Polish Goalie

I can only agree with what has already been stated. If 3♦ shows 10+ the one bid I would never make is 4♠ , there is too much chance of driving them to slam. Personally I must admit a strong temptation for 3NT, but in practice I think 3♠ is best, followed by 4♠. If 3♦ is really preemptive then I bid a straight forward (law of TT) 4♠. As Hrothgar said, I don't think the director got this one right.

Unfortunately Pete doesn't have a computer (how can that be?) so you won't get to see it in action.

As noted, double is clear cut. No call is perfect; for examply you could end up on a 4-3 club fit that won't play all that well after 2 rounds of spades, while you miss a reasonable 5-3 heart fit, but you will avoid playing 2♥ doubled on a 5-1 or 2 fit. Way too much to pass; Michaels is out of the question with a 5-4 and intermediate values.

Actually my partner and I have played this for over 20 years (at least some version of it - it was constantly evolving for a while), with quite a bit of success. As to the problem of preemption over 1♣ ; for over calls thru 2♥ we use, basically, Fishbein for takeout and double for penalty. It's amazing how large the numbers can get when people are trying to screw us up. We have not played this in any national events, but have had success in regionals. Oddly enough our non club suit opening bids come up fairly often. We find that we can bid distributional slams very easily with this. We play mostly in the Pacific NW (USA) and have had a lot of success playing against some of the better players here. While neither my partner nor myself are at the top level of bridge (he has over 5000 MP's and I have about 2500 - I don't play much), we do advise that this system is 1) not for the faint of heart and 2) best kept to better players. For those of you who don't think much of it, well, when Pete and I first started playing it we didn't either. It really started out as a joke, but, much to our surprise, it seemed to work quite well so we started actually working on it, expanding from 3 handwritten pages to over 100 typewritten (w/ hand diagrams - probably only 40 or so pages without). One thing about this system; like most complex systems it allows no deviation, so when we bid we have what we say we do. Plus, it's a lot of fun to play; most of the time a find bridge pretty boring these days.

Would I have bid 1♠ without the overcall? Absolutely. WIll I bid 1♠ after the overcall? Absolutely. I don't need the ♥ Jack either time. I have Spades; it pays to bid, particularly when you have Spades. Passing and backing in is dangerous; you may (and often are against competent opponents) faced with a decision at the 3 or even 4 level on your next turn. Bidding now and hearing what partner has to say is invaluable in making a later decision.

I'm with DJNeill, and I opt for a trip to the bar.

I bid 2♥ at any form of scoring. My suit is reasonable and at least average as far a a lead indicator; my hand is above average and if I don't get in here I may never be able to.

I just found this site. Looks very interesting. I wanted to toss out a brief description of what I play with a longtime partner and hear your comments. Background info: At one time we put a lot of work into Romex and did quite well with it; became bored and played Breakthrough Club for a while; became bored and over a 20 year period developed what we now play. Open all 11 HCP hands. 1♣ = all 11-15 HCPs, other than ♥/♠ two suiters (2♣ for those). All suit bids are 16+ HCP, with a 4 card (or longer) suit (except diamonds may be 2+ cards). Our strongest (only forcing) bid is 1NT: either big distributional hand or very big balanced NT type hand. Almost all doubles are for penalty. NT response is game forcing. 2/1 is not forcing. There are a lot of other gadgets in the system. We have close to 100 pages of system notes. We have also had the system read by several directors (including national level) and all have agreed that it is 100% legal (if you were wondering) in ACBL events. Oh, yeah, we call our sysgem "Modified Polish." The very basic part of the system was designed in response to LOL's who play "1 club isn't forcing, but my partner never passes." The original Polish was just coming onto the scene as we were developing our system, so we sort of stole the name, since (technically) in our system 1♣ isn't forcing either.