Douglas43

In defence of my pass, I bid 3H on that one!

This may sound eccentric, but I actually quite like playing 4♣ and 4♦ as natural slam tries. That way you can also play 3♠ as minor suit stayman.

Is it really a good idea to play 4♣ as ace-asking in sequence where partner has shown a game force with strong clubs? If it just agreed clubs as trumps you'd have cue bid your way to 6♣. Is an ace ask by the weaker hand that useful here?

Unusually I differ with Zelandakh who I consider a thoughtful contributor when he says "Assuming Benji was agreed, they are probably used to the style where a 3♣ jump can somewhat weaker than standard. This is generally a crux for poor bidding knowledge but is unfortunately quite widespread at club level in the UK" On this hand, you can tear up East's King of Hearts, leaving a (beautifully formed) 13 count, and West still has enough for the partnership to make 3NT

Cricket, boring? No wonder you left Yorkshire!

3NT may be ugly but I can't think of a better alternative. North could at least punt 6♣.

I don't much like rebidding 1NT with a singleton but I prefer it to 2C on a three card suit, rebidding the puny diamonds, or reversing into 2H (and I'm never opening 1H). The corollary is that with a weak (5-8 hcp) responding hand and only 5 spades it's risky to rebid 2S. With 9+ hcp responder can use checkback.

Agree with the above posters. Even if FSF at the two level is not played as FG, 3♣ to bid out your shape. The worst hand partner can have is values for 2NT but no diamond stop, in which case they probably hold three clubs.

No easy answer to that one, I found the same when I was working (retired last year). Maybe online games have unearthed consumer demand for shorter sessions? The EBU Lockdown League is 8 boards and our club has a 16/18 board BBO duplicate on Wednesdays. Some of the older players find 24/27 boards a bit much.

Interesting hand, thank you. North's psyche is an old ploy. East needs to do something about it. I prefer 4♠ but double is OK. You could make a case for 3♠ on the West hand, but as long as you play "don't bid weak over weak" I think 2♠ is enough.

I would pass. If North reopens with a double I'll let them play it in whatever they bid. If North rebids 2♥ partner has a chance to bid or double, if not and it comes round to me, I might compete with a double.

Anything might be right, but I'd try 3H on the grounds that it describes the main feature of my hand, then hope for the best... Paul

Looking at it without the UI: First of all I am assuming that there is no clear agreement with partner over whether 3♣ is forcing. With a normal overcall hand (i.e. less than 15 hcp), I expect to bid game over opposing 1NT only when our side has a trump fit. So in principle 3♣ is not forcing. The difficulty for me is that I would have doubled 1NT every day of the week. However, you have taken a minority decision not to double 1NT, and could reasonably hope to have got 300+ by doing so (especially as the opps apparently cannot escape into Clubs). So you need game to beat the 300s. My answer is influenced by the fact that I play in a location where 12-14 is the usual 1NT range, and I play a penalty double. This may be less persuasive if most of the field plays 15-17? With the UI, it's more difficult. My reasonable choices are 3NT and pass. I think the UI tips me off that 3NT is likely to be better than passing, so I'd pass.

None of my guesses came close!

This is interesting, I am the second person to vote and the other voter disagreed with me on every point, so good choice pilowsky. My answers were: marginally yes I'd bid 2♠. Terrible hand but its nv at pairs. [Later edit after seeing Cyberyeti's comment: sorry it's vulnerable, can I change my vote?] I play change of suit at the two level is non-forcing but new suit at the three level is game forcing, so would bid 3H and follow with 4C. Absent that agreement (and this is a pick-up game), I might punt 4H and hope.

Without looking at the spoiler, my answer would be that it is most likely that East has a really strong hand which is too good for an overcall. Probably long spades and about 17 hcp. First, where have the spades gone? Partner has opened 1H, so except for a rare 5-6 shape (s)he doesn't have more than 4. West hasn't bid them, and we've only got one. Second, the diamonds, we can see 5, West has at least 5. If East has three, partner has a void and is about to bid again. So either East has the big hand with Spades, or partner has 5=6=0=2. The former is more likely.

Hi Mycroft, no offence taken. The David Burn link didn't work, but I think it must be this article Conventions you don't need to know (blakjak.org) . Simple is good. I play 30/41 and one day hope to respond to RKCB without using my fingers at all. It comes down to your view on whether showing the spade-minor two suiters against a minor and the increased accuracy over (1M) is worth the trade-off of losing a 3C overcall and risking a memory lapse. I have played it in three regular partnerships over 15 years without accident. But in one-off games I play Michaels. Just seen various sites that call this method Questem, so that's something else I've learned.

I think maybe you missed the intended humour in my guess about the auction the previous reply. Of course we do, this modified Ghestem is on our card and alerted . A cue bid is highest two unbid suits (so the same as Michaels when a minor is opened), 2NT is the lowest two (so the same as the unusual no-trump), 3♣ is the extremes. It is never an either/or bid, and in this sequence it promises Clubs as one of the two suits. It lacks a club suit only in the case of (1♣) - 3♣. And if partner passes that, he's asleep. This method gives up the natural 3♣ bid, but gains over Michaels in that you can show Spade - (unbid minor) two suiters over a minor, and that partner knows which minor you have when you cue Ghestem over oppo's major. And no, neither of us has forgotten the 3♣ bid Yet...

To be fair, 4♥X by East would be a good save over 3♠X by West!

Maybe you should start by asking them what is most important to them? Are they serious competitive players who want to be the best they can? Or are they primarily social players who are only prepared to put in so much work? Adopting a new system has an adjustment cost, and can take a toll on memory. It may be better to play a sub-optimal system well than an optimal system poorly. Let us assume that 2/1 is indeed currently the world's best bidding system. And I think that particularly at teams of 4, played by good players who are thoroughly comfortable with the system, it probably is. Even in the UK, when you look at England / Scotland / Wales international teams, you will see that most pairs are on 2/1. The Isle of Man gets to play every four years in a Commonwealth teams event, which is good for us as we get a chance to be duffed up by proper internationals. A couple of years prior to the Gold Coast, the pair who had been our most successful in Glasgow switched to 2/1, They are both friends of mine and won't mind me saying that they had a terribly disappointing event. One reason was that, despite them putting in a lot of work on 2/1, their opponents knew their system inside out; so they were "taking coals to Newcastle"*. Meanwhile our Acol pairs had the advantage of the randomising effect of playing contracts on different sequences and possibly the other way up, which is what you want as an underdog, and of opponents occasionally thinking "WTF?" (Was That Forcing?). I would say the same if you were proposing to convert them to playing 4cM and 12-14 NT. * In the 19th century Newcastle-upon-Tyne was a significant port for sending coal to other parts of the UK.

If you respond 1NT, the bidding is likely to proceed (2♠) - 3♣ and you reach 5C. So no problem over wrong-sided no trump contracts. Remember a hand that responds 1NT to 1D virtually guarantees four clubs (or maybe 3=3=4=3).

I don't think so? 4NT will be alerted by partner if they believe it is not natural, and you will be alerting your response as [two aces] if you regard 4NT as RCKB. But you don't know whether partner has alerted and vice-versa. Under EBU regulations alerts apply throughout online, but there are only limited alerts above 3NT in F2F games (at least as I understand EBU requirements). I think the 3NT threshold was partly to prevent those auctions which went ... 4NT (pass) followed by a long think and a slow alert...

I agree with Jillybean. I sometimes open a weak two with four cards in the other major, even 1st / 2nd, but would not open 2♥ with spades this good and a poor heart suit.

If partner has told opponents what (s)he intended by 4NT, and you tell them what you mean by your response, then how have they been harmed? One of the advantages of self-alerting is that if you mess up, the opponents can see what has happened, but you don't get UI.

1NT. Even if not playing 2/1 this wouldn't qualify for a two-level response in a new suit.