junyi_zhu

I'd transfer to 4H and bid 6D the next round. I hope partner not to hold CQJx, in that case they might have a club ruff. Also, 4C here shouldn't be stayman, it should show distributional two suiters.

because it highly depends on how well your hand fit with your partner's. Responder's hand is a little bit more than 7 losers. With a 4th spade, it would be enough for force to game.

I don't know about AMBRA and never heard of it. But I am sure the design can't be the same. Also, I didn't read your post in the thread. The following is my design. If it has something in common with Garozzo's, that only proves that great minds are alike.:blink: Cheapest jumpshift relay. A common problem for a large range one level opening system is how to handle gameforcing one suiter. One suiter in nature is hard to bid because the basic philosophy in bidding is that new suits tend to be forcing and one suiter has no side suit. Thus a solution is to make the cheapest jumpshift by opener as a two way bid and responder can then relay to ask the exact hand type. 1C 1D 2H 2S(relay) 2N: true hearts. 3C: one suiter. 3D: gameforcing, 4 diamonds. 3H: 5 hearts. 3S: self splinter in C. 3N: balanced 19 with 3 diamond support. 1C 1H 2S 2N(relay) 3C: true hearts 3D: GF one suiter. 3H: good 17-18 balanced, 4 card raise in hearts. 3S: 5 spades 3N: balanced 19, 3 hearts. 4C: 6 clubs, 4 hearts, about 19 HCP(direct 4C is weaker) 4D: super splinter, about 18-19 HCP(direct 4D is weaker) 4H: super splinter in S. about 18-19 HCP. 1C 1S 3D 3H(relay) 3S: spade support, balanced 16=18 3N: balanced 19, three spades. 4C: 6C+4sp, about 19 HCP. 4D: serious splinter 4H: serious splinter 1C 1S 3H(GF one suiter) responder can bid 3S to show 5 spades, or invite slam by 4C or 4D as RKC. 1C 1N 3D(strong one suiter, either balanced or short D) 3H(relay) 3S(short D) 3N(balanced) 1C 1N 3H/S: strong one suiter, short H/S. 1D 1H 2S 2N 3C: true spades 3D: diamond one suiter. 3H: 4 hearts, balanced, good 17-18(we open 1NT with good 14 to normal 17) 3S: 5 spades. 3N: 19 balanced, 3 hearts. 4C/H: seriuos splinter in C/S 4D: about 19 HCP, 6D + 4H. 1D 1S 3C 3D 3H: true clubs 3S: 17-18, balanced 4 card raise. 3N: balanced, 19, 3 spades. 4C/H: serious splinter. 4D: about 19, 6 diamonds + 4 spades. 1D 1S 3H: strong one suiter. 1D 1N 3C 3D 3H(true clubs) 3S: short C, diamond one suiter. 3N: diamond one suiter, balanced. 1D 1N 3H/S: self splinter, strong one suiter. 1H 1S 3C 3D 3H: true clubs 3S: heart one suiter with 3 spades. 3N: heart one suiter without 3 spades. 4C/D: serious splinter. 4H: 6 hearts, 4 spades, GF.(about 19) 4S: 6 hearts, 4 spades, weaker. 1H 1N 3C 3D 3H(true clubs) 3S(strong one suiter, short S) 3N(strong one suiter, balanced) 4C/D/H: self splinter in C/D/S, set up H as trumps, but not solid. 1H 1N 3S/4C/D: self splinter, solid H. 1H 1N 4H: to play, tend to deny shortness, can have stiff A or K somewhere.

If ♣ is 4-1 at your back I think declarer is down 90%. Perhaps the best play is won by hand on the first trick, then cash CA to drop stiff Q/J/T of LHO. then play SJ to go back to dummy to make a finesse in C.

You may have some problems bidding this hand: Sx HAKxx DAKxxx Cxxx Over 1D 1S, you probably want to rebid 2D with 5 diamonds. 2H would be an overbid, 1NT would be an underbid, 2C really does you no good. Another thing is that if you always open 1D with 4-5 in minors, you may have a hard time to show them later and partner has a hard time to give a false preference because you may play 4-2 fit in that case: for example, partner may hold: SKxx HJxxxx Dxx CKQx if you open 1D and rebid 2C with 4-5 two suiters, partner would be quite out of bid here. Pass can be risky because you may hold 17 or bad 18. 2D would probably lead to a 4-2 diamond fit on a bad day. 3C would probably lead to 4-3 fit at three level. 2H doesn't make sense either. 2N is an overbid. Also, you might miss minor suit games or slams because partner doesn't know your exact shape. So this treatment is probably not bad for MP, but might not be very good for IMP.

I have a device invented by myself to bid this type of hands, it's called cheapest jumpshift relay. So you can bid 2H over 1D to show either: true hearts, gameforcing one suiter, balanced 19 with 3 diamonds, GF with 4 diamonds. 1C 1D 2H 2S(relay) 2N(true hearts) 3C gameforcing one suiter. 3D gameforcing raise with 4 diamonds 3H 5 hearts. 3S self splinter, solid clubs. 3N 19, balanced, 3 diamonds.

1NT is not bad for MP. For IMP, it's a little bit risky because 5-4-3-1 is really a suit oriented shape, you may easily bury your minor suits when 5m or 6m are cold and 3NT has no good play.

well, it's totally different from the 2 spade rebidding issue. For that 2S rebid part, your partner has already made a two over one bid, thus many play 2S as one round waiting which is forcing. For this hand, partner only bids at one level and you still have an easy 1NT to bid, so it's really no good to rebid 2D which takes up a lot of space and gives you no safety. Also, this 2D can be as good as bad 16, which is not as limited as 1NT is.

change your partner's CJT to declarer and you may see what'll happen. It's pure luck and it's a losing decision for a long run for sure. I don't really mind doubling 2NT aggressively, but it should be based on a respectable hand, not something like yours.

Hand 1, depends on whether you are aggressive or not, 1S 3C(invitational with 3 sp, shortness or 4 spades) 3S(let's stop) pass. if you take an aggressive approach: 1S 2H 2S(minimum waiting or balanced 17-19) 3S(spade fit) 4H(pass or correct) 4S(ruffing value, best to play in S) Hand 2: 1H 2D(GF, or stop at 4 m when both side shows minimum) 2H(minimum, waiting or balanced 17-19) 2S(waiting, minimum) 3D(diamond support) 3S(4 spades) 4D(no club stopper) pass, I may go down one, but this is the best I can do.

2H is slightly an overbid, because your CQ doesn't look very good, but I don't mind 2H since your hearts are trunky. Now you should pass and let partner to decide. he can bid 4NT, 5D or double 4S. he looks like having 4-2-6-1 shape and solid diamonds. SO if he has SAxxx Hxx DAKQxxx CK, he can probably bid 5D.If he hold SAKx Hxx DAKxxxxx CK, he'd probably bid 4NT, if he holds SKQxx Hx DAKQxxx CAx, he'd double 4S.

because 1NT doesn't have to guarantee a stopper in hearts and you have plenty of room to check if opener has a stopper later. And the most important thing is that 1NT shows your hand's strength and shape perfectly. 2D is bad, because 2D usually shows 6 diamonds and should show 6 diamonds here. You have bypassed 2C/1NT and you don't raise 2S, so 2D should be 6.

2C is a huge distortion. 1NT is actually the only bid for this hand. 2C is unlimited, and you may have a lot of stronger hand types and partner tend to keep bidding alive over 2C. If he bids 3C, you probably would go down two in a 4-3 fit and facing a 9 count. If you bid 1NT, you'd probably play there in such situations. Also, it's a long misunderstanding that 1NT need a stopper, which shouldn't. You have a lot of bidding room over 1NT to check if you really have a stopper. 1NT just defines the hand well, stopper issue is never a big problem unless you try for game, in that case you still have cuebids, new suits available to show that you don't have a stopper. A lot of this kindof situations in bidding and I have seen too many players found themselves playing unmakable games or slams due to the distortion in the very beginning. Another thing I want to mention, this hand is probably right to bid 2NT over 1D 2H 2S, because you still have room to explore. And it's marginal to bid 3NT over 1D 3H 3S 3N but it can often be right to bid it. Your partner may have a stopper sometimes or heart may be blocked or opps may try to be cute not to lead H from AQJxxxx and found you have 9 cashing tricks. The extension of Hamman's law (you can say it's Zhu's Law) is, when NT is a possible bid, bid it.

Once upon a time, I used to pass with three bullets, using the same reasoning as Free. Three aces = three tricks, which didn't seem strong enough. Over time, I kept track of my results. Passing consistantly lead to bad scores. More specifically, those same aces that were only worth one trick in my hand were very powerful supporting partner's honors or as defensive tricks. Today, I'd open the hand in question playing anything but Roth Stone. three aces are strong holdings. Even if the shape is 4-3-3-3, the total losers are way less than 9 due to good controls. you can deduct about 1.5 loser which gives you about 7.5 losers and is OK to open. I agree with you, passing 3 aces is losing bridge for sure and if you pass, you can never catch up again. Also for the given hand, it's even stronger than 4-3-3-3, and it's a marginal hand to bid 3NT facing a 2NT invitation, if you bid 3NT over 2NT, you often have some reasonable play facing good 11 or so so 12 especially when partner holds some fillers in diamonds.

you don't have much choice here, just rebid 2C in all three situations. I don't like 2C, but 2C is the lest of evil. 1NT is an underbid and parter may pass your 1NT with 10 or bad 11 which you really want to play a game. 2H over 1H is no good either, because partner would pass with flat 10 counts and 4 hearts which you'd like to play 3NT, for example: SKxx HAxxx Dxxx CKxx, if you bid 2C at least you'd hear a 3C raise from partner. Over 1NT, you should pull it to 2C and partner can cuebid at two level with club support, maximum and values in that suit or pass it with a minimum hand.

Pass for sure. your hand is terrible, soft, stiff CQ and extremely hard for partner to find diamond lead. Opps may often make 8-9 tricks with a long club suit and only 22 to 23 HCP. Something like this may happen, partner found a spade lead from Kxxx Qxxx Qx xxx, you found dummy had only spade jack, but they made 10 tricks because opener happened to make a conservative 2NT opening with SATx HAx DAx CAKJxxx and dummy had Jxx xxx xxxx 9xx. Sadly enough, your teammates somehow gambled 3NT and made it.

I think this is FAR from the generally accepted way to play this bid. If you had to define a term for this, it would be the "principle of fast arrival". I am sure you are familar with this term, and it applies to competitive auctions as well... The general rule says when there are multiple ways to bid to a level, the SLOW WAY shows a stronger hand. Lets use the PFA on the example auction... you lho partner rho 1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠ 5♣ -5♠ ????? First, what would it mean to PASS and then pull your partner's double? Would it mean you couldn't make up your mind to defend or press on after 5♠, and upon hearing your parnter's decision to defend, all of sudden you have decided that your partner never gets anything right, so if he wants to defend, then bidding on is the only right option? Of course not. IF you really had no idea of to defend or bid on, your partners choice to double would have ended the auction.... Would a pass and then bid anyting over partners double (6♥ or 6♦) mean you simply want to play in six, end of story? Of course not, you could have bid that immediately without inviting partners participation in the process. To pass and then pull, you in fact express doubt, but the doubt isn't about making six, it is about bidding seven. So here are the possible auctions... (1) you lho partner rho 1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠ 5♣ -5♠ -6♦ (2) you lho partner rho 1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠ 5♣ -5♠ -6♥ (3) you lho partner rho 1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠ 5♣ -5♠ pass pass DBL ---Pass-----6♦ (4) you lho partner rho 1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠ 5♣ -5♠ pass pass DBL ---Pass-----6♥ Of these, auction number 2 is the weakest. Who knows, maybe your partner is worried that 5♠ will make on this one. You should pass in a flash. Auction number 1 is the second weakest. Here 6♦ is forcing (as far as I am concerned we have agreed upon hearts as trumps) and is a mild grand slam try. The reasaon this is mild, is because of PFA... with a strong grand slam try, partner would have used the forcing pass. Auction 3 is the strong of the four. Here partner is better is than an immediate six diamonds (slow auctions stronger). He is inviting grand slam, and since he could have show the diamond control immediately to invite grand slam (see auction 1), by inference has first round control of spades Auction 4 is a betweener. It is a grand slam try but denies the ability to cue-bid either minor. Clearly shows a great hand and first round spade control, but lacks cue-bid in either minor. So again, this is just anonther example of the very simple, and well understood Principle of Fast Arrival (PFA). This says that: in fit auctions, if there are two ways of bidding to a certain spot, the slower route shows extra values. There are lot of places to read more about this treatment, I particularly like Robson/Segal's "partnership bidding at bridge" which is avaialbe on line in PDF format. So while there are many ways you could agree to play forcing pass, I think in my experience, in my reading, and by study of how my "heros" bid (yes there are so many I look up to), I think this PFA-based approach is by far and anyway the most common. So with my partners, a FORCING pass and then a cue-bid (or 6H bid) doesn't say "I didn't know what to do, so I passed"... quite to the contrary, it says, I wanted to strongly invite to seven so I bid the best way to show that desire. Ben First, I almost never play principle of fast arrival in a GF sequence and I don't even think it's valid for gameforcing situations, because with good hands, if you don't bid and clearify your strong hand type, opps may bid more and you are virtually out of bid and have an extremely hard time next round. If I know you play this style, I'd bid 6S no matter what I have, and you'd miss grandslam half of the time because your partner has to double 6S without spade control and even he has extra he still has to double 6S. Second, if you play as what you said, then what's your 5NT here? Do you really have the partnership agreement on 5NT and pass then pull double to 5NT? If you play 5NT as grandslam force, then it's inconsistant with what you said here, principle of fast arrival, because if you play this principle, you should pass then pull the double to 5NT. And if you pass then bid 5NT as grandslam force, I'd again bid 6S to screw up your grandslam chance. So the best approach to handle this kind of sequence is as following: direct cuebid gurantees first round control of opps' suit and shows value in the cuebidding suit, grandslam try. direct 5NT: trump asking. pass then cuebid: denies first round control, grandslam try. pass then 5NT: mild grandslam try and gurantees first round control in opps' suit. It's really not hard as long as you have partnership discussion here.

I suspect you play forcing pass much differently than the rest of the world... to pass and then pull a reopening double is generally considered stronger than to act immediately. Here 6♦ leaves the door open for 7♥ if South should happen to control spades.... now, if 5♣ denied a spade control, then there is sound logic that 6♦ shows first round spade control after all, no need to invite 7 if you know you are off a spade trick. Ben The basic logic here is that you pass then you pull to show a hand that is better than direct 6H but not as good as cuebidding directly. Forcing pass means I don't know what to do, so I pass. Thus pass then pull the double means I still don't have a clear new suit cuebid, but I am sure I am stronger than direct 6H. The truth is that most players don't even understand the idea of forcing pass, including some fine players.

6D is super strong bid here, which is even stronger than forcing pass. Surprised to see so many bid 6H chickenly. gotta bid 7, and 7C might be more flexible than 7H in some rare situations.

easy 1H and the only choice in my humble opinion. If you always pass with this kind of hands, your partner needs to balance very aggressively and even if he balances aggressively, you still may not catch up and you may often suffer a huge penalty if you balance too aggressively. Basically, in my idea, one should never pass an offensive oriented opening hand when he has a simple overcall at one level. Is this an offensively oriented hand? It looks like a 8-loser balanced hand with some strength in RHO's suit. If partner is always going to raise to 2♥ on xxx, and to 3♥ on xxxx, then I am not sure I want to bid this one immediately. Eric It's about a 7 losers hand because you have excellent controls and DJ which has some plus value over a 1D opener. You have 3 + 1+2+2 - 1 losers. Loser count has to consider about the adjustment of controls, otherwise, it's no accurate.

this hand is probably too strong for 4C. You only need Sxx HAxxxxx DAx CKxx to have a good play in 6H and partner would sign off with this hand over 4C. Thus it's better to start from 3H. 4C is limited and should be about 12-14 HCP or bad 15, >=6losers. Also, it's not a dead minimum as well. Also, responder should bid 4D as last train, 4H is a little bit conservative.

easy 1H and the only choice in my humble opinion. If you always pass with this kind of hands, your partner needs to balance very aggressively and even if he balances aggressively, you still may not catch up and you may often suffer a huge penalty if you balance too aggressively. Basically, in my idea, one should never pass an offensive oriented opening hand when he has a simple overcall at one level.

It's a splinter, the only problem is in which suit, FIrst, it can't be C, because 3C is just forcing one round and you may belong to 3NT sometimes. Also, you have bypassed 2C which usually denies very strong club suit. Can it be spades? Yes, you may hold 3 spades, however, your partner may only hold 4 spades and have some extra with heart support, if you bid 4D to support spades, your partner have a hard time to RKC in hearts, so it can't be spade either. So the only logical explanation of 4D is that it sets up heart as trumps and shortness in diamonds. something like this is possible: Sxx HAKQxxxx Dx CQxx. So partner now can find 6H with: SAKxxx Hx Dxxx CAKxx and stay at 4H with: SAKxxx Hx DAKx Cxxxx. It's easy, isn't it?

You can probably play 1D - 2C as GF and 1D -3C as invititional in C. Still, if you want to add some science to it, you can even combine 1D - 2H as either strong jumpshift in hearts or club invitational with 5 or 6 cards. So 1D-2H 2S: asking 2N: 5 clubs(or bad 6 clubs) invitational. 3C: 6 clubs, invitational. 3D: SJS, diamond fit(possible club shortness if you want to add more science to it:)) 3H: set up trumps as hearts, SJS 3S: SJS, diamond fit, shortness in spades. 3N: SJS, strong balanced, 6 card good hearts. Also, playing 15-17 1NT, you may meet a simliar problem facing 1D 2D(invitational or better) as well, because your 2NT rebid because nonforcing, however you really want to bid a game with 14, thus you have no good way to show 14 HCP hands. You can also play 1D 2D as GF and play 1D 2S as SJS or invitational in D, a simliar structure can be apllied here and you probably can develop it yourself. hehe. You guys can probably call this kind of gadget as "Zhu Relay" Also, it can apply to 1C 2D as well to show either D SJS or invitational in C. So if you play 1D 2C as GF, you can just rebid 2NT with 18-19 balanced. So 3NT rebid would show 4 club raise, extra value, 2-2-5-4 shape, 15-17 HCP and stoppers in both majors, a picture bid.

The basic principle in bridge is that, the earlier you act, the safer you are. 1D p 2D x is no more dangerous than 1D p 2D p p x, and the latter auction is often more dangerous because opener has described his strength, thus he can make a lot of marginal doubles. Also, many don't even have the gadget to penalize you over 1D p 2D x, and even if you hear a redouble from him, that's not the end of the world, because your partner then can pass with weak spades and HQJx, you may play 2H and nobody can double you. Still, if you passed, you really have no way to show such a strong 14 HCP with no wastage in diamonds and super good controls. You can make a game vs as little as SKQx HQxxxx Dx Cxxxx and if you don't double, you'd never find such a good game. That's also why Barry Crane seldom balance, which has been and still is a very important principle to play winning bridge. Also, I am not a fan of "pre-balancing", because I just don't like balancing.