peachy

I usually wait til the end to butt in again. You said 2C suggested a shapely limit raise in clubs. Actually, it promises a limit or better raise in clubs. Maybe you meant that 3C suggested shapely? Dunno why. 3C suggested "limit raise but not necessarily gameforcing; passable". Partner's 2S initially denied a heart stopper (or: he had both majors stopped with spade suit and was going to continue after a possible 3C signoff from partner). It seemed to me at the time that we don't have enough trumps ♥ to defend 3HX, me having Qx and partner not known to have heart stopper or length in hearts. I think my initial mistake was to downgrade the quacky 13 to a non-gameforce hand I should have just blasted 3NT.

Appreciate all comments so far. At the table, I downgraded my hand to a good 12 and bid 2C, semiworried that 2NT could be passed and semiworried about both majors being stopped. Probably just worthless worry? The auction proceeded: 1C (P) 2C (P) 2S (P) 3C (Dbl) Rdbl (P) P (3D) P (3H)4C (P) 5C (P) P (P) I felt we are in the wrong place. What do you expect opener to hold in this auction? 2S promised spades stopped and either no heart stopper or a hand that will go on after potential signoff.

Expert team match on BBO. All vul. Partner opens 1C in second seat. Playing 2/1. Relevant agreements: inverted minors, 2N to 1m = invit, 3N to 1m = 13-15. What is your call as responder with Q103 Q2 AK98 Q943 I wasn't quite happy with my action, but what calls are reasonable?

Strongly recommend not playing in tourneys if bad connection (known ahead of time it is bad) because it often inconveniences so many others. Barring exceptional circumstances, you can get a better/faster connection than dial-up quite easily. Or play at open tables with people who can tolerate your bad connection.

If at a tourney or indy, asking or telling partner IMO is improper as everyone else is in the same boat = not knowing exactly what the sys is, even if SAYC is the default. Open tables play, I think it is common courtesy to allow opponents to make agreements in the middle of auction. Makes the game faster and more fair. Much of the questions or tells are about what RKC or whether inverted minors etc.

I thought for once we have a unaninmous vote. 2C, then pass.

It seems that _intention_ is key in defining what is a preemptive bid and what is not. "Hinder the enemy through removal of bidding space" is not all, it is the "Intended to hinder..." that matters. Standard 2C (strong, artificial) or plain old Flannery (ugh) also hinders but it is not the intention at all. So my question is, is the _intention_ of a Prec 2C to rob bidding space? I think not. The bid exists for practical reasons because a 1C bid is reserved for another purpose, not because it was designed and/or intended to be a preemptive bid. Well, just my thoughts.

Is there a definition of preempt that I am not familiar with? Out of curiosity, I'd like to know why a Prec 2C would be called a preempt.

Ruling is correct. West broke tempo with no legal bridge reason for the tempo break, thus misleading declarer and causing damage. Even if West's _intention_ was not to mislead, there is no cause to investigate the intentions as there is no other evidence than self-serving statement available to discover. TD rulings are based on substantiated facts.

This X is under the suit, in the balancing position. I think even those who play penalty would see the Dbl in this auction as takeout. Or else we can never balance after we have opened weak NT?

Since neither player bid NT at any point, the auction indicates that the hearts are wide open. That is of course not real, instead of 3H, responder should have bid 3NT. We haven't seen opener's hand yet, who knows what he has done, but sounds like he has 4-3-5-1 or 4-2-5-2 minimum with about Jxx or Qxx in hearts. In the given auction, I now bid 4H and then attempt to sign off ASAP.

I think penalty is the old fashioned way. I am willing to play it any way partner prefers and, hopefully, we have discussed it. Takeout makes a lot of sense at low levels.

1. It is on the border, open or not. 2. Transfer to hearts, then 4C. I would bid 4C even if the club suit didn't have the ace. It is natural clubs, not a cue in hearts.

No weak jumps by a passed hand, there is nothing to pre-empt when both opponents have already passed once. By my logic, this 3S is a maximum 4-card limit raise, typically with a singleton.

Matter of partnership agreements. I think it is best to agree on principles, then apply them to individual auctions. There are different styles, here is my preference: Jump in minor after 1H-1S-1NT, and jump in other minor after 1m-1M-1NT, are weak hands with four-card major and six-card minor. To Play. Strong hands go through NMF. After NMF: raise of opener's suit, rebid of the "new minor" suit (natural now), or rebid of responder's major are forcing. Invitational hands jump directly if 5-5; or bid 2NT. Sometimes this leads to the loss of diamond suit such as 1C-1S-1NT-2NT where responder can have 4-card spades and 5-card diamonds in Walsh style 2/1. Nearly never a problem not to be able to bid 5-card diamonds naturally with an invitational hand.

I know this was a note to blackshoe, but I can't help myself... No, PP is very inappropriate! South did exactly the right thing. He alerted because he knew that the bid was onventional. Then, when asked, he explained he had forgotten what the bid meant except that it is conventional. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The opponents can always find out the meaning of the bid from the convention card or, with the help of TD, from North. As to "can't adequately explain their agreements" either you can (because you remember) or you can't (because you don't remember). There was nothing inadequate in South's explanation, under the circumstances. Inadequate would be something quite different, like explaining 2C opener as "strong & artificial" while fully well knowing partnership agreement that it could also be a preemptive type onesuiter with 8-9 tricks.

Can pass, can double [cards & balanced], can bid 3M. Whatever looks right.

North created the mess with the mysterious failure to neg dbl and even more mysterious 2H bid which promises 5+ cards. South's bidding was normal.

2S. If I don't bid spades now, we could lose the spade suit. If I dbl first and then bid spades, in many partnerships that shows a strong onesuiter too big to overcall (while also not too shapely to hate defending in case for some reason partner decided to defend 2DX) and this hand isn't it.

Bid spades now. If I Dbl and then bid spades, the auction gets complicated for no reason and it will be impossible to convey this hand to partner later.

South must not pass the forwardgoing 2NT. He has the best hand he could possibly hold for the 2H bid, perhaps too much even.

Well said. If you venture to use, say, Capp, you use it because both you and your indy stranger have it on your profiles and you assume that your partner will understand it. It would be risky to spring a convention on a stranger unless you have reason to believe this stranger plays it and the stranger has reason to believe you play it. Lets say both you and partner have CAPP in your profile. It would IMO be completely proper to say "we both have Capp on our profiles so I assume we play Capp" and then explain the bid. Technically, "No Agreement" could be correct but being truthful about the quality and firmness about your agreement does not hurt!!! If nothing shows on either profile and nothing was discussed with this stranger, then "No Agreement" is proper. But then you would not have used Capp in the first place...because you had no sort of agreement, even implicit, to use it...

Step 1: Bid Your Slams Step 2: Make Your Slams Step 3: Profit Grand slams especially... Seriously...slams are where you make the big points. You don't want to be playing part scores at all. Also, your game bidding should be very aggressive... a game needs to be only about 45% NV, 38% vulnerable, so even a bit more aggressive than IMPs. If you're trying to place high occasionally (and accept also placing very low somewhat often), be even more aggressive. I tried this strategy a little while ago. I bid slams aggressively, and landed in the right slam a few times but invariably GIB overruled and went to grand which failed by a trick. Since then, I have learned from others that "never jump to a slam without using Blackwood first cuz GIB will put you in grand". Lesson learned.

I just have acomment on this. Some Conditions of Contest REQUIRE that the players have agreements and that they know how and when the agreements apply, at this level of competition. Club game or some random sectional partnership is different from " World Class players who are regular partners"

In my methods, opener has strong balanced hand because he failed to splinter. Opposite strong balanced hand (close to 20HCP) I probably still pass because of bad trumps and bad shape. However, having only aces and kings instead of quacks is very tempting. Afterall, partner was bidding to make 4H, opposite a much lesser hand that I could have in this bidding.