bluecalm

Link ? :)

Yeah, that was the case. Declarer had Jx of diamonds. Unfortunately I wasn't up to the task of returning diamond and didn't give my partner a chance to show off his alertness ;)

Because you play crappy system and there is risk partner will jump around after "positive" response. It's not my preferred way of playing but still it was the system in the hand. As to the second question, I don't know :-) He is current world champion so I guess he has his reasons ;0 I like this analysis and you get very far in uncovering what is going on and why ♣ play may be disastrous. Still there more to this hand than just "return passively" :) This is spot on and your analysis uncovers exact declarer hand (3-5-2-3, AJx clubs). Only diamond return beats it at this point. I am quite impressed :) There is no chance what so over I would come up with this during play even if I stopped to think (probably I wouldn't play C then but still wouldn't come close to seeing the squeeze). How good do you think defender needs to be to find this play in real time ? Expert ? World class ? Elite ?

Fine. I guess it's matter of preference. I will just notice that even in Lambda defence (when you pass any hand 16+hcp initially), the double on 6th seat: 1C pass 1D pass 1H dbl is either t/o to hearts or 16+any hand; with t/o to spades (ie. 2-4-3-4 etc.) and 12-15hcp you just pass again so the problems appears to be: I don't agree that you have to bid but certainly see how passing could yield suboptimal results :) My opinion is much weaker here than on the first point. I prefer all natural, no cuebid and drury from partner side. I may be easily convinced one way or the other though. Those agreements just seems natural but probably that's because people play that way in Poland and I am used to them.

Nevermind, I miscounted points :) I bid 4H now and then double.

[hv=pc=n&w=sajt7hjt2dk73ct75&n=sq982h86d642ck842&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1dpp1hp2hp4hppp]266|200[/hv] 1♦ promies 5 (unless 4-4-4-1, or 5C-4D); Lead: 4♥ (2/4, UDCA): trick 1: 4♥ 2♥ 6♥ A♥ trick 2: 3♠ 4♠ T♠ Q♠ Your move. I think it's difficult :) (I played it online today and completely butchered btw)

One of my partners likes playing jumps here as very wide range (so it won't be raised usually even with 3-2-4-4 or something) but I prefer classical preempts. My goal is to find good save if it's available. Taking space is just a bonus. 2♠.

While throwing 11-14hcp, 6+♣ or 5♣ -4M hands into 2♣ opening is standard in modern version of pc many very good polish players use 2♣ opening for something different (usually 5+-4+ majors, 6-10 allowing handy relay 2♦) and leave those club hands in 1♣ openings. Playing this way is a bit difficult because now: 1♣ - 1M 2♣ is 11-16hcp and is not forcing (contrary to current pc standard) but responder strives to bid if he sensibly can. Usually 2♦ is 9+pc relay here (comparing to GF relay in current standard) and you can still stop in 2NT/3C. Club hands with 17+hcp are very problematic. You could try throwing some of them into 2♦ relay or into 2NT (putting some non fit hands in 2♦ relay). Also 3♦/3OM are free so you could use them for 6-3-1-3 hands or something. This is complicated and there is no perfect solution but quite a few polish players think that gains from being able to open 2♣ on weak major 2suiter more than compensate for it.

I didn't mean to say that I don't like your agreements. I took a look and those looks sensible to me with the following remarks: a) 6th hand bidding: Most people play dbl here as t/o and I don't see compelling reason to play it as showing their suit. Why would I want to take action holding their suit anyway ? I could always bid natural 1NT if I really want or just pass. This seems to be both bad and artificial to me. Holding: AQxx xx AWxx KWx I really want to dbl after: 1C pass 1D pass 1H ???? We may be collecting heavily afterall. I also want my natural 1S overcall with a hand which was too weak to overcall first time around (like KJT9x Kxx xx xxx being vulnerable) b)1C - pass - 1D again I think all natural is better. Why would I give up natural 1NT here ? It puts opener on lead and makes subsequent auction easy. c)In this situation, 2 should be the cuebid, as would have been the easiest overcall to make after 1. A bid in the other major is likely to show only 4 cards and is 1 round forcing (as it may be the strong NT hand). I agree with this and it's really a nice idea. People tend to play that always 2♣ is cuebid in 1♣ auctions though (which has advantage of allowing to distinguish medium and trash hands (2D/2M) but has disadvantage of losing club suit).

No. This sucks because t/o double (promising fits in majors) is much needed for comp. It's true that some old timers play dbl as 1♣ opening but it's similar to "stolen bid" doubles - simple idea but very weak convention and only popular among weaker players. After t/o dbl to 1C most people bid similar as they do after 1C opener though (1D negative, 1M F1 etc).

I am not sure about 4♦. I see the point of playing it as NF (xx Ax AQTx A6xxx, and what we are to bid if not NF 4♦ ?) On the other hand partner didn't promise 4♦ imo and could've doubled with say: Jxx AQxxx Kx xxx hoping we can bid either 3NT or 4♥ (what else he is supposed to do ? or with 3-4-2-4 for that matter) I tend to think 4♦ should be forcing here. EDIT: polled my friends, thought more about it and now I believe you guys are right and 4D should be not forcing.

Putting that much of stuff in 1♦ is very bad. They compete and you will die. Responses should be either standard (1M = 4+, 8+pc, 2m = GF, natural, 1NT = 8-11 bal etc.) or transfers but this require a lot of work. In Poland where everybody plays polish club almost nobody (including national top pairs) plays different defense than: all natural, 2♦ majors (or multi and then 2M are 2 suiters but this option sucks), 2NT = minors. That speaks a lot about value of time spent on devising fancy defense vs pc. That being said if you really want to do something different the best direction is to start passing with some strong hands (ie. not t/o shape) and play 1NT overcall as something different (minors, or 4M-5+m or w/e)

I second everything awm said. I started playing this way some time ago and I think it's much better than playing dbl for penalty. The difference is that if you play penalty dbls, your bids say: pass = nothing to say (but forcing) dbl = penalty! While if you play t/o doubles it changes to: dbl = t/o pass = nothing to say (or trap!) Which gives you better/faster way to describe you hand because partner instantly knows if you have good t/o hand in case they compete. In some situations "t/o" should really mean something very specific. For example: 1♠ - pass - 2♦ - 3♥ dbl I like playing those dbl's as showing shortness (which I believe is from Meckwell but I don't know their exact agreement on this one) As to doubles at higher levels it again useful to play dbl as t/o even if pass is forcing. This time the difference is as follows: Playing classically: -dbl = let's defend! (which means don't compete) -pass = forcing, I have something encouraging to compete OR slam try Playing with inversion: -dbl = t/o, let's compete! -pass = no desire to go higher OR some strong/shapely hand (which is often slam try if we agreed suit or 2suiter if we haven't) This again gives more space as you can describe your hand with pass and then some bid after pd's double while with classical agreements partner is forced to bid something (not dbl because this is for penalty) after your pass and you lose a lot of space.

You cartainly need one bid for majors. Transfers are also very useful because they put overcaller on lead which is desirable. So: dbl = 9+, desire to penalize 2♣ = majors 2♦ = hearts 2♥ = spades 2♠ = clubs 2NT = either 2 minors or dynamic hand with 5 major and 5 minor (you correct partners 3m to 3M with that) 3♣ = diamonds 3♦ = hearts 3♥ = spades This is from Martens, he comments: 1)transfers at 2 lever may contain invitational+ hands 2)transfers at 3 level are preemptive This agreement gives up natural 2D bid which is not a lose because competing with weakish hands with diamonds is tactical mistake, it's better to hope to set 1NT. It's more difficult to find majors for them if we pass than if we bid 2D (according to Martens) He gives the same agreemetns after natural 1♦. His point about trying to beat 1NT instead of competing in 2m still stands.

Thanks Ben ! Due to tons of other things I forgot about this forum and the challange for a while and I wouldn't be able to do it with previous partner anyway. The parts in which we participated were super fun :) Now I am gonna find out who won, congrats in advance !

This is actually argument for playing 1H = 8-11, other 12+ (or even better 1H = 8-11 without 5 spades, 1S = 8+, 5+spades, other 12+) not against it. I have a feeling that discussion here is not very constructive. Everybody is going to stick to their favourite system design. My opinion is that semi-positives are both complicated and bad (because establishing GF in comp auctions is the most important thing). Having negative about 1D is not even worth considering. As to higher responses there are many possible schemes which are decent but almost all of them require a lot of memory work to make it playable. Meckwell light is very simple to play, allows you to have short auctions with game hands and even if it doesn't get you to all the best spots all the time it's not much worse than the most sophisticated system on the market in this respect.

Too complicated for me. Imo double should be takout (as every double ever when they bid and raise a suit and we don't have agreed major). All other bids should be natural. I fail to see how "partner has told his story". For now he has some points and some clubs. He could be weakish or strong, balanced or not etc (like x Kxx xxxx AJxxx or: Kxx xx AKxx T9xxx Imo 3♠ should show 4 spades and unbal hand. Pass should be normal minimum hand. Double just shows extras and a hand which don't want to bid 3NT. Having all this in mind this is imo easy double.

Why ? If the system is not relay based then space for relays isn't the only criterium. The whole idea is that 1♥ 8-11 is very frequent and bidding after this is simple while higher bids put you in slam zone so it doesn't hurt that much to lose space. I don't know how much less frequent 12+ hands are comparing to 8-11 hands but there is the same amount of space after 1♥ than after all other bids combined (I am not talking about relay space; i am talking about ability to convey information by both sides). Another thing is also that 1♣ is very often strong bal hand and it's important for this hand to be able to bid 1NT after 1H so other hand could start describing itself (in general distributional hand should describe itself to bal hand, not other way around). Sweet and all but you need a lot of agreements to untagle those. Advantage of 1H = 8-11, others = 12+ natural is that you can just bid naturally. OP says: It seems to me that those won't fit.

Great; we will be onlin 9.15 pm central Europe time which I believe is 10.30pm in London.

We could make it on various times probably. Anybody gonna be online today to host it for us?

Not sure about witching minors. Switching majors seems like a good idea (to have more space with hearts). Maybe even in basic version: 1♣ - 1♠ = hearts, 12+ 1NT = spades, 12+ would be an improvement.

It goes like this: 1♣ - 1♦ = 0-7 any then 1M is F1 4+ with possible longer minor. 2m is NF 16-21; 2H is Kokish, 2S is strong with spades 1♣ - 1♥ is 8-11 any shape 1♣ - 1♠ = 12+, 5+♠ 1♣ - 1NT = 12+, 5+♥ After those you just bid as in normal 2/1 system having additional space after 1♠. It's a bit easier here as your side has 28+hcp so you are in slam zone. 1♣ - 2♣/2♦ = 12+, 5+ natural 1♣ - 2♥ = 14+ balanced 1♣ - 2NT = 12-13 balanced (then system on as after 2NT opening) 1♣ - 2♠ = 12+, any 4-4-4-1 then it's simple to design system to show all the shortnesses and 12-13,14-15, 16+ ranges. (For example 2NT ask, 3♣ = either singleton D, or minimum with singleton S, 3D = singleton H, 3H singleton S 14+, 3S/3NT/4C = singleton club 12-13,14-15,16+; next step after 3C/3D/3H is range ask). The biggest problem in the whole system is: 1♣ - 1♥ 2♥ as it's quite high. To solve this problem you can try various things. One is to put all the hands with 5spades to 1♠ (making it 8+ instead of 12+) this way you have operational 2♠ bid here (Greco Hampson play that way). Other way I thought of is using: 1♣ - 1♥ 2NT is 6H-4m and jumps to 3m are 5H-5m; both bids with minimum strength (16-19); and bidding 1NT with any 5-3-3-2 (with 5 hearts) so 2H rebid is 6+ hearts or 5H-4m without 6M-4m and 5-5 (unless slammish). You honestly don't need any more conventions just bid natural after establishing GF.

I find it interesting. I think most people I play with would expect at least AQxx and even that would be considered marginal. I don't have any clue (or guesses) what is best approach though.

Meckwell simplified base is simple and effective. You can use basically natural bidding using it. I can write short summary if you are interested.

Yeah, thanks for correcting me there. I should've used "what do you play".