effervesce

4♣. If partner has indeed a hand with a diamond singleton, eg 3415, slam is looking good.

It's close, but I'd need the J of spades to overcall. Maybe even the T9 of spades will do at this vul.

If you play that way, they can duck the first two round of spades, and win the third-then you're restricted to two spade winners, 5 diamonds, 3 clubs, and a heart winner. That's only 11 tricks. You'll still need the heart hook for the 12th-doesn't appeal to me. Thus the play of the ten of diamonds at t1 appears inferior to me- North is unlikely to have led from Jxxx or a diamond singleton. Running the ten of spades allows me to pick up spades for 3 tricks whenever north has the spade J.

Disagree with 3NT. What's 2NT after 2♦? In 6NT, we have 9 top tricks if diamonds behave. We need 3 more. Spades looks the best chance for this: I can't see anything better than running the ten of spades at t2, which makes whenever diamonds break and spade J onside.

Against weak opponents, I bid 5♥, so LHO cannot bid 4NT or 5♣, and makes a 5♠ bid ambiguous. Against strong opps, I bid 7♥. If they bid 6♠ I was always going to bid 7♥ in any case, and this gives the most pressure on the opps.

3♠ looks normal. Why hide an 8 card suit. If partner can raise/cue after 3♠ I'll RKCB. If partner bids 3NT after 3♠, I'm bidding 4♣.

How do you propose to measure how well a pair 'stays on their intended track', without first evaluating how well they stay on their intended track from constructive bidding without interference? A simple comparison of IMPs/board vs opening bid structure gives at least a starting point for answering this latter question. The point of Glen's posting of the opening structures is to give an indication of what current top players currently believe the opening structure should be. If the top players all believe that a supernebulous 1D is best within a precision context as opposed to meckwell openings, then that suggests that perhaps such an opening structure is more efficient/effective for such a system. If all non-big club system players play 1D as 4+, then that also is an indicator that top players believe that such an opening structure is more effective than better minor/convenient minor. Looking for other things is all very well and good, but without the information we can't look for these other things. With the information Glen has kindly provided, it gives some insight into what current top players believe work and don't work.

Having tinkered with openings similar to what you have (but from a suspensor forcing pass basis): The main defect of your system is that you really lose out big on minor hands. Opening 2NT or higher with such hands will be the biggest losers in such a system, and is a very large hole imo. Yes, you can play it-but I think you'd do better with a standard system than with MALEX. That said, the idea is sound- have you looked at MOSCITO forcing pass/strong club systems?

Of the top 7 pairs we have Four 15-17, one 14-16, one 12-14, one 11-13 1NT opening ranges Two precision pairs Two weak/strong 1C openers Five play 1D as promising 4+, with both precision pairs playing 1D as supernebulous Three play Muideberg 2M Three play multi-2D Six play 2NT as strong balanced Five play 5 card majors

Following that train of thought, why not make it 1♠? Then 1D can be 5+ hearts, 1H as 5+ spades. Bidding 1D-1H can therefore be the relay instead. There must be a point at which the risk: preemptive effect isn't worth it. Changing the fert to 1♠ non-vul may be worth it though, given the risk is least then, and having a GF relay of bidding the step less likely to be interfered.

I believe Paul Marston had previously played 2M as 5M332 10-12 at a previous bermuda bowl. I think he later changed it to include 5M4m22 handshapes as well, but the purpose of putting them as 8-9 5M332 is to plug a hole. For the same reason many precision players play 2D as 3 suited short diamonds. It's not a great bid, but it's there to cover a handshape that cannot be covered in other ways in the opening bid methods. Now, if I plugged the 8-9 5M332 into the 1D fert, I could use 2H and 2S for other purposes. Weak twos of 4-7 HCP could be used I guess.

I've made a forcing pass system with Pass = 13+ any 1C = 8-12, denies 5CM/6m/balanced 1D = 0-7 (8-9 if bal no 5M) 1H = 8-12, 5+ unbal 1S = 8-12, 5+ unbal 1NT = 10-12, may be 5M332 2C = 8-12, 6+ 2D = 8-12, 6+ 2H/2S = 8-9, 5M332 2NT = 8-12, 5+/5+ minors The main reason for excluding balanced hands from 1C,1H,1S is that it simplifies the bidding afterwards, and makes the GF relays after 1C, 1M less space consuming (also, in general you prefer balanced hands relaying unbalanced hands, while with an unbalanced hand opposite a balanced hand you prefer to show your shape). Thus, in this system shape relays are available after every opening except 2D. At the moment I'm currently using 1C - 1D/1H as transfers. The current scheme after 1C: 1C - 1D ..... 1H = 3 hearts ..... 1S = 4 spades, 1-2 hearts ..... 1NT = 5 clubs, 4 diamonds, 1-2 hearts ..... 2C = 4 clubs, 5 diamonds, 1-2 hearts ..... 2D = good heart raise ..... 2H = poor heart raise. 1C - 1H ..... 1S = 3 spades ..... 1NT = 5 clubs, 4 diamonds, 0-2 spades ..... 2C = 4 clubs, 5 diamonds, 1-2 spades ..... 2D = 5 diamonds 4 hearts 1-2 spades 2H = good spade raise 2S = poor spade raise The area I'd like suggestions for are for what bid to use as a GF relay, how to show hands with a minor suit, invitational, and minor suit, non-forcing. For example, one possible scheme would be 1C - 1S as a transfer to 1NT 1C - 2x as natural non-forcing 1C-1S as transfer to 1NT, then bidding a minor as invitational 1C-1NT as GF relay However, many other schemes could be used, simply because 1C is so defined there's not that many hand shapes, thus an example method is 1C - 1S transfer to clubs 1C - 1NT transfer to diamonds 1C - 2C minors 1C - 2D GF relay Any suggestions/ideas/criticism/comments?

I suspect that it is a criss cross raise - after partner opens 1 of a minor, a jump shift by you into the other minor shows a criss cross raise (~6-10, 5 card support).

1) Hate double here- double should be shape-specific at the 1 level unless having extras 2) No, if I had a bid which said I was 11 pts 3334 I wouldn't use it here anyway. i) They're more likely to declare ii) Your hand shape is built for defending not declaring iii) Partner will balance when it's right to. An X with such a hand is just saying to partner you don't trust him to balance when he should, and is masterminding IMO.

*scratches head* Most natural systems feature one opening bid. 1♣. There are no other opening bids. As noted, this approach does get all screwed up when the opponents do anything. *scratches head some more* *scratches head at the head scratching*

Pass. You need a hell of alot to make 6, and if partner had what you need to make 6 he'd probably have bid it. Besides, partner's 5♣ bid may have been based on trying to generate a swing. Why hang partner?

Ewwwwwwwwwwww..... Gain 2 IMPs at most if you set them one trick. Lose 8 if they make. This is not a great hand for 'if they don't make doubled occassionally, you aren't doubling enough'. This is a good hand for 'if they don't go down more than 1 doubled occassionally, you aren't doubling enough'. Edited to add: if it were the LOLs at my club, it wouldn't shock me at all for the 2♠ bid to be a 5 card suit and a 14 count. Know your opponents and all that, but I'd say fully half the time we have an auction like this, the opponents had game. When LOLs back into a bid like this one, it usually means that experts would have been in the auction a long time ago. That's assuming they're just one off. They could be two or three off. What do you think the chances of them making are? Assuming that if they go off they only go 1 off, and if they make they make exactly, by your figures X breaks even if they're making 20% of the time. I don't believe partner would bid 3♣ with a minimum crappy hand. If partner has zero defensive tricks and had bid on shape, he can pull anyway, given he knows your hand pretty well (he knows you're almost certain to be 4513 from the bidding).

1♠, though pass is possible. Passing isn't bad since we have the boss suit - if we had 6 hearts instead of 6 spades, I'd certainly want to bid 1♥ not pass.

I'd have doubled 2♠- a big chance for a large gain, while a relatively small chance of 2♠X making. If you don't double them and they make occasionally, you're not doubling enough. Anyway, I'm guessing responder is 6 diamonds 4 clubs.

2♥ for me. I don't want to play in a 4-2 fit, and a 6-1 fit isn't terrible.

My pet hate list: 1) Standard Jacoby - it's so bad its almost useless 2) Capp - anything but this please 3) Support X - why give them extra bidding space 4) 2D game forcing - 2C game forcing is better 5) Gambling 3NT - in my experience has never gained over opening 4m/5m 6) Bergen raises - why waste so many bids - splinters, fit-showing jumps, etc are more useful 7) Flannery -wasting one whole bid on an uncommon hand with few benefits

Huh? 2♠ for me. If it was 3(433) I don't mind 1NT. But 4 card support?

So do many strong no-trumpers. Let's complain about them too. Huh? Really? Since when? I've played KNT, and no, we extremely rarely downgrade 13 counts. If playing a standard system then yes, the KNT does mess the NT ladder. But in a strong club context, for example, it does not. a 10-12 NT can actually clean up the NT ladder, cleaning out the minimum 5M332 hands from 1M for example, making for better constructive auctions after a 1M auction. For example, 1M-2m-2NT is now 13-15; this is a much better situation than 1M-2m-2NT as 10-15 or whatever, or even if you put 5M332s in a 13-15 1NT as a 10-12 2NT rebid is horrible. If indeed they were playing these large ranges, yes that is a major disadvantage. Many KNTers who use it in a standard system play 1m then rebid 1NT as one range and 1om rebidding 1NT as the other range to fix this.

3♥ was a massive underbid. Opposite alot of hands slam is a good spot-for example, just move the diamond king to the spade king- eg AKxx xxx Axxx xx. Anyway back to the questions- 1) Pass - you've already shown your hand 2) 1♣-X-2♦ and responder is stuck for a bid. Responder really wants to RKC for spades, and be able to signoff in hearts. 4♥ happens to work out here on this particular hand but responder really should be investigating for slam, eg bidding 3♣/3♦ then bidding hearts (though what would such a sequence show? It's probably more useful for 3♣ and 3♦ to be stopper asks anyway). It seems here that there are multiple calls that are not well defined - it would be useful in this situation if 4♣ to be slammy for hearts, and 4♦ as slammy for spades.

4♣.