EricK

What would 2♠ by north on the second round show?

I would have bid 2♦ on the first round - but then I am a dinosaur who has not given up SJS at the 2 level. What would you have bid in an unopposed auction which started 1♣ 1♦ 2♣?

INT seems the least of all evils. But I hope I'd be understanding if partner chose either 1♦ or 1♣.

Is this really a 4♠ bid though? Should the decision about whether to bid 4♠ depend on whether a pass in this auction would be forcing?

A point to bear in mind is that when partner has opened, if you are strong in RHO's suit it can be better to look to defend (perhaps doubled) rather than play in NT. eg Imagine you have something like KJTx in RHO's suit and partner has a singleton, you might make 3 tricks in that suit in defense, and only one (or possible none!) if declaring NT. A very common mistake made by beginners is to rush into NT on misfitting hands just because they have a stop or two in the enemy suit.

Why do you think it is a bad thing? The only "benefit" of keeping the running score hidden, as far as I can see, is that it rewards the people who are better at estimating how well they are doing. But I am not sure why this is a skill we should be testing for.

If you opened 1♦, why didn't you rebid 2♣? The biggest problem with opening this a weak NT is not the distribution, it's the strength. 6 tricks in hand is great for playing 1NT if partner has nothing; but it's great for missing 3NT, when partner has a little bit and can't picture this sort of playing strength opposite.

This was face-to-face bridge. Opener is an ex-partner of mine. I broke up the partnership largely due to his inability to consistently get even the first round of an unopposed auction correct. His new partner seems even worse than he in that respect. I have played against them a few times now, and don't recall their ever getting to the correct contract.

I don't think with those agreements opener should be allowed to pass 3NT following a positive response, which the above simulation does following 2♣ 3♦ 3♠ 3NT.

As an amusing aside, on Monday, someone opened a 4-4-1-4 hand against me with 1♠. He then rebid 2♥. When asked at the end why he had done this he quoted the rule: "always open the suit below the singleton, unless it's ♣". And as he correctly pointed out, the suit below the singleton was ♣, so he didn't open it.

That's the closest so far, but still not quite right. Responder had a 4-4-1-4 hand with 11 hcp. Opener also appeared to have about 11 hcp. They were missing ♦KQJ9xx, so 4♦ wasn't the par contract by any means.

How often do you see a new, short, unopposed bidding sequence? This one was perpetrated against me last night: RHO Me LHO Pard 1♦ P 2NT P 4♦ All Pass I won't even ask you to guess what they each held, as the knowledge might kill someone with a pre-existing heart condition.

In Acol (and most other weak NT systems) this is a non-forcing 2♠ rebid, as you are not strong enough for anything else. If you play 2/1 as GF, then you could agree to rebid 2NT or 3♣ on hands like this. But IMO it would still be better to play those bids as showing stronger hands, and rebid a forcing 2♠ on this type. I don't mind having an agreement to open a 12-14 1NT with 5422 hands, but I wouldn't like to open this sort of hand with 1NT without such an agreement. Especially so if our follow ups didn't include a way to ask for 5 card majors.

2 places to play is surely more common than slam aspirations opposite an overcall. Especially slam aspirations where all I need to know is partners number of key cards. But even so, wouldn't 4nt followed by 5H after partner's 5m show some slam aspirations? Ie a better hand than an immediate 5H bid?

If you don't want to play anything too fancy or hard to remember, you can handle pretty much all hands with both majors as follows: 5-4 weak 2♥ 4-5 weak 2♣ 2♦ 2♥ 5-5 weak 2♣ 2♦ 2♥ 5-4 invitational 2♣ 2♦ 2♠ 4-5 invitational 2♦ 2♥ 2♠ 5-5 invitational 2♥ 2♠ 3♥ 5-4 GF 2♣ 2♦ 3♥ 4-5 GF 2♣ 2♦ 3♠ 5-5 GF 2♥ 2♠ 4♥ Over Stayman, if partner doesn't bid 2♦ you pass, raise or bid game as appropriate. Slam invitational hands can go via Smolen followed by a further bid.

A couple of bad ideas from last night: 1. Opp's bidding (and these are one of the better pairs in the club) 1♣ 1♠ 3♠4♣ 4♥4♠ 5♠6♠ The first 3 bids are natural. The 4th is Gerber (obviously). Well actually it is some sort of RKG as the 4♥ bid shows 1 or 4. The 4♠ bid was bid after some hesitation, as was the 5♠, and the 6♠. Anybody care to guess what was going on? 2. Playing with a pick-up Pard RHO Me LHO P 2♥ 2NT P 3♣P Now, we had agreed that opposite a 1NT overcall, bids are natural except an immediate cue which is strong and Stayman-esque. I wasn't sure what partner meant by this bid, but in the end decided to pass. After the opening lead, as I was putting down dummy, I mentioned our agreement over 1NT and that I hoped I had guessed right. At which point my RHO said something like "Oh isn't that the unusual NT? I think your partner forgot to alert." And indeed everybody at the table thought that 2NT in this position showed both minors.

Or maybe the author thought that using 'tricks' rather than 'a trick' exempted the situation where you give up one trick now to gain two tricks later (as in a squeeze or throw-in). i.e. when you consider the hand as a whole, the sacrifice of the trick is a 'flagrant and deliberate attempt to gain one or more tricks'.

But these other people haven't had the advantage of getting a ♥ lead which tells them that the King is very likely to be offside - so of course they'll finesse. Just out of interest, what would you do if you happened to be in 7NT and got a ♥ lead?

I reached an end position I'd not seen before: [hv=pc=n&s=shajdt9c&w=shqdct96&n=s4h75dcq&e=s9h98dqc]399|300[/hv] The lead was with North, and I knew that East had the master ♦ and master ♠ and 2♥, but I didn't know if he had the Q or not. But when I played the ♣Q, East had to discard a ♥ (if he discards the ♦, I can discard the ♥J and dummy is good; if he discards a ♠, I discard a ♦, and the ♠4 leads to a simple show up squeeze). But now I know to drop West's ♥Q This is not an overly complicated end position, and it can't be original, but I don't recall seeing it before in eg Love or Kelsey (although admittedly it has been a while since I read either of those).

And yet they say it is hard to get a computer to play in a human-like manner...

Partner has taken positive action on the second round, hasn't he?

If a player is going to misuse a slam convention, then it is probably better that they misuse 4♣ and end up in 4M, rather than misuse 4NT and end up in 5M. But then they're probably better off using 1♣ as a control asking bid (as I believe some rather good Italian players used to do as part of their system).

Indeed, that's another common agreement round here - 4♣ is always Gerber.

I didn't intend it to imply that. I was making the points that as they were playing in England, their base system was Acol (4 card majors, weak NT), but that they had a number of very unusual agreements which no book on Acol would advocate. I no longer have a regular partner there, so only play if somebody needs a partner. I am quite happy to play Acol with any of them, but I do try to talk them out of some of the worst conventions.

In traditional weak NT Acol, a 1NT opening is 12-14; a 1NT rebid is 15-16; a 2NT rebid (of a 1 over 1 response) is 17-18; and a 3NT response is 19 (or, I suppose, a bad 20, or a hand otherwise unsuitable for a 2NT opening - which would include the long minor hands)