rbforster

DId they forget to teach the "stop 3N" showing hearts and direct 3N showing spades in the article? Sheesh, that's BB for you.

Passing with 13-15 isnt a psych, its just unusual and doesn't need to be an absolute force on 3rd/4th who can legally open with 8+. You may agree to open 1NT with 8+ points, but if you include 8 or 9 point hands regularly there are restrictions on conventional responses. These are much less of an issue with the 8-9 range I suggest since theres no need for invitations - natural bids are either NF (2 of a suit) or GF (2NT+).

I have high standards for NT - no voids and at most one singleton. :)

Partner overcalls at the one level and responder bids 1NT. How do you play advancer's double? i.e. (1♣)-1♥-(1NT)-X Does it matter what the auction is, say major vs minor suits bid, etc?

1♣ catchall, usually 11-15, forcing 1♦ catchall, usually 16+, forcing? Fwiw, I think you can do a whole lot weirder things under GCC...pass all you 13-15 counts in 1st/2nd while opening all 8-12s, play weak 2m and 3m openings promising only 3 cards and possibly certain much longer suits, 2/1 as drop dead, 1NT as 8-9 or 2NT as 12-14... I could go on but I hope you got some fun ideas.

I think this idea made more sense in the old style of precision where your 1M opener showed 12-15, not in many of the more aggressive model styles where the strong club is used to accommodate lighter openings like 10-15. I play the lighter opening style and it gets very hard to judge when to give up on slam since partner could have a prime 15 or a crap 10 count. I guess I don't play enough to have a real feeling for how often my opponents would go wrong with a marginal hand over 1M-(P)-4M-?

Is 1NT an option?

in my years of playing 1NT-3♠ as 5/5 majors GF, this comes up quite rarely. However, something like half the time it has come up, partner has opened a 22(54) shape 1NT and bids 3NT instead of 4M. I wouldn't want to force past 3N unless your partner is more disciplined than mine ( and we certainly don't open most 22(54)s 1NT either).

Sounds perfect for those situations where NT opener is a worse declarer than responder :P

4H for me also on the rebid. I like taking the heart hook, and then planning to ruff hearts with the dummy's nice trumps. When the K♥ falls at T3, I think I still ruff a low heart and concede the overruff before claiming 6.

No, you just have to bid 2♠ for any super accept and responder will bid 2NT with real hearts (allowing opener to describe his super accept), or else responder bids 3m+ as before.

One treatment for the 2♠ rebid is an artificial minor suit slam try (these are hard to show unless you play 4 suit transfers, which I don't). Opener bids 2NT and then 3m is that suit with 1/3 honors, 3M is the corresponding minor but with 2/3 top, and 3N is either minor solid. You do have to remember that bidding 2♠ cancels the meaning of the heart transfer.

If you establish the key during the bidding, such as having a check back that confirms the other top trump honor when partner just showed 2/3 top, you can encrypt your cues and still give the required full disclosure. Only encrypted carding is oppressed by the regulators, bidding is allowed in the same way any style of late round cue bidding is (anything goes starting with openers rebid in the US, and I imagine this is similar elsewhere).

Good points information disclosure and about reaching the best cold contract vs a slam or MP overtricks you might make. I'll have to put encrypted cuebids on my long list of conventions to work on - I'm sure it wouldn't be too far off from Ken's style when he's already showing 2/3 top trump honors. :)

Thanks for the suggestions. In the end, I decided that despite having various options to raise spades (strong jump then support, Jacoby, various splinters), that none of these did a good job of focusing partner on his club holdings without overpromising mine (I play strong jumps must be good suits). I opted for a GF 2♣, hoping to help partner upgrade club honors in his evaluation. I normally don't bid this with 4 card support, but nothing else appealed. In the end, we correctly stopped in game when partner lacked a diamond control, but at least I thought our auction had a chance of finding slam if partner's red card holdings had been reversed. [hv=pc=n&s=sak65hdt9ckj98532&n=sqj9832haqdj87ca7&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1sp2cp2sp3sp4cp4hp4sppp]266|200[/hv] (spots corrected from OP)

Partner, who often opens light, opens 1♠ and you hold: [hv=pc=n&s=sakt4hdt9ckj95432&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1sp]133|300[/hv] What's your plan for the bidding? Feel free to use any of your preferred conventions (Jacoby, splinters, etc). You don't have that much in terms of values, but it won't take that much for slam either.

What is your preferred system for these jumps?

Without Bergen, normally 3♠. There are other treatments of course, like using 2N as an inv+ raise (rather than GF Jacoby), and I guess the 1♠-3♥ jump might be available if you wanted to play 3♥ as the 4 card limit raise and 3♠ as purely preemptive. The idea of the poll thought was that you would play "Standard" over 1♠.

Short suit try in hearts for me. It would help to know what your normal 2S raise promises to know whether North's relatively weak hand would still accept or not in context. I would lean towards accepting the heart try, since there's little wasted in hearts and North has an extra trump.

Does anyone play Bergen raises over 1♥ openers, but not over 1♠? It seems a little more complicated, but here are some reasons to consider it: 1. With the boss suit, you don't need to preempt your opponents, you can almost always just outbid them later. This only loses if they can compete to the 4 level or double you in 3♠, have it be right, and that they wouldn't have been able to do so over an immediate Bergen raise (rather than over a simple 2♠ and delayed 3♠ raise). 2. Starting with 1♠-2♠, especially with the constructive Bergen raise hand, allows for more accurate game tries. 3. Jump shifts of 1♥-3m are "free" (for Bergen or anything else) if you make use of the "Impossible 2♠" treatment to show both good and bad minor suit hands after starting with a forcing NT (i.e. 1♥-1N-2X-3m weaker, or 1♥-1N-2X-2♠-2N-3m stronger). Auctions starting with a forcing NT tend to be better for constructive bidding too, rather than jumping to 3m right away when you might have a doubleton heart and not know if partner has 6, etc. 4. Over 1♠, jump shifts of 1♠-3m are not "free". There is no equivalent of the Impossible 2♠ so there is need to separate good and bad hands with long minors into hands that bid 3m or hands that start 1N(f) and later bid 3m. What do people think? Does anyone actually play Bergen only over hearts? Are there other reasons for or against this that I might be missing?

Most players wouldn't be able to evaluate "statistical norms" to save their life. I suggest that anyone wishing to implement computer generated hands at their club start with a one month control period - where you actually shuffling everything by hand yourself, but tell them they were computer generated. Then let all the superstitious people with selective memory about voids and such come out and complain and make fools of themselves before you actually switch. "Hand shuffling is too erratic, and since everyone complained we're switching to a provable random solution".

My normal system doesn't have a relay structure for semipositive strength hands, and those that do (like TOSR) and start with 1♦ negative usually have their shape resolution 1-2 steps higher than for the GF hands due to spending all the low level space to sort out what strength responder has. I was thinking of something like: P - 1♣ -? 1♦ 5+ hearts semipositive. Opener relays with 1♥ and extras, or bids naturally with a minimum. 2♥ is a minimum raise for example. 1♥ 5+ spades semipositive. As above. 1♠ double negative or balanced semipositive. Opener bids NF 1NT with most minimums (then strong NT systems), or 2♣ artificial with a very strong hand 1N 5+ clubs semipositive. As above 2♣ 5+ diamonds semipositive. As above 2♦+ rare GF passed hands, maybe similar transfers only one full level up?

Much as I like 1♣-1♦ as hearts GF or weak (my preferred precision variant), it makes less sense in 3rd/4th. This is because it does overload the bidding for that auction and lead to less accurate part-scores than a purely weak 1♦ response. The advantage in 1st/2nd is that you stay low on the GF hands and get to resolve your relays one step lower than standard relay precision, which gives you more accurate slam investigations, but that's much much less of a priority opposite a PH. Speaking generally about the "♥ GF or weak", interference is less of an issue than you might think since the response is ~90% weak. When they interfere, they are usually bailing you out of an uncontested mediocre part score auction, and the GF hands don't have a hard time acting in an obvious way later on. My continuation after 1C-1D, 1H is catchall and limited by opener. 1C-1D-1H-1S is any weak hand, while higher bids show the GF hands with hearts. If I were to think about what I would want in a 3rd/4th seat precision context, I think what you want is a transfer set of responses geared towards allowing relays by very strong opener opposite a semipositive responder. You don't need to be super economical about space, because responder's range is already pretty limited and you're mostly showing shape to opener to so he can evaluate slam prospects.

Just to follow up on OP's suggestion, I play a relay precision where 1♣-1♦ is hearts GF or any weak. It works pretty well, but requires a lot of artificial follow ups to hand the weak hands tolerably. Precision has a hard time finding the best partials compared to natural since it wasted at least the first two steps of bidding. If you thought a negative auction was quite likely after P-1♣, say due to light openings, you should certainly consider adjusting your strong club range. If you don't open light and partner may have 10-12 points as a PH, I wouldn't bother adding the adjustment since now the 8-12 range of positives responses will still be reasonably frequent.

Adam - I agree if you don't play Bergen, having the fast 3♣ be weak seems best. Putting the invite through the forcing NT risks less interference (they are wekaer), and may uncover a side 4-4M fit along the way. I still like Bergen, and would try to accommodate both by having my strong JS bid (of 2N->3♣) be 2-way with the option to pass the 3♣ relay with a weak hand but of course the GCC won't allow that unless you just psych it (not too often).