brianshark

Well Carrot is like a simplified polish club (where the "big" hand just has a lower range and the intermediate unbalanced hands with clubs just do something else.) But the main characteristic of these is that it is a strong club system with a weak balanced option. The system described above is just opening all balanced hands with 1C, even with 4 or 5 diamonds. But it's not an unlimited opening, and 2c is still their strong bid. It's fundamentally different from the polish club philosophy. It's a very different system.

In Dublin clubs I play in and the Irish competitive scene: -Lots of variation between weak and strong NT (a few playing 13-15 or 14-16). I haven't come across any 16-18. Quite a few playing 3/4 NT, especially those from more rural areas funnily enough. -Lots of variation between 4 and 5 card Majors, some playing better minor, some playing the club can be short, and some pairs who play that short club as forcing for 1 round. A good few pairs play 5 card spades only, and one or two pairs play 5 card spades, hearts and diamonds. -A few pairs play transfers over 1club. -A few pairs play polish. -A few pairs play precision or strong club like systems. -I bumped into a pair the other day in the Cork congress playing Fantunes. As for 2 level openings: -Most people play strong 2C. Some play strong 1C. -Around 80% of pairs seem to play multi. Those that don't usually play benjamised acol (2C = not quite GF, 2D = stronger, or some variation thereof). -Weak 2D is rare enough, as are other treatments of 2D. A few pairs play ekrens 2C, 2D or 2H. -Some play weak 2s in hearts and spades, some play strong 2s, some play weak 2-suiters. I'd say the ratio of these is around 30:30:40.

I have no sympathy for the defenders in this situation whatsoever. Inferences should be taken at their own risk, and if they can't see that declarer has a decision to make (and therefore a bridge reason to think) even if he has AK, then it's their own shortcomings. It would be different if you had KQx in hand opposite a doubleton (with a trump suit for additional rounds of the suit. Playing an honour is automatic, and which honour doesn't matter. Here, if you think for ages for some reason, you should play the Q.

My first impression was to bid 3NT despite the colours. And if defending, I'd lead the ♠A. I guess I'm on my own little world then. :)

With 4+ ♠s and 3+ ♥s: 1♥-2♥ = 6-9 1♥-1♠-any-3♥ = 10-11 It shouldn't be any more complicated than that.

On the given auction, I agree that 3NT seems like the normal bid. Partner can bid spades again if he is short on entries and his spade suit is good enough to play opposite a void. I agree with Frances that pard should have bid 3♦. I'm inclined to think it should be bid even if it would be natural because it will elicit more information about the hand out of partner since opener has lots of extras and should have slam very much in mind. It seems that both hands underbid because of concern about the misfit. My opinion is that north is the better judge that the hands have some communication, firstly because you are holding AQx in pard's 2nd suit and secondly because when pard bids 3NT (with or without a 3♦ bid, then pard knows there is some communication in the ♦ suit as well. This is evident in the second auction where north knows of this communication to go with at least a 4-3 club fit, bid on, and they found a decent slam. In the first, I have sympathy for north's pass because the 4♠ bid could be on as little as a singleton, with not much in ♦s and most values wasted in ♥s and to bid on could risk a minus. Oh, and after 3NT, I have no strong opinions on whether north should bid 4♣ or 4NT. But I think 4NT is fine because responder will more typically have a 5431 shape hand and maybe he will expect a 4 card suit off opener? Yes maybe opener could then bid 4♣ right away but maybe he wanted to know if pard has ♦ values.

Your pard probably bid 2♣ because he thought your first double showed the other 2 suits (a common misconception). Your pard has at most 11 points and possibly less, and the opps are known to have a combined 22 count at least. Nothing about the auction has, to me, suggested that the hand will play any worse for declarer than the combined point cound indicates (indeed the onside heart Q indicates the opposite) so the 2nd double is poor, even red at match-points.

Agree with Frances. Pass then 2♠ would show a stronger hand than 2♠ directly so presumably pass then 3♠ shows a better hand than 3♠ directly. I have no idea how good a hand that shows, but I have a very good hand so better use the strongest sequence I can think of. :D

It can be extremely frustrating when despite my efforts to pass out a hand, the opps open and I have to compete for a crappy partscore, which takes up a lot of the time. Also, a couple of times the opps bid to a cold game that can't be touched. (Does this happen often?) I only open 1NT with a hand that would accept an invite, except maybe if red. But I don't open 1NT opposite a passed partner anymore because I've played in too many partscores that way. I always super-accept when partner transfers over my 1NT with 3+ in the major as it means we push to an aggresive game often, and the bidding goes quickly. I find that I play the hands about twice as fast as GIB on average. Even at the game level. Except GIB can zip through a couple of 3N+2 type hands in no time. But GIB plays high level hands well. One time he flew through 6NT in about 20 seconds making on a double squeeze. ♥ With regards to doubles in competitive auctions, I think GIB interprets all but the basic t/o double situations as just extra values with no clear bid, where humans would play them as more t/o oriented, which catches out a lot of people. GIB doesn't need a trump stack to want to defend part-scores doubled. But if you actually have your extras and can defend at least close to GIB standard, you will do fine. I find that a lot of people who complain about GIB doing crazy things get caught out because they simply don't have their bid according to what GIB expects them to have.

Doesn't the 3NT response to 1♣ show precisely this hand? After that, 4♣ and a bunch of cuebids or keycard might get you to 6 or 7.

Stayman and invite at both forms of scoring. This is a very normal hand in a very normal situation. I'm starting to think people are over-analysing things a bit too much.

I hadn't played a robot race in ages, and only ever played 1 or 2 before, so I tried out one of the cheap ones where you get the best hand at the table and everyone plays the same hands (these weren't going last time I played a robot race). I only got 16 boards finished, but I think I was a board or two ahead of the rest of the field based on when their big scors came in for the slam hands. I only went off in 1 contract I should have made because of playing too quickly.I still won, but I guess there are no prizes given out to the 0.25$ ones. Grr! :) These things could get quite addictive. :)

I agree with Josh. My first impression on seeing the actual hand was that pard was not even good enough for his 2!s bid.

Righty has only a singleton club J remaining.

It's interpretable. 3♠ is 2-card preference. 4♣ could be natural and looking for a ♣ game, 4♦ could be no club support or extra ♠ support, but you have a few ♦s and 4NT could be, no support for ♦s so let's play NT. Or it could be cue-bids and keycard for ♠s. *shrugs*

TBH, I'm fairly confident 6♥ isn't making. But I think the grand could well make. And while midding may turn a small plus into a small minus, if either 6♥ or 7♦ is making, we gain a bunch by bidding. This is a tough choice. Having checked the form of scoring, I see it's match-points, so I think I'll double and take my plus.

Play Q of hearts, A of diamonds and try ruff out the diamond Q. If that fails, ruff a spade. However, if RHO discards a spade on the diamond or heart, instead draw trump and play for LHO to be squeezed in spades and diamonds.

Hand one I would consider opening. Hand 2 I would not open. If I consider these borderline opening hands and then partner makes an invite bid, raising seems... strange. What have we learned from partner's 2NT bid that improves our hand?

My first impression of a hand that would want to act now but couldn't on the round before is a 0454 type hand with plenty of high cards. (ie. take-out of spades) BTW, the term negative is pretty meaningless these days. It originally was a type of take-out double which had a fairly specific meaning and applied to a fairly specific set of auctions. But now everyone plays different flavours, and some people (like your partner) don't even understand what auctions "negative" doubles apply to.

For me 3♦ is GF. Surprised by people who play it as NF. I thought the whole point of lebensohl is to be able to get out below game if responder has minimum and the reverser had a minimum reverse (ie. 16-18 or so). But when opener has a 19+ hand - a hand that was good enough to insist on game over a minimum 1-level response, he showed that by breaking the transfer to 3♣. So if 3♦ is GF, 4♦ should probably be a slam try. I guess that depends on what responder can have for his 2NT bid. Sometimes it is not only used as a weak escape but to show a different NT range if he follows it up with 3NT.

Oh, I got the vulnerability mixed up. If they are vul and we are not then crystal clear to play 3♥ doubled methinks.

Same as Frances.

Correct me if I'm wrong but can't LHO just double as his partner is forced to pass throughout?

2♥ wtp. After lebensohl, I think I will bid 3♦ to show extras, though this is less clearcut to me.

I'm not sure I would have passed 3♥ on the round before (assuming 2♣ was not some sort of inverted minor raise). Now, I'd love to pass the Dbl but the stupid colours and the stupid scoring format mean I probably have to bid 3N to get my average! :D