GijsH

Before we accept Zeke's word as the "final wisdom" on this issue, the Italians have a better solution called Gazzilli. Maybe best to let the USA follow Zeke's gospel and we in the Old World have an advantage playing Gazzilli (or similar). ;)

Maybe I am missing something here, but assuming you play 2/1 GF, East has an obvious pass: what game are you missing if West has a 21 count? Especially with a singleton in pd suit, East should further downgrade his hand. Of course South will back in with 1 or 2 Spades. West passes, eagerly awaiting to pass East's t.o. double, but East disapoints him by bidding Clubs (or 2NT for the monirs for an experienced partnership). Now EW are on the same wavelength and this silly 5C will be avoided. After 1H-(p)-1NT, I think a 2S reverse is also very obvious. 5C double after a mandatory trump lead is unmakeble.

It would help to know about opponent's lead methods. If it is 4th best, I place W with ♣A876 and a 3334 distribution. Therefore, I play ♥ to the ace and ♥ to the queen (unless the J or 10 drops of course).

you must try to score the small ♠ and your 5 minor suit winners. You cannot afford to lose the lead twice as ♥ leads will shorten your trumps and W will score a low trump too. So W needs to have 5-3-3-2, otherwise you cannot make. cash the ♠9 (assumed ducked). ruff ♥ with ♠4 ♣A, ♣K, cash 3 ♦ and you still get a trick with your QJ8 of ♠.

I ran a quick simulation: to deal 1000 MC 1C openers to West: takes 25000 deals. to deal 1000 ACOL (with weak 1NT) openers to West: takes 24000 deals. so the two are very close to each other.

Or even worse: Blue Club?

I would play this hand assuming a 4-2 H break and 3-2 trump brean and D king left of me. This is the most likely case. So: duck the spade, D return to Q and Kand ruffed, cash spade ace., H king, H ace, H ruffed! (do not play H queen first!), give up last trump to opps and you are in control to score 2 more H, a D (the 10), C ace and a trump. I don't think you can handle a 4-1 trump split anyhow.

1. ♠4 asking for a minor switch. 2. ♣7, I hope declarer has: QJ974 A2 J5 AJ93 or worse ♣ playing the K enables declarer to discard a ♦ on the ♣jack. now declarer has to guess how to play the 2nd ♣ round. 3. yes, maybe not work out all ♣ combinations, but putting in the king cannot be right, you need the king to smother the queen.

OK, let me throw one in: Piet Borst! Outside Holland not many people know him, but all Dutch players know Pietje. Why he is not known abroad? Piet is afraid of flying. He is getting on now, but in his heydays he was the best declarer in the game and even faster then that well known Dutchman and world champion: Hans Kreijns. Some 30 years ago I was declaring a hand at my club and Pietje was standing behind me. After I bungled up the hand Piet asked me in a serious voice: "do you like playing bridge?". I said yes of course and then he says: "why don't you learn how to play it then?".

I think you did well to stop in 5H with so many points. The symetric distribution and wasted values in diamonds cuase less tricks available. Apparently you lost 3 heart tricks, was that necessary? What were the intermediates in hearts? maybe you should duck 2 heart tricks, hoping for the ace to drop? with AQJ behind the K there is no hope of course. If partner critisised you bidding, he is not a good bridge player.

I don't think it is that simple as previous posters indicate :-). Considering 2 entries back to hand: 1.The ruffing way works against any 3-3 diamond distribution, while the finesse fails 50% of the 3-3 distr. (K with W) 2.With 4-2 split, the ruffing wins when W has Kx, but finesse is better when W has xx. 3.With 5-1 split, ruffing is better when W has bare K, or E has sin J. Finesse is never better than ruffing with this split. The odds of 1. are higher than 2. , so ruffing wins by a small margin, I estimate about 56%

OK, here we go: 1: H ace 2: H king ruffed 3: D ace 4: small D, ruffed 5: S to ace 6: D, let's say W ruffs with A, discard S in dummy 7: W returns C (best), taken in hand 8: D ruffed 9: S to the Q 10: last D ruffed wit C 10 11: pull last trump with C king 12: cash S king 13: ruff H in hand with C queen this is called a dummy-reversal . if West throws a S instead of ruffing, the 4th S becomes a trick. if D turn out to be 3-4 it becomes easier as 5th D becomes a trick.

After this bidding East is marked with 5 or 6 ♦, so I try a full cross-ruff: ruffing all ♦ in dummy, and going back with top ♠ and ♥ ruffs. I think I can make if West is exactly: Jxxx AKQxx xx Ax and decides to ruff with the ace in front of dummy and play a trump.

Thanks for plugging my MIDMAC book Flame! The link is: http://www.midmac.tk

I think you are referring to Bourke realy, described in "Tournament ACOL" by Bird/Bourke.

after establishing initial contact, I am not hearing from this guy anymore. :rolleyes:

I play Viking Precision according to Groetheim's book, and I can recommend it, provided: - you have a regular partner playing it twice a week. - you have the patience to learn the many relay sequences. This requires time and effort, but I found it is possible to learn them in about a week. My view on systems is: it does not matter much what you play. But methods which help in accurate slam bidding give an edge in serious competition play. Viking is both aggresive as required in modern bridge and very elaborate in the slam zone. I also noticed it is the only relay system on Olympic / Bermuda Bowl level.

I'll give it a try, send me email plse

The principles presented here sound very similar to MIDMAC. It also seems that not a Bidding System is described but a Hand Evaluation System. Am I right Pavell? MIDMAC has the advantage that standard HCP count is used (ace=4 etc), see http://www.midmac.tk for more details. Maybe Pavell can explain where his system differs from other systems?

This is like a system played by some top players in the East of my home country The Netherlands. They play it very agressively though: opening (4card majors) 9/10-15 vul (8/9-14 not vul) 1D: denies a 4card major 1NT: variable, e.g. 1st/2nd pos, not vul: 9-11! 1C: 16+ vul (15+ not vul) also many fitbids ala Robson/Segal 1C-1D, 1H: is relay with any 22+ hand I have the systembook in Dutch, feel free to ask if you are interested.

I fully agree, 2S gives completely wrong impression: "bridge is a partnership game". Thank God I don't have this problem: I open 2♠ (Muiderberg). Not playing Muiderberg I would open 1♠.

Looks like easy hand for MIDMAC: S N 1NT 2♦ 3♣ 3NT 6NT 1NT: any 20+ points 2♦: 8+points, 4+card ♦, 1+ control 3NT: natural, no extras (p.f.a.) 6NT: count your tricks: if there are only 3♦ tricks, than N will have points in majors for extra stoppers. For more info on MIDMAC: http://www.midmac.tk

Let me have a look at how MIDMAC would deal with these hands: In MIDMAC hand evaluation: S has 12 points and very good controls: [4++] tricks N has 11 points: [4] tricks S N 1♠ 2♥ (N goes to [5] tricks: 8 card fit and ♦ control) 3♥ 3♠ (S goes to [5+] tricks: 8card ♥ fit) 4♠ 8 combined controls is enough for 10 tricks. The game is excellent when vulnerable: finesse on trump queen and extra chances on a non-club lead: much more than the 35% required for vulnerable game. N has 13 points, 3 controls: [4] tricks S has 15 points (sin K counts for 2), 4 controls: [4+] tricks N S 1♥ 2♦ S goes to 13 points: HK counts 3 now, but subtract 3 points for sin in pd suit) 2♥ 2♠/pass (S may pass here: the hands do not fit, only 7 controls in combined hands and we are not vul so 50% required for bidding game) 3♦ pass! (N denies a ♣ stopper) Great hands for a great system. For more information on MIDMAC: see www.midmac.tk

1) 1D 2) 1S A bit obvious in my view

I agree with some others in that 5th chair foundation does not work. I enlisted as mentor and never heard from them despite sending reminders.