Cthulhu D

The time to add conventions to your card is when you are having a repeated problem during sessions that could be solved by having an agreement/convention to deal with that problem. If you want to get better at the game, you need to engage in deliberate practice, not adding conventions imho, ymmv, etc.

Surely the +EV of opening in 4th is sharply down given the tendency of partner to be more aggressive in 2nd, though maybe this is offset by people opening more aggressively in 3rd

I'm currently playing it as a mixed raise (4 card support, less than invitational), which I have mixed feelings about, but it seems to work OK.

Ha, I was thinking the overcall structure makes it very easy - but we play it 5/4. I don't think the 5/5 version comes up nearly often enough to be worth playing.

It's all good, I'm being very silly.

But what if the 3-0 trumps are T98!! Jokes aside this is correct. My bottom line is on all of this, use some judgement and consider the broader hand, scoring method and state of the match when making these decisions. Conversely, if you have a 10 card trump fit, you need to at-least have a reason not to bid 4 imho.

The first thing is that it's possible to overstate the 'strength' of the law: It's just a guideline and you need to use your judgement. It's only 'correct' 35-40% of the time, but it's accurate +/- 1 trick a much larger percentage of the time, and you really, really want to make the 'correction' to work out if this is a case where your 9 card heart fit should bid 2, 3 or 4 because getting that right vs someone just bidding 3H every time is a big improvement! (to the tune of 2 IMPs a board!) So don't blindly bid to the level of the law! This is a rough rule of thumb and you absolutely need to use some additional judgement. The rationale is generally a combination of two things: A) if you have a 10 card heart fit or 11 card diamond fit the opponents have a 10 card fit somewhere else (probably). B) If you have very fitting shapely hands your offensive potential might be quite a bit higher than your raw HCP might indicate, and you might be very well able to make game via cross ruffing or something. For example x AQxxxx xxx Kx opposite Axxx KJxx x Axxx Will make if trumps are 2:1, two rounds of hearts, a spade, a two clubs, ruff three spades in north's hand and ruff two diamonds in Souths hand and that's a total of 21 HCP. Trumps are probably 2:1 so you absolutely want to be in it (and there are other chances as well e.g. if an opponent, ideally LHO, shows out on the first round of hearts, you can try and ruff three spades in dummy), but if the hands are: xxx AQxxxx x Kx opposite Axxx KJxx x Axxx It's got fewer chances because of the duplication of shortness (You can, with some luck, do a dummy reversal to make 10, but I think as a practical matter it will be hard), so if you're south it's probably right to try an inquiry rather than just blast 4H. Use that judgement!

I thought about exactly that hand, and my regular partnership would have opened in 1st or 3rd as the other hands have to include an 11 count with an ace or a king which meets our standards for an opening: and you probably even have heart length which makes opening light even better. For example: x KQJxx KJx Jx I'm going to open that in third without a moments thought. I'll much less happily open it in first, but it's got such an obviously great lead so I will. You have to really try to come out with a pair of hands in the opponents that won't open. Any 12 count is probably going to get opened, so you need a hand like this: xx KJx KQJx xxxx opposite: A Qxxxx xxx AJxx And I'd open the 2nd hand in third despite the terrible heart suit because of the tasty rebid. The problem is that the hands that will work are hands with 10 card spade fits, but those hands are all very likely to attract an opening from somewhere else.

I wonder if this is related to how you open in 2nd - I'm struggling to imagine a situation in which a 8-9 count makes game vs partners maximum passed hand and in which the opponents don't also open the bidding. Oppo has 21HCP and therefore someone is probably going to have opened?

would you open if the hearts and spades were swapped?

Why do you want to make premeptive bids in 4th? Who are you pre-empting?

That's what my regular partnership does as well. I think you want to includes hands that almost certainly don't want to be in game opposite a maximum passed hand, but do have a pretty reasonable shot of making 2M. Then it makes it hard for opponents to balance, as well as streamlines your invitational sequences.

It's probably better to play a 14-16 1NT as it still has much higher frequency than the 15-17 hand (like.. double), and it makes for a very smooth NT ladder, but you have to play transfer responses to short club. Alternatively, you can easily play the same pattern with 11-13: 11-13 opens 1NT, 14-16 accepts the transfer, 17-19 rebids 1NT and 20-21 bids 2NT. Either way, if you ignore pre-emptive value and focus on streamlining your bidding system, 11-13 as the lowest rung of your NT range has a lot to recommend it.

Inquiry's writeup is pretty good, what weve been playing with a few tweaks.

I think it's a lot easier because we play an unbalanced diamond and otherwise have a similar auction, but it's tricky because you've got lots of choices depending on how north evaluates his hand (Does he have extras? Does he say the spade suit is 'good' or focus on the club shortness?). I legimtimately think this is a 'minimum' because the unbalanced 1D obviously promises a stiff or a void so my unbalanced 13 count is pretty close to a minimum. If he has a minimum, he goes 1D-2S (Unbalanced Diamond - Inv+diamond raise or balanced GF with exactly 4 diamonds)) 2NT - 3C (I have a minimum - shortness ask) 3NT - ?? (Short clubs - and now you're home free though our RKCB uses more space than Cyberyeti's so I think there is going to be a bunch of cue bidding before RKCB is bid. But you're screwed if partner thinks he has extras and a the 4 card spade suit is good. Like say the J of S is in north hand for the sake of argument, then it goes 1D-2S 2NT-3S (Invitational+ - Extras with a 4 card good spade suit!) Now you get stuck where cyberyeti did. I don't agree we have extras though. If you had the Q of spades with the K you have extras though but then I think you are OK even if you have the extra club?