msjennifer

I wonder why you wanted to ask any question to your partner(dummy) as that hand was going to be put down in a second.If you wanted to know if your partner plays Jacoby or not could have asked after the deal.As per the rules Dummy has to keep quiet during the play of the deal.Dummy may call the director only if his proprietary rights are being violated ( for example opponents forbid him from seeing a card played to a trick although his card is still face up.)Since you were the declarer you could have waited till the dummy was spread when you would have seen it all.Senior partners are likely to feel irritated.In general once the bidding is over none of the players may not utter a word till the end if the deal is normally played.Any one of course may ask to see cards played to the trick if his card is still face up.Also if one wishes to reject any claim or to make a claim oneself.Dummy may point out any irregularity e.g. a revoke only to the director when all 52 cards have been played.

I wonder why you wanted to ask any question to your partner(dummy) as that hand was going to be put down in a second.If you wanted to know if your partner plays Jacoby or not could have asked after the deal.As per the rules Dummy has to keep quiet during the play of the deal.Dummy may call the director only if his proprietary rights are being violated ( for example opponents forbid him from seeing a card played to a trick although his card is still face up.)Since you were the declarer you could have waited till the dummy was spread when you would have seen it all.Senior partners are likely to feel irritated.In general once the bidding is over none of the players may utter a word till the end if the deal is normally played.Any one of course may ask to see cards played to the trick if his card is still face up.Also if they wish to reject any claim or to make a claim oneself.Dummy may point out any irregularity e.g. a revoke only to the director when all 52 cards have been played.

There are two views to be taken into consideration when giving raises in the major suit. (1)Constructive raises .(2) Preemptive raises. Personally,We play the constructive raises by using the LTC.So a single raise is given holding Nine losers with 3/4 card support.A 7 loser hand is presumed to be held by opener.HCP are not given importance.A double raise is given holding 8 losers and with 7 losers and no good 5 card suit a raise to the game is given.For a single raise xxx support is enough and for a double raise at least Qxx or xxxx is guaranteed support.Since this is a natural bidding forum I have not mentioned gadgets like BERGEN raises.I shall give only one frivolous example of preemptive raise playing Precision,an artificial system wherein 1H/S is a 11-15 opening.Partner opened 1S and I held Jxxxxx-VOID-Jxx-xxxx.When RHO passed I bid 4S knowing fully well that opponents are holding game zone hands.This hand has 8 losers but only 2 HCP. The result was shocking ! LHO doubled holding 20 HCP and hold your breath AKQ1086 of SPADES..RHO took it as a TOD and the rest is not worth describing.Partner had psyched.

SIR,so perhaps you will agree that it is worthwhile to show the second round control in D AND the Spade Ace in a single bid of 4S the way WE do. I fully admit that not any of the other colleagues will agree with these bids and the justification therein neither shall I advice anyone to play our way.The splinter bid and the MINIMUM values required for it can vary from person to person and hence the discussion.A nice illustrative hand for this particular column.

I feel if as a responder I hold KQx-Axxxx-Axxx-x even a grand is possible if opener holds Axx-KQxxx-x-Axxx. Even holding Kxx-Axxxx-Axxx-x over 4S I will not mind showing the D ACE by a bid of 5D.. Make the SQ a small one and little slam is still on.( 12 opposite 11) with the present hand. Let me await to see the responders actual hand.

sry for duplicate post [

sry for the duplicate post

Is not Kxx-Axxxx-Axxx-x. sufficient for 6h ?'l

We play splinter bids which guarantees either a 4Card support headed by at least 2of the 4top honors or a 5card support headed by the Ace or King. No outside 5plus card suit headed by 2 of the top three honors and (for the HCP lovers) 13 plus HCP and a singleton in the named suit.We think that this method as described in Super Precision is a better one and more informative.And since we play SST and LST we don't feel the need to make splinter bids for lead direction or just to preempt opponents when we are not holding hands fitting the restrictions described above..

As I voted for "OTHER" ,I have to explain that.We play cue bids with a fitting hand .As the splinter guarantees a. control in clubs my bid is 4Spade ,which is not a kickback as has been given in the provided options.Our 4S bid In the present situation guarantees a SECOND round control in Diamonds and the Ace of Spades.Of course,it denies the DA..Lacking a control in diamonds I would have bid 4H.And with a first round control in diamonds my bid would be 4D.And most certainly when partner is willing to play in 4H opposite a 7 loser hand I certainly do not mind playing in 5H to express that I have 6or less losers(In my hand there are six losers.) By the way, we count the losers and see the shape of the hand and NOT the HCP.The presence of a 5 card club suit headed by the Ace is an unannounced value.

An easy PASS.Can not visualise a game as partner did not find even an overcall at one level.

My Grand daddy, playing, in a team event way back in 1968, with a palooka partner and against experts, held a 7-6 two suited hand in Spades and Clubs.He lost 4600 points on the deal,Surprised ?.His RHO opened 1D and Grand Dad overcalled 1S as they had no gadgets then and never made a TOD with double suited hands.His LHO bid 2H ,partner passed and RHO bid 4NT(Simple Blackwood).Grand Dad bid 5NT suggesting a sacrifice in S/C.His LHO doubled and Partner and RHO both passed. Grand Dad REDOUBLED,in order to wake up his partner.To his utter dismay this went ALL PASS. Partner held Jxxx of Club and 7C would have been an excellent sacrifice against 6H which the counterparts bid and made .(7H would have been one short).So much so for gadgets !

Some questions arise in my mind. 1)Can not be the third hand 1D opening be a minimal one and prepared one ? 2)if I pass now will I get a chance to express my values again and even so, will my partner presume as many values ? 3) Will he not be at a disadvantage in finding out the correct defence if opponents buy the contract. S-QJxx-D-K1098 AND C-Kxxxx are good nine HCP. After an intervention, we,after having passed once, raise partners overcall with xx if there are useful cards outside.If one bids a NT now partner will take us for at most a singleton card in his suit and act accordingly.I consider myself an aggressive bidder and hence my bid will be 1NO TRUMP and not a negative double or PASS.This bid will ,I feel, express my hand well enough.Would one PASS if RHO had passed ? BY THE WAY our overcalls may be any where between 8 to 15 HCP and hence this hand warrants an appropriate bid from me ( with 8 or more HCP.).

The HCP point count is a very CRUDE method.The potential of a hand NEVER depends on the HCP count but upon where they are located distributed or concentrated.Whether one has support for openers suit or not.e.g with 5 points and pard opens 1S and one holds Qxxx,-Kxx-xxxx-xx.0ne supports by bidding 2S. Lets change the hand and make it Jx-Jxx-Qxxx-Jxxx and pard is a stranger,then one will PASS .If the 5 points are say,VOID-KQ10987654-xx-xx the same KQ i.e. 5 HCP suddenly become a Samson.There are quite a few books written on this topic which one can obtain and improve.One can not explain it with full justice in a column like this.

Very well said,SIR.

The 'PRECISION' system of bidding was formulated by C C WEI and became quite popular amongst the young and ambitious old players in the seventies.Later GOREN wrote his version of that.ANDERSON wrote Power Precision.BELADONNA AND GAROZZO wrote the SUPER PRECISION.Lastly an anonymous author wrote BLUE PRECISION SYSTEM ,a system which incorporated some features of the Italian Blue Club system in the basics of precision system so that one could open in a FOUR card major and bid the FIVE card minor next round the CANAPE style.The Super Precision system is a very aggressive system and one must not deviate from the principles described therein..The four card major Blue Precision system makes it a joy to play with the forcing 1NT reply ,which may have 6 to14 HCP.TO shorten my note,AKxx-AKJx-xx-xxx is opened ONE SPADE and not 1 NT although the 1NT range is 13/15.I can go on and on.I very much like the Precision system and will always prefer it to any standard system which I also like very much.

Sir,I wholeheartedly agree.I n fact such clubs should not only discourage the new applicants but ban them by putting a mandatory condition 'Apply only if you agree to play the system which others play in this club'

SIR,Thanks a lot for your valued comments .I shall certainly give them a try. HOWEVER, I am a ,what many would call , BOOKWORM.I do not deviate from the logics put therein as it would amount to insulting those experts.And truthfully following those have always helped me in that partner can not blame me.for making any fancy bids .However,there is no harm in trying after prior agreements.To give a paradoxical example.many players in our local sessions open a hand freely holding QJx-QJx-QJx-QJxx as 1 Club. They justify that by pointing out that they have 12 HCP which is 2HCP more than the arithmetical average of 10 HCP.

Sir,we count the losers ONLY IF A. SUIT FIT IS FOUND and not otherwise where we use the HCP count. There is no\thing for holding all four acesI shall never open this hand.There are no 2 and half defensive tricks.It does not have a five carder suit.IT has only 2 controls.We count the losers asany missing A,K,Q in a suit.Qxx in any suit is counted as two and half losers but QJx is counted as 2 losers..The hand described by you has seven and half losers as Qxxx is counted as 2 losers. but only if a suit fit is found These guide lines are based upon the books written on the losing tricks count by experts.It is beyond my capacity to deviate from them.Fore a beginner or novice it is enough to remember Qxx as only two losers.i would like to present a real life hand which helped us win a tournament. pard held Qxxx-AQxxx-void-10542 .over RHO'S WEAK 13/115 NT he bid 2C ,LANDY,IF a fit is found then this hand has 6 losers.I .his partner, passed holding x,-xx-xxxx-AKQxxx.His RHO bid 2D and partner raised to 3C knowing fully well that I held a 6 card club suit and 9 presumed losers for my pass.Since I had only 6 losers I bid 5C over my RHO'S 4S.which was doubled and made with one overtrick.18 minus 6 minus 6 =6.in another instance I held xxx,Qxxx,Qxx,Qxx.Pard opened one heart which I raised to 2h.MY pard bid 2NT,a SST showing a singleton spade and and 6 loser hand requesting me to bid 4h with any three of the three donors in outside suits.we made it very comfortably.Pardon me but I humbly and sincerely,did not want to give the details, which can be had in any books on LTT.SST and LST as the column is for novices and beginners..,neither do I advise anyone to use these gadgets.Also the losers count changes as per opponents intervening bids.

After a suit fit is found we use the LTC.At first we presume that 1S bid has been made on 9 losers.The given hand has 6 losers.Hence our bid is 18 minus nine minus 6 equal to three, so 3 spade.If responder has 8 losers he bids 4S and is free to proceed to investigate slam with less losers as his hand warrants, using RKCB or cue bids or whatever.We do not pay any heed to HCP after a fit has been found.Since this is a beginners and others column still I need not mention that a combined 5HCP MAY make a Grand Slam in any SUIT and most consideration be given to the number vof losers and not necessarily the HCP when a fit is discovered.Wild distributions of cards with the opponents may defeat this method but then it can happen with ANY of the other approaches.HCP plus length in a suits comes into play in NT contracts.But even therein does not Axx-Ax-Ax-AKQJ109 that is 22 HCP opposite zero HCP produce a cold 3NT when the books say 25/26 HCP are required ? /

An easy PASS for me.Partners overcall may be based on xx-xx-AKQxxx-Kxx

It is lightheartedly said that in Bridge one has two opponents and sometimes three.I would overlightheartedly say FOUR as the fourth is oneself.

Sorry.Duplicate post !

This hand has NINE losers.It does not satisfy the rule of twenty either.Opponents may discover and play in an easy makable 2H/S contract.Accordingly.an easy ALL PASS.INTERCHANGE spades and diamonds and I shall just consider ,but only just, to open 1 spade.

Once a suit fit has been found we use the LTC..Here Openers hand is a 6 losers hand and we show that by bidding 4C.With a 7 losers hand,responder will sign off in 4S.Here the responder has 6 losers but No control in diamonds and he will bid 4H showing a 6Losers hand lacking a D control.Opener having that shall bid 6C.I know that this method may be crude but we have found it to be very satisfactory.