Siegmund

This is one of the few things in Root/Pavlicek that really sticks out like a sore thumb these days. They play all 1X-1Y-nonjump-jump to 3 auctions as forcing, and put all the invitational hands through FSF/NMF. I happen to be in the minority who believe that way is much superior to the way it's usually played now; but it HAS been a minority treatment for a pretty long time now - pretty much since the beginning of 2/1 being commonly played. And it's not the way NMF is taught in most "recent" (yes, Justin, I know that you don't think the 90s books are recent enough) books. I have to wonder if even in 1981 it was something less than standard, but Root and Pavlicek's preferred method. (The alternative approach is around in several books from the 70s.) As to opener's original question, though -- unless you've explicitly agreed 2-way NMF, I would expect only 2♣ to be NMF and 2♦ to be natural and weak, with 3♦ still natural and weak, in your posted auction.

I am surprised the first 3 replies all said #1 was forcing. The rule I learned for uncontested auctions as a beginner, and that still appears in the beginners books now, is that a new suit by an unpassed responder is forcing provided that nobody has bid 1NT. If any of the above does not hold - not a new suit, a passed hand, you're opener, or somebody has bid notrump - only reverses and jump shifts are forcing. So - #1 NF, #2 F, #3a 2♦, #3b 2♣. In both parts of #3, opener's third bid is expected to be 2♥ if he has 3-card support. I have seen a lot of online beginners playing #1 as natural and forcing, and as far as I could tell it was because nobody had ever mentioned to them it wasn't. I wonder if that's the way some online source is teaching it nowadays, or if it's just a lot of people not reading the list of exceptions to the "new suit forcing rule."

Well, playing strong notrump, your game plan with the 12-14 hands after a negative double is obvious: scramble. No chance of game unless partner has significant extras. As we're seeing in this thread, with the 15-17 hand, it's not obvious how badly we can hurt 2♥ or whether we have a game our way.

I'm going with the passive heart. Our side isn't getting any ruffs anyway. Let him quietly go down one or two leading stuff out of his hand rather than me taking a finesse for him. I am fully prepared to be very wrong - there are hands where the attacking D or S lead is needed, but I'm speculating they are outnumbered by the hands where 4♥ dies of natural causes.

I'm speculating on 2♠. I've seen the awful hands some people like to come back in on... I wouldn't fault 3♣. Pass seems like sorta a big gamble, though especially if 4th hand is the type who would almost always raise to 3♥ if he had 3 decent hearts, there may be a case for it.

Pass is at least moderately obvious. Wishing you could double and then passing reluctantly is a reasonable alternative. I could make myself double 2♦ with these cards, but not 3.

2♠ is reasonable, unless you are part of the significant minority who have agreed 1M-2m-2M is nonforcing (in which case 3♠ is the standout.) There may well be a case for 3♠ anyway, if you agree that it shows this kind of concentration in spades, rather than just a little bit extra in values. What DOES 3♠ show, for those of you who wouldn't dream of anything other than 2♠ on the posted hand?

My experience is only with Bridgemate I. That experience is that it worked about two-thirds of the time. Some of that was presumably operator error, and some of it bugs that have now been removed. In principle I think it's a fine idea. Even better if we can actually get contracts and not just scores to print on recap sheets!

1) With a conservative p I open this 2♥ and trust him not to hang me. The double presumably was snapdragon? I'd play that as one more face card and often a bit less in clubs... I prefer 3♣ here. 2) Depends just how conservative he is, but opposite 90% of pickup partners I pass. 3) Unless partner is SO conversative as to require 6 spades with 2 of the top 3 honours, not moving. 4) I can make up auctions where North cuebids clubs at some point and South eventually chooses to go for 6N rather than 6M, and I can make up lots of stupid auctions with inappropriate Blackwood bids. At the table I admit I am playing 6♥ by North.

TO plus P spells TOP.

Most likely. "Pick-a-slam bids" are one of those notions that don't appear in most the bidding textbooks, and don't exist in practice outside of adv+ level regular partnerships. It would be a very fruitful area, if someone were to write up some guidelines sometime. Even then, in this particular auction 5NT is so high that it's going to need to carry an extremely specific meaning, and it's hard for me to imagine very many of those other than the ancient standard one that are appropriate.

There was one place that Swiss Pairs was commonly used in the US - in the "homestyle" games, non-duplicate games where you played 4-board matches against another pair and converted the result to VPs after each round. They were a failed experiment to draw rubber bridge players into the club. They are still legal, and still award masterpoints at the usual club game rate, plus .06 per match won. They are somewhat less serious than the average game of Go Fish. Myself, I would be delighted to never see a Swiss movement anywhere, pairs or teams, bridge or backgammon, for the rest of my life.

If four of myself are at the table, it begins pass-3♥-X-5♥ and then God only knows what. There are lots of difficult choices to be made - but as others noted, East not coming up with a takeout double of 3♥ is the most egregious one.

I assumed "internally solid" meant KQJ-7 or QJT-8 in this context - you know how many tricks your suit is playing for, and it's the same number whether partner has xx or a void. (I think the 4S bid includes some of the KQT type suits though.)

han summed it up well. The offshape 1NT isn't wrong, but isn't necessary, either.

Very surprised that this is a penalty double you "wouldn't miss." I'd say it's the 2nd-most-profitable penalty double in the game (behind 1NT-(2M)-X ) at the regional-and-lower levels. There are a lot of people who don't have good runout methods, and even those who do sometimes have nowhere to run. I can see giving up 1m-(1N)-2m to show the majors. Maybe.

I would characterize 4♣ showing a void as "heard-of, but much less common than 5-5", both 15 years ago and today, in the US. As already noted, however, no agreement = no redress.

Remarkable unanimity in the forum today B) For us, it seemed the meta-agreement "if one partner's double is non-penalty, so is the other partner's" - as applied on the previous round of the auction - might still apply but we couldnt come up with many hands where that made sense. Just wanted to make sure we weren't missing anything obvious.

Perhaps what you both want, then, is a hand-reviewer applet that automatically puts your hand at the bottom of the screen, not an option to play the board sideways initially. It wouldn't be a bad idea - have checkboxes for "north at top," "declarer at bottom", and "me at bottom". Simplifies rotating hands to post, simplifies reviewing one's own session, and allows those who don't want any change to keep it as it is. There's a forum devoted to software suggestions a few rows down from this one, if you'd care to put a proposal forward to the site management.

A couple of variations on a theme that arose Friday night at the club. 1♣ - (1♥) - Pass - (Pass) X - (2♥) - X On this forum there doesn't seem to be such a thing as a double that everybody agrees is penalty. What about this one? What are the alternatives? 3-card spade support? Responsive? (If your card already includes support and responsive doubles, and goes out of its way to use them a lot, is the default meaning of this double still penalty?) As a followup question... if you're considering a non-penalty meaning for the above double... suppose you have the hand with the heart stack, and the second round of the auction is X - (2♥) - Pass - (Pass). Will partner always reopen with a double again if he reopened with a double the first time? Or are there a large number of minimal-ish hands -- say Kxx Qx Kxx Axxxx -- that reluctantly reopened once and will now fall silent?

Standard is X = penalty, new suit constructive but nonforcing. In other words, more like a 1M-X system (with X taking the place of XX) than a notrump opening system. I'm sure you will get a few other suggestions. We have lots of imaginative system folk on the boards.

I bid 2D the first time. Vulnerable 1NT with both opps bidding is not my cup of tea even though I have stoppers. After 2C I definitely bid it now. I would expect partners double of 2C to be penalty-oriented, but given that he started with a takeout double of 1H, we expect it to be based on 4 nice clubs, and our hand should usually pull with a singleton if we have anywhere to go. (Haven't looked at the full hand yet, will after I post this.)

No unreasonable decisions there, just an unfortunate result, I think. The reopening double with a void is never risk-free, as we know... still, on the posted hand I think it's the most reasonable action. If GB2N were on in this auction it's handle things nicely - but in my partnerships, it is not. Oh well. Maybe at IMPs you should have one more spot in spades to pass rather than bid clubs. but if I were east or west I wouldn't heavily criticize any of my partner's bids here.

Looks like an IMP pass but a MP double to me. (And yes, I would play X as penalty here... with 2S/3m to play and 2NT as pick-a-minor by my hand, doesn't seem any reason to add an exception to the "after somebody bids notrump, doubles are all penalty" rule.) Partner may still yank it with a void in hearts or some other weak crazy hand.

Not forcing, and my call is "no questions partner." My distribution is exactly what my previous double said I had IMO.