junyi_zhu

With 15, I really like 2/1 instead of 1NT even if I play a forcing 1NT.

This is a clear 1S opening. You really need a lot of high card controls to open 2C. With at least 6 to 7 controls, you probably don't mind partner pushing to 6NT with a few kings and queens.

We play 3S over 2S to show minors, good hands. Me, too. But having that agreement, and using it with this hand are two different things, IMO. Josh's 3C overcall could work out badly, but could also work out very well and might take care of the hidden-case problem. If pard advances to 3 or 4 hearts/ the 3C overcall, we will know what is going on in hearts; which we wouldn't know if we doubled. Well, at least 3S shows the overall strength and distribution. So I am happy with that. Whether partner may find 4H is not that an important problem comparing with showing the strength and shape. 3S may lead to rather successful 3NT, 5m often, and sometimes, when partner holds 6 good Hearts, we may be able to play 4H too. 3C is an underbid, although not by much I admit. This hand doesn't really need much to make 3NT, Kxx JTxx xx JTx can offer a very reasonable play in 3NT. Hands like xxx AJx xxxxxx x can offer reasonable play in 5D. None of above can be achieved if you overcall 3C.

We play 3S over 2S to show minors, good hands.

You did very well in this hand, well bid. 1 2D waiting is certainly fine if you have suit quality requirement for H. 2 3H over 3C is also fine, because it is the natural way to show your 5-5 two suiters. 3 If you bid 3D, your partner would bid 3S which is natural.

So did I. Just surprised it was worth 10 out of 11. I did understand that sometimes you give preference with 2-4, but thought the hand was too weak for that action. That's not because of the bidding. You made 9 tricks in C, which is quite impossible against normal defense. A natural line would be cashing two H trick, and you'll get ruffed, three diamonds and another H would put you down one. Even if you play C to CK at trick two, then you can play SK to pitch a diamond. Still, your opp can ruff your second H later with CQ, then play DK and D low to partner's Q, his partner can draw CA and Cx, In that case, you can only make 8 tricks. So at the table, your opp probably cashed DA and DK instead.

But most don't play 2♠ as gf. Then they should have a gf bid to show spades. It's not easy to handle both gf and nongf hands with the same bid. it isn't?????? I respond 1♠ to 1♦ with all ranges of hands and haven't had a problem since 1♠ is forcing (by an unpassed hand). Thus using 2♠ as forcing one round isn't a problem either....while using a jump to 3♠ as the only gf spade holding is a horrific waste of space, not to mention making it extraordinarily difficult to distinguish spade length. I use the jump to 3♠ as showing a very good 6+ suit, gf and usually some slam thoughts in mind Well, 1S is low. The major reason for 2/1 gf is that two level is rather high, so it makes a lot of sense to make 2/1 gf. If 2/1 is high, a reverse is often higher. In that sense, a two way bid (either gf or nongf) is really not easy after a reverse. Another way is to consider the rounds of bidding. A simple 2/1 is only in the first round of bid, and it forces to game. A reverse is in the second round, and 2S after the reverse is also in the second round, which means that after two rounds of bids, when you used the whole 1 level and almost the whole 2 level, you still can't show clearly whether you want to force to game or not. This is certainly not an effective design of bidding.

But most don't play 2♠ as gf. Then they should have a gf bid to show spades. It's not easy to handle both gf and nongf hands with the same bid.

If 2S is gf, you can bid 3C to show doubt in 3NT. It doesn't make a lot of sense to play 3C as natural here. Then it would be rather straightforward: .... 3C 3D 3S 4S

You are very right. The standard 4th suit gf convention is just bad after 1H 1S 2D, still most players are just too lazy to change their bidding structure. They'd rather responding 2C with 4-4 black suits, which IMO is even worse because it violates a basic bidding principle: in a gf sequence, you should usually bid the 4-4 suits up the line to show your overall shape accurately (so Bypassing a 4 card suit should show 5-4). The basic flaw of 4th suit forcing is that it gives all kinds of different gf hands only one bid (it may not even be the cheapest bid, and after 1H 1S 2D, it is just ridiculously high to bid 3C for gf hands). This is a huge violation of a basic bidding principle, save more bidding space for stronger hands and don't invite too much. Standard treatments just have way too many invitational sequences after 1x 1y 2z and only have one gf sequence.

2C 2D 2H(may have 4 if holding a longer m) 3D(4+ card H, extra value) 3S(cue) 4D(cue, showing extra value in the range, serious slam interest) 4S(RKC) 4N(1 or 4) 6C(CK) 6D(DK) 6H( I have pretty much shown my hand) pass (nothing much to show).

The basic design of your partner's system is not to avoid most unmakable games, but to bid most possible games, which is playable, although looks aggressive to many. Of course, if you agree to play his system, all the hands should be opened and you may need to struggle in many games. So it certainly needs some good declaring skill and soft defense.

You should play transfers at three levels here. Still, it's not a good idea to play DONT against 14-16.

Against strong clubs and a wide range of 4S, it looks like a pass, because you may often run into 5-3 spade fit with a lot of defenses. Against normal wide range 1S openings and preemptive 4S raises, it's quite clear to bid when white vs. red. For white vs. white, it's marginal.

This is really a hand that plays better in 1NT than 1S facing a normal take-out double. Therefore, 1S can be a distortion. Well, I think I said early that 8-10(11) 1NT range is just too narrow to cope with. A 6-10 range is more practical. Still, those light doubler may not be happy with this wider 1NT range, because it is easier to be chopped.

You can probably play some kind of convention to distinguish all of them, for example: 4S is just competitive, showing very long spades with constructive value. 4H shows a hand in the upper range of the limit raise to the lower range of gf, which also creates a future forcing pass situation if they compete more. 4C shows a hand with some extra value (one king(or queen) better than a minimum opener) and (very)mild slam interest.

The good part of reading is that the books tell you to do this or do that. The bad part of reading is that you just don't make mistakes if you follow what the books tell you. Then you miss a big chunk of this game. This game is a game of mistakes. Some good players are good just because they have made way more mistakes than everybody else. So they started to understand the mistakes and they write a book, telling others to avoid mistakes. Still, you have to make all kinds of the mistakes to understand them and understand why the book says "do this and don't do that". In my teaching experience, I found that my student can do well if I tell her to do this and not to do that. However, she doesn't really know how painful it is if she doesn't do the right thing. In that sense, she missed the important education of this game. One has to make mistakes and those mistakes can be really painful, so that they can understand why one has to do the right thing. In that sense, that's why there are so many great players emerging from rubber bridge, because losing money is painful.

Those early guys just guessed well. In that sense, Culbertson is really a genius. He is the first guy who invented the concept of forcing or not. This also reminded me the creation of quantum mechanics. The Schrodinger equation was invented without really the deep understanding of the meaning of the Psi. The major difference between genius and normal people is that genius usually guess well. Also, you can probably define a hand strength without point count. For example, you can define an opening hand as that two of such hands offer some play in 3NT without a 8 card fit (of course, you can convert it to 12 HCP or 13). Then you can evaluate your hand as one king better than a minimum opener as some extra. Or you can say one ace better than a minimum to allow you to reverse. Or three kings better than a minimum opener to open 2C. This is indeed a workable approach with some advantages. Still, most players would just count their HCPs. I actually use the above definitions a lot in my own system, because very often, we open some distributional hands without a lot of HCP. So a definition of extra as one king better than a minimum is indeed useful in many sequences, comparing with the standard treatment as 15 or 16 HCP or higher as extra.

I'd just bid 3H. spot cards in spade is rather weak, I don't see any reason to bypass the H support. After 2NT, I just play 3C as forcing. I don't buy the theory that 2H then 3C should show a weak hand. x KQJxxx AK Jxxx, it doesn't make a lot of sense to bid 2C instead of 2H IMO, unless you play 2C as one round forcing. This is a typical problem for those focus too much on partials and 3NTs.

2H then 3C over 2NT should be gf. With weaker hands, you can either double first or bid 3H as fit showing jump(more distributional). With your hand, I just bid 3H, it often makes games facing a balanced minimum. Axxx xxx Axx Kxx would offer a reasonable play in 4H. Facing Axxx xx Axx Kxxx, I don't really mind playing 5C.

It is difficult. If you don't have suit quality requirement for 3D over 2C, it's OK to bid 3D. Now you can bid 4C as a transfer to D, then cuebid S. Now your pass the ball to partner, if he likes his hand, he'd bid 6D. Don't expect a lot of science after 2NT.

1C 1H 2D 2S(gf, 5+ H) 3C 3H 3N 5H(long but broken H, slam invitation.) 6C pass. 6NT is hard to bid though.

Ummm, Chopped liver here. Here was my reply to Hanp's example: I'm also a fan of the King-rich hands ( such as Han's ) going RKC. Hanp wrote in the final installment: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Axx K KJxx KT98x. J9 AQxxx Ax AQxx 1C-(1S)-2D(showing hearts) 2H -2S! 2N -3C 4C!( minorwood) - 4H! ( 0 or 3 ) 4S! ( cQ-ask) - 4NT ( cQ but no outside K's ) 5D! ( what about outside Q's ? ) - 5H ( hQ ) 7C This 4C as RKC is just horrible. Responder hasn't shown any extra value, there is no business for the opener to RKC. This 7C is actually very biddable: 1C (1S) 2H 2N 3C(gf) 3D(showing 4-5 in minors) 3H(showing value) 3S(cue) 4D(RKC) 4N(two, no CQ) 5D(we have all KC, I have no kings, but still have grand slam interest) 5H(HK) 5N(no SQ, but still grandslam interest, so should at least hold one red queen) 7C(now you can count 13 tricks on reasonable breaks) King rich or not is never a big issue in RKC processes. Sometimes, trick rich or not can be an issue. Still, the fundamentals in slam bidding are still controls and source of tricks. A combination of cuebids and RKC can help to achieve high bidding accuracies.

Actually a very wide range of 1 level overcalls isn't very playable. Suppose your range of overcalls can be as bad as 7 HCP good suits to a good 17 HCP, It is just impossible to construct any good responding structure. Suppose you have 12-13 HCP without support in partner's suit, 2NT would be just unsafe, 1NT would be difficult if partner also holds 12-13 HCP. If you raise your range of 1NT response to 10-13, then you would often miss games if your partner overcalls with very sound values. The DONT style of overcalling is actually only good in old days when opps open with rather sound values. Suppose your opps usually open 13 HCP or more, you don't have to worry too much of missing games or slams. Nowadays, many open distributional 10 or even 9 or 8. There, you have to raise your overcall range a little bit to promise a little more. So hands like KQJTx Qxx xxx xx may not really be a good hand to make one level overcalls nowadays. IMO, it's best to bid 2S when white vs. red and pass in other vuls. On the other hand, you should overcall 1S with Jxxxx AKx KJx xx, which many may pass, afraid of a possible huge penalties. In this sense, you should pretty much keep system on after a sound overcall, try to respond with 8 HCP no fit hands more because your partner's overcalls usually promise values. So now the minimum for a balanced hand to overcall is something like: AQxxx KJx Jxx xx and for an unbalanced hand, it can be something like Axxxx xx ATxxx x. Both hands are about 1 HCP lower than what you would open.

It is a pass. I don't mind overcalling with 10 HCP, still, this hand looks like only 7 HCP. Change the hand to xx x Axxxxx Axxx, it is probably closer to a 2D overcall.