foo

If you think Fantoni-Nunes are playing "supremely undisciplined two bids.", you are demonstrating that you do not understand what they are doing and that you should not attempt such an approach yourself. Fantoni-Nunes, like most WC pairs play a system that is the equivalent of a Formula 1 race car: =very= tuned, =very= disciplined within its design parameters, and =very= ugly when it gets into an accident. They do what they are capable of and what they think they have to to win against opposition much better than most of us will ever face under conditions of contest more strenuous than most of us will ever endure. What they do is based on and driven by those facts. Players not in that class or not competing at those levels should not be making assumptions or choices regarding their own system design or play style based on what a WC pair does.

1= I'm well aware of this. What these pairs and theorists are advocating is basically systemic stealing: to bid =past= the point of safety in hopes of inducing mistakes by the opponents often enough that the payoff is greater than the price paid for speeding over the long haul. Bergen & Cohen were doing the same sort of thing. In the long run, the tournament environment adapted to them and refuted the approach by giving it more bad results than good ones. Time will tell whether the same holds true for this lastest fad for stealing. My prediction is that there will be a resurgence and fine tuning of some old weapons to deal with this approach: the penalty X and penalty pass. We'll see how well stealing works once the expert community adapts this time. 2= Multi-suited openings are relatively new in the history of bridge. For the vast majority of it, single suited preempts were the norm. Everywhere. Various studies have been made of kinds of preempt openings and styles within those kinds in competition at the highest levels (for instance Brian Senior's study of the 1997 WC's). One of the interesting findings is how =little= most other kinds of say 2♦ prempts gain over the "old fashioned" Weak Two ♦. (note I'm specifically talking about =preempts=. For instance the Mexican 2♦ or variations of it is/are a =huge= win playing IMPs.) ...and I =really= wish people would stop using the phrase "assumed fit" unless they can mathematically =prove= that a fit exists the vast majority of the time. Say ~74% of the time or better. 53% or anything close to 50/50 odds of a fit is !not! an "assumed fit". It's little better than a coin flip. Would you bet your home / your food money / yourself / your loved one's on said "assumed fit"? If not, you probably aren't in the position to call it much of an assumption.

In fact, that was exactly what the ACBL's reaction was to Bergen & Cohen. The creation of the infamous "5 and 5" regulation. (A 2level or higher preempt must promise at least 5+ cards and at least 5+ HCP in the suit shown by the preempt.)

1= Results from 100's of thousands of boards over decades of play at all levels is !not! "anecdotal" evidence. It's experimental results. Lot's of them. 2= Since we must play SD but there is no objective way to build systems based on strictly SD work, it is unfortunately necessary to include DD analysis in the creation of system. Besides, DD Bridge is the Holy Grail of SD play. "Beating baby seals" or "stealing" only works consistently against poor opposition and leads to poor Bridge habits and lax Bridge skills if over-indulged. 3= I explicitly mentioned the HCP component of the LoTT: Howard Schenken knew that hands in the 7-12 HCP range were the most common and made that the original range of Weak Twos based on that. Later RW play ATT proved that the most effective range for Weak Twos was ~5-10 HCP even though that reduced their frequency.

awm, My only contradiction with what you are saying is that I do not agree with any explicit or implicit assumption that a two suited hand is a subset of single suited hands. Bridge-wise, they are completely different beasts. I'm happy to go along with the idea that any single suiter in "n" is a subset of all single suiters in "n". Ditto that any two suiter in "n+m" is a subset of all two suiters in "n+m". But a hand with a 2nd place to play is very different from a hand with only one suit to suggest is very different from a three suited hand. Bridge "physics" has to trump context independent mathematical arguments. As for Wilcosz, my only problem is that creating a defense vs it that allows the defending side a decent chance to achieve equity appears to be very difficult. More than anything else, the Laws and Regulations are there to protect and insure a reasonable opportunity at equity. Unless or until we can do that with regards to a specific method, that method should not be allowed any more than we would allow unrestricted performance enhancing drug use or unrestricted equipment modifications in any other game or sport.

Not if you accept the axiom of the LoTT. That's the entire point of the LoTT. You !don't! know what the other hands look like. You are taking action based on the assumption that the HCP are more or less scattered evenly around the table and bidding to the level of your best scoring assumed fit in one go. The LoTT is all about "bidding what you expect to score best in a vacuum". Of course, if you don't believe in any variation of the LoTT, that's a different story (In which case I assume you don't make preemptive raises to the 3 and 4 levels in the presence of an appropriate trump fit either. I have a hard time believing that.) Given that history proves that the traditional suit lengths for "n" level preempts are reasonable, I think anyone trying to argue otherwise has a very steep hill to climb.

This has to be asked appropriately in order for it to be solved as a math problem. The assumption is that the LOTT is valid. That is to say a 2 level contract when holding 18-22 HCP between the two hands and only one suit fit requires a trump fit of at least 8 cards (and a working side shortness, but that's a twiddle). So if you hold 6 cards in a suit, and pd's expected support is 2+ in the vast majority of cases, then the hypothesis is proven. I'll let hannie or helene_t or one of the other professional mathematicians do the calculations. EDIT: Thank you Echognome. I read Echognome results as "it's at least 74/53= ~1.5x safer to open a Weak Two with a 6 card suit than a 5 card suit." Particularly given his quite accurate comments about making sure you are playing in what the odds say is your best trump fit.

So now that it appears I am (finally!) free of the other regulatory thread chewing up all my time, I can participate here. 1= Every experienced Bridge player knows that Single suiters and Two Suiters are inherently different hand types. Calling a two suiter a subset of a single suiter catagory seems like a logic flaw. 2= While opening a Weak Two with a 5 card suit is sometimes done for tactical purposes, the classic definition of a Weak Two is that it is a 6 card suit. There's math that proves that =a 2 level preempt should be on 6 cards =a 3 level preempt should be on 7 cards =a 4 level preempt should be on 8 cards due to the fact that the expected trump fit is 8, 9, and 10 cards long (LOTT level)respectively. Thus saying that a Multi 2♦ opening promises 5+ cards in either major is a bit misleading. It's supposed to promise =a Weak Two in either major=. Which means except for tactical manuevers it should promise a 6 card suit in either major. Other than these 2 logic flaws (which demonstrate just how easy it is to go from reasonable to silly when regulating anything), I think awm's efforts to create a sensical, logically consistent system for regulating conventions is to be highly applauded. Anyone want to nominate awm for his SO's equivalent of the ACBL C&C or the WBF equivalent?

Ah, my personal gadfly is back. :D I think I may adopt you. yep, bidding theory has advanced since the time of Eli Culberson. 70+ years have passed after all. the 1st evals to 14 Dummy points and has perfect shape. Easy X. the 2nd is the dreaded "A's and spaces" hand. OTOH, I see 6/7 of the controls needed for game, 7 losers, perfect shape, and 15 Dummy points. Easy X. Modern theory respects shape and being control rich more than Culbertson did. Whereas today we recognize this as a nice 2♦ overcall. a= Mike says that he would not make a T/O X either with the first hand if it did not have all those T's and 9's (p5). b= Mike says (p6) "I like X. With a doubleton H and only 3 D's, you have to decide if having 11 decent points will compensate of the inferior distribution. I would accept a X on this, but would not insist." IOW, Mike considers it an optional T/O X that he would make because he's aggressive (He's also a Dallas Ace and a multiple times WC. He just may have better table skills than most to allow him to take greater risks.) Bottom line: Mike's aggressive and says so. from my POV, hand "a" evals to 13 Dummy Points in support of any suit, is control rich, has useful intermediates, and the missing A's rate to be in front of rather than behind the K's. X seems easy. hand "b" is a system problem. I don't like making T/O X's on 8 loser hands w/o some other compensating extras. This hand doesn't have them. I'd pass. Whatever your point here was, I'm not sure you proved it or anything beyond the fact that Bridge has evolved in the last 70+ years. Although we T/O X =slightly= more aggressively than Culbertson did, the basics have not changed much. ...and bye the bye, if you are going to make more aggressive T/O X's, you'd best become more conservative about Advancing them.

Folks, I've been trying to post the standards players like The Dallas Aces, The Blue team, and many present WC pairs use. I am not advocating my own "custom" methods. I have also been trying to focus the discussion more on =playing strength= and less on HCP. Tricks, not HCP, win boards. Phrases like "0-9 for a minimum" are =at best= approximations to the real evaluation that takes place. (1H)-X-pa-?? You hold: Qxxxx.(x.Kxxx.Axx) Here's three 9 counts I want to be in 4♠ on opposite just about any sane T/O of (1H). I have 7 losers opposite another 7 loser hand + a nine card trump fit + a likely 8+ card side fit. This hand's playing strength is !not! that of the average 9 count given this auction. Likewise, I would GF with Qxxx.xxx.KQx.KQx due to the purity of my hand and value location, but I would only invite with Qxxx.KQx.(xxx.KQx) Despite the fact that all three hands evaluate to ~10 playing points.

Starting with X should get you to 4♥

The most direct route in SA or 2/1 is 1♠-2N!;5♠-6♠. If opener doesn't think trump extras are enough opposite a GF Jacoby 2N promising at least 4+♠ support, then whatever bid that shows interest (3♠ if playing Fast Arrival) followed by Serious 3N and whatever until 6♠ is reached.

[ADVERTISEMENT] Condensed Transfers after a weak NT: http://www.geocities.com/gerben47/bridge/weaknt.html Coming to a Bridge World magazine near you (accepted mid-2006, published end-2007?) [/ADVERTISEMENT] Interesting. I'm not sure I buy the basic premise that we want the weak NT hand to come down as Dummy? What's the logic behind that idea? One thing I've noticed about Weak NTs vs Strong NTs is that it _appears_ (I've done no formal study on this) the chances of positional guards (Kx., Qxx., QJx., Jxxx., etc) is higher in a weak NT hand than in a strong NT hand. If so, that would seem to argue for making the weak NT hand Declarer as much as possible.

You are still having to bid opposite what usually evaluates to a minimum opening bid. Would you make an Invite w/ Jxxx ATx xxx KJx opposite a opening bid? I bet not. I'm all for esthetics in Bridge, but logic and probability trumps everything else. Inviting game on random 9 counts opposite a traditional opening is anti-percentage and will get you bad scores. Same here. ...and Jxxx ATx xxx KJx does not even evaluate to the playing strength of the average 9 count! K&R evaluation= 7.7 Danny Kleinman= 8 These aren't bad or the greatest points, but what really kills the OP hand is the 4333 shape. The OP hand is a =minimum= in terms of playing strength. It should be bid that way.

With this system how does Opener know if a 2C/D bid by responder in 7th seat (had to work that one out) is to play or suggestion where to play? I assume Responder would bid 2C on either of these hands =2344 =2236 How would Opener know what to do holding a fairly common hand type such as =3352 Playing that a direct XX of a balancing X shows 4+S and a balancing XX of a balancing X shows 4+H ( :P ), Opener passes any bid by Responder where they have 3+ card support... ...and so does Responder if Opener makes a counter suggestion. Yes, you may end up in a Moysian when there is a better fit available. But finding Our best spot is no longer the point. Getting to any spot better than 1NX is. ...and let's be clear. No matter what runout structure you play, you =will= "go for a number" every now and then. The point is to minimize the chances of it. You can't reduce those chances to zero.

In my book the normal bid with 8-11 points and 4 spades is 2♠, 3♠ with the same points and a five cards suit. Yes, I would prefer to have a better shape, who wouldn't? 2♠ is still the proper bid even at MP unless you want 1♠ to mean "from zero to infinity". 8 HCP is a bit light for a 2♠ response here, just as it would be to Invite game opposite a minimum opening bid with 8 HCP. The hands that do invite opposite an opening bid with less than traditional HCP do so because they have other shape based assets commonly called Dummy Points. Here, the T/O X'er has already included Our side's Dummy Points in =their= hand. Bidding the same assets 2x is a good way to get too high. An Invite opposite an opening bid is (9) 10-11 (12) HCP. Since the T/O X basically shows an opening bid, the same logic applies. The ~0-9 HCP range is not even close to "from zero to infinity". That's hyperbole on your part. If "life" means "overbid", then you are really asking to be "killed". In this case, if the auction comes back to us after (1H)-X-pa-1S;<2H somewhere by Them>-?? we can then X to show that we are at the top of our previously stated range. It =is= MP. Bidding your cards as accurately as possible and getting to Absolute Par as fast as possible is what wins. Not overbidding. Even Red @ IMPs where we "stretch" a bit, we still only stretch =a bit=. No one in this thread is advocating "playing dead". Those you are calling "dead" are advocating the "aggressive but tight" strategy that the best poker players use to win. IOW, be =accurate=, not merely aggressive.

No. xxx xxx xxxx xxx has 12 losers Hxxx HHx xxx HHx has at most 7 1/2 losers if H= (A, K, or Q) (besides the minimum hand of this pattern is Qxxx.KQx.xxx.KQx- a 12 count) (if you allow "H" to include J's, a bad idea, then we are talking Qxxx.KJx.xxx.KJx- a soft 9 1/2 loser 10 count that should be downgraded to ~an 8 count.) Despite both being 4333's with no ruffing potential, the 2nd is clearly a much better hand in terms of playing strength. Since We teach novices to count losers as the first part of planning the play in a suit contract, it would seem to make sense to include how many losers your hand has in evaluating how good your hand is for a suit contract. 1♠ is the "book bid" with the OP hand, not some mastermind bid.

A T/O X is supposed to be a hand that =at the least= evaluates to a minimum opening bid in support of what ever suit Advancer chooses. Just as an overcall is supposed to evaluate to the playing strength of at least a minimum opening bid. The reason a minimum Advance of a T/O shows ~0-9 is that a minimum response to an opening bid shows ~6-9 and in addition you must allow Advancer to bid with 0-5 because the T/O Doubler has forced Advancer to bid (except in the rare cases where Advancer will make a penalty pass.) Think of a T/O X as a way to "open" the bidding for the overcalling side just as an overcall does. The ranges used here have nothing to do with "fashion" and everything to do with logic. Culbertson and Goren used the same ranges that Miles, Lawrence, Hardy, Grant, etc etc do now. Because the range is dictated by the cards. Not fashion.

Yes, Ken mentioned this hand. Because he was quoting me. Anyways, thanks to Ken Rexford for attributing the hand I suggested to me, then discussing how problematic this hand type could be for the 2♠ bidders in more detail than I thought to post. Foo's post, on the other hand, attributed this hand to Ken three times very specifically. Occasionally I come up with an idea that other people actually agree with and listen to (rare I know!) -- it's just polite to attribute such things to the person who actually suggests them. I very much apologize. I simply quoted Ken's post when answering Ken's questions. No offense or disrespect towards you was intended or implied by me. I simply was answering Ken's questions. (gods, this is beginning to sound like intellectual property case law. We are seriously discussing who "owns" a specific bridge example?) I in fact often agree with most of what you post. Which is why I usually don't spend much time responding to or about it! Ironic.

It's an ace more than a minimum. (A queen in competition.) Both of those definitions are hinting at the right thing. The right thing is "a trick more than a minimum". It's Common Sense. (Voltaire not withstanding.) An opening bid + an opening bid => game A medium opening + a invitational response => game A maximum opening + a normal minimum response => game All in terms of trick taking strength of course B)

We agree on this. ...and this. Mike Lawrence's book _Takeout Doubles_ should provide you with some better ideas than the above. paraphrasing p110: "RULE- A cue bid after a T/O X is usually a GF, but it is also used on 2 suited hands w/ invitational strength. Usually when you have invitational strength, you have both Majors." I teach that you can show a= the Inv+ S+H 2suiter with a cuebid of a 1m opening and b= the Inv+ D+C 2suiter with a cuebid of a 1M opening. As well as the GF hand that is unsure of direction. Any extra bidding you do in a Contested auction should show =something= extra in terms of playing strength. More values, or more trump length, or higher ODR, etc. Something. Else you risk getting Us in trouble. Again, see Mike Lawrence. I consider that SA, and it's different from what you are saying here. ...and just about everywhere else Bridge is played as well I'd imagine. When playing with students, I cater System to what they have been exposed to. When We trip across something they don't know about Standard, that becomes a "field trip" to learn Standard in that area. Only after Standard is known do I want to talk about or suggest "better" alternatives. When playing with experts, system discussion is of course very different.

I have posted quotes of Ken for attribution. I did not "disrespect you".

for your reference awm

for your reference awm.

I strongly disagree. I do think there is a distinction between HUM, esp a newish pair playing HUM and a 30+ year old partnership playing Precision or Eastern Sci such as meckwell or chip and Lew. I can only hope you are not suggesting that these old old long term partnerships are not disclosing their bids in full faith to the spirit of the law and the game. I do agree that many many partnerships do not. I see it every night on bbo. The point is that the =fair= standard is applied to =everyone=. Regardless of status. Regardless of system. Regardless of how established or not the partnership is. If we are going to demand that some pairs metaphorically "strip naked", then we have to demand every pair do the same or we are acting in a biased and prejudicial manner.