Siegmund

First hand I've seen since I read Allan De Serpa's new book Sixpack that benefits from his method of replying to 1NT-2H-2S-3D by showing how many of six keycards (SK and DK counting) opener has. Not a mainstream method but certainly solves this problem nicely.

At risk of being deemed off-topic, let me put in a plug for the real-life town of Tensleep, a lovely and remote place, if slightly too hot and dusty for me in the summer. Ironically, Casper (among the nearest real-life clubs to Tensleep) is something of a hotbed of system experimentation. I played in their tiny sectional a few years back, and met not just Precisionists but also a homegrown variation of Montreal Relay (none of the practitioners of which could explain coherently, but sitting back and letting them garble their own system scored very well.) As for lamford's story, I have a lot of respect for SB's bravery. (But I don't share SB's optimism for getting a response from the unit or from headquarters about a club not following the ACBL's rules.)

I think it only fits the definition of encrypted if opening leader led an abnormal card. If my agreement is to lead the 6 from 6-2 and from K-T-8-6, and I lead a six, there is no encryption, and both partner and declarer get to assess the chances of me having those two holdings (as well as K-8-6 or singleton 6 or any of several others.) If my agreement is to lead top of doubletons, and fourth best from length, and I deliberately led 2 from 6-2 because I am weak and I know partner won't read it as fourth best, now there is a problem. (Whether the problem is repeated psyching of a lead, creating a concealed agreement, or the problem is us having an illegal agreement, is for the lawyers to argue about, just like it is during the bidding.) If I lead the S6 when I have a side card in hearts and the S2 when I have a side card in clubs, might be an even bigger problem.

Delighted to come to this thread and see Wilkosz mentioned several times already. I always felt it was easier to defend against than Multi was -- 10 cards in 2 suits is a lot more specific than 6 cards in 1 suit is. Was struck by the irony of Europe being too scared to play a convention the Polish LOLs managed, just like North America is scare to play a convention the English LOLs manage. In particular, Wilkosz+Natural 2H/2S beats the pants off of Multi+Muiderberg style 2Ms.

I think it's a lot more likely to be 3442/2443, than 3424. Partner made a TOX of diamonds, opener failed to rebid his suit. They aren't likely to have 10 diamonds on this auction (and if they do have, 2S or 3C is never going to buy the contract.) I wouldnt quite say it PROMISES a diamond stack, but certainly sounds like a hand that would have bid notrump if we weren't already at 2D.

No complaint with the general outline in Frances's answer -- but "does sequence X require an alert?" is the type I expect an immediate answer for. If the director actually has to get out the alert chart for something that doesn't come up often, he might be back a minute or two later. (As to the actual bidding sequence posted, I would have guessed natural and nonforcing was the standard meaning everywhere in the world, but I should know better than to guess at things like that.)

Absent a sim or studying a bunch of hands ... my first thought is that I'd doubt that 3m really IS better than a 4-3 major fit, when the hand with 3 of the major has two doubletons, and responder is weak (a lot of the time both contracts will be down, possibly down several, and it's a matter of not getting doubled to win the board.) Of course on those hands you'll be losing to the field whose auction started 1m-p-p.

Have we finally found a hand well suited to Gerber? :D

Many humans play "7-17" in direct seat, and "a king lighter when balancing than in direct seat" -- if GIB devalues its HK, sure, it has a maximum balancing 1S. But Axxxx x Kxxx AQJ is strong enough that I would be doubling intending to rebid a spade too. I find it odd that GIB would double and then pass with this hand. If GIB had doubled then rebid 1S I would have said "nothing to see here, move along, just some bad hand evaluation."

Each of the several Polish variants I played, 1C-2C and 1C-2D both denied 4CM. I most commonly played them as F1, "inverted minor non-raises"... 1C-2C-2H would, for the moment, sound like a heart stopper fishing for a spade stopper, but 1C-2C-2H-any-3H would be 19+ with 5+ hearts. Not saying that was a particularly good set of rebids; much as not everyone likes stopper-showing over inverted raises anymore, one might do something like designate one rebid for all the weak balanced hands and have all of 1C-2C-2H/2S/3C/3D show big hands. I remain a big fan of majors-first.

Wow, startled to see my own thread pop back up. Just chiming in to say that there is at least one person here who is a big fan of 2NT as NAT GF (and I do in fact play it that way with two frequent partners.) Not a big fan at all of Jacoby (I'd generally rather responder describe his own hand than ask about opener's). Of course I am also a fan of Polish type clubs, though the exact strengths and types of hands included in 1C is somewhere there is room for a lot of experimentation yet :)

In Kearse's Bridge Conventions Complete it is called "Two Spades Quantitative" or something similar to that. It's a rather old convention that has suddenly become popular again in new window-dressing the last few years. I played it for quite a while in the late 90s and never ran across another pair playing it until circa 2010.

Confining myself to OP's question... No, I've never heard a poor player speak "with great fluency and clarity" about a bridge hand. People who can visualize the cards hours after the fact can usually also visualize the cards when they actually need to. On the other hand there are some very good players who either don't communicate well or just choose not to explain themselves.

Don't be in quite so much awe. For some of us, bidding 5M asks a very specific question -- here, "do you have 1st or 2nd round diamond control?" -- and if partner does it, we are just as obligated to answer the question as if partner had bid Blackwood. The way I learned the convention, you pass with two fast losers in their suit, cuebid their suit with 1st round control, bid 6 of your own suit with 2nd round control (typically a singleton), or 5NT with specifically Kx(x), a finessable holding that is only a 2nd round control if the contract is played from your side.

I think it is also self-evident that the considerations in a IMPs vs MPs decision are exactly the same in any size of field. In a large field, a serious MP error will cost you the whole board and a small error will cost you a few matchpoints. In a 2-table field, a serious MP error will almost always cost you the whole matchpoint and a small error will sometimes cost you the whole matchpoint . The relative sizes of the two errors remain the same, in terms of expectation, it is just harder to see when you only have one comparison. Similarly, you will see some boards at IMPs that cost you 0 IMPs on a good day and 12 IMPs on a bad day when there is only one comparison, but cost you about 6 when there are a bunch of comparisons and half the field beats the game. Maybe your players like IMPs in small fields... I just don't like small fields, and shake my head in amazement at the popularity of team games with only 2 comparisons when a lot more are available.

<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);">There isn't, there is, and it isn't. Whether IMPs or matchpoints, only comparing 2 results leaves twice as much variation in the final scores as comparing a large number of results does. More comparisons is better. IMPs and matchpoints remain different games, in the same way, whether there are 2 comparisons or many.

I think Quantitative would be the large-majority view of that 4NT bid. He might have a 16-ish hand that can make 6NT opposite 17, or 6H opposite 15 and a great fit, but needs to stop in 4NT if you have a minimum and no fit. A common agreement is that 1NT-4D(Texas)-4H-4NT is Blackwood, while 1NT-2D-2H-4NT is not; after Jacoby, 4NT only is Blackwood if you have agreed on a suit (1NT-2D,2H-3C,3H-4NT could be ace-asking again once the 5-3 fit is found.)

The partner in question DID have the "NF Constructive" box checked on the ACBL convention card for new suits after overcalls, so I don't think there was any GOOD reason for what happened... but a lot of people hand you cards and ask you to play them with knowing what is on their own cards, it seems. Traditional means nonforcing in the SA and Acol worlds. I am curious what part of the world it means forcing.

I felt quite confident partner was going to be 2533 with ♣Qxx, or 2542 with ♣Ax. It's not a sequence I can remember actually happening at my table before. Partner turned out to think that 1NT advances were like 1NT responses, of course. Which HAS happened to me, twice in the past month. I wonder if someone in my area is teaching it that way.

[hv=pc=n&s=skq752hat3dj32ck2&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=1c1sp1n2cpp2h3c]133|200[/hv] Solid 2/1 partner, but you've never discussed anything special about overcalls and advances. What shape and strength do you expect from partner for this sequence, and what do you do now?

The one reason for 'new minor' rather than always asking with 2C is to allow you to take a preference to partner's minor with a weak hand. I played checkback (Polish style 'magister') for a long time, but have just recently switched to something simpler when partner's opening is 1C. Over 1D-1H-1NT-2C: 2D=minimum, 2 hearts 2H=min, 3 hearts 2S=max, 3 hearts 2NT=max, 2 hearts When responder has bid spades, he might also care about hearts, and I found it worked best to still bid 2D with a minimum and have 2H be a maximum: 1D-1S-1NT-2C... 2D=min, 2 spades 2H=max, 4 hearts 2S=min, 3 spades 2NT=max, 2 spades 2-3 hearts 3C=max, 3 spades 2-3 hearts But the change I made recently, to get back the ability to play in 2C after a 1C opening, was to rebid 2M with ALL minimums whether I had 2 or 3, and accept playing the 5-2 fit rather than getting to a 22 HCP 2NT all the time. 1C-1H-1NT-2D: 2H=minimum 2S=max, 3 hearts 2N=max, 2 hearts I am in a minority for still playing only 1-way new minor among the expert community these days, it seems. A lot of people are using XYZ or some other 2-way variation. But I haven't felt a pressing need for it.

For me, passing 1S meant I was willing to sit for a penalty double of spades. I'm not, so I had to act over 1S immediately. 1NT for takeout is... an interesting idea. Makes some sense that a natural notrump isn't too useful if we arent willing to try to penalize, at least at some vulnerabilities in some sequences.

If the board had never been played before, I would always let the result stand and resequence. If the board has been played before, one possibility is 'it's a pain for the scorer but fairly routine: they play the board out and get a score for the board. The two pairs who were scheduled to play this board against them each get Ave+. Perhaps the players at this table will be penalised." If this happens early enough in the game it is very often possible to let the two damaged parties play the board against one another, and not award any A+s at all. This was easy scoring by hand, but it a real pain to type into ACBLscore. At my club, it generally happened at Table 2 in Round 2 of a 4-table Howell. That table plays boards 13-16 in the first round, and is supposed to play 17-20 in the second round. But players would look at the table card, and read the wrong column: in a 21-board game that table plays 10-12 the first round and 13-15 the second round. So people would arrive for the second round, see board 13 at the table, and start playing. The no-A+-and-no-late-play fix for that works like this: Round 1: 8v1 1-4, 3v6 13-16, 2v7 21-24, 4v5 25-28 (all correct) Round 2: 8v2 5-8, 4v7 13-16, 3v1 25-28, 5v6 1-4 (error occurs and isn't noticed: 17-20 haven't been played yet.) Round 3: 8v3 9-12, 5v1 21-24, 4v2 1-4, 6v7 5-8 Round 4: 8v4 13-16 is scheduled, so the problem is discovered: pairs 5 and 8 are going to have trouble when they come to boards 13-16. But instead.... Round 4: 8v4 17-20, 6v2 25-28, 5v3 5-8, 7v1 9-12 Round 5: 8v5 13-16, 7v3 1-4, 6v4 9-12, 1v2 13-16 (relay required -- and pair 5 plays the 'wrong' boards against pair 8) Round 6: 8v6 21-14, 1v4 5-8, 7v5 17-20, 2v3 17-20 (relay required; 7v5 were scheduled to play 13-16, but we found out in R4 this wasn't going to work) Round 7: 8v7 25-28, 2v5 9-12, 1v6 17-20, 3v4 21-24. This one problem happened often enough that I was tempted to store it in my movements database as a special movement. The same general type of solution is usually possible if the 2nd time a board is played it is by the wrong pair. In a 5-table game you sometimes but not always can survive an accident the 3rd time a board is played. Of course that's because I learned to direct scoring by hand, so when the computer arrived, I wanted to keep using the solution I had been using. I was startled to find that at many other clubs, people routinely gave a whole roomful of A+s -- 4 each to #5 and #8 above -- and A-s -- 4 each to #4 and #7 for missing boards 17-20.

This was before dealing machines: the person had physically sorted and dealt all the hands. (For a 5-table game, having people duplicate the cards onsite before the first round, and play one less round, was not desirable. Usually we paid someone's grandson $10 to do it, but this time it was a novice player who was "sure she wouldn't remember any of the hands the next day.") We do let the people who operate the dealing machine and print out the summary sheets play.

Solution 1 feels closer to what happens in some similar situations -- the ACBL, for instance, allows you to add one non-novice to a novice game to fill out the movement, but not to award him any masterpoints. (And when a small number of same-sex pairs get put into a Mixed Pairs when it is the only event available so they don't have to go home, they usually still remain eligibile for masterpoints.) The only time I have used Solution 2 was when I discovered that the person the club manager had hired to prepare the hands for a multi-site game with hand records was playing in the event: the "no score may stand if a contestant has previously played a board" was the closest thing I found in the regulations to that situation.