Siegmund

Yep. It only works with split range, I think. With wide range or decent hand plus it is different. On split range, the hand with just extra shape would be so bad it couldn't bid again for the five level Even if you DO play split range I would expect a 5C bid to be a weak 5-7, not a strong 5-5. I've never really considered what the difference between X and 4N is to show the strong rebid. (I voted 2S-then-4NT, just because I know partner will bid if I kick him hard enough, but I am by no means certain that either action is right.)

Unless I have discussed this precise sequence, it likely wouldn't occur to me that 2NT was natural. Even on further reflection, partner isn't willing to play hearts even after my pass of 2HX, and isn't willing to try to penalize spades... gee, sounds to me like he's 31(54) or something. I find it hard to picture any making contract for our side, including 3H, at this point. No way am I forcing to game.

I guess I am the lone voice in the wilderness, wanting to show both majors even with 4-7... (though the two-suited methods arent a part of basic SAYC its mighty rare I have someone want to play SAYC but NOT add one of them.) If I were playing one of the fancy 2-suited methods that lets me show whether my higher or lower suit is the longer, I will be even happier to use it. If I don't hurry and press Submit I will let myself be talked into 3H :)

Well, why not explore the most obvious fix for that? 1D = hearts, strength undefined 1H = spades, strength undefined 1S = negative without a major. Opener rebids 1C-1D-1H or 1C-1H-1S if he's willing to be dropped there by a bust (for instance, opener had a strong notrump pattern), otherwise bids his own suit. I explored this in the context of a system where 1C=15+ balanced or 18+ unbalanced (which turned out to have too low of a frequency for the 1C bid for me to be happy with the rest of the system.) It might be somewhat less appealing if it leads to more wrongsiding than it does transferring. Similarly it might be more appealing if 1C included more weak/medium balanced hands, or even a fullfledged 2-way club. Incidentally, are we only concerned with your friends' tastes and memory capacity, or also with system regulations?

Its about half a trick heavier than I really like my best eval-vul 3C bids to be... but I dont like opening 4C, and I really dont like opening 1C on a hand not likely to produce even one defensive trick. 3C is the smallest lie IMO.

I would have assumed that there were no restrictions on lead agreements, only on signals. I am not 100% sure that is the ACBL's intention; but it has certainly been the longtime practice to allow any agreement at all about honours and nines. Some of those are systems where A/Q/T all have certain similarities in terms of shown holdings or requested signals as do K/J/9... I also wish that the 'dual message' language were removed; it's a terrible description of Roman signals anyway. Just call them 'suit preference carding', each card meaning 'this suit', 'higher suit', 'lower suit' - it's perfectly legal when you discard from a 6- or 7-card suit (middle continue, unusually high for high switch, low for low switch) in standard signalling. I am happy to dismiss the notion of 'dual message' with a wave of my hand (either all signals are or no signals are)... if these leads run into any objection its going to be on the "only right-side-up or upside-down allowed" side. For that matter I wish they allowed odd-even throughout the hand. But I dont think I am getting my wish anytime soon :)

Having to download a client before every time I want to play will never be an acceptable substitute for downloading it once and being able to launch it instantly in the future. Never. There may come a time when we have to do it, if there are no competing sites to move to, but we won't be happy about it. I don't much care whether it's a standalone program or a plugin or a Firefox extension (though esthetically I prefer a standalone program - that way you know that third-party upgrades to the browser or the flash engine or whatever won't break it)... but having a way to make it live on my machine is very important to me. Now, that's sort of the opposite of what web-based clients do - they emphasize being able to play from any computer, if you're patient enough - but I think there are a LOT more people who play consistently from the same few computers than who need to be able to log on from anywhere. The web client is a nice extra offering (it helps the people who e.g. cant install software on their work computers) but in my universe it would have remained the secondary product forever.

My club didnt request the materials early enough :P In years past we've had a special game for this, even if it wasn't our usual night to play. Oh well.

If your system provides no way to act immediately with 4 spades and 7 or 8 of a minor, that hand is going to be acting now. I can imagine there might be a few other hands at favorable, be willing to risk acting in a GF auction that weren't initially. But there can't be very many of them.

I would have started with 2C inverted, to set up being able to ask for CQ+aces on the next round. I don't have a solution to finding out about partner's diamond length or strength to be sure 7 is safe. I all likelihood I will gamble on 7 if I get 2+Q. I am not at all sure that 2C will be a majority choice.

I have occasionally written AK-6 AJ-3 etc. in the past (and much prefer "6" to "4" for AKxxxx.) Still, there doesn't seem to be any real gain, long as we count the x's right. And PLEASE use T for tens. I don't know how many times I've thought somebody had a seven-card suit, A-K-one-zero-x-x-x, because I saw 7 characters on the screen.

Looks like a serious missed opportunity to not go to 4NT over 3D, our one chance to ask for all 3 cards we cared about.

OP was referring to this page describing 'constructive raises in competition' - yes, a Bergenesque use of 3C and 3D as 4-card raises showing and denying a singleton. It's an idea I personally quite like -- in uncontested auctions, some years ago I switched from 'textbook Bergen' to a system where 1H-2S showed a 7-10 raise with an undisclosed singleton and 1H-3C showed a 7-10 4-card raise denying a singleton. That said, I have met exactly one person who asked me to play them with him. (We did, and it never came up. I DID talk him into playing them not-in-competition as an extension of regular Bergen.) I consider them a sound idea, better than no agreement at all, and better than weak jumps - but perhaps not so good as fit-jumps or mini-splinters. (And, forum folk, it's quite possible to learn 2/1 in certain parts of the country without ever having heard of 1M-2M constructive.)

Put me down for "you're on drugs if you consider going beyond 3NT." People do play fit-jumps different ways; but in my partnerships, I expect 5 spades to two of the top three, at least 4 clubs, and values enough that he expects 2M or 3m to make opposite the worst hand I would open 1C here (and for me that's going to be a flat 11 that wants a club lead, or a moderately shapely 10 - no 7-HCP third seat craziness.) Partner has denied super-spectacular distribution that is serious about reaching game opposite a minimum; he jumped to only-2-spades, when he could have jumped to 3 (or cuebid 2D, or various other things). 5-2-2-4 and 5-3-1-4 are going to be a LOT more common than 5-5s. [How many of you allow opener to pass the 2S fit-jump if he has something like xxx Kxx Kxx AQxx?] I consider it a virtual certainty that we will either have two red-suit losers, or a red-suit loser and the SA. The one exception, I guess, is when partner has downgraded a singleton honor in the red suits.

I have a toy for 4-5s - but, playing standard, this hand is so strong in playing strength I surely take some action. I guess 2C willing to bid 2H if 2D comes back to me.

I certainly play it as pick a minor, but I can't honestly say I've ever considered what length. It would certainly make sense to use 4N and 5C to distinguish different club lengths.

Ah. I foolishly assumed that "Namyats 3NT" meant "the 3NT bid that is part of Namyats" - i.e. the broken-minor 3NT that accompanies the 4m=strong M version. I've not heard 3NT=good-but-not-solid major referred to by a name of its own (and that one IS still illegal, while the broken minor bid and solid major bid are legal.)

"To play opposite red, wants to play at least 2S opposite black" is what my current partner uses. That type of answer is plenty adequate for 2C and 2D, and marginally adequate for 2H. The 2S response of course needs a bit more said - since it promises a good fit for a red suit. I had one partner some years ago who, rather than saying "pass or correct" said "it's the best of his worst" (the better suit of the less desirable pair of suits) and that REALLY got us blank looks. Against most experts, or people from regions where things like Multi are in common usage, "pass or correct" is likely adequate; sadly against the large majority of ACBL players it's inadequate.

My card is marked "23+bal, 21+unbal, or 9+ playing tricks", and I am very happy to call OP's hand 9 playing tricks, 7.5 in hearts and 1.5 in spades, though I admit I need an entry or a favorable lead to achieve that. If that's what your CC says, your opps shouldn't be surprised when you open accordingly. I've seen many other cards marked 8 1/2 tricks. For them, 8 solid tricks plus two jacks... welll.... its less than half a trick off, anyway. As I understand the rules, both hands would not be counted as strong enough in Europe - though I've never much cared for the rule of 25 as a basis for a regulation.

JacMan is in Kearse's book, but I've never met a real live person who played it. Two-way Stayman at the 2-level plus 4-way transfers at the 3-level. At least it plays 2-way Stayman the right way round (2C bust or GF, 2D invitational) instead of the usual way. Why would a director have given you any trouble about either Namyats 3NT or Kantar 3NT, Phil? They are both GCC legal and have been forever.

Trying one more time... 1) Given one hand whose distribution is known precisely, and one that isn't, there is a huge gain keeping the unknown-distribution hand hidden. 2) Given one hand whose strength is known precisely, and one that isn't, there is a big gain in keeping the unknown-strength hand hidden. 3) Given two hands whose strengths and distributions are known, there is a small gain in having the having the stronger hand declare. 4) Given two hands whose strengths and distributions are known, I have no strong feeling as to whether the flatter hand or more shapely hand should declare. In practice we almost always know more about one hand's distribution than the other. The first two are vastly more important than the last two. My sense is that #1 is more important than #2. But for some reason #3 is the one that gets the most attention. Maybe it's because we have so many auctions after 1NT where both hands are substantially constrained that the chance to benefit much from #1 or #2 has already been thrown away. In the multi-responder case, 1, 2, and 3 ALL point to having responder declare. In a lot of other situations, the case is much less clear. It wouldnt be crazy at all, after a 1NT opening that denies a 4-card major, for instance, to play a structure that tries to make responder always declare. And I am quite convinced that Puppet stayman loses more than it gains, often forcing declarer to reveal a 5-card major in exchange for rarely finding 5-3 fits that only occasionally gain a trick over notrump. (And re double-dummy simulations... yes, they confirm that the value of the stronger hand declaring lies almost entirely in gains from bad opening leads, not in the hand innately playing better from one side than the other.)

The poll question is flawed, IMO. All else being equal, you want to conceal the hand about which less is known. This is a reason (for instance) to play game tries after 1M-2M that ask responder what he has, rather than that expose that opener has a singleton or a long second suit or whatever. I do think people put way too much emphasis on automatically making the stronger hand declarer. But in a Multi auction, we already know a great deal about 2D opener's strength AND his shape, so "conceal shape" people will still try to make responder be declarer. Responder can have almost any hand pattern at all. That, more so than "responder is stronger than opener," is the point of transfer preempts in general.

Without special agreements I pass. If we're playing 2C=2+, 2D=4+, that will make me much more nervous, but I still pass. When the hearts get to be as good as QJT8x, I will consider lying with another bid.

Put me down for a clearcut 2NT. Partner asked us if we have a club stopper, and we do. It does depend on the rest of your agreements - but in my world, opener very rarely raises on 3 immediately, and responder almost always finds a way to show 6 spades if he has them ... 2H will on rare occasion uncover a 4-4 heart fit, but you might as well call it "third suit forcing," asking for 3-card spade support or for a club stopper. The 2S bid doesn't quite promise 3 (on extremely rare occasion youll have a 2-3-6-2 with no club stopper, and be endplayed into a 2S rebid on 2, yes)... but my jaw would drop in shock at a 2S bid on the posted hand opposite a solid unknown with no understanding beyond "2/1". It is an eye-opener to see several good players recommending 2S. (And I am quite surprised by the suggestion that opener holding 3 spades is a rare holding, but I've not run a sim to confirm or deny it.)

X now. It could work out badly, but I think it gains well over half the time. NV I would have Sandwiched on the first round; favorable I might like an obstructionist 3C better than an off-values 2C. Vulnerable I'm not willing to act the first round.