Liversidge

Often the advice in references just says "23 HCP balanced or 9+ playing tricks". My partner and I have agreed 9 for majors, 10 for minors. Is that sensible? It seems logical (need to be within one trick of game)

That's where I am at as of now!

Really helpful, everyone. I now have a very different mindset. Until now I have had to resist the impulse to open 2♣ with 9 playing tricks in a minor or 8 PTs in a major holding AKQxxxx, but now have a better understanding about why, and can discuss it with partner. We need to spend more time studying modern Acol rebids - for example, the meaning (length and strength) of jump rebids after 1 level and 2 level response) that convey what I have been wanting to show with the 2♣ bid, but a lot more efficiently, allowing room for us to describe our hands at a low level. I hadn't fully appreciated that the 2♣ is not necessarily the exciting bid we should yearn for, but in some ways is a cautious bid to make sure that partner doesn't pass with 5 points when all I may need from him is one trick to make game. If I am two playing tricks short of game and he can't respond to my 1 level opening then it's less likely I would have made game anyway, so nothing lost by opening at the 1 level. I hadn't thought either about interference, where opps may be sacrificing and partner bids on thinking I have a better hand, or doubles, etc.. Plenty to think about still. Thanks again.

Swop the ♠J for the ♠Q and I have 9 playing tricks but only 15 HCP. I feel a bit stupid asking this as I know it would be a bad bid, but not why, so that I can explain to partner why it's not a good idea.

[hv=pc=n&s=sakjt987h96daq5c8]133|100[/hv] 1♠, 4♠, 2♣? We play 3 weak 2's. Advice appreciated on the pros and cons of each bid. It's a regularly debated topic at our club on hands like this- 7+ card major, not quite 9 playing tricks. I came across Namyats last week. Don't know if that's worthwhile enough to justify giving up the 4 level prempt in a minor. My agreement with my partner is that we require 9 playing tricks and 4 defensive tricks for a 2♣ opening, so we would open 1♠ here, thinking it's a bit strong for a preempt. Some good (by our local club standard) players open 2♣regularly with 8 playing tricks, a very good 6-7 card suit and 16 HCP+ , despite the fact that my references, including several posters on this board, advise against it. I wonder if it's because opps at our club level rarely compete after a 2♣ opening so they don't get pushed too high.

Got my Easts and Wests mixed up, and I had just got up (UK time)! Try again. East definitely has the K♥ - I can see seven hearts and he has the remaining six for his opening bid. Win the ♥A. Ruff a heart. Play ♣A and ♣K, and assuming that the clubs split 3-2 I am home dry. I think I can deal with a 4-1 club break: If West ruffs K♣ I overruff, back to ♦A and run the clubs. If East ruffs ♣K and leads back K♥ I ruff in hand and run the clubs - when West plays his ♣J I ruff it, return to hand with the ♦ and run the clubs. If East ruffs ♣K and plays a diamond I ruff in dummy and then back to ♦A and run the clubs. I can handle a 5-0 club break unless West is void in clubs and has the outstanding spade. If East is void and ruffs the ♣K then when I get back in I run the ♣1098 and overruff West's ♣, return to hand with ♦A or a heart ruff and run the remaining clubs. If West is void and East has the outstanding spade I can let East win the ♣J and win the reurn, taking out the last spade and making 5 clubs, ♦A, ♥A, a heart ruff and three further spades. Any better?

East did not lead a heart first round, so maybe he is void and West started with a poor 7 card heart suit. If East had one heart and it was the K♥ I think he would have led it, so I reckon West has the ♥K. If West has 7 hearts then he has at most four clubs. Win with the ♥A, cross to the A♣ and play the K♣. If East shows out then ruff a third club, ruff a heart and run out the clubs.

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Apologies. If you read the quote from Tramtickets post immediately above my comment you will see that I was responding (in bad grammar) to a Checkback question on whether partner and I would always rebid 1NT after opening 1C with 15-17 HCP and partner responded 1D. My intended meaning was that with a good four card major and a small doubleton "my rebid could well be in the major".

Maybe so, but not sure how you reckon that's going to help me. I am retired and have no desire to emigrate. I quite like my playing partner, and, even if I wanted to, I doubt very much if i could find a partner locally that plays strong and 5 card majors or would be willing to team up with me while we both start again from scratch. :huh:

Our 'book' says that we should not be hung up on always rebidding 1NT. If the major is a good one - eg KJ98, and a poor doubleton then rebid the major rather than 1NT. Good point. As I remember it, a 1 Spade opening bid will have 5 spades, or 4 spades & 15+ points, and ditto a 1 Heart opening 97% of the time, only exception being when 4441 with a club singleton. So with 5-8 points I would raise with 3 card support including one honour (AKQJ or 10), 6-9 HCP, and an outside doubleton rather than bid 1NT. I will remind partner of this (it is in our book!)

1any - 1any - 2NT shows 18-19 - not totally game forcing - can be passed with 6 points 1 any -2any - 2NT shows 15-19 game forcing The move to 15-17 for a 1NT rebid avoids the risky 3NT rebid by opener.

Apologies, Stephen, I had already take on board the advice you gave in your earlier post - it made a lot of sense and I should have acknowledged that in my last post. My thought is to propose to partner that, for the time being, we will both open 'up the line', and that responder will show the 4 card major in preference to a minor when weak, and if stronger then show the minor in preference to the major, followed by Checkback if opener rebids 1NT. We both know that Checkback should only be used with a reasonable probability of game. That way the change to his current methods is small, logical and easy to remember- "if as responder you are only strong enough for one free bid, prefer to show your major". It does mean me switching to opening in the minor, but in time I can work on persuading him to switch, as per our shared bidding reference books, so we are both working off the same hymn sheet. Hope that sounds like a reasonable approach.

That advice resonates strongly with me. My partner has played social bridge for many years, i have been playing for three years, beginning with Modern Acol, so we come from different starting points. Our ambition is to become really good players within our bridge community. Our play will get better with practice, but we can accelerate our bidding skills / understanding by reading / discussing / analysing hands that we could have played better. Quite a few of our opponents are a lot better than us, mostly because they have been in playing partnerships for many years. They have their own sets of conventions based on Acol (eg. Benji, weak 2's, Cansino, Standard Blackwood or Gerber), but mostly standard Acol, not Modern. Few if any play splinters, Jacoby 2NT, Michaels, negative double etc.. They tend to do well because they play the hands better, because they have been playing for many years. We each have a pair of books on Acol by the same author, one on uncontested auctions, one on contested auctions, and we have gradually been converging our methods to so that now most of what we play is what's in the books. For example, partner didn't realise that 1S - 2H guarantees five hearts, or why. And we have moved from a 1NT showing 15-16 to 15-17, and why (1any - 1any - 2NT rebid after a one level response is game forcing). And we have added other devices such as inverted minors after 1D - 3D -3NT went off, and super accepts after transfers. We play splinters, negative doubles, exit Transfers, Landy and more. The most recent addition was checkback Stayman after 1m-1M, which we like - we have used it twice. I have often checked ideas out on BBO before suggesting them to partner, and have had some really valuable responses (in amongst some where I have no idea what the poster is talking about - way over my head!!). Last week, when I saw partner opening 1C with four weak clubs and four good spades, I realised that this is an area where we have not yet 'converged'. He still bids up the line as he has done for many years, but will rebid 1NT with a balanced 15-17 hand. Rather than address that whole area just now, I wondered whether we could just tweak Checkback to include 1m - 1m -1NT. Hence my question on BBO. The responses have been interesting and much appreciated. Posters have put a lot of time into their responses / advice. Unfortunatley much of it has not been very helpful in answering my question. I have been trying to follow it by googling Walsh, Drury, NMF, New Major Forcing, 5 card majors, and more, and generally feeling that partner and I were, like everyone else at our clubs (and the UK) playing an inferior system, and were referring to sources from authors we trusted but are now beginning to doubt. After a good night's sleep, my conclusion is that we will stick with what we have got, and add to it as and when we think it is useful and we can absorb it. I will suggest to partner that we add 1m - 1m - 1NT to our CBS, since I have not read anything that suggests it is a bad idea, and we will 'suck it and see'

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If that is correct then it would make my question redundant, but surely 1C - 1D - 1NT - 2S is a responder's reverse showing 12+ points Forcing. All my Acol resources (EBU file, Klinger etc.) say so.

If partner has Kxxx xxx KQJxx x, and I have four spades and 15-17, then in our system partner would respond 1D and I would rebid 1NT, giving preference to showing shape and strength.

So, referring back to my first post: playing Modern Acol, 4 card majors etc., if partner insists on opening in the minor, and the bidding goes 1C - 1D - 1NT, can we use 2C as Checkback, just like we do with 1m - 1M - 1NT? I can't see why not, but don't want to extend our current understanding on Checkback if there is a good reason not to. If responder is 5-4 mM it allows discovery of a major fit if there is one.

The arguments Robson, Klinger et all give for opening the major with 4432 and 15-17 HCP seem very logical, at least in an uncontested auction. The main thrust is that on your rebid your No1 objective should usually be to show your strength and shape. If you open in the minor then your rebid either hides your major or hides your balanced 15-17. If you open the major you can show both by rebidding 2NT. 1S - 2H guarantees five hearts so an 8 card fit in the major is never missed. I am sure there are counter arguments but I need to start somewhere in getting some underpinning understanding. As for the low calibre of most English Acol players, and authors dumbing down to acommodate it, isn't there a danger in advocating opening in the minor when they are unlikely to have the additional systems/in depth understanding to make the most of it, such as some of the posters here have suggested. I only know one pair that play 5 card majors Acol in the three small clubs I play at, and I am sure noone will have heard of NMF (I googled to find it) or Walsh style or the wide ranging strong No Trump. My partner certainly won't. If we are almost all playing straightforward Acol with 4 card majors in the 'English' style it would be helpful to a novice/beginner to know whether opening the minor is better than the major without having to make a lot of other tweaks to accommodate it, which is where I started with my OP.

The EBU system file has a 'Foundation level Standard English' section and the Modern Acol section that is for more advanced players. Both advocate opening a 4 card major rather than a minor, so it's not just for beginners.

As a beginner I hesitate to say it, but I find that hard to believe. Andrew Robson advocates opening the higher ranking of two four card suits except with hearts and spades. So does the EBU Modern Acol System File 2014, Ron Klinger, and every other modern Acol source I can lay my hands on. Maybe that explains why bidding knowledge of UK players is so low, all our experts are giving us bad advice.

I am sure partner would rather miss the occasional major fit than agree to give up Acol! Is there anything wrong with 1C - 1D - 1NT - 2C asking partner to bid a 4 card major if he has one? Should this sequence be retained for a delayed club support bid?

My partner and I play Acol and have started playing Checkback Stayman. Up to now we have played it with this sequence: 1m - 1M - 1NT - 2C Last week partner opened 1C, I replied 1D and he then bid 1NT with 17 HCP, 4234. He had C Jxxx and S KQ95. Until then I had assumed you always open the major to ensure you don't miss a major fit, but responder bids up the line. Partner said he always bids up the line when opening. He is the senior partner so I am willing (reluctantly) to go along with that, but don't want to miss a major fit in doing so. Is there any reason why we can't use Checkback with 1m - 1m - 1NT - 2C? I can't see why not but when I look it up the examples are always 1m - 1M - 1NT, which makes me wonder.

Now I am confused! I said we use inverted minors where responder bids 2 ♦ with 10+ points and opener can start cue bidding for stops at the 2 level. That's not the position with the hand I quoted. Playing inverted minors my partner would have responded 3♦ with 6-9 points, but now cue bidding would have to start at the 3 level, and I was asking if it was still a good idea. Several posters have said they would prefer to blast 3NT rather than cue bid and end up in 3NT with the strong hand on the table or in 4♦ having telegraphed weakness. I think it was a reasonable question and I got what I reckon is good advice.

Do you mean that the response system I have described is called 'Roth', presumably after Alvin Roth? Could you point me to a link please. Thanks