Siegmund

This is what I do. In fact, the problem of finding good followups when the raise to 2M doesn't unequivocally set trump is one of the reasons I stick to a raising style that virtually promises 4-card support.

Speaking only for myself..... I've never seen a tournament that was improved by making it shorter. I know others like the 6- and 8-board joke events, but not me.

Well, you guys beat me both sessions (both of mine at 59 or 60.) Anything in particular you did differently from normal / places you disagree strongly with the advice in the booklet that you'd like to share? On the posted overcall hand:

I may be misremembering the passage in the book; I thought this was the hand where there was a big discussion about how 3-3 is less likely than [4-2 or 2-4], but 4-2 one way is shown to be an irrelevant case, and it turns into a comparison of 3-3 against 2-4, and we decide based on vacant places. It is an interesting but rather turgid book. Lots of examples and thought-provoking material, but I shudder to think of what would happen if an intermediate player bought it hoping to learn some basic information about bridge probability. I am tempted to compare it with another book with a yellow cover by Max Hardy.

If opener really does have a singleton club, we are taking ruffs in the short hand in a heart contract, and I am willing to seriously consider the 4-3 heart fit in preference to notrump or diamonds. With my regular partner, 2H in this auction is specifically 11-12 and 3 hearts (we don't use Drury; instead, we open in 1st or 2nd seat with most hands that want to make a 3-card limit raise if partner has a major), and I would happily pass 2H, expecting my 110 to beat 90 or my 140 to beat 110 or 120. With most other partners, I'd be in a bit of a bind, and my 3rd bid would probably be in diamonds. It'd be nice to bid 3C asking for a half-stopper, the problem is that is going to sound natural. And to the people who think opener might have only 2 hearts: are you serious? Yikes. Not my style and not the way any of the books teach FSF either.

At least in some simple situations, many partnerships assign meanings to the two cuebids. The particular example you gave -- overcaller's rebid after an advance and another bid from opener -- isn't one that my partnership has ever discussed. In the somewhat different auction (1C) 1H (1S), where advancer has a whole pile of cuebids, our agreement is that 2C = the standard limit raise or better; while 2S and 3C are both mixed raises that also show values in the suit bid, to give our side a feel for whether we need to penalize or compete onward if opener's side bids again. Lots of meanings are possible.

Call me a chicken. Just 4S for me. Yeah, a slam is possible. But the odds are against it with an opener supposedly having 2 defensive tricks, and the risk of 2-2 hearts. I'd like to explore for it, but most cheap bids are just going to get partner to bid his better minor, and I worry 5S is too high. Easy to be losing one heart and one minor ace, for instance.

I like a 3C fitjump (yes, I have the agreement with one reg p that jump advances are fit.) With 8 losers even after downgrading HK I cant make myself bid only 2S... and in my universe, a 2C bid (nonforcing but constructive) firmly denies support for spades and would be a pretty clear error. [Edited to add: I seem to have misclicked on the poll. Mentally remove one 2C vote and move it to 3C, please]

I go for the long suit trial. The only card I want to see partner upgrade is the CQ, and if doesn't show willingness to accept a club trial (either because he has the CQ or he has a super-maximum) I will give up. I have sympathy for the 3D short-suit trial, and if you moved a face card from clubs to spades, I'd do that.

I agree that 4C is a FNJ; I hope you're doing it because a club may be your best shot at beating 4S, not because you have an interest in 5D. Given the auction so far, I expect partner to have a hand a tiny bit too good for a 3D preempt. His jump was definitely shape not strength IMO.

At favorable, yes, many of us including myself consider KQJ-7 and out a crystal clear 4S opening. If I open 3S favorable I will essentially never have six almost-sure tricks in my own hand; perhaps KQT9xxx xx xx xx because of the bad shape.

3NT has no reasonable chance - either partner has almost-solid clubs but no entry, or an entry but a big enough hole in clubs that I need two. If you gave me another king I would raise to 5C, and with another queen seriously consider it.

Been to it several times in the past, and enjoyed it, but not this year.

I'm a good law-abiding citizen and bid 3H. Not tempted at all to look for a game, though I can imagine some minimums with singleton clubs where it could make.

Your partner plays mighty sound overcalls - like 1930s style - if you give much thought to anything other than pass here I think.

Bear in mind he published in 1987, and analyzing even moderate numbers of hands in automated fashion wasn't really a viable approach until the mid-90s. He would have HAD to either address a simplified tractable form of the problem (suit combinations), cherrypicked hands from many years of published tournaments with table results, or made some other kind of assumption we'd find unacceptable now.

If my partner looked at the vulnerability before he opened, this is either making 3 or going down 1. hard for me to see much good happening by bidding 4S... pushing them to 5D rather than 4, but they arent likely to bid anyway?

Thomas Andrews has an article about 54321 points. Called them Cowan points, or something like that. There was a case that, in a certain limited set of circumstances concerning balanced hands that are committed to NT, the 54321 approach is good. There isn't much of a case for using an extremely notrump-only hand evaluation method for the opening bid, even for opening bids of notrump.

2NT not close. Presumably part 2 will be less obvious?

Pig Trader's argument is the best case against allowing LOOTs at T13 that I've heard. I think that particular problem can simply be avoided by considering declarer's attention when he faces his last card without comment -- earlier in the deal, exposing his hand is likely to be ruled a claim, for instance, rather than as dropping all his cards face up or leading two cards out. I can still rule that the faced card without comment at trick 13 is a claim (or concession, as the case may be) of the last trick, played in turn. I think that specifically calling for the card is in something of a different category, clearly indicating declarer doesn't know what he's doing (but I didn't see the original thread discussion, so can't directly address the case that gave rise to it.)

Let's not forget responses to a natural and limited 2C opening.

If you were more experimental, you might find 11-15 1NT more playable if you took some shapes out of it. The ultimate extension of that is 1D=11-15 promising 4CM, 1M as usual, 1NT=11-15 bal no 4CM, 2C/2D 11-15 and natural. Of course you may well find that 1D even more objectionable than the usual Precision one ;)

Attempting to answer the question about comparing LOOT at T13 with a revoke at T12, here is how I see it: For most revokes, we apply an automatic penalty, which sometimes (pre-2007, often) exceeded the damage caused by the revoke itself. At trick 12, without a huge open-ended problem of what advantage your partner might take of seeing the revoke or the confusion in declarer's mind... we simply allow NOS the best possible outcome of the hand had the revoke not happened (no automatic penalty, but NOS can still change its cards played after the revoke, and NOS can tell offender's partner which of two cards to play if the revoke was in the first half of trick 12.) It is not clear to me what happens if you gain a trick from your opponent's trick 12 revoke, which you would have to give back to your opponent if you called the director. We have a standard notion that you are not obligated to call attention to an irregularity if doing so hurts your own side (e.g. your own side's pre-trick-12 established revoke; and we tolerate people who accept leads/bids out of turn by simply playing on rather than stopping first to call the director.) For most leads out of turn by declarer, we apply no automatic penalty, but do allow NOS to decide whether to accept it or not. I am comfortable with saying that we should continue treating LOOT at trick 13 the same as earlier LOOTs since no automatic penalty is involved. Some people may not be.

I see 200% blame to South, for failing to open and to overcall. That still leaves a little bit left over, since North has a decidedly imperfect takeout double, but as a passed hand it's certainly an acceptable call and could have avoided the disaster. (But I voted South-only in the poll, since IMO passing in 3rd seat was by far the largest mistake.)

I learn towards pass, with 10 losers and the knowledge the spade ruffs are hitting the long hand, but I certainly wouldn't call raising obviously wrong.