rbforster

I voted for pass with my flat shape, somewhat unhappily. I'd be happy to pass in a precision context since partner with 8+ would have acted over 2♥ so if we miss game it would be a narrow one and maybe 3N can't make if we don't have enough tricks/stoppers.

For constructive bidding, all bids natural NF works ok. Decide whether you want 4m to be invitational or preemptive. Decide whether partner will ever pass with a weak hand at NV - if not you can include some very strong both minors hands too that want to play 5m or 6m in partner's minor preference. For defense, if you assume 2N is effectively forcing, you've got lots of options - pass and bid or X later, X and then bid, bid one minor or the other etc. Decide what hand types you want to show early in the auction and start with those - minimum hands with one major, stronger hands with one major, both majors, penalty oriented, etc.

Consider the following auction where the opponents pass initially and then bid naturally over opener's 1NT rebid - 1m - (P) - 1M - (P) 1N - (2X) - ? What would my actions be here as responder? Specifically, what is double and what actions show an invitational hand? If it would make things more concrete, consider this auction in particular: 1♦-(P)- 1♠-(P) 1N - (2♦) -?

This is fine GCC. Richard quoted the correct rule, which is that all conventions are allowed after a 15+ strong opening. This includes after interference as in the example you give. The rule about 1m being "all purpose" is fine as an opening but doesn't let you use conventional continuations (say transfer Walsh over 1♣) unless you meet one of the other specifically allowed conditions like being a raise, a GF, or bidding 1♦ over 1♣. These restrictions on responder go away when opener promises 15+ instead of just 10+ with his opening.

I handle it naturally and while there is probably room for improvement this is quite simple - 1♦ - 1M - 2M (may be 3) - ? 2N invite with only 4M, NF 3m,OM game try in that suit, agreeing M (5+) 3N choice of games with only 4M 4M game with 5+ M

I'm not sure I entirely agree with Richard's post that relay can't find you stoppers if you do a careful job of designing good relay breaks, but admittedly most people don't get that far into designing their system, just get some shape relays and always relay as responder. I haven't fully explored the best way to do all these stopper asks, but I agree their important/useful. I'm not sure exactly how useful since unlucky leads vs an unknown relayer's shape and non-perfect defense often sees through many a dubious 3N contract and of course most of the time it's a good contract when you don't have a fit elsewhere so I'm not sure if this really happens enough to be a serious consideration in your overall system design. If it turns out that stopper exploration and/or natural bidding is important to you and is incompatible with your 1NT GF relay methods, you could always use 1M-? 1N GF with extras and slam interest (17+), or flattish constructive (6-10) 2X F1, invitational or min GF values "Standard style" (11-16) This way on invites and minimum GF hands you get your natural bidding and can explore for 3N more easily, and use relays only when you've got extra values (say 17+ or so). Now at least if you find out you want to play 3N your extra values will probably make it a favorite to make and if opener's shape makes 1N relayer's hand look unsuitable for NT maybe you'll have the strength to make 4M on a 4-3 or 5m.

There's also the version where you use 1NT as weak or GF, and 2/1 for invitational hands (F1 or NF to taste, probably 2♣ is F1 since it might be balanced). This has several advantages - 1. you have a bid for constructive flattish hands without a fit - bid 1NT and either pass, or possibly correct to 2M. This will get you to better partials than just always passing these. 2. handling interference over 1M-1N is better but not great - here there's a big values gap between the constructive 6-9 hands and the 14+ GF hands. There's enough weak hands that crazy interference isn't indicated, and while you lose a forcing pass by opener you can still play either penalty or takeout doubles by responder (to taste) with X and all other bids being unambiguously GF. This is better than dealing with an invitational or maybe GF hand in the same situation where you'll basically be forced to underbid or overbid for lack of space. 3. you can handle invitational hands fairly well in a "Standard style" context, while not being absolutely forcing if opener wants to pass a dog minimum with 3+ cards in your 2/1 new suit. The main disadvantages of this of course is that your GF relay suffers some and interference is a little more troublesome. Specifically - 1. you lose a forcing pass (FP) over interference. you seem to think this is important, but in my mind it only matters when a) they bid (not that common against me anyway), :rolleyes: we had a hand for whichever of takeout or penalty responder can't show, c) we would have sat for the double, and d) it would have been right. I guess you can start using the FP to describe different hand types that aren't going to penalize too, but I don't think this is the huge loss you think it is (and the field will have your problem too most likely). 2. your cheapest relay bid might be 2M in a purely 1NT GF relay system, but now you might want to allow a preference with a flattish constructive hand. So your relays are up a step sometimes. You can fix this by only bidding 1N on flattish hands that intend to pass rather than pass-or-preference, although I'm not sure this is better for finding good partials. 3. since responder might have a constructive flattish hand, you'll be constrained to have opener's rebids in response to 1NT to be more-or-less natural. High jump bids may be hard to use if they can't tolerate pushing that high when responder is on the weaker hand. You won't be able to use transfers which might have helped on slam sequences. 4. you can't sign off in with a weakish long suit (although I'm not sure you could have done this in a 1NT GF system either, but you can in 2/1). This is much less of a loss playing a limited bid system than it is in 2/1 since in 2/1 opener can have a really big hand and keeping the bidding alive with a random 5-6 count and a long suit might let opener get to game. This pretty much never happens opposite a 10-14 opener, so the only loss in passing is that 1M might be a worse contract than 2X or 3X in your long suit. This might happen sometimes, but the opponents will often balance (since they've got at least half the deck) and then you're off the hook. Still, I think this is a decent alternative and pretty straightforward. If your priorities are mostly for relay slam bidding and good partials, I think this is a good compromise. You probably get to the field partials, and while your relay isn't always as efficient as the pure GF version, you'll still be starting your relay so low that I expect you can reasonably investigate for slam effectively.

True a "relay system" is a pretty poorly defined, perhaps impossibly defined creature, at least if you define relay breaks for both bidders. Surely a 2/1 GF auction isn't a "relay system" so why would it this be if both sides could make any bid except that we've assigned artificial (rather than natural) meanings to those? I think most people think of a relay system as one where (say) responder keeps making the cheapest bid and opener keeps making artificial descriptive bids, but good systems will also have at least somewhat useful and somewhat frequent meanings for responder's non-step rebids so then the cheapest step is really a specific sort of ask rather than a relay. As for the 1NT forcing not guaranteeing INV+ values, this doesn't take much creativity to avoid. Perhaps there is some hand that is willing to pass all of opener's minimum responses? Or maybe a weakish one suiter that is going to bid 4OM next time to play?

Penalty seems all too normal, since you could have already doubled for takeout. If you're on 2434 or something, let partner balance if he's short in diamonds. Why bail them out of their misfit?

There is an important distinction in terms of discussing NT bids on singletons here that is often overlooked I think. This is the difference between whether a given hand is balanced or unbalanced, and whether an opening bid, like 2NT, is balanced or unbalanced. Going with this definition, a hand with a singleton (or void!) would be considered unbalanced. However, a NT opening is natural if it "generally has no singleton, etc". Note that it says the opening is natural/balanced if you "generally" don't have a singleton, not that you can never have a singleton. If I open 2NT with a singleton half the time when I've got a 4441 hand, my 2NT opening will still "generally have no singleton, etc." In fact for that case, over 95%+ of the time 2NT would show a balanced hand, and hence be natural/balanced as an opening, even if a few % of the time you actually had an unbalanced 4441 hand. The point here is that 4441 is a very rare shape compared to the classic balanced hand shapes (4432, 4333, 5332) so almost always when I open 2NT I have a specific hand that is balanced. Under the GCC definition of an opening being balanced, I think you can still agree to open 2NT with a singleton on a reasonable fraction of 4441 hands for example, since your agreement is still that your 2NT bid "generally has no singleton, etc" (to some appropriately high level of probability) and hence is natural/balanced as required.

I was thinking some about the differences between 1♥-1NT (GF) and 1♠-1NT (GF) and the implications for the rest of your invitational hands. Wouldn't it make sense to play some sort of Kaplan-style inversion so that 1♥-1♠ became the GF and 1♥-1N was available as something else (spades?). Among other things, it would give the same level of relay resolution for both hearts and spades (whereas the 1♥-1N will be more cramped currently). Along these lines... Gnome - I notice that your 1♥-2♣ bid seems pretty narrowly defined, being an invite without 3♥ (else 2♦) 4♠ (else 1♠) both minors (else 2N), or a long good minor (else 3m) This pretty much just leaves balanced hands - 3244 and 32(53), plus maybe some 6 card minors with poor suits and/or some xx(54)'s if you don't bid 2N with those. Do you think it would be too much of a stretch to include these hands in 1NT forcing and maybe leave a 2N rebid by responder as a natural invitation? I'm not sure what response structure you're playing over your 1M-1N GF relay, so I don't know if this would fit in well (for example if higher bids than 2N showed extras). If you did this, you could maybe include your IJS in clubs or both minors in 2♣ now (maybe even the IJS in diamonds?), and have more space to sort things out, as well as freeing up 3♣ and/or 2N for Bergen raises or something. I notice that your current scheme doesn't give you a mixed raise of opener and while 2♦ (3+♥s) is great for constructive bidding but 2♦ or 2♥ doesn't exactly shut out the spade-holding opponents when you've got a random 6 count with 1=4 majors as responder. Of course over 1♠-2♣, I can see the point that you have hands with 4♥ that you want to be able to find the heart fit (basically all the 4 card 1♠ response shapes with swapped majors), so this covers a lot more ground than does the 1♥-2♣ bid.

Thank you all for your replies and thoughts on this sequence. It certainly seems there's no consensus on whether this 3♣ bid did or did not show diamond tolerance, but that you probably wanted a way to show this (either directly or via a delayed 2N). Having thought a lot more about this, it seems reasonable to play something like - P-(1♠)-2♦-(P)-? 2♥ sound, probably a good 5 card suit 3♦/2♠ fairly sound/sound ♦ raises 2N sound, natural with stoppers 3♣ sound with a good suit 6+ After passing with a weaker hand, over 2♠ it seems reasonable to balance with P-(1♠)-2♦-(P) P-(2♠)-P-(P)-? X weaker, but with good shape, responsive-style (5/5 ♥+♣) 2N weaker with both minors, probably 4 card difference (6-7♣/2-3♦) 3♣ weaker with long clubs 6+, and no diamond tolerance 3♦ competitive with 3+ but a weakish hand I agree that 3♦ seems like a good bid in any case on this hand, although I did not bid it since we were NV and not doubled yet. This was the full hand: [hv=d=n&v=n&n=s963ht854d3cak963&w=stha763dq42ct8542&e=skq7542hkqjdk8cqj&s=saj8h92dajt9765c7]399|300|Scoring: IMP Result 3♣-4 -200 for -7.7 IMPS[/hv] My partner thought this 3♣ would imply diamond tolerance, although I am certainly confused as to why a stiff constitutes tolerance opposite a potential 5 card suit and no promise of club support from me. I will also note that the defense here will actually set 2♠-2 for +200 due to the trump uppercuts resulting in South scoring all 3 of his AJ8 together with 3 top minor tricks and a diamond ruff by North. 3♦ should make easily and will often make an overtrick on the normal ♠ lead if West doesn't find the A♥ underlead for a ruff.

A couple of more serious comments - 1. Are you willing to have 1NT be forcing but not GF? Depending on what partner's response structure is to 1NT, you might be able to include various weak signoffs or bids intending to pass any natural rebid. This would help take care of most of the balanced responding hands with moderate values. If you were willing to let a correction of 1M-1N-2X-2M be a signoff ala a regular forcing NT, you've taken care of many common hands between passing 2X and preferencing to 2M. Since you've got all the other bids over opener's rebid besides 2M for GF hands, you should be ok in terms of describing the responding hand. I know the next cheapest step will often be 2M so this will hurt your relay resolution level if you're trying to play shape relays over 1M however. 2. It seems right to have 2♣ be forcing as the next cheapest relay. Whether you want this to include all invitations, just those with clubs (possible and a 2nd suit), or what is less clear. 3. Are any of the higher direct bids free, 1M-2N+? If you play some of those as a relay, you could use them for weak one suiters as well as various strong hands. I have some nice compressed jump shift methods for example that use 1M-(2M+1) to show all the Soloway jump shift hand types via relays.

I know this is the wrong forum for this, but... 1M-? 2X natural, weak two bid style 2M std raise 2N balanced invite 3X natural invite :blink:

Team match, favorable, 3rd to bid I overcall 2♦ when RHO opens 1♠. The auction continues... [hv=d=n&v=e&s=saj8h92dajt9765c7]133|100|Scoring: IMP P-(1♠)-2♦-(P) P-(2♠)-P-(P) 3♣-(P)-?[/hv] What do you make of partner passing your 2♦ overcall and then later balancing with 3♣ as a PH? Would you pull to 3♦?

Sure 4♠ was bad. I'm going to go one step earlier and fault 4♥ by South. South's hand looks like a fairly typical 1♥-4♥ bid. What is less clear to me is that when both the opponents passed already, how important is it to jump to 4♥ opposite partner's 4th seat opener? After all, when everyone else passes, partner rates to have a stronger than average hand which means you'll just be preempting him with 4♥. Couldn't partner open a 4 card suit in 4th too, maybe Kxx AQJx xxxx Ax, opposite which you don't really want to jump to game. A direct 4♥ seems like aiming for the very narrow target that the opponents have a profitable 4♠ sac or game and will find it after both passing initially and East then failing to overcall partner's 1♥ opening as well. The only question in my mind is what should you do instead of bidding 4♥? I'm not sure if it's reasonable to have South bid Drury on this hand (as well as 10-12 counts with support) without misleading partner about his strength in the subsequent auction. Maybe P-1♥-3♥ would be more appropriate? I've just got to think you want a better alternative than just blasting 4♥ opposite a 4th seat opener. Perhaps Ken will enlighten me as to the obvious bid which shows this type of hand :).

You mean a gray area where you bid some but not most 4-4's? ;) NV vs V over 1NT maybe?

4 losers? I'm torn between 2♣, 1♠ and 4♠. Probably too good for 4♠ and partner might yell at me for 2♣ so I guess 1♠ it is.

Good problem!

I think you should think more about the situation of how to agree on which major suit wants to be trump on this sequence. We're potentially with a 4315 or 3145 or 4225 opener vs 4522 or 4432 responder and either spades or hearts or NT could be clearly right or shocking wrong. If it were my system I'd devote a few more bids to settling on strain over 2♦ and responder's rebid rather than starting cuebids so early (or at least agree which major suit is set if you do initiate cuebids). I play Walsh style where the 1♠ rebid shows unbalanced with 4♠ and almost always 5+♣s (although 4144 is possible I guess). At least for me there's no ambiguity if responder bids 4th suit and then spades. Together with XYZ, over 2♥ new suits higher than 3♣ would agree hearts (5+), while 2♠, 2N and 3♣ would be natural.

Is hearts or spades agreed as trump here? Did you have a balanced slam try in spades over 1♠ except going through 4th suit (or 4NT)? Edit to add - if 1♠ can be on only 3, I want to be pretty sure I'm not playing a Moysian with my poor spades. Otherwise it seems right to agree hearts, but I'm not sure if partner knows this yet.

Prima facia evidence of his cheating under the ACBL's Old World Order. After extensive committee meetings and a slander lawsuit filed against the ACBL, everything will be hushed up.

I think the most common disagreement in playing reverse drury is P-1♠-2♣*-2♥ and whether this shows a good hand with hearts or a really bad hand with hearts. Myself I play that the only weak rebid by opener is 2 of his major (not 2♥ if he opened spades), but some like it the other way.

And for those of you selecting "I intend to" let us know here when you have and/or what response you got if it was interesting.

Playing Bergen, wouldn't this work too in your situation, and maybe a little better? 1♥-1N-2♥-3m natural invite, 6+ 1♥-1N-2♥-2♠ both minors invitational, weak with diamonds, weak with both minors, or Ken's favorite heart raise 1♥-1N-2♥-2♠-2N declines the invite; (P ok, 3♣ is p/c, 3♦ to play, 3♥ toy raise, etc) 1♥-1N-2♥-2♠-3m accepts the with better minor; (then 3♦ to play, 3♥ toy raise, 3♠ strong minor raise) What do you think? (I'm bias by playing a limited openers system most of the time where you don't really need a weak distributional signoff since then it's their hand and you could just pass initially and run if doubled.)