bluecalm

You see, you assume the opponents are weak in about every part of your post: They both more or less know what the other one have. They went to game anyway. And his partner saw that, still he went to game. They voluntarily went to vulnerable game having a lot of bidding rounds to investigate, you have no surprises for them and you are assuming they are often down two. So what do you think N is bidding 3D on ? 2D wasn't forcing nor even encouraging. You have 8pc, your partner has at least 11-12 for his overcall. The opener clearly has a good hand for all his action that leaves very little for N... still he bid 3D. I think his bid was very aggressive and it's surprising how little shape he actually had. Again, you are treating them like morons. You are adding points and seeing they have about 20 (in the best case) so they clearly overstretched. The idea that they are fully aware of their assets having all the bidding space in the world available and still going to game doesn't convince you. That again means that your intuition is shaped by playing against very weak opponents.

I would call this kind of double "two way double". As far as Polish goes I would be shocked if it's penalty for anyone in Poland and people do play a lot of penalty doubles here! Also penalty is terrible here. You rarely have a trump stack worth doubling with having long hearts on your left. On the other hand it may happen partner has one and is happy to sit once you show some points. Why is #2 a bad idea ? You have AJxx x KQxx xxxx or something. Not doubling is huge blunder.

But publishing the ratings even if 100% objective would be bad for the game imo even without cheating considerations. It's nice that people think they are good, they continue playing and have fun. I don't see any benefits from objective rating in current state of internet (and live) bridge. You want to prove you are good ? Win something. Want to have good partners ? Go convince them you are good (player and partner) and/or win something. That's it. I don't want to debate how good jec is but the odds are heavily stacked in his favor: he plays with the biggest stars of the game on regular basis and his team is about always stonger than the opponents. It's the same for many other players. In bridge only partnerships score points so any kind of rating is going to discourage playing with weaker players in both teams and partnerships. This is reason enough to not go in this direction.

No trump stack and they bid game voluntarily. Your double might be good vs very weak players it's awful at decent level. You have your share of points after constructive overcall from partner. That suggest they have a lot of distribution and you are not scoring your kings too often. Tbh you are lucky there were no overtricks as N was minimum for 3D and had the flattest distribution possible. Additionally you score +3 if you are successful and minus 4, 8 or more if not. I think doubling is a blunder.

Your frustration is understandable but even in the real world it's hard to say who is good and who isn't. There are some big names who aren't really good at bridge and some unknown players who can win one of the major bridge tournaments in the world first time they go there. I play with/against both kind on BBO on regular basis. Objective rating is not going to happen neither on the internet nor real life. That's how the game is. You have to learn to deal with it and seek friends/partners with similar views on your level of play :)

but then you say: That's what I expect in this auction and that's what about everybody I know would expect. Partner won't pass without heavy 4 spades and even then they will be reluctant. So you are making the double expecting partner to pass often and you are calling it "cards" or "action". I am making it expecting partner to pull without KJTx of spades or something similar and I am calling it takeout for that reason. After all it's not semantics. It's different approach. While this hand may not be a double something like xx KJx Qxx KJTxx certainly would be and I would rather not have partner passing it frequently unless I am feeling like donating -470. I find your approach good against very bad players but it won't fly against decent ones. While I am convinced your approach to doubling here is a bad strategy we can both agree it's not semantics. It's different way of playing. Yours is "cards". Mine is t/o to spades. I am not doubling with KJx xxx Qxx KJxxx for example if I am ever dealt that hand in this position.

This depends on your agreements and I think you will find a lot of different answers depending who you ask. I like the rule that if we pass and double in trapping pas situation it means we have a trapping pass to the first suit (clubs) and t/o to 2nd (spades). This may seem artificial but putting it in different words: it's a t/o double but only having club values justifies it (as otherwise you would've bid something round before).

By "lose a slam try" I meant that if you are not sure you bid something and go along. If you are not sure playing standard methods you are basically screwed as you really need to know if your weak hand doubles now or passes say in infamous: 3C - 3S - 5C - ? which many people play as FP situation when we are vuln and they are not. Playing the inversion if you are not sure if it's FP situation you are way more comfortable because double always means the same thing. Even world players often have misunderstanding if it's FP situation or not. It's the best to have clear rules about where P is forcing but people don't and/or exceptions arise. If you allow for possibility tha sometimes situation you didn't discuss arises and it's not 100% clear if he pass is forcing then standard agreements are very risky while inversion isn't. I gave arguments why it's worse theoretically and there is no argument against it so far other that sometimes you find it useful having a slam try that partner bids something (and didn't preempt your slam try in the process). I also gave arguments why it's more risky if are not 100% sure that every FP situation is discussed. Also there are a lot of low level situation where even the biggest followers of "FP is forcing dbl is for penalty" change agreements because there it's just way worse to play dbl = penalty, for example: 1H - dbl - rdbl - 2S Here pass as forcing is just inferior agreement as you really want partner having t/o double as his hand is about always balanced and he will be struggling for a bid once it's passed to him.

In my view it never happens and is actually a problem because partner's bid often preempt our slam try (if it's higher suit) or makes it impossible for him to make sensible decision in the first place (because he doesn't know what our pass means he just knows it's some good hand but doesn't know which). You are aiming at very specific situation where partner bids not knowing which kind of encouraging hand you have and that this somehow helps you when you have a slam try. While it is possible for that to happen you are missing on much bigger target: partner not knowing what our pass means is unable to compete sensibly on hands he wants to compete. The question is what is natural and what isn't. I've never understood why say: 1H - p - 1S - 3C dbl is for takeout but: 1S -p - 2H - 3C dbl becomes penalty etc. Here is simple natural rule: "If we didn't set trumps double is for takeout". Meanwhile: "double is for penalty when pass if forcing but t/o otherwise unless we established a fit then it's penalty as well, oh and also, do you play 3C 3S 5C p as forcing partner (because meaning of the double depends on it)?" requires a lot of agreements and adjusting. I would say that if anything "classical" agreements are source of misunderstandings. Playing my simple rule you can manage even if you don't know if pass if forcing (worst case scenario is that you lose a slam try).

Could you think of any example when classical approach has an advantage ? I gave some for inversion. I have trouble imagining example for opposite approach. You often need a two suiter instead of a slam try. That is especially in strong club but also after 2C opening those might more useful than slam tries especially at 4 level.

Thanks for the clarification, that version makes lot of sense to me.

I don't know what Jacoby is in the context. If you mean transfer after 1N then no, because you only end up in 2N with 5-2 trumps and invitational hand (so 23-24pc) If you mean 1M - 2N then no because this is forcing to game while 1m - 1M - 2N is not forcing in standard bidding regardless if you play T-Walsh, Walsh or just natural. Responder doesn't know if opener has 2 or 4 cards in M and with something like Kxx JTxxx Jxx xx is stuck.

Yup, doubling with those hands while passing the rest is still better.

T-Walsh isn't very popular in my country but people I know who play it play accepting as NF. Bocchi-Duboin played it as NF as well (although containing some hands up to 16-17hcp). I find the idea of accepting being forcing theoretically unsound. Aren't you afraid to end up in 2N when holding 8-9card major fit when partner is too weak to bid after 2N ? I didn't have any experience with T-Walsh but it seems to me handling 18-19bal opposite near busts is one of its biggest gains over standard.

1) 1C opener: x AKJxx xx AKJxx 1H bidder: AQxxxx xxxx x Qx 1C* - p - 1H** - 4D *-strong **-spades 1C bidder wants to show a two suiter here. Playing the inversion it's an easy pass, and then 4H. Playing standard partner doesn't know if pass encourages to compete in 4S or is some other hand and is stuck. 2) Standard bidding we are vulnerable they are not: 1D - p - 1S - 5C ? x Kxx AKJxxxx Ax nice slam invite in diamonds, we pass and...: a)ATxxxxx Ax xxx x b)ATxxxxx AQx x xx Partner will be extatic to compete with both hands... in spades. What is the problem you may ask, he doubles as he is not sure what we have and we bid our 5D... yes but what if we are dealt: KQxx Kx AQxxxx x and want to encourage him to push to 5S ? He doesn't know which one we have... playing the inversion the problem disappears. 3) 2C* - p - 2S - 5D ? You can imagine the rest... opener may have H/C two suiter or hand encouraging to bid 5S. Responder doesn't know which and can't act sensibly. It's rarer in standard system as most FPs occur after 2/1 where responder suit is lower than opener's and it may somehow work out. Still, do you see any advantage of traditional style ? Advantages of inversion are clear and big even if rarely occuring.

That's the reason double = encouraging is slightly superior. You can have a lot of good hands, for example slam invites with strong suit or encouraging with fit/Hx in partner's suit. It would be nice to know which one you have before bidding anything. If you are using pass/dbl "inversion" you know instantly that dbl is encouraging with support for partner's suit while pass being either penalty or some slam invite is easier to handle. Again, it's more important if it goes: 1C* - p - 1H** - 4D *-strong **-spades As opener can have literally anything and having "pass = encouraging or slam invite" here would be very difficult to handle. Also you may want to use pass->bid to show two suiters in which case having them mixed with encouraging hand with support in partner's suit would be disastrous. In standard auctions it's not that important although it still feels more elegant and better to me.

Bid the same thing you would after 1C - 1H in standard

I don't think it's FP situation. That being said I double as I have a lot of defense and don't want partner to bid 5H.

My preference is to play dbl as penalty if we already have trumps set (as in 1H - p - 2N - 5C) example and play double as takeout/encouraging if we don't. This is according to general principle: we didn't establish a trump suit then double is for take out. It has slight theoretical advantage over penalty double as well although that point is minor and probably not worth worrying about in context of standard system (it's way more important in strong club context where opener has wider variety of hands). In Poland everybody plays double as penalty any time we are in FP situation which is silly but that's how things are.

I agree with game swing argument to some extent. It's very unlikely. Although in many sequences serious/non-serious is needed to say which range we are. For example in very vanilla 2/1: 1S - 2C 2S - 3S 3N/cuebid is needed here to say if we are 12-14 or 15+ as bidding 4S every time we have 12-14 would be awful. Here if we have to cuebid with 12-14 range we are leaking valuable information. I agree that it's no going to happen often and it's less important at IMPs. Still overtrick is an IMP :) I don't agree with club control thing as it seems to me that while we are getting club control information we are often not getting a diamond one, also it's becoming standard to play that: 3S - 3N (non serious) 4D - 4H = club cue-bid So we are only losing information if we have a club cuebid and want to know if partner has it as well. On the other hand: 3S - 3N (serious) 4C - We are not geting information about D control here (as 3N bidder). Granted it's more likely that partner doesn't have both of them when we are serious but it seems like extremely minor point to me.

Why would 3N be serious ? It should be non-serious as you don't want to exchange information when you don't need it, so cue-bid = serious, 3nt = non-serious is just way better agreement. As an added bonus you are bound to have a cuebid when you are serious and not necessarily so when you are non-serious. Do people really play inverted non-serious 3NT somewhere ? :)

Why would 3N be serious ? It should be non-serious as you don't want to exchange information when you don't need it, so cue-bid = serious, 3nt = non-serious is just way better agreement.

Double and imo it's not close. Obviously we pass if partner bids 4S (and yes he will bid that any time he has 4 spades). I don't understand those comments about 7th club or what not.

1)There is 3N available 2)There is 5H available I don't like faking cuebids. If I can't bid 3N I would bid 5H.

Right, I misread the auction somehow. It doesn't matter much for our decision though I think. I think they are probably leading a club and ruffing a diamond. Partner won't do anything about it and we need to be very confident they are setting 6S to risk down 5 in 6N. I can't imagine being that confident but maybe there exists people who are so disciplined and good that I should be against them :)