brianshark

2NT would probably be minors. 2♣ would be both majors and other bids are natural, so the only suit he can't (easily) show as a single-suit is clubs - which doesn't exactly make my hand look nicer.

I personally think that at all white at matchpoints, this hand should definitely be competing to the 2-level. But it is obviously very wrong to open first time because of the 4 card side-major. So I passed fully intending to interfere on the second round. And when the auction went 1NT on my left and 2♣ on my right, I gave brief thought to passing because the opps may have my majors... but lets put it this way, I have 3 guaranteed ♠ tricks because even if pard is void, ♠s will break no worse that 4-3. :o Anyway, I gave this hand to two friends of mine who are strong experts (much stronger players than me). They both said they'd pass the 1st round, and then I told them the auction and both said they'd bid 2♠. The problem was that pard hitched over 1NT. He had something along the lines of ♠KTJx ♥Ax ♦x ♣KQ98xx. We have no systemic bid for that hand because over a weak NT, Dbl is 15+, 2♣ is the Majors and the rest natural. Rather than jumping to 3♣ and possibly losing the ♠s, he decided to pass and wait and see. Kinda ironic. Anyway, we ended up bidding to 4♠ and opps to 5♦ being doubled off 1. The director adjusted to 2♦ making +2 for an absolute top for the opps. Among my list of gripes are: - He said I can't bid 2♠ because I judged my hand not worth opening by passing - which is not true - I passed because systemically we don't open a weak 2 with a side 4 card major. - The entire room were in 4♠ making or 5♦ -1 or -2, sometimes doubled, sometimes not. But I guess since about half of ye don't think 2♠ should be bid on the second round, maybe I should have just passed.

Great, thanks guys. Lots of helpful input. I thought that precision and polish would be fairly similar in terms of the retrictions on opening 2♣, but not quite. In precision, it seems people just throw all the undesirable 5club-4major and 4441 hands into the ever-more-nebulous 1♦ and 2♦ openings. But in polish we like our 1♦ as 4+ and 2♦ as weak multi (or wilkosz if you can get away with it). That means there is a certain amount of hands that have to fit into either 1♣ or 2♣ and can't go anywhere else. So it seems that preserving the quality of the 2♣ opening and making the 1♣ include more shapes is the way to go. But how far to go is the question? I could go with David (and a few others') suggestion to open 1♣ with 11-14 balanced, or semi-balanced such as 4414, most (42)25, and unbalanced such as (43)15 or (322)6 or 3316 with a weak ♣ suit, and still open 2♣ with some 54 hands if the strength is in the right place or the singleton is in the wrong place. Or I could by rule include all 5♣4M hands and 2♣ becomes 6+. But what to do with 4405. Am I to open this 1♣ as well?

In polish (wj05 anyway), 1♦ would be 4+ so I assume you'd open them 1♣ and then 1NT which is fairly equivalent and shows the same balanced minimum. In some styles of precision, won't opening 1♦ and rebidding ♠s show some length in ♦s anyway? I don't play much precision so I wouldn't know. The 6th hand there is one that precision has a specific bid for but not polish. It's either a weak NT or a 2♣ opening and it's an ugly choice to make. The 4th and 5th can be catered for if you relax the length requirement of the 1♦ to 3, but that's not something I'd like to do either.

Friends of mine who play a precision-based system but tinker with the system a lot have changed to 2♣ promising 6+. My parter and I, just after the aforementioned tournament, are considering specifically including most 5422s in the polish 1♣ opening (we already include 4=4=1=4) and generally being more strict about opening 2♣ only with an excellent 5 card suit or a decent 6 card suit. We already play the responses to the 2♦ relay as 2M = 4 card M and 2NT / 3♣ = 6+clubs and NT oriented or not. Incidentally, we don't actually use 2N / 3♣ as min or max. It's not part of WJ05 if I recall. Should it be?

75% of the time I open 2♣, I seem to find myself losing matchpoints. I usually end up playing a low scoring club contract when 1NT is almost as much tricks and occasionally miss a 4-4 or 5-3 major fit when partner is too weak to say anything in response. Does anyone else experience this? Am I opening 2♣ on too many hands? Example: ♠AT72 ♥KQ ♦JT ♣KT763 I opened this hand 2♣ recently and lost imps when he rest of the room were in 1NT making. I acknowledge that the club suit probably isn't good enough and I should have treated this as a weak NT (in my case open a polish 1♣ which includes 11-14 balanced). Indeed the advice I was given by a very experienced player who I just gifted a top to was that all 5♣4M22 hands should be treated as balanced in matchpoints. But what if the hand was ♠AT72 ♥K6 ♦JT ♣KQT73 or ♠AQ72 ♥J6 ♦JT ♣KQT73 or ♠AK72 ♥86 ♦54 ♣KQJ73 Should I open all these hands as 1♣ (or nebulous 1♦ or weak NT or whatever you do to show balanced 13 counts)? What if I had: ♠AT72 ♥K ♦QJ6 ♣KT873 or ♠AJ72 ♥8 ♦KQ6 ♣KT873 or ♠AJ72 ♥KQ6 ♦8 ♣KT873 Treating them as balanced becomes even more of a distortion. But opening them 2♣ becomes even more of a risk. I'm told that the precision 2♣ is meant to be on of the strongest aspects of a strong ♣ system. They say even though it costs the odd time at matchpoints, it's benefits outweigh the costs. I definitely like it at IMPs. I rarely lose much and frequently gain imps any time I open it but it's record at matchpoints is atrocious. What am I doing wrong?

I don't feel a pressing need to get involved here. I'll pass.

1st seat, nobody vul, matchpoints, you hold: ♠A98632 ♥KT74 ♦72 ♣9 Your options are: Pass 1♠ = 5+, 11-17 2♦ = Weak with 6+ in a Major 2♥ = weak with 5+5+ in ♥ and another suit (pretty strict about 5+5+) Your bidding style is fairly normal pre-empts, weak 2s and openings. What's your call? [Part 2] If you pass, the auction goes: Pass - 1NT - Pass - 2♣ Do you bid now?

Sorry Paul but I think this is a clear natural bid. Any hand that has some diamond void and wants to force partner to bid something can bid 4♦ which makes even less sense as a natural bid than a jump to game. If you have some big major hand, why would you want partner to choose one at the 5-level?

I believe it's fairly common for the players side of the screen of the person to make the last pass in an auction, to just lift their bidding cards before passing the board to the others. The other two will know that it has been passed out because of the lifted cards. It just speeds the process up a bit. Also, don't lift the flap until the opening lead is made. Agree with everyone who says that playing with screens is a much nicer experience than without.

No way, it's at best PSEUDO-random, which isn't the same... Yeah, I was waiting for that retort. :blink: I'm aware of the concept of pseudo-randomness and the inherent impossibility of true randomness. But I'm pretty sure BBO hand-generation is pseudo-random-enough for you to still be imagining any bias or pattern.

You're imagining it. Hand generation is random.

Your line won't handle ♠K third offside if they continue hearts after you duck a spade. My line:

1♥-4♥ is a fairly weak pre-emptive raise. 1♥-[response] [rebid]-4♥ is a GF with ♥ support and 10-14 pts or so. 1♥-[response] [rebid]-[4th suit] [some bid]-4♥ is usually a GF with ♥ support and 15-18 pts.

I like the t/o double, the cue and the 4♥ bid in context of the previous bidding. I dislike the responsive double and the final pass by north. The final pass must carry by far the greatest proportion of the blame. While you should reasonably expect south to have a king or two extra, you shoulsd not expect more than 4 mediocre hearts. 4441 with concentration in the minors is approximately what I'd expect for south's bidding.

Nice problem. Hidden below:

1. Asking 2. Transfer to play in 5NT? Haven't given this one much thought. 3. Grand slam try

I pass at all vulnerabilities. To be honest, I don't really believe some of the people who claim they'd bid 2N with this hand, especially vul. Either that or you really need to find opponents who know how to punish you for extravagant bidding like that.

4♣ for me and keycard over 4♦ or 4♥.

1. No 2. N/A

I learned sayc using the learn to play bridge program. It was great foundation for me. Start with sayc. 2/1 later.

If you run the ♥T and it loses to the J and a ♠ comes back, what then?

Nice post by mikeh.

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=sak8hakq72d652c63&s=sq3ht9dkj73cak854]133|200|Scoring: MP 1♣-1♥; 2♣-2♦; 2NT-3NT Lead was ♠5 (probably 4th highest)[/hv]

I don't agree that the 1NT-(hesitant)2NT-? auction is the same as the given auction in this thread because it seems that the hesitation in this thread can only suggest bidding on (the eventual 5♣ bid is the weakest possible bid at that point in the auction). However a hesitant 2NT in the above auction could suggest either a hand almost too weak to invite or a hand almost too good to invite or even a hand thinking of transferring or using stayman or something. So while in principle I agree with dburn's opinion that people are way too eager to jump on the "if it hesitates, shoot it" bandwagon, I don't believe he is right in this situation because the hesitation does suggest bidding on. The issue of whether a hesitation which suggests bidding on, acted upon and succeeding where the hesitator actually had a worse hand than demonstrated is something I'm still undecided about.