bluenikki

I believe he did. But the following seems obvious: QJ0x x Axxx Axxx

Kantar did not give the convention s fancy name, no.

Do you mean that intervenor should avoid the convention if the shorter suit is cheaper? For me, if I would potentially be declaring a 4-3, I'd prefer the strong 3-card! For the dummy reversal chance.

I have no experience with the convention. But what is the rationale for advancing in the much weaker 3-card suit?

Later, Katz-Cohen used it against Kantar-Eisenberg. Commenting on this, Kantar said he thought he had burned every copy of the BW issue where he published it. Passing the opening was definitely an option he gave in the censored article.

Opener's fake, but not conventional, jumpshift is the worst bid in bridge. Simple expedient: Switch the meanings of 1M - 1NT - 3M and 1M - 1NT - 3♣ . The jump rebid is forcing, promising secondary clubs. The jumpshift is forcing for one round only, promising a one-suiter.

If you have an established partnership, you will have decided what 1♥ - 1♠ ; 1NT - 2♥ means. If it is this hand, you bid 1♠. If it would be forward-going, you don't. Playing with a stranger, bidding 1♠ is very dangerous.

Yeah but that is indefensible. Code words that don't mean what they seem is a way to victimize beginners. The worst of all, at least in ACBL, is saying "does not promise 6" about the auction 1M - 2m - 2M, where the truth is the rebid is a waiting bid, not promising more than 65432. My wife and I played that 1NT was passed if and only if opener's suit was 4-card. We announced the bid as semi-forcing, but then alerted the pass as showing a 4-card opening.

Doea anyone have a rationale for bidding over 2♦ ? That it might be only 5 long is no reason at all.

According to the late Bernie Chazen, if you're play 5-card majors, you should pass the 1NT response _only_ if 5332. Regardless of how much strength a 2/1 would have shown.

The message of the splinter should be "Don't think of slam unless you hold X hcp outside my short suit." The value of the number X needs to be specifically agreed by the partnership. I can't believe anyone would agree X = 7 if they thought about it.

♦ Wouldn't this be a raise even by an old-fashioned direct-seat doubler? 18 dummy points. Wouldn't a re-opening doubler raise without the ♦ king?

Why? In my bible, Kaplan's "competitive bidding." this values at 12 points for advancing a double! (He counted both shortness and length.) So 3♦ would be an underbid.

As to shifting range. Suppose you hypothetically open 1NT with 14-18. But you open with 18 only with no aces. (In Goren's version of 4321, you were suppose to deduct a point for no aces.). And you open with 14 only with three tens. The extreme counts are very rare. Writing your range as 14-18 will give the opponents a distorted impression.

When you have (exactly) four spades, it will often pay to open a minor, especially if there is a notrump flaw. In original Roth-Stone, for example, a notrump opening denied four-card spades.

But the splinter has almost no utility here. If partner has high card values wasted in opener's suit, they already will have devalued them. Why should partner care whether your extra values are shortness? If there is a problem here, it is if doubler does not require significant extra values for a single raise. So they run out of natural strong raises. As it used to be, single raise was something like 17-19 dummy points, double raise 20-22, triple raise stronger. So maybe this is the right forum after all.

Does any book say that?

Wouldn't (1♦) - 3♦ already have asked for diamond stopper? That's certainly what I would assume if a stranger bid it. Maybe the given auction asks for diamond stopper _and_ spade partial stopper.

Contrariwise, if the player on your right has pre-empted and the player on the left has not led the suit, he is marked with the singleton king. Or a void, of course.

It is worth noting that despite the talk of "unusual lead," Lightner himself insisted that the double's main message was DO NOT LEAD MY SUIT. As you can see, this is a life-saver and everyone must play it. (The double of 3NT, though, says DO lead my suit. Maybe it shouldn't but it does. Look it up in any book.)

Not really responsive, but 60 years ago, after his discussion of Lightner, Gore added "(If you think you will set it two tricks, go ahead and double, no matter what I or anyone else says.)"

When 2=3 in majors, you pass if you fear a further bid by opener. You give false preference if you do not fear a further bid. Maybe that's what the description means.

When 2=3 in majors, you pass if you fear a further bid by opener. You give false preference if you do not fear a further bid. Maybe that's what the description means.

The perps were in the lead at the time. That's why I inferred it was part of their normal tactics.

And yet, this week, at the highest level . . . . Is it _really_ rare? Two black swans in two days?