david_c

I guess jillybean is referring to this ACBL regulation: "If it is your partnership style to routinely open hands with fewer than 11 HCP ... the opponents must be pre-alerted." I suppose if you take this literally then you'd think you have to pre-alert if you would open this hand. I can't imagine that was the intention of the regulation though, because this hand is a very normal opener. And even if you wouldn't open this one, it's not too difficult to find examples of 10-counts that just about everyone would open. But I'm not living in ACBL-land so I don't know how it is interpreted. Apart from this, you might expect a description of how light you open to be on the CC (not so likely in an online game), and opponents are entitled to know if they want to ask, but otherwise there's no reason to say anything.

They are banned. You can find the ABF system regulations on their website (here), and look at section 2.7.

You might wonder what would have happened if the first few bids had gone differently, but I think once the cue-bidding starts it would be a mistake for North to do anything less than force to slam on this auction.

It must be possible, but I've never seen a movement for that many rounds. If you can't find one, what you can do for 14 tables is play two full 7-table Howells, followed by a complete Mitchell (with all the players from one Howell sitting in one direction, and all the pairs from the other Howell sitting in the other direction). That gives you an all-play-all, even if a real Howell movement would be preferable. A similar thing works for 13 or 15 tables: say for 13 tables, play two 6 1/2 table Howells. In each round there are two pairs which "sit out", but actually you can have these two pairs play each other instead. Note that these pairs would be scheduled to meet on the first round of the Mitchell movement. So you can just skip the first round of the Mitchell. That way you get an all-play-all with no sit-outs. If your event is split into two sessions, then this method has a distinct advantage over a complete Howell: the first session uses a different set of boards to the second session, so players are able to discuss boards in the break.

Ah right, thanks both :)

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=sa8752hdat74ck764&w=sj3hkj8754d32cqt2&e=s94h632dkqj9ca983&s=skqt6haqt9d865cj5]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] This comes from a swiss teams event: the hand records say 4♠ by South (a popular contract after North doubles a 2♥ opening) is makeable on any lead. But I can't work out how. It may be very simple, but what am I missing?

Yep. I'm expecting a doubleton for 2♠.

2♦. How can this be wrong?

I don't see the point to be honest. Certainly frequency is an important issue, but measuring this to two decimal places doesn't seem to prove anything.

I think XYZ means unambiguously that 2♣ is a puppet to 2♦. Whereas, "two-way checkback" is ambiguous - the 2♣ bid might be played as a puppet, or it might be some sort of Stayman-like bid. If I was talking about the version where 2♣ forces 2♦, I'd call it "two-way puppet checkback".

Funny, I posted about this on my blog just yesterday. I really, really hate IJS, but seeing as many very sensible people like to play that way I suppose it's just a personal thing. I suppose if I'd agreed to play this way I'd bid 1NT then 2NT on this hand.

I wonder what 2♦ followed by 5♠ would mean. If it's asking specifically for a diamond control then that looks good. We might lose the first three tricks in 5♠, but I don't think I could ever bring myself to stop at the 4-level on this hand anyway. If we don't have that agreement about 5M bids, I think I would splinter 4♣.

I don't think it's necessary to define "negative inference" precisely. Alerting regulations are usually subjective anyway, for example in the EBU we alert bids which have a "potentially unexpected meaning" and this is not clarified except by way of examples. (We have lots of examples.) So it seems OK to say "negative inferences are not generally alertable" without having to define exactly what we mean. People will understand. For what it's worth, the EBU's rule about negative inferences is:

No, it's because a 1♦ waiting bid is not part of SA. If you've agreed to play SA, then 1♦ is not an option. :blink: Maybe your partner would have been happy to play 1♦ as a waiting bid, but that requires discussion. Also, you might find more like-minded partners if you write "WJ" in your profile.

I really hate this one. In my opinion, pre-alerts should not be used as a substitute for alerts. This is because: (i) You can't expect people to remember their opponents' systems. (ii) It takes a fair amount of effort to explain and understand a pre-alert correctly. If the agreement in question doesn't actually come up, then all that effort is wasted. (iii) If it does come up, it's much easier to explain at the time than it would have been beforehand, because you don't have to explain what situation it applies to. In any case, there's absolutely no need for this sort of regulation. If you're prepared to write "non-penalty doubles of 1NT openings must be pre-alerted" into your regulations, how is it any more difficult to write "non-penalty doubles of 1NT openings must be alerted"? I can understand a reluctance to introduce exceptions into the regulations, but it seems to me that you're adding an exception whatever you do, just in a different place. Pre-alerting does have a useful function, but that is in warning opponents about any particularly unusual conventions that they may need to discuss their defence to in advance. It shouldn't a be a substitute for alerting.

Agree completely with Ben. Opener must think 3♠ shows slam interest and is bidding 5NT to offer a choice of slams.

Hmm, how long have you got? :) But I suppose you already know what I think about doubles. With that one exception, I sincerely believe that our English regulations are the best in the world. I strongly disagree that the new rules are easier. The SBU would be absolutely mad to change to the current EBU rules. It's not that they're that much worse than the old ones, but they're certainly not significantly better, and the problems with changing from one to another are enormous. If they want to make things genuinely easier they should change to the ACBL's rules, which might be more subjective but at least correspond to what the players intuitively expect. Tend to agree that this is a good thing, but they should have made an exception for initial actions such as (3♠) : 4♣ (clubs and hearts).

I think that for once Frances may have got this wrong. Looking at our hand and giving RHO seven hearts, the two hands have exactly seven hearts between them, but at least seven diamonds. So the other two hands should not be symmetric between the red suits, but will on average have more hearts than diamonds. [Edited: I suppose you may mean to give RHO at least seven hearts, rather than exactly seven hearts. But that still doesn't work because he's much more likely to have additional diamonds than additional hearts.]

Actually if you play 2♦ as GF except rebid it's quite reasonable to play 2♠ as not promising extra values because this means you can bid 2♦ on 4♠-6♦ invitational hands and not miss any spade fit. Obviously when a GF hand comes up you'd prefer to be playing the pure GF 2/1 style, but after opener has shown two suits it's actually not that difficult to find a way to bid a single-suiter (much harder after 1♥:2♦,2♥). And unlike other posters I think this player has good taste if he wants to play the rebid as non-forcing. But certainly if you've agreed to play "2/1" passing 3♦ is ridiculous.

1) Yes. 2) 3♦. I really don't think there are any other options.

That doesn't work does it? If you cash two top diamonds and then play a spade, you don't have any way to throw East in. It looks to me like East can always defeat you, what am I missing?

This is different to the hand from the Spring Fours because there is a reasonable chance of being able to cut the hand with the long spades off by ducking one or two rounds. On the other hand, partner's 2NT does not promise anything at all in this situation. I would bid 3♣ at this point. I think there are some hands too strong for a 2NT overcall which are still not strong enough to bid 3NT over Lebensohl. Maybe we'll miss game this way, maybe not. But I think 3♣ is the percentage bid. Going low also has the advantage of getting to 4♥ rather than 3NT when it's right.

I don't care what some poorly-written booklet says, this is definitely non-forcing.

No, this is not forcing - it shows a hand too weak to bid 2♥ immediately over 1♠. Expect about 5-8 high-card points with 6+ hearts. Opener should pass unless he has something constructive to say: don't make the mistake of bidding again with a minimum hand just because you're short in hearts.

Yes, I've tried that in the past, but the problem is it takes a few seconds to make the table invisible, and if someone else tries to sit in that time (which very often happens) you have to start all over again.