hamish32

Quite a few things with the methods you describe in your post that dont really add up: 1: given partner passed in the opening seat surely a cue bid now would describe this hand. Max pass and 4 trumps no splinter. 2: the structure your partner describes to you says with 7 losers she would bid 3!H. But with 7 losers she has enough for game if you you must use LTC. So that is not compatible with the idea of a pre-empt. Your hand is worth 15 you have the perfect singleton given the bidding. So you should want to bid game any time partner has 4 trump and close to max pass values. It seems like neither of you really knows what 3!H means with any accuracy. For example in my partnership 3H is 4-7 HCP 4 trump. If you range is narrow - what ever it happens to be - you wont miss game. You have many possible actions here you need a meaning for each: Suggestions 2H - 5-8 3 card support 3H - 5-8 4 card support 2S - 9-10 3 card support 1NT - 8-10 spade holds 2NT - 4 card support 9-10 2C/D - 5+ cards 9-10 (possibly intending to support H next with 3 H) X 8-11 both minors no fit

I dont see how your percentages are different at all than what i said. 6H is 100% the best contract.

Our bidding based on a forcing 1 Bid (fantunes style). Not promoting our methods just giving our answer: P - 1S 1NT - 2C 2D - 2H 2NT - 3C 3D - 3H 4C - 4S 5D - 6H 1S 14+ forcing 1NT 0-10 not 8+ with a good 5 card suit 2C Gazzilli 2D 8-10 2H 18+ a 5+S exactly 4H and a singleton 2NT - we are in a game force and want to know the whole shape 3C - 5413 3D - D hold not sure that 3NT is best lacking 4H or 3S 3H - very good H 4C - first or second cue in C with 3 good hearts 4S cue 5D - turbo 1 key card and first round control of D

6H is almost 100% needing just 4-2 breaks in Hearts and Spades. 6S and 6NT are similar needing spades to break 3-3 or the club finesse. However 6S is considerably better than 6NT because of the D situation on a D lead. 7H needs the club finesse and a 33 Spade break so its bad. Resting in 3NT is only good in a room full of weak players. But many people do t have the methods to consider are moysian fit for slam so considering resting in 3NT is understandable i suppose.

No splinter no jacoby. Well if partner splinters you are not so excited with AQx wasted. It a matter of judgment not methods. If i can bid jacoby 2NT and hear 3!S 16+ bal then sure less judgment is needed. However ask your self if you had one bid with the south hand to place the contract what would you bid? I would bid 6S. If partner has 2 aces to go along with their 5+ spades then 6S is probably ok. So if i had 1 bid it would be 6S. Thats judgment. Ask your friend that question and you will find yourself having a conversation about judgment with her and that will be much more educative than a methods conversation. It turns out we can do much better than just bidding 6S. We also have blackwood available. Note key card is irrelevant because we have the K and Q of trumps. If we bid key card we can stop in 5S or 6S. That is cool. Maybe with all the aces we should bid 7? Well that pushing a good thin too far. However it turns out that if partner has shown us 16+ and 6+S and we have all the aces maybe 7S would be ok since we look like we can ruff D. So.... what do we bid to find out if partner is minimum for her bid? Well 2C would get us that information even though we dont really have any C if we consider that our next step is balckwood then 2C to descover a little more about partners hand seems like it might be ok. So there you go we have improved the auction quite a bit. To be able to bid 7S by applying judgment and thinking about just the areements we already have. Cool

No splinter no jacoby. Well if partner splinters you are not so excited with AQx wasted. It a matter of judgment not methods. If i can bid jacoby 2NT and hear 3!S 16+ bal then sure less judgment is needed. However ask your self if you had one bid with the south hand to place the contract what would you bid? I would bid 6S. If partner has 2 aces to go along with their 5+ spades then 6S is probably ok. So if i had 1 bid it would be 6S. Thats judgment. Ask your friend that question and you will find yourself having a conversation about judgment with her and that will be much more educative than a methods conversation. It turns out we can do much better than just bidding 6S. We also have blackwood available. Note key card is irrelevant because we have the K and Q of trumps. If we bid key card we can stop in 5S or 6S. That is cool. Maybe with all the aces we should bid 7? Well that pushing a good thin too far. However it turns out that if partner has shown us 16+ and 6+S and we have all the aces maybe 7S would be ok since we look like we can ruff D. So.... what do we bid to find out if partner is minimum for her bid? Well 2C would get us that information even though we dont really have any C if we consider that our next step is balckwood then 2C to descover a little more about partners hand seems like it might be ok. So there you go we have improved the auction quite a bit. To be able to bid 7S by applying judgment and thinking about just the areements we already have. Cool

The modern trend to open 2!C with extreme but weak hands causes quite a few problems if you don't discuss continuations. Here 1!S would not be passed and leads to a decent auction 1!S - 2!H 3!S - 4!C 4!D - 4!H 4N - 5!H 5N - 6!C 6!D - 6!H 7N 2!H = game forcing 3!S = solid !S better than min (suit setting) 4!C/4!D/4!H = cue first or second 4N = key card 5!H = 2 no Q 5N = king ask (all keys held) 6!C this king 6!D this king 6!H this king 2!C used to show 23+ hcp or 22-24 balanced if partner opened 2!C and you held that responding hand with !H and !C you can pretty much bid 7N or you could offer !H then !C twice knowing that you where deciding which grand to bid. If you open 2!C showing a hand that could be weak with 8.5 playing tricks then you must show that specific hand by jump bidding on the second round. I.E. a failure to jump to 3!S shows the serious 2!C opener described just above while a jump to 3!S shows the hand with solid !S and 15-20 HCP. Now partner will find the same sequence above because 2!C then 3!S set the suit making 4!C by responder a cue for !S. Another alternative is to open 4!C and 4!D to show the tier major !C=!H & !D=!S and 8.5 playing tricks.

It does not matter what 3S means. It only matters what agreement they have about the meaning of 3S. The standards have not slipped there is something you are failing to understand here. Re-read the posts and solve your annoyance by developing your understanding. I repeat the wost bid is 2C. But 3S is a good and easy to understand / flexible response to an understrength 2C. 3S says its not him that has the strong hcp hand its me it is 1 2 or 3 suited and if you listen to the auction you will find out which and be able to decide how many spades to bid as a sacrifice.

Its an individual so there is no agreement and you are only entitled to know agreements. However the term ‘cue bid’ just means that it is not showing spades. Its a forcing bid not showing spades. Since you opened 2C as a psych without a game forcing hand the opps need to get into a constructive auction while avoiding the risk of a X being passed for penalties. You have 13 hcp maybe this hand has the unbid suits with game forcing values. That would be a reasonable assumption since 3S is forcing and not showing spades and we are now at game level. It could also be a slam try in a singlesuited hand. For example 3S then 4H is much stronger than just bidding 4H. 3S then 4H gives the added expectation that slam is likley. I think the worst bid at the table is 2C it requires the opps to let each other know that 2C is not based on high card strength. 3S achieves that nicely. I am not sure why you are complaining about it here.

We play this as a power X: that means it shows some (generally unbalanced) hand by opener or some game forcing hand by responder. Except in pass out seat where it could be converting partners pass.

We play Mosca a system with strong forcing 1 bids so we would also open 1!H on this hand. If you are playing standard you might not open 2NT if your agreement is that you need a hold in every suit. You should play puppet over 2NT so that you dont lose the 5 card heart suit. So opening 1!H in our methods we follow up 2!S with a power X. You might want to google power X invented by the italians they are great in auctions like this when you have to bid the best slam from the right side. (Yes with a !D hold i would just rebid 6NT but here with no !D hold you are playing partner for A or KQ in !D if you rebid 6NT so im not going there). A power X shows 18+ it saves a lot of room in this auction where 3!S would use a whole level of bidding room. After a power X north has enough to bid 4!C setting the suit for slam investigation. Now opener cues 4!H showing the problem in !D and responder bids 4!S cue. Now we play turbo here so opener bids 5!C showing 3 or 5 key cards and responder can raise to 6NT or 6!C rightsiding the hand.

If you X and partner bids 3M now you have to try to make 9 when you might have been beating 3D. If you C you do so in the hope that partner does not bid C and that he has enough to raise to 4M. When you have such a bad hand he may reaise to 4M and you go light when you are beating 3D. I pass no different at imp or mp.

Playing a strong NT with Tom response: 1NT - 2C 3C - 3D 3H - 4C 4D - 4H 4S - 4NT 5C - 6C 7D 1NT = 15-17 2C = game try plus values 3C = max 5+D 3D = 3+ D at least a mild slam try 3H = hold (A or K) 4C = slam interest first or second round control in C (no control in S) 4D = waiting 4H/4S cue fiest or second 4NT = turbo 2 or 4 key cards 5C = control in C suggests all key cards held 6C = Q of trumps + this Q grand slam try This is our sequence

Nige 1 above has it exacly right.

Nige 1 above has it exacly right.

I dont open 2!C on that plie of junk. Ok. It is a nice hand but you are missing 3 key cards it has only 19 points. If you open 1!S you will get a second chance to bid and now a high reverse shows 18-20 unbalanced at least 54 which is what you have. I avoid bidding 2NT its just way to easy to wrong side the contract. I might bid 3NT on the next round if i had no better description but here we will end up in some number of !S. Its not clear that you want to play game in !S and thats what makes the 2!C opening poor. I disagree with those that say 2NT or 3!C above is a second negitive. It is only when you have that agreement and you dont. Finally i disagree with 3NT that is a kazy bid even if you had a 2NT bid which you dont 3!C then 3!S or 4!S is a better description. Here trying to hode the shape to score top for 3NT was a poor option. So all in all. I think every bid was terrible. Except your 2!D that was perfect.

3!S is correct when we stop them being able to bid game and the value of the penalty when they X us is less than the value of their game. Given partner can have zero or up to about 9 we cannot evaluate accuritly. The way to think about it is that the weak 1NT was already a preempt. When they made the penalty X it put us on notice that they had our number. They will be able to penalise accuritly from here. So we should be delighted we have a 9 card fit and might get to play at the 2 level. I guess i might bid 3!S green against red if i held sonething like: AKxx xx Kx KJT98. Which is a 1NT opener for my partnership.

We play that a xx by responder is 11+. So pass here is almost forcing. We will pass with 4333 shape otherwise we bid a 5 card suit and xx with 2 four card suits. Incedentally dont play 11-14 red should be 12-14 (or even 13-14 if we he room is full of experts). 11-14 green. Also in 3rd and 4th seats play 15-15 only when red. An 11-14 red in 3rd or 4th is screaming for a penality.

You have noticed that all you need to do to defeat this slam is lead a D before the A of H is knocked out. The D could easily be KQ the Q of S could be Qxx many ways this it is likley wrong to play slam and even the lucky layout you might find an agressive lead of a small D.

duplication

We play a structure that could get you to 6. Weather its good bridge to grt to 6 is another question: We open 1NT with all 4441 shapes: 1NT - 2D 2H - 2H 2S - 2NT 3C - 3S 4C - 4D 4H - 4S 5S - 6S 2D = a transfer could be 4 when game forcing woth both majors 2H = no superaccecpt 2S = reveling the gf with majors 2NT = clarifying 3C = a 54 shape 3D = asking 3S = 5S 4H 4C = cue first or second a good hand for a potential S slam but not enough for 3NT serious. 4D = cue first or second ( you might sing off in 4S at this point given the natire of your game force, opener may still have another go with 4NT key card 4H = cue first or second 4S = 0-1 key cards turbo 5S = 3 or 5 key cards plus a contorl in S turbo 6S = well we have enough keys (again after cueing 4D you might pass here missing a key card but you do have the Q so its probably right to raise here.

E - W 1C - 1D 2H - 2NT 4C - 4D 4H - 4NT 5C - 5S 6H 1C = 2+ ( but 5+!C and unbal when weak since we open weak NT) 1D = 4+ H ( welsh transfer) 2H = 5+C 3-4 H 10-14 hcp 2NT = forcing inquiry 4C = 6S 4H 4D = first or second cue 4H = 0-1 key cards 4NT = 4 key cards (turbo) 5C = confirms all the key cards plus a control in !C 5S = do you have the trump Q? 6H = no trump Q Responder could now bid 6S asking for an extra picture in S (suggesting 6NT with a gap in S or 7!C/7NT with S K) but to do that responder really wants a third C. The grand here is only 68%. i would pass 6H which is 100% while 6NT and 7C and 7NT all light on a bad C break and NT contracts very light when D is led which is likley. Interesting that all 3 contracts above 6H are the same 68% assuming D lead.

For us 1!S after 1!C opening is forcing so: 1!C - 1!D 1!S - 1NT 3!D - 3!H 3!S - 4!D 4!H - 4NT 5!C - 6!H 1!C 2+!C if 16+ bal otherwise 5+!C 1!D transfer 4+ !H 1!S 5+!C 4!S unlimited 1NT 8+ relay 3!D 4135 or 4045 18+ 3!H suit setting The rest are cue or key card.

Here i tend to play 2!S as a game force given partner has bid 2!C so 16 is enough. We might afterall be looking for the best game. However introducing !D is a lot stronger in my book. Yes it shows a !D fragment so 4531 or better but why bid 3!D when partner has bid 2NT the only reason is to make a slam try. If partner raised to 3NT it masks the best lead a little now a !D lead is more likly as the unbid suit. On this hand all roads lead to 3NT so it not a big deal but 3!D should be 19+

The key agreements here are: how strong is 2!H, is 3!C game forcing, does 4!C set the suit and make a skam try. If 2!H is forcing then i would raise 3!C to 4!C as a slam try in !C. Having the agreement that 4 of our minor is always a suit setting slam try is worth its weight in gold. For me 2!H is 8+ but still a 1 round force. X and 3!D both highlight how problematic a non forcing 2!H can be.