rbforster

4th seat, w/r MPs national event: (P)-P-(1♠)-? I decided I wanted to preempt 3♣ with my hand (showing long clubs), and pulled out the stop card. At that point I recalled our agreements treat 3♣ as both minors (Roman jumps) and that my only natural club bids were 2♣ or 4+♣. Can I change my mind after pulling out the stop card but before bidding anything? What if my eventual call is pass or a non-jump bid?

So it basically comes down to guessing which set of hands is more likely on the auction: [hv=w=sakqxxhqjxxdxxxca&e=stxhxxxxdxxcxxxxx]266|100|[/hv] [hv=w=sakqxxhqjxxdxxxca&e=stxhxxxxdxxcxxxxx]266|100|[/hv] While it's fun to play for the coup to cut off communications, I'm not sure it's clear that the second West hand is more likely than the first.

I want my title changed to "tax loophole" :blink:.

I'm surprised at all the non-standard responses people are giving (showing 4 vs 5 card major suits, direct jumps as invitational, etc). To me what xx1943 gave below was absolutely what I'd expect if someone told me they played Lebensohl over weak two's. The only expert disagreements/style differences I'd expect are things like what meaning you assign to direct and indirect cue bids.

What about pass? I don't really like my hand (I was going to invite with 2♥ without the 2♠ bid, and I don't like it that much more now. Over 3♠, I'm not sure what to do and don't have any extras, so I think I'll pass the buck back to partner. Maybe he's got enough spade shortness to want to act.

Without heart surgery, I'm sure the ACBL would lose (have lost?) a big fraction of its member-years! As soon as cell phones can double as their emergency pacemakers I'm sure we'll be required to have one at each table.

seems straightforward: No, I'm not running the J♣ to the K in hopes of stealing a 10th trick, even at MPs.

In fact it isn't true if you remember to count passed hand 2/1 auctions (which I guess would still be game forcing assuming you have the same high opening bid standards in 3rd/4th as 1st/2nd). If you look at the 3 most likely ways to have a 24 HCP game, you've got: A. 11-13 B. 12-12 C. 13-11 -- If you open starting at 11, you'll open all of ABC and force to game only for case A (1/3 of cases) -- If you open starting at 12, you'll open B & C in 1st seat, and only have a 2/1 auction for B. You'll also open A in 3rd seat, but not have a 2/1 auction. (1/3 of cases) -- if you open starting at 13, you'll have a 2/1 GF auction for A & C, where opener passes in case A and later bids 2/1. Unfortunately, you pass out case B! (2/3 of cases) So here's an example where starting at 13 maximizes the probability of getting a 2/1 auction (twice the chances of other systems in likely marginal cases), although it's not clear that maximizing a 2/1 auction is really what you want if you have to pass out some games to do it! At least if you open "light", you'll get to a part score or an invitational sequence and those tend to score somewhat better than pass outs when you've got game going values.

I imagine for many people it was 2-3 days ago, what with the Nationals just finishing up.

I'm concerned about the hands where partner has a doubleton diamond, and hence LHO is forced to lead a major :(. I'm bidding 3N without much conviction.

Another option is to use the "impossible negative" approach and respond 1♦ (forcing, generally negative) on minimum 4441's. If partner rebids 1NT, your strong NT systems can easily show this shape. If partner rebids a suit, you can splinter in support or jump to 3N. At least the way I play it, negative hands can pretty much never have the strength to bid 3N opposite a minimum response by the strong club hand, so these are unused sequences anyway. For potentially slam invitational 4441 hands, I think you'd have to be more careful about whether or not you could handle the different 1♣-1♦ sequences. Either you'd likely need more detailed methods (so there's always a forcing bid responder can make), or perhaps you'd make a direct response to 1♣ (like those in OP) with the stronger hand types.

Put me down for another endorsement of XYZ on this sequence. In fact I definitely like XYZ over 1♦ auctions (among other reasons, you can stop in 2♦). I'm less convinced of the merits of XYZ over 1♣ auctions.

Interesting observations on the costs and benefits of your experiment. Thanks for sharing.

Maybe there's something better, but I'm playing for Qx of hearts and diamonds 2-2.

With both opps as passed hands, I can't see the need to preemptively push to 4♠ (which I would bid for sure if I were in 3rd seat instead of 4th). I think I'd either bid 3♠ to keep LHO from balancing or 2N...3♠ and accepting an invite if partner shows either a good hand or a non-diamond feature.

Many people seem to raise the issue of stricter gun controls whenever these sorts of shooting tragedies occur. They imagine that if the disgruntled shooter couldn't have gotten access to a gun, the deaths could have been stopped. There are many issues with this view: 1. There are many guns, even in countries were guns are illegal. A determined shooter could obtain a gun illegally, albeit with somewhat more difficulty. Still, these sorts of rampages are often carefully premeditated, so planning to obtain an illegal gun is no different than planning to buying illegal drugs (which seems pretty easy so I hear). 2. Guns do provide effective defense, if you're trained to use them. If every student and teacher in that school had a gun and was trained to use it, the shooter will get gunned down long before he has time to kill nearly as many people as he did. Robert A. Heinlein who wrote: "An armed society is a polite society," and he's got a point. 3. Disarming the populace makes everyone more susceptible to violent crimes, both from criminals day to day and from government tyranny in the long term. In fact, all those "gun banning" agitators are free-riders on the protection provided to all citizens by the fraction of the armed population that serves as a deterrent against violent crime. I point you to the anti-gun lobby some years back that distributed signs "There are no guns in this house" as part of a marketing campaign and had to stop when houses bearing those signs were systematically burglarized. Hanging such a sign on each person through draconian gun legislation can't be expected to fare much better. I think mandatory training and gun safety is the best sort of requirement. If the criminals don't want to take the training class, maybe they'll botch their next robbery or accidentally shoot themselves.

I'll try 3H, showing 2=3 hopefully, to put the ball back in opener's court. Hopefully he can pick which 7 card fit he likes better.

Or 19 balanced, of course. I'm used to 1D-1N-2N showing 18-19 balanced. Especially over 1D, 1N can be more wide ranging so I don't think it makes sense to always force to game. (over 1C-1N, you might make a case that 1N can be 8-10 vs (5)6-10, since you can make a waiting 1D call with the weaker hand. Of course this is still a case for bidding 2N with 18-19 and 3N with the running minor, but make the 2N rebid forcing with transfer continuations :()

Doesn't 1D-1N-3N normally show a strong hand with a long running minor and outside controls? I think we've got the only diamond stop our side is likely to have, so we better lead a suit that they only have single-stopped if we're going to beat this.

Looking at the above hands posted by Nick, I wouldn't be comfortable forcing to game with 5M332 and 2 aces opposite a 15+ club. Of course opposite most 15+ hands, two aces will be enough either because there's a fit with good controls and/or because partner has the extra strength I lack. So one philosophy for relay breaks could be to show a misfitting minimum, to compensate for aggressive bidding by responder. Essentially this turns into a non-game-forcing relay system.

Thank you all for your descriptions, especially Richard for his symmetric reverse relays. For those of you who play reverse relays, which ones do you tend to bid/use with some regularly? I've anecdotally heard from a few relay players is that they tend not to use reverse relays or other relay breaks very often. This seems somewhat counter-intuitive in terms of efficient system design, since there are millions of bidding sequences that start 1♣-1♥-not 1♠ and it seems a shame not to use them. If they aren't getting used under your current definition of relay breaks, surely this is a sign you should try to find a more common/useful meaning that would put these sequences to use.

In more detailed relay systems, there are often methods to "reverse the relays" and have the opening hand show rather than ask. For example, in TOSR after responder show spades: 1♣(16+) – 1♥(4+♠ GF) opener can either relay with 1♠ to inquire or bid 1N+ to show aspects of his hand. Specifically TOSR shows minimum 3-suited hands with these relay breaks - 4441, 5440, and sometimes 5431. 1s: Normal relay. 1nt: RR, short spades. 2c: RR, short hearts. 2d: RR, short diamonds. 2h: RR, short clubs, zoom to next step. I understand the logic of how showing short spade hands opposite partner's spade positive can be useful (such as determining whether his spade holding is suitable for NT or not). It's much less clear to me why you would want to show 3 suited hands with other shortnesses, especially if you might have a fit for partner's major. What do you think about showing all hands with shortness in partner's suit, rather than just all 3-suiters? Or what about showing hands that have length in the suit partner bid (so he can declare), as opposed to the suit he showed? In the above case, it might make sense to describe a 1-suited heart opener since that's a likely strain when opener has long hearts and short spades, and responder is going to declare hearts in any case. If you limit "shortness" to 0-1 cards, there are only 4 even moderately common single suited hand types (6331, 7(32)1, and 7330), and likewise only 4 3-suiters (4441, 5440's). Most 2-suiters remain, excluding only 5422. For example, what about something like this 1♣* - 1♥* (spades): 1S: relay (all relay breaks show 0-1 spades): 1N: long hearts, long diamonds, or hearts & clubs 2D long hearts or long diamonds 2S long diamonds (3C-3S for which) 2N+ long hearts 2H+ TOSR relays for hearts and clubs 2C: reds (transferring to diamonds) 2H+ TOSR relays for reds 2D: long clubs or 3-suited 2S 3-suited (then 3C-3S show 4441/5440's) 2N+ long clubs 2H+: TOSR relays for minors Similar relays could be devised over different positive responses, depending in part on what was shown and how much space remained.

...or just that you don't understand them?

Twice in a short match I was forced to play "systems on" (at partner's request) over a 10-12 NT. One time I had a balanced 20 count with a 5cM. The other time I had an 8 card solid minor and Qx Qx J outside. Last I checked there isn't an answer for stayman with either of these, and neither worked out well.

I think people design systems because they like to, for the same reason they play them - for fun. If your system is sufficiently fun, perhaps you can get other people to play it. Perhaps it is even good, but that's harder to tell and arguably less important. I've designed lots of stuff, some of it seems good; some was clearly not (the "constructive pass" system where pass promised 8-12 was pretty bad, frankly). But I couldn't tell which were good or bad until I played them, and I appreciate my open-minded partners for trying them out with me. I think if you're interested in designing systems, it pays to play a bunch of them, just to get a feel for how different people have approached the same problems.