bluecalm

And yet another option is: 2NT = transfer to 3♣, one of the following: 1)to play in 3♣ (weak hand 4+♠-6+♣) 2)game forcing 2suiter ♠ and ♥ or ♣ 3)slam try with solid/semi solid ♠ suit (you bid 3NT/4m after accepting the transfer) 4)strong slam try in ♦ with shortness This one is taken from Ambra. Polish version was ask about shortness/♠ support. Answers were as follows: 3♣ = club shortness 3♦ = spade shortness 3♥ = heart shortness 3♠ = spade support but no shortness 3NT = no shortness and no ♠ support. Pick your poison, I prefer natural 2NT ;)

I don't see a point in pointing out how many "losers" the hand has but didn't you miscount them losers on this one ?

My view is that passing sucks but it may be necessary. Most people play a style where you can't open 2♠ with this hand. Good or bad you can't expect partner expecting that much for 2♠ even vulnerable. That leave 1♠. My view is that unfortunately it will cause going overboard very often if you don't have good partnertship understanding. Unfortunately in standard the sequence: 1♠ - 1NT 2♠ is basically 10-15hcp so it's close to impossible to make good decisions as responder. You will misguess quite often. So... playing matchpoints with partner who isn't truly great I would pass it because I think opening cause too many bad boards. Playing standardish system but in my pet style I would open this 2♠ as I like to play those as more constructive than classical. Playing imps I of course always open no matter who I play with or what system is this.

You guys are passing because you think 2♣ is better contract on average than 2♥ or because you are afraid bidding won't end the auction ? After thinking about it a bit more and generating some hands I tend to believe 2♥ is better bid at matchpoints (because often both partscores make). At imps it should be very close. My opinion is not strong though.

One possible treatment is that 2♥ is seminatural invite+ and it contains: -any GF with no other convienient bid (thus values in hearts almost certainly) -invite+ with 5♠ - 4♥ After that you may try to bid naturally. Of course you don't ever raise hearts to 4level. the idea is that if you have 4 of them you bid 3♥ and if partner happens to have 5S-4H invite then we will be in game but it shouldn't be bad as both hands has a lot of shape (one is 6♦-4♥ and the other 5♠-4♥ so game can't be that bad and shooting for 3♥ seems bizzare). One other gadget is that jump to 3NT after 2♥ shows 4♥ and stopper in 4rd suit (clubs here) so : 3♥ = 4 hearts, no ♣ stop 3NT = 4hearts + ♣ stop Playing that way it seems sensible that we may stop in both 2♠ and maybe even 2NT. I am not saying I am big fan of this treatment but I think it's sensible and probably good if you have to worry about 5♠-4♥ inviting hands (I don't worry about them in my pet system cause those hands don't bid 1♠ to begin with thanks to Mr. Rodwell's treatment so 2♥ is just any game force without other bid). See above. No moysians in sight... EDIT: btw in Poland it was standard some time ago to play 2NT as forcing and asking in this sequence (you showed ♠ support and shortnesses after that). I think this sucks but many players here like it and still play it. It was recommended in "polish club 2000" by the way.

Ok, I agree with that. I would also bid 2NT with this hand. I need to think about it more I guess. Btw, I don't think 2♥ should promise 4 of them like some posters seem to suggest. Do you agree with that ?

I agree that being able to bid 2♠ on Hx is sometimes very useful so 4th suit can be bid with little something in clubs and hands like Kx xx AQJxxx xxx bid 2♠. I don't understand bidding 2♠ on this hand though. We have balanced shape and scattered honors it seems to me that 2NT convey the message. If partner wants to know if we have double stopper in clubs he is free to bid 3♣ after 2NT as fourth suit (can't be natural as he would bid 3♣ instead of 2♥ i guess).

You can play that way and most polish players do that. I playd that way for most of my bridge life. It's very hard to untangle and lead to problems every time opener is just 18+ (1c - 1s -2nt - ? and you are lost with 10-11hcp balanced for example). It's for sure playable though I just don't like it. I like the idea Fred mentioned. It seems that bids at 5 level are not used for anything frequent anyway, especially if you have some to show slam try in a major. I think it came up recently in some other thread (about bidding after 1NT and transfer with flat strong hand). Rodwell should really write a book and sell it for like 500$/copy like those poker guys do...

I don't consider it to be obvious improvement at all. Most of my bridge experience is from playing playing a system where all strong bal hands open 1♣ and I like strong 2NT now. I mean at least strong 2NT make it easier in different areas. It's also what majority of elite players play. Case with jumping around with 2card suits to show 17 count is completely different :)

Yes. Maybe it doesn't matter though and one should bid 2♥ anyway ? What do you think ?

What do you do with 5-3-3-2 ? Rebid better minor or always 2♣ ? Anyway I think it's close between passing and 2♥. I need to think about it before answering. Problem with passing is that you may be in 3-3 fit. Problem with 2♥ is that you may end up in 5-1 fit (partner is supposed to pass with 5-1-(4-3). I don't know what is more likely and I don't know how worse is playing in 3-3 club fit.

Why ? I bashed some very bad methods in other threads but it doesn't mean I bash every convention there is. It's not like there is some easy improvement over standard agreements after strong 2nt opener.

Another attempt to make a poll in which one option get 100% ? :)

Whatever defence you choose you should tend to bid very aggressively with shapely hands over gambling 3NT. I think your scheme is ok. Dbl is needed for strong hands without much shape.

We use other major as slam try in transferred suit. It obviously comes at a price of losing one way to show major 2 suiter which may hurt if you play pupper stayman. That would make bidding this somewhat easier here though.

Well actually my opinion comes directly from seeing what people who have won the most titles at bridge in last decade play. I don't have strong opinion if precision is better than system which Lauria Versace/Duboin Sementa play or if Fantunes system is better than both of them. I also think that your point about world champions is not valid as I those people are pros and can afford to have very detailed agreements about untangling for example 3♣ bid which means 2+clubs, unbalanced, 17+ barring some specific distributions like 6d-4H. I am saying that this standard system is: -very artificial and not intuitive for beginners and anybod who has not played this system for a long time -very difficult to play by people who are not experts -virtually impossible to understand for beginners -just plain inferior without tons of gadgetry and detailed understanding to untangle all the wide range opposite wide range situations. Anyway, to the 3♥ call. If I played the system where 3♣ means 17+, 2+♣ then I agree with your view and I think 3♥ should be natural.

This is all wrong Ken. You seem to think from that somehow follows the conclusion: I guess your reasoning is that small ♣ comes twice as often from x than from Qx (because from Qx defender had a choice and supposedly played randomly). The problem with that reasoning and the reason all your reasoning collapses is that your 2nd and 3rd situations are not equally likely. We could arrive at: point from any initial distribution which had clubs: Qxxx to xxxxx and at the point from any initial distribution which had clubs: xxx Qxxxxx Which is more likely ? As previously explained the 2nd (your 3rd) is about twice as likely because it leaves space for more ♥ combos (Jx - 4combos, Tx - 4combos while JTx and xxxxx is 4 combos overall). So now for 100% of situations 33% you are in 1st case and in 66% you are 2nd case so if you see small ♣ it's equally likely it comes from 1st and 2nd case (because opponent will play it from Qx half the time). I am not going to analyse it's further here. I think it's enough to show that your reasoning is off.

dbl ? wtp ? If partner bid spades afte that we raise. If he bids clubs we bid 3♦ asking for stopper if he bid NT we raise or bid 3♦.

It wasn't was I was trying to do. I was only refer to awm's point that double dummy it matters while I was pretty sure it doesn't. Now I am even more sure that it doesn't in general case (ie. in dillema if it's better to play from strong hand side or multi side in general). I wrote that the interesting point is not about dd simulations. Well, to be honest I don't see it all the time in practice as I play standardish methods after strong 1NT for example or after multi if I play it so I play most contracts from the stronger side as usually does the field. In situations where we reach a contract from the other side due to system (for example due to artifical response to precision opening which other people don't have) my experience tells me swings are completely random in one direction or another. I am sorry but you miss the point here and are jumping at me :) Awm's wrote it's advantage double dummy. I tried to prove this point wrong so I run some simuls to see if it has merits. It seems to me it doesn't. That's all I wanted to prove with those simuls. I don't pretend to say: "ZOMG dd it doesn't matter so it doesn't matter !". I think the problem is that the sentence "it's better to play from stronger side" is so natural for every bridge player (because we are taught that way) that noticing it's wrong is very hard because our brains are not active in seeking evidence to the contrary. So even if it was wrong (ie. it wouldn't matter almost at all) I doubt people would notice. If you play 4H after 1NT - 4D - 4H sequence and you don't make it you usually don't ask yourself what would happen if we played from the other side but for sure quite often you would make it due to different lead. You notice evidence to the contrary all the time though. If you somehow wind up in a contract from other side the field (weak side) and you don't make it due to different lead you are very fast to see this as evidence for playing for the stronger side. Those are reasons I don't trust people's intuition on this one if they haven't actively searched for answer to this problem. Of course they are very useful ! In fact they are the only useful thing in evaluating this kind of question... we are referring to different question though... I don't think simulations are useful for evaluating OP's question so I won't do more of them ;) One way to settle this would be to organize friendly match with set constraints and see. The problem is I doubt we would ever reach sample size big enough to convince either side.

You make it sound like it's matter of getting information. I doubt there are is any research on the matter and if it is it's not public. We can only rely on our intuition which proved to be wrong so many times. After running some simulations I am pretty it almost doesn't matter double dummy if strong or weakish hand is declaring so I think the only interesting point is in which situation defenders are more likely to make mistakes. The answer to that is far from obvious to me.

Standard american methods are not standard everywhere in the world. Italians use Gazilli (2♣) for every hand which is 17+. Polish players who play variation of 2/1 traditionally use 2NT as artifical rebid here. I am not sure about Norwegians. Maybe someone from there could tell us what's expert standard there. I've learnt a lot about "standard" in NA sense recently I am amazed how bad and difficult to handle this system is. Jumps with 3 card suit, routine jump shifts with 4card suits, reverses with 3 cards suit, wide range vs wide range situations creating guesses all the time (vide last 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♣ - 3♣ thread). I've never assumed the point of those thread is to answer the question what would you bid with pick up partner from NA but how to solve this problem in your partnership. I think that if that's the former then I would even be afraid to bid 4NT because it may be taken as blackwood. If that's the latter I think the best answer is to switch to simpler and better methods (like incorporating gazilli or multimeaning 2NT). It's hard to me to accept that world expert standard is 3♣ = 17+hcp, 3+♣ not balanced (I wonder what do you bid with 18hcp and 2-3-7-1/3-1-7-2 in this system I guess 2♥ false reverse or 3♣ jump shift with 2 cards...).

Interesting. I am simulation addict but I neglected this issue so far, gotta make some research. Did you make simulations to know it or it's just your intuition ?

3♥ as 4th suit makes a lot of sense. You may want to bid that with single/half stopper to offer choice of games. For example holding Axx in hearts you want partner to bid 3nt on his Hx but you want to be in 5m opposite 2-1-5-5. I don't like fancy agreements in specific sequencies. 4th suit as rebid by responder doesn't show natural length according to my meta agreements. I am not sure about standard especially because bidding culture seems to be different in NA than in Poland/Europe. I would expect expert+ partner not from America to understand 3♥ as FSF. I can understand people who want 3♥ to be natural if they play systems when 3♣ may be bid on 4card suit (1-3-5-4 for example). I think such systems are inferior and I don't much care about solving problems they created in the first place but yeah playing such way I would reconsider.

Haha, actually when I was writing down system notes with one partner some time ago (we played polish club with multi) I also one sidely decided that in sequence: 2♦ (multi) 2NT (ask) 3♣ (min) 3♦ (ask) 3♥/3♠ will be natural. My main argument was a bit different than yours. I didn't like ♠ cuebid being lost after 3♠ response. I agree with your "theory" though. I think that strong hand declaring is one of the most overrated things in bridge. In general the most important thing is that the hand which is better known from the bidding should be dummy. So for example 2♦ precision opening is better than 2♥ precision opening (because 4♥ puts opener's hand in dummy), 2♦ majors is probably better than 2♥ majors and so on. Anyway, my partner after reviewing the notes said I must have made a mistake and he wanted to play the same way most people play here (with 3♥/3♠ showing the other suit)... :(

I think 2♠ should show 3. I bid 2NT and consider it clearcut.