Siegmund

At other tables, I expect there to be a lot of people stopping in partscores in spades, very few people stopping at 3C or lower, and anybody in 4C EW has a significant risk of going down. In an unusual contract that is a top if it makes and is likely bad even if it's held to down one, of course you play to make at MPs (and at rubber or imp, you're gaining 450 or losing 100 so its that much clearer.) Since the question was asked -- does that mean that some of you feel you are in a normal-ish contract?

As you've probably already heard from someone else... the Red Ribbon Pairs is held every spring, while the Blue Ribbon is held every fall. (And this is likely the one and only time you'll have to worry about - once you go to a few regionals you will have a lifetime supply of ribbon qualifications. They hand them out almost as freely as masterpoints.) And I concur on the great accent.

I guess N-S are both at fault, but E-W are only partially at fault, one of them actually having 13 cards :) On the other hand, West is off by two rather than one. Funny. I can't remember ever being called for someone with 11 cards in his hand, even though I've seen 10 quite a few times.

It's reallllly hard to come up with hands that play two tricks better in clubs than in spades. I pass (and expect to make it much more often than not.) Reading the other comments, I should add as a disclaimer that I can't remember ever seeing me or my partner raise with Hx in this auction.

I wondered why 2C was missing from the poll. My actual agreement is 2C-then-4D is 9 playing tricks with less than normal 2C HCP, 2C-then-5D is 10 playing tricks with less than normal 2C HCP. (That's intended for for a hand like x x KQJxxxxxx AK, not the posted hand, but it IS the system bid.) I can see a case for pass, for 1D, and for 6D. The psych is pretty far-out when you really do want to have your side declare in a minor, and 2D/3D/4D/5D are hideous misdescriptions of the playing strength that guarantee partner will do the wrong thing.

Now that is an interesting idea, Micky. I'm going to play around with that. (I've been experimenting with 1D=H, 1H=S over Polish style clubs but that's not GCC and your approach would be.) As for original Montreal Relay - I read Rosenthal's book on it, since it was one of very few things on 1D promising real diamonds and could-be-short clubs in print at the time, and was very unimpressed by 1C-pass-1D sequences. I have seen a number of pair playing it the last 5 years, and sort of wondered if there had been some big innovation in the system that inspired the comeback. One very good point, however, was raised: 1C-pass-1H-2D, Ken mentioned how much happier he was being able to use X to find spades here rather than having to use it to show 3-card support. That IS one sequence where the 5-card heart response gains. In fact, even playing 4-card heart responses, that treatment has merit -- when I played Polish Club in the mid and late 90s, we used support doubles, with the explicit exception that 1C-p-1M-overcall-X was negative, not support - it felt like the much more important meaning for the bid (and responder could feel free to rebid a 5-card major if he didn't have another 4-card suit to show.)

I can't see much hope for 5D, and I am not volunteering 3NT with only 1 club stopper. Looks like a very clear pass to me, though I wouldn't be shocked if some game is makeable 1/4 or 1/3 of the time.

Depends so much on partnership agreement. I've played a style where 1S-then-3H promised specifically 5-6. Absent that type of agreement, I am settling for 1H.

We know from the bidding partner has a singleton or void in diamonds, but he didn't double the first time. Seems like he's in a 7-9ish range. That said, we have only four possible non-diamond losers, and it seems nearly impossible for partner to not have two working face cards... so I am bidding game. I hope they don't lead trumps.

Seconding elianna's comment... in the few mixed pairs events I've played in (at regionals, not NABCs), there were no seating restrictions.

2S limit+ for me. My fit-jumps do not require 4-card support but do require two of the top three in the side suit, so opener has a simple yes/no decision whether he can peel the side suit for 5 extra tricks. I at least understand 3D. 2H is a pretty bad underbid.

Yes. (Edited to add: in response to "am I happy to sit for it.")

Certainly a cuebid, yes. The question is whether it promises an ace or not. (With my regular partner, we normally cuebid "aces first," but have a specific agreement after some sequences including this one to show kings freely.) Conceivably you might still use RKC in this auction if all you really want is a trump asking bid below 5M. But it seems mighty rare.

Here is where the suspension of disbelief aspect gets strained: The shortage of cute young ladies playing the game is why all the boys are staying home playing video games instead of coming to the club.

No, it doesn't. You misunderstand PCA. The PCA identified 3 axes along which to classify people, rather than the original six. The most important classifies people on a spectrum of "complicated and aggressive bidding, and heavy reliance on logic during the cardplay" to "simple and conservative bidding, and heavy reliance on carding agreements during the cardplay". Secondarily, it classifies people on a spectrum of "serious about the game vs. serious about the postmortem," and asserts that your seriousness about the game is very nearly independent of where you land on the complexity scale. Thirdly, it classifies people according to their cardplay agreements, separating out the factors which were confounded in the first-level classification If you also tell us what the mean scores for each of the six categories are, we can get from our raw scores to our factor scores, and find out what our tendencies are in regard to each of the above. (And yes, we do have a very small sample, especially since many of the respondents have similar attitudes to the game.)

Well, if I had been either north or south, the auction would have already made me blow my stack. (Presumably you have some very different agreements about XX and 2D in this sequence than I expected.) As to the play, forgetting to ruff T1 and preserve CA as insurance against 4-0 trump break was pretty awful. If you get that right the only thing left to do is spot the safety play in diamonds (doesn't matter if you block the spades, you don't need 3 spade tricks.) Given the mess you've made of it so far, well, I guess the best you can do is pray hearts are 3-1 and still take the safety play in diamonds if they are.

I did forget to mention one big improvement (which I missed the first day since people weren't using the built-in auction formatter much): Congratulations, you've finally got the auctions in W-N-E-S format! On the old forum, we were stuck with "dealer-first" auctions that caused nonstop "which person is bidding what?" puzzles.

I would have voted for 11-14 on the notrump, if I had the chance. (I used to play 1C 11-13, 1NT 14-16, and liked the 14-16 notrump very well. But I had trouble finding enough bids to tell 17-18 and 19-20 apart, and in a standardish system, an 11-14 NT rebid has been easy enough to handle with a good checkback agreement.) For the others I voted for 15+ 19+, though I admit there are a few 18s I would upgrade. If you do play 14-16 1NT, you might as well have 2 point range for 1D/H/S followed by a jump. If you went with 11-14 in 1C and 15-17 or 15-18 in 1NT, and deliberately chose not to have a "1 1/2 NT" sequence, I would understand 18+. (If you push the 1C opening all the way down to 17 or lower... A, you are overloading the 1C bid, which works best when the strong meanings are relatively rare -- you want the range for 1C-1D-2M, hands too strong for 1M and too weak for 1C-1D-2D, to be 'only one trick wide'... and B, well, you aren't playing polish club anymore. There are plenty of other systems out there where 1C is 17+ or weak balanced. In Polish, strong is the THIRD meaning of the bid, not the second.) By all means require 6 clubs for a 2C opening, even if you don't tweak anything. Nothing bad can happen to you when you open 1C with a minimum 5C4M; just rebid the major after 1C-1D, and be willing to occasionally raise on 3-card support or rebid 1NT with a singleton (3415 and 1435 after 1C-1S). The only problem hands are those with 5 clubs and 4 diamonds. Opening them 1D is evil, but a lesser evil than opening a 5-card club suit with 2C. If you don't need a strong 2NT opening, I like opening 2NT to show "both minors but the lower suit always better or longer than the higher suit" - 5-5s really are not hard to bid by other means. You can also nudge the bottom end of 2C down to about 9-14. I tried pushing it all the way to 7-13, but it's a little bit uncomfortable having to put all the 14-pointers with clubs into 1C. (And, let me tell you, people thought a weak two-bid in clubs was weirder than just about anything else in the system. Heh.) 2D: Wilkosz. Not close. Beats the pants off any other use for that opening I've ever seen.

The standard meaning for both 2D and 2H, natural and forcing, doesn't seem to be listed. The reason to play 2D artificial and forcing is so that 2H can be NF. Don't think I've ever met someone who played 2D NF here. It's an uncomfortable auction no matter how you play it.

I'll say 777487. (The only hard one is 'aggression' - I like having firm agreements and sticking closely to them, wide-range preempts are not my style, but the agreement itself can be very pushy. Some people would probably say that makes me only a 4.) I could easily be talked into wavering a couple points either direction. Interesting poll.

This is going to end badly for sure. Partner better have a mighty good reason to have stuck his oar in at his 3rd chance. Only question now is whether we bid 2NT to keep clubs in the picture or 3D to pick. If partner waited to double because he had only the red suits, doesn't much matter.

I read the article just to see if "chuffed" meant happy or angry. (I guessed wrong. Etymonline confirmed both meanings have been around awhile, but the article's usage is the more usual one.)

70D2 applies only if one defender initiates a claim, at a time when his partner still has a choice to make and one of partner's choices prevents the claim from working. By all means, consider it if it applies. If declarer claims, it never applies.

Just 5 here. There are some hands where 6 will make, but I don't think it's close to 50%.

I thought jumping to 3NT was obvious. (I expected 2C to be NF for everyone, and anticipated 2NT was encouraging but not forcing. If you have a firm agreement that 2NT is forcing, fine, do that - but that strikes me as an uncommon agreement, not what I'd assume with a good pickup partner.) I don't care for 2H. Won't find us a fit and will help them lead a spade.