all loomis

even at pairs, this is not a 1nt. after 1d, you can get there, i hope.

btw, there was a bissell point count which you should look at, as a grounding in evaluating shape hands. it's easy and clever.

in 1930's, milton work counted the number of times a picture card won a trick, in 1000 hands. divide by 100, and you had the original work point count. but they not convenient, so they were rounded off to the nearest integer, et voila. so nothing sacred about '1,2,3,4' unfortunately. useful at nt, but you have to learn to count tricks when evaluating a suit contract.

too hard. maybe 4d has 3 fast losers, 5d 2, and 4n for 1? hands like this are why precision is not very popular.

is a 1d response out of the question? if you must respond 1s, an immediate 3d with weak hand seems better to me- so long as it promises a balanced 6-8. save 2n for a hand with more stuffing, in case 3n is the game.

1n- 12-15, all 433,533,443 1s- 12-15, 6c suit, or 5 + another suit. 1h- as 1s 1d- as 1s/h, but either minor 2c- 12-15, all 444. 2d- 16+, all 444. 2h- good weak 2, 8-11. 2s- as 2h. 1c- all 16+, except 2d. a simple integrated system that works pretty well. 4c majors are masochism.

i solve this problem by opening 1c with all balanced hands outside nt range. 1c 3c 6c suit, no major, gf.

long suit is better than canape. you are more likely to want your long suit led, if opps seize the auction. if you open your long suit, there is much less to be gained from substandard response. and negative x loses its value, since opener will not know if 4 are opposite, or 3, or 1. canape was an attempt to solve a problem which the neg x solved much better.

2c 2h, 3d 4d better start. 2c 2d [if you must], 3d 4s also works.

opposite a real c suit, this hand is worth 3 tricks or more. at 2.9 points per trick, raise and hum the internationale as you do.

1st: this is a system problem. in mine, 3c is a suit with h support, gf. 2nd: also a matter of system. in mine, 4d is single, at least 5 h's, 2+ key cards. how easy this is, if you organize your bidding.

3s should be an ace, eliciting 3n. 4c is an ace then 5h is big trump, go with d control. or, 4h hoping to hear 5d. i like the first, pd needs akq for this to be a good slam. may give up with 5 rags.

1nt, because you must harden your character when you use a 4 point range. it's worth it, in my view, especially if you are willing to clip off poor 12's.

"when pd makes a t-o x, i bid" edgar kaplan. i don't see how 5d can be bad, and this time it should get to 6d unless you've got a follow-up gadget, when 7.

this kind of hand led me to conclude that a weak nt was safer, overall, than an amorphous 1c. you could be in trouble in 3s, more in 4.

i think the immortal terence would rip off 3d, "what else?" but he plays 'em better. this why i moved on to precision, when i could say "what else did you expect?"

the general purpose answer is to not play 2/1. if you bid immediate 2h with 5 h's and 10+, your second rnd 2h is a comfortable 6-9. is this suit long enough? yes, if you instruct pd to bid 2s with just 1 h. then he has real c's. this technique requires that r. be 25xx, 16xx, 155x, or at least 3 c's. occasionally you will wish you were back in 2c, but in the age of 1n forcing, you seldom have that luxury any way.

in my system, 2c was either c's 12-20, with some strong playing hands excluded, or h's 12-16. this allowed 2h rebid to be forcing, either 6 s's 12-15 or h's forcing, 3rd bid guaranteed.

if 1nt is 12-15, then opener has a rebid he wants to make. i tried an upper suit first with some success, the only payback is that r can not make a false preference to the first suit, which means you play 2-minor more than you want in pairs. so then we went to canape, and that gets some good results, and some bad. on balance i decided long suit first was way to go. final big club sys was based on roman: 2c and 2d to cover the 3x4's, 1h/s 5 with shape, 1d either 5card minor with shape. i've got some flashy 1c rebids too, but that's a different post.

3h shd be a nt probe, asking for some help. it also allows pd to show a 64 or 55, or 2 c's. [2c is 5cd suit in civilized systems.] then bid 4d. but i train my partners to be 55, so raise immediately.

charley goren wd wonder what the problem was: 1s- 3h, 4c-4d, 4n-5h, 6h-p.

you cd cure this problem in advance by setting 16 hcp as the cut off for off-shape x's. worked for the wei precision team, as i recall. step responses, perhaps. if you must work with tradition, x still seems right, if the follow-up is well-defined. haven't seen much of that.

easy re-opening x. at pairs. young people should re open at any score, it toughens the moral fibre. not bidding with the w hand, beyond a slow pass- i'm already toughened.

canape has its moments, but in the end you are more likely to have strength in your long suit, so i abandoned short suit openings. i like pd to lead my suit against nt. canape responses are more valuable: we played 1m 1s,2m 2h as 6-9 hcp, and canapeed with 10+