rbforster

And extra values too, for the way we play it :lol:.

I would also think that start seems reasonable. 1♠ natural 5+ 1NT forcing 2♦ 3+ 3♦ inviting 3♥ showing a ♥ stopper and no ♣ stopper 3♠ doubleton ♠, no ♣ stopper At this point since responder is limited to invitational values, you could even pass 3♠ I suppose. Might be a reasonable choice at MPs.

Same reason you play bridge in general, because it's fun! Sure playing against randoms isn't ideal, but sometimes your friends aren't around. Despite what some of the other folks say around here, I think you can have a perfectly reasonable defense against most systems, even weird systems, based on natural bidding. Sure it might not be "optimal" (whatever that means), but it's sure a long way from claiming that they "have no idea how to play against the system". For natural bids, you overcall naturally and double for takeout. For artificial strong bids, you preempt naturally. For transfer openings, double for takeout of the shown suit and bid naturally otherwise. You don't have to have agreements for every cuebid or jump cuebid to play bridge. Most of us were playing a long time before someone taught us what 1♠-(3♠) might want to mean and we got along just fine.

Maybe, although I wasn't planning on opening a lot of 4♠ hands in 1♠ like The Way Forward does for preemption. I'll rely on all my light openers for preemption more generally :). More seriously, I figured by starting 1♥ with 4-4 majors we'd find the right spot more easily since we could still respond in spades cheaply. Either way the auctions 1M-2M-P can lead to 4-3 misfits. But at least by starting 1♥ you gain on 1♥-1♠-raise works well obviously 1♥-2♥-2♠ (natural 4+) where you can still end up in either spades or 2NT, whereas the 1♠-2♠-2N auction can't check for 4-4 hearts safely 1♥-1NT(semiforcing) can stop in 1NT without missing a spade fit, while starting with 1♠-1NT seems like you either rebid 2♥ which could be risky without a fit or pass, risking missing a heart fit.

I've been thinking about adding a few possible 4 card major shapes to my limited normally 5+ card major openings. In particular, I was thinking about something like this: 1C strong 1D 2+♦, balanced outside NT, unbalanced 4/4+ minors, or primary diamonds 1H 4+♥, all 5 card major hands plus 4414 and 4405 shapes 1S 5+♠, 5 card major style 2C 5+♣, either 6+ or 5C/4M 2D and higher weak The idea was to unload the (relatively rare) precision 2♦ shapes into the 1♥ and 2♣ openings to free up 2♦ for a sound weak two bid that will help out with other aspects of the system. I know the 2♣ opening is overloaded with (43)15 shapes, but I think I've got that covered. Any suggestions on dealing with the possible but rare 4 card heart opening with possible club canape? My first reaction (based on probabilities) is to just ignore the 4 card possibility and play my normal 5 card major methods, but it would be embarrassing to not find 4-4 spades or NT instead when hearts are only 4-3 in auctions where partner will raise with 3 card support. I'd welcome pointers to any systems with a similar 1♥ opener to see how this is treated. Thanks.

You must not exactly understand the requirements for a pardon then. Commuting his sentence if a very carefully chosen strategy to prevent further disclosure of the embarrassing and possibly treasonous actions taken by higher ups in the Bush administration. You see if Libby was pardoned, he would have to show some remorse but most important admit to his misdeeds which would mean correcting his lies under oath. By commuting his sentence, Libby avoid jail, gets off with a fine (no doubt paid by his appreciative friends contributing to his defense fund) and, while guilty, is able to continue to plead the 5th with regard to any further inquiry into his false testimony. He might be pardoned later when the next elections are over, but I think his silence will continue to be important to those in power and so this may be unlikely. At least we can agree he is a man of his word. The responsible person has been (well) taken care of. Factoid of the day - Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer. Anyone want to take odds on whether Libby gets a pardon before the end of this administration?

Technically not 8+ but not a King or more below average. There is nothing in the laws that enshrines high card points as the basis on which to measure average. True enough regarding other point count systems, hence I introduce to you... Rob's Fearless (Over)Bidding Point Count System After a bunch of drunken statistics calculations, I have concluded that rather than High Card Points or Zar Points or Binky Points, we should have King Points as follows: a King - 10 points! Not a King- no points! This shares the nice properties that the deck still has 40 points, and that an average hand has 10 points (for its one King). It further has the property that a hand "a King or more below average strength" is a zero point hand. Watch out for our "light" one level openers that may have only 3 hcp, but full values in terms of King Points. Also watch out for our heavy passes, which have many other face cards but no Kings. These we might have to open at the 2 level since they are "weak" :). now back to your regularly scheduled discussion of set theory and logic...

Not that the GCC is a model of clarity, but several things mentioned above are legal under the GCC in my opinion. Natural openings (defined as 3+ for minors or 4+ for majors) at the 2 level and higher are not the ACBL's jurisdiction to regulate. Natural bids are always allowed, subject only to the rule of needing 8+ points at the 1 level. Conventional responses and defenses may be restricted however. After a 1-of-a-suit opening, GCC bans relay systems defined as when the first relay asking bid is made by either opener or responder on their first bid. Symmetric Relay or any other relay methods can be used GCC as long as the first asking bid begins with or after opener's first rebid. I will point out that full relay systems are allowed after strong openings in your suggested rules, and under Adam's either after a strong opening or if they promise GF values. I haven't played against non-GF relay methods to comment on their issues (since the ACBL doesn't let anyone play them), but both of you seem to allow them after strong openings.

I'm going to agree with the penalty doublers. What are you supposed to do with a good hand and 5+♥s? Pass then double. You already passed over 1♥, when you could've doubled for takeout - no need for takeout twice. Likewise you didn't bid 1NT or double to show a bigger balanced hand, and you didn't bid 2 of a minor over 1♥. I just can't see the need to reserve a 2nd round double for shapes like 2344 14 counts - defend and set them a few, and in any case chancing the 3 level is too risky on bad shape. If you had better shape, you would've had a bid earlier.

This loses to the 4-0 onside case, but playing the A and then leading up the Q picks up all the 3-1 cases with a stiff honor offside. I guess it's a safety play for 1 loser rather than a max-tricks play though.

Richard, in your 2005 Bermuda search, where did you put 2♥ multi? I thought I recall it being popular at Bermuda events, but it's not quite the same as a single suiter in the bid suit.

The balancing X situation is different from the direct X case where responder knows a lot about the NT hand and can judge well whether to pass, escape, force a XX for business, etc. Here, we have the well described hand taking considering unilateral action like bidding 2m when partner could have had a good hand and a desire to play in 1NX (or XX). I think you'd want a pretty unusual 1NT hand to do anything besides pass or XX (whatever you choose that to mean). I often play 10-12 NTs, so by default we tend to think about escaping whenever there's a double. Even with this background, we pass almost always over the balancing X as the NT bidder. I think the one agreement we have is that XX shows 4+ spades (to help the scramble).

(double post, see below)

I'm afraid I might just bid 4♠ too. Our suits rates to break badly, so we may lose a trick here and there if partner doesn't have the right filler for us but I can't think of a better solution. Re 4♦ - yeah, Leaping Michaels isn't forcing (although strongly invitational) and probably works best with equal suit length or longer minor. What is the jump cue bid of 4♥? Some sort of strong minor 2-suiter?

Depending on your definition of a disaster, I'd say that kind of flawed regulatory structure already exists here in the US. Whether or not it's commonly abused is, for the reasons given above, hard to tell. In any case, it would be a welcome area for improvements.

Apparently disclosing negative information is not typically required in the ACBL (such as the lack of 10-12 point hands in pass when you open all of these hands). You may end up mentioning something related (such as the light openers part) for other disclosure reasons. I'm glad to hear this. It will mean I have one less thing to alert if I start playing a few sound-but-non-forcing passes (12-15 pts with certain hands) mixed in with the other 90% weak passes.

I'm with you Free. My partners will strive to balance with a lighter than usual double in 4th seat. Except for my nice diamond suit, my hand is a soft 9 count with no controls - worse than partner is playing me for as a PH on this sequence. 3♦ seems like enough for me. Give partner a reasonable balancing X like this: AKxx QJxxx xxx x and 3♦ seems like plenty after they take the 4 top tricks.

Certainly if it is 1% of all your opening bids (as opposed to your 1NT openings), you would be well under this limit. Unless you're opening 8-18 NT's with off shapes or something :). I looked at some basic probabilities, and if you were to include all 4441 hands in 1NT they would be between 5-7% of your 1NT openings, depending on if you include 5 card majors (5332) or not. If you figure a high honor is worth 3 HCP on average (ignoring jacks), a 15-17 NT will have about 5 honors. This suggests roughly a 5/13 chance (lower obviously with a weak NT range) that you'll have a singleton honor if you have a 4441 shape, cutting your relative singleton probability even further. At this point you could certainly get under their 1% threshold by opening only 1♠444 shapes (since these have bad rebids sometimes) for example. This must be a reinterpretation of the rules against non-standard bidders (am I surprised?) since the GCC clearly says To me "generally" no singleton would mean it's pretty unlikely, and I would certainly think that something that happened once out of 20 1NT openings (5%) or less would be sufficiently unlikely to meet this standard. Heck, apparently I'm allowed to have a void(!) under GCC, just not "generally" which sure seems more extreme (in terms of warning the opponents) than an odd singleton honor. The GCC wording seems like a much looser and more reasonable standard than this arbitrary 1% rule. Then again, maybe you should play your 1NT with singletons and if anyone complains, challenge the director or opps to prove it was more likely than 1%! Regardless of the ACBL stance on singletons in 1NT (which is not "standard" bidding in the ACBL), I bet they'd be singing a different tune if you started coming down with regulatory penalties,etc, on top players for opening a strong 2NT with a singleton. I bet if you give a hand like A or K stiff AQxx KQJx AJxx to a panel of experts almost every one of them is going to be bidding 2NT (20-21). As a matter of practice, I'm sure that the experts open 2NT with a singleton more than 1% of the time, so the ACBL rule seems pretty hypocritical to me. This seems like a practical solution :).

Any hints on the lead, or do with have to plan for all of them? I can probably manage on the A♥, K♠ switch:P.

It seems clear that a 3♣ bid over 2♥ shows long clubs and no interest in other strains. Let's assume that pulling the NF 2♥ bid shows a void (since 2♥ often has 6 and would be passed in most cases with a singleton unless opener had a huge pile of clubs to fall back on). Let's also assume that a 4045 shape would be opened 1♦ rather than 2♣. This means the more likely shapes for opener's hand that would pull 2♥ are With exactly 4 spades (presumably 5S/6C would be opened 1S in these methods) 4036 4027 Without 4+ spades 3046 2056 (is this a 2♣ or 1♦ opener?) 3037 2047 Good scrambling methods after 2♥ probably want to include what the meaning of 2N by either side (since responder has denied inv values by not bidding 2♦ initially, this probably doesn't want to be natural). It should probably say something about diamond tolerance, say 5+ by responder or 4+ by opener: 2♣-2♥-2N* no ♥ tolerance, with 6+ clubs and 4+ diamonds 2♣-2♥-2♠ no ♥ tolerance, with 6+ clubs and 4 spades 2♣-2♥-2♠-2N* no interest in spades or clubs, 5+ diamonds (correct to either minor) some example scrambles - 4531 vs 4027 2C-2H-2S 3640 vs 4027 2C-2H-2S 2641 vs 4027 2C-2H-2S-3C 2551 vs 4027 2C-2H-2S-2N-3C 2650 vs 4036 2C-2H-2S-2N-3D 3541 vs 3046 2C-2H-2N-3D

I agree - pulling from a NF 2♥ by opener shows no heart tolerance. Might as well offer spades on the way to 3♣. If the question was why you missed 2♠ opposite a slightly different responder's hand Jxxx AKJx Txxx x now the answer would be you were just hosed by the precision 2♣ opener.

Here is some discussion of 1M-X, a similar situation where people also like to play transfers. However, this clause does not apply if the opponent intervene with a natural call. I agree it doesn't seem likely you could play transfers after a natural suit bid under GCC. Furthermore, you probably can't play then over a "non-conventional" double, either. I suppose that means you can't play transfers after 1(suit)-X if your opponents are playing old fashion penalty doubles? (I wonder if power doubles from overcall structure count as penalty doubles for this...)

yeah 2♥. no need to encourage partner after his expected spade bid, and hopefully he'll evaluate his hand less favorably on presumed ♥ shortness. Limited bid systems are great for hands like this with good playing strength and fewer points.

Since you did post in Non-Natural Systems, how about giving up the intermediate 2♣ opener and have it show the same intermediate range with 5/4+ in the majors? No one else in the field is opening a intermediate/weak 2♣, so this probably won't be missed as much. You could have 2M as a signoff, 2N as GF relay, and 2♦ as asking for the longer major (either to pass with equal majors, or to invite with 2N/3M).

Sadly there is all too much of this in the US and elsewhere. I am not entirely familiar with the "brown sticker" and similar classifications, but I kind of like the idea that enough unusual methods puts you in a "higher" category where you can't play the novices. It would be an interesting experiment I think to allow almost everything, but say, at most 1 weird thing per pair at the club level, up to 3 weird things at a regional, etc. Weird things could include relay systems, encrypted signals, very light openers, weak 2 bids on 4 card suits, weak bids that might or might not have the suit they bid, etc. I think this would be a good transition to a more tolerant and permissive bridge environment since club players would occasionally see each weird thing but not lots of them all at once. At some point it becomes like 2♦ multi - everyone has seen it, knows a basic defense, and isn't scared of it even if they don't choose to play it themselves. At that point you can allow it more generally, and give points for the newer even weirder stuff that has been invented since then.