Siegmund

It pays to use a text editor that will do context highlighting and tell you if your braces balance or not, rather than simple Notepad, that's for sure. Though personally I find the logic of TCL easier to follow than most any other programming language I've tried to pick up.

Personally I feel the opposite of whereagles -- I tried transfer advances and ultimately gave up on them, feeling I hadn't gained anything from them, whereas I would love to be able to play transfer responses in 1y-2x and 1x-2y auctions (especially over a polish style club and an overcall) but the ACBL won't let me. They are indeed very different situations - but they also differ in whether the transfer puts the right or the wrong person on lead, and in how badly you need to create extra sequences.

I am the lone "other" in the second poll. Whatever meaning you decided 3C was before you bid 3S, you should still maintain that belief. If you thought 3C was a weak 4-6 you would never have corrected to 3S. So bidding 3S and then passing 4C can't possibly make any sense. (As I voted for weak 4-6, I can't just vote for what I think the "correct" meaning in this auction is.)

The majority view these days is to play it INV - just as people play 1C-1H-1S-3C/3H INV - but I think putting all the invitations into (1-way) checkback and having the jumps be GF is far better. Not sure why, other than mere fashion, the invitational 3-level jumps ever became popular at all.

I do play it and like it. Requires some discussion, especially as to what Redouble shows (for many people, the equivalent of a natural 1NT response) and whether it applies only after 1M-X, or after all 1suit-X. There is about two pages about it in the Robson and Segal book, several short writeups on the web, and several short writeups of "Capp/1MX," which is sort of an ancestor of the transfers people use now. When I started playing it, I didn't find any of the online writeups adequate, and my p and I had to work out quite a lot for ourselves. Over a double, or other conventional action by overcaller, it is General Convention Chart in the ACBL. Over a pass or a natural overcall, it is Mid-Chart. A fairly complete writeup of transfers after a natural overcall is at http://www.bridgewit...titive_bids.doc

Bridge at the Enigma Club was my first thought too. (Heck, the Martens Camouflage book, even.) I do remember at least one of those recommending 1c-x-p-1d as negative; don't recall either one suggesting -p-1h also was.

I have experimented with 2H=spades, 2S artificial ask, 2NT clubs, 3C hearts, over a natural 2D denying 4CM. It does have the merit of getting you to 2S often. The price is the asking bid starting one step higher, and the heart hands being very expensive. I probably ought to try 2NT=hearts, to give partner two steps rather than one before passing 3D, and live with 3C natural. I just have a hard time making myself giving up so many sequences as I do with a 2-level NF response. Maybe there is a good method with 2S inv, but I always find myself wanting more auctions.

If I had more in spades and less in clubs, I'd at least consider doubling 1C with 3352. I very often would double 1D with 3325 rather than bidding 2C.

If it makes you feel better, there are a lot of (somewhat misguided) humans in my area who bypass 4-card diamond suits but not 5+ card ones.

A lot. Change the vulnerability by one notch, change the level at which someone preempts by one full level, generally. (The ones who passed or opened 4H will still not consider 2H. But many of the 3H votes will either consider 2H or actually do it.)

Almost all the same times that it is right to lead high. Situations like the_hog's are sometimes hard to spot on opening lead, of course :)

I think 3 of a new suit can be NF here... but I would certainly take 3S as slammish. Of course I hate Single Raise Constructive with a passion. My 1NTF will NEVER contain 3 spades if it is weak. People who play Single Raise Constructive have a problem here, caused by how overloaded their 1NT response is. I suppose they have to play transfers to sort out hand strength?

I would assume semistrong 2-4-2-5. Since I can't leave it unless I fit hearts, I presume I'm invited to bid 3NT with a diamond stopper, otherwise retreat to a black suit. Partner will never have 6 clubs. He could have rebid them the first time.Wild distributional hands do not sit over the double. I don't really have a 2nd-most-likely distribution to nominate. 1-4-3-5 with weak diamonds but very strong hearts and clubs, maybe. But why wouldn't that hand just reverse to 2H immediately?

You have an uninspiring collection in fourth seat, vul vs not: ♠Axxx ♥9xxx ♦x ♣Qxxx On the first round, you respond to partner's takeout double like a good little boy. On the second round, LHO rebids 1NT, ostensibly 18-19, and partner doubles again. Do you leave the double in, or bid your second suit? How much weaker or stronger would you have to be before you would change your mind? Is clubs a biddable suit for our side in this auction?

You don't need one more abstention because 3H is so bad, but thats really all I can say. If you dropped me into this chair with a gun to my head I suppose I'd double. ("Sectional" implied matchpoints to me. I have sympathy for a chickenhearted pass at IMPs.)

Better integration with database type programs would be a nice addition. As already mentioned in the thread, the van Staveren dealer has most of the requested features for constraints and combinations... so too does the Thomas Andrews DEAL package. In the case of Deal, the front end can take any TCL command/subroutine/program you care to write - as, for instance, a branching routine that deals 12-14, 15-17 and 18-20 hands equally frequently, either with a random number generator or something like set counter 0 main { incr counter set h [south hcp] if {counter % 3 == 0} { reject if {$h<12} {$h>14}} { if {counter % 3 == 1} {reject if {$h<15} {$h>17}} {reject if {$h<18} {$h>20} } } accept } It's really just a matter of what kinds of constraints you want to make easy for yourself, and what programming languages you know. In my case, I taught myself TCL so I could use the Deal software. For basic statistics I use the built-in commands; for more complicated statistics I dump intermediate results from Deal to a .csv file that I can process in SAS (or the statistics program of your choice.)

Eh? Partner claims to have both majors, and I've already passed up a chance to make a 1S overcall. I will NEVER have a good hand with 5 spades here, though I might have a terrible hand with 5 spades. I think 1S as 4+ is universal at all levels. For that matter I would take 2S as decent values and 4 pieces without discussion, though you could agree to use it as obstructive.

Strong partner, but no discussion about this particular sequence. It goes 1♦ -(2♦) - X - 2(♥). Presumably partner's X was the usual some values, can penalize one minor, etc etc type of hand. Obviously opener's 3C and 3D are going to be natural now. Do you "almost always" pass with semibalanced semiminimum hands? Or will you go out of your way to bid 2S or 2NT or Double here? Is there a special toy that helps opener in this spot? (In one of my partnerships Good-Bad 2N would be on here; in most of the others that would sound natural, trying to get to 3NT instead of selling out to their hearts.)

In Unassuming Club, 1C-1H (two-way / natural positive) (2D) 2S-3S (strong, 5+ spades / natural) and a keycard auction is the fast path to 6S. I always bid a 5-card spade suit before a 6-card minor in Standard or 2/1, too, but I realize many people playing a system with the same name would start with 3C ... though if it went 3C-3S-4NT you'd get there just as fast. I am surprised by North's 3NT bid in the posted Meckwell auction - which appears to be the culprit for missing the spade fit and slam.

I am not familiar with the exact variation trevahound is playing (and look forward to hearing more about it), but one of the new Krszystof Martens books does something very similar on the second round as he is proposing. In my own 2/1-non-GF partnerships, we have agreed to have one possibly-artificial rebid by opener (2 of another suit, which suit depending on the auction) to handle the non-GF escapes.

The problem hands you have are ones where fit-jumps would be very useful. I have not had much success trying to telescope several kinds of fit-jumps into one reply; I wonder if you might instead be able to telescope several kinds of your invitational jump shifts into one reply, so that you can use 1S-3C to show 3+S 5+C (or similar.) For instance, 1S-2N = any invitational 1-suiter, 1S-3new = fit, 1S-3S = balanced limit, or something. The other old-fashioned solution, not having 2/1 be GF, seems to be very out of fashion right now. GRB

If E-W pass, Unassuming Club (and variations thereon) probably bid a boring 1C-1D, 2H-3H, 4H. Some old-fashioned Polish Clubbers might too. Is ANY E-W going to pass, rather than having it start 1C-(1S)-P-(2S)?

Admittedly I learned a style where 1M was 11-18 rather than 11-17 as more often said now... but think I would always downgrade a 6 LTC hand to a 1M opening in Polish. Presumably most game tries will be accepted and 4S will still be reached after 1S-2S start.

I tried it with a few different Polish variants (starting 1H) and all roads appeared to lead to 3NT.

I like the par score idea. (It is 'expensive', software-wise... you certainly want to store it if you calculate it once, but not sure you want to calculate it for every deal unless it is requested.) If you DO include a list of making contracts - PLEASE report the full 4x5 box of how many tricks, NOT just a list of which contracts can be made.