mikestar

Some more thoughts and clarifications: My comments about relays were primarily about the very elaborate, slam-oriented relays over positive responses to the 1CL openeing. The chance that you're in in the slam zone and the enemy doesn't interfere is rather small. The memory work might be better applied to your method of handling interference. Game-oriented relays as Hrothgar suggests could be very rewarding over the limited openings or in 1CL-1DI auctions when your partnership is ready for the complexity involved. Balanced hands are more defensive than offensive. An 11-12 HCP balanced hand works OK if your system allows you to open a weak NT with this count, but personally, I'd rather pass Ax Qxx Kxxx Kxxx (first or second seat) than open 1DI. My experience is that sometimes you miss something, sometimes you stay out of trouble, and sometimes you get a penalty. On the other hand, AQxxx Kxx Qxx xx is an automatic 1SP opening in the form of Precision I advocate. The major opening has premptive value and there is more chance of game. I also would rather pass an unbalanced 12-value hand that would cause severe rebid problems or would require the creation of problems elsewhere in the system to avoid them. This explains my reasoning about the 2CL opening--by narrowing the range, it is easier to cope with the 4M-5CL hands that are the main dirfficulty with 2CL. I really didn't get a lot of crappy results opening 1CL--partner can count on me for an upper end strong NT at worst. My understanding is that Romex's Dynamic NT does fairly well against interference, and we're talking about 1 HCP stonger than the Precison 1CL I advocate. Admittedly 1CL gives them more room to intervene, but the cheap interventions are the easier ones to handle. An advantage of all forms of Precision is how responder can do so many nasty things to the enemy. An example: NV vs. V I held xx xxx Axxx Axxx and partner opened 1SP. RHO passed and I passed (in tempo). If partner has shape LHO is pretty certain to have some shape too and balance. If partner has a flat 15-16 with 5 spades, we aren't missing a game and 1SP plays fine if it gets left in. RHO balanced with 2CL, partner doubled for takeout and I left it in. The ran to 2DI and I doubled, they ran to 2HE and partner doubled on KTx--they went for 800 vs a partscore (we were cold for 2NT or 3SP), they could have got out for 500 if they'd been able to place the Aces. We had to survive a director call and a commitee, but we got to keep our top. We prealerted that we pass many 6's and 7's and a few 8's in response to 1 of a natural suit--the opponents didn't want to believe it.

A response of 3NT to a weak 1NT on S Axx H AQxxxx D x C Kxx is not an unusual choice, it is a blatantly irrational one. The only reasons for it I can see are: 1. The 3NT bidder is a beginner and wants his partner to play the game contract. Horrible judgment, partner is just as shocked as we are. No legal issues unless it happens frequently enough to create an implicit #2. 2. The 1NT bidder is a much better player and the weaker player has been instructed to raise 1NT to 3NT whenever he has game values, regardless of shape. Since the converse case is handled differently (if the weak player is even allowed to open 1NT, you know the strong player will bid 4HE and play the hand), then this is obviously illegal under the same system rule. Note that this is very different than The Hog's example of a solid six-card major with no side shortness. This is just bridge judgement and raises no issues. 3NT has a very reasonable chance of being the right contract.

I would think the best regulation would be no carryover at all. Dumping is a separate issue and carryover rules won't keep it from happening. There will always be cases where losing a particular match will help the team's overall chances. Good pairings can minimizes this but can't eliminate it. Once in an Olympiad in the 70's Israel was in contention because it had so many forfeit wins over Arab teams whose governments wouldn't allow them to play. USA could have dumped to them and cut Italy out of the semis but didn't, by the way honor was rewarded and USA beta the Italians and won the trophy. Only elimination events are immune from dumping (from stategic considerations--bribery, etc are separate issues).

I am talking about Precision as taught by Wei and Goren with some modifications I have found desirable. An expert may well be better served by an aggressive RM type Precision or even better yet by Moscito or a Polish Club type system. But a beginner/intermediate won't be. I also don't think that the purpose of Precision is to open hands that SAYC players pass--it is to get better results on the hands we bid. Precision is clearly superior with the Bridge World Hand of Death and its relatives. It is good with shapely 15's and 16's and good 14's. To my mind, an auction like 1SP - 1NT - 3CL showing shape but limited HCP is Precision's distinctive virtue. Re 2CL I'd love to limit this to a 6 card suit, but this imposes too much distortion on the rest of the system. The first time a beginning Precision player hears 1DI - 3DI when he just opened with 4-4-0-5 will drive him back to SAYC. The old style Precision 2DI is better, but hard to handle if it includes 5-4-3-1 shapes. Now some of these problems go away if we open 4 card majors regularly, but then we aren't playing Precision: it's a different system*. In fact, Precision as described by by the last two posts sounds to me more like Moscito--which is a fine system for experienced players but I wouldn't dream of teaching to an intermediate player wanting to branch out from Standard. In short, I believe a somewhat conservative Precision is a good first non-standard system. (* Note that opening 1HE on exactly 4-4-1-4 is uncommon enough that it really doesn't cause much distortion in major suit auctions: the 4M-5CL hands are much more common.)

Some thoughts on Precision: 1) 1C is vulnerable to preemption. It is not an advantage to bid it as often as possible. Increase the minimum count to 17 and be strict about it. Too many Precision players open all 16 counts (even AQxx QJxx QJ KJx) and upgrade mediocre 5-5 15 counts. 2) Use a method of coping with intervention over 1CL that is geared towards getting some penalties when the opponents get out of line. They are going to fix us sometimes and we've got to get them back. I particularly like the card showing double (5 to a bad 8, fairly balanced). This works especially well against destructive interventions that are not in accord with LOTT, for example the popular method of bidding 1S on all weak hands that don't have another bid regardless of spade length. 3) Forget about relays--they don't come up often enough against aggressive intervention. Concentrate on item 2. 4) 1DI must be natural--we already have problems with 1C (preemption) and 2C (self-premption). 4-4-1-4 is rare--pass a minimum and open 1HE with a sound opening (13-16). 5) 2CL must be sound, about 13-16. 6) The above considerations suggest a 13-16 range for 1NT. 7) Learn to pass 12 counts without hesistatiton if they can't open 1 of a suit. Sometimes you'll miss something, but sometimes the enemy will get too high and you will nail them.

If your are using something as complex as RKCB, you should be using Kickback: If spades are agreed then 4NT is RKCB; if hearts are agreed then 4SP is RKCB; if diamonds, then 4HE; if clubs, then 4DI; If the agreed suit is not spades, 4NT substitutes for whatever the RKCB bid would have been: Qbid, splinter, Exclusion RKCB with void in the suit, etc. This method makes sure you have the same bidding room for all suits--and makes the choice between 1430 and 0314 irrelevant.

I was a certified club director a few years ago. I would never invoke 74B for playing a hand out unless: 1. The declarer also was playing slowly. 2. The declarer was expert and knew the opponents were both expert and ethical. Simply too many players are too unskilled to recognize a valid claim, and some are unethical enough to to dispute a valid claim to try to gain advantage. I can't blame anyone for not claiming if he knows that his opponents fall into one of those categories-- and the problem is frequent enouhg that I can't say that a player should avoid claiming agaist opponents he does not know. Most of the clubs I directed were senior citizen clubs. One of the clubs was not officically sactioned and had some house rules. One of thier rules was that all hands had to be played out! While this is extreme, they had far less acrimony and far less slow paly than any comparable club I've directed.

I believe it was Kit Woolsey who taught "we are in a forcing pass situation if our side has shown game invitational or better values". So in neither hand 1 nor hand 2 are forcing passes in effect. South has no reason to think he can beat 5C opposite a defenseless partner, and if North shows up with a trick, setting them undoubled when you are down in 4H isn't the end of the world, and if we can make 4H they won't be down enough to compensate. If North was bidding to make, he will double (or bid 5H with a totally offensive hand). In the second hand, East's double is reasonable. I really dislike West's opening. I assume he is playing Precision or similar (this auction would be insane in 2/1 or SAYC). If this is the case, why not open 2C on the 6-card suit? Then East might at least guess to pass for fear some of his defense is wasted. 5C as a sacrifice is actually best, but hard/impossible to see with all those honors. Esat might reasonably double anyway, but the 2C opening will guide him to the right decision more often than 1D.

1NT isn't that bad, 1 to 2 HCP light but nobody wants to sell out to 1C. Partner's XX is a larger overbid. IMO, XX should show the same type of hand as (1C) - P - (1NT) - P (P) - X Sound opening values and club length (a trap pass). XX is needed for this type of hand--you want to try for a penalty, but will want to be in 3NT if there is no good penalty is available. All of partner's queens and jacks help you make 1NT, but some of them will be worthless if you defend a suit contract, making XX less attractive. An expert declared should make 2D. There is no reason to fear a ruff and the bidding is far from conclusive as to the AC. So why not take out insurance against A or Ax offisde?

I agree with luis--pass is best. Pass also has another way to win: if partner is 5-3 in the majors and has some extras, he will double for takeout and defending 3DX may well outscore whatever we can make.

I look forward to seeing a more detailed model--this is excellent for something so simple. Areas where corrections may be needed (besides the ones Dwayne mentioned): 1. over 10 trumps (LOTT starts to break down according to Larry Cohen and others). 2. HCP very uneven between the two hands. 24 HCP and 8 trumps are a good game if they are somehwere near 12-12 and a really bad game if 20-4. 3. Is the distribution as unbalanced as is normal for the number of trumps (freakiness only cover this in part). An example of the last point: With 10 trumps the formula suggests that 20 HCP are enough for game. With 5-3-3-2 opposite 5-2-3-3 I'd wager it will go down more often than not, with 5-4-3-1 opposite 5-2-3-3 it will be close, and 5-4-3-1 opposite 5-1-3-4 will be easy. Yet none of these shapes are freaky.

The best advice I've ever heard for bidding over preempts is "assume 7 points in your partner's hand and bid what you think you can make." So try 3NT.

I'd like to hear from the Precision experts about your 2C structures. I have played transfer response to 2C with decent results. For example, over 2D (=hearts), opener bids 2H with exactly 3 hearts. With 4+ hearts, opener bids 3H (minimum), 4H (just enough for game), or splinters or bids 4C (=2-4-2-5) with good slam values. With 0-2 hearts, opener bids as he would over a natural 2H resonse.