder has shown a GF hand, it is much more dangerous to preempt. Second seat preempt can be quite desruptive since reponder did not yet give any info to opener (no matter whether distribution , controls, or negative response). Fourth seat preempt is much less effective because responder had a chance to limit his hand by means of the control step response. e.g. 1C-(3S)-? Now one of the problems is that responder may or may not have GF values. But 1C-(pass)-POSITIVE RESPONSE-(3S) ? Now opener knows that we are in GF, so that very often the issue will be finding the right strain or penalizing. Under such conditions it is much easier, for an expert, to decide whether to settle for a safe plus penalizing opps or too bid with distributional hands. So, I think it's an even money bet between the times you hinder the bidding machinery and the times when your wild preempts wil be penalized (in order to make them more frequently they'll have to be wild much of the times- otherwise you'd just be passing more often and this thread would not exist :-) ). So the bottomline is: at MP , where the strains in which you play game matters a lot, this control steps may backfire, but at IMPSm, where suboptimal games score about the same and collecting penalties often pays off, I am not so sure. Or, to put in another way: at IMPS the concept that preempting more frequently will be a winning action may be a commonplace, at least when the control steps have suggested or denied that slam is unlikely.Let's try to wash our head from this concept and try to verify the data... :-)

The "cautious" opponents were world class players ranging from the US national team to the UK of Reese-Shapiro, to the great French team, so I would not go that far as to term them overly cautious. Also, most people, including the italian books on the Blue Team, report the common expert opinion that there was not such a huge difference in card play skills between the Blue Team and the various US teams who challenged it. According to many of these sources, it was in slam bidding where the italian fared much better. Most of the World Championships were played by pairs playing the Neapolitan Club or derivations of it (although it is true that some did in fact play the Roman Club). The Neapolitan Club uses control responses to the Strong Club Opening, so for the sake of this discussion it amounts to about the same.

In my opinion it is a feedback process. One should first learn the fundamental mechanics of the play. So yes, card play. Yet, in order to develop card play skills, you have to be in a cointract which makes sense. You won't improve card play if you play partscores with overtricks when you have a slam available, of if you set opps contract undoubled when they stole the hand. So you cannot improve card play skills there unless you bid reasonably, since you are not playing the hand at a limit where you have to overcome difficulties. So, the paradox is that learning card play is the highest priority, but in order to do that you have to bid reasonably. And in order to bid reasonably you have to at least be able to survive a competitive auction without endoing in 3 clubs when 3NT or four of a major is cold. Obviously, after having reached a decent level of bidding, amn improving players concentrates even more on his card play techniques and realizes how many things he/she still has to improve, and a new learning cycle begins... And this may be going on and on, much in a similar way described by Ben in his post in this thread.... ----- Furthermore, my post was directed towards a topic that is not well covered for a beginner, at least in my opinion. There are piles of excellent books on card plays out there, but not on contested bidding for novices. As the post by sceptic was asking on suggestion about what to put on a web site for bridge beginners, I suggested something which would cover a neglected area. But, again, I agree with you that card play technique is an underrated topic.

Just my 2 cents here. There is a lot of material out there for a novice to learn the basics. There are books, web sites and more. Probably the best is Fred's "Learn to play bridge" (LTPB). This does not mean that replicating some basic concepts will be bad. Just that they already have some sources from which to study if they are willing to. However, here I want to point out an area which is REALLY poorly documented for a novice. An area where even a serious student has very little material to study from, and the little study material available is usually too complicated or simply too much (e.g. Robson/Segal or Better bidding w/ Bergen ot Contested auctions by Lawrence) The topic I am referring to is responding to an opener after opponents interfere. Of course the overall contested bidding is more complicated than uncontested bidding (the latter well explained in LTPB). Yet, at least the first response should be well understood by a novice, since nowadays there will hardly be many uncontested auctions. I remember being a novice and wondering everytime something like "Here I would know what to bid if they did not interfere, but what now ? Is it the same as if they did not bid ?" And I had no book to check whether there was the "right bid". I felt lost. Similar problems are encountered when responding to pard's overcall. I suppose this whole set of topics should revolve on: - the use of negative doubles - the use of cuebids - the stopper requirements for bidding NoTrump and for asking stoppers.

Sure, the point is obvious I was aware even before posting that the more undetermined the bid, the higher the vulnerabilty to opps preempting. It is still my thought. Yet, the meaning of my post is: if many good players including the Blue Team (or even Romex system- see other post on it) used to play conotrol steps, probably the risks and the benefits were not too far from the shape-first approach. My chess experience has taught me that, no matter how bad a system/opening/move seems, if world champions have employed it recurrently in their career, it cannot really be that bad, and rarely can be discarded as obviously inferior. I believe it takes experience of playing some years one system (controls) and some years of playing another (shape) in order to give an evaluation which is neither biased nor superficial. That's why I still think that an objective opinion is probably the one given by people who had the chance to play both ways for some time.

Hi all, having browsed through quite a few strong club system notes, I have noticed that many tend to respond to strong club with control step-responses, whilst others tend to give a positive response by showing their longer suit (or with other flat-shape responses). FOR THE TIME BEING LET'S NOT DISCUSS HERE SEMIPOSITIVE NON-FORCING SUIT RESPONSES AND JUST CONSIDER THE SYSTEMS WHERE 1D IS NEGATIVE (0-6/7/8) AND OTHER RESPONSES ARE POSITIVE, EITHER SHOWING CONTROLS OR SHAPE Which one do you prefer ? I suppose step responss may be more vulnerable to preemptive actions, but if that was really bad, it would be unexplainable why many good players (Blue Team among others) chose to stick to a vulnerable stepshowing system. Since I expect people who have played only shape-showing positive responses to favour that approach :) , as well as people who have played only control-showing to favour the latter <_< , it would be especially valuable to hear from someone who has played both ! <_<

I tend to treat 3 card support with a void in a similar manner as 4 card support with a singleton. So here I would use a mixed 4 card raise, whichever is allowed by the system: e.g. a Bergen 3♣ (6-9) or a FitShowing Jump 3♣. Fitshowing jump has the big flaw of wasted side QJ. What I would not use is the raise to 2♥, which in my opinion: 1) should be less unbalanced 2) should have more HCP if 1NT forcing is in use (<8 hcp 3 card raise would go via 1NT) I believe the problems after opps competing to 4S are consequence of 2H. Two more question: 1) is opener's hand limited (e.g. strong club framework or alike) ? 2) is it not risky to agree forcing pass on a sequence where, after all, responder has only suggested non-invitational value ? :unsure: