bluecalm

[hv=pc=n&s=sat4hq762dq2cj962&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=p1h2d2s]133|200[/hv] 2S was negative free bid. What now ? (double is t/o, 2NT is natural)

Don't jump to game after 2/1, it's terrible unless you define it as exact hand, say QJTxxxx xx Ax Ax and never do it with anything different :) That being said, S has the easiest pass ever after 4S. Yeah, w/e but it has to be very well defined. It seems that hands with very strong spades and nothing on the side are good candidate. AKQxxxx Qx Jx xx etc.

Haha, nice one.

Only if I have a way to show 5H-4S hand without extras. 1H - 2C 2H as 4s-5H and 2S as normal 2H rebid is better way than natural probably (and this is what Lauria-Versace play) As above, if you don't switch it you may run into trouble in some sequences. again, 2H = 4S-5+h then 2S is relay setting hearts and 2N is relay without 3H. (the same way as in 1S-2m-2H). You can live without it; another argument for swtiching 2H and 2S rebids :) No. It bids 2S if up to 14hcp and 3C if 15+ 3C should be extras 5-4 and 3D should be relay for shortness now ;) Yes You (and top Italians) can play it the same way as 1H - 2C, so 2H is 4S-5H and 2S is normal 2H rebid. a) 1M-2C as GF is way better than 1M-2C almost GF. Invites are not that frequent, are reasonably handled by bidding (semi)forcing 1NT but not being able to rebid 3C on many hands with 6clubs really hurts. Another approach is to put invites in jumps to 3m. Whatever you do, don't put them in 2/1. b) 1M - 2C 2M (or 2S after 1H opening if you play the switch I described) should be wide ranging. Hands with 6M should bid that regardless of strength. Jumping to 3M just to show extras sucks because you may still belong in clubs or 3N and there is no way to find out or even cuebid comfortably, it's better to play it as 7carder or something. You have enough space to describe your range after 2N from partner which will be his most common bid (the simplest is playing 3OM as 6card with 15+hcp and 3M as 11-14). What I wrote is Italian/Polish way to play. I think it's better than American way of raising to 3m with various junk. At least that is what I saw from some American pairs, I think the agreement will die soon anyway.

Can we have some more discussion or a "solution" from OP ? I am really curious what's the hidden point of the hand.

If 2NT was an invite then 3S is overbid, just bid 3NT. If 2NT was forcing then 3S is again not very good. We have a lot of cards in diamonds and hearts and our hand is NT'ish. I would bid 4NT and play there. Havaing bid 3S we overbid again by bidding 6C. We have minimum hand with bad localization, we should just bid 4S cuebid and wait for partner to decide. He still have a chance to bid 5C with minimum. Before you play any ace asking bid, including RKCB it's good idea to learn about hand valuation. You ask for aces to see if there are any aces missing if slam values are there, it won't solve your problems if you are unable to establish those in the first place.

t/o. You need a bid for strong hands below GF strength. Say 16hcp with clubs, like: KQx x KQx AJ9xxx or: Ax xx AQxx AQTxx So what do you bid with above mentioned hands ?

I am interested in your view on hand in the middle. say 11-12-13hcp and 5M-6m. I am coming from bridge culture where everybody always open 1M if they have 5 card major but I noticed that most elite players just open longer suit most of the time in good 13+ range. What do you think about those middle hands ? Say: x KQxxx AQxxxx x - AJTxx AQxxxx xx x AQxxx KQJxxx x

Play 2C as majors 6-10hcp (then 2D asks for longer). This opening looks innocent but it's a killer at matchpoints against unprepared opponents even good ones. The idea of getting rid of 2C and play all openings as 11+ are an old one and a few Polish pair do that. 2C as majors doesn't go well in polish club context (you need 2C as intermediate club opening) but it's very popular here as many people think it's brings so many mp's that being in deep hole with 11-14 (or 15+) club hands is worth it.

Experience of poker sites shows that any kind of 'disconnect protection' leads to abuse. There should be penalty, a trick sound good, some fixed amount (depending on stakes) sounds even better. It's not "unfair" to people who lose their connection as if those disconnections are random then it evens out (sometimes they lose, sometimes they win when opponent disconnects)

If declarer has 5 clubs then he has 8 tricks without A♠ so we can spades safely as partner needs to have the card. If declarer has only 4 clubs he probably doesn't have 4 spades so again spades look fine. Both our minor nines could be crucial so it looks like easy discards at first glance but I am sure I am missing something here :)

I think it's not true opposite passed partner. The biggest argument for doubling is finding 5-3 fit when competing for a partscore/game. Pass from partner means he doesn't have 11+ with 5 carder basically and our best chances to compete are in clubs and game considerations are completely out, additionally weak directing + slight preemption goes for 2C.

Penalty imo according to the principle: "if they bid suits we have bid naturally or suggested by t/o double then our doubles are penalty".

It was the case up to recently but now many more pairs play it as 5-4+, especially non-vul. I would say always 5-5 is still standard and the style I prefer but 5-4+ is quite common.

My very opinionated stance on it is: I am not surprised by short club at all. Better minor doesn't make much sense in my opinion and wasn't ever (well, in modern era) popular at top level. This is European Championship so supposedly most of the field work at least some on their system and getting rid of better minor seems like first step to take. If anything I am surprised that significant part of the field still play it. I am surprised by T-Walsh popularity though. While I think it's major improvement over "raw" standard systems adopting it requires quite a lot of work and system redesign (unless getting rid of bm when you just define 1D as 4+ and get instant improvement in most sequences without doing any work). The answer usually given in Poland is: "yes, multi sucks a bit compared to natural 2M's but 2 suiter openings are too good to give up".I think this is good argument as being able to open 2H/S as this major + a minor is really powerful, although rare. I think many pairs play combination of weak twos and multi (to open junk with multi and constructive 2M) which is surprising to me.

I don't :) I was referring to general principle which I think have some merits but admittedly in much simpler situations (say, in field when most pairs play 15-17nt we get some 9hcp and face a dilemma of bashing a game or inviting it). I accept your and Frances' point about not predicting what the field does as close to impossible task in most cases. You "just" need to know what the field does and feel your decision is a close one to apply the principle not exact %'s. I think you are misusing the word fallacy. It's not a fallacy. It's a sound principle which applies to situations when certain conditions occur. Now it might well be true, especially with many great players stating so, that those conditions barely ever occur in practice but I wouldn't call the whole thing a "fallacy". Btw, I bid 4S, I think hands with 3 spades are too big part of partner's range to risk a double.

My argument was only to show that "no kickback ever" is playable agreement as showed by elite players around the world. My arguments against kickback was that people, even great players, regularly have disasters because of it and if you have one -12 imp disaster because of kickback you will have to play 20 more years or so to make EV for it, not worth it. If you have various bids in various sequences as ace ask with many not fully consistent rules guarding it you better be Meckwell to not screw it up. Imo if you are not full time player having hours a day for working on your system you are hurting yourself by agreements like kickback because gains from it, if any are very small and disaster bound to happen very expensive. As to the OP problem I don't understand how opener is bidding anything here. He is supposedly 18-19 balanced and partner might have 6hcp with 6-4 distribution, say: KQTx JTxxxx xx x or even weakier hand good enough for game opposite 18-19. If opener somehow feels his hand is good enough for forcing a slam here (which might only be because of miscounting points or something) the only reasonable slam might be in hearts as 3NT denied 4 spades. In that case 4NT must be rkcb for hearts as ace asking for spades is pointless in the context.

I am shocked that 3C is winning here. I think it's terrible bid. I much prefer 3D or 2N or even playing "American Standard". Those bids gives you chances for finding 5-3 heart game and guarantee finding it if partner has 6 hearts while after 3C even that will not be enough.

It's not so simple. You need a bid for strong hands but if you mix some weak and strong hands together in say 1S then you will not untangle it without losing on some frequent hands. If it goes: 1C - 1H and you have 12hcp and 4 spades here you need to bid 1S here, if you put some non-spade strong hand there you are in tough spot after very common 2S or 3S rebid. If partner can't bid those with usual hands your in trouble on basic hands. This is why you need bids which are unambiguously strong. Reverses are perfect for the purpose because they are rare as natural bids, you usually play a partial in partner's suit or your long suit if strength of combined hands is not enough for game and if it's enough for game you have enough space to explore.

This is why systems like precision and polish club are much easier and more natural to play without many agreements than "standard". You are completely helpless here without good system. The solution to those problems is "multi-reverse" convention as played by top Italian pairs: It goes like this: 1C - 1H 2D/2S* 1C - 1S 2D/2H* 1D - 1H 2S** 1D - 1S 2H** * if there are two "multireverses" available the higher one promises 3 card support in partner's suit and the other denies it. ** if there is only one "multireverse" it's just any 16+ After multireverse you bid as follows: -relay (cheapiest new suit or 2NT) is any gf, 8+pc after which you bid more or less natural -other bids are natural and weak In your example it would go: 1C - 1H 2S* - 3H** 4H *-16+, any with 3+hearts **-5-7hcp, 5+hearts This is vastly superior way to play comparing to standard or "strong reverse" which is just full of holes and basically unplayable (the only thing which prevents you from instantly losing by playing those is that strong hands come up rarely). Disclaimer: it's a bit simplified version; there are some problems for example what if: 1C - 1H 2S - 3D is better played as GF or weak (Italians play it as GF natural) but those require a lot of partnership work while basic multireverse is quite simple.

Damn, i am really curious about this non-invite style. My intuition really doesn't like it but every time I tried to run some simuls it seemed that invite is always the worst option. Is there any semi-decent card playing bridge program which could be use for simulating this ? Or any open-source semi-decent bridge program ? I could do bidding myself, just need automatic card player. Let's say we have: Ax T9x AJxx xxxx do you think it's just a bash opposite 15-17 1NT ? My intuition strongly tells me I will be collecting a lot of 0's if I start playing this way.

I am using dmpro for all my simuls. I have no idea how dealer scripts even work :)

Next time I am bored I will write first lead table generator from vugraph hands. I did some preparatory work for this today to see what Meckwell leads from KQ short middle hand (it was in fact K every time it occurred in vugraph), reverse engineer Fantunes leads is next :)

I mean, srsly... I think everybody would be better off just getting rid of it. Even Levin-Weinstein screw it up recently and it seems it confuses people to no end. For what it's worth top Italian and Polish pairs don't play kickback in any sequence (I am not sure if there is anybody in Poland who ever played it ;)).

What is interesting is that actually system recommended by Slawinsky is different than the one used by Fantoni-Nunes but it is described as "Slawinsky leads" on their card. I will ask him about it or if he has any idea why they call their system "Slawinsky lead".