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As dealer You holds [hv=s=saxha10xdkj10xcqjxx]133|100|[/hv] 1NT-2♦ 2♥-3♦ I'll tell you my thoughts you tell me yours... 6♦ would be better then 6♥ so you might want to bid 3♠ showing support. On the other hand, if partner is intrested in game only 4♥ is your spot and maybe you should bid the "obvious" 3♥. Soppose you bid 3♥ and see partner going for a slam you can jump to 6♦ and hope for good. If instead you bid 3♠ showing support for ♦ then if partner bid 3NT you are fine now because 4♥ must show fit and not a cue. If on 3♠ partner bid 4♣ or 4♦ then 4♥ would probebly be a cue (is it ?) but maybe its just fine because if he cue we like slam the ♦ slam. So ill go for 3♠, agree ?

As a previos victim of the autoboot system when i did nothing wrong (not a single thing) i really understand how fastrating this can be and atleast for me it was a feeling of being beatared by the BBO which i care alot for. I dont think you can always get a yellow to solve this, atleast not for me. Not sure it can be fix but it feels really bad when it happend.

Its ok to think of slam here but not to go over 4♥. The idea of showing your void is good, maybe you can agree on doing it in another way, maybe 3NT ? Btw did i mention that I fought the law is imo the worse bridge book ever writen?

I double 3NT need extra from partner which is he isnt likely to have. Pass is intreting but its probebly wrong with none vul mp.

Play money with gib ;) One solution is to find people that you have fun playing with and try to play mostly with them. I admite that I'm one of those who will usually not accpet intermidietes at my table. I know many advances or experts that i accept are accpet could be intermidietes or even beginners but i still believe on avarage those who claim to be experts are better then those who claim to be intermidiates.

I find his view quite cynical, and I agree playing with this frame of mind would not even be fun. I have played a strong club on and off at bridge tournaments for nearly a decade and been psyched against in person once or twice I think. This does not make me feel like I require some system change to guard against it. I can remember no times that I believe there was a disclosure error. Online of course it has happened much more, but I don't care about that anyway. Bridgewise, I think it's fairly ridiculous to play a pass is forcing on opener after an overcall on the 1 level or 2 level. Aside from the fact that you are then really inviting them to psych you (all they would have to do is hit opener's suit to escape home free since he has to bid notrump it sounds like) your best result will very often be to pass it out. Even after a strong club it may be the opponents' hand, or they may simply have made a mistake overcalling and go down a few undoubled. When you are 2344 'strong notrump' and it goes (2♥) p p back to you why in the world would you want to bid? Your idea about forcing pass seems to make sense, but i agree with richard on being ready for psyches. Yesterday i held something like: AJXXXXX AX AKQ10 X RHO Passed as dealer and i bid 1♣ LHO bid 1♠. They were non vul and i thought its likely that he psyched, also unlike many cases where the psych just get you to an ok 3NT instead 4S, this time it felt like it can really kill a 6S for us. The result was nice, we made 7C (partner had a solid 7 cards but i declarered it ;)) . It turned out that he really had 5 spades, but still it would have been nice to be able to show my suit. I dont blame them for cheating just that when im favorite to own the hand it might be better to bid what i have and ignore thier bid.

Hi everyone We play 1♣ strong. 16+, 17 if bal, 20 if 5+♥. Im not how good are our agrements over overcalls 1♠ and above. We play transfers showing 6+ hcp, our doulbe shows bal 7+ and transfer to thier suit shows a 3 suiter hand. I checked some ccs of experts and saw that they doesnt use this, they use something like suit = nat GF, double = any 5-7. How do you use it ? Also we play doubles as bal penalty oriented every time the doubler is behind the overcaller for example 1♣ - P - 1♦neg - 1♠ double here would be penalty oriented showing bal with some extra. I saw that others play most doubles are t.o untill they reach GF. Do you play forcing passes at low level for example 1♣ - P - 1♦neg - 1♠ can this be passed out ? We are pertty new to strong club and need any info regarding competiting over it so thanks in advance to all the respoders.

Thanks everyone for your responses. This board was played by us yesterday, partner has thought over 3♠ it was behind screens but they say it still counts, i doubled the 3S, the director took the double off. Today we had a commity on this board which decided to give us a score in the middle of what we achived at the table and the 100 the director gave us and we are ok with it. This is so far my most succesful tournament ever we are in third place and but have still some of the strongest pairs to play against. With some luck and good play you might see me on vugrufh 2 weeks from now. We are new to strong club, and our competitve agrements are far from solid hope to learn more about it till the next round.

It is defined as penalty oriented, but my logic (and my partner) is that since our 1C showed 16+ (17 when bal) you wont make another move with a min. This is hat david_c define as the default hand, his defaul hand is 17-18 bal, and with that hand he should pass, imo even if he got KQ10X♥ and 18 hcp he would have passed.

You are playing a strong club system in a strong field against strong opponenets. You hold: [hv=s=sxxxhkjdqxxc10xxxx]133|100|[/hv] the bidding goes: (parnter bid first) 1♣-1NT*-P-2♥ Dbl -2♠-P-3♠ P - P - ??? 1♣ = 16+ but if bal its 17+ and if 5♥s its 20+ 1NT = either ♠ and ♦ or ♣ and ♥ 2♥ = pass or correct. Dbl = expained as points, penaltish see also our 1♣ definition/ 3♠ = not invite. You might have bid before,all doubles show penaltish hands and the first double is defined as 7+ bal. Im intrested in wather you would have act before and how but more intrest in whather you double now or pass the 3♠ ? Thanks in advance to those who answer.

When you get to a unknown situation you got to think of all the important options and forget your hand for a while. Now 2NT 3♦, what is important here ? clearly showing a major suit is important, how will you show the major suit ? suppose you will use transfers 3♥ will show ♠ and how will you show ♥ ? so the transfer way is not good, then we use natural.

We play mini splinters on 1♠. Our idea is that mix raises hands are more important then weak hands but bidding somethig like 3♠ as a mix raise doesnt help because a mix hand is many times a shapy hand and not knowing the shape opener is just guessing. We even had to give up our premptive raise for this and we use 1♠-3♠ as a ♣ shortage (3♣ is needed elsewhere)

Strange for me to see so many that always lead thier longest suit, i remember free telling us that leading from 4 card is many times better then leading your 4 card (i didnt agree) and i saw an article about it by luis who claim to check it with a computer and find out that with a weak hand leading from 3 card is better then leading from 4 cards.

I think the J of spade both.

I dont care for the name, and i dont think it should be penalty so it show the forth suit and a tolerance to partner suit.

This is a matter of style and i know experts who play both of these style. 1. supprt when you have a 4 card, this doesnt show any extra. 2. any bid including support show extra and therefore without it you pass, this mean that partner even with a 4 card suit should protect you by bidding 2♥ himself if the bidding passed to him. I have no preference but i think many more play the first way so either agree on this or if you dont, assume 1.

Hi bhall, thanks for sharing I have two questions How did you come up with this system and decided to play it in such a serious event ? and how do you handle something like 1♥ -2♠ - P - P How much does opener need to reopen and can he distiguege between 5M and 4M hands ? Thanks in advance

I read it and see your point, but since they took out the 1 suiter and balanced hands from the 1M keeping it for 2 suiter only it might give them some advances maybe big enough to make it work well.

I like it very much, its very, judging it by davidc's ideas i think the one bid hands and the two bid hands both works very well.

On a previous thread Ken asked about this sequence 1♠-P-1NT!-2♥ 2♠-P-P-3♥ X? Most of the good players said its show an offensive hand, something like i want to bid 3♠ unless you insist of doubling them. I wonder if you can give some rules/guidlines to when this type of double apply. Could it happend above our 3 in our suit ? There was a discussion about this sequence in another forum 1♣-1♠-2♥-p 2NT- 3♠- D? Does the double here show nice diffence or could it be an offensive hand that just not sure what the contrct is and want partner to pass the double only with very diffensive hand ? I know there is no consensus but Im intrested in this new (to me) offensive aproach.

Fred all you said is true about play but not about bidding. Yes it effects the bidding too but the main problem about bidding is the programmers misdefining bidding situations, those usually leads to funny -1100 or more . Personally i no longer have a problem with it because i played lots of money already and i know more then most of my opponenents how to handle gib (not that the crazy bids never hit me) and on the long run i win more from gib mistakes (or bugs) then i lose from it.

Hi Tyler As i was the one who took your money here i should tell you that on bidding gib makes lots of mistakes much worse then this one. However since you are a good player you will win on the long run sometimes due to those stupid mistakes.

Josh's point is that it doesn't make sense to split hairs after a certain point. 1♠-3♦ bergen shows a 4-card limit raise. 1♠-3♣ Bergen shows a 4-card constructive (slightly worse than limit) raise. Since responder has two options here when he chooses the limit raise he is shoiwng a very narrow range of hands. It just doesnt make sense to systemically have a invitation opposite something that is already a 2-point range or less. If the range you use is small enough that you need a slam try more then a game try then i suggest you make the range larger. As in any game try you can use it for slam try. Anyway i didnt say its obviously better to play it as a game try, i know many people dont like game tries, i only said its not an expert tool, its intermidiate tool.

In standard 2M is GF. With min bal you should bid 2NT and with unbalance bid 2D. Not showign your 4 card M isnt a problem since with 10-11 5m4M partner suppose to bid the M so if he got 4M he is 12+ and can bid 3M over 2NT. The problem is that if 2NT shows 12-14 responder with 11-12 hcp will have to guess wather he should pass or bid 3NT.

I wouldnt open this but you can if you want. Your second bid should be supprt double. Your third bid should be 2♥ and not 2NT.