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Just one more point to clarify something: 1D-2C;2M doesn't have to be balanced... you could have a club raise with a 4 card major.. these should bid the major first (e.g. 4-1-4-4). Andy

I'm not certain what hands you'd bid your 1H relay on when you don't have hearts (especially since you're not doing the full relays -- it seems like you need to work out how to deny hearts in auctions that don't go 1D-1H;2H too). I guess the balanced GF hands with no 4 card major are a problem (you've decided that 2C and 2D should both have 5 cards), but there are other ways of dealing with these, for example by doing away with 2M as strong jump shifts (have inv hands bid 2H, GF hands bid 2N, and you can use 2S as a diamond raise if you want... maybe a limit raise to make 1D-2D always GF), though of course this isn't without cost. It also isn't terrible just to stick these into 2C and 2D. 1 and 3 (not 2 or 4 -- 2D should deny a 4 card major). (The reason this is different from 1D-2C is largely due to the fact that your hand is tightly constrained when you don't have a diamond fit [and somewhat due to having slightly less room]). With 2 or 4, just bid 1M and then make a forcing raise next round (maybe through 4sf or xyz). There are many methods here. (1) and (2) aren't really problems because resp doesn't have a 4 card major. 1. Standard: 2N and 3D are the only rebids that allow you to stop below 3N/4D. 2M is stopper showing. Here you'd like to guarantee that you show real diamonds with 2M, but you can't. 2. Weak notrump standard: 2N is GF (you'll need to make sure 2D is 11+ and that you're happy forcing to game with bal 13 opposite 11), 3D is the only rebid allowing you to stop below 3N/4D (you'll have 4+ diamonds if not balanced). New suit is stopper showing (ie often only 3), guarantees 4+D. 3. A slightly artificial option if you dislike the problems in both of the above: 1D-2D;? 2H = any non GF or not real diamonds New suit = 4, 4+D GF 2N = 4 hearts, 4+D GF 3D = 6+ diamonds, GF 1D-2D;2H-? 2S = GF (ie to 3N or 4D), asks 2N = NF, opener passes with a min without real diamonds (corrects to 3D with a min with real diamonds) 3D = NF, opener passes with a min 3 new suit = splinter, GF 1D-2D;2H-2S;? 2N = all suits (somewhat) stopped (often best when you stop both majors) 3D = 5+ diamonds (not mandatory) 3 new suit = stopper (often 3 cards) 1. 1D-2D;2N-3C;3N (3C just to double check on spade stopper) 2. 1D-2D;2N-3C;3N (same) 3. 1D-2D;2H*-2S*;2N-3C;3N (same idea) 1. 1D-2D;2H-3C;3N 2. 1D-2D;2N-3C;3N 3. 1D-2D;2H*-2S*;2N-3C;3N 1. 1D-2D;2N-3D or 1D-2D;2N-3N depending on your judgement with south 2. 1D-2D;2N-3N 3. 1D-2D;2H*-3D or 1D-2D;2H*-2S*;2N-3N (xxxx is good enough to bid 2N with, as you've got room to double check weak stoppers), depending on south's judgement Andy

Yes. Your hand: ♠K82♥54♦Q97♣KQT83 won't always rebid 2NT (it shouldn't want to, for the same reasons that you didn't want to bid 2NT directly over 1D with this). [i'd consider bidding 1NT with this hand because you open fairly light and might prefer if the SK were the SA, for example, to bid 2C.] Let's look at various auctions (using method 1 first): 1D-2C;2D-3D pard showed 5-diamonds. Let's raise (NF). 1D-2C;2H-2NT pard is GF with 4+ hearts.. easy notrump rebid 1D-2C;2S-2NT pard is GF with 4+ spades. we rebid 2NT and will sort it out later if we should be in e.g. 4C instead of 3NT (there's room between 2NT and 3NT). Also, pard usually has some hearts on this auction 1D-2C;2N-P pard is NF with a balanced hand. easy pass [using method 2, you'd also bid 2NT over 1D-2C;2H showing a 4-4-4-1 hand] Yes. Andy

I'll respond to your example hands: Methods 1&2: 1D-2C;2N-3N Method 1: 1D-2C;2H-3D;3N. Opener showed 4 hearts with fewer than 5 diamonds. 3D is a suit or, as here, concentration of values and a stopper probe. (1D-2C;2H-3C;3S-3N [3S making sure you're not missing diamond stoppers] would not be terrible.) Method 2: 1D-2C;2N-3N I would open North's hand with 1NT, but that's somewhat irrelevant. I have no qualms with xxxx being considered a stopper, at least for the time being (over 2N you can still find out about weakness below 3N). With South, I'd probably bid an invitational 3C directly over 1D (and opener would pass, lacking both a club fit and quick tricks). As the rgb poster pointed out, North does look like a 3D rebid directly over 2C: 1D-2C;3D-3S;4C... Now South will push to 6C, probably envoking keycard (however you bid it -- I like 4H as keycard here). If you start with just 2D: 1D-2C;2D-2S;3C-3H;3S-4C might be a start, though some less aggressive Souths will just bid 3N over 3C. Andy

What I'm suggesting is both using 1D-3C as invitational (always 6+) and having 1D-2C not be GF, so your example hand bids 2C, and then passes 2N (playing option 1 above) and bids 3D over 2D (these are the only NF sequences you'll encounter with this hand). The benefit of using 1D-3C as invitational is that you don't have to make up a 2S bid on a 3-2-2-6 hand as in the auction 1D-2C;2D-2S (you suggest that you'd do this in the discussion of example hand 4 above). You can simply rebid 3C, game forcing. Andy

There are several options. In association with all of these options, I recommend making 1D-3C invitational (the type of hand that you might previously have bid with 2C..3C). This limits the number of passable sequences in your 1D-2C auctions. I also recommend that you form a list (it'll be short) of all bidding sequences that stop below 3NT after 1D-2C. Option 1: A simple, natural method. 1D-2C; 2D = any hand with 5+ diamonds (except for some club raises or NT rebids) 2H/S = 4+-card suit, at most 4 diamonds (hence bal or 4441) 2N = 13 to 14-, NF 3C = club raise, GF (maybe always 4+ cards) With 14+-15 bal, bid 2H/2S with a 4 card major or 2D/3C without one, and maybe 33(43) hands bid 3NT (or downgrade and bid 2NT). We've given up the ability to raise clubs in a NF way, but I don't see this as a big issue (at worst, you'll peter out in 4C sometimes when neither 3N nor 5C is suitable). Our answers using this method: (1) Don't bid 2M unless GF (responder will have a major only if GF, as you mentioned). (2) 2M should *deny* 4M-5D! Use 2D first with all hands with 5 diamonds (except for some 2N rebids and club raises). (3) Answered above. One minor fault with this is that we don't distinguish the strength of 4-4-4-1's, and instead call them GF. This is rather bad, especially because our singleton is in pard's suit. Other options are to bid 2N with non-GF 4-4-4-1's or to corrupt the 2D bid (which I don't like). I guess you could also add some artificiality to the 2M bids, using one for 4-4-4-1's and the other for GF bal hands or something (see below for something similar). My preferences for passable sequences using this: 1D-2C;2N 1D-2C;2D-2N 1D-2C;2D-3D (E.g. 3-2-3-5 hands unsuitable for bidding 2N) 1D-2C;2D-2N;3D Similar non-passable seq's: Any time responder's next bid is 3C (because 1D-3C is inv) 1D-2C;2N-3D (If pard really wants to be able to play 3D when you're bal, he should've bid 1D-2D to begin with -- this is much more useful as forcing) I'm sort of undecided on 1D-2C;2D-2N;3C/1D-2C;2D-2N;3C-3D. Option 2: You can adopt methods originally developed for use with a weak notrump in a standard system. Basically, this will force you to consider 1D-2C;2N as GF (13-15 is your stronger range, so this isn't ridiculous). 1D-2C; 2D = any hand with 5+ diamonds (except for some club raises and NT rebids) 2H = 4-4-4-1 2S = good club raise (ie GF) 2N = 13-15 bal (GF) 3C = bad club raise (ie passable) (feel free to swap 2S/3C or perhaps have them encode info about which minor is longer) Here, we get around (1) and (2) by making 2M artificial, so there's no question to answer. As mentioned above, we answer (3) by making 2N GF. Given that your opening range is 10-15, this isn't so bad. You'll want to limit your 2C bid to 10/11+ as opposed to something like 10+ then. (Hopefully you don't mind bidding 1D-1N;2N with 15 [you don't want to miss some of the 15-10 games]. I guess then you'll want to be passing 6-7 pt hands that bid 1N in natural systems. You'd perhaps do this anyways, as e.g. 1D-2N should be 11-12, not 10-12.) Here you fix the 4-4-4-1 problem. These are the passable seq's: 1D-2C;3C 1D-2C;2D-2N 1D-2C;2D-3D 1D-2C;2D-2N;3D 1D-2C;2H-2N And I'm undecided about 1D-2C;2H-3D. (Here, unlike 1D-2C;2N, you've guaranteed 4 diamonds, so playing the diamond part-score is much more likely to be something resp wants to do. Of course, the forcing 3D is useful too, and it's not terrible for 4-4-4-1 opposite (31)4-5 to play 2N.) Hope this helps, Andy

There seems to me to be little difference between the two, and what little difference there is mostly shows up when you're trying for slam. Call standard method 1, inverted (ie pass discouraging, dbl encouraging) method 2 You'll have 4 types of hands (excluding the "just bids slam" types): A. defensive, which doubles in 1, passes in 2 B. medium, which passes in 1, doubles in 2 C. offensive, which bids 5S D. slam try, which passes, then bids 5S over pard's double The main difference shows up when you're making a slam try and pard goes and bids 5S over your pass. In method 1, this shows simply a hand that accepts the invitation to bid on. In method 2, however, this shows a hand that bids on despite pard being defensive. In either case, you're going to go bid slam when you've got a slam try and pard bids 5S in front of you, but very rarely this will be wrong in method 1 when pard wouldn't accept a slam invitation but prefers to bid 5S given the choice.. maybe a minimum hand with little defense. It seems to me much more rare for a hand that would choose to bid on even though pard's defensive to be one that would reject a slam try, making method 2 slightly superior in this respect. Another minor case where method 2 is slightly superior (this time not for any bridge reason) is if pard tanks and then a committee can't tell the difference between hand types B and D playing method 1, or A and D playing method 2 when you've got a slam try (ie D). I guess the latter is slightly less likely, but both are pretty far fetched. (As a side note, I have had a case where pard made a game try, I tanked and rejected, and he went on, and his hand looked invitational to me. He'd been making a slam try, looking for perfect cards opposite. Just a friendly online game, though.) Of course, if you often forget when you're playing a forcing pass, method 1 will come out on top. Andy

All of the theorizing was giving very little practical advice to a beginner. My list of conventions was far from arbitrary -- it's a list of (in my opinion) the most basic, essential conventions from SAYC that will allow you to bid reasonably and intelligently in that system and with many partners. Ben came up with a similar list. As for your stayman/keri comment, it's ridiculous. Many people also don't play weak twos, but clearly every current beginner should learn them. Either of these may not be the case in twenty years, but currently they are. Beginners need to learn conventions/systems played by many of their peers. I'm all for innovation and playing different conventions, but feel that one should learn to play (and to do so well) what most other people play first. Andy

People seem to be leaving out actual advice on which conventions one might go about learning at what time in one's bridge career. My advice to someone who's playing "standard american" on which conventions to learn (if I'm shooting too high or too low for you, tell me and I'll give updated recommendations): takeout doubles negative doubles weak two bids & responses stayman jacoby transfers is a fine collection of beginning conventions in standard american. For slam conventions, if you're comfortable enough with basic bidding and the above conventions and are interested in this, sure learn blackwood (but don't overuse it) but make sure also to learn how to cue bid controls when interested in slam (e.g. 1S-3S;4C shows interest in slam and a control in clubs), and decide on a style of cuebidding: does 4C guarantee the Ace or a void, or could it be a King or a singleton. For further fine-tuning to your constructive bidding, figure out how to differentiate between invitational hands and game forcing hands in various situations: e.g. is 1D-1S;2C-3S game forcing or just invitational, and if it's one, how do you show the other? ("Fourth suit forcing" is the convention that deals with this situation) or: 1D-1S;1N-3S ("New minor forcing" deals with the issue here) All of the conventions I've told you about are in standard full SAYC. I'd learn them in roughly the order I've presented (I'm sure I've missed some). Past this, the other conventions that comprise full SAYC would be a good place to go. Stick with that for a while, as it's a reasonable system that should work for you most of the time. If you already know full SAYC fairly well and are looking to branch out, that's another issue entirely. Tell me if so, and perhaps I'll have some advice on that. Andy

Without any discussion, I'd show it. With discussion, either way is reasonable. You don't need 6C to ask about clubs, so perhaps the ask in the splinter suit could be used to ask for Kings excluding the splinter suit or some such thing while keeping 5NT asking for all kings. I also tend to play specific kings. Andy PS You didn't tell me how many other Kings I had, so how can I answer your poll! B)

I didn't in any way mean to malign Clyde's book, which I'm quite fond of, and I quite understand that one is supposed to take normal inferences from the defense in the book in order to give context for the squeezes. (For example, I was quite ready when two hands later the lead was 4th from QTxx at 6NT.) That said, this seemed an interesting problem when set nowadays against good opponents. How often do good opponents lead from J973 (or from QT43) against 6NT these days? Perhaps the answer is "much more often than low from a small doubleton in an unbid suit" or "much more often than that, when combined with the fact that RHO played T then Q from QJT9" but I'm not certain. If you're leading a small doubleton against 6NT (this also seems unadvisable in an unbid suit, of couse), it seems one might often lead low. The play from QJT9 was somewhat inspired, but it's a reasonable falsecard (you'll probably need to play QT or J9 to deceive). A related question: how often at 6NT should one signal accurately? I suppose that against a novice, you'd play them for J973. Against someone world class, do you still, or do you play for the other holding? If you play them for the latter, at what level of expertise do you start doing so? (Let's assume you don't know much about your opponents other than their skill level.) The play for the two double squeezes is quite different. In one, you need to cash the heart winners first (when you expect East has the hearts) and in the other you need to cash the club winners first (this is "RFL" from the book: Right, Free, Left). If you don't, you won't squeeze West (having not cashed your winners East's suit) by the time you need to toss either your spade exit card or a heart or a club from dummy. If you cash the heart winners, you'll find out who has the hearts. If it's East, you're fine, and you double squeeze. If it's West, you play your diamonds and spade Ace and you'll squeeze West in hearts and clubs if West's got the clubs too. If you cash your club winners, you'll again find out who has the clubs and if you're wrong and it's West, you'll go ahead and try for the single squeeze against West in hearts and clubs. (The two cases are entirely symmetric, except for information of course.) Andy

I've been reading through Clyde Love's Bridge Squeezes Complete and came across this hand (Exercise 36), in which one was "supposed to" take standard inferences from a lead against 6NT. QT5 AK85 64 A654 A4 Q76 AKQJ7 K82 W N E S P 1D P 1H P 2N P 6N P P P West leads the 3 of clubs to East's Q and you duck. East continues with the club T and you win with the K (West plays the 7) and play two rounds of diamonds, all following. Now if clubs or hearts are 3-3 you're home. If not, there are various squeeze chances. So, two questions (let's assume your opponents are decent players, whatever that means): 1) Who is more likely to have 4 clubs... i.e. are they 73 QJT9 or are they J973 QT? The lead from J973 seems pretty unattractive against 6NT (but leading from a small doubleton in an unbid suit also seems so). 2) How do you play? My analysis of the play (may well be wrong or not best under the assumptions made): If you assume West's got the 4 clubs (and so started with J973), the contract is cold: run the 3 hearts, then the rest of the diamonds, either squeezing West in hearts or clubs or executing a double squeeze if East's got the hearts (your spade 4 is the spade threat). (This is the "solution" to the problem.) If you assume East's got the 4 clubs, there's a double squeeze if West's got the heart guard. Here you need to cash your last club winner before your last diamond (and let's say that if you cash 2 more diamonds, tossing spades from dummy, that the defenders both toss spades, so that doesn't help). Note also that the second line still allows you to succeed when West has 4 clubs if the heart-club squeeze is on against West (as you realize that West's got the clubs in time). Andy

My current preference is the option between Ben's two suggestions: X = clubs or 2-suited w/o clubs 2C = clubs + higher 2D/H/S = natural (after X, advancer bids 2C, then pass or correct to your lowest suit -- it's just DONT but with the immediate and delayed 2D/H/S swapped) This has the advantage of immediately naming the suit for diamonds, but without being quite as "radical" as Ben's second suggestion (which is, nonetheless, quite interesting). How about defenses to weak NT? I've never been able to find one of those that suited me. Andy

Surely you keep 3NT as to play. Perhaps 4C serves this purpose (i.e. next step, excluding 3NT)? Andy

Does anyone know how Jack does this? It's not double-dummy, as it gives different answers for e.g. HQ and HJ (as ideally it should). It can't just "play the hands itself" as it uses this method to decide what to do :) (I suppose a dumbed down version of Jack could play out the hands... analysis seems too quick for even this though). Andy

East was in second seat. Does this change your bid? Andy

As you may have noticed, West has 14 cards and North 12 in my version of Hand 1. I think West had stiff K of spades and North 9xxx, with East having QJT-seventh. Sorry 'bout that. Also, would you care to state "Marston's law", Ron? Andy

Hand one: I tried jumping to 5C. Both 4S and 5C could be made. My RHO backed in with 5S after passing on the first round. The hand was something like (my memory isn't perfect and I lack hand records): xxx Jxxx QJx AQ Kx QJxxxxx Axxx KQTx Kxxxxx x J9 x A x Axx KT8xxxxx (I might have the major suit high cards out of place, the rest I'm fairly certain of though). How do people open East's hand here, and how would you bid the rest of the hands following that? Amusingly enough, a pair I talked to after the event opened 1S and then, when south bid 4C, made a penalty double with the West hand (they weren't playing negative doubles this high [not my choice] but felt the need to take action anyways) and thus bought it for 4S. Hand Two: Actually, I was mistaken and RHO opened 1D (does this change anyone's bid?). I bid 4H and bought it there, finding dummy with: QT9xx A xx Kxxxx I was -1 (fortunate enough to have a diamond lead and continuation and to find clubs 3-3, but unfortunate enough to find hearts 4-0). This may not be so bad as I guess the opponents can make some number of diamonds.

A couple of hands with 8-card suits came my way at the local NAOP unit qualifier. First board, none vul: A x Axx KT8xxxxx N E S W P P ? How about if the auction had started: N E S W P 1S ? (it did at many tables, though not mine) A while later on, at both vul I was dealt: xx QT98xxxx J AQ E S W N 1S ? Your call?

When I was talking about the 2S opening, I meant "<= 2" spades (not "< 2")... sorry for the typo. Andy

Your Frelling 2-bids are interesting. The 2D and 2H bids seem like reasonable bids that could work well, similar to Ekrens (I haven't had much experience with Ekrens but feel similarly that it could be a good bid). Your 2S bid, on the other hand, I don't understand at all. It seems that you will often have disasters when responder has medium strength hands short in spades (<2) with moderate to long (3+) clubs (whether responder decides to try 3C [or whatever the bid to get to 3C opposite the 4-5 hands is] or not). How well preemptive bids work is not simply based on what percentage of the time they get you to a fit (and how often you get to make them)... it's also based on how well they "work" when they do "work" and also how often you have disasters with them (and how frequently the bid gives away useful info to declarer). Reasonable opponents will have difficulty over preempts, but not to such a large extent that if you have regular disasters with them (e.g. what I mention above with respect to your 2S bid) that the gains will exceed the losses. It's not clear to me how well your 2D/2H bids work when they give your opponents difficult decisions compared with how often the weak 2's work in this respect, and also how often your bids give away useful info to declarer (something 2-suited bids are much more prone to do than 1-suited bids, in my experience). These things are of course much harder to test than how often a fit exists (and I'm not necessarily claiming that your bids size up unfavorably to more standard bids). I'd be interested in hearing more about how they have been working (successes and failures) and perhaps trying them myself, but I must agree that the info is only useful when your opponents know how to deal with them reasonably (either X = 13-15 bal or X = takeout of known suit, with all overcalls natural) and are decent players. As for the specific examples you give: 1. This board, with the significantly more reasonable bidding (on the part of your opponents) of: 2H - (P) - 2S - (P) 3C - (P) - P - (P) seems like a moderate success for your system, as you've nicely found your fit and have made it difficult for the opponents to find their (diamond) fit. 2. 3NT seems reasonable too (perhaps better), and i'd bid stayman with South after a standard 1NT opening from North (after 3 passes), so I'm not sure this is such a gain. 3. I have to agree that on this board your bid seems to have given away info about the diamond suit and that you're worse off for having opened. 4. I'd have overcalled 3C with West's hand if X is takeout of hearts... if X is 13-15 bal (or too strong to overcall, of course) I would perhaps double, but may still bid 3C. I'm not so sure the loss is your fault here (if the opponents overcall 3C, they will probably not get to 3N). Andy

I'm quite interested in playing(/learning to play) moscito online. I've read the australian version notes (hrothgar's writeup?), but reading the german version shouldn't be too much trouble. Let me know when you'll be playing ;). I live on the west coast in the US, and could be available any time before midnight my time. Andy