coyot

Why would partner be "showing cards" against my weak response? I know that he is not extra strong (18+) as he would cuebid opener's first suit now. I know he does not have 4 hearts (he would raise to 3♥). He knows that I have 0-8 HCP with 4+hearts. With 15-17HCP he may freely pass as I will 100% double 1♠ for takeout if I happen to have 6+HCP, I will 100% bid 2♥ if I have 5card and 4HCP, I will 100% bid 1NT if I have 7-8 HCP with some stoppers. This seems to be the typical case where people forget that they have a partner that is not stupid :).

That's exactly the point. If you sit down to an indy in BBO and open 2♦ with 6 weak diamonds, you ARE using implicit agreement! You're expecting your partner to understand that bid (why else use it)! And you just HAVE to tell the opponents about this when they ask. I think that it would be good if the TDs of indies prescribed "default" bidding system for the tourney and people would have to openly agree on something else if not wanting to play it. Then you would know that in a SAYC indy any 2♦ bid is weak diamonds unless you noticed the opponents agreeing on some other system.

I would rebid 2♣, conservatively... Bidding 2♦ is conveying a message with two lies - 1HCP and 1diamond. This will cause partner to find my distribution 3-1-4-5 (or at best 2-2-4-5), which will cause him to bid 3NT with something similar opposite (4-5-3-1...). And should I then correct to 4♥? (And find him holding KJxx-AJxx-xxx-xx?) No, I can patiently bid clubs. If my p has a hand that is worth anything, he will raise to 3 clubs... and if he has not, there is still the chance that opponents reopen with 2♠ (and I can then try 3♥ to show that I have a good hand...)

Definitely pass... partner must have 15+ with good spades. There is absolutely NO NEED for takeout when there is only one suit remaining. With balanced strong hands, he has the following actions: 1NT directly 15-17 1NT now as a rebid 18-19 2NT now as 20-22 If he is 18+ with anything, he has the easy 2♦ cuebid if he lacks stoppers.

1NT is equal to 1♦-1x-2NT in uncontested auction - and while it does not necessarily promise good diamonds, I would expect the declarer to see 6 very likely tricks in hand as he can't expect much from his partner to make. Bidding 1NT on great diamonds with weak hand (1.5 spade stopper and 6 tricks in diamonds) is a nice MP trick, but against any competent opps you will get a non-spade lead and likely throw half of your good diamonds down the gutter - so I would vote against doing it. Any great diamonds could be, anyway, opened 1NT :P. I would use takeout double with any ugly 18-19 safely - because partner might happen to have long spades and will be happy to pass. 12-14 should be the least likely hand if opener is intermediate or advanced - because he surely must have bid weak NT before and get that disaster imprinted well in his memory. (I recall my first and last weak NT reopen 5 years back in living colours :)). I don't like the option that offers strong NT OR long good diamonds, because if my p re-evaluates his hand, expecting 18-19 with spade stoppers, we might end up in a bad fix (playng 3NT with 10 points in diamonds, 8 points in spades and a few queens and jacks in the two suits that opponents cash :-).

I don't understand this. Do you seriously suggest that you should play your own pet system without agreement with partner? I.e. playing Moscito while partner plays Acol? No, of couse I did not mean that :-). I always assume that partner plays SAYC or BBO basic. I've never noticed players making agreements in Indies on BBO ;) - so I play better minor and the rest follows naturally :lol:. I don't think it is reasonable to play individual where you would have to make agreements with every partner. I would presume that it is OK to agree on basic approach as that can be handled quickly enough not to slow down the game... But to return to the issue - when playing Indy I would consider it ethical must to play the same bridge and same strategies throughout the tournament. I would be extremely upset to lose 15 IMPS and i.e. end below average just because I had to sit against somebody for whom being 5/100 is not enough...

Well, I thought the scheme I showed above is quite simple... It is compatible with both weak and strong jump-shifts, you still can play splinters with it and it has only one "conventional" bid in the sense that it does not fall in line with the simple principle of bidding stoppers in natural order... (1m-2m-2NT with major stoppers without extra points.) It has worked for me reasonably well for the past 4 years. I would guess that I stopped below non-makeable 3NT more often than my bidding helped defense to bring down otherwise makeable game... and that is not mentioning the minor slams that can be otherwise hard to bid...

I'm happy with the approach that immediate bids show something that is either a safe bid or a bid that could not possibly be made later. I.e. if 2♣ shows majors or strong hands, I can freely bid 3♣ if I have enough clubs and points to be at 3rd level and 2NT with a natural strong NT hand. (16-18?). Immediate double without a good suit is not a good idea because if the 2♣ was indeed strong, I'm in a big jam now ;). 2♥ and 2♠ could therefore be played as preempts. If you have a moderate overcall with major suit, you can freely pass and see what crops up. Against 2♦ multi (strong or major 6card) things are a little more complicated, because these hands occur much more often than 55 in majors and usually are the weak variant and you want to bid... If you have spades, you can pass easily because the bidding will go 2♦-p-2♥-p-p- and you can now bid your spades. If you have hearts, you can pass as well and bid takeout double when the opener corrects 2♥ to 2♠. Immediate double can be then used with a weak NT. But there are tons of much more complicated systems against 2♦ multi... 2♣ with majors is less dangerous because if your side has points, you know which suits to avoid. 2♦ Wilkosz is much harder to defend against...

Indy events on BBO seem to be much more relaxed than real life... When you play Indy in a club, there usually is a VERY strict system, including carding - and using any extra conventions or making extra agreements it strictly forbidden. Why should you be rewarded by a better result in the tournament just because you we're lucky enough to be seated agianst someone who knows and plays a similar system and the same gadgets?. (And bidding strategy should fall in here as well...) But, then, read the event rules and if they don't force any system upon you, play what you want and how you want - but still, without agreeing with a partner...

I dare to disagree :-). If you have witnessed someone bid aggresively twice in a row when he was an opponent and you PLAN to act on that information (that is, not accepting invites, not raising preempts), you ARE using something that constitutes a partnership understanding (albeit oneway). Your failure to raise a preempt which you would raise against any "random" partner then tricks opponents into believing that the values on which you are not bidding are in their partner's hands... On the other hand, there is the problem of how to convey this information to opponents... I can hardly imagine telling the opponents privately "hey, he's bidding one more than he should so you can't infer from my pass that I don't have a raise". Therefore, you should bid "normally" and take the incoming bad result as just a bad luck. I know this is hard to achieve, especially if the partner overbids significantly and you just know you're going to lose a lot of IMPs. Maybe a TD that runs Indies in real life often could say what the rules do about this. This goes even further when using information stored about the player from any previous encounters. Here we don't need real life experience, because it is hardly plausible that you would make a note about one player in 10.000 random people and remember it when you meet that person in another tournament several months later... I know it is a thin ice, because in real life some players are "known" to be aggressive while some are timid - but it usually is information that is known to the whole audience... (I.e. if you see an obvious beginner old lady, you can adjust your play and bidding to it - but so can everyone else at the table... if you see a perfectly average-looking player and just happen to know something others don't know, you can use this information freely when you're his opponent - but NOT when you're his partner).

This is not exactly true. If you "feel" that your previous results have been pretty good but not good enough to win (let's say that you would estimate being i.e. 5-10th in a 100), you can assume that to beat all the top players (who are most likely as good as you or better), you simply need a swing... If being first once and 20th once is more valuable to you than being 5th twice, it is a clear position for the lucky shot in the last round. Scoring an ave+ on the last board might push you above some of the pairs ahead of you, but highly unlikely you would jump over all of them. Shooting all the time will put you in the middle of the field in the long run (and I think that the long run here is much shorter than one would expect). If the statistical fluctuations are to provide you with a hefty margin for shooting, the "normal, decent" play would most likely provide enough to give you the grounds for last round "shooting". (That is, if you shoot in every round, the possibility of a good average due to statistical fluctuations will quite likely be outweighed by the probability of getting not just a bad result, but the occasional disaster where the bad breaks cause a double of your "shot") Shooting in the last round, given that all the previous rounds make you feel just slightly below the top, is a perfectly sound concept.

I would not consider it ethical... "shooting" with a partner that has participated in the not-so-good results so far is understandable, here you might damage somebody who has had good enough results in the previous rounds that he only needs to hold the cards on the last board to win the event... Indy events are generally wild - at least the non-paid ones. I played a 4x1board indy yesterday and added 3 entries to my enemy list :( - because my partners either overrated their playing skill by 2+ levels or deliberately violated bidding rules that are the foundations for the beginner/intermediate levels :). (Not that my bidding was at it's best at the table, but at least I trusted the partners :))

I'm for the mixed bag - 3x as short suits and 2NT as "bid your values" - because I'd rather find a good 22HCP game (while giving opponents some information) than miss it and make 3+2 on a good lead :)

Yep... there are a lot of nuances that have to be settled... I.e. is the trial bid to be accepted with bare minimum and values in the requested suit? Is it to be accepted with maximum and without values in the requested suit? is J10xx good values? is singleton and good support good values? (Many pairs permit 1M-2M to have 4card support) What I find very good about those bids is that you can use them for example with a strong 2suited hand... Imagine AQxxx - A - AKxxx - Kx ... 1♠-2♠-3♦ is a good way to find about Q of diamonds which may be the only the only card apart from spade king you'll need for the slam...

I would consider them very effective... They will get you to game on many 20-22pointish hands that fit together well... So you should not ask whether they are used, but which variants are the most used... I know about three of them: 1M-2M-new suit bid as a long-suit (at least 3rd honor is considered enough in some cases :))) 1M-2M-2NT asking partner to bid the first suit with values (when you have equal holdings in two suits and don't want to choose the wrong one... and the one I just switched to - I think it is called Kokish game tries: 1M-2M: +1 bid is asking partner to show his values, new minor bid is shortness and 1♥-2♥-2NT or 1♠-2♠-3♥ is natural, trying to find 4-4 suit to use the other major as a source of discards. Any of those certainly beats 1M-2M-3M as invitational (and especially with hearts you will find it very useful to bid 3M with weak 6carder as a preempt against 2♠ reopen...

Would anyone else welcome the option to have some kind of tournament filter? I'm playing around with the latest beta version and while the separation of tournaments into groups by time has it's merits, having a filter (either temporary or as a longterm-preset) would be nice. Practical realization: two buttons in the yellow upper label that shows the current amount of tournaments: One to enable/disable filter, another to edit filter. That would have to be an extra screen with a ton of checkboxes - for starters the following items: - paid/free - pairs/ind - exclude custom list/private clubs (=include custom lists) - clocked/unclocked - 1/2/3/4 boards per round. (With the possibility of overall length, scoring type, survivor etc. added if people would be interested...) With 350 tourneys starting later, some filtering would definitely come in handy :-)

I'm even more suprised that noone here fears the opener with a good and long but not 100% solid diamonds to end up in some disaster slam when expecting at least a doubleton from the responder :)

1♦-1♥-p-1♠ is not forcing but it is constructive. When I use such a bid, I expect partner to bid again (1NT, 2♥) with any solid overcall. I will often bid 1♠ with a decent 4card if my lengths in other suits indicate that p could have 4card support (and a hand not suitable for takeout). I would use 3♣ for fit-showing gametry and 2♣ for any strong hands (not promising fit).

I wouldn't like this bidding sequence much. 1♣-p-1♠-2♦ p-p-x-p Why not bid 2♥ instead of x? Perfectly natural bid, we might still land in 2♠ on misfit and I certainly don't fear partner passing with a minimum hand without full heart support (and I expect even minimal partner to raise 2♥ to 3♥. If partner happens to have an unsuitable hand for my majors, he will find the least expensive contract (2NT with stoppers, 3♣ with a good 6 card or 2 in whichever major he seems will be cheaper.). (I would use the takeout double with 5-3-2-3 shape - if p happens to have 4 diamonds, opps will be punished for their wrong overcall, if he happens to have 5 clubs, we might make 9 tricks there, if he has 4 hearts, we could still play on misfit.... Such reopen double should never be played as strict as negative.)

Against the likely 1♠ response, those aren't exactly opening values because you then have to repeat your clubs. Should the HCP be located in 2 suits only, it would be a sound opener... Otherwise, South has to trust the partner to have 4 hearts - that is what negative doubles are for. If he happens to have 3 hearts only, he will either bid a 6card club suit or 2NT with good diamond stoppers or pass (with 1-3-4-5 and 10 HCP, he will not miss a good contract unless his partner has something extra to reopen the bidding with.) I'd definitely blame south for not bidding 3♥ here. Don't hang yourself just because you think that your p could not hold himself from giving a bad takeout double.

Wouldn't expect him to have 4 spades, 5 diamonds and a forcing bid (implying some heart tolerance) AND enough clubs so that the LHO didn't bother to raise opening... In other words, if partner bids 2♦ forcing with 4-1-5-3, he is crazy (and why woulnd't he bid forcing 2♣ anyway? that would definitely be a better tool to find spade fit when fearing that 1♠ would be passed by me. So 3♠ does not really make sense. (I play two-way Michaels, either preempt or very strong, so this would show 5-6 in majors and moderate hand (approx 12-15 HCP)... To answer the original question, overcall is enough. Partner can have values that would make 4♥ a piece of cake while his long and good club suit would not be enough to defeat 1♣ by 3-4 tricks. Think of Kx-Qx-xxxx-KQ9xxx - enough to pass a takeout double, not seeing any good contract.. yet there would be only 2♦ and 1♠ loser - and we can well be getting only 1♥, 1-2♠, 1♦ and 2-3♣ tricks in defense...

I play fairly simple inverteds: 1m-3m 5card, 6-8 HCP 1m-2NT 5card, 2-5HCP (not a compulsory bid B)) 1m-jumpshift weak 1m-3-4 new suit splinters (see the frequency of 1m-2NT natural bids in a recent thread - less than 1%) 1m-2m 9+HCP, 4+card, usually without 4M (unless I'm sure we're playing 6-7th level and want to find out stoppers early. After 1m-2m, both sides bid stoppers from the lowest suit (semi-natural) - with any bid above 3m showing some extra values - and only a single artifical bid 1m-2m-2NT (showing stoppers in both majors AND minimum hand). No gadgets necessary, this is quite simple to agree upon and brings good results (on the advanced level... experts will surely want something more complicated.). When playing at a local club (where I would rate myself as slightly above average), I tend to find most minor slams that many better pairs miss, scoring 460 on the same hands :). With the stopper bidding, you can start cue-bidding on 3rd level, which gives enough room to stop safely at 5 if necessary.

I play 2/1 responses as either GF or (if immediately repeated) a good 6card suit... (and 8th ace equals a good 6card.... so I would bid 2♣ and then 3♣ on any rebid... and if he bids 3NT then, I'll have close my eyes and pray B) I would strongly advocate against 1NT bid for one reason: P with AKJxxx in diamonds might hope to make 5 tricks in that suit with one loss of tempo, expecting a small doubleton in my hand. Since he has higher suit than I have, he might not be willing to accept my run from 3NT (likely bid if he has something like 3-3-6-1) to 4-5c and would bid diamonds... If I cannot bid 2/1 club as above, then I would rather pass. After all, with just 6 HCP, there is a good chance that my LHO will reopen the bidding either with a major 4card or a double (hoping for his partner to have a trapping pass). I could then reenter the bidding aggresively with my clubs - and partner would be able to deduce what hand I have. I don't like pass too much, but I like 1NT even less. Unless I find partner with a doubleton club (not very likely), 3NT may fail even against quite strong hands. And if I pass and p is strong (say 16+), chances still are good that the reopen will come - roughly 50% = LHO can have weak NT, one long major or a takeout (if diamonds are 3-6-4-0 or 3-5-5-0)...

This would be a great idea... Right now, the number is 16 (so that all results fit on the screen. In fact, I don't really care about 170s in a field of 620... but sometimes you get 800 and 1100 in the field of 140s B))

If you play 2/1 GF and 1♥ - 1♠ forcing, then the probability of getting the perfectly balanced hand with which you would want to bid perfectly natural 2NT, is, as shown above approx 1% or a little less after 1♠ and 0.5% after 1[H]. If you play inverted minors and are willing to bid 1♣ - 1♦ with 3-3-4-3, you will never 2NT hand after 1♣ and you will get it in about 0.4% against 1♦ opening. And as substitute: Against 1♦ I would opt for bidding 2♣ with very good 11+ and 1NT (6-10) with any bad 11. Against major openers in 2/1 systems, you'll have to do with forcing NT...