sfbp

I think that (and Bridgebrowser backs this up, i can hear the doubting cries of "rubbish" already) wjs, just like neg free, works best as ANTI-forcing. MAXimum 6 points, minimum 0. Antiforcing means opener does not raise even with a fit. Why not? Because telling the opps we have a fit is an invitation for them to bid their game. Having decided that it's antiforcing, the weaker the better.. BRBR bears this out too.

My feeling is that you are exactly right - the chance of someone finding this at the table is not very good. I actually posted the hand (which I spied watching a team match on BBO) because I was intrigued that such a spectacular play existed "in real life". An unplayed suit where partner doesn't even have the KING of this suit, and at the third trick. Of course if declarer had finessed diams immediately there would be no story. [hv=d=w&v=n&n=sa5hd632cajt98653&w=s86ht832daq9cq742&e=skt732hakj965djtc&s=sqj94hq74dk8754ck]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Nonetheless congrats to Ben for winning the Kelsey Cup :)

Bidding: (p) 1♣ (1♥) X (3♥) 5♣ (5♥) AP You are the 1♣ bidder, North [hv=d=w&v=n&n=sa5hd632cajt98653&w=s86ht832daq9cq742]266|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Partner leads the ♣K, ruffed by declarer, who now plays A, and then K of hearts, to which partner follows small both times. What do you discard and why?

Purple Precision (std + greek asking bids) 1♣ 1♥ 1NT 3♣ (beta, 6th step =7 controls) 3♥ 4♣ (gamma, 3rd step, = HHxxx exactly, H = A/K/Q). ♥ is now agreed. Now we know we are missing only 1 KING, we cannot be missing an ace since we have 4 (2 aces) + 7 (pard's response) = 11 controls. We are now certain of small slam, can we bid grand? If he has KD, no. 4♦ 4NT (epsilon, 3rd step, second round control, singleton or King) 5♦ 5♥ (repeat epsilon, control is by shortness not K) Now we know he has the K♣, and the AK of ♠ (or he wouldnt have 7 controls) in addition to the AK of ♥. So the only thing now is a 4-1 trump split. He might convert 7H knowing that we have 35+ points as it seems impossible my bidding 7 is based on a void. Diamonds, i would have never have asked in diams. Spades it matters not.... clubs now I cannot have 16 points if missing all the club honours, there's nothing left. (ie the most he can have with a club void is Jxxx QJ10xx AKQx - which adds to 13 HCP) So.... 7♥ I admit it, i'm never getting to 7C but do I really want to?

Quick search with BRBR reveals the much-vaunted 3NT showing long minor is NOT agreed, not even close to majority. The vast majority of rebidders had 19-21 balanced It may vary as a function of dataset (player pool) but judging from Ritong's post in the other thread, I would bet not. Stephen http://www.microtopia.net/bridge/testing/3nshape.jpg http://www.microtopia.net/bridge/testing/3nhcp.jpg

A co-interesting point is raised at http://www.microtopia.net/bridge/day2.html Do you want to play in 3NT or 4H after a 2NT opener with a 5-3 fit? This study gives RESPONDER five hearts, but it raises some of the same points. I guess the same sort of study might be done with a 1NT opener. A couple of advantages I would propose for 1NT opening five card majors that weren't mentioned: a. the better range of tools for the responder (eg puppet stayman, transfers) b. the ability to play in RESPONDER's suit at the 2 level despite opener's 5-card major. Stephen

Isn't there something called MAFIA? Majors Always First In Auction iirc. This would certainly be an easy way to announce. "Mafia except on game forcing hands" perhaps even...... Stephen

another plug for XYZ This scheme allows you to have it all: immediate weak jumps over 1♣ (to 2♥) 0-6 HCP after given sequence: Pass "i made my one and only bid" 5-6 points 4-5 hearts, ♠ tolerance 2♥ drop dead, probably 5 cards, 7-9 points (less HCP with no spade tolerance) 2♣ some invitational hand (pard doesnt know which yet, he has to bid 2♦) 2♦ game forcing 5 hearts (possibly some other pattern and not giving up on slam) 3♥ game forcing (the STRONG JUMP SHIFT hand) 2N 4 hearts 5-6 clubs, less than game, pd must bid 3♣ (and there are various other possibilities too, notice the unbid sequences). For example your 3♥ bid after the 2♣ 2♦ puppet/relay can be the same hand in standard that you intend by 3♥ in the original point, ie invitational with 6 ♠s. No special need to learn all this in detail - once you have the structure the meaning of the bids becomes clear. Stephen

Stephen, I thought exactly the same sort of thing, and bid 2♠. ...my partner bid 2NT. What now? Heheh they think we're idiots but at least you and I think in parallel on this........ I guess if partner couldn't bid 2N the first time, and he still didn't bid anything else, I am going to take his 2N as exploratory. 3♦ for me... now he knows where I live. Natural at least. I'm not going to show him support for hearts if he cannot bid them. 4-3 fit with an indy partner... no thanks! Also I am in CMA mode - if he really is the sort of player that bids 2N on no fit, heaven help us - but it may be better to make one more bid. Are psyches explicitly disallowed? Maybe we have a spade fit after all? Then the 2♠ bid comes home now because he continues over 3♦ with 3♠. Off we go to the races perhaps....... even 4-4 spade fit with 5 spades on my left may have play for 4♠. To answer Adam's point about 2♠ when I have xx in spades and a good hand, in this sort of a contest it makes sense to bid naturally, and I would bid 3C over the double (jump to 3C, right?) but what do I know, Adam? Stephen

I dont like the look of clubs (for any number of NT), and I dont think i have enough to penalty pass the negdbl.... sitting under the bidder. So I will do the next best thing, and bid 2S I think this must be natural and/or ask pard to bid again. If he bids 3C i bid 3N happily (I assume he cannot bid 2N or the guy cannot have his bid). If he bids 3H I hum and haw for a bit and ..... I dunno. If he puts me back to 3D, we play there. If he bids 4D i raise to 5.

Looks like a nice example for XYZ to me. It doesn't help much, but it probably keeps you out of 2H 1C - 1D - (nat, why would you play anything forcing you to bid otherwise) 1H - 2C - (invitation, nothing about clubs, forces 2D) 2D - 2NT - (where I live, balanced invite Now AND ONLY NOW, have you given the opener the right information and decision. I am sure he will bid 3N, but at least he can downvalue his majors. Stephen

from the ACBL Convention charts. These regulations apply to the lowest level of competition regulations, the General Convention Chart. "DEFINITIONS 1. An opening suit bid or response is considered natural if in a minor it shows three or more cards in that suit and in a major it shows four or more cards in that suit." Uday is exactly right. I got had one time (in real life bridge) by a tactical bid of 2C with opps playing 2/1 GF. But it is completely and perfectly legal. A lacuna perhaps, but one that you cannot ever get satisfaction under in the ACBL at least. I'd be curious to know about other jurisdictions. Stephen

East won't lead one if he has 2 or 3, right?

What I didn't even notice about my line (♦A, small ♦) is that if the ♦K happens to be with East then what is he going to do? They can cash their 3 spades. It doesn't matter who is on lead because now you have 3 clubs, 3 diamonds, 2 hearts and one spade. Fourth club not needed. You have to make sure you cash the ♦J at the right moment, but you are in the Spingold, n'est-ce pas? So I would have lucked out, probably for the wrong reasons. I don't even mind when East leads the 10 of hearts. As I said before, who cares about the hearts? Where I fail is if West has every single face card except the ♥Q and 3 or more clubs. Exposing the ♦K seems to be a good idea. Exposing the ♣K won't help because the diamonds are still blocked. (added after the first coffee of the day) Oh, never mind - East leads a heart and I still have to guess to duck it in order to get back to hand.

Hi Roland, The additional information is that partner gets the idea of how to value his hand (just like a game try) and can refuse altogether if he has the control and still hates his hand. We are below game and so we know that either one may be a second round control. Where it wins is if you are looking for second round control or better (how many times have you wished to bid a slam but you can't find that K(Q)x in partner's hand opposite xxx, and you can't afford blackwood?). If you have only one suit controlled then you bid it, of course. What I am saying is that simultaneously telling partner something about your hand as well as giving him information about what you need, is a better approach than blindly bidding aces up (or down) the line.

I think there should be 2 prerequisites for a game try 1. The initial raise should be capable of accepting at least one game try - otherwise you are too high on many dog openers (and no reference to Nitram Nilved intended). The corollary of this is you need to play a forcing 1NT and be willing to put the non-interested (bad) responding hands via 1N to 2M for a safe stop. 2. Your opener must have something he wants to know or to tell that will help partner decide. As you say, many blast - but isn't that because they simply can't really be sure what the bids mean, especially here on BBO? I agree that help suit game tries tend to give information to the opponents, and for that reason i prefer short suit game tries. If opener doesnt HAVE shortness then he bids 2NT, and ONLY IF responder thinks that opener knowing shortness will enable a decision, then he bids his shortness. Often he can simply blast 4, and opponents still have no information. Especially if shortness can be a doubleton as well as a singleton, this method is fairly reliable. The rule I use is one of concentration - if the hand is decent, then its ok to have "stuff" in the short suit. But if it's only moderate (11-13) then you must make the shortness try in xx or x, or not at all. Stephen

I meant stars and non-stars, since that is what I saw. But members and non-members, or whatever criterion suits the organisers and the players.

Hmm I rather disagree with this. My approach is that I will bid the first cue in a suit as close as possible below the suit I care about, especially below game (above game it is usually more like a simple slam try - if pard likes my Ace or Void then he goes, otherwise not). I'll give some examples later if you like - it's always clear to me at the table but I prefer to give you something that people cannot shoot at. Suppose, anyway that you care about hearts, and you have both clubs and diamond controls - then I say the right bid is diamonds. Partner can still decline (eg if he doesnt like his hand) but now he knows what you care about. If you bid clubs he may be wide open in diamonds. Partner ain't a robot - include him in the decision. Stephen

I just saw a "play with a star" indy on BBO Reminds me, in RLB we have Rookie-Master tourneys. The Masters sit N and E, the Rookies sit S and W. Could something like this be arranged in software? Stephen

I knew i was no good at this.... if they take the diamond right away you can't get ingress to hand. OTOH West should now be endplayed in hearts and clubs, so it comes to the same thing?

You are gonna lose 3 spades unless West started with exactly AQJ :) Forget dem heartzzzzzz....... Play A and another diamond, to guarantee you a diam trick and entry to hand Now finesse clubs when the smoke dies down. You make when west has Kx. I bet this is the 4=4=3=2 1D opener.

I am used to the auction 1M-4M being "to play" because I play precision more often than not. Furthermore I am used to opponents who describe their 1M-3NT bid as being "Hx or better" or perhaps "doubleton support" Imagine my dismay when opponents from a good team at an NABC (who we nearly beat) alerting 3NT as "a normal 4H bid with a King extra". Suffice it to say that the lead, very unpleasant, player in this team, was a lady who had more MP than all of us 4 put together, and that her teammates (we had already switched seats, lol) were generally not exactly forthcoming about their explanations, especially as we chased them to within an inch of their collective lives. Nowhere did the opposing players indicate that this 3NT bid was preemptive and weak. The TD basically agreed with me. Turns out it was moot, because even with this score corrected in our favour we would lose by 1 IMP. But it sure left a nasty taste. Let me make a plea: never never tell opps "std" or "natural" (unless the natural is describing something like a simple overcall opening or rebid of a new suit). There is a good chance that there is something about the bid that your opponent will misunderstand. My favourite example of this principle was the time when you, Richard, explained the sequence (1D) p (1H) 2H as being "standard". Many many people, without explanation, would take this as being some sort of 2-suited takeout. But you were insistent that no further explanation was required. Stephen

But can you afford NOT to play a strong club system?

One place we did away with them is where responder is known to be weak. Specifically 1♣(unlimited) P 1D(0-7) P 2NT(19-21) P ? Here there are more hands where you want to play in 3♦ than where you want to invite 4♥. The side effect of the big hand being dummy is just that..... it's true that having the big hand on the table still makes you guess about the small hand, so I have rarely seen losses because of which hand was exposed. With a very bad hand opposite a 2NT opener in standard - haven't you often wished that partner was not allowed to superaccept? And we can actually play 3♦. Clubs is still lost but that's life, you can't win em all, Stayman is still necessary.

I play 1NT exactly as you would think, balanced hand. It also works when I have 1=4=4=4 and partner bids a spade, though this is probably better at the upper end of the range, for obvious reasons. In our version pard is limited by failure to make a strong jump shift, so its not too too likely we mis slam by this potential underbid. Why? 1. You can rebid 1N on 5 or even SIX diamonds as long as the hand is balanced and play there (esp at mp) for a better score than 2D 2. XYZ is now available for partner to describe his hand (yes I suppose there may be a way to use something XYZ-like over a 2C rebid but we havent got that far yet) Note that 3 and 4 seat are still able to open 1D on 4 (or even 3) "because pard might respond my major" especially when the opener has a poor hand he feels he must open in these seats.