Tramticket

Neither an upgrade nor a downgrade. KQ doubleton is a negative feature, but a five-card suit with two honours and intermediates is a good feature.

[hv=pc=n&s=sj84hakq4d2ckt873&w=sqt75hjt873daj9c5&n=sak6h62dk76cj9642&e=s932h95dqt8543caq&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=1c2ddp2c]399|300[/hv] North, who is playing a weak no-trump and four-card majors, elects to open one club. I overcall two diamonds with the East cards - I have correctly shown the stop card, but South takes little notice of the stop procedure when he doubles almost immediately. Partner passes and North bids two clubs. My partner is the first to react and says "you can't do that", to which north retorts "its not your turn, you shouldn't say anything". I reply: "Any player can draw attention to an irregularity" and then raise my hand and call for the director. As I am calling for the director, north places a 2NT bid on the table. The director arrives, sees the auction and gives the table a lecture about the need to call the director immediately. The director replaces North's 2NT bid into the bidding box and says "lets assume that you called the director before making that bid". The director gives me the option to accept the bid and explains to North that he can bid 3♣ without penalty, but any other bid will silence his partner. North bids 3♣. The director states that there is lots of unauthorised information and south must avoid using the UI. After I pass, South bids 3NT. After a pause South then says, in the presence of the director, "this is what I want to bid, but it does use unauthorised information"! Director: "Well you can't bid that then can you?". South puts the 3NT bid back into the box and the director follows up with: "there is even more unauthorised information" and walks away in despair. South pulls out a 5♣ bid, which ends the auction. After 5♣ makes (we score our two aces), North makes the comment: "you shouldn't have called the director, 3NT would have gone off". We walk away in despair. How many errors?

Yes, you can, if playing with robots against other robots - but don't expect the robots to understand your bid. [Aside: In what sense do computers "understand"?!] If you are playing real-life bridge, then the situation is more complicated: - Firstly you need to consider whether local regulations permit a particular bid / meaning. Since I am in England (EBU), I have no idea whether this is allowed. - Secondly, even if a bid is allowed, your partner will need to properly disclose your methods to your opponents. Again, local methods will prescribe the precise method of disclosure (alerting / announcing / convention card etc.) - but the key is that if you have an agreement (even an implicit agreement) to a particular bid your opponents are entitled to that knowledge. Good luck with these methods - I will stick to Acol.

Yes 2NT showing 15-18 is feasible (see my answer above) and much better than 15-19. An alternative use for 3NT, which I have also tried is that 3NT shows 15-18 AND good support for partner's minor.

We have wrestled with this problem over the years. Our current thinking is: - Our 2-over-1 promises 10 HCP or occassionally a good 9. - We have tried the "Principle of Fast Arrival" approach where the jump to 3NT shows the minimum 15-16 and no interest in the majors and all other hands in the 15-19 range bid 2NT. We found that the wide range caused problems: do we invite slam in case partner is at the maximum end? This risks getting too high if partner has a 15-count minimum. The 15-16 HCP point hand is statistically far more common. A further problem is that we sometimes want to open at the one level with a 20-count (say: AKXX KQXX AKJX X) and now after 1♦-2♣? To be honest, the Principle of Fast Arrival was never really intended for no trump auctions. - We have now changed to: 2NT rebid shows 15-18 (this smaller range is much more manageable) and 3NT rebid shows 19-20 (not forcing, but highly encouraging). There isn't room to look for the 8-card major suit fit after the the 3NT rebid, but with a combined 29+ HCPs, 3NT often plays as well as 4M anyway. After the 3NT rebid, all bids, including 4M, are forcing.

It would certainly work well here, but at the cost of telling opps your shape. you have a balanced minimum opposite a balanced 18(ish) and look destined for 3NT. I must confess that I would just bid 3NT☹️

I'm with you as far as the 3♣ bid. But is 3♦ really a choice of game bid? If partner bid 3♦ I think that I would interpret it as showing slam interest.

Thanks, all who have replied so far. It seems that most find the double to not be silly. My concern over the bid was that I had noted a minor hesitation and body language from East. The full deal was: [hv=pc=n&s=s73hj983daqt98c94&w=sk865hkqt6d76c532&n=sjtha42dk43cakqj6&e=saq942h75dj52ct87&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p1cp(With%20hesitation)1ddr2spp3cp3dpp3sppdppp]399|300[/hv] The intervention probably stopped us from reaching the doomed 3NT or the more successful 5♣/5♦ - I suspect that we would most likely be in 3NT in an uncontested auction. The hesitation / body language was of the minor kind that you get regularly at clubs and I didn't reserve rights / call the director but I was surprised when that eight-count went down as dummy. Our score of +300 was a top, so I didn't take any further action. How should we have bid to 5m?

North has an easy pass. Change the five of clubs to the King and I still pass. But I will strain to bid in the pass-out seat when short in their suit. A protective 1D looks normal to me.

1♦ is natural and a four-card suit. Four-card suits are bid up the line (Acol style), so 1♦ does not deny a four-card major. We were North/South and I have no comment on the East/West bidding style.

[hv=pc=n&w=sk865hkqt6d76c532&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p1c(Natural%2C%204%2B%20Clubs)p1dd]133|200[/hv] Pairs

It isn't my system, but does 2NT deny diamond support in the OP hand? What would you bid with ♠J6 ♥A974 ♦9842 ♣AQT?

Thanks - I was guessing that this should be valued at somewhat less than a full 15-count. I would be relaxed treating this as a weak no trump, but I know that I'm swimming against the tide and we live in a world where players upgrade with the smallest excuse, but never downgrade!

I tend to prefer standard attitude, but play reverse attitude, standard count with my main partner. Interesting - why? This is the one that I have strongest feelings about. My philosophy when discarding is to generally play suits that I don't want led. When I play low discards are encouraging, I find that I discard high card like confetti in order to keep my long suit.

In my opinion, if you are going to open this 1♥, you need to be rebidding the hand as a balanced 12-14. Treating the hand as unbalanced will lead to too many problems. This is not a great 15-count - your points are in your short suits, you lack intermediates and that heart suit will be hard to develop without support from partner. But these negative features are not bad enough to downgrade to a 14-count in my judgment and I would open the obvious 1NT.

You play the ace of spades and if the king doesn't drop you lead to the ace of clubs, dropping the King. This is fine, as long as West has both kings, which is likely from the bidding. But if West's 2S was based on a five-count, without the king of clubs you will be unlucky!

Consider the cases where RHO has more clubs than LHO: in each case you succeed if the queen is on your left. (e.g. the clubs are distributed 3-4: the finesse will work if LHO has the Q and fail if RHO has the Q. Playing for the drop will also work if LHO has the Q and fail if RHO has the Q). Now consider the cases where LHO has more clubs than RHO. Now the odds of LHO having the Q are greater than 50%. Taking the finesse succeeds when LHO has the Q, playing for the drop succeeds when RHO has the Q. It is easy to see that in this case the finesse is the better option. The actual odds are: Finesse: 50% chance of success; playing for the drop: 36.6% chance of success.

I think that you are a bit light in terms of high-card strength and defensive values for a Benji 2c, but nothing else is particularly attractive. I don't understand your bidding from there: (1) surely partner has enough to make a 2S positive response? Even if 2D is a relay rather than a negative, a five-card suit with two honours in a seventeen HCP hand is surely worth mentioning? (2) the leap to 4D is silly. A simple 3D is forcing for one round (game forcing if partner had given a positive response). After 3D you would have space to explore constructively.

This looks like an easy 2♦ - it is clearly "invitational", which would be my criteria rather than an arbitrary point count. A balanced invite is likely to be 11-12 HCPs, but with shape this looks a perfectly reasonable 2♦ bid. System does make a difference and we play a weak NT a four-card majors. Partner will have at least a four-card diamond suit and often it will be a five-card suit (or strong no trump strength). It is less clear cut playing Strong & Five, but I would still be happy with a raise to 2♦ (but happy to be corrected by someone who knows the system better).

This surprises me, to put it mildly. I can't remember ever having such a hand.

I don't like your meta-rule. How you you play 1♥-(2NT*)-3♣? (* = shows both minors) They have shown two suits, but I certainly don't play the 3♣ bid as natural. Either you take a lot of risks making a natural over-call in a suit that they bid naturally, or the bid is low frequency.

Most of us would have a generic rule that a cue-bid is not natural unless we have a specific agreement that it is natural in a given sequence. As to this specific sequence, I don't think that it is as clear-cut as you describe. You need to have a very good suit - both in terms of strength and suit quality to want to make a natural call in a suit where the opponents have also made a natural call - particularly as you can make no assumptions of any support from partner. Yes, you might be sitting over RHO's suit, but that will be little help if you have to lead the suit from your own hand. Maybe opponents have responded 1♠ on "four to the eight", but it is dangerous to make that assumption. So if you agree that you will only want to make a natural over-call with exceptional length and quality, then you are "blown out of the water" much of the time anyway. Having a hand that wants make a natural over-call will be a low-frequency event. Furthermore, the opponents are in a forcing sequence anyway, so passing and bidding later is also an option. I play in England, where many play four-card majors and the opening bid could be made on "four to the eight", but we wouldn't dream of playing (1H), 2H as natural. There are many possibilities for the cue-bid and Nigel's suggested alternative is a reasonable possibility (we play something similar).

I would only treat this as two-suited if the suit quality in the major was awful.

Yes, I have always found this unhelpful. I know that I need a squeeze card, menaces, entries and timing ... but none of these helpful words seems to relate to BLUE!

It's always easy when you can see the two hands. The key is west's rebid: playing our (weak NT) system after the bidding starts 1♣-1♦, I will have a choice between 3♣, 1NT (15-18) and 2NT (19-20). The playing strength in the club suit would persuade me to choose to rebid 2NT and I would hope that this would persuade East to push on to slam.