wank

passing or 1s are ok. 2+ spades is a shooting offence.

helgemo said that when he was playing for monaco whenever his opps opened a weak 2 he mentally wrote down 10 out because he knew F+N would be coming back with a crap board from the other table

yeah you're right 3s is a rather poor bid

i wouldn't say so. as a passed hand you're never smacking 4S there opposite a pre-empt if you're the one with trumps, so there's little deceptive value and this can easily be cold.

i wouldn't close entries. you want it to build momentum. people often only join in when they see something's got legs.

rahter unfortunate. welland and auken got very lucky with that slam.

well yeah 1nt would be a gamble on that shape and 1S is the standard bid, but i think you'd play much better part-scores on average by bidding 1nt. if partner has enough to make game, he'll reverse and no doubt be surprised when you turn up with 4 card support. but for sure there's no need for 3C to be 4th suit forcing after 1H-1S-2D-2H-2NT-3C - opener's shape is pretty closely defined. responder can bid spades again to suggest playing 4 on a 5-2 fit.

no, you're expected to bid 1nt over 1h. but this is irrelevant. bidding on over 1h-1s-2d-2h opposite this hand works well. you'd get to 3c.

but on this auction responder's considerably more likely to have his full 6+ quota. the reasons for responding on crap are 1) scared of opps bidding spades (no) 2) hate hearts (no) 3) long spades , might make game on skimpy values (very unlikely to have 6 now. 5 ok, yes maybe)

yes 2 spades shows 3 as far as i'm concerned. this hand can bid 2nt perfectly happily. qx is a holding that needs to be declarer. if you had a small doubleton club and the points elsewhere, it would be 3C with this shape (a better question would be what do you with 2524 and a small doubleton diamond after 1h-1s-2c-2h and the answer would still be 3D - partner shouldn't have preference for clubs and a hand too bad to accept the invitation or he'd pass 2C, e.g. pass with a 4243 6 count).

there is no shame from missing game with 15 opposite 10, but partner doesn't have a 15 count. with all those pips his hand is worth more.` p needs to bid again.

i don't know anything about gibbon handling, but i'd play. best send out opp details and play by dates by forum message imo to make sure they get read (by which i mean that's what you'd need to do make sure i read it).

by the way, i agree with helen's comments about opening 1 major in isolation. however, an individual bid in a bidding system is never in isolation. it's the combination of the major first approach with a weak no trump which has unfortunate side effects. the major first approach works very well with a strong no-trump.

this hand isn't a problem. responder can bid 2S natural, or you can take up some version of checkback and locate the fit that way. the problem hand is kjxx xxx kxxxx x. now this hand is too weak to introduce spades after 1C-1D-1NT. the solution whilst opening the minor first, is for this hand to respond 1S. you should only do that on 1-bid hands, otherwise bid up the line.

it's obviously a straight choice between 2n and 2h. i'd go for 2H. you are allowed to have a maximum for your bid, especially non-vul. if i had an extra 10, ideally in spades, i'd bid 2NT.

the counter argument to that specific point is that if you open the minor, responder will bid a major, allowing you to raise to 2. it's not necessary to differentiate between a balanced 15 count and a 5431 12 count at that stage (can clarify on the next round if responder is strange enough) because they both have similar playing strength in a suit contract. you have however shown your other suit so you're ahead in that regard. if responder doesn't bid a major, it's either because he has enough values to bid again over 1NT (see what i said earlier about bidding majors before diamonds on very weak responding hands), or he hasn't got 1, in which case it's much better if opener keeps his major quiet as it makes it harder for the defence. the only problem is when responder has exactly 4 spades and 4+ hearts with a weak hand. then it goes 1m-1H-1NT and the spades will be lost.

you have to consider that people writing bridge books are not doing so because they dream of improving the standard of bridge. outside the portland club [rubber bridge, where even negative doubles are banned] i doubt andrew robson has played acol in the last 20 years. the EBU file is certainly not written by experts. ron klinger is australian. acol is the most popular system in the antipodes (from what i've seen anyway), as it is in england. he unsurprisingly tailors his books to his market. as you seem to doubt what people have said, i'll show you a few reasons why opening 1M on a 4 card suit with a 15+ balanced hand is bad:- you're pre-empting the auction on your good opening hands. when you have values for game or slam it's obviously best to have as much room as possible to investigate which game or slam you should be playing. starting the bidding at 1 spade on a hand where your competitors are opening 1 club obviously makes that harder when partner raises to 2M and you have a strong no-trump you're in a weak position. do you pass and miss game with 16/17 opposite 8/9? do you bid 2NT? this pushes you out of a frequent 4-4 fit, meaning if responder's rejecting the invitation and has 4 card support he's pushed to the 3 level the 5th card in the major easily gets lost. for example after, 1H-(2s)-x-(p), do you play 2NT now as 15+ forcing, allowing responder to show 3 card heart support? if so, what do you bid with Kxxx Kxxxx Ax Qx? 3H would be sickening. similarly 1H - (3x) x - p you have no space to both bid 3NT with your stop and show your 5th heart. when partner makes a 2/1 and you have support, the bidding is very cramped. let's say you have a 17 count 4234 shape. you open 1 spade, partner bids 2C, do you raise? you can't raise because that's not-forcing. so you have to bid a forcing 2NT, but now you'll have to go past 3NT to show your club support. 3NT is very often the only making game so you'll msot liekly never show your club support at all. that's clearly ridiculous.

that you were getting 60% playing methods out of the 1930s indicates you're either garozzo and beladonna or that the general standard of bidding was absurdly low. my money's not on option A. that you refer to transfers as 'complex methods' pretty much proves the point that UK knowledge of bidding is low.

it's a pass, but 2C wouldn't be close to making your 100 worst bids of the year.

1) opening 4 card majors works badly in a weak no trump system. yes i know that's the system played by 95% of the population of the UK. the bidding knowledge in England is very low for players of a given standard of cardplay 2) if you want to open the minor with 4M4m (and ideally the longer minor with 4M4M 18-19) to ameliorate that issue, good. 3) however, this has knock on effects. with a weak hand, which is too bad to bid over a 1NT rebid, responder is much better placed bidding his major in preference to longer diamonds, so you don't miss your major fits and get to thin games. 4) so you don't miss out on playing a partscore in diamonds you can choose to play 1C-1M-1NT-2D as weak, 5+ diamonds, maybe only 4M, or you can play 2 way checkback (look it up), whereby 1C-1M-1NT-2C forces opener to bid 2D.

it's used for a weak hand with a long suit, and no support for opener and no unbid majors, perforce it's very likely that that suit should be trumps. as this suit is expected to be trumps and the range is pretty tightly defined, the loss of a level isn't important for the bidding side, but has a significant pre-emptive effect on the 4th player. it also makes the auction much cleaner when opener has extras and would jump himself - the weak responding hand is able to show its long suit immediately, before being pre-empted by opener. for example, if responder has a 6 count with 6 hearts and it goes 1c-1h-3c, he'll most likely have to pass, but 4H can be cold. the same doesn't apply in reverse, because after 1C-2H, a strong opening hand can still bid on safely (without needing to jump, because minimal openers would all just pass). the alternative [one of the alternatives] strong jump shift has fallen out of favour because it's so rare. it's very unusual amongst tournament level players to keep this weapon in the armoury, because other methods such as weak jump shifts, are useful for reasons of frequency. still, there is nothing wrong with strong jump shifts and they're great when they come up.

i hope i can buy a book about this soon.

4

lol thanks. it's more than not being bothered to bring one (i.e. complete one as providence didn't endow me with an inexhaustible pile from which to bring one). it's the attitude they engender among my fellow competitors, who use them as an outlet for all their officiousness. it's typical for them to demand one as soon as they see you nearing the table and then file it under a bidding box without bothering to look at it. they also tend to look at my hand writing when i hand over my card, as if i've just handed them a dog turd, even though my hand writing whilst being aesthetically unappealing is far easier to read than most as i don't connect letters. it's also quite common for opps to accidentally walk off with them at the end of the round, but if you try to explain that to the next set of opps, they're more likely to try and get the director to force you to play the local equivalent of SAYC.

you're missing the point. at most countries' national tournaments, much though it's a waste of time, i bring a convention card, because sadly, it is a rule. in fact this is why i haven't bothered attending most of easter, new year or brighton for the last 3 or 4 years. clubs make their own rules, and i wouldn't frequent any club which required them, and fortunately most have the good sense not to.