Quarky

Anyone got a link or willing to post detailed description of Smolen? For example, if it goes 1nt-2c-2d-3h, what do the opener's responses of 3S, 4C, 4D mean?

THis is the system I played during my most active years of bridge, when i played in person in Russia when i was 10-14 yrs old. This is also the reason I suck at sayc and 2/1 because I don't know them as well as I knew Sign Off :blink: I only played this Sign Off system and a natural strong 1C system in russia, no sayc or 2/1 This link is in russian: http://bridge.gambler.ru/bidding/signoff.html It's a relay system, such that when a game-forcing strength is established, the captain of the bidding is able to get the partner's # of cards in each suit (voids are shown as singletons, so it's accurate to 1 card, but voids can be found later if necessary). Pros: was easy to learn as a kid, nice to know pard's cards in an easy manner, ability to get lots of info at low level of bidding when opps dont interfere, ability to ask for more than just aces and kings (i remember we once had an auction where i had room to ask partner about his A, K, Q, and Jacks to explore a grand), opening bids are very liberal and can preempt opponent's auctions Cons: problems if opps preempt at high levels, difficulty penalizing opps overcalls, captain might end up dummy thus exposing declarer's distribution via the auction The basic openings are: 1♣ 16+ Any 1♦ 12-15 Any 1♥ 8-11pc, 4-5♥, 0-3♠ 1♠ 8-11pc, 4-5♠, 0-3♥ 1NT 8-11pc, 4-6 each major 2♣ 8-11pc, 0-3 each major, 5+♣ 2♦ 8-11pc, 0-3 majors, 5+♦ Openings above this shows hands with long majors, I won't get into those. The relay system works through a couple of queries, the first one asks for an intermediate clarification of distribution, for example 1S - 1NT (relay) - 2S shows max spades, min hearts, so 5 spades and 0-2 hearts; opener's response to 1st relay of 2H would have shown min spades and max heart lengths (4 spades, 3 hearts); response of a minor would have shown minimal major lengths and given a clue about the distribution of minors. After this, another relay may follow, and step responses provide exact distribution of cards in all 4 suits, with exception of voids shown as singletons and singleton aces shown as doubletons (to make identification of aces/voids easier in slam auctions). AFter finding out exact distribution, ace-ask may follow with another relay, and step responses being: 1step: 0 or 2 major aces/voids, 0 or 2 minor aces/voids 2steps: 0 or 2 major aces/voids, 1 minor ace/void 3steps: 1 major ace/void, 0 or 2 minor aces/voids 4steps: 1 maj ace/void, 1 min ace/void Then same thing to ask for Kings, Queens (and jacks if you really want and dont play the below suggestion)... Suggested continuation is asking for colors of Kings and Queens, same steps as above, only instead of major/minor groupings, it's grouped by red kings and red queens so 1 step would be 0 or 2 red kings and 0 or 2 red queens, etc. Was a fun system to play as a kid :) I bet it would still mess with some people even now if i could play with someone who knows it :) Some other guys at the russian club that i played against had other interesting systems, like one where Pass was 12-15 forcing and opening of 1S was a mandatory "anything" opening to preempt opps (so generally a 0-11 garbage hand, where 1S doesnt show spades or anything else, it just says "my hand is ****ty")

The weird thing is that if you look at the first dozen or so of google results, they're about half and half between these two options.

Google search produces various definitions of what responses are the "standard" Ogust. This led to a misbid in a match, due to different understandings of Ogust responses.

♠ AKJxx ♥ Q9xxx ♦ J10x ♣ In teams, RHO opens 1♣, you bid Michaels 2♣. Bidding goes: 1♣ - !2♣ - 3♣ - 4♥ - pass What's your action over pard's raise to 4♥? What kind of hands can you give your pard's 4H raise? WHat were his other options with other types of hands? I made a mistake reading pard's 4H bid.

In teams, vuln, your RHO opens 1♦ (implying 4+) You hold ♠ x ♥ 987xx ♦ KQ7xxx ♣ A Without any special conventions, what's your bid and why?

All vuln, you open 1nt with ♠ Q2 ♥ KQ76 ♦ AJ6 ♣ K965 Opps are passing. Your pard responds 2nt, transfer to ♦ Assuming that you play 3♣ as pre-accept without any other discussion, do you bid 3♣ or 3♦ in response? I thought pre-accepts are specifically showing a good fit for the transferred minor, not the quality of the rest of the hand (as opposed to major transfer SUPER accepts, which are generally not only on a 4card fit but also a max hand). So with AJx support I would bid 3♣ preaccept. It appears that I'm wrong, can you comment?