EricK

Well to be fair, the hand is slightly stronger than what I had in real world.. (no club jack).. at it was well past midnight, and the RHO being red versus white had used very strong preempts in an earlier match with side tricks. But still, I agree my 4♣ was horrible... I make a lot of bad bids... :-( Ben I wasn't actually referring to your bid when you held a similar hand, but only to the reasons you gave as to why you should bid game on this hand. It surprised me that you didn't supplement your explanation with a Zar count, that's all. Eric

This looks like a 4♠ bid to me. I am surprised Ben didn't wheel out a Zar valuation on this hand. Assuming West has an opening strength hand with 4♠, then this hand is worth 27 Zar points - enough for game. Eric

I think Richard Pavlicek's system uses FSF as invitational and other 3 level bids as GF. You can check it out on his website. http://www.rpbridge.net/ On the sort of hand you quoted, it is often better to initially respond in ♣ rather than ♠ because... It shows a stronger hand You do not really want partner to raise with 3 card ♠ support Your FSF bid will come at the two level Eric

I bid 3♦. It is important to show the ♥ support and strength before LHO pre-empts us. Even if LHO doesn't pre-empt I am happy to make a fit showing bid rather than an ambiguous force. If LHO is silent I will be able to show the ♠ later anyway. Eric

I hate this sort of question! There is loads of information we are not being told to help us come to a decision. 1. What system are we playing? 2. What would 1♣ 2NT mean? 3. If the answer to 2. is balanced invitational, then what have I shown with 1♦? 3. What has opener promised in terms of suit lengths in ♣/♥? 4. What would responder call with 4 ♠and 4 ♦? 5. Does the answer to 3. depend on the strengths of the suits? 6. How much discussion about methods have we had? 7. What does my partner think my level of play is? 8. Do we come from the same country so there may be some assumed agreements? For what it's worth, in a pick up partnership I would expect it to be naturalish and strong, either 4-4-0-5 or 3-4-1-5 or 3-4-0-6. I would respond 3NT if my ♦ were strong else bid 4♣ or 4♥ or (rarely) 4♠. Eric

The biggest problem with this hand is that the methods chosen "force" North to open with his worst suit! South's hand is not really much of an invitational one once he hears North bid ♦, but it turns out that the singleton ♦ is a blessing not a curse. If one can't stomach a 1♥ opening on North's hand or an upgrade to a strong NT, then maybe opening 1♣ (better minor!) is a good idea :rolleyes: . Eric

This problem isn't really as bad as you say. If partner opens 1♠ and you have a 1-3-4-5 hand (or similar) then it is not too dangerous to make an "underbid" of 1NT when you have 9 or so points. If partner has a strong NT and passes then you might very well be in a good contract. Not all 25 point hands make 3NT! And when you have a singleton in partner's best suit the proportion of making 3NT contracts goes down further. Playing Acol (at the level I do) I have made more dodgy part-scores than I have gone off in! And I don't think my game bidding is less accurate than others of my level. I think that in general Acol auctions tend to give less information to the opposition so one gets worse defense. Eric

This is interesting. I would have thought that wondering whether partner had a distributional hand or a weak NT hand for his 1 level opening would have made competitive bidding much harder. Playing a weak NT you at least know that if partner is balanced he will extra HCP. Eric

I don't think any system should be that worried about getting to the wrong partial in a 1NT/2m situation, so this is hardly a problem with Acol. The benefit of the weak NT/4 card major approach is that it makes it harder for the opponents to find their fit at a low level - 1M or 1NT are so much harder to overcall than 1m. As for the 3 card raise of a potentially 4 card major this is also not really a problem. If you are playing a weak NT then the major suit will either be 5 cards long or you will have extra HCP so in either case there should be no problem in playing 2M. Eric

I see this sort of reply a lot. If you think it isn't right, why do you do it? I pass. Because I think it is right. Eric

Either make 2♣ GF or use 2♠ as support of ♥. Eric

I don't do it but lots of people at the club do. If I were to do it I would use a 5 point scale (near bottom, below average, average, above average, near top) rather than a ten point or twelve point scale. I don't see how anybody could tell the difference between a 70% and 80% board with any degree of certainty. Eric

It is not easy to get to 7♣ and now I have seen both hands I don't trust myself to give an honest auction. I am certain, however, that the correct response on West hand is 2♣ and not 2♥. There is no reason on a GF (nearly slam force!) hand to lie about your suit lengths. You should get to 6♣ at least after a start like 1♠ 2♣ 2♠ 3♥ Eric

On this hand you want partner to bid his longer major but bid ♥ if he has equal length . Making a Michael's cue-bid would allow you to do that, and that is the advatage of passing to begin with. In fact, passing and then bidding strongly makes it more likely that you will get to game when partner is weak but has fitting honours in your suit in that you will have shown precisely this sort of hand rather than, say, a random 5422 hand. Eric

South has been rather inconsistent IMO. He has passed originally but then forced to game despite his partner making minimum bids at each turn and there being no sign that the hands fit well. The fact that game, although far from laydown, isn't so bad on these hands (a quick sim shows that 3NT 4♥ or 4♠ each make on a reasonable proportion of hands) is due to North holding unexpectedly good cards in each of the suits (♠J, ♥9, great ♦, ♣Q instead of say ♣J8) . Eric

A striped-tale ape supposedly flees at the first sign of trouble. A stripe-tailed ape double is a double of a game contract when you think the opponents can actually make slam (as happpened on the quoted hand), because a doubled game plus two doubled overtricks scores less than a slam. However, if the opponents redouble, then the doubler runs "like a stripe-tailed ape" to the safety of his suit. This didn't happen here, so I presume the doubler wasn't making a Strip-tailed ape double after all! Eric

http://public.aci.on.ca/~zpetkov/CC/auken-vonarnim.pdf

Ron, can you explain why this is so? My impression is that this is the advantage of precision. People talk abou the flaw of precision in 2C, 2D opening. I have never heard of this claim before. I don't wish to pre-empt Ron's response as I am not a Strong Club player, but aren't these bids necessary in Precision because you open 5 card majors. So any weakness in them is as a result of trying to play a strong club with 5 card majors. Eric

Hi Eric, Compare these two: The singles in the second distribution make it not more probable, that an opponent has an single. [hv=n=sakjxxhaqxxdxckxx&s=sxxxxhxdakxxcaqxx]133|200|[/hv] [hv=n=sakjxxhaqxxdxckxx&s=sxxxxhxdakxxcaqxx]133|200|[/hv] Sincerly Al I agree with you, but this is not a counterexample to what I said. It doesn't matter how the cards are distributed between you and your partner's hand, the chances of a singleton are unaffected. This is what I meant when I said that the chance of a bad break doesn't change. But, if you have just seen your hand, then the presence of a singleton does affect the chances of a singleton in any other hand (in fact any distributional information about one hand affects various distributional likelihoods in the other hands). This isn't a useful piece of information from a bridge perspective, but I believe it is true nonetheless. Eric

You have asked two separate questions. The odds of a suit breaking badly are not affected by the presence or absence of a singleton in your hand. eg if you are missing 5 cards you will still get a 3-2 break 68% of the time. The odds of an opponent holding a singleton are affected by the presence of a singleton in your hand. This is because the presence of a singleton will tend to increase the length of your best fit with partner which in turn increases the chances that one of the opponents will be short in that suit. Eric

I've had no experience of using take out doubles with such a limited range. It seems that it will make life very difficult if there is a 1♠ overcall and third hand has 4♥ in a strong hand but has to start with a cue-bid. Of course, if the take out double were unlimited, it would again be easy as you could reproduce your unopposed auction (1♦ (1♥) X 3NT 6NT). Eric

South does have a meaningful bid - 1♠. If you would have reached the slam after 1♦ (P) 1♠ then there is no reason why you won't reach it after the ♥ intervention. If you wouldn't have reached it after that start, then I don't think you should expect to reach it after the intervention. However, if systemically 2♥ is the bid on the South hand, and if North can expect at least 12 points from partner, then he is too strong for 3NT and should bid 4NT instead. South with bolsters in ♥ & ♦ and controls in the outside suits will accept the try. Eric

My take on the bidding is as follows: The 1♣ opening looks normal. The 4♥ overcall is unusual. Much more defensive strength than one would normally expect. But it does apply pressure to the opps. The next two passes are obvious. North now does have a difficult decision. It looks right to bid something, but what? 5♣ is unilateral. Take out X risks a diamond bid or a pass from partner. 4♠ might be viewed as a 6-5 rather than a 7-4 hand so get incorrect preference. And pass is just caving in to the oressure put on by Opps. After 5♣, East should double IMO. To show he has a strong hand rather than a purely pre-emptive one. After 5♣ has been passed round to him, West guesses that the 5♥ sacrifice will be cheap. In his position I would have guessed that 6♣ is possibly on for the opps, so would have kept quiet. But then my partner's 4♥ would have shown a different sort of hand. Eric

Once North has raised the ♣, South should have bid 4♥ to offer an alternative place to play. North might also have bid 3NT instead of raising the ♣ Eric

To all the people who say they would have overcalled 1♠, would you still be saying that if the big fit happened to be in ♥? Eric