squealydan

Is this online or face to face? If face to face, surely you ruff a heart, lead the J♣, and see if west twitches. If online, I'd play for west to hold the Q, but I don't think the play to this point has helped me much.

I'd say 75% or more of low-level players at my club play an immediate cue-bid as showing some strong hand. The minimum point count probably varies between 16 and 18. I would be surprised if more than a few have discussed what subsequent bidding should mean and I very much doubt any of them have a way for responder to show a bust hand. What's worse, many of them are still playing strong jump overcalls, and although not explicitly stated, many also are happy to double "to show an opening hand" even though if asked they would call the bids "take-out doubles". (Coming up through the grades, so many of my top boards resulted in a post-hand inquest with one opponent saying to the other "But I had to double, I had 13 points!") Just to round out the options, a few even play 2NT overcalls as balanced 20-22! In addition to all the above. So they have a huge armoury of available overcalls for those few occasions when they have a decent hand and an opponent happens to beat them to the opening bid.

I like this! Can you tell me what the immediate 2-level responses mean in this system?

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Thank you thank you thank you. I'm still a little puzzled about the best use for 4NT in the above auction but the thread you linked to has a further link to another thread (the "bebop 20 hours of college math" thread) which a) is one of the funniest things I've ever read, and b) reveals just how many really really clever people there are who contribute to this forum. Anyone reading this, do follow the links, you will really enjoy it.

Partner opens 1♥, and RHO bids 4♠. What is the most sensible use for 4NT here? Minors, Key-Card, Natural?

Last hand of a Swiss Pairs event, all vulnerable, you're just off the medal places and the last round has been fairly uneventful thus far. You pick up ♠ AKT985 ♥ AK3 ♦ KT9 ♣ 5 RHO opens 1♣ (could be short, Standard American) You double LHO bids 1♥ Partner bids 1♠ RHO passes. Partner's free bid promises 8 points according to the agreed system. On the other hand, you know your opponents fairly well and neither is the sort to psyche. Your playing fairly basic systems, 2S would show a good hand, 3S an even better one but in a fairly new partnership these bids have never come up before so there's no agreement on whether 3S is forcing. 4NT is RKCB 1430. The response to a queen-ask would be 5♠ to deny it, and 5NT to show the Q but deny any kings. What's your bid now?

I'd watch it but will be at work then - will it be available for later viewing?

They were playing 2/1. Don't know about the 2S bid. And regarding the second one, their only game try was a long/strong suit try, no short-suit available.

No-one vulnerable, RHO (dealer) opens 1♠, 2♠ from LHO, which is passed back to you. You hold : HAND A ♠ 2 ♥ 7643 ♦ KJT43 ♣ A94 HAND B ♠ 2 ♥ 764 ♦ KJT43 ♣ A943 Pass quietly, double or bid 3D? (Or 2NT with Hand B?) Is your decision at all affected when you know that your opponents are one of the weakest pairs in the room?

ONE : ♠ J863 ♥ K8 ♦ J72 ♣ KT84 RHO opening, the opps bid an uncontested: 1♠-2♥, 2♠-4♠ Which lead is least likely to give up a trick? It was matchpoints, but I'd appreciate any view on an IMP-lead. TWO : ♠ QT5 ♥ Q63 ♦ KJ95 ♣ 863 Again an uncontested auction, RHO opening. 1♠-2♠, 3♣-4♠ The club bid is described as a long/strong suit game try. These two arrived within four boards of each other, and my choice of lead cost us matchpoints on both boards. Help needed...

I held : ♠ A74 ♥ T6 ♦ 92 ♣ KQ8765 Partner opened a weak 2♥, 2♠ from RHO, raised to 4 by his partner. Which would you lead, K♣ or T♥? (Matchpoints if it matters....)

This is an area which leaves me a bit confused at times as well - when you play a conventional bid which is different to what the rest of the room is playing, but which is also alertable in "standard" bridge. At the club where I usually I play Jacoby 2NT is fairly unusual, but most people recognise it and know the standard follow-ups. So if our auction begins 1H-2NT-3C, we alert the last two bids. Most opponents expect the 3C bid to show shortage in clubs, when in fact we use it to show a minimum opening hand. Many opponents won't ask about the alert, and if responder simply bids 4H over that and the auction ends, is declarer obliged to now re-alert the alert or something to make sure the opponents know what the bid showed? We do play with complete system cards but at one-or-two boards per table matchpoint events, opponents rarely bother to look at them.

One of the reasons for making a weak-2 bid can be to suggest a suit for partner to lead. If in a regular partnership you can decide with your partner just what quality you want for making a weak-2. If you're both keen to be as disruptive as possible, and want to open weak-twos on suits like JTxxxx then that's fine, you make the opposition's auction awkward as often as possible. The downsides are the occasional -1100 score and less guidance for partner on what to lead. Alternatively you can agree that your pre-emptive bids will always show a decent suit with an ace or a king. Now partner should have less trouble finding a good lead (and also you might find some easy 3NT contracts based on a known 6-winners in the long suit). But of course you'll then be passing more hands which gives the opposition more free auctions. So it's a trade-off, and up to a partnership to figure out. It certainly helps to be on the same page as your partner. Experienced players will vary their minimum requirements for a weak-2 opening based on the vulnerability and their seat position, and possibly the quality of their opposition. If playing with pick-up partners I generally try to keep pre-empts fairly sound, showing a good suit, as partner will probably lead it more often than not, and I never know just how high partner might be willing to sacrifice.

I really liked this hand and my partner and I had a good chat about it. We would have an easy beginning : we're in the 2H as absolute negative camp, and a five-card suited by KJ is easily enough to reply 2D, so it's 2C-2D-2H-3C to start with. Then what? 4D-5C-5NT (pick a slam) or 5D Exclusion Blackwood followed by 5NT pick-a-slam both tell partner I'm interested in major suit queens not diamond values. Or I might just bid 4C and see if he'll bid 4H with Queen-doubleton? Really not sure which I'd have picked at the table.

Possibly because you're in the wrong hand to adopt your chosen line of leading a club to the jack?

[hv=pc=n&s=saqjthat92da74c86&n=sk83hkq73d5cat532]133|200[/hv] Playing Acol with south dealer, you end up in 6H from south, after a diamond splinter from north and no bidding from EW. West leads the 9♠. Their convention card says low from three or more to an honour, second top from three or more small, top of doubletons. How do you play it from here?

I'd do it slightly differently. If playing 8 board sets, then four tables share one set of boards which live in the middle between the four tables - so in your example O1, O11, O2 and O12 would share boards, as would C1,C11,C2 and C12. One player per table collects the boards, one at a time - they won't have to move more than two steps to get them. You don't need caddies or anyone else moving boards from table to table, and setting the boards out between rounds is less onerous since all 8 just go to and from central tables. You do need a room large enough to allow the right shape... As McBruce wrote earlier, folk obviously just like what they're used to. I haven't played a session's bridge without pre-duplicated boards in about seven years, and can't imagine anything different.

That's funny, because I saw the initial problem and thought "you'd get more variety in the responses if there were only 6 clubs..."

I'm with the hog on this one. I'll be playing up to 120 boards over the weekend in a Swiss tournament. Without hand records, my new partnership's learnings would be restricted to maybe half a dozen memorable howlers in bidding or defence plus a general feel for where our system isn't working optimally. With hand records we'll be able to go through and see exactly where the smaller swings are being won and lost. I'd definitely feel I wasn't getting my money's worth without the hand records.

Our club's team night involves 30 teams and we get by with five sets of boards. Each set of boards sit on a middle table, with 6 playing tables around it, and the player from each table nearest the boards fetches them and takes them back after every hand. The boards are therefore usually played in a completely random order. You occasionally have to wait at the end of the round if someone is playing the last board you need but in general it works fine and tables playing at very different speeds get to go at their pace. (We play 2x 12 board sessions per match - I can see that for 8-board sessions you might need a higher ratio of boards to tables.)

Is it frustrating to then pick up a solid pre-empt of KQJTxxx and bust when you happen to be third to bid? At my usual club I'd expect over 90% of players to open this in third seat, and probably 80% of them to open in first or second, so passing would definitely be the anti-field action. They see a weak hand with a seven-card suit, they reach for the stop card.

I think the main difference is that every club in NZ is a not-for-profit organisation, staffed almost entirely by volunteers. Of course, in some ways having pre-dealt boards makes cheating easier. Our club's boards are usually dealt on the weekends - it would be nothing for me to wander in the day before my usual club night and take a copy of the hand-records home with me.

Re-opening doubles are meant to show shape, not points. The more opposition trumps and the more points opener holds, the less likely it is that partner has made a trap pass. South should expect partner to respond 4♦ which doesn't look like the ideal place to be. South should pass. As north, bid 4♣.

Yeah, if there isn't going to be a fast players lounge, maybe we could have a "thinking-allowed" lounge? A recent occasion in the MBC, second hand with a new partner, the bidding began : 2NT - p - 3♦ (partner asked "transfer?", I said yes) - p 4NT - p - ?? At which point I thought "I could have a yarborough here, what the hell is 4NT?" Decided anything but an ace-ask was too unlikely for a pick-up partnership...checked partner's card, it said RKCB but not whether 1430 or 3014. So I had to assume that. Probably took me 20 seconds to get my bid out, by which time RHO had typed the "sooooooo slooooowwwwwww" message. I think I did quite well not to type a reply that might have got me barred...