MickyB

Soon after I started playing, I started playing a system with no strong bid - 2C and 2D both showed that minor and a major. My thoughts on it now are - The preempts don't gain as much as you think they do When you have a GF hand, you are definitely disadvantaged When you have a "normal" strong hand, you are slightly disadvantaged Once you are better than most of your opposition, you don't want to randomise

3♥ is clear, 2♥ shows a poor hand playing Acol because it will get passed by balanced 16-counts. Bidding 1♠ is ridiculous, pard will never expect so many trumps from you.

Not as good as Polish Club - the whole point is that the 1♣ opening should "show" a weak no-trump.

When I held this, Andrew Robson was declarer. I led the JS, giving him a problem at trick one - [hv=d=e&w=saxhakxxdaqjxxckx&e=sqxxhxxdcqjtxxxxx]266|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] He went up with the AS and took the ruffing diamond finesse. Forrester led the KD at the other table, which made me think I'd done the "wrong" thing B)

Yes, the sim results say, all else being equal, that you want to be in 4M when you are 4333; However, all else isn't equal. By Staymaning, you are giving away info on hands where you'll always land up in 3NT; It's also quite possible that double-dummy analysis is biased against 3NT, where the opening lead is probably more important.

[hv=d=e&v=b&s=skjt974hj842dk6c7]133|100|Scoring: IMP 4♣-P-6♣-AP, your choice?[/hv]

Fourth-suit forcing. Game-force with no good bid. I wont yield to the "Pattern-out-crowd" on this one. I presume from the description of 2♦ as "NMF" that it doesn't show diamonds. How can you bid fourth-suit forcing when only two suits have so far been shown?

Ditto Josh, plus stronger hands will be less likely to use Stayman - I'd just bid 3NT on a 4432 with Qx and 13+.

The match I played on vugraph this weekend (match 10 of the Premier League, Saturday morning) was unfortunately saved over when the following match was given the same name! Is there anyone who watched the "real" match 10 (Byrne vs Muller) but not the "fake" match 10 (Hackett vs De Botton)? If so, you may still have the file intact on your computer! Thanks

My number of HCP plus the length of my two longest suits is greater than 15, so I have to open. Think this is a bit good for 3♣, could be persuaded that it shouldn't be, though.

By "early", you mean two years ago :blink:

takes 6 shuffles to randomize the cards, doesn't it? Yup - so six rounds would be needed to determine a winner in a field of 52, but only five in a field of half that size.

You don't want to know those four players' opinion of weak NT and four-card majors...at any form of scoring :P

Here, have this to sit while you wait for that hand to come up: Hehe yeah, hands that are good enough to reverse are just so rare, I think I held one once. You have to bear in mind that, for most hands that are actually good enough to reverse, Whereagles has already opened 2♣ :P Oh yeah, the hand - I'd bid 1D then 2D. Don't mind the 2C rebid. Having rebid 2C, making another move over 2D is ridiculous, game is so anti-percentage at this point. I consider a 2H continuation over 2D to be natural NF.

Impossible to answer without knowing how many chips everyone started with - I'll have a go at answering with that. Edit: Basically, there are two types of "right" thing to do - relating to chip EV and $ EV. You've been given the chip EV answer, but as you've already worked out, it's not as clear as that - to maximise $ EV, you should usually be averse to risking chips for small positive amounts of chip EV.

Aha - does this involve the lesser-spotted "Half-Walsh", where you need to bypass diamonds to bid spades but not hearts? :)

4♠, fairly close, most of the time it will be on a finesse but think it will be cold more often than it is very poor. 3♠ seems plenty - wastage in oppo's suit = partner is minimum. Shame I'm not vul, more likely to catch a MP double otherwise.

I consider strong NT and four-card majors to be much better at MP than IMPs - very important to be able to find your 4-4 and 4-3 major suit part-scores at MPs, where +110 can be much better than +90. For game and slam bidding, on the other hand, you are better off playing five-card majors, which is more important at IMPs. Weak NT and four-card majors, on the other hand, has little to commend it at either form of scoring.

I thought the original question was more interesting, can you uncorrect it please?

Holland/Armstrong butlered very well in the Europeans just before JA's untimely death a few months back - but there haven't been many others. In the Premier League, basically the England open trials, there are sixteen teams of 4-6 players. There are four pairs that I know to be playing Acol weak no-trump, and another couple who might be - so not a great proportion. One of these is Holland/Brunner who are carrying all before them so far!

Yes, I think mine would be. There are a lot of hands where partner would have bid 5H over 4S, safe in the knowledge that we have five, but would not have bid 5C opposite a 1C opening with the same hand with his hearts and clubs reversed. This doesn't have to be enough to tip the balance; But, for me, I think it would be.

What do you mean by playable? If your 2-openings make you lose 10 IMPs on average on a 64 board match compared to standard 2-openings, are they playable? No. 10 imps per 64 boards is quite a lot, I'd be surprised if you'd lose more than that from (one pair of a team) playing no 2D/H/S openings.

If you consider this hand too strong to bid 2H, then it's (in part) because you are happy to be in game opposite 15-16 balanced. If pard bids 2S, we go back to 3H, and he'll know what to do from there. As I said before, it's a slight overevaluation of the hand, but still - not ridiculous.

If that's the case, why not start with a double instead? Intending to raise 2H to three.

2♥ - not quite good enough to double.