david_c

The new dispositions are nice. Though there are still a few bids that don't have an obvious disposition to me - I'm wondering what disposition people are using for: a natural opening bid (is this "non-forcing" or "constructive"?) 2♣:2♦ waiting / negative. Similarly 1♣:1♦ in Polish. the completion of a transfer a response to Blackwood (or to any other convention with defined responses) a natural bid in an already game-forcing situtation (e.g. 1♠:2♦,2♥ playing 2/1)

Surely you have a similar problem playing Riton 2♣ on this hand: how would you respond to a 2♥ opening?

I've been playing 1♦:1M,2NT and 1♦:1M,3♦ the other way round, so that 3♦ shows a 3-card fit and 2NT denies one. That seems to be much better in terms of the amount of space you have; the drawback is that after 1♦:1M,2NT you occasionally find that 3NT has been wrong-sided. Also, what do you use 1♦:1♥,2♠ for? You might find that using this to show good diamonds and no fit is more useful than whatever you currently play. The 1♦:1♠,1NT convention is interesting. What do you do with a 1444 hand? And is it possible to play in 2♣ when opener has 4♦5♣, or are you using it as a forcing bid?

I do like the systems suggested by Adam and Gerben. They're better than Standard American if all you want is a system which is simple and effective. But to be honest, if I was teaching a beginner, I'd still have to go for strong no-trump, 5-card majors, strong 2♣. If you don't add unnecessary conventions, it's not significantly harder than anything else. And you can't play Big NT with a pick-up partner on BBO ...

Well, this is a different discussion to the one I was hoping to have, but it's interesting anyway, so here we go ... I'm not totally convinced by "18+ any" either. My instinct is that with a hand like ♠x ♥AKxx ♦AKTxx ♣KQx you'd be better off opening 1♦ than 1♣, in any Polish-type system. But if you've got spades instead of diamonds, ♠AKTxx ♥AKxx ♦x ♣KQx now it seems much more attractive to be able to open 1♣. So I like playing 18+ for spades and 21+ for diamonds. For hearts I could be persuaded either way. Balanced hands have no choice of course. But anyway, I do think that this sort of 1♣ opening is much easier to handle than a general 15+ strong club. It's still fairly safe for responder to assume that opener has clubs/balanced, like in Nightmare, because when that's not the case the extra strength is usually enough compensation.

I'm all in favour of "bid with any 13 cards", as long as the bid you make is 1♠ (or maybe 1♥, at a push). I've played a lot of strong club, and really these 1♠ overcalls are very annoying even though we have a good defence for them. That's not to say that 1♠ should be totally random, just that you want it to be very frequent - so allowing 4-4s and suchlike is a good thing. For overcalls that are not 1♠, you do want more of a reason to bid, and in particular you do have to worry about giving too much information away. Also agree with Justin that psycho suction seems to work better.

Hi Richard, I completely agree with your assessment of AUC (see my post here, for example). But "Polish Club with a weak no-trump" (or whatever it should really be called) is different because 1♣ promises at least a strong NT in values. Of course, it's still true that if you pick up a strong NT hand you'll wish you were playing a strong NT ... but you won't have the same problems trying to sort it out as you do in AUC.

I've been playing around with variations on Polish Club, trying to work out whether you can do better than the way the opening bids are arranged in WJ (or Matula's version which is all but identical). In WJ05 we have 1♣ defined as - 12-14 HCP balanced / semi-balanced / 4414, not 4 diamonds. - 15+ HCP with real clubs. - 18+ HCP any shape. As it stands, my problem with this is that it seems to be strictly inferior to the same thing but with a weak 1NT opening (at least in the first two seats), so that 1♣ becomes: - 15+ HCP balanced (may have 4 diamonds) - 15+ HCP with real clubs. - 18+ HCP any shape. I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me that this is a nicer system, but I'd be interested to know whether it has a name. It's almost the same as Millennium Club (which I have played a few times), but with a lower limit on the "strong" hands and without the transfer responses to 1♣ that you get in MC. So does anyone know what this is called? Anyway, going back to a strong 1NT opening, this does have the advantage that you can choose to open 1♣ rather than 2♣ on some hands with a weak club suit, say for example ♠AKx ♥KQxx ♦x ♣Jxxxx. The question is, would it be sensible to do this on any hand with that sort of shape, such as ♠Axx ♥Kxxx ♦x ♣KQJxx ? Certainly when you have a (43)15 hand it seems you'd be much better placed after 1♣ than if you had to open 2♣, at least for constructive auctions. (And if there is interference, (43)15 is treated the same way as 4414.) Taking this a bit further, I know there are some Polish-like systems where you always open 1♣ on minimum hands with clubs. But has anyone tried playing something which is in-between, like this: 2♣ = 6+ clubs. may have 4 diamonds or 4 hearts, but not 4 spades. 1♣ = includes all 5♣4M and 6♣4♠, plus all the standard PC hands. I rather like this: with 5♣4M you always have a sensible rebid except after 1♣:1♠ with a 1435 (where you're stuck with rebidding 1NT, but you would have had the same problem playing Standard American). Of course, a few other inferences would change as well. But what do you think? Does anyone actually play this?

Unless the entire field is in 4DN=, it is not right for the director to assume that is what NS might have done had they had the chance. And in this case in particular, I find it hard to accept that NS would find such a contract with 11 opposite 9 points and the opponents bidding. IF you are going to adjust, A+/A- is very appropriate. I strongly disagree. The Laws say to give the non-offending side the most favourable result that was likely given the correct information. My view of the hand is that this is a diamond partial making 10 tricks. But if you think that this is not a likely result, then fine, you can say that E-W will always end up playing in spades, but in that case the correct ruling is that there is misinformation but no damage, i.e. the table result stands. Now I have to admit I would like to be able to give weighted scores (like we can in the EBU), something like 60% of a spade contract by E-W and 40% of a diamond contract by N-S. If the reason you want to give A+/A- is that the software doesn't allow weighted scores, then I have some sympathy. But personally I think that giving A+/A- it's a horrible way of doing things - far too arbitrary - and I would find it impossible to justify to the players. What's wrong with following what the Laws say?

If you're going to adjust, why not adjust to 4♦N= (or whatever result you feel is appropriate)? I can't see any reason to give an artificial A+/A- here.

Interesting. So E-W are playing a system where the 1♣ opening shows hearts? I think you're right that it depends on whether South is expected to protect himself. Clearly E-W are playing a very unusual system, but I don't think it would be obvious to everyone that 1♦ might not be natural. If I knew that South was a beginner I would definitely adjust. But if South is more experienced then it could go either way. I'm inclined to adjust anyway - certainly East doesn't deserve much sympathy, the only question is whether South does - but I think the table ruling is reasonable too.

That would depend on the opponents' style. Perhaps it would be worth asking how weak a multi can be in this position. But anyway, West seems to be advertising at least 3 hearts. And really, if he has a genuine 2♠ bid with so few points, I'd be very surprised if he didn't turn up with four of them. It's possible to make all the tricks if West has ♥Qxxx and four clubs, but I'm not at all tempted to play that way. So I suppose cashing the top two hearts is right.

That doesn't sound right - if slam makes then we're going to lose to the slam bidders, and if slam goes down then we're going to beat the slam bidders, no matter how many tricks we make at our table. Aren't we actually playing against the other 4♥ (or 5♥) bidders?

When I write a description which runs over more than one line, the last line sometimes doesn't get displayed. For example one of my descriptions is 5-5 or better in the minors; invitational values (about 6-8HCP). This gets displayed as 5-5 or better in the minors; invitational values (about

Type !H or !S or !D or !C to show ♥ or ♠ or ♦ or ♣ symbol. This works in all versions since 1.0.3 or 1.0.4. I don't think this works when you try to include them as part of the system summary.

I'm not a fan of relays after interference, because they're likely to get messed up if 4th seat can bounce the bidding. Having said that, we do play most of our usual relay system when opponents double or overcall 1♦, for the sake of simplicity. When they overcall specifically 1♥ or 1♠, I like playing two-under transfers (which we discovered on this forum a while back). The way we currently play it is that 1NT, 2♣, 2♦ and 2OM are transfers to diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs respectively, promising at least semi-positive values. The basic idea is that opener completes the transfer with a minimum balanced hand, or bids step 1 with a minimum misfitting hand. (Other bids are forcing to game.) If their overcall is natural, then the transfer to their suit becomes an artificial game force, usually showing a balanced hand. I suppose you could do a similar thing over higher overcalls, but it doesn't fit together as nicely as over 1M, so we've been playing natural methods.

This seems to be using a non-standard definition of "median". Not that I can see much point in looking at the median in this context anyway. Or the midrange, for that matter.

Right ... but something like "agrees ♥" or "♥s are agreed" would be a much clearer way of phrasing this, in my opinion. (And, a blank space would be so much clearer than "♣ ♦ ♥ ♠ NT Def".) I don't think anyone really cares about the difference between "♣ ♦ ♥ ♠ NT" and "♣ ♥ ♠ NT", which I get after a splinter response to 1NT, for example.

Interesting - you might be amused by the way the authorities in England have interpreted this. (bottom of p2 here) It's creative, to say the least.

Another little request: it would be nice if we could use suit symbols in the description, perhaps by typing !C, !D etc. like in BBO.

I don't find the "possible outcomes" section very useful. I've found that there are very few bids which actually reduce the set of possible outcomes (apart from sign-offs) and those that do are only by inference anyway. So I'd vote for this to be removed, as it's rather cluttering up the output. Edit: ... and, as it stands, I don't think that someone looking at the output would understand what "♣ ♦ ♥ ♠ NT Def" means.

Far too optimistic ;) There are plenty of examples of local regulations which are contrary to the Laws (or, at best, are very creative interpretations). I seem to remember that the Italians ban openings on 7HCP, including psyches. Maybe the Belgian "rule of 18" works in a similar way.

Here I do agree with Fred. What I would hope to see in a world championship is the best systems and the best defences to those systems.

Why shouldn't this be a problem? It is a problem already. But is it really lack of time which is the problem? Certainly, there are problems with poor disclosure, problems with pairs changing their methods, etc., which should be dealt with much better, but that is all a slightly different issue. Given two months (as Roland suggested earlier), wouldn't that be long enough to prepare for everything?

Completely agree. To me, this is real bridge. It does rely on the players having enough time to prepare properly, but for major events with long matches that should not be a problem. Convention restrictions are just a fudge which allows some sort of bridge to be played when there's not enough time for people to prepare for opponents' methods (or when you don't even know who your opponents will be).