phoenix214

I prefer 2♥ with the hand, because partner will go out of his way to bid double with both major hands, atleast that is what i think. In that case he should be more likely to have longer hearts then spades. Although dont know if partner expects 3 or 4 with you.

Dont know if this is an improvement or not, but maybe you can rotate some of the bids around: 1M-2♣, 2♦: 2NT= 5+♣, no 3 card support -> Accepting transfer = Agrees clubs, so you can check fro club fit still on level 3 3♣=The balanced hand 12-14 or 18+, Here gets a bit ugly, but maybe can continue(3♦=Spade length, 3♥ = Heart length, 3♠ = partner play 3NT, 3NT = I want to play 3NT)

I have play a strong club with almost that kind of a setting. For us the basic idea was - If you want to play NT -> Open 1NT, if not then open 1 of suit. This was because it was also impossible to end up in 1NT otherwise, but i do agree that it was not a big loss(with the 5M), we did not play puppet stayman there as well, and didnt care much about opener having the 5th card in the major.

Thank you for the answers. Also in the case, if I decide to make a poll on this and check if the action made by the W is logical, does that help anything there(if the results turns out that 4♠ is not a logical bid?)

[hv=pc=n&s=st7hajdt9732ckqt7&w=sqj85hq842dk64c83&n=s92ht73daqj8cj542&e=sak643hk965d5ca96&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=p1s(Limited%20to%2016%5Bplaying%20precision%5D)2d(Denies%20holding%204!H)3s(0-8%2C%204!S)4dpp4sppp]399|300[/hv] The problem on the board is that, the pass after 4♦ was with some considiration, so assume it is a BIT. Then W decides to bid game. As the game goes out, they make the game(Do not recall play, sorry) The problem is that we are playing with screens(N and E on one side), and N called the director about this situation(I know S should, but I(N) knew S would not call it for this situation, so had to do that anyway. Director rules that the results stand 1) My 4 ♦ pushes them into game 2) The BIT was on the other side of the screen, so opp does not know who made the bit 3) Some more point i do not recall. Posting this to find out if the ruling is correct, and is it worth to appeal(Tournament format allows to appeal up to one weak after it has played)

Do not know what system are they playing, but should ask about the meaning of the 2♥ bid a bit more. I know that me and my pard play it like in Ambra(2♥ = raise to 2♠ or GF with diamonds). They should have it somewhere along the same lines as well. If that is the case S might decide to bid something on the second round, 2NT or 3♦. Of course this runs the risk of going down for a number, if W has a strong hand, but that is a risk you have to take. Also note that N most likely has a spade stack so even if he has points, he will not find a bid.

Hope you guys do not get trahsed too hard and do some trashing back!

IF there are some people who would be willing to be making podcasts about bridge it would actually be pretty cool, although it definetly has to come from the junior end, because I do not think older people would be into such stuff, although you never know. On a unrelated sidenote, maybe bridgepodcasts might popularise the game inbetween younger players, taking into account most other popular card games do have it(Poker;MTG;Hearthstone)

Out of curiosity, isnt it possible to bid 5♠ on round one, assuming that your opps will not let you play 4♠ anyway, and because of that put more pressure on opps?

Bug report: When making a new table(maybe goes for Team matches and tournament invites as well) it does not show up people in your friends list when you want to type someones username, but shows up the people in your follow list. Maybe this is intentional as we should know the usernames of people in our friends list by heart, but who knows!

I know that you dont cue in partners suit, but how else do you expect to tell him that his AK of diamonds is golden while other is not. Maybe ace-asking there does the job done as well.

4♣-4♠ 5♦-7♣ One guess. 4 clubs sets clubs, 4 spades shows spade cue(pard already showed AK in diamonds, so no point cueing diamonds now) 5 diamonds, shows diamond cue(shortness) and interest in 7 - 7 clubs(well your hand does not get better then this)

Have never tried, the idea, but is the opening that much worse in your opinion? It should still bring you a marginal +. If you want to separate the hands out of 2C which have 5C-4M, maybe you can try opening them 1M or treat them as 1NT for simplicity sake? Or a more off-beat idea, maybe try out some Flannery type openers with clubs(although they might need to be separated, which might lead to a problem), for example 2♣ 11-15 5♣-4♥ 2♠ 11-15 5♣-4♠ 3♣ 11-15 6♣

For me it depends mostly on the partner. With the current one we dont do post-mortems. Usually just talk straight after the hand what was the problem. Afterwards if I feel like i want to go over the hands, then I go over everyhand(both those where we did good and bad, and send back to partner any notes where I missed some of her mistakes). If partner is willing to go over the hands, then usually go to someones place or over skype and just go over them all, and look what were the mistakes, who could have done better. And it should be correct to go over all of the hands because of the simple reason that even if you did something good, there might have always been a better played(learned it from chess). Only when you feel that you have reached par on the board, the board is worth skipping i.e. bad score but since opps didnt do much mistakes.

phoenix214-stunvite if you are willing to take us!

Well for transfer preempts in general you have your pluses and minuses. + is that you do rightside the contract more often(weak onesuited in dummy so less info is revealed) + is that you do get a second bid, which means, that you should be taking advantage by the fact, by including some strong hands - is that LHO gets a second bid as well, and hence can show more hand types as well - spade preempt does allow opps to show hearts on the same level, so spade preempts loses value. If you want to play them, the + should be a higher value for you then the -, so you have to decided that for yourself

Of the defenses i have played, if you want to have a penalty double, then maybe Hello is an option. X-PEN 2♣-Diamonds or major+minor two-suited 2♦ - Hearts 2♥ - Majors 2♠ - Spades 2NT - Clubs 3♣ - Minors 3♦ - Both majors and strong + Transfers, making NT opener on lead + Always have a pen X(works vs Strong and Weak NT) + Can play diamonds in level 2 - 2H is both majors - Needs more discusion after opps bid something over your 2C overcall

I do think we all play to win no matter what, sometimes it isnt just that easy. Never played a match to lose, but winning them is hard when they play with their A game.

You can treat the conventions you play as a toolbox. Obviously a hammer wont do the work every time, so you need to have a bit more of them. The more tools and options you have the better usually although having only the most simple ones available should be enough. The ones you would need to know are usually: Stayman, Transfers, Negative doubles, RKCB, some form of cuebids and maybe NMF. Everything else is just nice to have but not 100%

phoenix214 and stunvite for Saturday if possible as well

It would go 1♣-1♦, 2♦-2♥(asking for shape INV), 2♠(4spades)-4♠(game) for example, with a heart fit obviously it would go a bit harder. 1♣-1♦, 2♦-2♥, 2NT(4H) and now you can stop low and find your heart fit. As as sidenote, you can use this idea also in the 1♣-2♣/2♦ sequences.

Well, option one is to play that a bid on level one shows a 4 card major suit in the first place(with 4M-5m hands you just bid that). That would allow you to find majors fits easier, and that is what some of the precision pairs are doing. With this you would also find major fits when responder in the weak range as well. The other option is to swap 2NT and the closest suit places, with this you would be able to ask for the 4 card major or additional features, although i think that this might not work here.

Well when i made the thread I assumed then playing puppet+jacoby is the "natural" way. Then if you look at something like 4 card major transfers, it is not that natural anymore, so figure asking if anyone has tried them. Also im asking this because I was figuring to try and make something workable like this(The idea of this, is to make it somewhat mirror T-Walsh 1♣ responses, and make it more the same). Id assume that the idea might be a bit silly, but I am also looking to this as a math problem. Ill try to make some vision of this over the weekend. Would be happy for some review then :)

Can anyone suggest any 2NT response structure that is quite natural and does not ask much from memory?(Maybe Baron) Also? Has anyone ever tried transfers to 2NT as GF with 4+ cards(Idea is, that you accept with 3, level 4 response is 4, level 3 other is natural with 2)?

If possible for this weekend(29.11), then: phoenix214 - stunvite