bluecalm

I would bid 3D after 2N. If I doubled and heard 4♠ I would pass. I hope we can make it but partner won't like the dummy. I wonder how much you would need to add to this hand to make it a bid after 4♠. I am thinking q♦ is still easy pass. K♦ is closer but still pass. Add K♦ and turn K♣ in to A and we are talking.

On vugraph right now. Lineups: AZS Ruch: Balicki - Zmudzinski Jassem - Pszczola Golebiowski - Starkowski Konsus: Narkiewicz - Buras Martens - Filipowicz Zaremba - Zak You probably recognize some names... Here we have, among other things they won, five players who won the Vanderbilt Cup:); Buras-Narkiewicz haven't won a major yet, but they took 2nd's in Transnational teams and European Team Championship already as well as 3rd in recent European Open Pairs. And it's just a quaterfinal!

I am stupid. I was thinking about 1S - p -1N 2C all the time and all the remarks are to that. OP situation is completely different obviously, sry for confusion.

I was stretching to construct some hand with clubs. You guy convinced me that it's not easy task. I give up :) So yeah, it shouldn't be natural. Maybe lack of club stopper then ? For example if it went: 1H dbl p 1N p 2n p 3H I would expect 3H being hand strong enough for game but without heart stopper. Maybe it should be something similar in OP problem ?

It might be the fact of life for standard systems in NA. I recently spent some time going through Italian pairs bidding and it's not fact of life for them (as all 16+ go into 2C so 2D/2H are limited to 15hcp). I believe they do something similar in comp and I like it a lot. There are two questions: "what is best" and "what is expected in standard". I am expressing my opinion about the first of those questions; seeing how wide range calls cause a lot of trouble for standard bidders (even world class ones) and how it's solved in Italian systems (some Polish pairs do something similar by introducing transfers). If I just agreed standard I would probably double as if 2D is expected to be 12-18 then I won't benefit from limit nature of that call anyway. Oh and I am for sure not passing. With perfect (imo) agreements I would pass with 5-3-3-2 12-14. Bid 2D/2H with 4 of them in 11-15range and double with great 15's an up. Anyway, I still don't know how 2 opponents bidding influence this situation. Maybe shape is the most important here as game is more distant target now. I could easily be convinced that it's a double in such situation.

Maybe I shouldn't use "auto-open" what I mean that many hands in 15-17 range don't open 1NT. I don't like jumping to 3N, two things which are important is to check for 3card support in responder suit and for responder to show support in opener's suit. If you jump to 3N there is no space for that anymore. If it goes: 1S - 2D - 3N you run out of bids because you need: a)some bid to show slammish hands with S support b)some bid for slammish hands with diamonds c)some bid to show D+C two suiter and it would be nice to have cuebids available with spades as trumps too. I am not saying it's huge problem :) I asked if "2/1" implies opening 5M-3-3-2 with 1N because if not then it's not clear to me what 2N in OP is. Then I made general remark about this sequence expressing opinion that bidding 2N with 12-14 is inferior to bidding 2M which you seem to agree with, at least partially. I am not making huge problem out of it I am just saying. It goes against basic bidding principles to first bid NT and then look for stoppers instead doing it the other way around imo.

It's not my intention to fight that. It was genuine question: "does "2/1" implies that we auto-open 1NT with 5M-3-3-2 in range". If it's that clear then isn't it just as obvious that 3S promises (17)18+ range and skipping club cuebid with 30+hcp guaranteed is just a blunder ? I think bidding 2N with 12-14 has disadvantages. With 12-14 you often lack stoppers and lose a chance to check for them (via 3rd suit) or play NT from better side. With 15+ it becomes less of a problem. Putting those hands into 2M is imo better and there is enough space to untangle it. You could also put strong one suited hands there too (because jumping to 3M with them makes subsequent auction one big guess) and still be able to untangle it.

I am not convinced that it should be natural but: this is not fair. If responder has KQx Qxx xx T98xxx or something like that he is not thrilled to pass 1C, because partner is quite likely to have strong hand with club shortness (and possible long suit on the side too) and playing in 1C is a disaster in such case. Once partner bid 2N things change considerably though as now the worst thing which can happen is 4-4-4-1 in partner's hand, usually we flop 2+clubs though. One other meaning which makes sense to me is a hand lacking club stopper with extras, something like: KQx KQx T9xx xxx maybe.

Yep, split range is playable too but that requires that you auto open every 5M-3-3-2 in range with 1N. While it might be standard in some parts of the world I am not sure if it's implied by "2/1" system. If you use judgement when choosing an opening with 5M-3-3-2 in 1NT range then you need to know what to do in: 1S - 2X ? I mean, just because we are forced to game it's not a reason we can randomly bid something and hope to sort range later. We need to know what to do with 12-14 balanced, 15-17 balanced and 18+balanced or however else we split our range here. So, before we answer OP we need to know what kind of hand opener described by his 2N call. Btw imo by far the best agreement is that 2N is 15+ and 12-14hands go into 2 of opener major (that is for people who don't auto open 1N with 5M-3-3-2).

What I meant is that if I were o play with someone in those in the future I would like to play some bridge with them before we jump into JEC match. Anyway, with 2 matches now.. I am sure you will need a pair in the future somewhere :)

I really have no idea :) My wild guess would be weakish 6 clubs which didn't want to pass 1C but now when partner showd balanced hand it started to look better to play there. At the table I am almost surely not passing, too much chance partner is on different wavelength. On different note: 1N - 2C 2D - 2N (invite) 3C/3D = ? :-) Or: 1N - 2N (nat invite) 3C/3D = ?

I really want to play in them ! I am ready with regular pd, with someone from BBF we would need to train for a while :)

So the play for best expected tricks taken is the most "natural" (J, and then T) but the best play to guarantee 2 tricks is small to the ten and then jack. Interesting, I wouldn't have thought of that.

Not many people play TWalsh here, but many play transfers after double so my guess would be spades as it's difficult to imagine for me someone playing the other way around (transfers without dbl but natural after dbl).

I hope 2NT promised extras ? It seems unplayable if it's 12-21. Now I think if 2NT promised extras then I wouldn't split hairs and just bid 3NT with minimum's (as we have 26-27+hcp guaranteed) so 3S should be a cue bid. Regardless of what 3S is though why responder didn't bid 4C is mystery to me. If we still need some mechanism to find out about hcp ranges then 4D bid during cuebids by either player could show minimum (similar to non-serious 3NT) but you don't skip cuebids when doing this so: 1H - 2D 2N - 3D 3S - ??? -4C = cuebid, nothing about strength -4D = minimum, no club cuebid -4H = heart cuebid, no club cuebid, max After 4C opener bids 4D with min and cuebids with max and there we go. Now if we are into system design of course it sucks to go beyond 3NT on minimum hands so after 3D one of 3S/3H calls could be used as minimum after which responder bids 3NT if he has no further slam interest.

Thanks for that reply. I did consider that ducking might be best but I quickly assumed it was reasonable because of vague "but it might be a throw-in somewhere in the future if you duck with Kxx there". I posted this hand because my partner (and me) were convinced we were just "killed" (set up?) by aggressive game punt. Anyway, I don't think so anymore :)

Oh, I forgot that 2NT could be forcing. I think we shall show shortness or 5-4's though in that case (depending on agreements) and as we have balanced hand in minimum range I would bid 3NT anyway.

Lol, this is a good one !

I like a style of invites where all 13's are auto 3nt's so I bid it. This is quite nice 13 so it should be 3nt opposite more aggro invites anyway.

We can still try to observe which style is dominant in top level competition as it's likely it's dominant for a reason and not because of fashion or manliness of players involved etc. As someone who is keen observer of high level bridge and who did a lot of work on various style differencies between say top American and Italian players I can tell you that you will struggle to find anybody ever passing such hand in top level competition. Aggressive or more solid - they all open it.

HighLow21, take a break mate :) I am often posting when on lift-tilt and after recovering from it I can see how ridiculous those posts look, especially when I am in aggro mode and looking to insult anybody who might get something wrong ;) People forget fast, just don't give them even more reasons to remember, because if you overdo it they will oblige... Oh, and btw, you are dead wrong about opening this 12hcp in 1st position. My offer is to stop posting till you come to terms with that :)

I am asking because I saw every possible agreement recommended in various sources yet I've never discussed it with anybody, always played the lowest/2nd (which seemed clear) with my partners doing the same and I've never encountered problems. I don't play much bridge though :)

I voted double but I changed my mind. I think double should be stronger. Partner is in 5-11 range and if we hope to ever bid reasonable games here he needs to make forward moving action with (8)9-11 opposite our double. Maybe we could just assume that if both of them are bidding those considerations are less important, I dunno. It seems clear to me that: 1S - p - 1N 2C dbl should promise stronger hand though. I am not convinced that it changes here but it well might be so if partner is on the same wave-length.

Does it ever matter ? I mean do the hands when it's important to have agreement come up ? Or do hands where it's important to have good agreement come up ?

It seems impossible to plan whole play now. I first play J♣ and see what develops. I either need club tricks or somehow 4 diamonds anyway, so it can't hurt. Probably I will play another club once in dummy and if that holds I can check clubs and plan depending on the break.