luis

I fully agree with Ron, the only merit of transfer preempts is that they are something not very common. Against a well prepaired partnership you are just giving them 1 extra space of bidding. Actually is not only 1 extra bid but 2 since they can pass and double later. Preempts are used because they work and they work because they constrain the constructive bidding space for your opponents then it doesn't make any sense at all to give them 1 extra bid and 1 extra tempo.

Well I guess that if you want to play in the ACBL land you have to prepare a system that follows their rules. That's the reason why I play the German version of Moscito instead of the "better, funnier, etc" Marston variation. The version I play is 100% compatible with the regulations and it can be used as a very nice way to introduce a new system that players can try out without being banned.

Actually you are in a better position than me, at least you have the regulations written in your countries... In the third-world NBO we have here in Argentina there're no written regulations nor webpage or book of any color. What we have is a guy that acts like a "systems oracle" the procedure is as follows: - You play whatever you want until some old lady complains. - When the lady complains the TD forbids your system inmediately and you are told to ask the "oracle" about your system. (You've been old-ladied) - This guy, if he is there, carefully analizes what you play and says yes/no. - You tell the TD your system has passed the Oracle examination and can play it again. If you want to have fun this actually happened: Playing Moscito as always (nothing new), I open 1h, my mother relays with 1s, an old lady bids 3h "to play" we double and collect 800. TD called, 1s relay properly alerted is described as "strange". The whole system is banned. We finish the round with vanilla 2/1 and have to visit "The Oracle" Luis - Can I play 1s - 1N as relay? Oracle: No, you can't Luis - Why? Oracle: Because you don't say anything about your hand Luis - But can I play a forcing NT ? Oracle: Yes of course Luis - And what is the difference? You don't say anything either. Oracle: Oh, I see, well I guess you can play a 1s-1N relay then. Is a special case. Luis - Whay aboout 1h-1s relay? Oracle - No, you can't play that Luis - Why? Oracle - There's no defense against such a bid Luis - Ok, can I invert the meaning of 1s and 1N to a 1h opening? Oracle - Mmmmm Luis - I think you are playint that convention Mr Oracle Oracle - Oh, yes, you can play that. It's very common. Luis - What's the difference then with my 1s relay ? Oracle - Er.... well..... I guess you can play THAT relay then. Luis - Thank you Mr Oracle Oracle - You are welcome, do you want a candy? Luis - Er... no thanks. So after carefully examination the 1d-1h relay was banned because you can't defend against that while you do can defend against 1h-1s or 1s-1N. Isn't it amazing? "You can play whatever you want without a CC as long as it is properly explained " (TD literal quote) If you want to have fun, come to play to the third world, you can buy half the country too in your visit! Luis

Thanks a lot. I like this structure :-) seems to be a lot of fun.

Ron, Can you describe Tutti Frutti please? I'm interested, please start a new thread if you want. Luis

I've been experimenting a new 2d opening that I don't know if someone played before so id doesn't have a name yet :-) I'm playing 2d as any 5-4 hand weak. The strength and suit quality depends on vulnerability of course. [edit]: more info about this structure: When not vul I play 2h as a weak 2 in a major and 2s weak preempt in a minor. 3c and 3d are then good preempts. When vul I play 2h/2s as normal weak 2's with ogust responses. 3c and 3d are always good preempts when vul. Luis

Fun :-) but you and Ben are really missing a point -I think- opponents are entitled to full disclosure of system and style in use. If you bid 1N-3N with unbalanced hands that may contain a 5/6 card major, and may contain some shortness you have an agreement about "style" that is not standard and then it must be disclosed. You can pre-alter, put a note on your CC in the 1NT opening section, alert the 3N bid, etc. I think the proper way to handle this is using a pre-alert since as an opponent I may want to take special measures over your 1NT opening if your pd will blast to 3N with most game forcing hands. I have the right to chnage my style if your 1N-3N style is not standard and so your style must be disclosed. Luis I think I understand luis... Let me give a couple examples.. 1NT* * alert, may contain 5 card major or six card minor 1C-1D-1NT* *alert, may contain 4 h or 4S (1C)-P-(1H)-1N* *if this is sandwich NT, must alert (but who plays natural???) 1N-P-2C* *alert if can contain no 4 card major Ok, so from this small review, I think we can standardize what should be alerted. A non-standard bid that the opponents might not understand. So the question becomes if 1m-3NT is showing a) game forcing value, B) evaluation that notrump is playable, c) suggesting a final contract. Is that alertable. I think the opponents understood that 3NT was showing exactly a willingness to play 3NT. So the answer would seem to be no, it is not alerable. Now, it is clear that these players have an agreement, either explicit or built through practice, that this 3NT, while "natural" can depart significantly from standard practice in the form of shape. And I suspect it is this non-standard. So what should you do? Well first what is 3NT? It is a natural bid. Does that mean it should not be alerted? Well, just because it is a natural bid does not provide relief from the need to alert. All natural bids that convey a meaning that the opponents may not expect must be alerted. For example.. 1H-P-2C where 2C shows clubs must be alerted if opener can pass, because the opponents would not expect 2C (natural) to be non-forcing. However, my understanding of alerting procedures is that skip bids beyond 3NT are "self-alerting". A self-alerting call is one that, because it may have many possible meanings, will usually not be natural - these are doubles, redoubles, cue bids of opponents' suits (including skip cue bids), and all calls above 3NT. During the course of the auction, these bids are not to be alerted. In addition, other self-alerting skip bids include 2NT and 3NT skip bids which by agreement, suggest a willingness to play the contract in no trumps. Although I don't have any problem with a pre-alert if this bid is made with short side suits, especially ones not bid by opener. Perhaps I misunderstand the alerting rules and the concept of a "self-alerting" bid. But if the bidding goes... 1H-P-1NT*-P-3NT where 1NT=forcing and 3NT is frequently bid with a solid running hearts and the thought that I can 9 tricks in notrump I don't think requires an alert, nor do I think these 1m-3NT require an alert. Certainly a pre-alert would be reasonable if you do this 4 out of 10 hands, but I suspect if you play a pair that jumps to such games willy nilly without exploring 4M or 6M in the long run, you will be a winner as this does not seem the optimal approach to bidding to me. bEn It's not the 3N bid what I think should be alerted, it's the agreement on style. If you will bid 1m-3N with more hands than the panel then I might want to overcall 1m with 1x in hands that I wouldn't overcall against a std system. So if you don't pre-alert your 1m-3N bid I'll be deprived from my right to overcall against such a treatment with weakish hands. Luis

Fun :-) but you and Ben are really missing a point -I think- opponents are entitled to full disclosure of system and style in use. If you bid 1N-3N with unbalanced hands that may contain a 5/6 card major, and may contain some shortness you have an agreement about "style" that is not standard and then it must be disclosed. You can pre-alter, put a note on your CC in the 1NT opening section, alert the 3N bid, etc. I think the proper way to handle this is using a pre-alert since as an opponent I may want to take special measures over your 1NT opening if your pd will blast to 3N with most game forcing hands. I have the right to chnage my style if your 1N-3N style is not standard and so your style must be disclosed. Luis

They have to generate revenues, if you allow anything the game gets very complex since you have to teach beginners meta-defenses and how to prepare for the unexpected from start, this makes the learning curve of this game steeper finally resulting in less new players, and thus less revenues from tournaments and classes. Meckstroth can open 1NT 10-12 and you are supossed to have a defense against that and the multiple run-outs that they have well studied. But you cannot open pass showing 13+. This is absurd since the mini-NT is more destructive and harder to defend than a forcing pass, a mini-NT can ruin your constructive bidding while "pass" can't. There're forcing pass systems without a fert and they are forbidden, the reason is a dark mistery and the only acceptable explanation is that someone decided they are evil. I don't mind having destructive methods and conventions banned to make the game more popular and blah blah... but why? o why? why ban a system just because it is not "common" ? Playing against uncommon systems is a skill that bridge players must learn to develop without protection from organizations that don't want to bother about diversity.

A pre-alert is the best way to handle this problems, if you do something unusual for other players that arises very often then it is better to pre-alert it. Example "hey guys, we bid 1N-3N with all sorts of hands"

Random psiches are a normal part of the game and are used for bridge reasons and for psychological reasons too. Banning psyches is equivalent in my opinion to banning squeezes. If you like to play a sub-version of this game just because the whole stuff is too much for your brain power then don't call it bridge....

Disagree, if you bid 1N-3N with all sort of hands, even hands with a major and shortness then an alert is needed since the 1N opener knows this and the opponents are entitled to full disclosure. For example I might want to double 1N-3N more often if they bid 1N-3N with all sorts of hands.

I think I will disagree with many posters here since I would bid a 2/1 2d with this hand. Game in hearts is a certainty so the only goal of this hand is to explore slam chances, I think that in order to be able to explore for slam chances we must show we have a diamond suit. Imagine pd supports our 2d bid with 3d. Now we bid 3s and pd cuebids 4c. Now an RKCB bid in diamonds (not hearts) is what we need to find out if we can win a grand in hearts, if pd has AK of diamonds and the cA. I can't imagine anything bad happening after a 1h-2d (GF) start. Luis

Well now I have a very interesting question: when did they NOT bid 3N? Can you post examples of hands where they bid to any slam or any game different than 3N and the hands where they bid 1x-3N. If there's something systemic to be derived then it should be alerted and not alerting is illegal as it would be an undisclosed agreement.

Might be so Ben - I think it is too much to expect that the commentators would be able to work out your excellent analysis during the game. I wanted to raise this last question whether Soloway was right or wrong in his spade lead due to their own system. - And we now know Soloway was right. Maybe Hamman signalled wrong as you point out or maybe their signal system here was wrong and he therefore ought to put S10 instead of SJ for trick 6. Maybe you remember the commentars later - nearly all as I remember - was to blame Soloway for wrong play of spades instead of hearts. - Now we know Soloway was right! I think each of the commentators have the intension to provide best possible prediction based on their great knowledge. As I earlier have pointed out - knowledge about the system in concern is needed for that. Chris Compton had that knowledge when he commented deals with Meckwell - and that was important there. General knowledge of good play mainly based on 2o1 etc. provides not the specific knowledge to predict and analyse artificial systems. Even the play - the test - is carried out according to the information provided via the auction. Right this last hand was special - for the commentators too. This was surely not the most interesting but only the most used comment for this crucial deal: mcphee: wow compton: wow!!! patapon: Wow! lupin1: incredibleeeeee The most insightful comment for this specific deal I think was this: [tt]compton: have to defeat NS, i fear, ew is a mess[/tt] The difference between an insightful comment and an analysis I am not sure. The depth of course but taking conditions into consideration then I think a comment based on system knowledge will do. I am sure that will from time to time also lead to comments on options the player has considered and therefore rejected. I certainly agree with you Ben about Deep Finesse. - Maybe because I dont understand the information that application offers me! At the level of play we are analizing it would be very very rare to put the blame in the player that is signaling. First of all top-level players signal when his pd needs a signal, if you don't think your pd needs a signal then don't signal because you will only help declarer. It is a pleasure to play against players that always signal with military precision since most of the time you will be playing the hand double dummy with the count and/or location of missing spots being known. This can lead to some strange situation where one player thinks his pd has signalled when actually the player has only pulled one of his cards without any meaning. I think that for Hamman the situation was obvious, he decided a spade cannot be a logical continuation then he wasn't signaling at all. Soloway may have just made a mistake or may have thought this was a situation where Hamman was signaling. So I think that the most probable conclusion is that Soloway just made a mistake and whatever their signals were I don't think Hamman can be blamed. I think that sometimes Claus you analize hands in a too scientific way, there's a lot of judgement in top-level bridge, players are not robots that bid as their system demands them to bid and they are not robots who play cards as their signals demand them to play. Signals are there to "help" pd not to make him do something against his will. At top level a signal can never prevent a player from doing the right play.

Mi vision is that the longer you play with your pd the more complex your agreements should be abuot this topic. Let's see what I mean: If you are playing with a pickup pd you can agree on "lvinthal" or "o/e" discards. Then your discards from the posted situation will show just interest or lack of interest in the suit being discarded. So I think the 1st step is how to show interest or lack of interest when dicarding. Then there's a more advanced agreement: multiple discards in the same suit. You have 7652 as you posted, you have to discard 3 times, it should be different to discard "762" or "265" etc.... If the first discard shows interest in the suit then you have to agree what your subsequent discards will show, I think you should show suit preference, indicating a suit that you will guard or a suit where you have values. Example playin low=discourage 2-5-6 (= interest in higher suit) 2-6-5 (= interest in lower suit) Playing o/e it would be the same, the first card shows your attitude towards the suit being discarded and the next 2 cards are a suit preference echo. But this can be even more complex. In some situations you will not want to show interest/lack of interest in the suit, for example if declarer is playing a slam contract. Then you can agree to show values or count depending on what you prefer to do with your pd, in my opinion this 3rd level is the highest, because it defines what are your signals depending on the situation being analized. Wow, a lot for just some discards :-)

Luis, is this a wildly accepted rule or just ur convention with ur pd? I do like this though. I think it is one of those things that you have to discuss with your pd. It is one of the things in my "new pd questionnaire", when I bid 3N to play: a 3N bid that can be passed then 4x by pd is a slam try (unless it is a correction of the contract to 4M). So when pd makes a slam try I think that 4N rejects the slam try, if you want to accept the slam try you bid something different than 4N. Why? Because it would be very difficult to handle the auction the other way around. If 4N is RKCB then when you don't want to play slam what do you bid? 4x? And is pd then expected to bid 4N? Worst, if you do want to accept the slam but don't want to ask for aces what do you do? Is your only option to accept the slam asking aces? That would be a poor approach. Eventually someone may step up and define that the meanings of 4N, and different 4x bids depend on the auction, I will strongly disagree since it is impossible to prepare for all the possible auctions that will lead to a 3N bid followed by a 4x slam try, you may have a minor suit fit, a major suit fit, no fit stablished, a double fit, etc. While I'd agree that ad-hoc solutions for each situation is the optimal way to go I think that a meta-solution covering any auction is better to be remembered and used without accidents. My meta-agreement is simple: "When I bid 3N to play a 4x cuebid is a slam-try, 4N rejects the slam and is to-play, other bids accept the slam invitation and are cooperative" I think that bidding 4N to play and 4x as cooperative is the best solution to this problem since now pd can ask with 4NT if he wants and it is clear that 4N is blackwood once pd makes a slam try and you accept. Luis

Using some form of seeding: One way is to make the 1st seeded play against the half+1 seeded, the 2nd seeded against the half+2 seeded, etc... Then it is supossed that all pairings have a similar strength difference. There're many variants.

I've found Richard's introduction excellent and thanks for the pointers to the Fractal and the fib page, nice brain teasers :-) I've stopped to think about the difference between a relay and an asking bid and I think that the best definition -in my opinion- is that a relay doesn't disclose any information about the asking hand while an asking bid directly or indirectly discloses some information. In Ron's example the gamma asking bid discloses that the hand asking has spade support and thus is asking for the quality of the trump suit (spades) so they are probably going to play a spade game, etc etc. So a relay auction defined as an auction where one hand bids only "relays" is a half-duplex exchange of information where only one player sends information to the other, natural/asking bids/non-relay auctions are full-duplex since both players send information to the other. In terms of information theory this is of-course inefficient in uncontested auctions, I wonder what are the right tools to measure the effectiveness of both approaches in contested auctions where natural methods make sense since both players may be able to take a sensible decision at the right moment.... mmmmh... interesting.

In a Swiss event the teams/pairs with most poinst play against each other. Before each round the 1st team plays against the 2nd, the 3rd against the 4th, etc. In case the 1st team already played with the second you see if they can play against the third, etc... If the movement is a "delayed" swiss the seeding is done with a 1-round delay being the 1st to rounds random or pre-seeded. In the third round you play using the results of the 1st round, in the 4th round you use the results up to round 2, etc. A common Swiss event strategy is to start "slow" so you don't have to play against the big teams in the beginning. Bah...

A player that bids 3NT to play cannot bid 4NT RKCB in hist next turn, I think that is a golden rule. So 4N is just a rejection of the slam try wanting to play 4N. 3N is a terrible bid opener can ask with 4N making this as easy as it should be. I really hate when the auction gets complex just because.

4N, expecting pd to bid 6N with 12+. He can pass with 10/11 balanced.

Disagree 4c stablishes spades as trumps while 3c does not and suggest a missfit, pd will bid 3d with a doubleton in diamonds showing some mild diamond tolerance over 3c and now I don't think you can get back to spades as trumps. I think 4c stablishes spades as trumps and shows a club control with a lot of interest in a diamond control, pd is expected to cuebid the dK but not a singleton since diamonds are my first suit. Starting with 4c you can get to 5s, 6s or 7s without complications discovering the dK, sA and sQ.

Maybe the point is not to "show" but to "ask". Just bid 4c, if pd can bid 4d then you can ask for keycards with 4NT, and then for the sQ if he has the ace to play 7. If pd cannot cuebid the dK then over 4s you should just bid 5s asking pd to go to six with good trumps. Luis

I don't know :-) dK, club to the ace, club king, heart to the A club ruff. Spade ace and spade ruff. And then try to ruff the fourth club with the hJ.