GrahamJson

I wish I shared your confidence in BBO taking action. In the past I have made several reports of players cheating with little evidence that there has been any action taken. Perhaps this is because the cheating took place in casual play, not tournaments. Incidentally one person whom I have reported several times previously I see is still up to his tricks. He always plays with the same partner, who is almost certainly the same player logged in twice. And there can be no question of him/them cheating. Over the last month they have played 900 imp hands with an average score of 6.36 imps per board. Of the 900 boards only 24 have a negative score greater then one imp. One example of their cheating is one board where one overcalls 4S on 1073 AKJ6 J10972 7 then finds partner (who had passed throughout) with AJ9642 Q5 K63 98. 4SX then rolls home when both spade honours and QD are all onside.

I like to have the best of all worlds so with my regular partner we play multi 2 ♦ together with a form of Tartan Twos for the majors. So:- 2♣ is the traditional strong bid, usually balanced or semi balanced. 2♦ is a weak major, strong minor or balanced 20-22 2♥/♠are either weak 5-5 Mm hands or Acol Two with the bid major 2NT is a weak minor two suitor It would be good to use the 2NT opener as it is in the Little Major system; a minor suit pre-empt or a strong minor two suitor. Unfortunately this method isn't licensed here.

It seems to me that pass followed by a 2 suited overcall on the second round (assuming that is a possibility) describes this hand perfectly (5-5 or better, little defense). That being so why make an opening bid that will almost inevitably lead to you having to miss-describe your hand on the next round? Also, even if your opening of 1H or 1C finds a fit with partner it won't necessarily work out well. Suppose, for example, opponents save over your 4H contract and partner doubles. How confident would you be in letting it stand? Yet pulling to 5H could turn a big plus into a minus. If you had passed originally then you can let the double stand with a clear conscious.

If you need to ask this question then the answer is 2C. The style in which you always respond in the major is fine, but only if you have detailed agreements. Suppose the bidding goes 1H-1S-2H-3C. Planning traditional methods opener can be sure of at least five spades opposite, making the rest of the bidding easier. With Mafia style how does opener know the relative suit lengths and hence where best to play? Experienced partnerships will have this sorted, but it perhaps requires a lot of effort that might be better expended in other areas.

What’s wrong with 2C-2H-3S-7S?

3 of a minor I meant.

3 of a minor I meant.

I prefer a flexible style of response where 2D is negative but could have fair values if a positive response looks like it would take you too high too quickly. This tends to mean that a 2H response can be made on very limited values whilst 2 of a minor requires a good hand.(unless you have an easy rebid over openers rebid).

Taking the finesse gains when S holds Kx in hearts, playing ace and another gains when north has Kx. In all other cases it doesn’t make any difference. My inclination would be to take the finesse as north is more likely to lead a singleton when holding three small trumps than Kx. Also a successful finesse gives you an overtrick, which may be worth something, especially at MP.

Curiously nobody has suggested opening one of the major. That seems to be the modern Acol style.

To my way of thinking the situation is as follows: it’s an individual event so, unless the opponents happen by coincidence to be regular partners, there is no partnership agreement so nothing to disclose. Actually, even if they were a regular partnership I’d be very surprised if they had an agreement that covered this situation, other than general principles (e.g. “over a strong 1C we bid immediately on weak hands but pass and come in later on strong hands”). As to what the bid does mean, my guess would be a strong two suiter. With a weak two suiter you would bid immediately over 2C (probably), with a three suiter you would double 2S and with a single suiter you’d just bid the suit.

I prefer a1NT rebid, although I agree 2NT is also reasonable. So how about 1C-1D-1S-1NT-2D-4D-5D or 1C-1D-1S-2NT-3D-4D-5D?

I think west may have a legitimate gripe. At our club it is normal to state your methods briefly at the start of each round. In this case the summary should include “transfer responses to 1C”. This gives oppo a chance to agree a simple defense (e.g “double is takeout of the suit shown” or whatever). It’s all very well alerting bids such as this, but unless oppo have an agreed defense this doesn’t necessarily help a lot. Of course you can’t go through your entire system, but should certainly highlight artificial bids that come up frequently. For example, our summary is “12-14, four card majors, multi 2D and two way two bids which show the suit bid”.

Regarding point 2, your interpretation of the bidding, the EBU White book states “A player who is not sure whether or not a call made is alertable should alert it. If there is no partnership understanding about the meaning of the call, the player should say so rather than say how is going to treat it.” That seems clear enough.

It seems to me that the main reason for dredging up a 1H response is in case partner has a big hand. It therefore seems illogical to pass when partner confirms that he really does have a huge hand.

Maybe it’s an iPad thing. There’s definitely only 12 shown on my screen. 10987654 97 873 Void

You should have called the director. West appears to have only 12 cards.

Unfortunately 5his has happened to me also. My partner conceded all of the tricks when I was sitting there with the remaining trump together with three or four winners. It didn’t take long for declarer to agree to the concession and the hand to disappear from view before I could say a word. I was not pleased.

Crowhurst in his book Precision Acol analysed ABBA sequences and concluded that they should be forcing if both suits are of the same rank, but non forcing if major/minor. I can’t recall his reasoning however. Having said that, with my regular partners we play them all as forcing. It certainly makes life easier. An earlier respondent commented that “why would you want to play in a minor if you have already found a major fit”, or words to that effect. The implication was that it was the questioners fault that they got a bad result. However that logic only reinforces the idea that the bid should be forcing, as it must therefore be a slam try, or at least a game try. Certainly not to play.

I don’t see much point in playing Michaels if you are not going to use it on this hand. It looks textbook to me.

This sequence may work with the actual responding hand, but what if it were weaker. The jump to 4C commits to at least 5C despite having three top losers. Also opener seems to be driving to slam when responder has shown nothing beyond the heart ace (I assume that is what the 4H bid means). Suppose responder holds something like QJxxx xx xxx xxx then the 4C bid takes you past 3NT, which is where you want to be.

Personally I think that using a waiting 2D is way overdone these days, at least from what I have seen on BBO. On this hand a 2S response is fine. If opener rebids 2NT you can bid 3. If he rebids 3H you raise to four. If he rebids a minor you can rebid 3NT (or raise to 4D if you prefer). Suppose you use a waiting 2D. If partner rebids 2NT you can transfer to 3S but then what. You are a bit good to rebid 3NT and 4NT takes up space. If partner rebids a suit I guess you can raise or bid spades, but how do you get over the fact you have an eleven count? I dare say a well rehearsed partnership might have methods, but for most I think it makes sense to get the hand off your chest early with 2S and then sit back knowing you have said your piece. With the actual hands 2C-2S-3C-3NT-4C-4H-6NT looks like a reasonable sequence.

Personally I think that using a waiting 2D is way overdone these days, at least from what I have seen on BBO. On this hand a 2S response is fine. If opener rebids 2NT you can bid 3. If he rebids 3H you raise to four. If he rebids a minor you can rebid 3NT (or raise to 4D if you prefer). Suppose you use a waiting 2D. If partner rebids 2NT you can transfer to 3S but then what. You are a bit good to rebid 3NT and 4NT takes up space. If partner rebids a suit I guess you can raise or bid spades, but how do you get over the fact you have an eleven count? I dare say a well rehearsed partnership might have methods, but for most I think it makes sense to get the hand off your chest early with 2S and then sit back knowing you have said your piece. With the actual hands 2C-2S-3C-3NT-4C-4H-6NT looks like a reasonable sequence.

For what it is worth I believe the best defence to 1NT is Asptro. This uses 2C = hearts and another, 2D = spades and another. Other suit bids are natural. With both majors you initially show the shorter. If responder has three card or better support for the anchor suit he normally bids 2 of that suit. Lacking three card support he normally bids the intermediate suit (I.e 2D over a 2C overcall) After (1NT) - 2C -(P) - 2D - (P) the Overcaller can pass if he has five diamonds, bid 2H with five hearts (2NT then asks for his minor suit) 2S with five spades, 2NT with both minors and 3C with five clubs. There is a similar system after a 2D overcall. The only disadvantage of the system is that you can sometimes end up in a 4-3 major fit when 5-3 is available, but this doesn’t happen often. One advantage of Asptro is that in most cases the relative lengths of the suits are known, which is not the case if using, for example, two of a major overcall to show a major/minor two suiter.

Leaving aside issues like there seems to be two sevens of clubs, partner looks marked with the ten if hearts so I would lead a heart. I’d be surprised to get another trick, but who knows?