rbforster

Remember Zia's 12-14 2NT system for the Cavendish? :) http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.games.bridge/2009-06/msg00126.html Maybe you can play a sounder version like 13-14 for 2NT, and leave 1NT 10-12 and 1♣ 15+.

I would just add that in general, and especially if you open light, 13-15hcp is probably too light for the direct 3NT jump when it shows a balanced raise. When I play this raise, I play 15-17. This is because on a minimum combined strength for game 4M is likely to make more often than 3NT, while with some extra strength in terms of HCP, 3NT is much safer and is more likely to take the same number of tricks. I would add that the 3NT bid should deny 4OM, so is typically 33(43) shape.

Bidding 2M with a weak hand and either (6 card suit | 5M and 4+ minor) has always been GCC legal. Note that this does not promise anything besides the suit bid naturally. There was some question as to whether having the suit bid and promising a side minor was or was not GCC. This would resolve that ambiguity.

I'm pretty sure the wording would be interpreted to mean "weak two in the suit bid, also with a side minor", typically 5+/4+ major/minor.

From a probability and space conservation perspective, if you can afford to zoom into the next question, you want to flip the last two answers relative to the "natural" descending frequency as bids rise. Essentially, you are optimizing not for the resolution level of the first question (which would be strictly in probability order), but for average resolution level of the second question. For this, a little thinking will convince you that this last flip is indeed an improvement. However, when you starting running out of space below a likely game contract, practical concerns will have to take over from theory.

Forcing, yes. Natural. is up for debate :) There are some subtleties but that's about right. 1H is min 1-suited or balanced, although its forcing so there are some strong heart hands in there too that jump later. 1S is min 2 suiter including a major with artificial continuations. our 1H-1S confirms 0-7 and is not a double negative, as 1D could have GF heart hands that transfer and then relay over 1H with 1N+ instead of 1S.

Yes. I guess I wasn't sure how people used the 3♦ ask for a 3M, like if they had a weak major holding and hoped to try 3N only if partner had something there (else 4-5♣ perhaps?). If you give up on that and insist that repsonder have a 5M to ask (or else is willing to go past 3N on power, etc), you can use add a 3N answer for both (keeping the cheapest step as possibly no 3M). : 3H spades or none 3S hearts 3N both 3Ms ......4M signoffs, could be weak with a big fit This gets responder to play all the 3NT contracts (since you always play in a major when opener bids 3N), and gets you out in 3M or 4M with a long weak suit (a level higher only if partner has a 3 card fit for you). All the strong major fit auctions should also be right-sided to play by responder.

Hear a lot of ex-options traders are good players, often rich enough to be clients. I'm not sure about the research you're recalling, but I enjoy and am good at bidding systems stuff and am good enough at trading to make a job of it if I want. I have a pretty hard time seeing the relevant connections between the two however.

How about if 3♦ asks for openers shorter major? Then responder can bail into his long weak major by asking and passing. Maybe: 3♦ ask: could be weak with either major, or 5M GF, or looking for NT 3♥ less than 3♥ ......P long weak hearts ......3♠ GF with 5 spades, looking for raise with 3♠ else 3N ......3N to play (GF with 5 hearts, or hoping for S fragment) 3♠ 3♥ ......P long weak spades ......3N to play, likes the H fragment ......4♥ to play, could be the weak hand with a big fit Right sides more games (NT by responder or strong major fit hands by responder), wrong sides the weak major signoffs, and doesn't handle well the 3307 or 3316 preempts (I.e. with both 3 card majors) but the former is super rare and the latter often ill-advised anyway.

Well a couple months ago the UN concluded that the Syrian rebels had used chemical weapons. I don't know if we gave them the stuff like we did with Saddam back in the day, but we sure didnt stop supporting them over it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188 So maybe we go back to the crusader's model and let God sort 'em out?

Let me get back to the much simpler question I originally posted about 1. knowing the opps defense to my strong club under ACBL rules, and 2. knowing their agreement on advancers double after overcaller's double The replies so far seem strongly to favor being allowed to know #1 but not #2. The ACBL regs cited in OP suggest that perhaps neither can be required to be disclosed until they come up (which doesn't help in case #2 since you want to bid before their call has come up). It seems very contradictory that the answer to these two would be different, which is why I asked when I originally got feedback along the same lines (yes to #1, no to #2). This wouldn't be the first time the ACBLs rules have been wildly contradictory but I wanted to see if the legal experts could try their hand at unravelling this. I admit I am still as confused to the difference between these two questions as I was when I first asked.

Thank you for your various replies (especially gnasher) and I apologize to straube for this tangent. If you would like to continue the tangent, I started a separate thread in general discussion on the topic of what you're entitled to know about your opps bidding before it comes up, which may be of interest: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/62326-questions-on-disclosure-of-opps-bidding-methods/ In it, I offer the strong club defense of "suction the first time it comes up, natural the second time (then alternating)" as an example that can really mess with the assumption that you now know what your opponents play after having seen it once (and it wouldn't be alerted half the time either!).

I'm going to stop derailing this thread and start its own topic. My general questions involve what you are legally entitled to know about your opponents' bidding before it has come up. I am mostly interested in ACBL rules, but welcome other comments about how other parts of the world address these issues. In practice it seems you aren't entitled to much - certainly lots of people would like to know Meckwell's full bidding system, but it seems they aren't required to provide it (despite the fact it would assist their defenders in agreeing on defenses, understanding which auctions might be more vulnerable to preemption since they lack a penalty X, etc) and we are forced to try to infer it piecemeal from individual disclosed auctions at recorded events. Excerpts from the prior thread to start the discussion: Assuming this is accurate, I have the following questions: 1. I play a system with some artificial opening bid (strong club, short club, nebulous diamond, etc). Am I entitled to know my opponents defensive/overcalling methods before they come up? My guess - no, because they don't seem to be required on the convention card. This contrasts with 1NT openers where I can expect to know their defensive methods from looking at their card before I elect to make my opening bid on any particular hand (especially when there might be some discretion involved in choice of openings). 2. I want to psych a major bid in the auction 1m-X or 2D-X, but would like to know if the advancer's double is penalty or not (i.e. 1m-X-1M-X, or 2D-X-2M-X) before I make my call. Am I allowed to know this before the auction has come up? Note that this does not run afoul of issue about "making your bidding agreements depend on things that have not yet happened" since our agreement is standard (M bids are natural and forcing 1 round), but we still might want to psych those bids. 3. In the section of the ACBL convention card "other convention calls", am I required to list every conventional meaning I have agreements for with my partner, including complicated multi-round auctions? In practice people seem to list a few basic agreements ("unusual over unusual", "Mathe vs strong club", etc), but this seems to be more for their memory/partnership agreement than disclosure. Would any non-natural defense to #1 above be required to be listed here? Would any non natural treatment of double in #2 above (i.e. non penalty) be required to be listed? If they weren't listed and I made a bid based in this and it worked out poorly, would I have legal recourse (i.e. two-way shot at psyching)? I can imagine all sorts of tricky ways to avoid what reasonable people might think of as "full disclosure" assuming one is not able to get proper information about opponent's defenses along the lines of these examples. While I understand that methods are not to change during an event and assuming one cannot get disclosure until an auction occurs, I could have an agreement that the first time against this set of opponents when they open a strong club our defense is X and the second time it's Y. Then they could mistakenly assume after getting the alerted explanation of X the first time that they didnt need to ask again the second time (or worse, Y=natural and isn't alerted which might lead them to think you're confused when you aren't). I can probably come up with slightly less convoluted examples, but you get the idea.

Lots of stuff works here. 2/1 GF if fine. Semi-forcing NT and SAYC style inv+ 2/1s are fine, but require more agreement on followups. If you want to be fancy, you can play first step inv+ relay, or a more widely legal 2C GF relay with transfers for the other 2 bids. In most of these, jump bids can be Bergen or similar support raises (minisplinters, fitted GFs, Jacoby, etc). I think it's just a question of your style and regulation restrictions, if any.

Do they? I thought you were just supposed to be prepared for anything, since anything is legal vs a strong club and since there's no place requiring you to write a strong club defense (at least on a ACBL) convention card. I guess when it comes up, you can try to infer it by asking about the bid made, and whatever other options might be relevant as similar alternative calls not made.

Per gnasher's comment above, you don't get "full disclosure" of their methods unless they actually come up or are included on their convention card. In fact, you generally won't even know, for example, what defense the opps are playing against your strong club, or in other more complex auctions, until you see it happen. I suppose you could ask them before a longer team session and hope they told you (to avoid UI or other issues in the auction), but I don't think they have to say. Well, given the opps can make their defense to your 1M call depend on anything that comes before, it seems like a defense by 4th seat of "takeout unless you ask, then penalty" is a valid defensive agreement ;).

Thanks for the explanation. I agree you need to avoid the recursive problem, so basically whoever bids earlier in the auction has to pick his methods based only on what has gone before. However, there is still the question as to whether you can ask your opps for what their future actions might mean, such as asking them if double of a natural 1M in 1m-X-1M would be penalty or something else. If so, you can still potentially psych with that information since you're not changing your agreement as to what 1M was. There are some situations, like NT defenses, which are shown the convention card and so you can see this before deciding to open 1N on some marginal hand / shape. I guess asking them for what their defensive agreements are in some other auction seems the same to me (just that it might not be covered by the standard card), but someone had said you can't ask about auctions that didnt occur even afterwards.

I think this is one of those things where game theory comes into play. If opponents need a 15 count or equivalent to butt in at the 2 level over your preempt, a pure penalty double will be more rare (but still useful). However, if your opps knew you didn't have a penalty double (and whatever X was, it was super unlikely to ever be passed by opener), they might start over calling on 12-13 counts (or equiv), at which point the penalty double would probably be worth having/keeping. I mentioned elsewhere, but I'd appreciate it if anyone could clarify what one is entitled to know about opponents defenses in this regard in order to chose what method/style to play yourself. The example I gave was whether you could know opps agreement on the meaning of 1m-X-1M-X, so you could psych 1M or not depending on if the latter X was penalty. In this 2M context, you might have two methods (naturalish with penalty X, or full transfers no penalty X) where you choose which one based on the min values that opps explain their 2M overcall to promise (similar to how people have two different methods vs weak/strong NT openers).

Is that along the lines of the auction 1m-(X)-? at which point responder turns to advancer and asks: "if I were to bid 1M (i.e. 1m-X-1M-?), would your double be penalty?" If the answer is no, then responder psyches his short major with weakness.

The point about IMPrecision is not its decent uncontested relay auctions, which are a dime a dozen in precision methods and TOSR is simpler by far. The point is that its got a decent way to combine the shape-first semi positive approach of Moscito's big club (for better handling of interference and non-GF auctions), with GF relay methods both after 1♣-1♦ and after semi positive responses when opener has sufficient extras.

I would just add that the inference about leading a stiff (or not) is much stronger if the actual lead chosen is a clear one (A from AK, solid sequence) vs a less clear one (low in one of his suits). If he made an unconvincing lead, I would play him for the doubleton club. If he made a clear safe lead, I would go with the odds above.

Just play TOSR, or if that's too much off the bat, play everything besides 1♦ (negative) is a GF transfer on both the first and second bids by responder. 1♠ is balanced.

They absolutely are, since GCC doesn't count ones that start with openers rebid. Only those that start with responders first bid aren't allowed, and even then more is allowed than you might think (like 1M-2♣ GF relay is ok for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me).

Rik understood so I won't repeat the explanation of analogy. You can edit your insult for tone and spelling if you care. For others benefit, I'll give an example. [hv=pc=n&s=sakq876h2dc&w=s2hakt87dc&n=sj53h543dc&e=st94hqj96dc]399|300|South declares 3♠ after EW competed to 3♥. [/hv] A♥ is lead and encouraged with the Q, then the K♥ continuation is ruffed as E drops the J (card he is known to hold, partner's open or overcall having promised 5 hearts). Declarer draws trump and finds them 3-1, perhaps as above although it works similarly if they split 3-1 the other way. The first discard in hearts from either hand is made from 2-3 cards known to both defenders and not to declarer. As long as the highest or lowest of the 5 remaining hearts is not thrown, declarer will be unsure as to the signal. For example, the 7♥ by W or the 9♥ by E are clear signals to partner for low or high suit preference respectively. This is an encrypted suit preference signal in standard bridge.

Standard for this, such as it is, is what you describe - running minor or other hand expecting to make 3N and lacking only a stopper in opponents opened suit.