Siegmund

I wish I was more confident of how this one gets bid in Unassuming Club (I have just had a partner ask to play it with me, and we are only slowly expanding beyond the online notes): 1C-1S 2C(19+ any)-2S(natural, 6-9 or 13+) 3D(natural)-3NT I am not sure the 2S bid is right. The alternatives all seem to lead to 3NT. I am a bit disappointed that the hearts never entered the auction, though if there were a 4-4 fit, responder would bid 3H over 3D.

Unassuming club: 1C-1S 2NT(17-18)-3NT I'm no great fan of that 17-18 leap. In my homegrown 'Malfoir': 1C-1S-1NT(15-18 no 4CM)-2C(diamonds or invitational)-2S(max, 4+ diamonds, 2 spades)-3NT

Offering an alternative (coming from a Polish/Unassuming/etc context), but the same outcome: 1H-2H 4D(LSST)-4H(no fitting honor and no cheap cuebid).

I'm not expecting anything too meaningful to come out of this as far as which system is better, but I am willing to inspect the Polish Club auctions and contribute my own homegrown ones as my times permits. Edited to add: forgot I am playing Unassuming Club with one partner now. Please don't take my bad bidding in that system the wrong way, as I am new to it :)

I would assume the default meaning is penalty/cards, though that particular meaning (maximum pass with no clear direction) doesn't make a great deal of sense as a passed hand. Common meanings are Snapdragon, and variations that promise something about heart support (Regular or reverse Rosenkranz, where this double is a heart raise either promising or denying a top heart honor -- originally intended more for 1c-1h-2c-X -- and something I personally play where the X here promises Qx/Kx/Ax in hearts and a desire to compete - snapdragonish where the detailed promise is about hearts rather than diamonds). Snapdragon used to be clearly alertable; I am not 100% sure if it is, since "takeout for the unbid suit and the suit you've already proposed" is not too unusual and unexpected here. I think all doubles that carry a very specific promise about your heart holding are alertable. Despite wyman's sensible suggestion, I do not recall ever seeing anyone play this double for the minors.

When I was a bridge baby, I was told to make a point of avoiding naming cards by name unless I had to, so that the adjacent tables would not hear the contents of the dummy read out loud to them, creating UI. It made sense to me, at least in the context of a small club game where there was not a general hubbub of sound. I don't know if that's the same reason others do it, or if people are just imitating 'everybody else'.

If only they would come right out and object. What most of the dummies do, in my experience, is put their deuce of clubs in the played position in tempo, either ignoring you entirely or chuckling at (what they think is) your little joke of pretending to tell them what to play." Meanwhile declarer has turned his card over and already led to the next trick. I find myself trying to say, hey, wait a minute, no, I was serious about that ♥J, while trying to bring the play to a halt until the situation is resolved. And somehow it seems to be impossible to make all that come across as polite. I could try calling the director immediately without saying why again, I suppose, but I think that might be interpreted as even more hostile.

Well, we know one loser is the ♠A, and we don't know if we have a second, but partner will. I suppose 4D now and 4S over 4H, respecting partner's decision after that, is the best we can do, though partner may well think that's the ace of spades rather than the king. Sure would be easier if we hadn't wasted so much space already.

The defender who names the card he wants played may indeed need to get a life -- but the card he names is the card that's going to get played. It's abundantly clear to me that "play one" means declarer doesn't care which one. I think it's quite distinct from "play" - a mannerism I find very offensive, but do understand to be the equivalent of "small" or "[suitname]". I just wish dummies would be familiar enough with the rules of the game that when I, as a defender, legally name a card when declarer doesn't, they'd reach for it, rather than just laughing and reaching for something else and making me call the director. Incidentally, one of my longtime partners and I discussed "play anything" and had (what we considered to be) an actively ethical agreement to always discard the highest card from dummy when the other called for "play anything" at the end of the hand.

You can always ask the committee chairman, or other person in charge of organizing the proceedings, if they mind if you watch quietly. I did that, on a random evening, the first time I attended an NABC. I watched in horror as Vancouver Appeal #5 unfolded before my eyes. (The "oh, *****" ruling from 1999. The writeup a few months later in the Bulletin said that 'two young Canadians' got more than they bargained for when they asked to watch -- Alaskans, not Canadians but close enough.) It was informative, from a procedural standpoint. Highlighted the risks of having committees composed of people who don't know the rules, and relying on only one person to interpret the rules for the committee.

With some of my partners we've agreed to extend support doubles to situations where partner promises 5, but having X = Hx in partner's suit and a desire to compete, raise=3+. With others the double is 3 and the raise is 4 still, and with still others support X is off entirely. It did not help that this particular partner had not discussed this situation with me. The player holding this hand at the table opted for 2S, which was not a success when responder got excited with Jxxxx. It prompted a conversation about the wisdom of "AK = 3 cards, AKx = 4 cards" as a general rule re supporting partner, which apparently is being preached by some of the teachers these days (I suspect the teachers were somewhat misquoted.)

West deals and opens 3C. Equal vul. ♠K65432 ♥J ♦AKQ87 ♣A ♠AQT9 ♥AT953 ♦J4 ♣T5 Anybody have methods for NS to bid confidently to the right contract? Or are we all just blasting and guessing here?

Or play transfers as signoff-or-strong, and free up the 1NT-2D-2H-2NT/3H bids for new kinds of GF hands (like gnasher's distinguishing hands where opener has a choice on 4333 or not). Admittedly works better when 2C is more Keri-like than when you are shoehorning hands into Stayman. But I could live with 1NT-2C-2D-2M as invitational with 5 like it was in the Goren days.

Open if you have a rebid. Pass if you'd have an easier time describing your hand as responder. That's really all there is to it. The classic example is opening a 5-4-2-2 11 count but passing a 4-5-2-2. On the posted hand, it comes down to the question of whether you are prepared to hear a 2C response from partner. If you have a rebid in your system that is suitable on these cards, open away. Unlike many of the modern folk I try very hard to have more than 1 defensive trick when I open at the 1-level, and not to have more than 1 when I open with a preempt.

So far the thread has confirmed nicely that a disclosure problem exists and it is not clear how best to fix it :) Somehow I am not surprised that the answer from rulings@acbl.org appears to be the worst of all possible worlds. It will certainly be featured on the CC (replacing the 5-card major common line, which can be done with a good computer editor, is a good place for it.) It does feel to me like it doesn't rise to the level of requiring a pre-alert -- though when I played modified Polish Club (and had a 3-line description of 1C pasted over the 'general approach' block on my CC) I did have people (not directors) wanting me to pre-alert that.

One of the systems I play on a very occasional basis (but perhaps soon to be more frequently) has a 1NT opening that shows a balanced 11-14, denying a 4-card major or 6-card minor. I would like to know how my opponents would like to hear about it. I believe just announcing "11-14" is inadequate. One reading of the ACBL policy says I should do just that anyway, since it's a natural notrump. Another interpretation is that this is nonstandard enough I should say "Alert" rather than announcing a range. Then I can say describe the bid when asked, and get a lecture about how rude it was of me not to announce it. What I want to do is just announce "11-14 no 4CM" in the first place. Doing so is, however, clearly a technical violation of the rules. (Yes, I posted this in general discussion, not the laws forum: I know all three approaches are going to occasionally lead to director calls and annoyed opponents. What I want to find out is which one will annoy the fewest opponents.)

Looks plenty good enough to be constructive to me. (But I wouldn't be caught dead playing single raise constructive.)

Had this problem repeatedly this past week. In my case the "latest and greatest" Flash was what seemed to be causing the problem, so I have manually reinstalled Flash 10.3, and the problem has not recurred. Also went back for a time to the old download version, which I still had on my computer -- and got reminded once again how much I wished BBO had continued to develop it. It took a good five years before the web version was even remotely comparable in usability, and it still came in handy as a backup.

♠AK ♥7 ♦KJT97 ♣T6542 All vul, MPs, you open 1D, and it goes 1H-1S-2H back to you. 1) With no relevant toys, how do you rate pass, 2s, 3c (and anything else you might consider)? (I assume many of you who play 2NT Good/Bad would use it here. But this partner doesn't.) 2) What is your preferred meaning for X in this spot? Edited to add: yes, 1S promised five.

Absent special agreements that SAYC doesn't have ... spades are trumps. 3H is exactly the same as 3C here (forcing to 3S.)

I haven't ever played in a live barometer -- my impression of online games scored that way is neutral to mildly negative. Part of why I play duplicate is for 'every hand to be equally important' and while barometer doesn't change how much the last rounds are worth it does change the way people play them. I doubt it really matters... there is no chance of live barometer happening in my area anytime soon since it requires so many more sets of boards and so much predealing. (If nothing else I expect it would cause tournament entry fees to go way up to pay for the extra work involved and that alone would sink it here.)

I expect Blackwood is the majority treatment here. In my regular partnerships it is, but that is, in part, because we play that opener's 3rd bid shows min/max as well as major-suit length, sort of like Magister/Roudi rather than simple NMF - so the hands that contemplated a quantitative invite would already know now what to do.

I have often wondered what 8 1/2 trick hands get opened by the people who write that on their convention cards. My card says 22+ or 9+, and if his hand had HQ instead of HJ, I would think 2C-then-4H was the obvious way to show it. The posted hand I might have been content with 1H-then-4H. Far as I am aware, "9-trick preempt" is the standard meaning of 2C-then-4H. It is in some, but not all, of the basic bidding textbooks. I'd have to look on my shelf to see which ones. I have never seen anyone say that they impose a specific defensive minimum requirement on their 2C openings, though I often see people say in threads like this one that they don't think a hand has enough defense for it. Of course, the old idea that 1-bids ought to usually have 2 defensive tricks seems not to be popular these days either.

Many such hands we would open 4C. Perhaps not the 7222s or the QJ65432 hands. QJ-7 and an ace is certainly not possible (for us.)

An interesting thread. Frankly amazed to see so many people considering going slamming. I happen to have been the one who held this hand at jillybean's table. My partner and I have a firm "rule of 2, 3, and 4" agreement... partner should have 5 tricks. QJ-7 in clubs and no other face card, or QJ-6 or J-7 clubs and one stray face card. My immediate reaction was to pass, 5C having very little chance. (OK, QJ-7 clubs and 3 or 4 diamonds maybe is not "very little" but not remotely close to 50%, I didn't think.) I'll be the first to admit that 3NT is not a standard bid here, relying on the possibility of a major-suit lead (with 6 clubs and a diamond stopper an outside chance.) I don't know whether I really had a 50% chance for 3NT or not. I have absolutely no problem with people thinking 3NT is crazy. I do wonder just how timid your partners are if you think any game at all is viable. Bidding 3D and seeing if it gets raised is quite an interesting idea (as a way to see if FIVE clubs will make), if that's an option and you can trust partner not to correct 5C to 5D. With this particular partner, a 3D response would have asked for a 3-card major, as described in Andersen and Zenkel.