Blofeld

Nice post! Everything you put forward is fairly straightforward and logical, but I had never actually worked out the numbers or considered it in this much detail before. Only thing I don't follow: why is their game worth 670 rather than 620 at game all?

There's always 1NT : 7NT for the blind optimists. :rolleyes: [i'm a Keri user, so bid this the same way as Mark]

Low to the 9, though I haven't actually worked out if that's best.

I'll bid 2NT and see what happens.

Well, we take 70 years as the average life expectancy. Divide this by 10 (the number of toes that a typical person has), and add it to the age at which one usually starts secondary school to get 18, which is thus the logical age of consent.

It warms my heart to see irony still present even in the heart of British beaurocracy.

I'm an idiot and forgot that there's a 2♦ call available. So I think I go with 3♦. But at any rate I want to show my support now.

I'm supporting diamonds, but I rather like my hand, so I'll do it with 2♠ rather than 3♦.

Absolute rubbish unless you play it like Winston and justin suggest - a good treatment imo. To play the cue as non descript as suggested here is reductio ad absurdum. That appears to be a nonstandard use of reductio ad absurdum, Ron. Could you explain how it applies?

I think it's a little unreasonable to say that that's the only risk, whereagles. I'm certainly going to double, but I accept that once in a while my doubling will result in us going for a number at the three level.

Agree with 4♠ over 3♣.

That's it except for one small nit on point #2. Our par is the lowest possible sacrifice that's still profitable. Let's say we can take 11 tricks in hearts and they can take 11 tricks in spades. If you took your definition #2 literally, then it would say that our par is 7♥, when it should be 6♥. I think my definition works, because [in your example] the par contract is 6♥x-1 by us, so point #1 applies and we never move onto #2. --- Your data are interesting, but could you tell us where the thirteenth card in hand C should be? I like the point that par contract is not best for determining preempts (unless this is going to shift people over to opening 4♠ on hand :).

While I can see the merits of opening 4♦ with that hand, I think that opposite an unpassed hand this is a bit much (you could be missing 3NT!), and we conservative juniors will restrict ourselves to a simple middle-of-the-road 3♦.

This inclines me towards 1NT.

I agree with that, Roland, but you said: And I was arguing with this, as the 2/1 GF also lets you splinter at a cheaper level, so you don't lose the advantage if you choose to splinter rather than bid 3♦.

Not true, Roland. At least in traditional Acol, 2♥ would be non-forcing, so to splinter would take you to 4♥. So you gain a level in both cases. Edit: oh, sorry ; if you were just contrasting 3♦ to 4♦ then in general I agree. Although the 4♦ call ought to show something.

I bid 2♠, but I do see the problem, and can accept that 4♦ might work better. On the bonus question, I think I'm bidding 3♠, but here double might be better (assuming that ELC would apply now).

I'm bidding 5♦ on all of them. The 4♥ bid got you. But sometimes they'll miss their slam bidding like that, or play the wrong game. I wouldn't worry overmuch.

Yes, 1NT would have been my choice. Seems the most descriptive bid available. No need to go screaming about hearts.

ELC is Equal Level Correction. So doubling now and then bidding 3♦ over 3♣ to show the pointed suits.

None of them. I have nothing worth saying about my minors (and the system means I'm bidding a minor), and the hand doesn't have much playing strength. Playing a weak no trump I think I'd open A, and possibly B.

My thought was that I might want to bid it if I have a very distributional hand with enough spades that I know partner's opening was a psyche. Then I wondered if there was any 'valid' meaning for the bid.

Ben, you seem to have got Justin's comments from the wrong hand.

Really? I thought 2/1 was better geared towards describing the 13-card hands. Of course, the defence to a strong club where you let your partner know how many cards you have (pass = 0-9, x = 10, 1♦ = 11, etc.] comes into its own on hands like this, but even then it isn't describing shape with its first call.