Jlall

Spades is the *****ing sickest lucksack game of all time I am so tilted right now jesus

This seems like it would be awfully hard to untangle, and you lose the benefits of being able to transfer to diamonds and bid something anyways since presumably bidding again would show the reverse hand type. Or maybe I just hate you for beating me to the punch by 8 minutes :P

Transfers make sense ie 1D 1H 1N=clubs 2C=6+diamonds 2D=heart raise 2H=heart raise You can use these to distinguish between 3 card raises and 4 card raises, or just good raises to 2H and bad raises to 2H. Being able to transfer to clubs is obviously useful, you can bid 1N with 6-4 in the minors without fear of playing 2C when 2D is correct (because you can bid 2D over 2C). You can also bid 1N with a strong 1354 and then bid 2H without the usual fears of playing a stupid 2C contract. Similarly you can solve the BWS death hand of 3-6 in the reds with extras by transferring to diamonds and then raising hearts belatedly. For 1D 1S you could just do 1N=stiff spade and a 1N bid, which is basically the same thing as 1N showing 4 hearts (unless you wanted to include some 1354s with chunky hearts). Altneratively you can do transfers again like: 1N=clubs 2C=6+diamonds 2D=4 hearts not enough to reverse 2H=reverse This is good but you lose having 2 ways to raise which is awesome. If you want to make it sexier you can make it: 1N=clubs 2C=4+ hearts 2D=diamonds 2H=spade raise 2S=spade raise You've lost the ability to transfer to diamonds and bid again, but since 2C is the bid that shows hearts you don't need 2 bids to show hearts since it's forcing and you can bid again with reverse values. And now you have 2 ways to raise again (can be to distinguish 3 and 4 card raises, or just good and bad raises, the latter being more useful if you open quite light). Edit: Dammit the guy above beat me to it!

I don't understand this joke

Well you are looking at the South hand so I assume you mean the North hand. I only need to know if 3♣ is forcing if it is you ask for a ♠ stopper with 3♠ otherwise you pass. Obv they edited the post after my post. Cayuga style!

It would help to know the hand edit: They edited hand after my post obv

The benefit of playing fast is not mainly "sucking people in" Great player #1 takes forever and makes a great play, and the defense has had a long time to realize there is a big problem on this hand and something is coming. Somehow they find the brilliant pop with Kxx to preserve their partner's entry, or they find the killing shift, or whatever. Great player #2 finds the same great play but he does it almost instantly. The defense is not aware that this is probably some kind of book hand, and doesn't find the brilliant counter. Great player #2 didn't suck them in, he simply didn't give away what was going on because he had to think for so long before finding this play. Great player #2 is going to be much tougher to play against, because he's making or capable of making great plays quickly and isn't giving the show away. And it is not reasonable to balance this by taking 3 minutes on every play, or even every trick 1, since bridge is a timed event. The downside for Great player #2 is he's under more pressure to play quickly because his normal tempo is quick, so as jan said that might induce him to make a mistake or 2 that he wouldn't if his average tempo was a little slower. I think Meckstroth's point is not that you should play faster, it's that having the ability to play quickly and not have your game suffer is a huge benefit. Meckstroth does preach that in normal situations it's better to make a play in tempo rather than tank and give it away (for instance if dummy has AJx and partner leads one, meckstroth has been said to say that he will always play the T from KTx rather than think for 2 minutes about which one to play. This could cost but in the long term it is beneficial since declarer doesn't know who has the king every time). Most intermediates learn to just duck your ace 2nd hand with a stiff on dummy rather than think about it. So there are situations like that also.

I'd still bid 2N. We make 3N very often opposite random hands because we can shut RHO out and own lefty.

It's definitely a good skill to have and it helps a lot in his success but I don't think that means it's important for every top player to be fast. Being slow has a lot of advantages also. I mean Mecks regular partner is very slow, and most top bridge players are pretty to very slow so whatever.

I don't understand 4N rather than 5D. What shape does 4N usually have? I guess we cater to partner being 4-4 in the minors, but if he 1 more diamond than club I expect him to always pick clubs which is obv terrible (3343 for instance). I also don't really want partner to play in hearts when partner is 4-4 in the reds which I think I will after 4N and not after 5D. I would just bid 5D, I'm a little worried about missing 6 but whatever, maybe partner will kick it in if he has the nuts with 3 low spades and good trumps and controls. I can't really semi-bluff and bid 6D because my trumps are so bad and they won't save with good trumps.

100 % west for missing 7, 100 % east for missing 6. 5C is a normal bid to me with xx xx xx AKQJxxx

I know it was way before your time on the forum but we used to have a lot of really good suit combo threads/discussions on the forum (I think largely because Fred and I both have a weird love for them). If you read those threads you will not only read some interesting suit combinations, but you'll learn how think about them. For more basic stuff you should definitely learn all the ones missing KJ, and how they change when you are missing the 8 and when you have 8 vs 9 etc. Then I'd try learning the ones missing QJ. But the point is to learn how to figure them out at the table since there will always be a new one. If you can quickly narrow it down to a couple of lines, and evaluate when one line loses vs when it wins then you can do any suit combo. This doesn't require any math skill really, just count the number of combos. The one that caters to the most combos is always the best. In case of a tie, it depends which one caters to the most likely combos...for that remember a more even split is always more likely (eg if a line caters to 2 3-3 combos, and another line caters to a 3-3 and a 4-2 the first line is better). That confuses people sometimes because a suit itself is more likely to break 4-2 than 3-3, but that's just because it can be 2-4 or 4-2.

Yeah, but how do we know what system is that ? Heh I mean if you call someones style bad/amateur standard/nonsensical you're gonna get these types of reactions. If you don't care about that then it's all good (I don't really care, I'm used to it). If you do care then just be more PC, but it's never gonna happen that you can make a statement like that and not get some strong reactions. Personally I think it's a shame everyone is so PC, but others think it's a shame that I am "rude" so w/e. I will say that I agree with you that some styles are definitely. bad, and bidding 2D with 4 is one of them in my opinion. I agree with you that it is a minority way to play at the higher levels, but people definitely play it (dburn obviously being one of them). I will also say that bidding 3C with 5-4 and extras is a huge majority position and that I would probably be considered a fringe weirdo on this one, but I still think I'm right that it should be 5-5 (shocking!). @Jdonn: Most of the extra hands that you include in 2S now that you wouldn't in strong club are the 5-4 17+ hands. Those hands can all drive to 4N or whatever, so you are not really overloading your 2S bid. Hands that can drive past game should not be worried about because they will easily be able to show their strength later. The 16 counts can be awkward sometimes as the old 16 opp 16 problem is always there and bidding 3C on 5-4 16 solves that, but I really wouldn't worry about it so much to change my system from non strong club to strong club. Frankly I think it should be auto that the highest bid eg 1S 2H 3D and 1H 2D 3C show 5-5 since they need to be bid so infrequently and are so bad, and I think 1S-2D-3C definitely falls into that camp. Yes you have 3H available to deal with some of the awkwardness but it's really not enough. @Phil: I mean you can get totally artificial and that would be a big improvement, but if we are sticking with natural means then I would just bid 2N on positional hands and 2S on anti positional hands. I don't know what a minimum 3C bid is...AKxxx x xx AQxxx can't be too far off either way.

Yep if it was ace empty of hearts and KJT of clubs it would be a lot better.

This is obv but well said. This is also obv but well said.

I'd pass, I'm void and can't bid 5 myself with this hand

I'm probably the only one on the forums who prefers the former :P

Guess I have to form a partnership with the canadian dude who bid this and got passed <_<

+1 to it depends how light you open

+1 to the josh style, especially at MP.

Yes I would bid 3C if it showed 4+ clubs and extras and if 2D showed only 4+ fwiw. If 3D or 3H only promised 3 diamonds and 2D promised I might choose that also. I guess what I'm saying is I think this should come down to a matter of system not style, and in my preferred type of system this would bid a 2S bid. Not ideal. If this hand really comes down to style and 2S 3C 3D 3H are all possible bids in my system, I'd like to define my system more tightly.

I agree, bidding 2S will solve this problem. Really don't understand the hate for 2S, it's not a sprint, you don't have to blow your wad immediately. There are no bad rebids from partner over 2S. The worst is 3S because we haven't described much about our hand, but we're still well positioned to find out about partner's hand and then offer 6/7D in that case. If partner bids 3C or 3D that's awesome. Otherwise he will probably bid 2N and then 3D doesn't sound like a 4 card fit. I guess the main gain in the construction is that you can distinguish between 3 and 4 card raises which is obv very useful. Even if he bids 3H we have learned a ton about his hand and are not poorly positioned at all. But I guess my point with all of this is not how awesome having to bid 2S with this hand is, it's more that: 1) Bidding 3D with 4 diamonds is awesome. 2) Bidding 3C with 5 clubs is awesome. 3) If you can do neither of those then the "downside" of 1 and 2 is that you have to bid 2S on this hand. I don't really see why it's a downside though. I'd rather bid 2S than a poorly defined 3D or 3C anyways. We just don't have that much room and if we bid 2S as often as possible eliminating some key hand types, and then partner bids 2N as often as possible over that eliminating some key hand types, we can get down to business without having lost any room. To me this makes a lot of sense.

They bid 3H slow so they have 5, LHO might have 4 though I guess. Whatever. If RHO was someone I knew to be a good MP player and I also knew he knew me to be good and very aggressive at doubling in this spot, I MIGHT consider not cracking this. But the current state of how MP is played makes this an obv X.

A stiff diamond? Seriously? Maybe he should learn not to bid 1N with a stiff lol* *In before 3415 with stiff honor and bad clubs example hand. KJx KTxx K xxxxx? Anyways I think he has a stiff diamond to bid 1N like less than 1 % of the time.

haha so true