Quantumcat

I use Marston's 26-point thing if I'm not sure whether slam is on (count 2 points for ace in pard's shortage, and nothing for any other card. If your total points come to 26, you can probably make slam). I sometimes use LTC. I use control points in my relay auctions (A=3, K=2, Q=1). That's it.

Where I come from, no double is ever alerted, no matter what it means. Same as bids of the opponents' suit.

I would probably pass. If I had better or longer clubs I would probably invite in clubs (presumably partner will accept whenever he has a fit in clubs). I have a nice takeout double if the opponents try to play in 2♦.

It could be that to cue-raise in diamonds or just bid 3♦, he must have five, to double to show penalty interest he has to actually have penalty interest, and to show the fourth suit he has to have five of them, so he has run out of possible bids and just passes? If that's the case maybe it should be changed so that if he doesn't have penalty interest or the fourth suit, with 12 or 13 HCP he has to cue-raise opener's suit no matter what he holds in it?

I have seen human non-beginners forget to accept a grand slam try with an unshown source of tricks so it's not too unusual - but GIB shouldn't, since he has knowledge of all the possible hands you can have, 99% of which must make a grand? He is probably programmed to robotically (lol) show his number of kings and is not allowed to bid grand if he thinks it is making. If this is true, it is definitely a bug that should be fixed.

I like (1♣) 2♣ and (1♦) 2♦ as natural I also like (1♦) P (1♠) 2♠ as natural too For the original post, 1NT. An immediate 1NT would be (15)16-18, so double then NT would be (18)19-21 (or similar). There is lots of room to make sure you have a stopper before 3NT, so you don't actually need one to make this bid. If partner has a near-yarborough and you play in 1NT, then you are probably still fine, since there was no club raise (pard probably has 4-5 small ones). I would take 2♥ as invitational (with no interference). If you would jump to 2♥ responding to a takeout double with say 8-10, then bidding 2♥ as takeout doubler you would probably have 4 hearts and around 17-18 HCP. But if there was interference, you might bid 2♥ with a lot of hands and 4 hearts, not invitational. I would take 3♥ as about the same but a five card suit (setting trumps in case responder was forced to bid a 3-card suit to stop them not wanting to play in hearts).

5♥ = I have two diamond losers what about you?

I made up a bergen/jacoby system that means you don't ever need to show extras as opener (you either sign off or investigate slam yourself). If you want to use it, I am calling it Quantum Bergen: 1♠: - 2♣ = includes 3-card limit raise (all the following are 4-card raises) - 2NT = 13-14 - 3♣ = 9-12 - 3♦ = 7-8 or 17+ - 3♥ = 5-6 or 15-16 - 3♠ = 0-4 Over 1♥ 4-card raises are all the same except moved down one step. Now over Jacoby you simply sign off if you don't think there is a slam on, and only move if there is. You never need show extras when it turns out there is no slam because responder was minimum.

I think it would be a great idea for kibitzers to be able to rate commentators. After a while commentators would have ranks, and you can make sure to put the best/most popular commentators into the more important matches. The rankings don't have to be generally known, just used when deciding who to send to which table. For instance I was watching a match recently, and one of the voice commentators didn't really know what was going on, said wrong things and kept talking over the top of the good commentator. And then on another occasion there were two really good commentators at one table (one of the less important ones), but it wasn't the table I wanted to watch, so I had a conflict on whether to listen to good quality commentary or watch the big table. Does this sound at all possible? It could be done very simply by having a weekly/monthly anonymous poll on the forums asking people to vote for their favourite commentator. But you should probably give Larry Cohen a provisional ranking of infinity and not add him to the list otherwise the poll won't be very informative, everyone will just vote for him :-P If it were advertised at the end of matches on BBO, it would also be a way of getting more people to use the forums too.

1♠ then 3/4♠ sets spades as trump, therefore cuebid. However if it had been a new suit, 1♠ 1NT 3♦ for instance, you have to make an agreement on what 4♣ is

Ok, I didn't think about that. I feel instinctively though that there's a better chance of partner having the king of diamonds than giving partner a ruff - with four hearts and a singleton, he probably would bid 4♥. Also when the declaring side has so many fits partner probably has five hearts (and he would bid 4♥). Of course I have no maths to back it up so I don't really have an argument :-)

Quick solution - drag the window to the left so the banner is off the screen :-)

That's what I said - if declarer has the king, it is impossible to take it off, and you are only giving them an overtrick, but you tried your best to take it off.

When you say "negative" you mean takeout, right? I play: over natural interference of 1NT, it is takeout. Over two-suited interference, it is takeout of the bid suit, if it shows two suits not the bid suit, it is takeout of the higher one. If it shows a known suit (not the bid suit) and an unknown suit, it is takeout of the known suit. If it shows a mystery suit, X shows a not unbalanced hand and near-gameforce (to facillitate penalising them). To show suits I play rubensohl. For penalty, I hope partner can make a takeout double. Over 3-level interference, it is takeout, and suit bids are natural and forcing to game (rubensohl only if 2NT trf to clubs is available).

I wonder if I can get that sort of thing going here! :-) How much are your entry fees typically? Do you get Victory Dinners over there as well?

Is it a normal thing to get freebies at tournaments in the US? That sounds really cool! Here we get 'showbags' at the beginning of a tournament but all they have (apart from scorebooks and crappy pen with tournament logo), is brochures and advertisements from the sponsors.

Yes - If your auction starts to be slammy, you bid interesting suits at the 2-3 level [this is to help both partners be able to picture whether slam can make - you skip suits you don't have anything good in, and bid 3+ card suits you do. E.g. KJx or AQxx], one of which might get a raise. The person who knows which suit they want to play in should be the one to KC. Also, if the first bid is 1♠, opener always rebids a 4+card heart suit even if he wouldn't accept a limit raise, and if responder has only a limit raise then he must raise to game with 4+card heart support, assuming the double-fit will be helpful. Of course people do things differently, if you don;t like this approach, I'm sure there is lots of documentation out there from others :-)

Reminds me when my partner gets asked for help how to bid a certain hand at our club; often it is because the asker had mishandled a reverse - either passing partner's reverse or making one with a weak hand and getting too high. When he tries to explain to them about why reverses show extra values, they often say quickly, "oh, but we don't play reverses!!!".

♣J, if it gets ruffed, over ruff. ♠A, ruff a spade, diamond to the ace, ruff a spade, heart to the ace (presumably seeing LHO show out), ruff a spade. King queen of hearts to finish them off. Return to dummy with ♦K and cash ♣K to discard losing diamond. If club does not get ruffed: discard losing diamond. ♠A, ruff. ♥K (assume we find out 4-0 with RHO), 1st heart finesse. Spade ruff, 2nd heart finesse. Draw remaining trumps, go to dummy with ♦K, discard last spade on ♣K. I think this works, I think we have enough trumps. Although please do correct me if wrong :-)

You still do better leading a small diamond. If declarer has the king, you weren't going to take it off anyway; just an overtrick. And if declarer (or dummy) has a singleton, you will certainly wish you had led a small one.

In 2/1, usually a direct raise is 8-10 HCP and 1NT (or 1♠ natural to 1♥) can include 5-7 3-card raise, so 2♥ there would be the weak 3-card raise. Or you can have the ranges round the other way, then it is an 8-10 raise. Even if it does show a weak hand with two hearts and five spades, not sure you'd ever want to do that. You won't ever have an 8-card fit (unless you never raise with 3, and even then not that likely - may as well bid 2♠ if you are banking on opener having hidden 3-card support).

lol Zelandakh. Do you also write "hell freezes over" on the standard CC where it says "Gerber. When:______"

The jump to 4♥ is not agricultural, it is simply part of your system - assuming you don't have a way to show 3-card game-force support apart from changing suit then bidding game. If you are asking for system suggestions, I love the multi 2♣ response to 1-major - shows a 3-card limit raise, or game-force and balanced, or game-force and clubs. Opener bids 2♦ if he would accept the invitational limit raise, 2♥ if not. After 2♦ if you have a limit raise you bid 4♥ immediately, if you have a better hand and 3-card support you bid 2♥ (leaving the way clear for possible slam exploration), and hands with clubs can rebid a new suit (natural) or clubs again, game-force balanced rebids 2NT.

If you have the minimum number of the other suits, 7 is the maximum number of diamonds (0♣ + 3♥ + 3♠ + 7♦ = 13 cards).

It makes sense that taxes are higher in places where it is nicer to live. If all people cared about were taxes, they'd all move to Nigeria or somewhere.