Siegmund

I am fond of LTC. The textbook version is imperfect, of course -- but it makes you think about counting tricks rather than counting points. When the outcome of the deal isnt what you expected, you ask yourself "which of my cards did I think would be a loser but wasnt" or vice versa, and refine your judgment accordingly in future.

Why would I wait? Am I really considering passing partner's double of 2H!? I would raise immediately. The hand is plenty bad enough to not quite be worth it -- but if I pass and then bid 2S I don't think partner is any closer to visualizing this hand.

DNE = Does Not Exist. Sorry, thought it was a common usage for bids that are deliberately left undefined in a system. If opener has a hand just a little bit better than an opening 4S preempt, and responder only had enough for 1NT, there should be no such thing as a hand where he wants to take a second call.

I liked Kantar 3NT on paper, and found it came up often enough to keep it fresh in my memory. When it did come up we didn't necessarily get any great gain from it, and it was a bit anti-field to have the long major on the table (the published version.) In theory the more-known hand was on the table, but that was also the hand where a surprise singleton or void was most damaging to the defense. The 4D=H, 4H=S alternative gets you back to the same side as the field but gives people 3 shots at doubles. I did improve the accuracy of our bidding after 4M openings. I am not certain it is better than Gambling.

I don't have an agreement with any of my partners what XX is here. I suppose that is a way to get back to 2 of a minor. But having 2C and 2D both be natural NF, and XX handle the inv+ hand, feels more natural. Glad it didn't come up in the Swiss today :)

I do/i] play support through 2S with most my partners, though 2H is also a common choice. I prefer to have it on as a way to take some pressure off of the GB2NT, and rate it as a better option than a "takeout" (for only one suit?) double, though in spirit it's not much different - just shifts which suit has a promise made and which suit is only hinted at. Lacking a support double, I would use the bad half of good/bad here.

The first feels like a cuebid. The second feels like DNE.

You may well be on track for a beer. In 1000 random deals for #1, hearts took 9720 tricks and notrump 8431. In 1000 random deals for #2, hearts took 10217 tricks and notrump 8202. But as hrothgar said, be careful not to take this too far out of context. (In particular if you are trying to justify using Stayman opposite a 1NT opener, I dont think you have a winning argument, the 5-4 fit being quite a rare outcome.)

Ha! The live novices switched from Penalty to Stolen Bid about five years back, after the polluting influence of the internet got to them. A substantial minority of them have decided on their own that 1NT-(3H)-X must show 5 spades just like 1NT-(2H)-X. Takeout at the 2-level is still very rare among the good players in my area. They have at least heard of it, but only the handful of weak notrumpers ever play it. Only when our opponents get good enough to quit overcalling on garbage that gives up huge penalties will we be willing to give up our penalty doubles against them.

Undiscussed, I would expect partner to take 1S as FSF (it does very little harm if he misunderstands -- he is going to bid again naturally anyway), and I would never bid 2S with a pickup partner. Having this one-off exception to FSF is an odd quirk I've seen repeatedly on the forums the last few years but don't see in real life.

Maybe its time to try a new poll with an improved selection of names :) But it's always going to be hard to get results without everybody knowing who invented what.

As several others have said, renege is commonly used as a synonym for a revoke in bridge, and renounce somewhat less commonly (but I have seen it, in a few old books.) In some other card games, there is a technical distinction to be made between situations where you are allowed to play a card of any suit and situations where you must follow if able. David Parlett's History of Card Games observes this distinction: A renounce is any failure to follow suit; A renege is a legal failure to follow suit when able; a revoke is an illegal failure to follow suit when able. There aren't many games still played today -- 2-hand pinochle is the only one I have played -- where the distinction still matters. In bridge of course all failures to follow suit are illegal, so the shades of meaning are ignored, and all the words relating to failing to follow get used interchangeably.

I've never been a fan of any kind of Puppet. There are an awful lot of auctions where it spews information it was intended to be concealing. But this one seems exceptionally unnecessary in that regard.

It is perhaps significant that the explanation of 2D doesnt say 3- spades 3- hearts. How good can the 4-card major be before GIB will pass up 2D?

I am a lot more willing than the rest of you to take into account the fact that partner passed over 1C too. It depends on this pair's style, yes, but there are more than a few pairs for whom passing a strong a strong club NV all but guarantees a balanced hand. Anything else might have made a weak 1-suited or 2-suited bid. Virtually all of the hands where passing 2S is a reasonable action -- weakish hands with long spades and short hearts, or, conceivably, some spade-minor two-suiters assuming partner has the wrong minor -- are hands where many people would have acted before. You know partner has at most 13HCP so he can't have one of the big hands that passes first and backs in later. At least for some pairs, there is simply no such thing as a hand which passes 1C initially but has enough spades to want to play 2S opposite an unsuitable hand. I don't know if this is such a pair. If it is, however, I am a LOT closer to ruling Table Result Stands than to PPing anybody. If South is a very timid stodgy type and NS have no defence over strong club, well, then yes, there is either a use of UI factor in play or -- more likely in many "life novice" partnerships -- previous experience that partner often forgets certain conventions, which is really an MI thing.

4C seems much more normal than 4H does, partner having already failed twice to support the hearts. I could be persuaded that passing 3S is not a LA opposite a partner who did not have an overcall of 1C. If its not clear of course we rule for the non-offending side, and disallowing 4H is reasonable at the table, if North didn't have much to say for himself. I can't imagine this being remotely close to PP/DP territory; the pass of 2S was AI.

I might phrase it slightly differently: 25 is a reason to be in 3NT rather than 1NT. 24 is a reason to pass 1NT, but to be in 3NT rather than 2NT.

Regardless of how the 4NT bid is described and explained... a 5NT bid which means "I want to play 5NT" is ALWAYS legal. (It's just remotely possible that somebody somewhere, would forbid the use of a 4NT asking bid which was not followed by a 5NT asking bid, but even the ACBL isn't that crazy.)

These happen from time to time in Swisses. (Quite frequently, in the excessively popular 1¾ session Sunday game, "seven sevens.") Does anybody happen to have the VP scale used for these (in ACBL events) handy? Do all TDs use the same one, or are they allowed to make up 10-point scales on the spot, or add the imps from the two half-matches to get one number to look up on the 20-point scale (which might mean the VPs in a 3-way match don't add up)

Without the interference, 3H could have been semi-natural fishing for 3NT (or it could have been a cuebid, its meaning made clear by responder taking a third call over opener's 3NT.) Now that we are past 3NT anyway, I think cuebid is clear. I am always amazed how many bids are called choice-of-games on the forum.

No questions, partner!

I am old enough to think pass is completely obvious. I appreciate the playing strength is there for a 1H opening, that is my (distant) second choice, but this is not the hand partner expects when it goes 1H-1S-2H and REALLY not the hand he expects if I rebid 2D.

The bigger picture: assuming its MP and many others will be in 4S your aim is to take the same number of tricks as those pairs. Since no ruffs in South are happening, take whatever you believe the normal line in 4S to be. If you had entries, ace-first would be 100% for 5 tricks no matter what anyway. As it is, ace-first is going to be the normal line for the people in spades, so I think you have to do it anyway. If your fear is the opps getting in twice to set up and then cash a diamond, all the more reason to try to bring the spades in without loss.

Spade seems clear. I expect the hearts to provide at least one and possibly two entries. The time you don't lead your long suit is when you expect to have no entry to it.

I like 4D better than many of the other posters do.. but among the 3 listed choices 4C is the standout.