Jlall

This thread made me go downstairs to have a cig :D

What logic would that be

lol Lol at a rude lol. I suggest you look at http://chrisryall.net/bridge/weak.two/brown.htm You might learn something. lol

Yep, this is what I used to play.

I like 2N over 1S but your partner definitely didn't do anything unreasonable.

Aren't we fairly close to making game on the example you gave? Add ♣J to it and it's one we want to be in. Add ♣K and we might make six. It's not clear to me that game is that great with the CJ with partner. If we assume RHO has 4 spades and 5 diamonds I don't seem to be in great shape. Yes if partner has AK K AK then underbidding is bad, I just think people are giving too much weight to that.

So did I, until I started thinking about what I was playing East for. I'd better nitpick this before somebody else does. RHM's precision is impeccable. I intended to question the accuracy of his figures. I don't expect west to bid with a (34)24 9 count over 1N. He has club length and no fit. I know (from your comments) that you disagree. I also don't expect a 3361 hand with 6 small diamonds to be that aggressive on this auction. I think from your comments you disagree.

I view partner's double as hoping for a penalty and x AKxxx Kxx Axxx would be fine, he knows we have a stiff heart very often and he has a stiff spade etc. Either we have somee diamonds or long clubs and will bid 3C. I think partner will double with a lot of 1534 hands quite aggressively. Getting them on this auction should be a priority over finding a game because it should be a very easy situation to get them. Indeed opposite that hand it might be right to pass even with our actual hand (not that we'd ever do that). I would just bid 3C. We need a ton to make game, and I don't think partner has shown that.

Huh? If west bids 2C over our 1N that shows a limit raise in diamonds not the majors. Anyways I tend to agree with rainer that we should hook even in MP.

2NT the first time would have been hearts and clubs, so maybe 2NT here should be diamonds and another. Even if 2NT is just two suited takeout to cater to 5-4's in the rounded suits (or hands flawed to act the first time), partner's 3♣ followed by your correction to 3♦ should give an excellent indication of how good the diamonds are on this one. Doubling and passing 3♣ seems OK as well. At MP I'd certainly get in the fray; here -100 isn't a coup against -110 but this hand still looks good enough to me. I think acting in some manner is a 7. You can't have it both ways. You either get to double and pass 3C, or you cannot play clubs. Either is flawed. I agree if I could always pull 3C when it's right and always pass 3C when it's right then X is a 10. If we bid 2N now we lose the ability to play clubs (since we have to pull 3C since partner is assuming we have 5-5 minors for now), and we also lose the ability to defend 2S X. Both are bad. Again we can't do it all.

I don't like rogers auction, why 5N completely preempting all grand slam tries/queen asks/etc given that our suit is clubs when partner has bid 4H? Showing the void seems really bad, it just endplays partner into a guess, he doesn't even have a bid to tell us that we have all the keycards and we are unlimited. If the auction went 4N-5H-5N(5S)-6C then we know partner has no DK. Of course this "knowledge" means we will never bid 7.

I'd just invite though I am worried about missing slam because of doing so. We have no aces and only 3 major suit cards so I am fine if it goes all pass.

fixed Meh it's better to play 4C as D+M or D+specific major but whatever, I think they have the majors too! Bidding now is absurd.

lol

5S. Even if I had 3D available, there is no auction where I'd expect partner to automatically cuebid hearts eg 3D-3S 4C-4S I would still move

lol at some of these guesses. Hamman and Soloway played strong club with 13+-16 NT, and indeed they opened all 3325 13 counts 1N. Zia and Hamman play natural with a stronger NT. Hamman and Wolff played similar to Hamman and Soloway. Zia and Rosenberg played weak NT. The lighter you open and the more often you open 1N, the more likely you will be to play the hands (see Meckwell, Grue, etc).

5.5, I would double but I think it's fine not to. I wouldn't double in most conditions. One problem is it will often be difficult to get to the right suit (diamonds).

Who's going to stop me from opening nice 11-counts? After 1C - 1D - 1H (not promising 3-card support) I play: 1S = natural, forcing. 1NT = natural. 2C, 2D = 2-way checkback? Use 1S as a puppet to 1N and 1N as 4 spades NF and you gain a lot of room for very little cost.

Yeah I just play landy if I get to choose and I'm happy with that.

If partner hesitates that is not authorized information.

I agree completely with hanp except for him saying he finds it hard to base his play on opps who only bid to 1D. It is perfectly reasonable for LHO to have 0 points and 4 diamonds, and RHO to have all the points and 6 diamonds and for this auction to occur so it's not like something impossible has happened. The other possibility of RHO failing to make a weak jump overcall, and LHO failing to bid with a king and 4 trumps requires 2 weird things, and even in that case if RHO has the CK and not the HK we are fine.

Only at MP. I think it's really bad at imps, it contains obvious risks and does not gain often enough (most of the time they are going to bid game and be cold on any lead). At MP getting a club lead and saving a trick seems frequent enough to offset the downsides. One hidden downside of a double like this is when you have a real double partner is going to be much less prone to compete, or he will compete and go for a number too often when you have something like this... most likely somewhere in the middle.

I love the idea in general of playing weak 2s and 2D majors, I hate having strong options in there though, but I think this is an improvement over the standard multi scheme. Weak 2s are much more effective, and having a bid to show both majors weak is by far the most important 2 suiter.

I would bid 2N forcing and then go from there (if partner didn't sign off in 3C I know he was GF so I'd probably drive to slam, if he did sign off in 3C showing a LR then I will mess around and try to decide what to do). If 2N is not forcing or I'm not sure then I would start with 2D and expect to have a terrible auction.

I would invite all white at MP, like awm said I don't think 15 counts pass in this situation and there's no way I want to be in 15 opp 8 games in MP. Partner will pass my invites with most 16s and I can live with that at MP. Really I don't see why I need to be in super skinny games at MP ever, we need 50 % odds and if it is really hard to play or they misdefend or whatever and I make 150 I think I'll still get a good score. I guess if I knew everyone in the field would blast, and I play much better than them, I should blast too, but in practice I have no idea if people will pass, invite, or bid game or if their partner will overcall 1N or if their LHO will open etc etc so I'm just going to try to play sound bridge and to me that is avoiding 23/random 24 HCP 3Ns here. At imps it would be a totally different ball game since there's a big bonus for bidding and making those games, but to me there is not much bonus for it at MP. The fact that partner can have 18 a lot and that he might play it better after the opening bid is just a factor for me to be happy inviting and not consider passing.