bluecalm

I take back my WTP comment. Pass is perfectly fine and maybe better than 5♣. I somehow thought we have extras above what we promiseed round before. Just don't double. Double say: "let's defend partner" and we really don't want to say that.

And in team matches there is psychological factor. If you make thin game or two it will tilt the hell out of them :)

So what would you bid with this hand ? I think passing opener hands is an error if there is any.

I don't know anything about your opponent's system but in precision playing double as 6-7hcp here is standard so he wasn't lucky to find the dbl if that's their agreement.

It depends on how your system is structured and how light you open. For me every 13 is auto 3NT in this sequence but partner won't bid 2NT with 10. He will be 11-12 always (and when playing precision most of the time 12). I don't consider it as judgement question more as systemic one.

Truly WTP hand. 5♣. I see doubling as major lunacy. Btw I assumed we are non-vul. It's not clear to me who EW is.

Hi, It just occurred to me that I don't know how to bid those hands in Meckwell based precision. The situation is as follows: Opener has very strong hand with 4M-5m say: AKx AKQx AQJxx x (from EuroCh). Responder has 4+spades and 0-7. It starts: 1♣ - 1♦ 1♥ - 1♠ Now what ? 3♦ would be 5+-5+. 4♣ even if splinter is not possible as partner could have only 4♠. I imagine 2NT can have some artificial meaning here (we haven't bid NT earlier so we can't have balanced hand but I am not sure how to untagle it. Similar problem arises in: 1♣ - 1♦ 1♠ - 1NT ??? Actual hands were: JT9xx xx x Axxxx AKQ AKx AQJxx x How to reach 6♠ here ? Anyone care to help me with this ? :D

Lol. I am a moron. I somehow thought the opening was 1♣ not 1♥.

Who bid 1NT partner or opponents ? If opponents I think playing is as majors is both very good and standard. If it's partner then probably it's useful as playing opener's 2♣ rebid as artificial in any other sequence in "standard" so you don't need to jumpr around just because you are dealt 17hcp.

3♦ is pure lunacy. Interesting question is how should N plan his bidding. I would probably start with 2♥ but maybe 2♦ planning 3♥ next is reasonable ?

I pass. I am not sure if that's right at all but I think we will end up in some silly contract too often while prospect for game are remote. Partner can still reopen if he is dealt 2-4 in majors with decent hand.

I like it.

LOL. Do you realize it's the same bid you would make with KQxxx xxxx xx xx ? I tend to agree. We always want to be in game opposite 4♠ but partner will probably accept with any hand with 4♠ anyway. I don't mind 4♠. I think it's close.

As opponent on the right has at least 4 diamonds you could be comfortably ruffing diamonds in dummy while discarding your club loser from hand on the ♠ and then endplaying W to lead into your AQ♥ (if he doesn't overruff with the king earlier). The danger with this line is that if you start with ♦ ruff and then play spades RHO may take his ace and play a diamond allowing a club discard for LHO which will prove fatal if has only two clubs to start with (for example 4-5-2-2) as he will be now overrufing your club tops. To avoid this you could start from playing spades planning to play off two top clubs and then discarding 3rd on good spade. That will work if LHO is 2-2 in minors but won't work if he is 5-5-1-2 (for the same reason, he will discard a club once they get in with A♠ and play a diamond). The key to this hand are your ♥ spots. You can safely start with two top clubs and then play spades. True, they will get their ♣ trick but there is no way there will take more than one heart. The suit is: JT62 to AQ73 You will have 2♠, 2♣ and A♦ in the bag and you will need 5tricks from that suit. The first one will be ♦ ruff with 2♥. Then you will ruff a ♣ with Q♥. If LHO doesn't overruff you will ruff another diamond, another club with A♥ and 4th diamond will give you 5th trick on J♥. If he does overruf it's no good for him as now he has to lead from his 98xx to yoru JT6 and A73 in hand :) It took me a long while to work this out. I am sure that at the table I would only realize the danger of ♣ discards if leader is 2-2 in minors and would just start from spades which will lose to 5-5-1-2 :(.

I will be more helpful than loling. There are two reasons to "remove" major to a minor here: a)we have good suit of our own and want to bring it into the auction b)we have some points and as partne may well have 16-17count for his overcall we don't want to miss a game. Standard agreement is that those bids are NF but somewhat constructive and partner is welcome to pass if his overcall is below opening bid strength (so partner may pass with 10 and we may have 14-15 maximum). For example: xx x KJTxxx Axxx 1♣ - 1♥ pass - ???? What do you want to bid here if you don't have non-forcing 2♦ available ? Why do you want partner to bid anything over this 2♦ with say: Qxx AKTxx xx Jxx ?

I confirm. I was taught to play that way and most very good players play that way here. They all learnt form the same books and are not changing. I changed my hard learned views after seeing how the elite plays. Passing those 5-6hcp or even 7hcp hands is one of the weaknesses of polish club. It's just too easy to for the opponents to play against but if you respond you don't have good mechanism to stop low. Poland have very strange bridge culture, things which are popular here are not popular anywhere else. I think we are way behind the elite when it comes to bidding theory.

Well I think it's the opposite. I think the trend of super offshape/light preempts belongs to the past. People who win these days don't play that way (I am talking about world champions from last 10+years). I believe there is much more to win from accurate sacrificies than from clubbering the bidding of the opponents. Bidding just to bid loses imo. Obviously I can't prove it. I know that elite players agree with that but maybe they are wrong and we are up for another revolution. I understand that with your beliefs 2♥ or even 3♥ makes a lot of sense to you. To me it's just pointless bid.

2♣. I think it's useful to play 2♣ (or 2♦) instead of double from partner position as majors so I wouldn't have a problem at all. Without this agreement i still bid 2♣. if partner is somehow (5-4)-2-2 he won't pass this ( I hope).

Yeah, I was wrong here. It made sense to me that we basically have to be 6-1-3-3/6-0-(43)/7-0-3-3 for 4♥ bid and then bidding 4♠ with 2 spades makes sense. On the other hand we could have bid 3♠ round before. I think we just need agreements with what hand we bid 3♠/4♥/4NT so partner could react accordingly.

I play precision for quite a while now and I prefer to play against people who like to jump with crap against it. I think it is big imps source. I suspect Meckwell paid some authors to popularize this mantra so they could keep winning. If you watch world championship finals/semifinals you will notice that top players aren't willing to jump with crap at all vs strong 1♣. It's in general very easy to penalize after strong 1♣. They won't go to 5level with KQx in ♥ on any hand thanks to all the forcing passes/dbl's while your partner will often compete too optimistically expecting majority of our assets being in ♥. To cause real problems guess what - you need to have your bid... For some reason strong club systems keep attracting mad scientists. Precision can be easy natural system with very few artificial bids after initial bid response. We play simple version of Meckwell simplified and we don't have any relays, asking bids, cabs, tabs or other things after our 1♣. It still works amazingly well.

Do you know of any link ? It seems there isn't any place for those on the website.

I think patner will bid 4♠ with some 2-3-4-4 hand after our 4♥.

Difficult hand. Partner is likely 1-3-(5-4). We can be cold for grand in a minor (for example x xxx xxxx AJTxx is decent grand but it's not even close to dbl). I wonder what various bids mean here. Intuitively: 3NT = to play 4♣/4♦ = not forcing 4♥ = some strong hand but no idea if we can't have 7 top spades for that for example (how else set spades ?) 4♠ = to play obviously 4NT = pick a minor (nothing else seems to be logical) It seems that our choice is between 4♥ and 4NT. I don't see how to describe our hand here. If we bid 4♥ and then 5♥ partner still won't see the grand. At the table I think I can bid 4♥ and then just bash 7 in a minor partner chooses. He is more likely to have A♣ than A♥ afterall. Gonna quiz my pd for various sequencies here.

So what did you bid ? 2♥ or 3♥ ? I guess 3 because of your comment about double ?

There was "connection problems" (at least that what operator said) and he/she said that play/bidding is unavailable for that boards, a pity because it was where the match was decided.