Siegmund

One cheap ugly workaround is to tell ACBLscore it's a normal Mitchell, but for boards 3, 6, 9 and 12, type in split scores, a whole lot of them, so that each NS and EW pair gets the result it actually got even if ACBLscore doesn't understand who played against whom.

Double (and yes I would have opened 1NT.)

Somewhere between risky psych and great psych. Seat vulnerability and hand strength make some kind of opening clearly indicated, but the choice among 1D, 1H, and 1S is not obvious and the hand isnt perfect for any of them. North is the rabid bidder in the partnership, not south.

I do know of at least one ACBL club that arrow-switches its Mitchell movements (because with between 8 and 14 tables, you can give more masterpoints in a club game that way, not so much because of perfection of movement. If it were me and I wanted the extra points, I'd run a 13-round 3/4 movement with 8 or 9 tables...) More commonly, large club games are straight mitchells with no overall awards; only special events and sectional+ tournaments regularly combine across sections (more than 1 NS and more than 1 EW all lumped together) for overall awards.

All the bids from 3S upwards are SOME kind of "accepting all game tries" bids. Just a question of what further refinement you'd like to add. In the absence of discussion, I would assume 3NT was an offer to play 3NT instead of 4M, 3S/4m cuebids in case opener had a slam try instead of a game try, and 4M to play. Lots of other (and probably better) agreements are possible.

It is no sin to play a 4-3 fit, especially at the partscore level, especially if the hand with 3-card support has distribution. (You want to ruff with the 3-card trump holding, and save all 4 in the long hand to keep control and/or pull trumps.) It will be quite rare for partner to choose 2NT when he is minimum even if he has only 4 spades. The flip side of that is that if you have 3-card support and a desire to compete you can make a support double even if you are minimum. Almost any 3145 hand or 3415 with baby hearts is going to be worth an X here. But there is no law (in most partnerships) that you must double just because you have 3 spades. If you are 3-3-3-4 and minimum feel free to go quietly.

Giving a different first discard according to what information the lead conveyed is an interesting idea. I've been playing 3/low against suits, and attitude against notrump, for years - but never crossed my mind to explicitly play different signal systems. (Though there is always the implicit "if attitude is already known, give count" rule, and that takes effect more often after an attitude spot lead.) As OP said, it's a question of whether its more important to convey length or the high-card position right away. Neither one is a one-size-fits-all perfect solution. I think the answer has to be "low from xxx in one set of situations, and high in another set" (the set can be more complicated than suit vs NT and partner's suit vs not if you want it to be, but I can't think offhand of what the other exceptions ought to be.)

I find 2S quite timid, but can see a case for it against weak opposition who might actually take advantage of the opportunity to stop short of game. My regular p would expect me to bid 3S if I have 5 tricks at this vulnerability, and I think AQTxxx behind an opener fills the bill. If your partner knows how aggressively you preempt, and raises in correct fashion to whatever your ranges for 2S and 3S are, then it won't matter much which way you play it.

For me it's a Good/Bad 2N auction. Our meta-agreement is "they bid and raise a suit, 2NT by us is never to play."

IIRC the book is old enough that it assumed balanced 11s and 12s without 4CM were passed, not opened 1D. In a more modern context, yes, if you play this treatment, bring it down to 11-14 or 15. (It's a method I've experimented with off and on for a long time, but only ever found 1 real-life partner who wanted to try it on for size.) I like this opening, but it IS hard to fit all of the other hands into the other openings comfortably enough to justify it.

Opposite a passed hand I am willing to bid 4S to end the auction (hopefully). Opposite an unpassed hand XX to show the ace is my usual system, and I have no complaint with anybody who does the same here.

I double but that probably is just further evidence of what happens when you turn a matchpoint fan loose in an imp game. It is definitely a minimum if not subminimum.

Thanks for answers guys. Other table went down in 3H, we had a misunderstanding and failed to bail out short of 4. Not one of our finer moments. Whether 1H-1S-1N-2H must always be limit strength is something I will have to ponder. It makes sense, since with a one-bid hand you raise immediately. Will ask partner today whether he agrees or not. I WAS a bit surprised to see so many votes for an immediate 2H. It's an ugly hand but if this and some random 6-counts are both bidding 2H that's a wider range than I am happy with. I do bid 2H with a fair number of 4333 10-counts (and am often right, but always get raised eyebrows when I put the dummy down even for that.)

I like the 2S bid too - but didnt think of it until about two hours after the hand came up. My immediate reaction was "you're endplayed into passing." At the table my partner Lebensohled me into 3C, the opps competed to 3D, partner doubled THAT (which he hoped was penalty, but I was looking at 3-3-4-3 with K843 diamonds, concluded partner "must" have something weird like 4-4-0-5 and gotten slow and fast Stayman backward, and.... played in a 3-3 heart fit. Whoops.) Comedy of errors. Fortunately I caught the opponents as off-balance as we were and got out for down one, and it wasn't 100% clear whether we were beating 3D by a trick.

I like the 2S bid too - but didnt think of it until about two hours after the hand came up. My immediate reaction was "you're endplayed into passing." At the table my partner Lebensohled me into 3C, the opps competed to 3D, partner doubled THAT (which he hoped was penalty, but I was looking at 3-3-4-3 with K843 diamonds, concluded partner "must" have something weird like 4-4-0-5 and gotten slow and fast Stayman backward, and.... played in a 3-3 heart fit. Whoops.) Comedy of errors. Fortunately I caught the opponents as off-balance as we were and got out for down one, and it wasn't 100% clear whether we were beating 3D by a trick.

Early in a Swiss, against a solid team. Your table opponents are good B players, the opponents holding your cards at the other table are possibly the best pair in the room (and they are playing a weak notrump and you arent - so its unlikely youll get identical auctions at both tables.) Your partner opens 1H. Your cards: ♠T9xx ♥Qxx ♦K9xx ♣KQ Assuming nobody is taking the chicken's way out with a topheavy 2H raise or something... You respond 1S intending to show the 3-card limit raise next. Partner rebids 1NT (balanced, good 11 to 14ish). What now? Do you abandon all interest in game and sign off? In hearts or notrump? Say "I would have responded 1NTF and suppressed the 4 spades" if you must, but the partnership agreement is that 1H-1NT denies 4 spades.

A hand from the Anchorage sectional this afternoon: Matchpoints both vul. The bidding is (1D)-1NT-(2D) to you. Strong partner. Your agreements, for better or worse, are that 1X-1NT-2Y or 1Y-1NT-2Y is treated the same as a 1NT opening and 2Y overcall, and your agreement after 1NT-(2D) is off-the-shelf Lebensohl (X penalty, 2M to play, 2N relay, 3D stayman without a stopper, etc.) Try not to curse your agreements too much. Your hand is: ♠ATxx ♥xxx ♦x ♣K98xx What, if anything, do you do?

2H is certainly closer to "shows six" than "promises six", but I am extremely reluctant to do this with any shape other than 1552. I don't think I will ever do it with 2 spades or with 1534. 1543 after 1NTForcing is a really tough question. Probably depends on quality of my clubs as well as my hearts. I want to say KQ9xx+; maybe it's right down to say QT9xx+ when my clubs are only xxx. Intermediates do matter, so I don't just want to say "HHxxx".

I think there's a general understanding among partnerships-of-two-experts that "if you can clearly see there is one thing your partner needs to know, you make that answer available to him, and trust him to trust you to have done so." I've seen one or two hands of this type floating around in magazines before, but only ever had one partner who (on his best days) would have been up to the task of actually doing it. Wish I could say I would have more use for this type of signal. But (even I sharpen up my own game enough to be alert for the possibility) think I am going to have a long wait before I need it.

Apparently it does depend on partnership agreements given ggwhiz's post. (But I've never run into any C players who had solid two-places-to-play agreements even in much more obvious spots than this one.) The way I play and the way nov/ints are taught to play, it looks like pass with nothing else to even think about, and the firing squad for anybody who bids.

I wouldn't be surprised if I've heard of them or even experimented with them under another name -- but never heard the term before.

Double and pass. My partners are eager enough to jump to 4M that I am not tempted to go on with just 3 trumps and just a couple extra points.

Apparently quite a lot depends on how one interprets the 4C bid. I took 4C as a generic big-hand forcing bid, and the leap to 5S as clearly saying "I am afraid of club losers for slam." My first guess would be almost identical to whereagle's (and I autopass 5S as south with xx in clubs) though the possibility of North having only one club loser but not having room to ask about a slow diamond loser or something crossed my mind, so I wouldn't be in a rush to say North misbid on the actual cards.

Clear pass at equal for me: the 4-card heart suit is a minus, but the fact I am ~cough~ a full trick short of my bid at equal vulnerability is a bigger minus (and treating A98xxxx as five tricks may even be optimistic.)

Outrageous or not the comment was moderately close to to the truth. Even if they have heard of a cuebid, you are not going to find ANY C players who have an agreement about what 4D(Texas)-5D means, OR who have an agreement about what 4D(nat)-5D(nat)-5H means. It is obvious even to a stray dog passing by outside the bridge club window that, announcement or no announcement, raising 4D to 5D tells North his partner has forgotten Texas, and (if South has ever heard of texas in his life) that 5H tells South "you idiot, you forgot Texas." Not remotely close to an adjustment for C players. For more experienced players you can talk about procedural penalties or whatnot. It's still going to be REALLY hard to find very many cases where people will assume these are cuebidding auctions. Contrast this with 1NT-2D-2H-3D, which DOES have a legitimate meaning (a red two-suiter) widely known and used even by novices, and there is a case for black magic in the air if 3D gets passed and responder turns out to have six diamonds and a bad hand.