bluecalm

Standard bidding is: 1♦ 1♥ 3♦ pass Of course standard sucks here. One of those situations where changing your system will reap bigger benefits than improving your judgment. If you play gazilli this hand is wtp (because you either go through 2♣ forcing or use 2NT as showing 6+♦-3♥ if that's your choice). Playing precision the hand is truly WTP. You are automatically in game before you even start thinking how to bid this. With Gazilli it goes: 1♦ - 1♥ 2♣* - 2♥** 3/4♥ - 4♥ 2♣ = either natural or any 17+ 2♥ = weak, not GF even opposite 17+ rest natural In precision it goes (assuming Meckwell simplified base): 1♣ - 1♦ 2♦ - 2♥ 4♥

+1 for Method I. If I am not mistaken this is what Meckwell use (of course raises in ♦ promises big fit in their system as 1♦ is 2+). I am not sure if this is better than negative free bids (I think probably it is)but I think is much better than "standard". The most important thing is to show your majors. Being able to show both with not much strength as well as GF hands sounds like big advantage to me. The cost is lack of natural 2♦ (NFB's doesn't have this disadvantage but you have to double with 12+, 5 card major hands using them). Method 2 loses 5-3 fits as well as makes it difficult to bid with 4 card fits at 4 level if they preempt. I don't like it. Anyway, any system when you have: xx KQJxxx xxx xx and have you don't get to show your hearts after 2♣ overcall is bad in my opinion.

Easy pass/2♠. Double should show extras here when not playing support doubles. 2♠ is possible option if your style permits (it probably should).

People in Poland play this often too but it makes a lot of sense here because even playing wide range openers 1♣ - 1♦ is art negative. Do people play 2NT forcing in Netherlands playing standard 1m openers ? If yes, what kind of hands such 2NT contain ? Only balanced or some other unbal too ? (like 6-4, 5-4 kind of stuff).

This hand is for 1♣ opener. Make it: xxx KJxxx x xxxx for 1♦. I hope you don't want to pass 1m opening with that ? :) 16 and 19 sounds like random figures to me. If you say "16" what do you do with: KJxx A KJx AKxxx ? If you say "19" what do you do with: AKxx x AKxx KQJx ? or add another J somewhere.

Do you guys play polish club or some sort of strong diamond or club ? Opening 1m is limited to about 22hcp. Then if you bid 1♠ you are still limited to that (in standard you shouldn't be at the top of this range but let assume we play it that way). I still can have a hand I want to pass opposite this assuming GF hands open 2♣ or something. You can agree that 1♠ is bid with every hand with 4♠ but still if you don't play forcing 1m openers it doesn't make sense to play it forcing here. Wouldn't you pass with: xxx KJxxx xxxx x ?

:rolleyes: My sources are only vugraph and convention cards I drew wrong conclusions.

Dunno about standard. It surprised me too many times. All the people I play live with would take those dbl's as t/o.

3M bids are not mandatory you know. Having stiff Q and weakish hand you can go to 3NT directly. Anyway, it's always possible to construct hands where given treatment goes wrong. So what ? It's big winner in the long run. Instead of constructing examples to fit your view just deal 50-100 hands with given constraints using some free simulator and see for yourself. Or just trust 95% of elite players who play that way...

I wouldn't pass S hand after 1♠ but playing 1♠ is as forcing doesn't make sense. Afterall opener is limited in strength and ♠ length and responder could be very weak. For example with: 9xx KJ7xx xxxx x Why don't just pass 1♠ ? On actual hand i prefer to be in 1♠ given the choice but I don't see how I would stop short of 3NT in real bridge. Even playing "standard" it would go: 1♦ - 1♥ 1♠ - 1NT 3NT

This is this artificial "standard" right ? If so I can't bid natural 2♦ because it's forcing in this system. That leaves me with pass and 4♥ now because I have a lot of cards I wasn't able to show round before. My answer: first round pass, 2nd round 4♥ I also add "wtp" to that ;) It's good to know what partner "expects" us to have here. The answer to that is not obvious but according to one quite good theory from polish theoretician partner bids assuming about one trick in our hand in this position. So if we have close to 2 tricks we bid game. If not we don't.

+1. While the book isn't very good resource for advanced/exp player looking to fine tune his/her precision system it's very good guide to learn the basics. In contains many quizzes, lengthy descriptions and is very easy/pleasant read. There is a risk though that after reading it you will not only want to compete vs precision but switch to precision too ! :rolleyes:

I think it's close. I in general don't like bidding in such a way. I would prefer to bid 3♠ first time around than 4♠ now.

Standard is that bidding directly over rdbl is the weakest action. If it's forcing to 2NT or not is not covered by standard (I believe) but I don't see good reason why it should be. Passing and bidding later with weak unbalanced hand is bad because they can jump and you wish you had bid round before. IF you have strong hand the risk is much smaller (because a)they are less likely to jump high b)having stronger hand it's easier to handle bidding at high levels). This is basic stuff. I will be surprised if someone here question it. so yeah, you are basically right with your assumptions.

Man, if you want people to comment on this idea of "constructive raises" it would be very useful if you actually describe what that means. Give some examples or something. It's a bit of a stretch to expect people to go to that website and search for this information there because it's not even clear where to start such search...

Intuitively I play for drop. I would love to see some good arguments to convince me otherwise. I am bad at figuring this stuff out myself.

It's not clear to me what do you mean by "constructive raises" in reference to 3m bids. I was pretty sure thread is about playing 1M-2M as more constructive than usual when seeing the topic. Care to explain ?

Ufff. I was pretty sure it means other suits, not spades but those posts surprised me before (finesse the queen !) so I was a bit nervous about my English again... The results are still impressive taking into account that many posters on this forum are not native speakers and some of them (like me) learnt English from the internet... :)

Ezy 5♥. I pass vul vs not and I think it's borderline if both vul. My guess is pass is correct action then but I am not sure. Comments ?

This rule is quite awful. I don't know how you come with that but I suspect there must be some loss in translation... Doubling and bidding new suit is almost always natural, showing extras and not forcing. For example: 1♠ dbl - pas - 2♣ pass 2♥ Is obviously not forcing and natural. Something like: x AKJxxx AKx Qxx The OP's sequence is classically not forcing and showing very strong hand with diamonds. I can see a point for playing this as forcing or as some kind of ♥ + ♦ hand. No opinion what is better at 4 level but without some prior special agreement it's not forcing.

Double and double with 2nd double being borderline in a style I prefer (but I still dbl). Imo partner should strive to bid with anything after 3♦ but his actual hand is tad to weak. Bidding anything other than pass 3rd time around is terrible. If partner had 5th spade he should've bid 3♠ after 1st double.

-partner often has 4 card minor fit -if he doesn't you can still play in 5-3 minor if you have intelligent follow ups (3M is forcing to game so you can't play in 4m) -sometimes you get to play in spades 4-3 which may be decent contract; partner is welcome to bid 3♠ after 3♥ as natural. There are many ways. Two of them are: 1)Use smolen, so: 2♣ - 2♦ 3♥/3♠ shows 5-4 hands in majors gf 2♣ - 2♦ 2♥ shows weak hand with both majors 2♣ - 2♥ 2♠ - 3♥ shows gf hand with 5-5 majors (this is important because you want to be able to stop in 3NT opposite 2-2-(4-5) Now there is invite missing. You have an option to not play invites with 5-4 majors or: 2♣ - 2♦ 2♠ = invite with 5spades/4hearts 2♦ - 2♥ 2♠= invite with 5hearts/4spades This is close because there are other useful things you can do with two last sequences and invites with 5-4 are rare. Your choice. 2)use ask about 3card majors, then: 1NT - 2♣ 2♦ - 3♦ = ask about 3 card major You can show 3's naturally, bid 3NT with 2-2-(4-5) or 2-2-(3-6). With 3-3 majors you can either show hearts first or agree that bids above 3NT shows 3-3 majors and good/average/bad hand (4♣/4♦/4♥). This has the advantage because you can use: 1NT - 2♣ 2♦ - 3♥/3♠ as showing shortness ( (4-1)-3-5)/(4-1)-4-4) hands which is agani very useful. If you play that way you need to play: 1NT - 2♣ 2♦ - 3♣ as artificial ask, like in this thread: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=41385 (see Mohitz's scheme) I may also add as we are at it that after suit response to stayman: 1NT - 2♣ 2♥/2♠ It's useful to play that other major (2♠/3♥) sets opener's major as trumps so you can explore slams/best game. If you play this or you play like Gwnn's wrote (that stayman can be bid without 4M) then it's useful to play more responses to stayman: 1NT - 2♣ 2NT/3♣ = 4-4 majors, min/max (then you use 3♦/3♥ as transfers and bid slam tries/games). The reason for this is that you free other sequences which normally are used to show hands with other major (like 1NT - 2♣ - 2♥ - 2♠). This is all quite complicated as gor B/I's so I think OP should settle for his own system for now. Just add the most important followups an 3M bids as showing shortness because those are really useful and quite frequent.

1♥ for me.

I don't think it's harvest time at all. After all overcaller probably has KJTxxx with some strength in dummy (partner is passed hand) so he will be able to score a low trump or two by ruffing some major cards. I still pass but I expect to get 300, sometimes 100 and very rarely 500.

In fact this is quite smart. Brilliant is too much to say about this. Gains from playing right game (5m if opener has xxx/Axx) are more frequent than loses by pinpointing heart lead which wouldn't otherwise be made. I know that because I went through enough simulated hands to form an opinion but this is honestly quite obvious. If you go through 2♠ with this hand you gain nothing. Opener will still be unable to realize when 3NT is better than 5m because he will only know which minor suit of yours is longer, this information doesn't influence his game decision almost at all. If my opinion isn't enough for you you may look at what elite players play. There is a reason this is one of the very few treatments almost all elite partnership use (some of them bid fragment instead of shortness as gwnn suggested). Here is short list: Fantoni - Nunes Meckwell (they show shortnes while 5-5, with (3-1)-(5-4) they go through puppet stayman which is 2NT in their system and then show shortness. Sementa Duboin Zia Hamman Balicki Zmudzinski Garner - Weinstein (when it existed) Cohen - Berkowitz (when it existed) Helgemo - Helness Besides stayman, transfer and t/o double you will be hard pressed to find any other convention which is that popular at elite level...