david_c

Oh, that makes a big difference, because there are a number of decent systems which aren't allowed in most UK competitions (including Polish Club and MOSCITO which have been mentioned here). So learning a modern version of "Standard" (which basically means 2/1) is likely to be a good bet. Though if you thought SAYC was boring, I doubt you'll find much to get excited about in 2/1. I'd nominate Strefa or the Welland-Fallenius system for a bit of variety.

Surely 4♥ is the right place to be, so no blame to the bidding. Declarer should play a trump when East leads the club through, holding it to -1. I think I would have ruffed a club at trick two. Not sure whether this is right, but it seems to make as the cards lie.

Preventing the opponents from finding a game isn't the only advantage of pre-empting. They might also bid at the five level when it's wrong for them to do so. I think I'd open 1♠ on some days and 4♠ on others.

Exactly. Specifically, you improve constructive bidding after 1M:1NT and 1♥:1♠. In all other sequences after 1M, you gain very little by taking out the minimums with clubs. So the constructive advantages have to be absolutely huge to make it worth giving up your 2M opening. And it's not fair to compare to "standard" anyway - you should be comparing to something of similar complexity such as Gazzilli. Furthermore I think your 2M opening bid will be a loser on average: it's bad for constructive bidding because you can't have 2/1 auctions or nice invitational sequences. It's only the pre-emptive value of the bid which makes it playable - and I can think of much better ways of using 2M pre-emptively.

I don't think there's any need to clean up 5-card major opening bids. They are already very clean. Hand from the BB earlier today: partner opens 2♥ showing a minimum with 5 hearts and 4 clubs, and you hold ♠ Q874 ♥ K ♦ Q432 ♣ KQ82 What do you do?

Agree that this is not a 2♣ opening bid. But for similar reasons, South does not have a "waiting" type of hand. If 2♥ over 2♣ would have shown hearts, then that's the call.

Just comparing the two opening bids (a ) 2♥ = 5 hearts and 4+ clubs (b ) 2♥ = 5 hearts and 4 spades In my opinion the second of these is superior, because partner immediately knows the extent of your major-suit fits. In (a), a lot of the bidding space available is taken up with trying to find spade fits. Now for a general point on Riton 2♣ - while I enjoy playing around with rebid structures like this, I think it's possible to get carried away with how nice they are. What really matters is how well your opening bids work in competition. Personally I don't think that inferences like "will not have 4 clubs if minimum" are very useful after interference, even if you've discussed ways to take advantage of opener's club rebids. So I'm very sceptical about these 2♥ and 2♠ openings. There are 101 things I'd rather use those bids for ...

It shouldn't even get that far: Law 68B says (in part), "If a defender attempts to concede one or more tricks and his partner immediately objects, no concession has occurred." However, if this is an online game then the software may have other ideas about this.

Yes, if 1♦ promises an unbalanced hand then this scheme is great. I much prefer your method to the one in Millennium Club.

It's not? At level 2 we're allowed "Any hand that contains at least four cards in the suit bid", without any further restrictions. It seems to me that the restriction "only one range is allowed" only applies to the multi-type bids at L3/4.

[hv=d=w&v=b&n=sq2ha5dqj76ck6543&w=st653hqt862dakc98&e=s984hkjdt8432cat7&s=sakj7h9743d95cqj2]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] West opens 2♦, not alerted. North passes, and East bids 2NT (natural, apparently), which is passed out. South leads ♥9, so 2NT goes one down. N/S call the director to point out the strange 2♦ bid. West says that it shows 9-11 points with 5♥s and 4♠s, but admits that he didn't alert it properly. How do you rule?

I don't think I would claim it's quite as good as that! If passing hands with primary clubs was a winner compared to opening a natural 1♣ then everybody would be doing it. It seems to me that when the hand gets passed out we do badly nearly every time: it's true that often our fit is in clubs and the opponents can outbid us if we open, but their suits are not breaking well and they would usually end up going off. So we score zero instead of +100 or something. Not that this is a particularly terrible situation, considering that this sort of passout only happens once in every 2000 hands or so. Actually I did play Phantom Club once, and, yes, it was fun :) Though I seem to remember I was dealt more than my fair share of clubs that day. That's a bit different: I much prefer passing unbalanced hands than balanced ones. If you pass with a balanced hand and opponents open then you're often committed to passing throughout. But if you pass with 5♣4M then you nearly always have a safe, descriptive way to get back into the auction. (And the times when it's not safe to come in, it's usually because the opponents have stumbled into a misfit and you're better off passing.) I don't think so - there are plenty of systems (K-S?) where 1m is significantly sounder than 1M. Anyway, who cares? :(

1. Yes. The fact that partner asked about 1NT is UI. However, if you can demonstrate that partner always asks about the range, then this UI does not suggest anything and you are free to do what you like. 2. Well, if it really was me that doubled then I suppose I would know the answer to this question. But it wasn't, so I don't. Fortunately, the TD only needs to consider this question if he intends to issue a PP - that would be excessive here (even if you rule that pass is a LA) because evidently there are plenty of people who think double is automatic. 3. No. In fact I would have thought pass was clear until reading other people's replies. 4. Yes, pass is a LA.

The search continues for ways to bid 5♣4M hands in Precision (or Polish Club, for that matter). Of course, there's never going to be a truly satisfactory solution, but still, I like to ponder these things from time to time ... I'm currently looking at 1=4=3=5 hands in particular, which I rate as being the most difficult to handle. It seems to be a good idea to be very conservative with this shape, passing most hands with 11 or 12 HCPs. The good thing about passing is that you are often presented with an easy way back into the auction later, usually with a takeout double - but you can still choose to keep out if the opponents have found a misfit. Anyway, having been convinced that it's a good idea to be conservative with this shape, I've been wondering about taking this further and systemically passing hands with up to 14 HCP, in order to remove them from the limited opening bids completely. I wouldn't be expecting this to gain bundles of IMPs when it comes up, but neither is it a big loser: If partner opens the bidding in 3rd or 4th seat, then life is wonderful. All you need is some specific response to show the (12)13-14 1=4=3=5 hand. Jump responses by a passed hand aren't generally used much, so it's fine giving up 3♣ (say) to show this particular hand type. I think of this as being an "impossible pass", as it's rather like Precision's "impossible negative". Because the hand you've shown is so specific, it's easy for partner to decide the contract - so much easier than if you'd opened a Precision 2♣. You're probably also gaining compared to pairs playing a natural system, though not by much. If the opponents open the bidding then you may have lost a tempo. On the other hand, if you are able to come in on the next round with a double then this is a very descriptive call, and partner can have fun with LOTT. In general, when it's the opponents' hand you will wish you had opened a Precision 2♣, but if you compare instead to a natural system you're not losing very much at all. If the hand is passed out then you're usually not doing well. It's fairly rare that you're missing a game, but missing out on part scores is a real problem. But a passout is unlikely: even if you've passed with 14HCP, someone else will have an opening bid about 80% of the time. The shortage in spades helps here. OK, so tell me, am I insane? Any comments welcome.

I agree that pass is a LA. But I don't think that it's obviously a LA, so no PP. I don't have a problem with the double of 7NT. It seems perfectly normal (though that's not saying it's correct). So I disagree with the warning given to South. Also, did E/W really agree to a break in tempo here, or did they just agree that West paused to think after the double of 7♠? I don't think it's clear what normal tempo would be in this situation. If there was an agreed pause of less than ten seconds, you might argue that this did not constitute a break in tempo at all.

There's a problem with this - it's not sufficient just to take balanced invitational hands out of 1NT. You also have to take out all hands which are unbalanced but might have to rebid a natural 2NT anyway. So you'd have to treat a 1=3=4=5 hand as balanced, because if it starts 1♠:1NT,2♥ and 2NT would be artificial then you have no sensible rebid.

That seems low - you must be very strict about side-suits to get that. I make it nearer 2%. I once did a lot of research about passing the club single-suiters. Unsurprisingly, that's a loser when it comes up (a little over 1 IMP per board), compared to a natural 1♣ or 6-card 2♣ opening. But I suspect that even this approach would be better than opening them 1♣ in moscito.

Well, suppose this was a more clearcut case, say for example East had bid 7NT and then redoubled. Then you certainly have to adjust, otherwise this silly result will affect everyone else's scores. Furthermore, I would say that Law 12C1 applies here - that is, no result could be obtained on the board. (Yes, I know that the hand was played out in the sense that the players continuted to click on bids and cards, but if one player is making bids at random trying to sabotage the game then this doesn't count in my opinion.) So you award an artificial adjusted score. A side which is not at fault gets ave+ and a side which is directly at fault gets ave-. Clearly N/S are not at fault so they get ave+. But also you are going to replace East with a sub; so now West and his new partner are not at fault either, and so they should also get ave+. Hence A++. Anyway, that's how I've decided to deal with this situtation. You might decide differently - there's no "right" answer because the Laws don't deal with this sort of thing specifically - but it pays to be consistent.

I agree. It looks like this was handled very well. Perhaps South was too persistent here; but probably they just need to be reassured that you will keep an eye on E/W. If you have time at the end of the tourney, it wouldn't hurt to look at E/W's other hands, just in case. And if you tell South that you are going to to this, then that should keep them happy.

This seems very wrong to me. Why are we talking about "proof"? It is the TD's job to decide what happened, and then make a ruling based on that decision. He doesn't have to prove what was going on. Here the TD decided that East was deliberately trying to sabotage the game. Well, that's his decision to make, and he was in a better position to make that decision than any of us. So, though the evidence of the original post doesn't seem sufficient to me, I'm happy to go with the TD's judgement of what happened.

There is a reason to adjust if you think that East bid deliberately badly. Then the situation is the same as if they had bid 7NT and redoubled - in which case I would agree with adjusting the score and removing the player. I would prefer to adjust to A++ in cases like this, on the grounds that East's actions prevented the hand from being played in any meaningful sense, and neither side is at fault (once East has been removed). But I'm not totally convinced that East's 2♦ was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the game. For example, maybe they misread the auction and thought that their partner had opened 1♦. I'd probably not take any action just on the evidence of this one hand. But if you have previous experience of this player, then maybe you might have a better idea of what was going on.

Well, this problem is too hard for me really, but just for a bit of variety I'll lead back to the nine of clubs after the ten is covered. I hope someone will be able to explain to me why this is bad :(

It's more frequent than you might think, because you're opening 1♣ with 3-3-4-4 shape. Most standard systems don't deal with this shape very effectively at all.

I can't make sense of it as a pre-empt, so maybe partner is invited to bid seven with the ♠A. Something like ♠ Kxxxx ♥ - ♦ AKQJxxxx ♣ -

There's no Law which says that. 73C says only that you must carefully avoid taking advantage. So here, if the player thinks he would have bid 2♥ without the UI then he's perfectly entitled to pass instead: that's not taking advantage, because pass is likely to turn out worse.