Double !

ain't that the truth!

3S = less than a limit raise/ invitational hand. Just competing. Could bid 3H to invite.

I assume that, when you say "by opening 2C and a rebid", that you are referring to some form of natural, limited 2C opener such as in precision. One big difference. The 3NT opening doesn't contain outside stoppers while the structures that I know for rebidding after 2C openers assume cards/ at least one stopper/ outside of the club suit (such as 2C-2D-?). Even the precision 3C opener assumes that the hand is not just 7 (8) solid clubs and out. If you are referring to a strong, forcing 2C opener, it has been ruled that one may not open such a hand with 2C (in acbl) as far as I know. But, I guess that there is no reason why one couldn't create a rebid structure after opening a limited, natural 2C to account for such a hand.

agree with 4 hearts: you do have 8 of them. P will never play you for 8 hearts if you bid only 3H.

low diamond major suit lead doesn't sound right, and low from J-4th never works well for me. (which means it's probably the winner this time).

right or wrong, i would lead a trump: make declarer develop his tricks. if I pick up P's Qxx, oh, well. I wouldn't be surprised if declarer had 6 trumps, anyway. At MP, blindly leading an ace seems to run to much of a risk of giving away a trick.

If P has this hand, would not the correct rebid be 2 spades (forcing 1 round)? This auction was the topic of one of Fred's earlier articles where it was suggested that rebidding 2S to play because you had 6 spades alone didn't make much sense when P had already shown 6 hearts. Hence the rebid was forcing one round.

I'd be rather surprised if T9 4th of hearts aren't on my right. Tired, but trying to sequence a trump coup.

was this in response to the director's ruling that this player had to "pass" at his first opportunity?

Glen: I have the "old" notes from your ETM/ Bridge Matters site on Jacoby+ where it says limit raise or better, or 16+. It's the 16+ that I am having difficulty understanding. Am/ was I correct in assuming that you meant a balanced 16+ like the old Baron 2NT, or did you meant a different type of hand. The rebids that you suggested should opener rebid 3C (wouldn't accept game try) are reasonably clear. However, the follow-up bids should opener rebid 3 diamonds or something else are quite unclear to me. Perhaps I am missing something. I would appreciate it if you could clarify this, or have you scrapped the 16+ part of the convention, at least as far as ETM Tops is concerned? Thanks in advance. DHL:

yes and from the peanut gallery, if I might just say that the whole viewgraph and broadcast team are doing a fantastic job. Now if the kids could just win a few more imps here or there.................

yuck and you guys are broadcasting and vugraphing? or is there currently a break?

is server down?

me, too for about 10-15 minutes

Now if there was one rating I could understand it (minimum number of boards per segment for the convention to be ACBL legal) but what's the situation between the 2 and 6 boards per segment ratings? An implied amount of time a partnership would have to review and/ or discuss interventions or defenses i.e. pairs versus something like swiss teams?

I used to play a 2D opening as showing 5-bad 11 with 5-5 in majors (a Michaels' Cue Bid) until acbl ruled against it. The 2D showing 10+ with 4-4 in the majors appears to be GCC legal, and midchart permits an opening 2-bid with less than 10 hcp provided at least 5-4 distribution. I might just consider opening those hands with 2H. At first glance, this multiple meaning 2 diamond bid that you propose seems to be trying to fit too many meanings into one bid, and would make it very difficult to accurately handle overcalls by opps, especially pre-emptive strikes. Responder would never know what kind of hand to play you for in competition because you offensive to defensive ratio, loser count and offensive potential would change somewhat with each alteration in distribution. And, your partner wouldn't know how to respond (e.g. whether or not to bid a 3-card major in comp.) until P knew which of these 3 hand-types you had. One aspect of the 2-D opener that I played was that it was a reasonably defined hand type (never a 4441) so that the opps bidding couldn't disrupt the bidding very much: P already knew pretty much what I had when I bid 2D, just a question of strength. But, I think you should work on your idea and try it out for a while online and see how it works.

Maybe each player should black-mark (label as enemy) any players who do this and just not permit them at your table of you have control of the table. This practive of leaving the table in the middle of a hand is so increasingly prevalent that It's not clear that abuse could handle the overload if every similar situation were to be reported (as perhaps they should be.) Maybe we need to take more care in monitoring our own tables and reject such players when they try to tap in to our tables. I really don't know.

The idea of 4C showing clubs and a major has some merit as these hands seem to be difficult to describe in std methods. Although not quite the same situation, i had the following hand last night. RHO opened a weak 2H and I held the following: ♠ KQ9xxx, void, Ax, AQ98x. Reverse the black suit holdings and 4C leaping michaels seemed reasonable. But with the 6th spade I was leery of this bid and selected a simple 2S overall on the belief that, unless P could take some bid or lho raised hearts, I might be walking into a bid misfit. Turned out that discretion was the better part of valor on this particular occasion as it went 2H-2S-Pass-pass-pass. Partner tabled 10 red cards including QJT8x of hearts and 5 yucky diamonds. This such a hand was not unexpected once lho passed 2S. Lucky on this occasion. +110 was the limit of the hand (as I played it). Avoided huge loss due to misfit.

as an "advanced player", my approach in making a decision whether or not to start with a takeout dbl is that P's responses with be predicated on the assumption that you at least close to a classic or template takeout double (4441 with shortness in opener's suit). Without that type of hand, if you're doubling on a GOSH, it has to be good enough to handle any response that responder might make. Heart suit on this hand is not independent enough for such action. Right or wrong, I would have simply overcalled 1 heart and followed up with stronger bidding depending on what my partner responded. I am probably in the minority on this, just my style. (lol: anyone for strong jump-overcall? yeah, right.) I sympathize with your decision to not open 2S due to heart void and no A or K in your suit. The only redeeming feature to opening 2S is the mild internal solidity of the spade suit. This is really an issue for partnership discussion/ agreement IMO.

I am cautious about making mixed raises on flat hands sch as 4333. I don't think it is a crime to give a simple raise to 2H and then compete to 3H with poor distro but good trumps. Playing fit jumps precludes a Bromad treatment that some like where 3 of suit just under P's major = mixed raise.

Assuming responder hasn't responded 1 spade with something like AJxx, Jxx, xxx, Qxx (responder should simply raise hearts IMO), I suspect that responder has a 10-11 pts hand with dbltn H-x in hearts, maybe xxx. With xx in hearts and scattered values 2NT might be an alternative rebid, taking preference to 3H should opener bid something like 3 diamonds. With the Hx in hearts and 10-11, i think 4H is a reasonable shot. Not so comfortable in 4H if responder has xx.

The choice of rebid on this hand becomes more interesting should the partnership happen to be playing a double-negative initial response such as 2H. (denying any ace or king.) Opener can have a better idea of what to rebid such as 2S and then bidding 3NT should responder raise spades.

respond 2 spades, transfer to clubs. Opener may pre-accept with Hxx or a max hand where he thinks clubs can be established and then reached. Responder then has option of signing off in 3C with a non-invitational hand.

how about "another lead and they make 7"?

Maybe it's time for me meds again but, more and more I've been wondering about the idea of making 2S/1H & 2NT/1S as limit+ raise, and of having opener's next bids be game tries (help suit, short-suit, long-suit: your choice) or some way to ask or inform responder about what cards are and are not helpful to opener. The weakness of the limit raise IMO has always been the lack of clarification of which cards in responders hand are good and fitting, and which aren't. (One, maybe the only, strong point for SAYC or not playing a 2/1 style.) DHL