bluecalm

I don't know why everybody is saying this. That may be good rule of thumb for beginners but for serious partnership it couldn't possibly be that lower ranked suit is always more difficult to give signal in. There should always be rules about which suit is important and to which suit signal is always true and to which could be "I don't want to signal anything partner". I am not saying Nunes didn't get that hand because of spade spot. I am wondering what spade spot should show. Should be suit preference for hearts ? (I am ruffing, not ruffing), should be suipt preference for diamonds (I have A/K♦ or I don't have it) or should it be something else. Maybe the hand is perfectly solvable without any signals after that bidding. That's another story. No point in doing so if spades are KQJxxx and hearts A7xxx. I mean, maybe there is a point but many players (the "bashers") wouldn't bother. If you don't believe in 6-5 in majors in declarer hand think about the problem asssuming we have one more heart. Do we play for heart ruff now or for diamond ruff and how partner's signal in trump is going to help us with that (it's safe to assume he has 2 spades, as he would lead from xx in hearts holding stiff trump supposedly, especially having safe club lead on the side (we know he has xx(+)).

:) Thanks. Corrected now.

Olympiad 2004. [hv=pc=n&s=sat5hq83dk5ckj982&e=s72hkj92dq82caqt7&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1dp1sp1np4sppp]266|200[/hv] 1 trick: T♥, J♥, Q♥, A♥ 2 trick: J♠, 4♠, 2♠, A♠ Assuming you play natural s/p in trumps what does partner's signal shows ? What does partner's trump signal shows in your favorite methods ? What do you play ?

I entirely agree with you. While I think 3NT as strong M opening sucks playing 4♣/4♦ is possibly the worst agreement in bidding history which can only be saved by small frequency of those bids arising.

That is very weak argument for forcing 1NT. Main reason to play it to not miss 5-3, 6-3, 6-2 or 7-1/7-2 fits not only that 5-2 might be better than 1NT. As to your point about 4-2-2-5 and 4-1-4-4, yeah that makes sense. Unfortunately calculations takes a lot of time if I want to calculate exact amount of tricks and to answer this question I would have to do at least 3 or 4 of them. Just before I decide to devote more time to this question, do you believe playing 2♠ over 1NT on those (ie the ones which would pass natural 1NT) is a winner at MP's or do you think it's more or less a wash ?

So why partner didn't bid 3NT a round before if he wants to play 3NT now ? If he is too strong, why didn't he bid 4NT ?

It also allows them to bid freely 4♣/4♦/4♥ and have 2 meaning for the double (direct and delayed). Imo this convention sucks.

Looks like rkcb. I am responding according to the state of the matter that I hold 3 keycards.

In Delmonte - Bakhshi sequence: 1♠ 2♦ 4♦ 5NT 6♣ 7♦ (4d was keycard) I guess 5NT shows even number of keycard and a void. Then Delmonte wanted to ask about Qd but partner though it's about kings or grand invite. That's my guess about their sequence. In Levin-Weinstein sequence I am very curious what went wrong but I suppose they didn't discuss kickback enough (another argument that kickback is not worth it at all, they will have to play 50 more years to make up this misunderstanding by applying kickback).

Btw, to original question: 1♣ 2♦ 2♠ 2NT 3♦ 4♣ 4NT - w/e 6 or 7D depending on how many aces we have. In Berkowitz/Manley precision you have to bid 2♠ after 2♦ because we are still no in SI+ zone so we can't afford losing spade suit. After that it's natural and N can count 13 tricks if aces are not missing. This is very simple hand. I suspect the players were tired and mindslipped somewhere in their system.

We thought the hand is too strong for that but 3♦ looks perfectly reasonable to me now, still I would prefer dbl as 3♦ could be purely competitive with 5 diamonds.

I remember doing some simuls/analysis on gambling 3NT and my conclusion was that it's worth it especially at imps. It may not be frequent but I can't see any improvements and gambling actually gains points when it comes up.

Small club looks normal. A♦ look like it rarely hurts. Small ♦ looks fancy and may work but I think it doesn't work often enough. I don't want to lead a trump because I am more than happy about declarer trying to establish spades by ruffing (which partner will over ruff).

Would you also miss this game if they don't double ? I think this 6-4 hand is worth 3♠ easily (or w/e gadget you have in your system to show such hands, 2H allowing you to stop in 2S would come in handy). I don't like this treatment because I think being able to bid natural 1NT is important. If you play wide range openers (11-22) I think playing rdbl as strong is better than support showing though.

If this is for strong club system, do you want to open 15-16 count balanced hands with 5M-3-3-2 with 1M ? Because if you open those 1NT then I really can't see what there is to gain from this treatment. I see a lot of losses though: a)not being able to play in 1NT is bad. With 4-2-4-3 I really don't want to go anywhere else, especially if the hand is nt'ish b)being forced to raise with 3 spades (4-2-(4-3)) is just bad in my opinion as 1NT is the better contract most of the time. c)4-1-4-4 hands are going to play 2m on 7trumps instead of 1NT (disaster at MP's) d)6m-4M hands below GF are now playing in 2♠ instead of 2m opposite 3spades which I don't like. At imps I also prefer to be able to play 2m with 4M-5m. Quick simul shows that 1NT makes 52% of the time and 2♠ 37% of the time with 3-5-(2-3) 11-14hcp opposite 4-2-(4-3) 7-10hcp. So we are losing about an imp every time this comes up. At MP we are throwing away tons of points. Also this. If 2NT is asking then we are going to play 3S on 7 trumps 4-3 which is even worse than this 1NT vs 2S. If it's natural invitational with 4trumps then slam/game bidding will suffer.

This hand caused some disagreement between me and my friends. I want to double, they want to bid 4♦. I say that partner will never pass the double with something like 3-5-4-1, they say he often will thus I can't double.

[hv=pc=n&s=sjth64dkqt42ckqj2&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1h1sdp2d2s]133|200[/hv] I disagree with my friends here. Imps, what now ?

Many people (me included) play that passing rdbl is for business if opener is in minor suit. I wouldn't risk passing if we hadn't discussed it for sure. That is especially true if rdbl shows hearts. No reason why I shouldn't pass with diamonds. It could be one of those deals where we just cash 4 hearts and A♠. Maybe it's fancy but I lead A♥. I don't believe we run clubs so partner will need an entry which is probably in hearts anyway.

Yeah, those books are amazing. Not an easy read but amazing problems and amazing insights form the guy who actually is quite good at this game.

Should be easy in popular version of precision where 1H is 8-11 any hand. After 1♣ - 2♦ (natural, 12+) N has basically slam force and can bypass spades and bid 3♦. S will bid 3♥ as cuebid/values and then follows RKCB and 6 or 7♦ depending no how many of A♥, AKQ♦ S possess. I am pretty sure Cheek-Grue would be avoid this grand easily if they played NS on this hand.

Ok, I didn't express myself well. What I wanted to say about kickback in Europe is this: top European players don't play it. I have no doubt someone somewhere plays it. Lauria - Versace, Fantoni Nunes, Duboin - Sementa, Helgemo - Helness, Balicki Zmudzinski and I think top Netherland and French pairs (not sure about it) don't play it. In fact Fantoni Nunes don't even play blackwood and they are outbidding almost everybody in the world. Spending time and memory on pages of notes where something is and isn't kickback which takes away calls which are useful for cuebids and splinters is exercise in futility in my opinion. Really ? If partner bids 4♣ in first sequence and you bid 4♥ how is he supposed to know if you wanted to play there in the first place or if you just lack ♠ cuebid ? Lol ! You really think that ace asking bid is more useful here than for example splinter ?

[hv=pc=n&n=s964hkqj4da8632c8&e=skj732hat2d5ca953&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=pp1s1np3nppp]266|200[/hv] Partner thoughfully led 4♣ (2/4), you play A♣, declarer plays a 7. Which card do you return ? Why ? Any good rules for this kind of situation ? (where "standard" small return could be disastrous as it's easy for partner to put declarer on five clubs).

Difficult to comment for me as the structure is not exactly my cup of tea (default raise with 3♠). I have no experience with tha style, so no idea about effectivness. I really want to ask what kind of editor/software you use to put so nice PDF though :)

Looks like easy pass. I wonder what are the alternatives. If expert MP players are choosing something that would be kind of revelation to me.

Lambda in first version (from Lukasz Slawinski) was quite natural. Openers were: pass = 13+ 1D = 0-7 All other bids are 8-12pc 1C = even hand or some 7carders (can't remember exactly) 1H = split suits (SD or HC) 1S = red or black suits 1N = majors or minors (all those bids are in principle 5-4 but could be 4-4 if suits are strong) 2C/D/H/S = natural, 5+ one suited True there was a relay (always next bid) but replies to it were natural (you show your 5card suit or bid 2NT with 5-5 and clarify your distribution naturally after another relay, 2nd relay is game forcing). All other bids which aren't relays are made by "guessing principle" you bid either your suit naturally or hoping to guess partner's suit. Partner is guessing what you mean (if you bid his long suit he assumes you bid to his suit, if you bid his short suit partner assumes your suit is natural). After PASS you can still play lambda but now 13+hands are in 1C. All you need to make it complete ready to go system is "dynamic 1NT" which you use after 1D opener. It could be any very strong hand. After that you need some follow ups. If you don't bid 2nd relay but your suit naturally it's f1 and subsequent bidding is natural. This description is basically enough to play whole system. It's not completely natural as it contains relays but replies to those are natural and system "feels" very natural and easy to play.