david_c

Why not? If you want an anti-lemming bid, isn't it better to tell the opponents about dummy's weakness rather than declarer's?

Playing teams is what messes it all up. It's probably* true to say that for any given system, there exists an opposing system that beats it more than 50% of the time in a teams match. If you play rubber bridge, on the other hand, an optimal system must exist for the reasons Helene gave. (That is, your long-term expectation is non-negative no matter what system the opponents are playing.) *I say "probably" because, if you study game theory, games of this type tend to have this feature. But it's difficult to see how you could prove this without actually solving bridge completely.

2♠ just shows a minimum hand for the 2♦ response, prepared to play in 2♠. It will usually be precisely a doubleton, I suppose, but this isn't required by the system. 3♠ is invitational. Most [non-GF] hands good enough for a 2/1 with 3-card support will be good enough for this bid, but occasionally you might settle for 2♠. With 3-card support and a game force you bid 4♠ or fourth suit. This is the sort of thing that gives Acol a bad name, but everyone does it.

I voted for "Should require an alert or other special disclosure", but really that's wrong - it's not alertable, nor is there anything special about the disclosure required, they just need to disclose accurately, rather than giving a range which does not correspond to what they are playing. Now, some amount of upgrading / downgrading is expected, and does not need to be explicitly disclosed. But obviously we've got to draw the line somewhere, and in my opinion what they are doing crosses that line (though not by much). This shouldn't be a big deal though. As TD I would just tell them that 15-17 is not an adequate explanation and ask them to find a way to describe it better. If we didn't have announcements this would be easy. With announcements, it's not clear what the right thing to say is. Personally I would recommend they say, "15-17, maybe less with a good suit". Or something like that. Just find something which points out to the opponents the possibility of unusual levels of upgrading, without being overly long or confusing. (In response to Arend's post above, I would say this is a description of the range.)

First of all it depends whose definition you are using. The terms natural and/or artificial are defined: (i) In the 2007 Lawbook.* (ii) In some national authorities' regulations. (iii) By the way people generally use the words. These definitions are all different, so it doesn't really make sense to ask the question until you've decided which one you're talking about. Even then, of course, there is no guarantee that the definition you picked will give a clear answer. In the case of (iii) there is no absolute dividing line at all. You wouldn't normally use either word without qualification. I might describe the first three agreements as "natural but could sometimes be 3 cards", but I would never describe them as simply "natural". I voted for "4" because if I was asked to write down a definition this is where I would prefer to put the dividing line. (Note: this would make the first three cases natural bids, but still alertable.) *(Only "artificial". Note that this is not in the 1997 Lawbook.)

It's a perfectly respectable system IMO. I used to think about things like this back in the days that Polish Club wasn't allowed in England. (Technically it always was allowed, but in so few competitions that it wasn't worth learning.) I was considering 2♣ showing hearts and 2♦ showing spades - it seemed more comfortable lowering the strength requirements if a specific suit was shown - but maybe you can get away with just using 2♣. The key is the 1♦ opening. If you can get this to work I'd love to see how it's done. (Not least because there are some other systems I'd want to transplant it to, e.g. Fantunes, freeing up 2♦ for a multi.) I've always ended up with the feeling that while you can play transfers to give opener a third bid, this doesn't really make up for not knowing anything about responder's strength.

I'd always lead a club. Maybe I like attacking leads a bit too much, but this spade holding gives me a good enough excuse if I need one. (Did everyone notice that 2♦ was artificial?)

♣9, for no good reason.

It seems perfectly possible to me to agree that defensive plays do not have any meaning. (As EricK says, this is very different from having no agreements.) There is surely nothing in the Laws to make it illegal, provided that it is disclosed truthfully. Indeed it's not so unusual to agree this in some situations. Particularly on declarer's lead.

What, E/W are saying South might duck the ♦K? Yeah right. +1 is obvious IMO.

Not an easy case. A TD can only deal with this sensibly if he has taken the trouble to impose a clear set of alerting rules. For example, if you were using ACBL rules it would be clear that there was misinformation. On the other hand, if your rules said "alert all conventional bids", it is much harder to make a convincing case that E/W have been misinformed, particularly on BBO where there is known to be a high proportion of Precision/Polish players. Note that a SAYC 2♣ should be alerted in this case, so assuming that an unalerted 2♣ is strong is very dubious. But if, as TD, you do decide there was misinformation, I think you must adjust the score. West knows what is going on after 3♣ is passed, but it may be too late by then, even if you think it is clear that a double would be take-out (which I don't). The TD seemed to be saying that you have to bid or double even if you thought 2♣ was strong; I don't agree with that. [Edit: Actually, scrap that. I don't have a clue what the TD thought he was saying.] From a player's point of view, the moral is that when opps open 2♣, it is very dangerous to assume you know what it means. Much better to ask about it, rather than relying on the TD to be sympathetic to your assumptions.

That was my first thought too, but I don't think it's right. If declarer knows East has only two spades (as we were told) then he won't finesse, because ace and another will work equally well if the finesse is right.

Depends what you mean by modern bidding theory. If you mean things like 2/1 (which is indeed incompatible with Acol) and (T-)Walsh over 1♣, then yes you can forget it. Modern bidding theory in Acol-land is maybe - Weak jump overcalls. - Most doubles for take-out. - Competitive / pre-emptive raises in competition, with a cue-bid showing a better hand. - Splinters. All these things have become noticeably more popular since I started playing about ten years ago. The more old-fashioned club players still cannot be assumed to play these things.

It's because they want to make the strong hand declarer. Misguided, perhaps, but I'm sure that's the reason they play it. Yeah, I was playing this last night. The thing is, very few club players have really thought about what to bid on strong hands with a minor (where minor-suit transfers might be helpful), and they feel they would be lost without a bid showing a balanced invite. So it's very common to play either this method or the same thing with 2♠ and 2NT switched.

I finally got round to listening to the interview on "the Today programme" which the article was based on. Until next week you can hear it on the Radio 4 "listen again" page (Monday's edition, about 2:20 into the 3-hour programme). It becomes clear that all the talk about a dress code came about because Tony Forrester used dress as an example of how players' attitudes have changed. As Frances pointed out, the EBU's new initiative doesn't actually say anything about a dress code, so this discussion had nothing to do with the original point of the interview, which is a pity. They also went off on a tangent by discussing the reasons for the decline in bridge in general (clearly behaviour is one issue to consider there, but the interviewees had their own ideas of what is wrong which they talked about instead). But they did at least manage to get across the idea that bridge is a competitive game, and we need rules about behaviour in order to deal with people who take the competitiveness too far. Of course, we did already have rules about behaviour before the EBU came along, but it seems that deciding to have a written code of conduct is somehow newsworthy.

The result: Partner has the singleton ♦K, and a long club suit headed by the AQ. Opps have ten tricks in spades (you can cash two diamonds and a club), while 5♦ doubled is only -500. What actually happened was that when LHO bid 4♠ I thought my hand looked like a 5♦ bid, but then partner had a short but noticeable think before passing. Not being able to take a poll at the time, I decided to go with my initial impression and let the TD sort it out: he (evidently correctly) adjusted from 5♠-1 back to 4♠=.

We've made the front page! Here's the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7125077.stm

[hv=d=e&v=e&s=sjhxxxdaqt8xxxcxx]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] RHO deals and opens 3♠, you pass, LHO bids 4♠, passed back to you. Note: this is MP pairs, and you are at favourable vul. Do you agree with the first pass? Would you act over 4♠ now?

Let p ( win ) / p ( someone guesses wrong ) = R. Then (i) R can be made arbitrarily large, as n goes to infinity. (Strategy: if you don't see anyone with a hat of a certain colour, then guess that colour. Otherwise don't guess. A bit boring to check that this works, but it "obviously" does.) (ii) Given a strategy for n people with a certain value of R, there is an obvious strategy for s.n people which has the same ratio R, such that p ( no-one guesses ) goes to 0 as s goes to infinity. Of course, the bound that you get is awful, but ...

Also, if you like this problem, try doing the n=7 case. (I believe this is the smallest value of n for which you can do better than 3/4.) There's a relatively simple way to do better than 3/4 here, by . But it's possible to do even better than this.

I've seen this problem before, and I think I was told it hadn't been solved for general n. Though your observations are clearly true.

It may well be correct to "lurk" with a strong balanced hand over a Polish 1♣ opening, but it's not at all easy to extract a penalty. The opps aren't forced to 1NT, and if they do get there, they will already know that they don't have a major-suit fit, which means that they can scramble from 1NT doubled (or choose not to scramble) much more effectively than people playing a weak NT opening. Also, if opps do both have weak hands, the bidding starts 1♣ : 1♦ , 1M. Now what do you do? 1NT lets them off the hook, and pass may do as well since 1M is not forcing. So double? But you can't double on all balanced shapes - you have to decide whether you're promising strength in the opponents' suit, otherwise partner won't know whether to take it out. And if you do double, you give the opponents extra options (redouble, and a more frequent pass) which make it easier for them to find their best spot. All in all, it doesn't seem like you'll get rich particularly often. I play Polish Club, and I'm well aware that there are ways we can lose out to standard systems on a bad day, but getting doubled when opener has a weak NT is really not something that worries me at all.

Well, the whole world plays negative free bids after a 1NT opening (say 1NT : (2♦) - now 2M is NF). Sure there are strengths and weaknesses of NFBs, but nobody seriously suggests that you should play 1NT : (2♦) : 2♥ as natural and forcing. Since a Swedish/Polish 1♣ shows a balanced hand in the weak option, this is what you should be comparing it to.

Yeah, same here.

I think Richard may be right. Phil said in his original post, "It's midchart but there isn't a recommended defense in the ACBL database." Hence it's not legal. You didn't need to ask a director to confirm this. So don't play it. I've been caught playing illegal conventions twice (in England the levels are clearly defined, but organisers aren't always terribly good at telling you which level applies in their event), and it's really not worth it.