Cthulhu D

The reality is pros are sinking years of understanding into a system, so playing different systems in different events makes no sense. I think BridgeMatters has an interview with Rodwell where he talks about their NT ranges and notes that he'd probably play something different at IMPs, BAM and MPs if the goal was an optimal system, but for ease of use they play the same thing at all forms of scoring. This is a guy that plays in the world championships and he doesn't want to change a comparatively minor part of his system. Switching from 2/1 GF to relay precision is a much more significant change.

Wouldn't it be much simpler to exchange convention cards and not alert any NT bid that doesn't contain unbalanced hands, discontiguous ranges or is otherwise conventional?

I think if you'r going to freely make rubbish overcalls you need to have an agreement about upper limits so partners with maximum passed hands or that are unpassed don't have to worry about what to do. The overcall structure's 4-14 is a nice one, but whatever works.

Complete Posts of JLall collectors edition inbound. More seriously though it's great and I hope you keep at it, opinions from good players like yourself, Han, Gnasher (I just got that this is a Dennis the Menace reference) and Frances that make this forum great.

I'm pretty sure that it would difficult to construct a case if you published an article that is 'here is how you can improve 2/1' then someone publishes an complete 2/1 system that is substantially their own work with some of your ideas incorporated in it. Or am I breaching the rules for publishing my system notes on-line which include an idea from Justin Lall about using 1S as a relay in the sequence 1C-1D-1H-1S in transfer walsh? If I published a book 'Posts by JLall' that is of course completely different, but in this case the concept (1S as a relay in that sequence), is fine for me to reuse.

Doesn't it make more sense to open a short club with transfer responses as well, because then the auction 1D-2D is very powerful? It seems like the more likely your 1m is to have a real suit, the more powerful 1m-2m is.

People already have as best you can? Fantunes is probably a better example. That said, it's a completely different thing having some reverse engineered notes and being able to work out what's actually being played. Otherwise Fantunes wouldn't be an issue.

Shouldn't that be for going for 1100 in a phantom sacrifice? Edit: Incidently, I would love Bridge Achievements.. and BBO needs steam integration. (Only slightly Joking about the second part).

I always wonder what to say when partner could be having a total laugh. I generally say something like <whatever it is means>, and 'he can have a zero count,' or 'he has had a zero count before' but people take explanations like that really weirdly.

Don't you have many more sequences playing a short club with it's friends transfer responses and XYZ (or transfer XYZ)? It seems responder will always be OK with the GF 5m-4M hands because he can bid your invitational or GF XYZ sequence. 1D is different, but you have freed up the 1NT response rebid there for something else, so you have more space.

So what do you do over 1D with 6+ clubs an an invitational hand? Part of it to is that after 1C:2C I think people are focused on finding 3NT, so they want the suit bids for stopper asks and the like.

I'm pretty sure people published their notes on the basis that people would use it in their systems. If you're correctly attributing stuff, not sure what the problem would be?

Given the fairly strict Islamic rules on handling corpses, I suspect that this is completely preposterous.

That's why I use the card view when just playing bridge.

The only material difference is if you are trying to win (for cash) the robot races or robot bingo where it's advantageous to play the hands as fast as possible. The playing without animations in the simple view is better because it's a bit faster. Other than that, it doesn't matter.

Another critical question is, is 2D game forcing?

Yeah good point, the obvious game theory implication has no occurred to me! :oops:

I think this depends on if your partner is going to open distributional hands as 2C or not. If he doesn't, I think 3C is better than if he does. It's not like you cannot drive to slam after a 2D response anyway.

Yeah, isn't it an overcall of one of a suit? Though that said.. isn't a takeout double also such a call?

Simple enough question: I play an overcall of 1NT as a light three suited takeout (8-14). What sticker does that make my system? Is that a brown sticker treatment? ABF System regulations are here: http://www.abf.com.au/events/tournregs/ABFSystemRegs11.pdf I had just blithely assumed that it was OK because it's like a takeout double, but I may be quite wrong on this.

The difference is the fit. The opposition here rate to have atleast 9 diamonds, so you have good chances to catch partner with a 4 card major, limiting to the damage, but I think this illustrates why it's becoming an increasingly popular style to open light distributional hands. Yes LHO could be 4=4=3=2 but that is a very small chance.

On beginners night at my club the director would do a quick piece about one item of the laws (I noticed that he rotated through the most common infarctions occasionally mixing it up), and the odd bit on ethics. I liked this - if you teach yourself the game there is no-one to teach you the laws. Unfortunately I stopped playing the beginners night!

This is why I like Barmar's playing 2H, 2S etc as double negative transfers.

I think it's impossible to discuss whether hands like this are an 'opener' or not - this is obviously close to the border, so it's partnership discussion. With most partners I'd open, playing a sounder opening style I would not, and in that case coming back in with double is a fairly descriptive bid on the hand, but that depends on your overcalling style there too - if partner makes 4 card overcalls at the one level freely, double is not going to be good. I'm not defending the merits of playing overalls that aggressive, but it is fun! NAE: Anyway, imho it's an opener if you sat down and said '2/1 GF' and pulled the cards out of the board, and I'd double if it wasn't an opener by partnership agreement.

Then why does 'Full disclosure' show you the alerts of partners bids? vvvv Edit: Derp thought you were Barmar.