PhilKing

Four Hearts! Or maybe Pass. Close. B-)

Yep, I would overcall 2NT (the hand evaluates as a GOOD 15) and bid Stayman rather than transfer with weak spades.

Depends on opponents methods. If my partnership was the 1♣ opener, North has 5♦ and a weak NT, and South could have up to a 9 count with no 5-card major if 4432 any and 4441 any, or 11+ if exactly (4)333.

1) "After a 1♦ opening, 2NT is GF with a balanced hand and 3♣ is INV so we play 2♣ as GF with 5+♣." This does not logically follow, although it would if you played 1♦-2NT as invitational (which I think you should). Yes, this gives up on promising 5♣ when you are exactly 3334, but so what? 2) You have information leakage in you balanced rebids. The 2NT rebid is horrible, telling them your exact shape with the 4432 min when partner almost certainly could not care less. One solution is to just rebid 2♦ whenever you have 5+, leaving 2♥/♠ to cover all the problem hands: 2♥ = balanced, 12-14/18-19 with less than HHx club, or 4441 any. Then 2♠ asks if partner wishes to know more. Alternatively, responder can just bid 2NT or 3NT or something else with an extreme hand. 2♠ = bad club raise, but unbalanced. 3♣ now asks for shortage, others nat. 2NT = 12-14/18-19 balanced, but suitable for clubs (generally HHX or better, but Hxx possible with weak major). 3♣ = extras. Can be 2263 or 2254 or 3154 with say a stiff king. Higher = as before.

I don't think they are in any way mutually exclusive (think of the Bergen/Cohen partnership - one of the most aggressive of all time). And as pointed out the only way to stop people taking the proverbial is by punishing them when they get out of line.

SPADE QUEEN!

I must be going blind! I have the option of leading the ♣J, but not the ♠Q? :( :angry: :ph34r:

That's too easy. Call me picky, but Bergen raises by the book are 7-10 (over which you could ask) or 11-12. :P

Although several people suggested passing was not absurd, no one actually passed. It registered a grand total of 0% of the votes. So I disallow pass immediately. I have rethought stage 2 of your process, and would disallow 4♠ and allow 4NT. Pass would have failed this stage anyway. Basically, pass and 4♠ both cater for non-pure doubles in different ways. Damn - someone has just passed, but they said they were taking the sure plus, so it doesn't count. ;)

Based on the poll, I would just disallow Pass, but could be persuaded to disallow 4NT.

Trying to bury them at the one-level is hard. Here is another one from my archive: [hv=pc=n&s=s6542haqd932ckqj6&w=saqht853da74ca974&n=sj93h7642dj85ct32&e=skt87hkj9dkqt6c85&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1cppdpprp1sppdppp&p=sas3s7s4sqs9s8s5h5h2hkhac6c7ctc5c2c8ckcah3h4hjhqcqc4c3stdkd3d4d5h9s6h8]399|300[/hv] West: Cohen North: Moss East: Berkowitz South: Gitelman West decides South probably has a weak NT and North a balanced pile and issues what I call a "parking ticket" (a penalty pass based on a combination of points, controls, vulnerability and a lack of good alternatives, but lacking good trumps). Here, it was a semi-bluff and induced North to run (how could he not?). Clearly, Cohen/Berkowitz play the pass as forcing hence pass and double. Sadly the defence went awry and got only 500 - click on the diagram. It seems to me East was signalling for diamonds, which gets 1100, but South repped Txxx to muddy things for Cohen. Note that it is the good pips that makes it possible for E/W to collect a huge penalty - trying it with bad pips is a usually a mugs game. My view is that West can smack 1♠ on the logic of the auction lacking a forcing pass. It's still a potential 800 without the pips. Back to the OP, the bottom line is, you generally need to be able to draw trumps in order to incinerate them, and Qxxx just ain't going to cut it, even with a huge 11-count. :P Edit - modified to include final double.

Please stop playing "Minorwood."

Short answer: 2♦ Long answer: I have a variant on Invitational jump shifts that works here. Immediate 3♦ = mild invitational. Within the context of your 1♠ opening, that means circa 10 points. Weak and very invitational one suiters go via 1NT. After 1♠-1n-2♣(balanced or clubs), responder bid 2♦ artificial 10-12 (all other bids weak). Opener bids: 2♥ = balanced 11-13 2♠ = clubs 11-13 Higher = other (it depends what you include in your 1NT opening what other bids will show) Basically, here we bid 2♦ followed by 3♦ over 2♠ to show this hand, and opening only passes if very unsuitable. If partner shows the balanced hands we can just punt 3NT. It doesn't work so well if opener rebids 2♥, but that is not so common, and over a 2♠ rebid, 3♦ promises the very strong invite. Invitational jump shifts define non GF hands as either invitational or less than that, but this way we get three ranges, thus allowing our top range to be a bit stronger.

In August 1992 most considered it forcing. You hold: ♠K53 ♥JT8742 ♦A6 ♣J8 on the auction 1HPPXPP2CPP. By March 2004, the auction was officially considered non-forcing in BWS in the context of discussing ♠AQT9 ♥AQJ3 ♦KT4 ♣62 on the auction: 1CXPPXXP1DPP. But those are the only ones I can remember of the top of my head!

He contributed a hand from Word Championship play where Fredin had a chance to pass out them out in One Heart with a minimum double (+100 instead of -560). The auctions are not exactly a million miles removed.

Standard Fredin double. If he had passed 1♥, he would have scored a goal, but I assume you just stopped off in a 4-2 fit to own him. B-)

I wanted to pay 2♣ redoubled.

Stats from the Richard Pavlicek site (collected from late stages of USBC, Vanderbilt, Spingold and World Championships) suggest otherwise. On 657 occasions 1♦ was opened on a hand passed at the other table, usually by a Precision pair. The net gain from opening was a huge 349 imps - over half an imp a board. Now there are a few caveats, two of which stand out: 1. A lot of the boards feature Meckwell or Greco/Hampson, both pairs being, on average, significantly better than their opponents even at this level. 2. Opening trash may show losses elsewhere (opening leads, constructive and competitive auctions etc), since the 1♦ opening is less well defined. But that cuts both ways, since it becomes harder for the oppo to play in diamonds and when you finish in 3NT you have leaked less distributional info. Link again: http://www.rpbridge.net/rpme.htm You can see the most recent hundred hands in the web page.

Glad we could help.

Sorry - lost by 31 (30-61).

Oh, lol. My bad - didn't see the full answer to the Q and A.

I think you should reread it.

You can play Stayman followed by 2NT as a semi-invite (accept only with the nuts), guaranteeing a 4-card major and a standard 8-count, but otherwise never invite. Deal?

Yeah, where side suit fits are important, it pays to explore, but not by opener EVER tipping his hand. I think a good way of doing this is as follows: Step 1 - all game tries without a shortage (then dummy describes). Steps 2-4 - either short suit game tries, short suit slam tries or some portion of our game drives that are randomly psyching a short short. I haven't worked out a way yet of randomising the random game drives in order to protect out game tries from information leakage whilst satisfying full disclosure (though it is on my list).

All over it! Got a few bad boards out of the way as a warm up ... We were nearly an hour late last time - I presume 2PM EST actually means 2PM EDT?