sfi

How about 1♠ - (X) - 2NT (LR+) - (P) - 4♦? Now North can elicit a couple of heart cuebids from South and bidding 7 is simple.

Over 2D the bidding continues with 2S from North, P - P back to you. Now you nowhere near as well off as standard bidders since your partner has no idea which two suits you have. You don't even get the chance to pass a responsive double for penalties. If North bids 3S instead of 2, you can't double that for penalties either and now you're struggling to find your best spot. Getting the chance to double 4S is pure fantasy land. But if you want to throw your own constructive bidding out of the window just because they've opened a 4 card major in front of you, be my guest.

As I mentioned before, if this becomes the standard defence then that trend would change.

My personal favourite prohibited substance story from the Olympics concerned Ross Rebagliati. He is a snowboarder who won gold in the Nagano Olympics and was subsequently stripped of his medal after a drug test. He won the appeal, mainly by pointing out that they had omitted to put marijuana on the banned substance list. Someone else tried to claim the 'too much coffee' defence. I think the dose equated to about 30 cups that morning, so he didn't avoid disqualification.

If I knew this is what you were playing against transfer openings, I would actually change my system to include them. I would point out the reasons why but (a) others have done it and (b) you would then accuse me of trying to divert you from the One True Way. So good luck with it.

I'm not sure what you're arguing about here. Declarer ruffed the 3rd heart in dummy and then had to guess trumps - as per the play provided. When declarer made this decision he knew about the heart break. If you want to play west for only two hearts, you need to decide whether to play them for a singleton 2 or Q of spades. No other layout lets you make slam. And this layout is markedly lower percentage than what declarer actually played for.

Because west followed to 3 rounds of hearts. He's talking about the guess in spades rather than the guess to bid 6S initially.

I like this concept of dumping conventions every time they come up but don't gain. However, I'm not sure how to apply it in all situations. For example, the other night one of our conventions came up for the first time in a couple of months. Because of it we gained 10 imps by being the only pair to bid 3nt, for +630. However, had they defended properly we would have lost 6 imps. So, do we have to dump it or can we continue to play it for another session?

The Olympics have an eight year timeframe in which to catch someone for drugs. Someone during the London Olympics was stripped of a bronze medal from Greece, and the article highlighted that they had just met that deadline. Not germane to the Armstrong case, but IMO there is nothing wrong with holding samples for tests using future technology. The Olympic timeframe doesn't seem ridiculous on the face of it.

A couple of years ago I played a 20 board match against a pair where this auction came up twice: 1S - 2S 2NT - 3x 3S What was unusual? 2NT was Roman Key Card Blackwood! Obviously they know more about this game than I do though, because both times they found they were missing 2 keycards and scored +140 in the partscore.

If you can't comfortably reach this grand playing strong club with relays in an uncontested auction, you really need to not be playing that system.

6 losers, a couple of defensive tricks, and an easy rebid. What's lacking to make this not an opening bid?

It's not the way badminton has been played before, according to the reports. In all previous olympics the draw has been a straight knockout. And there were concerns raised about exactly this situation which the federation (somewhat naively) dismissed out of hand.

3 of the suit is natural there if it's potential canape. If not, we've given up the immediate natural overcall since it's more likely that opener has a 5+ card suit (at least in the partnerships where we have discussed this) and showing 2 suited hands has a fair bit of positive potential. We don't get to use the bid as often as at the one level or even if we had it available at the two level, but there are times we get to bid their suit naturally later in the auction. If they play transfers against you, it is important to put the extra space to good use one way or another. And I dislike not having a bid with my good 6 card major when they show hearts on my right with K3 7542 A KQT832.

That's true, but I have yet to encounter a system where opener transfers to a 5 card suit. When that happens, I'm sure we'll adopt one of the other defences.

My standard approach (and what I recommend to opponents when I play this sort of system) is to use: X = takeout of shown suit bid of shown suit = natural 2 of shown suit = Michaels Other stuff is like they opened one of the suit they have shown. IMO it's important to have a natural overcall of their suit when it could be 4 cards, particularly if it can be canape.

This is only a valid analogy if you're asking in the middle of the hand. Wyman's advice is perfectly sound, if terse - if you can't handle the expected answers to your query (either 4NT or the original post), then maybe you should not be asking that particular question in the first place.

But there are two ways that West can play their spots with K85 in the first instance, which is where restricted choice comes into it.

It seems right to play for the drop, but I'm not totally convinced. My thinking is as follows: If East holds 753, then there are six ways for East to play the clubs if there are no signalling implications, while West only has one way to play from KT8. If East holds T73, he has two ways to play them while West also has two ways to play with K85 - a total of four. So it seems to me that the odds are 3-2 in favour of the drop. All this assumes that the opponents are good enough to work out the situation (which doesn't seem like too much of a stretch in this case) and there is no need to signal. If we read the C7 as showing spades, then the odds shift to 1-1 if East would always play the 7 at trick two or 2-1 in favour of the drop if East would just avoid playing the C3 to send that message.

Can't you only look at the previous trick until you play to the next one? Apart from anything else, this would need to be catered for.

I'm not arguing that a 5D bid should have worked (a raise is clear IMO). I was pointing out that your statement about risking preemption is not valid if the alternative is doing it to yourself voluntarily.

By jumping 4 levels of bidding you guarantee the space is taken away.

Isn't it screamingly obvious to continue spades at trick 4? And isn't the SJ at trick 10 a no-win play? Apart from the fact that third hand is expected to be able to think at trick one no matter what, declarer contributed significantly to the result.

There is a requirement for players to protect themselves at times. For example, if you have the auction 1S-(2NT) with no alert, and your side proceeds on the assumption that this shows a strong balanced hand, do you really think you will get an adjustment if you are at all above tournament beginner status? This is one of the issues in this thread - the OP thinks this is not an analogous situation in Australia while at least two experienced directors disagree with him.

That's where the procedural penalty for the offending side came in. And I suspect you can work out very easily who the director I asked is without needing to cast aspersions on their credentials.