goodwintr

Tartan Two-bids, as has been pointed out, are strong (Acol-style) with the suit bid, or weak 5-5 with that suit and another. Various other options have been tried: for example, in the original version (Kelsey?) 2H could also be a strong balanced hand. As far as I know, Tartan Twos were only 2H and 2S, not 2m. Since a Tartan Two is based on a real suit, it would seem reasonable to defend it as if it were a weak two-bid in that suit -- takeout doubles, etc. You might get in trouble if opener happens to be strong, but he is usually weak, and even if he is strong he might not have a lot of defense. The two-bids Tim mentioned in the OP are Ira Rubin's two-way two-bids, strong in the suit named or weak in the next suit up. These were published almost 50 years ago, and Rubin has played them with various partners (including Soloway) over the years, including in several world championships.

Maybe we are just using different lexicons. In the one on my shelf, "takeout" means you expect partner to bid something, usually an unbid suit. "Penalty" means you expect him to pass unless he has a good reason to do something else. The double you are describing, Jlall, just means "do something intelligent": you really don't care whether he bids something or passes. That double is neither "takeout" nor "penalty," but something in between. It used to be called "cooperative," but terms like "action" and "card-showing" seem to have taken over. I'm not arguing against the concept, just about the terminology. It seems clear to me that the double in question means just about what you said it does. TLG

So the double of four clubs is for takeout? Hmmm: I have bid hearts, partner has shown spades, and the opponents are bidding clubs. So the double of four clubs must be takeout for one suit, diamonds?

Richard Pavlicek has some relevant material (in fact, lots of relevant material) at rpbridge.com. (Look under "matches.") He is looking at real deals, not simulations. And he is concerned exclusively with IMPs, not matchpoints. I haven't looked at this in detail, but it seems from a quick once-over that when the contest is between 1NT and two of a suit, and between 3NT and four of a major, the odds favor the suit contract if there is a real fit, and notrump if there is only a seven-card fit. But you can look at the details yourself. (Warning: small sample size. This is always a problem with at-the-table statistical analysis.)

Didn't the OP say 2C, then 2NT, is 23-24, not 22-23? There may be only a silly millimeter at stake, but doesn't that mean the hand is only a maximum 2NT opening bid (19-22 in the system set out by OP)? In fact, there are both good and bad features for opening 2NT (or 2C and rebidding 2NT): AJ doubleton is a big plus for notrump declaration, whereas Ax doubleton is a minus. The 5-card suit may be worth something extra, but it isn't a very strong suit. So, I would argue that opening 2NT is right in OP's system. He didn't ask what would be right in another system.

I think "what else?" might be 2D, Michaels, if everyone at the table (and at the other table) has a sense of humor. But then, maybe this is why my partners don't allow me to play Michaels . . . .

Maybe this has been taken up elsewhere - if so, I haven't seen it. So, the opponents are on their way to six or seven hearts, with hearts bid first on your left. At some point RHO cue-bids six diamonds. You double for a diamond lead. They settle in six hearts, and you double again. You will recognize the situation from the Bermuda Bowl finals, where both players faced with this situation doubled 6D and then doubled 6H, and where in both cases this attracted a lead in . . . clubs! The diamond lead was needed to defeat six hearts. The opening leaders seem to have believed that the double of six hearts "cancelled" the double of six diamonds and suggested another lead. The argument, I guess, is that if you just wanted a diamond lead you would double six diamonds and pass six hearts. Well, can anybody come up with a hand where it is a good idea to double six diamonds for a diamond lead, and then double six hearts for something else?

Some people play that responder's 2S rebid is forced whenever he has 5+ spades, regardless of his strength: he could be weak, intending to pass if opener next bids 3C, but he could also be strong. (This was the Kaplan-Sheinwold understanding, I believe.) Since on this understanding 2S might be any old five-card suit, opener's raise to 3S shows genuine support, and is forcing: a hand good enough for a reverse that includes genuine support for responder's five-card suit ought to stretch for a playable game almost regardless of what responder has. Putting it another way, once an eight-card major-suit fit is established, so that the deal is known not to be misfit, opener's reverse should be considered game-forcing even if it wasn't game-forcing before the fit was established. 3NT over 3S sounds like choice-of-games. 4D chooses spades and implies an enormous hand. 5H implies no heart losers and focusses on clubs, as others have said. I strongly suspect that opener is overbidding, and maybe playing a different system from the above. What else is new?

Using 3NT for a strong major-suit preempt is an idea of Kantar's, I believe. He played it as showing a solid major suit, not just a strong one. I played it for a while, but don't recall that it ever came up.

Does "modern" mean partner might have, say, x Qxxxx Jxx AQ98?

Not so difficult in theory, although perhaps more difficult in practice. You could easily work out how effective a weak 2D opening bid is (or has been) against, say, a pass: just gather all deals where someone opened 2D at one table, and the corresponding player at the other table passed (when he would have had the opportunity to open 2D if the spirit moved him); add up the results for the "2D team" and the results for the "pass team," et voila. Of course, on any particular deal the result may have depended on something else -- the opening-bid decision is not necessarily determinative of anything. But over a large enough sample size, you should be able to conclude something. Next, you might want to break down the 2D openings, putting some of them into a "sound" pile and others into an "aggressive" (or "noisy") pile, and repeat the calculations. It would be interesting in itself to see whether "sound" is better or worse than "aggressive," and also interesting to see whether either or both is better or worse than "pass." As you know, this is the type of methodology that led Vernes to the discovery of the Law of Total Tricks. When he did that work, back in the 'sixties, he didn't have ready access to computerized techniques: he cranked out the deals by hand from World Championship matches. (He employed similar methodology to discover that it was losing bridge to bid 1H over 1D on, say, x Qxxxx AQ98 Jxx.)

Apart from feeling that you are accomplishing something positive by preempting on this sort of hand, can anybody actually show (via real-world statistics, simulation, whatever -- something close to objective) that it is winning bridge? My suspicion is that opening 2D (or 3D) on that hand is losing tactics in the long run, but I certainly cannot prove it. A poll certainly won't prove it, or its opposite.

Appollo81: I don't understand how a system that has an ARTIFICIAL 1NT opener can be good. I guess that depends on a number of things, including (a) whether a natural 1NT opener is "good" in practice; (:wacko: whether the artificial usage, whatever it is, is "better" than a natural 1NT in practice; and © whether the system falls apart if you don't have a natural 1NT opening. Some of this could be tested fairly readily. For example, you could collect all of the deals where somebody opened a natural 1NT, regardless of range, while at the other table the corresponding player opened something else. Just add up the results, and you should have a winner, either 1NT or "something else." You can easily see how the study could be refined. Maybe someone has done this. (It sounds like something Jean-Rene Vernes may have done. His first published system, La Majeure D'Abord, featured an artificial 1NT opener. It showed five or more hearts.) Also, note that some people have been successful with very weak mini-notrump openings, such as 10-12 or even weaker. Presumably these are hands that are passed in most systems. If that method works, it means you can get along without a natural 1NT opening bid that shows more than the mini notrump. I don't know what conclusions to draw from these thoughts, except that it surely isn't obvious that an artificial 1NT opener is unplayable. TLG

Something like this occurred in a European Championship match many years ago. A player -- Claude Deruy, of France, if I recall correctly -- was in fourth position after three passes. He had been musing about the play of the previous deal, and hadn't returned his cards from that deal to the pocket. He took a look at his hand, didn't see enough to open the bidding, and passed. It was reported that this was on vugraph, and that the commentators were having a lot of trouble explaining to the audience how Deruy knew to pass out the deal when he had a balanced 22-count. . . . There must have been a different rule back then, because the score was duly entered as "passed out."