rbforster

Silent Club: 1♣-1♦ strong; most non-GF 1♠-1N min 2 suiter (art); ask for long suit 2♥-3♥ 5 hearts; 5-7 invite raise 4♥ I suppose North could bid 2N instead of 3♥ given his flat shape and good spots (leading to 3N), but 4♥ seems normal.

Silent Club: 1♣-2♣ strong; diamonds 1 suited 2♦-3♦ weak relay; 3352 GF 3♥-3♠ QP ask; min (6 or less) 4♦-4♥ end relay; forced 4♠-P signoff I can see the upgrade to 1♣; alternative auctions would be 1♠-2♠-game try-4♠, or maybe treating north as a 3 card limit raise to the same effect (1♠-1N-2♣-3♠-4♠).

Silent Club: 1♣-1♠ strong; clubs or balanced 1N-2♣ relay; clubs 1 suited 2♥-3♥ strong relay; 3226 3♠-3N QP ask; min (6 or less) P Correcting to 4♠ is possible I guess, but the poor suit and extra strength suggests NT.

Silent Club: 1♣-1♦ strong; usually 0-7, some GFs 1♥-1♠ waiting, min; waiting 0-7 2♥-2♠ 6+ suit 16-18; 5+ suit invitational 2N-3♠ natural... 4♠-AP a good hand for spades in context

Silent Cub: 2♦-2N diamonds and a major, weak (3-8ish); invitational ask 3♥-3N hearts and decent values; signoff

Silent Club: 2♣-2N clubs and a major, weak (3-8ish); GF ask 3♦-3♥ 4-5♥/5♣; relay 3N-4♣ 5/5, sets trump 4♥-4N cue; RKC 5♣-6♣ 1 ace; not trying for 7 AP

How did I get to be 4th seat? (p)-2♥-(p)-4♥-AP Partner will have at most a poor 9 count for his weak two in our light opening system, so slam seems far off especially with only an 8 card fit.

(Dupe)

I wouldn't find it. I would probably just end up in 6N (or maybe 6H). Even if I took an aggressive view as South and asked a lot of questions, I can find the JS but not the T.

A 6 point range (10-15, 9-14, etc) seems pretty common for modern precision systems. It fits well with having two 3 point balanced ranges, one in 1♦ and the other opening 1NT. Some extra tweaks can help with range issues by trying to offer a lighter and a heavier invite. As for styles of 1♦, 2♣, and 2♦, I've seem 3 that seem reasonable: 1. 1♦ = bal or natural 4+ (3+?), with 2♣ as 5/4M or 6+ and either 2♦ or 2♥ as 3 suited short diamonds (4414/4405/(43)15) 2. 1♦ = bal or 0+ unbalanced with 4M, 2m is 6+ or 5/4+ minors 3. 1♦ = bal or natural (but not both minors), 2♣ is 6+ or 5/4M, and 2♦ is both minors 5/4+ There are probably a few other variations.

You're correct about these issues. I would suggest 1) making 1♥ by responder nominally promise 4, even if that leaves a few hands without a bid. With those, responder uses discretion whether to bid 1♥ with fewer than 4 (as a psych to avoid passing with a weak hand and short diamonds, could be a silly contract), or something else. Some systems don't believe in 4441 patterns - those have no bid, just pick your smallest lie. 3) if 2♣ shows 3+ clubs, it's fine as a response. I guess maybe you've got no other bid with 2272 weak, but I don't know the system in detail. It seems that with fewer than 3 in the majors, you've almost always got 3 clubs. 2) yes, this one is isn't going to work without 3+ diamonds or requiring GF values.

I like to use the equivalent of Frelling 2♣ and 2♦ (that suit plus a major), although I agree the 2M bids seem just as good a standard weak two. I have a slight preference for 2♥ majors instead of a weak two, but playing both 2M bids as standard weak twos seems fine. One feature I like about the 2m bids is that they handle awkward shapes - weaker hands with 5m/4H (among others), that are awkward if opened a light 1m and partner responds 1♠.

You can't have extras on either side or either opener wouldn't bid 2D or responder would bid again. If you've got a 10-11 HCP 4441 opener bidding 1♦, the only way to get to 2♦ in a 4-2 fit is when responder has a balanced 10-12 HCP and exactly 3325 shape (no 4M, not 6+C). On those hands, there is no fit for either side but you have a slight majority of the points. For any other unbalanced hand by opener, he will have either 5+D or 4+C (or both) which guarantee a fit in 3C (min openers can also raise 2C to 3C with 4+) or at least a 5-2 fit in 2D. I was aware of this one annoying hand type (3325 bal, weak invite) when designing my methods, and considered having it respond 1H instead. That said, it's very rare and even more rare that it's actually a problem. Against that drawback, we play 1N a lot of times other people invited to 2N and stopped there.

People have argued both sides til they were blue in the face and no one on the other side was convinced. One thing that is clear under the GCC is that you aren't allowed to have conventional continuations or defenses after a weak two bid that might only have a 4 card suit (which definitely applies to all of these).

I don't remember the odds exactly from when I calculated them, but promising 4/4+ in the suits is a LOT more common than a regular weak two - by nearly 10x. I like 5+m/4+M for my 2m bids, which are about 2x as common as a weak two (basically because you can have either major); 5+H/4+S which I sometimes used for 2H was as common as a regular weak 2H. Of course you've got a lot of safety with 9 cards instead of only 8 promised, also because having an unbalanced hand means it's likely both sides have a fit while bidding with 4-4 potentially balanced could be a situation where neither side has a fit and you're too high. Especially against bad opponents frequency is more important than safety I would say, since they're likely to make a mistake by over or under bidding. As for handling a regular weak 2, I open them 1 or 3 or pass depending on the hand. It's not perfect but it does argue for these alternative weak twos since if you can still handle maybe 1/2 the normal ones without too much trouble and you can get to bid these extra hands in a reasonable way that's probably a win. In terms of law safety, a 5/4 requirement is safer than a regular weak two also.

If you want something simpler, you can certainty do that. The price is you get to the 3 level on these invites most of the time. Here many of the invites opposite a minimum stop in 2M. In answer to your question, I don't think long minor invites are worth catering to. 5m just seems so far away on these values and it's hard to run a mediocre suit and still have entries to use it when dummy only has 4 HCP.

Yes, the heart signoff hand goes through 2C. I hadn't worked out the whole suggested structure, but that's where it goes. Here's one idea: 2C asks for values/heart tolerance [5+ heart signoff, invite with 6+ major or 5/5 with a major, GF with H+C to show via relays] ....2D max short hearts, or min 3+ hearts ....2H min short hearts ....2S max 3+ hearts Now after any of these, 3C+ shows the GF relay hands, and the other hands can bid on or signoff accordingly. My idea here is that without a major fit and a max by opener, we're basically giving up on game and trying to play either 2M or maybe 3m. 2D max short hearts or min 3+ hearts ...2H signoff (either the weak heart hand, or a 5H/5m invite giving up) ...2S 6+ spade invite (min opener will pass, max will raise) ...2N 5S/5X invite or 6+ heart invite. Asks opener to clarify .......3C min short spades (then pass or 3m to play with 5S/5m; 3H to play with 5/5 majors or 6+ hearts; 3S strong spade invite) .......3D max short hearts (then 3H is the heart invite, raised rarely since they could have bid 4H; 3S 5S/5X invite, raise possible) .......3H min 3+ both major (then pass or 3S to play) 2H min short heart ...P signoff (weak hearts or heart invite giving up) ...2S signoff (6+ spades or 5S/5X giving up) ...2N relays to 3C (stronger 6+M invite or 5H/5m). After 3C, .......P 5H/5C signoff .......3D 5H/5D signoff .......3M strong one-suited invite 2S max 3+ hearts (may have 3+ spades too) ...2N asks for spade length .......3C short spades (then pass or 3X to play, better hands guess to bid 4M or not) .......3D three spades (then 3M to play, or bid game) .......3H four spades (pass, 3S to play, or bid game) This does get you too high sometimes with a heart fit and extras opposite the heart signoff, but otherwise it seems to take care of everything pretty well. It is possible that trying to cater to hands that want to invite on shape despite having only 0-4 HCP are too rare to justify this much space in your bidding tree. One thing I'd suggest is working through the conditional probabilities of each of the possible responder hand types so you can think about that in judging how much bidding space to allocate to each of them.

Ok, thanks. so for the DN hands, you're pretty much out of game-on-power, so most likely after 1N is just signoff (often pass) or try to play in responder's long suit. I don't think we really need super accepts for transfers necessarily, at least if you include the option for responder to make an invitational move after the transfer (both get you a level too high, but the latter less often since responder will rarely have a distributional invite while opener may have a generic super accept more often). Other design goals would seem to be to show by relay the H+m GFs and allow for relay asking by a balanced or strong responder. Here are some observations: 1. I don't think you need to use 2C as your relay ask. Openers shapes are not too numerous, and more importantly his range is narrow. Even if you resolve openers shape at +1, say by asking with 2D instead, you'll get back some space when you ask for strength since since 17-20 is pretty tight for a values range. Remember too that you've very likely got extra strength on these auctions (responder is pretty strong), so figuring out the right game should be easy and there's plenty of space to look for slam. 2. If you aren't wedded to custom relay breaks by opener when responder shows a unbalanced GF, you can use these as DN transfers too. For example, lets say you want 2S+ to show the H/D hands. Then if you require opener to bid the next step (to ask further about shape) whenever responder bids 2N or 3C, now you've got a way for your DN hands to bail into 3m with a long minor at basically no cost (just giving up whatever relay breaks opener might have wanted to use there, and given his limited strength and shape, the option to break relay there doesn't seem too valuable). I haven't thought thru everything but here's an example structure after 1N: 2C asks some question (major preference, min/max values), which is answered with 2D-2S only ala Stayman. Then: ..... p DN signoff ..... Bids up to 2N: signoffs (either DN or invite discouraged by opener's answer), or various invites by responder (system TBD here) ..... 3C+ relays showing some of the H/C hands 2D GF relay, asks for shape 2H more relays of the H/C hands (or drop dead in spades) 2S+ relays showing the H/D hands (or drop dead in 3m)

I don't know this system so well on the negative inferences, so maybe you could list the hand types for me that opener and responder can have after the slow auction to opener's 1NT? I think allowing for 2 way bids like transfers with DN or GF hands can help with efficiency (so you don't have to devote as many bids to just DN signoffs or whatnot), but of course you have to plan for all contingencies in a reasonable way. I think a 2♦ multi seems fine, and is also a perfect example of a bid you could add strong hands to since opener will likely just give his preference allowing for 2N+ for relays showing that strong hand type over opener's 2M. I do think Stayman is useful with a weak hand, but perhaps not so important if you want to leave it a pure relay. If you want to show DN with both majors without getting too high, perhaps use 2♥ for that together with the 2♦ single suited major? At least this way you can stay at the two level instead of transfer to hearts and bid 2♠. I have more to say, but I want to think about all the hand types involved before I make more suggestions.

A little hard for me to judge in detail but I will say that there often lots of additional inferences and precision options in auctions that end in 1NT. In such situations it may well make sense to use something different than a standard strong NT system if you're willing to do the extra work to customize it. For example, I have a common 1♣ sequence that ends with opener bidding 1NT showing 16-18 bal opposite 0-7. Responder basically can't force to game on strength here, so a lot of common strong GF sequences are NF invites for us - for example, transfer to 2M then bidding 3m, or stayman followed by 3m as examples. One other idea that sometimes helps handle the DN hands sometimes is to "fake a relay" and then pass when opener makes the expected cheapest step relay ask. So after 1C-1D(GF or DN)-1H(waiting), you have 1N as GF spades, maybe with a minor. You could also bid that with a long weak club suit and pass when opener tries to relay for shape. It may depend on exactly how limited opener is in your system, but in my system 1H is waiting but limited which makes these safe as two-way bids. If you want to include this approach and opener may still have game in his own hand, you might allow the 2nd step to be a strong relay (I.e. ...1N-2C is weak relay, NF opposite DN; while ...1N-2D is GF relay regardless).

I play that 1♦-1N is non-invitational values; opener can bid with shape but not balanced strength 1♦-2N is a sound invitation (13-14), most useful since we open lighter than 11 sometimes 1♦-2♣ is 4+ clubs, either natural unbalanced clubs (invitiational+), or balanced with a light invite (10-12) 1♦-2♦ is still inverted, 4+ diamonds invitational with no 4M, could be balanced with 3343 and the light invite range After 1♦-2♣, 2♦ shows minimum values (bottom 1/3 of range, say 10-11), and is non-forcing opposite the balanced club hand.

All these opening bids are GCC. Any responses to the strong 1C are also GCC, transfers or whatever you like. You couldn't do transfers over the other openings however, unless they met some other restrictive conditions (like being GF).

Say you played a simple TOSR or other transfer positive style precision. Pass over 1♠ is now both the original 1♦♥ uncontested responses, which works ok as negative or GF spades since you can have a takeout double by opener pass or bid strongly with the GF and bid naturally with a limited hand. The rest of your responses are systems on, with X taking the place of your original 1♠ positive (clubs or balanced or whatever), and higher responses are GF and unchanged. My point is not that this is ideal, since often contested auctions suggest a focus on handling part score contests and less to catering to GF relays, but when I played a system with transfer positives it was nice not to have to reinvent everything to handle auctions until they bid 1N+. this won't work well with Imprecision "systems on" since you have a lot of strong GFs in 1♦ that got shut out.

If you played a strong club positive response system with 1♦ negative and 1♥ positive with spades, you can use pass as negative or trap (either the 1♦♥ uncontested responses), and play positive with systems on for the rest. Opener would double with takeout shape, which would also cater to the GF spades hands (at least if spades was bid naturally).

I will note that "relay systems" are now so illegal they had to be defined twice (Definitions #3 & 6). Sheesh, proof no one copy reads these things. Also, those of you who were clamoring for a weaker Romex, your 1NT can now start at 15 HCP instead of 16.