DinDIP

I've played a fair amount of FP, including with Pilun. Also played it once a year for a few years so had to practice a lot, which meant I had to look at how the opps might defend. What worked best (IMO) is my preferred defence: X = (13)14+ BAL, the most likely way to penalise the fert or any attempted runout 1N = 17/18+, not BAL (2♣ = 0-6 any; 2♦ = Stayman, most hands with 4M; 2M/3m = 5+, denies 4M) 2any/3m = 13-17, ASPRO (i.e. 2♣ = 4+H, two-suiter at least 54; 2♦ = 4+S and 4+m; 2M= 6+M; 2N = both m; 3m = 6+) The overall design objectives are: 1. don't focus on penalising the fert but nonetheless make it possible to penalise them; 2. show shape the most efficient way with shapely Roth-Stone-style opening bids (so use ASPRO as it is more effective than any other notrump defence); 3. use 1N as a strong strong club, always with an UNBAL hand; and 4. try to get the auction into territory where we feel comfortable. At the table the biggest problem is finding a way to divide 14+BAL into bunches that are manageable so we are not always over- or under-bidding. A tolerant attitude is required by both partners in my experience.

KK Relay (Woolsey and McCallum) decided to show shapes symmetrically. To achieve that they (a) use the cheapest step (2♠) after teller shows a three-suiter with both majors (1♣-1♥-1♠-1N-2♣-2♦) to cancel the message of a three-suiter and replace it with a 6+card semi-solid major; and (b) use 3♣ to show a 4441 with a singleton A, K or Q (so that other 4441s are always shown by 3♦) I think symmetry is a big plus but one step can matter so I'm not keen on losing space.

Well, one New Zealand pair that proposed playing a forcing pass variant of their system was "encouraged" by John Wignall, the then South Pacific zonal WBF rep (from NZ), not to play such a system in the KO stages. The pair was advised that their submissions to the systems committee (?) would be rejected as incomplete because they did not provide sufficient detail about how they would handle actions by the opponents. The pair offered to remedy any specific deficiencies but was given to understand that there would be nothing they could do in time that would be sufficient. I understand that under the new regime at the WBF things would be handled differently if a pair expressed an intention to play a HUM system in the KO stages.

I reviewed the KK book for The Bridge World. It's an excellent guide for relay novices in how to learn a system and how to use it. The hundreds of examples show what to think about when, especially how to envisage a possible slam and how to investigate it, using Kit's and Kate's methods. It's not flawless -- what book is? I was irked by a number of example auctions where asker's bidding was DD, especially when searching for necessary queens. For a few of the deals I found the claim that there was safety at the five level (so that relaying further was right) to be dubious -- I'm not convinced it's a sound strategy to reach five-level contracts that are 50% at best in search of slam. I noted in the review that the decision to use controls rather than QP was a surprising one and that it was a pity K&K didn't explain their choice. I did ask Kit separately but he didn't respond. It would be good to have a tool that allowed such analyses, even if it would reduce some of the subjective discussion about which method(s) is (are) better. IIRC, Michael Shuster reported on BridgeWinners that he and Sam Dinkin had bid hundreds of deals comparing the KK DCB method where n-1 non-singleton suits are scanned with their own where all n non-singleton suits are scanned and found the results to be virtually identical overall: there were wins and losses for both methods. They now use: Scan answerer’s longest suit first, tie to highest (twice if 6 or longer) then next longest suit and so on. Scan doubletons only once, singletons and voids not at all. For 9+ minimum responder with 3+CTRLs, do not scan queens until the Nth scan where N is the number of control cards (note well, control cards not control points). If you have super 1st, say no. Super 1st is AKQ for positives in a 3+ suit, or AK, AQ or KQ in a known doubleton. For semi-positives and hands with 0-2 controls, scan queens immediately and super 1st is also KQJ or AQJ. Don’t super first with double negatives. Scan queens immediately for double negatives. Exception to Nth scan queens rule: if you have denied both the A and the K on the first scan, proceed to queens in that suit If you have shown AKQ or denied having any of AKQ, jacks ok the second scan in that suit It's worth noting that they (for reasons I don't fully understand) use a shape-showing structure that is mostly symmetric+2 (+1 with minor one-suiters) so they have much less room for DCB than most symmetric pairs.

Maybe an easier way to undertake this project is to use an existing program like Jack or WBridge and, either by obtaining permission from the developers or by reverse engineering, add additional systems and/or conventions. The best of these programs have reasonably good or better hand evaluation modules, defensive bidding modules etc so that would save you many hours of work. Just as an example, for simulations I often specify that second hand will pass opener's bid. My code for that runs to hundreds of lines and (a) there are still hands that do or don't get excluded where I would do the opposite and (b) the specs reflect my unique style which is different from those of all my partners, to say nothing of opponents.

My guidelines are: * Assume an 8 card fit * Accept with - (if you have 1-2 cards) 1 of the top 3 honours - (if 3-5 cards) 1 loser opposite one of the top 4 honours - (if 6+ cards) 1 loser opposite small cards David

Interesting idea, David. Aren't you limited to fishing for +2 in both majors? If you need +3 in spades then you have to guess which ask to use: if you ask with 4♣ then you can't play 4♠ when teller is +2, and if you ask with 4♦ then you can't signoff in 4♠ if teller has base or base+1.

It's a worthwhile objective but very hard to implement effectively. If you want to look at how not to do it, read Jan Eric Larsson's book from 2021 Good, Better, Best. He presents a wide range of challenging conclusions from his system and convention comparisons. He has done a mountain of work and the methodology is sound. I think the sample size he uses is too small. However, the biggest problem is the files he uses to specify the bidding systems he tests. IMO they are seriously flawed: for example, how meaningful can the competitive bidding module be when xxx Qx AQxxx Qxx is a vul overcall opposite a passed partner after RHO opens 1♥? As both critics and some proponents of economic modelling say: "garbage in = garbage out". David

Adam is right that this is a swap: instead of using 4♦ as an end signal with game bids as NAT slam tries, focusing on trump strength, game bids are to play and 4♦ asks across all suits. This came about when Nick and I played together in 2008 in a qualifying event for the Australian team selection trials. In 1982-84 we were a regular FP symmetric partnership but my moves interstate and overseas for work meant we didn't play together for a decade and then only once or twice a year. We were also often playing as part of a team where we all played SCAMP (strong club) or SPAM (FP). Nick's regular partner had a high propensity to forget that game bids were slam tries so we never adopted 4♦ as an end signal. Frustrated by our inability to sort out suit-quality issues I suggested using 4♦ to ask in all suits as it was otherwise reserved for asking for aces (mostly). Over time we discovered that the bid solved a number of problems, including when shape is resolved at 3♠ or 3N. This includes auctions after a semipos response to a 1♥ relay when we are +2. It's not perfect and, as Adam notes, more useful information can be conveyed if a suit is set. Things can also get tricky when teller has a super-positive but a weak holding in the suit asker is interested in; 4N is reserved for those hands but it's still awkward to sort out strain and ascertain if the grand is worth bidding. However, if you have no other way in your system of ascertaining suit quality, especially when teller has a long suit, then it's a tool worth considering. I used in some of the hands that Richard or David put forward years ago to compare methods (see for example https://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/66293-deal-30/page__p__793510__hl__%22suit+quality%22__fromsearch__1#entry793510) and also discussed it in passing in https://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/72026-incorporating-suit-quality-options-into-symmetric-relay-methods/page__p__858293__hl__%2B+%2Bquality+%2B__fromsearch__1#entry858293. I thought I had also written a separate article about it in this forum but I can't easily find it.

Re discounting doubleton honours: an Australian international asked me about this (in the context of a pseudo-relay system). I tested a very small sample of deals and concluded that it was not a good idea for AK or AQ but might be worth considering for KQ. As Adam has noted, the value depends in part on whether the partnership uses DCB (when it takes two scans to distinguish between Ax and KQ) and PCB (when this is known in one scan).

(Background: Delta Club is a Symmetric variant based on the Polish ideas of separating hands without a shortage [0-1 cards] from those with a shortage, and showing the shortage rather than length first with the shapely hands. It is based on work Ian Casselton and I started a decade ago with much of the shape-showing module developed by Ian. See here . An outline of Delta Club and some interim conclusions about its effectiveness is here.) For the past 11 weeks the usual game in which partner and I have been playing Delta Club has been suspended while real bridge tournaments have been played (many on RealBridge, as it happens). Because of ill health I haven’t been able to play so I’ve spent the time thinking about how the ideas and shortness-showing tools of Delta Club can be used when playing “normal” Symmetric methods, i.e. where long suits are shown first. I think there are three areas in particular where Symmetric can be improved: Showing shortness opposite BAL hands Reverse relays; and Exclusion asks. Showing shortness opposite BAL hands If an unbalanced relayer does not have a way to show shortness then finding the right contract can be problematic. The original Symmetric responses to a strong club included 1N with BAL hands. That leaves a lot of room for opener to break the relay and find the best fit and level. However, it comes with the price of making responder declarer in notrumps, the most likely strain when responder is balanced. After decades of splitting the balanced hands between 2♣ (at least one four-card major) and 2♦ (no major, includes 5m332) I now think it’s better to split by strength, with 2♣ showing 11+ and 2♦ 8-10. One reason is that opener rarely relays for slam when responder is 8-10. Because 2♦ consumes more bidding space there are fewer possible chain-breaks available to opener. This limits opener’s opportunities to describe his hand but there are effective options. One is to bid the suit in which opener is short, with 2N showing a hand with no slam interest that wants to declare notrumps while leaving room for responder to explore for major-suit fits via Puppet Stayman. A better option, my testing suggests, is to transfer to the shortage, allowing responder to “accept” with no four-card major but interest in a 5-3 (or 4-3) major-suit fit or some contract other than 3N. (More complex alternatives are easy to devise but have heavier memory loads.) There are a few general rules that are helpful: Showing shortness does not promise a four-card major or a three-suiter. With Kxx x AKJxx AQxx or Kxx x AQx AQJxxx opener should show his H shortage. A bid of 3N by responder shows a stopper (often more) but opener’s 3N is designed to allow the partnership to play there if responder wanted to show a four-card major but play in 3N if there is no 4-4 (or 4-5) fit. A bid of opener’s short suit at the four level by either player shows maximum values with no wastage. While most of the time these shortness-showing breaks will focus the partnership on a choice of games, opener can also use them to try for slam. One easy-to-show hand with slam interest is when opener has a 6+card major and a shortage. For example, with AKQTxx AQx x Kxx opener wants to be in slam if responder has a hand like xx Kxx xxxx AQxx or xxx Kxx Axxxx Qx but not if responder has wasted values in diamonds. Reverse relays Delta Club allows opener to describe all unbalanced hands when responder has a GF hand with no shortage and many unbalanced hands when a GF responder is also unbalanced. Given that opener will only reverse relay with a pure hand, one that will easily be able to show its values in denial cue bidding, when the shortage is opposite a 4+card suit it’s usually better to have described than to have asked. Delta Club is random in achieving this goal because opener (1) does not know which is (are) responder’s 4+card suit(s); and (2) which suit opener can show shortness in is fixed in advance -- for example after a 1N response to 1♣ opener can only shows shortness in spades as we show shortness in the order SHDC. When, as in “standard” Symmetric, responder shows length rather than shortness it is clear that the most useful shortage to show is in responder’s suit. And Delta provides an efficient, Symmetric structure for doing so: 2♦ 5+ lowest suit or three-suiter or 5+5+ with lowest and middle suits 2♠ three-suiter (3!D+) or 5+5+ with lowest and middle suits (3!C 2♥ 5+ middle suit 2♠ 5+5+ with highest suit (3♣ = lowest suit, 3♦ = middle suit) 2N 5+ highest suit, 4 lowest suit 3♣ one-suiter in highest suit (3♥ = 6331 etc) 3♦ 5-4-3-1 3♥ 6-4-2-1 etc (Obviously, the order in which suits are shown can be adjusted.) This makes it possible to reverse relay over a 1♥, 1♠ or 1N response, with each partnership needing to decide whether to start shape-showing with step+1 or always at 2♦. The former gains steps; the latter ensures consistency and a lower memory load, and provides some additional sequences for opener to break relay. My testing suggests that it is profitable to use this step (or two) to show another family of hands that are often better telling than asking: hands with 4+card support for the suit responder has shown and a singleton or (especially) a void. Reverse relaying works best when opener has few or no cards that will be hard to show in denial cue bidding. For example, when opener has AQxxx x AKQx Qxx and partner responds 1!S (showing 4+ hearts) to the 1!C opening opener should start to tell. Responder will know that KQxx in hearts are wasted for slam but will be a secure stopper for notrumps while Axxx is a good holding for a suit contract and a fair one for notrumps, and xxxx is even better for a suit contract but terrible for notrumps. If opener’s hand were KQJTxx x AQxx Ax then it’s better to retain captaincy by asking. Exclusion asks Once teller has made a second shape-showing bid we use step+1 relay breaks to show shortness in the second suit. This has two objectives: 1. to ensure that teller has stoppers in the suit if asker offers 3N as a contract and to be able to look for a slam if teller has no wasted values; and 2. to get teller to ignore the K and Q of asker’s short suit when responding to an inquiry about strength. (The first reference I have to this is Paul Marston’s notes from the mid 2000s.) In a practice deal opener held AKQ85 J3 4 AQJT6. Responder showed hearts then diamonds so opener bid step+1 to show a D shortage. When responder’s shape was shown to be 1=5=4=3 opener wanted to play 3N unless responder had extra values or nothing wasted in diamonds. With a hand like x AKxxx KJxx xxx responder would have passed. With the actual hand (9 AKT74 J862 K87) responder showed 7 working 321 points

If you download the executable then you need to have mdealer.exe (not dealer.exe) and bridge.exe (GIB's DD engine) in the same directory. Then the tricks and score functions work. (Thanks to Wayne Burrows for helping me sort out that I needed to use mdealer.exe rather than dealer.exe.)

A helpful rule of thumb is the rule of 21: add the two hands' QPs and count working voids as 3, working singletons as 2 and working doubletons as 1. (These are the high cards that are not needed to provide control.) If the total is 21 or more then slam is worth investigating. The most important thing to do is to bid lots of hands so as to get a feel for how to envisage possible slams. The next step is to think about whether it is possible in the available bidding space below the safety threshold to find out what you need to know. If in doubt remember that honours are more likely to be in longer than shorter suits (another application of vacant spaces). While it uses 2-1 controls rather than QPs, the hundreds of examples in KK Relay and the commentary from the authors (Karen McCallum and Kit Woolsey) provide the best guide yet to what to think about in relay slam bidding. Inevitably, there are a number of DD auctions where the authors recommend bidding on and partner has the right hand when I think good relayers bidding just one hand would sign off.

I'm looking for information about non-relay auctions in Delta, Slawinski's system that has one bid for BAL/semi-BAL hands and others for hands with singletons or voids. I've read Slawinski's 1979 booklet Delta and the even shorter description in Slawinski's and Ruminski's Introduction to Weak Opening Systems and Regres System but only relay auctions are discussed. My initial thinking is to play step = relay step+1 = weak relay, less than INV, NF new suit = NAT, NF, suggests 6+card suit if opposite shortness and five cards otherwise. However, if one of the shortness openings shows a minor-suit shortage (so different from Slawinski's recommended structure) then there look to be advantages in artificial responses that show major-suit length. Has anyone tried Delta or a Delta-like system? How did you develop both competitive and non-competitive auctions?

A marriage query: awm's and sieong's rule states "If there is a pair of suits where one has KQ and the other has none, the first such pairing (length order, followed by high to low) is picked; stop if first suit has KQ, skip if second suit has KQ". Why does teller stop with what seems the more favourable answer? I presume it's a matter of frequency (teller is more likely to have honours in his long suit) so you want to preserve space in such situations. However, I ran into two hands yesterday where this order forced the bidding higher with the less helpful answer (less helpful because the partnership is more likely to play in teller's long suit -- this is especially true in auctions that start 1♣-1♦ where 1♦ shows a double negative or GF BAL or 7+RP UNBAL): 1. Teller held AJ9xxx AKQx K Kx and showed 12RP (we count kingletons as 1RP and stiff Qs as 0) and an odd parity in each suit. Teller's last bid was 5♠. Asker had xx xxxx Axxx AQx and now knew slam was worth bidding in the major in which teller had AKQ. However, the 5N marriage ask elicited a 6♦ response, and now we could no longer play in 6♥. 2. Teller held Axx AKQJxx Q Axx and showed 12RP and an odd parity in H, S and C, and no honour in D (we stop to show singleton honours). Teller then zoomed to answer the marriage question, but this was 5♣. Not a problem on the actual hand but asker, who again had no honours in either major, would have wanted to stop in 5♥ if teller had AKQ Axxxxx Q Axx. Were these just random luck? I note that: they only occurred because asker had no honour in two suits; and if the first auction had been one step higher then stopping with the marriage in the longer/higher-ranking suit would work better. Or is redgrover right and we should switch the responses?