brianshark

I'm undecided about whether South should pass, but I think North should make a re-opening double. Yes, it's a HCP minimum but you have prime controls and ideal shape. Unless RHO tanked. Then I would pass.

The only meaning I can think of for 3♠ is a suggestion to play with a 3 card suit (or a very bad 4 card suit if you are known to bid 1NT with such hands. But opener is certainly not obliged to leave it if he has a hand that is unsuitable. 3♠ can never be a sign-off, only a suggestion. Probably a 3-1-3-6 or 3-0-3-7 type hand. If however opener has a close decision, I think he is obliged to leave it because of the unauthorised information that you aren't really happy with your 3♠ bid. Edited.

Agree with Han, I'll be delighted if partner raises.

Agree with everything about the splinter style issue. But my opinion is that while you are too light for a 4♦ bid there, 4NT is much more of an over-bid. You have a normal minimum hand and partner splinters in your strongest side suit. Not only have you not got extras, but your hand loses value after the splinter so I'm assigning the worst bid tag to 4NT. EDIT: After thinking about this some more, partner could have ♠Axxx ♥Kxxx ♦x, ♣KTxx and slam is not so bad anymore. Maybe I am being harsh. This is tougher than I first thought.

Lol, well obviously if you happen to be playing a convention which describes your hand perfectly you are better off. :(

Dbl to give partner every chance to nail them for penalties. 3♣ seems a bit committal to me. If we end up in a bad 3♦ contract, so be it.

I think what Fred is getting at, and I'm inclined to agree, is that of all those dimensions you are trying to improve to better yourself as a bridge player, learning better bidding methods has dubious merit in terms of imrpoving your overall bridge. Sure it is a good way to improve a particular system and/or partnership, but I don't think it improves your overall bridge game. Maybe it does a little, but nowhere near as much as more important things like bidding judgement, declarer play, defence, etc do.

A bit light for a standard 2♠ but the nice shape makes it ok.

Spam will never stop until everyone has to pay 0.1 of a cent or whatever to send an email.

Wild guess: 8%, 2%, 2%, 0.5%.

Plus 2♦ might be bid on lots of ♦s and no points opposte a normal opening hand.

A 2♦ pre-empt will get in the way no matter who your opponents are. Even Meckwell would rather have a nice tidy uncontested auction starting at the 1-level. I think I would bid 2♦. You may go for a number, but your 6-4 shape is a pretty nice feature. A calculated risk that I think is worth it.

What's with all the people advocating double instead of 2♦? You have a Major 2-suiter and you have a way of immediately showing a Major 2-suiter which is not limited in strength so why would you not use it? Regarding how high you should bid, I agree with JDonn about 2♠, but it's clear you shouldn't be bidding to 4 on your own as that would show a hand that has 10 tricks in it's own hand opposite as little as 3-card preference and was looking for slam. Even with ♠Q and 4 hearts (very idealistic) game is not cold. And partner can find a bid with as little as a Q in your suit and 4 card support.

Those pesky Brits cheated me out of winning the last match in the midnight speedball KO teams! Grrrrrr! :)

It's probably too late. I've once revoked and then returned the suit as well. People make silly mistakes. I think it's quite unlikely that this revoke was in any way deliberate.

Is there any intrinsic difference between confidence and arrogance? I believe it is one single quality in a person that is interpreted differently by onlookers. People who appreciate that quality in someone call it confidence and people who resent that quality in someone call it arrogance. I know we'd all like to believe that people who are good at what they do can get the accolades they deserve while being humble to the point of anonymity. But the real world is a rat race and you have to flaunt your success to get the recognition you deserve the majority of the time. The more you try to be proud of your successes, the more likely you are to find people who resent your arrogance. It's up to everyone to simply find the balance that works for them.

Every call was reasonable and defensible except 3♣ which was ludicrous.

I like to bid my 5 card suits because it's a useful thing to show in slam auctions, even if that suit is not going to be the trump suit. Even if you have the agreement that 2♣ is a semi-natural GF bid, it tends to deny the ability to GF by showing a good 5-card red suit, so it's still a misdescription. In the case of hand 1, the suit wuality is borderline, but I think I'll still bid it. Agree with Adam about the second. Bidding 2♥ means you don't find find out about a 9-card heart fit, but you find out about 8+ card heart fits which are almost as useful and a lot more common.

I'm tempted to walk the dog with 2♦.

In contrast to your thread on forcing pass, your introductory arguments against seem rather tame, as if you were stretching to find things to suggest as opposition arguments. I can't think of much either. "Wrong siding the contract -> variance -> bad" just doesn't work for me. Not accessible to general public is true of virtually every artificial sequence in existence today. The possibility of the suit transferred to being our best fit is also true for a natural 4 card Major opening or natural response. As for "messing with the opponents" by passing out 1H (showing spades), I find this the same problem as what to do with a penalty pass of 1S: - The disadvantage for the opening side is giving the defence extra bidding space. - The advantage for the opening side is giving yourself extra bidding space (ie. the ability to play 1H when Hearts is your best spot despite showing a spade opening) As for the spade opening showing hearts, well the opposite is true... they have taken away your bidding space (by one bid) at a cost of their own bidding space. You just have to show your spade overcall at the 2-level or use up 2C as your t/o bid or something like that. And sure you can't penalty double them in hearts anymore, but if spades was their best fit, they were always able to run there anyway. And yes, it needs a bit of preperation, but this seems to be minimal, especially compared with other bids such as multi, ekrens, etc. With most of my partners, I have a general purposes agreement that after a transfer bid, double shows the suit they bid and the cue is take-out. Sure we miss out on the penalty double of spades on the one level (in an auction where they are actually less likely to be caught because they have the option of playing 1H). But it hasn't cost us any imps yet. And it's simple. The biggest endorsement has to be that a number of places already allow transfer openings with few problems. So I would encourage them to be allowed in events of all types.

I use bubwrotka with those I play polish club with. It's simple enough, gets the job done. I have no complaints. The higher bids don't come up too often, but when they do they work well because they are more specific (by design). Bubwrotka: 2♥ = Weak 4 2♠ = Strong 4 2NT = Strong 5 3♣ = 9-11, 4M, 5+Cs 3♦ = 9-11, 4M, 5+Ds 3♥ = Weak, 5, unbalanced 3♠ = Weak, 5, balanced 3NT = Weak, 6+, no shortness 4x = Weak, 6+, splinter

I don't see a strong pass as being that special. It doesn't seem that much more strange to us than a strong or artificial club system is strange to people who are not used to it and play "standard" all the time. Few are familiar with it and thus don't have defences to it, but it used to be that way with strong club as well. I don't buy the whole non-disclosure argument. I'm sure it's not THAT hard to understand, no moreso that artificial club systems are. And I agree that it's a lot easier to get relevant information out of people playing artificial systems than people playing "natural". I also don't believe it's a destructive system. Random openings that show or deny a suit are destructive. Methods where you overcall 1S over a strong club no matter what your hand are destructive. EHAA is a mildly destructive system. Strong pass is just a strange system to us who aren't used to it, but no less purposeful than strong club or fantunes or other "strange" existing systems. My opinion would be to allow it in long serious matches where pairs know in advance they are going to be playing it and have a chance to come up with some sort of defence. Maybe if it becomes more common and there are plenty of easy and well known defences to it, it can be played in shorter matches where limited preparation is sufficient.

@bid_em_up: But does a newbie feel any more foolish after you have successfully psyched against them than they do if they have just made a stupid play and let in a hopeless vulnerable game? It's all part of the game. They just have to pick themselves up and learn from their mistakes.

Looks good. Thanks.

[hv=n=shaxdt763caj8&w=sakqjthkjt9dc&e=shxxxxd9cqt94&s=s9876hqxxdck3]399|300|The lead is in the north hand. ♣s are trump.[/hv]