flytoox

Double. No alternative. China's Zhuang1 ze2jun1 once said you should have a neutral attitude toward opp's preempt. Here any other bid will be pure guess. Even if it succeeds, it would be more due to luck than to anything else. Dont let opp's preempt push you.

2N is as good as 3N at least. If you bid 3N, there is no way pd should do anything, if you bid 2N, with min hand pd can just raise to 3N. With max and control rich hand he can cuebid. 3N puts all egges in one basket.

hongjun, you would still say that even with the example hands ben showed? Hehe, Jimmy, I tend to think so. Note I said dbl is worse than 2S. I didnt say pass is worse than 2S. I can accept pass, but I really think doubling with 5card spade suit is wrong practice.

3C is passable, so any bid from responder is gf. If pd rebid 3C, I will bid 3H, asking for half stopper.

You should change it.:) Dbl of opp's minor suit opening guarantees both majors only. Hongjun, Maybe it is you who should change it? :) Hehe, I just follow Lawrence's style. I think he explicitly gave an example in his book "Double" of what you should do when you hold 44majors and 3 in RHO's opening minor suit. He said doulbe is Ok with 44 majors. If you really hate to dbl, pass is Ok. But I dont think overcalling 1H is a good choice.

No, Ben, I think you only need the trump breaks. If C is 4-1 it is ok. And I think this slam should be bid and even it goes down I wont mind. Here though spade king is a waste, it is not much. As 1S is not necesarily real suit. 3N should imply 1S is real suit. But this is not the case and you do have club fit.

You should change it.:) Dbl of opp's minor suit opening guarantees both majors only.

I like 3C. We are not going to play 3N with this hand. We will find out if we will play 5D or 6D. If 4D is RKC I think i will try that. Another possible seqence is bid 2N now, pd may rebid 3c/d/3n, then we pull to 4C. But I think this sequence should show very strong slam interest.

I was referring to the apparently modern style of overcalling on very bad suits, i.e. 10xxxx, Jxxxx and the like. That works for the Italians among others it seems, but they only do this at the 1-level at least. On the actual hand I am pretty sure that not even one Italian would overcall at the 2-level vulnerable if spades had been Jxxxx. I have a feeling that the majority would choose double rather than 2♠ if they bid with the hand in my first post. Roland I would say dbl is far worse than 2S. If 2S is hacked, you will be hacked whatever you do. But 2S still gives me chance to redbl and we may find a 5-3 minor fit. If you dbl, pd will not bid 2S almost 100% and he will be forced to bid a 4-card suit minor and you will play a 4-3 fit minor at three level. I remembered Lawrence said sth like: when you have 5-card spade, bid it. Of course he is not saying it in the exact context. But I think the principle still applys here. I think double with 5 card spade is a very bad practice. If it is heart suit and opps bid 1S and raises to 2S then that is another story.

I think pd should take more responsibility with this hand. Since he asks for continuation of spade, I think it is better to simply follow his suggestion. If pd has HKxx and DA, then we can set them quickly. If spade continuation is wrong, I guess pd's carding is not quite right.

When they have a fit, bid! 2S for me.

Not really, you just need to get the trump right. You dont need to finesse minor suits. Just concede a diamond trick.

If the following are true: a. 1S denies a balanced hand ( in Walsh style, opener's suit rebid here instead of 1NT guarantees at least 44 in the suits bids, usually with unbalanced hand OR , if balanced, with concentrated values), and b. 1S is passable then I will PASS. 1- Pard has real clubs, so our singleton is a minus 2- Pard is likely to be short in hearts; true, he might have 2 or (for some pairs) 3 , but he might be as well shorter; 3- we have only 7 hcp and the misfit does not justifying reevaluating the hand for distribution; let's stop at the one level: many opps will balance into THEIR misfit contract. Pass is too conservative. You have very good 7HCP and game is still possible. Keep the door open.

1N, no second choice here.

It applies to any suit opened. Maybe I wasn't specific in my first post. My apologies. Roland I understand you mean any three level preempts. I am just saying 3c/3d would not be as effective as 3H/S. After 3M preempts, opps are often forced to choose between 3N and 4 or 5 level. But after 3m preempt, they can look for major suits fit first, if failed, they can still try 3N.

My choice is between 3H and 2N. This hand has very good offense potential. 3H looks right after pd's 1N response. A good question is what if the suit is spade rather than heart? I would consider 2N rebid then.

I think this is in Robson's book on partnership bidding. It works very well. I remembered once I held sth like xxx,Axx,xx,QJT98 and I opened 3C in third seat. On the other hand, I think it is more effective against weak opps. Against good opps I dont think 3m preempt will be very effective. 3M preempt is different.

Correct me if I am wrong. But I think in both SAYC and 2/1, 3C is gf by default. We can stop at 4C only if we cuebid 3D, looking for 3N but both fail to bid it, then 4C rebid is passable.

I think you should play 3-card raise:) Check Lawrence's book about it, I cannot recommend it enough.

I think 2D is the worst among all choices, worse than 2C or 1N. I think if opps are silent, chance that pd has 5413 is very high.

If you bid 2S, they wont have chance to bid 2H at all. And if spade is 1-5, you are likely doubled in the NT then 2S sequence but will not get dbled if you raise to 2S directly.

Between 1S and 2H. I think I will vote for 1S. Although my hand is min, all cards are good. If pd rebids 1N, I will retreat to 2H. If we change SJ to HJ, I vote for 2H.

Almost. I play 3♣ here as "forcing but not promising a rebid" so if pd bids 3♥ or 4♣ or 3NT I can pass. If he bids 3♦ or 3♠ then we are in a game forcing situation. That is only in your system. IN Sayc or 2/1, 3C is gf. No way you can pass 3H or 4C.

I think it is better to play 2N as natural, and 3S as invitational. There is no point to play 3S as preempt. Or you can play 3D as 4-card good raise.

The whole point of bidding is to find a fit and then decide how high we should go. Here we have fit in spades. Furthermore, when you bid a suit, you always hope to hear pd's raise. Same to pd. Let's make pd happy and raise him. What is a fit ? (i thought this mean 8 cards) At least we have 7.