bluecalm

My opinion is that after 1m opening pass should be penalty. After 1M I prefer pass being no attractive bid. I would especially like to play that in lands of better minor and precision when often 1D redoubled is our best spot.

It seems the hand would be more interesting at imps :)

I loved it, especially writing style of the author and "being lucky is an art" quote at the end :)

I am quite surprised by this. Do you all still double if it was red all ? What about red vs green ? I thought it's close as partner rarely has KJxxx/Kxxxxx (could have doubled) and usually we are providing them with free information as they are on their way to 3N/4S.

[hv=pc=n&s=s2haq2dkj92ckj732&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=1np2hp2s]133|200[/hv] Do we double here ? How close is it ? I doubled, it didn't matter but I still wonder.

Yeah I mean when I had novice like problem I posted in novice forum (where I got friendly help from awm btw) :) I think that post might be an attempt to most unanimous poll ever. I double.

I finessed spades and was unhappy to lose a trick to Jx - Txx. I couldn't imagine anybody leads that way from that holding after this sequence. I guess I have a long way to go in understanding how people play :) What is worse, +490 was almost top and +460 was cold bottom (480 was the most frequent score).

Where I live people think that 2N as forcing raise isn't very good use for the bid. Before you criticize this style take into account that many elite pairs playing 5cM are of similar opinion. You can see that we are much better off afte 2C here. We could have belong in clubs if partner was 1-5-3-4 we could have belong in 3NT if he was 3-5-4-1. We have learnt about the shape and now the question is how to find our range. I like this. Seems natural according to principle: old suit = weakness, new information/suit = strength We may want to play in clubs I guess, we have shorter fragment and shortness there could be just more tricks in clubs than in hearts (for example if we have 5 top clubs, 4 hearts (without A), Aof spades and A of diamonds we have 12 tricks in clubs and 11 tricks in hearts). Well, responder is in 12-21 (or at least in 12-17) here, I am not sure if nice 13 qualifies as serious try. I like the idea. I would prefer to play: 1H - 2C 2D - 2H 2S = any minimum though (and then maybe serious/non serious along the way after learning about shape) because it allows us to just bid game after weak response without inquiring about shape and giving free info. Unfortunately the hand was played in pick-up partnership and we didn't have much of a system for the occasion.

So you are losing natural 2H overcall I suppose ? This is one of the biggest flaw of multi, it gives you a chance to overcall 2H on hands where other people would open 2S taking that option away. Imo giving up natural way to exploit it is not the way to go. Also pass with t/o to hearts has some advantages, you often get them if it goes: 2D - pass - 2H pass 2S - dbl = penalty

It's obvious to anyone who ever played multi that it's inferior to weak twos. The point is to free 2M openings for other uses though. I think 2M as 5-5 this major and a minor are very good openings although a bit rare. 2H as hearts and other is imo worse, you lose spades too often in hands which belongs to you. This is defense is standard in Poland against both multi and Wilkosz for beginners, experts and pros: -pass = either normal or t/o to hearts -double = t/o to spades -other = natural This is simple, effective and imo better than all fancy stuff people come up with. It also survived the test of time in a country where almost everybody play either multi or Wilkosz (and Wilkosz is still non-alertable use for 2D as it's considered standard, especially by older generation of players). Besides merits of both conventions mini-multi tends to be played by better players than multivariant multi. Meckwell played mini-multi, Balicki-Zmudzinski and other Polish pairs play mini-multi and they probably make up for imps donated by weakier pairs playing multi variant multi. As an offtopic I will add that this is pathetic that ACBL forbids multi and that very good players sometimes speak in defense of that policy because supposedly multi is hard to defense. As mentioned before most middle aged and older people here play Wilkosz, people defend it against all the time and nobody complains. Same goes for multi, it's not hard to defend against, it's easy. You are be better off if opponents play multi than you would be if they played weak-twos on those hands applying very simple natural defense and just using your brain. It's just matter of being used to thinking and accepting that some openings introduce some variance to results.

[hv=pc=n&s=skq742hjtdk2cak72&n=sa93hkq2daq543c43&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1np3nppp]266|200[/hv] It's matchpoints. Opponents are not very serious but decent pair. First lead: J♠, RHO plays an 8 to this trick (UDCA). We test hearts and RHO takes the 1st one and plays 6 of clubs which we take with the A, LHO following with the 5. So now it's our turn to play spades, finesse or on top ?

3C alreaady promised spade shortness (5hearts, 4diamonds, 3+clubs), so 3S would be void.

Opener's hands: a)x AQxxx AJxx xxx b)x AQxxx AKxx xxx Responder's hand: xxx KJx Qxx AKQx We play 2/1. How do we stop in 4H opposite hand a) and reach 6H opposite hand b). The problem as I see it is that without nice system you end up in: 1H - 2C 2D - 2H 3C - 3H ??? and if you cuebid here with both hands responder still doesn't know which one of the hands you have and has no space to for invites anymore. Also you have very wide range here so I am not sure if any kind of sersious-nonserious solves that problem (as both hands would be rather non serious). In actual hand we cue-bid but still two hands were possible so I just gambled 6H (either it's very good (or on top) or it's on the finesse). Ideas ?

Btw, why bid 3D with that ? Just bid 2D and wait for developments, you have good hand opposite most of his possible hands and there is no reason to think you belong in diamonds opposite unbal hand (opposite bal you wil have transfers or what not anyway) but 3D makes subsequent bidding very difficult.

I know this is not very helpful but imo if you play stuff like kicback or minorwood you need detailed exhaustive agreements about when they apply. I can't imagine anybody but full time pros playing those without inflicting major damage to themselves and even then it's unclear if those are good conventions (I believe there isn't one elite pair outside NA who play kickback or minorwood but even if there is it's very uncommon). Now to the topic: I assign some % to likelyhood of my partner partner having every variant (according to my best guess) and try to make decision which maximizes our payoff opposite such described range with the assumption that partner will stick to w/e intention he had while making his first problem bid.

I think you always have to double with 4 in OM. Maybe some exceptions could be made with spades on some specific auctions but that would require a lot of work. Usually if it goes: 1C - 1S - ? and you hold some 5m-4H hand you need to double now regardless of strength as preempt will make your position very uncomfortable after natural 2m bid. From that follows that double contains weak hand with 4M-6+minor. Unless you are content with passing those which I am not the cheap bid in a minor should show such hand. Now in auctions when our choices are either to leave partner in his suit or bid it might be debatable but in auctions where our choice is to leave them playing their contract or bid it's 100% non-forcing. For example: 1m - 1S - d - 2S p - p - 3om = competitive, probably 6om-4H and weak hand. Sadly my experience here is 0 as everybody in Poland (and I mean everybody...) play direct 2H as negative free bid so this sequence shows 11+ and is one round force. That obviously doesn't apply to standard but I guess standard players don't pass with say xxx KQTxx Kx xx so this sequence should show this hand.

It does that. You just have to choose exact contract instead of amount of tricks to take in given suit/NT before calcs are done. Then when you browse the hands it doesn't highlights any leads on hands when contract makes and highlights winning leads on hands when contract doesn't make.

One problem hand is game forcing with heart support. If it goes: 1H - 1S 2C - 2D 2H - you need some forcing bid here and nothing is comfortable. This is why Lauria-Versace play: 1H - 1S 2C - 3H as GF with ♥ support making: 1H - 1S 2C - 2D 2H - 3H an invite ( I guess).

Imo X and 3D is non-forcing. I don't know about standard though. I would pass 3D and feel comfortable about it. I just noticed it's beginner forum so I guess my answer isn't very helpful. I guess you gotta learn what standard is in area you play by asking local good players. Both agreements make some sense I guess. I strongly prefer 3D being either weak or invite though I think playing it as GF is pretty weak, I mean we could have bid 3N/3H with forcing hands... With actual S hand he could have passed 3clubs comfortably but with something along the lines of 4-2-6-1 it wouldn't be appealing option though.

I don't see anything besides playing T of clubs and hoping he misguesses it. We already have 3 tricks with A♥ coming so there is not much reason for him to play clubs on top I think.

2d should be 4 if we play something reasonable (:P) but I still bid 2h, if I have game it's probably in hearts and heart partial might well be the best too. I am not very convinced by my intuition here though, would need some research to be sure. 3D is my 2nd choice and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the best call after all.

Matchpoints [hv=pc=n&w=sak2h74da953cj987&n=st964h632dq72ck63&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=1cp1d1nppp]266|200[/hv] We played polish club on the occasion. 1♦ is 0-6any or 7-11 minor(s) with the latter being unlikely in lights of the final pass. I led 9♣ and it went: 9♣, 3♣, Q♣, A♣ Q♠, 2♠, 4♠, 8♠ J♠, K♠, 6♠, 7♠ Now, we didn't have detailed agreements but 8♠ is probably smith echo (don't have T♣) and 7♠ has suit preference implications (UDCA but natural suit preference). 1N wasn't alerted but opponents are pick-up partnership and it's not uncommon for Polish people to play quite heavy NT's in this situations so as he usually is 15-17 he might well be 18 or even 19. So, what do we play now ? Feel free to comment on signalling if you have some good agreements to offer for the situation. I am mainly interested in thought process here so any insight is appreciated.

This is inferior to: direct double = straight penalty reopening double = 1 trick The reason is that double them more often when you want to (ie. have 2 tricks in direct seat) Anyway, even in that improved version I hate this convention and I think it only causes disasters.

This is quite a good contract :-) Would be close to laydown if S had J of clubs instead of J of spades but bidding would be the same. I agree that N actions look aggressive to say the least though.

2N is only good if it's conventional and game forcing (which is popular style where I live among people who don't play classic polish club) otherwise it's very bad bid, if 2NT is not forcing it's just a judgement blunder. Passin 3N is another blunder. Once you have hidden your 4 trump support and luck out to not play in 2N you should correct it and go to 4S. As to 3N I think it's reasonable. I probably wouldn't looks for 5-3 spade fit either with that hand opposite 18-19 balanced with 3+ diamonds. Also, S is clearly weak player. If he posted in other forum he would get more understanding and less sneaky remarks ;)