frank0

Another interesting point is, if you want to explain why this is not an overcall hand, how are you going to do that? I find this is not easy and many books, are using very shocking but not persuasive examples. Those stories have the same format, "You overcall with ♠K32 ♥82 ♦AQ763 ♣K76, LHO gets ♦KJT95 sitting behind you and all your finesse are off. Even worse finally they find an uppercut(RHO ruff with ♦8 or something like that) to set you 5~6 tricks when their 3NT is not cold." I can think of a frequent trouble of including those hands in overcall range is partner may have a hand(usually about 7-8HCP flat with support), where facing your maximum overcall 3NT can be made with lots of ♦ trick sources, but facing this hand 3♦ could be -2, with or without double. Therefore it makes the constructive bidding very difficult(partner don't know whether to support with 7-8HCP flat hand). Another problem I can think of that overcall is that partner is likely to over compete or making phantom sacrifice. Any other thoughts?

This is a little bit complain by me ;). One thing I feel weird about, from the first day I start playing bridge to now, is about people's opinion about 2 level overcall. I feel like people around me come from a different world where those bridge authors come from. At least, based on my understanding of what those authors say, a 2 level overcall should in general, though not promise, shows a decent 6-card suit, close to opening strength at least(or maybe more than opening strength if you open light). 5-card crappy suit with balanced shape(5332/5422) with 14HCP or less, is an automatic pass. I'll try to give some example from various books, Porten's "Introduction to Defensive Bidding" RHO open 1♠, you have ♠K32 ♥82 ♦AQ763 ♣K76, he says you should pass at any vulnerability. Lawrence's "The Complete Book on Overcall" RHO open 1♠, you're white at IMP, you have ♠3 ♥K42 ♦KQ987 ♣K542, he says you should pass. RHO open 1♥, you're red at IMP, you have ♠K2 ♥J63 ♦KQ8654 ♣AJ, he says you should pass!(2♦ in MP) Gitelman's software "Learn to Play Bridge" "Suit length and quality are important factors in deciding whether to overcall with a hand with minimum values. Try to have a strong 6-card suit to overcall at the 2-level or higher" In more advanced book like Robson and Segal's "Partnership Bidding at Bridge" even though they don't say explicitly, the offensive competitive raise style they suggest seems only work if the overcall promise fairly strong offensive value. However, my experience was more than 90% of the people I've met, either my fellows or opponents, online or offline, seems to think any opening hand with a 5-card suit worth an overcall and when I pass with 13HCP hand with a 5 cards suit everybody thinks I'm weird. Take the example above, RHO open 1♠(assume first seat), you have ♠K32 ♥82 ♦AQ763 ♣K76 at any vulnerability, I think "standard approach" is to pass and bid 2NT if partner balance with X. If my hand is ♠832 ♥K2 ♦AQ763 ♣K76, then 3♦ after partner X. If opp keep bidding after I pass then I choose to defense. In reality I rarely see people bid this type of hand this way, more often than not I see a 2♦ overcall, sometime with same shape/HCP but even worse suit quality. Maybe I'm too old-schooled or simply misunderstand something. But let's share the opinion about this issue, if you're going to write a set of rules/a chapter in book about overcall at 2 level, what are you going to say? What's your opinion about the example I give above? Do you agree that most people's 2-level overcall are less disciplined compare to textbook? Do you think overcalling 2-level more often with wider range hand, is a winning or losing strategy?

By accident I send the same reply twice.

1NT or 1♦ then 2♥ X after this bidding sequence

[hv=pc=n&s=sthaq873dakq93ckq&w=sk94ht96dt52ct763&n=s87653hkj2d764c52&e=saqj2h54dj8caj984&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1c2np3hp3spp(%3F%3F)p]399|300[/hv] I, sat North after partner made unusual NT overcall and bid 3♠ over my minimum response, the only thing come to my mind was partner obviously forget 1♣ open, and thought he's opening 2N(where he treat my 3♥ as transfer, and by accident I got some spade!). Actually, he did notice 1♣ and bid properly, 3♠ was a cue bid intend for slam try. I'm a bad partner :P .

Let's say you're playing a big event(well, big compare to your past experience) with semi-regular partner at about flight B/C level(opinion for people at higher level is welcome). It's still quite a few month before the events. You and your partner, besides work or school, have some but not much common free time. What do you think it's the best use of the time? Main issue is, do you prefer spending more time on actually playing some hands? Or do you like to spend big fraction of time on working detail agreement(e.g. discuss/practice in bidding room)? If your answer is former, what type of opp do you like to practice(e.g. your friends/teammates, random people, strong opp if you can find)? If your answer is later, what type of partnership agreement do you want to focus on(constructive bidding, defensive bidding, delicate defensive carding agreement)? ------------------------------------skip this if you have no interest in listening my story--------------------------------------------------- I have some non-perfect(though not terrible either) experience on working with different partners before. I've played with a system fan, where I learned a pretty long and theoretical near-perfect constructive bidding system where we got the agreement on the situation that happens about once each 2 years, and we played together on reasonable frequency, but in real events, bidding misunderstanding in common competitive auction charged us. I've also worked with a partner where we spends lots of time on agreement discussion(or, more accurately, I asked my p to agree what I said :blink: ), pretty much cover everything we need, include how to defend some artificial bid, but actually played less than 50 hands(in about 3 month) before the actual event start. Maybe due to this we, or at least I did not play the best game, making lots of error in play/defense below my level. Right now I'm working with a partner who shows few interest in having too many agreements beyond ACBL convention card, and prefer spending 95% time actually playing, even with low quality opponents like random players on BBO. Maybe I'm a little bit too die-hard on this issue and not treating partner properly. I'm the kind of person if you say you want to play leb. after X opp's weak 2, I ask you what's the meaning of leb. 2N first then bid 3♠(opp open 2♥). Or if you want to play XYZ, I ask you what's the difference bet. direct 3N and 3N via 2♣/2♦. If you ask me to play crash against precision 1C, I ask you what's pass and XX after opp double our overcall and what's the minimum hand you overcall with. Sometime I even bother partner with the meaning of (1♥)-p-(p)-3S*. I like to list a long 2 pages rules about when we play takeout/penalty double or when we play attitude/count suit-preference signal. ------------------------------------skip this if you have no interest in my story------------------------------------------------------------- If you skip the line in between, basically I'm asking what should be a regular partner in bridge spend time on? If the focus is to improve the result at the event you play given limited time. Do you think getting a long system note/complicated carding agreement is unnecessary or critical, given the level of events I play? Do you think playing many hands with partner is critical to improve card-play, especially defense, as a pair?

Total point on BBO with pick up partner, I(East) made wrong bidding decisions(at least, the result was wrong) on the following boards. [hv=pc=n&s=sjt8hk96dj92ckq43&w=sk72h53dakqtcj987&n=s54haqjt84d75ct52&e=saq963h72d8643ca6&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=p1d2h2sp3sppp]399|300[/hv] [hv=pc=n&s=sjt983hqj74d62ca4&w=saq7654ht2dckj962&n=sk2ha98dkq8753cqt&e=shk653dajt94c8753&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=pp1s2dpp3cp4cp5cppdppp]399|300[/hv] In the first hand we had only 23 HCP total and no ruffing value but 10 tricks were there. On the second hand, after receiving a ♦ lead partner took a standard suit combination play, ♣ to J, losing 2♣1♥ and 1♠ when establishing ♠ suit, it was -2. Seems like I underbid the first hand with fit on partner's suit and overbid the second hand when void in partner's suit. Does anyone have a good rule of thumb on evaluating the value of side suit fit in trump contract? Or, any comments on these two hands are welcome.

I don't understand how is that a counterexample, for Go, there are lots of legend pro players in China, Japan and Korea reach top level at their young age but cannot defend their title when the younger generation start to challenge them even though their skill is still there, or even better.

And maybe the detail CC of the precision you play..

Looks interesting, it's going to take me a few days to study the system but add me to your BBO friends if you want. I'm right now in GMT-7(daylight saving time). During summer/winter break I'll be in the same time zone with you.

Recently I've tried to construct the detail agreement after 1♣(3+)-1♦-1NT some problem comes up, 1. If 1NT deny 4M what is the meaning of 1♣-1♦-1NT-2♦-2♥/2♠? 2. What's the meaning of reverse by responder? My construction 1♣-1♦-1NT-2♦-? opener has 2♥:2335 2♠:3235 2NT:3334 3♣:3325 Responder's next bid set trump suit. 1♣-1♦-1NT-2♣-2♦-? responder has 2♥:1453 2♠:4153 3♣:5♦4♣+ invite 2NT: other shapes with 5♦ Opener can choose to sign off 2M/2N/3C/3D if not accepting invitation, based on the information responder gives. Reverse shows 6♦4M Any opinion on this?

2♣ to avoid missing game, there are only 16HCP left in the deck and partner usually needs 6 to response, it's very likely partner may pass and your opp is not strong enough to save you.

Most of them

Have you had any experience about your non-bridge friends or family members ask you about this game? What did they ask and what's your answer? About 2 years ago a group of my friends asked me about this game and it took me about an hour to explain how the bidding works, what's declare/dummy/defender and how the trick is taking. After that I started to explain how to calculate the score like 3♠XX+3 and 5NTX-8 white/red, everybody was confused and no one had ever asked me anything about this game anymore :P .

I want to complain about this a little bit. I'm wondering which world class player(or group of world class players) writes the rule in this confusing way ;) . What's difference between "discourages further offensive bidding", "non-described high-card values, with sufficient length in the suit doubled to sustain a penalty pass on ordinary distribution", and "penalty"? In my opinion a X showing extra defense or minimum offense given the context of bidding is called penalty. In your auction because partner's pass is forcing, you have to double if you have no other bid. Personally I call it "penalty" because you're more likely to have a defensive/flat hand without proper bid(that is not X) than an offensive hand without proper bid.

2♥, it's my best suit. :) 2♦ is likely to cause the least trouble if partner is the player who overbid strong hand. However 2M is more likely to be best contract if playing MP.

You play xyz convention, do you allow partner not to complete transfer if he/she has a good hand and afraid 2♦ being pass out? For example, 1♦-1♥-1♠-2♣(trans to 2♦)-can opener bid something else beside 2♦ here?

4♠, I play around with bbo hand generator and rarely see the hands you're side has slam. X can cause you lots of trouble if partner has ♥ suit(quite often). I think it's important to preempt opp on distribution hand so I still prefer 4♠ than 1♠

Win it, from the record of spingold or any event at that level the IMP per board is usually less than 1 in average, why wasting 1 IMP(even not for sure) unnecessarily? This is something I did when I start to learn this game. When I miss slam/game in bidding, I also mess up the declare play to make exactly the contract I bid to make partner feel better. B-)

I think you're hand is good enough to bid 3♠ over 3♦

Don't worry, I usually 4)push them into game/slam and they make the double contract. 5)go down 800 or more opposite a partial. The Complete Book on Balancing in Contract Bridge by Mike Lawrence is a good book to read if you're interested in this topic. Imo (at least at the level of events I play) most people have little interested in discussing those stuffs in deep as partnership agreement. I believe 2) may some time be your partner's fault rather than yours. Btw, there is nothing wrong with 3) you're opps bid one level higher b/c they think they can make it. As long as you push them 1 level higher you gain(in the sense of EV) because they always have lower chance to make their contract(even not lower by much).

This is problem 78 from "the setting trick" by IAN McCANCE [hv=pc=n&n=sa874ht6dt863ckq8&e=sq53hj2dakq542ct6&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=2cp2d3d4hp5hp6hppp]266|200|Partner leads the 9 and you win the trick, South playing the DJ. How should you play to defeat this contract?[/hv] Solution(copy from book): [hv=pc=n&s=sthakq9743djca742&w=skj962h85d97cj953&n=sa874ht6dt863ckq8&e=sq53hj2dakq542ct6]399|300[/hv] If you continue♦, you know from the auction declaer wil ruff. What are his likely holding in black suits? Assume he has seven♥ and that his black cards include ♣A. If he has the ♠K as well that's 12 tricks. So assume no ♠K. Then if declarer has two, three, or four♠, the contract must fail. The case for concern is one♠ with 4♣(not a ♣J). If you return anything other than ♣, declarer can draw trump, trump 2♠ in hand using the ♠A and one of dummy's ♣ for entry, and play a squeeze(an either-or double, against partner in ♠/♣ or you in ♦/♣, whoever holds 4♣). Skip the last diagram of end position of squeeze(I cannot put?? in diagram) ------------------------------------------------everything above the line is copy from the book------------------------------------------------- My question is, could declare still makes it if he leads ♦T from dummy, knocks out ♦7 and sets up ruffing finesse against East? Or does he have other reasons to give up this line after a ♣ return?

Wait, if 3♠=preference, what's your bid if you have 11HCP and 3♠(you make forcing 1N and want to jump 3♠ next round to invite, but now you have slam try hand)?

This is the first problem in one of Martin Hoffman's book, the one I have is the Chinese translation version so I don't know the original name of the book(I'll appreciate if someone can tell me). Anyway here is the problem [hv=pc=n&n=saqt876h2dq76c832&e=s532h9765djt98cj4&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1hd1sp3hp3sp4hppp]266|200[/hv] Partner lead ♣AK and a small♣, you ruff the third round, South plays 9,T and Q. What's next? The answer is a small ♠, breaking the entry of ♠♦ squeeze against partner. [hv=pc=n&s=s4hakqjt8da32cqt9&w=skj9h43dk54cak765&n=saqt876h2dq76c832&e=s532h9765djt98cj4]399|300[/hv] My question is, although this play is fantastic on this distribution, does a small ♠ just gives away the contract when declare has 7♥ and void in ♠?

1. If partner's hand strictly showing preemptive hand I bid 5♥, I was wondering how precision players deal with this(when 4♥ could be 3 trumps and enough HCP to play) 2.I pass in case partner want to X with a flat maximal hand with slow ♦ winners, which allows us win plenty of IMPs. In MP where the difference between 100 and 110 is large, the decision is much harder.