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As usual, Frances and mikeh get the core arguments dead on. You should X (what a moose! :) ). When Responder bids (3♠), pd w/ ♠x♥JTxx♦Txxx♣KJxx should X. Now you have a choice. You know pd does not have 5+♥'s and rates to be very short in ♠'s. So the question with ♠A8♥AK8♦AKJ♣AQ9xx. Is usually going to be a choice between NT or ♣'s and a choice between game or slam. You also need to be cautious regarding slam given that RHO 2♠ opening could well be ♠KQJxxx♥xxx♦xxx♣x, and that means nothing will be on side. My choice would be to bid 5♣. This is !not! To Play. It says "I was going to X then bid my suit. Here's my suit. If you have extras in this context, bid 6." I do not know if Advancer holding ♠x♥JTxx♦Txxx♣KJxx is going to decide that their stiff ♠ and KJxx of ♣'s are enough to bid 6♣, but at least We are going plus in the correct strain.

...I put the limit between an overcall and double+overcall a little higher than Foo. On the three example hands quoted, I'd overcall 1♠ with the first two and double first only with the last hand. moi aussi (just to prove(?) that I can be bilingual) I created those last 3 examples the way I did on purpose. I wanted to see if I'd get comments like these about them, and as I expected I did. :) All 3 hands need nothing more than a fit and 1 working card from pd to make 4♠. That makes them strong enough that *when we are this strong, pd may very well pass a simple overcall w/ hands that we should be in game on.* ...and =that= should be the biggest differentiator between a hand you overcall with and a hand you X then bid your suit with. In fact, =if the Opening bid is RHO=, then even ♠AKQxx♥x♦Axx♣AQxx is good enough to X then bid your suit with. (Because the ♣K is ~9/10 going to be on side) Put that same 19 count so that the opening bid is from LHO, and you have to downgrade the hand to a simple Overcall because the ♣Q is far less likely to take a trick. Which brings us to the next point about Overcalls. *Where the values are around you ATT relative to your hand can change the playing strength of your hand considerably compared to what their HCP might suggest.* I won't go into this in detail because the discussion rapidly gets very advanced, but the basic premise is that a= if they are bidding on the RHS, it tends to make your hand better. b= if you have values and/or length in suits They have not bid, it tends to make your hand better. c= and the opposites are also true. If they are bidding your suits or the suits where you have values on your LHS, be _much_ more cautious about competitive bidding.

As Marty Bergen says "points shmoints" Even more than Opening Bids, Overcalls are about =tricks=. They have Opened. Therefore a bid by Us is more risky than it would be if We were the Opening Side. Therefore Our hands have to be hands that are a= more offensively rather than defensively oriented. b= hands that are more self sufficient than an Opening hand needs to be since pd is more likely to be unable to help us. c= Hands with either so much playing strength (eg Overcalled suits are GOOD SUITS!) or so much in HCP that We are unlikely to be X'd for Penalty. So the "classic" requirements for an Overcall are 1= 7-5 losers. A single suited hand with 4 or less losers X's then bids its suit. (if you don't know what a Loser is, search on "The Modern Losing Trick Count") 2= Either a= enough HCP that pd's expected number of HCP for that auction makes them Invitational opposite us, or b= a suit whose length plus number of Honors adds up to the number of tricks your Overcall says you want to take (so a 1 level Overcall is a promise to take 7 tricks, a 2level one 8 tricks, etc) or c= both 3= That no other bid better describes your hand. Don't make Overcalls on hands that are better described by T/O X's or a NT bid or Unusual NT or Micheal's or ... Some Examples of the "classic" style. They Open (1♣). ♠KQxxx♥x♦Axx♣xxxx is a reasonable min 1♠ Overcall. The fact that you are light on HCP is made up by the fact that you want to play in ♠'s rather than anywhere else and you really want pd to lead a ♠ rather than anything else if We are defending. Note the 7 losers. Note that 5 spades + 2 ♠ honors adds up to a Suit Quality of 7 = the number of tricks a 1 level overcall promises to take. ♠KQxxx♥x♦Axx♣AKxx is a reasonable MAX 1♠ Overcall of the same shape for this auction. Note that it has 5 losers. ♠Kxxxx♥x♦AQx♣AKxx ♠Kxxxx♥x♦Axx♣AKQx So are these. The lack of quality in the ♠ suit is made up for by how many HCP's you have. Again, note 5 losers in each. ♠KQxxx♥x♦Axx♣AKQx ♠KQxxx♥x♦AQx♣AKxx ♠AKQxx♥x♦Axx♣AKxx Are examples of the kinds of hands of the same shape that in this auction X then bid their suit. These are =minimums= for X'ing then bidding your suit in this auction. Note that all have 4 losers.

No. They didn't play Little Major very often. I checked some old records. Reese and Shapiro played Little Major quite a bit and so did Reese and Flint (who co-designed it). R & S were in fact playing Little Major at the 1965 WC's where they were accused of cheating.

I still think 5♥, asking for trump quality, is very likely a winning bid if it is part of System. Pd's 1♠ Overcall Unfavorable playing IMPS should be relatively good.

You have the absolute right to know Their systemic agreements regarding a bid. In their entirety. If the explanation of an Alert seems too vague, then ask "May I please see your convention card?" Then when you are about to make the Opening Lead, if that is your fate, ask "Is there anything else I should know about your agreements in this auction?" (If pd is on Opening Lead, ask them to lead face down and then ask the opponents the above question or any others you feel you need to.) After all this, if at the end of the hand you feel they did not give you information you were entitled to, call the Director and explain what happened step by step and why you feel that you were not told what you were entitled to know about Their agreements.

Playing SA or 2/1 GF, IMHO you are a tad light to Open. With 7 losers and only 11 HCP, I definitely want 2 Quick Tricks. You don't have them. Another way to look at this is that you are a touch control poor. ~7-8 of your HCP should be A and K's. Only 6 are. 2nd seat is where you have the largest chance of preempting pd. Given your hand, they are unlikely to open 1♠. If you pass and pd Opens, you learn more at a lower level than otherwise.

Reese and Shapiro won because they were Reese and Shapiro. Some of the best Bridge players to have ever played the game. Even in his 90's, Boris Shapiro was a awe inspiring good player. ...and didn't they play Reese's Little Major system instead of Acol most of the time?

Defining 5m here as "I would like to play in 5m" also has merit. We are very high and the air has become thin. pd's 1♠ bid did not promise the ability to support any other strain besides ♠'s. In fact, it implied the opposite. Under such circumstances, bidding a new suit at the 5level w/o having support for pd seems a bit dicey. How often are you going to be dealt a suit good enough for this? Let's see. We are essentially contracting for 11 tricks all by ourselves in this suit. Suits that are self sufficient enough might look like AKQJTx, Hhhhxxx, Hhhxxxx, or Hhxxxxxxx where "H" is the A or K and "h" is any honor. Given the likely suit quality requirements of the above, it just might be that on a frequency and utility basis that having support for partner as one of the requirements for bidding a new strain here will reduce the suit quality requirements by enough that the Fit Non Jump will be the more useful method over the long term. YMMV.

Perhaps the issue here is that our approaches are different. I describe my hand and let pd figure out where We belong when I don't know enough to seize Captaincy. I don't worry about "missing ___". That's for the Captain of the auction to figure out. Once my hand is more limited or more precisely described than pd's, pd is Captain. And Captain makes the decisions. I've shown A???.A????.???.A???. My actual hand is Ax.AQxx.xxx.Axx. Unless you know a way for me to say something like "I'm =2533 w/ the ♥Q", I really don't have anything else to say to pd. It should now be up to pd what to do next. There are both stronger and more shapely hands where I would feel that I had not yet told my story. This is not one of them. EDIT: Some things that would make me feel I had more to say a= Having 4 card support for pd. (-1 D +1 C makes the OP Responder much better.) (Axxx+Qxxxx plays for 1- losers ~89% of the time vs ~34% for Axx+Qxxxx) b= Lower loser count in general. c= Being a trick stronger than what I've shown so far.

Responder has a= shown GF values b= implied 5 ♥'s or 44 ♠+♥ c= shown ♣ support d= shown all his A's A???.A????.???.A??? What is there left for Responder to say? I certainly don't see anything else. Yes, Responder's hand is great for this auction. But even great hands have a limited story to tell. The original auction ended up in a ~34% contract. Clearly something needs to be different about the auction if this result is to be avoided in the future. Everything up to 5N by Responder is eminently rational. But there was irrational result. Therefore 5N by Responder is a bid that looks suspicious.

IMHO, the proper bid by Responder after 4S is 4N "OK, I've told my story". Since Opener has nothing extra either, they should choose either 4N or 5C To Play.

So at one point I asked what 5♦ and 5♥ would mean here. There was a reason. Defining 5♥ here as "How good are your trumps? Please bid 6♠ with good trumps and 5♠ with mediocre or poor trumps." Can be quite useful. Defining 5m here as "I have ♠ support and a nice source of tricks in this suit." Can also be quite useful. (Robson and Segal would call this a Fit Non Jump). Now there's a way to bid past 4♠ in a way that involves pd and at least has a chance of being sane. With these agreements in place and holding the example hand of ♠xxxx♥A♦AKTxxx♣xx, in this auction. I'd bid 5♥

Since Ken started the topic, I'll assume the board posted by hrothgar is not the actual board under discussion? (..and if it is a ♣ honor lead seems clear for 6♠X-1) Even if it is, Bridge is a game of probabilities, not certainties. Even if you do the statistically correct thing, you may not get a good result in any given specific instance. As the song goes: "Sometimes you're the windshield. Sometimes you're the bug." Using any specific board as grounds for a overall argument is Resulting. The goal, I hope, of these discussions is to find the action that rates to be best most of the time. Not the best DD action. ...and the I assume intended to be personal comment is clearly off-topic and simply confusing enough to be dismissed...

Perfectly put.

Bridge is indeed a 4 handed game. If Overcaller has that when Advancer has xxxx.A.AKxxxx.xx, what do you suppose Opener opened the bidding on? The better you make Overcaller's hand w/o giving him ♣ values, the more likely Opener has them... (1♥)-1♠-(4♥)-6♠;X trick1: ♣A, trick2: ♣K, "OK, what else can we do?" ...and There's Overcaller. Having made a quiet 1♠ overcall and ending up in 6♠X after 1 round of bidding. His Bridge is definitely less than his norm for the next board or 3, and for some reason he's not available henceforth... In fact, all your teammates from this match are much harder to get play dates with from this event on for some reason...

What he said. Emphatically. In fact, some of them should not have cooperated as long as they did...

It's awful close.... ♠AJT♥QJT98♦Q ♣JT98 I'd open that any seat except 4th, any vul. ♠AJ9♥QJ982♦Q ♣JT52 I'd be seriously tempted. ♠AJ2♥QJ432♦Q ♣J432 I wouldn't be interested. Do you disagree? Yes. None of these are Openings playing a mainstream SA or 2/1 GF system They are all control poor, 8 loser hands, w/o 2 defensive tricks. Even playing something like Precision, you still need the same amount of assets between the two hands to belong in game; and these hands are basically soft 10 counts (9 working HCP + good or nice intermediates), not good 11 or even good 10 counts. 3 things can go wrong if you open this stuff a= GOP can take you seriously and We end up in a hopeless contract. b= GOP can take you seriously and X for penalties when They can score it up. c= The opponents are more likely to have hands that say "Double the final contract".

a= Absolutely, your partnership's Overcall style matters here. If a reasonably mainstream 7-5 loser hand w/ 5+♠ is a normal 1♠ Overcall here, then you know that you might have 5 level safety, but making 6 is unlikely. In addition, the stiff ♥A is a negative. OTOH, having a 9+ card fit + being =4162 + ♦AKTxxx is very nice. 4♠ could very well be the Absolute Par on the board. If so, any move past it by either side will only worsen the score for that side. (...and if We play an aggressive overcall style where GOP might have made a "Mike Lawrence or Marshall Miles certified" 4card 1♠ overcall, more caution is definitely called for...) b= Why is Defending 5♥X not an option? If GOP has 1-2 ♦'s, is not ♠xxxx♥A♦AKTxxx♣xx 3 likely defensive tricks? Heck, if GOP has 3 ♦'s and ♦'s split 22, I still have 3 defensive tricks. ...and that doesn't take GOP's values into account. c= My biggest problem with 4N is my horrid trump holding. We also only have 6 losers opposite what is in the mainstream a 7-5 loser hand. ...4N-(5♥)-?? Let's say GOP has 2 w/o the ♠Q, and =you've= just made what sounds like a strong bid. How good are Our agreements for this situation? How well can GOP "take the joke" if it turns out that Our best spot was Defending 5♥X and he just bid past that? If you are determined on pushing to the 5 level, particularly to "give GOP a chance to make a good decision", than at least tell GOP something useful. What would 5♦ or 5♥'s by you now mean? Mostly, why are you considering all these unilateral options? *6♠ was definitely not Partnership Bridge. *Depending on partnership style, temperament, and methods the 5 level bids may be OK. *But you =know= that 4♠ is the likely limit of your hand. Partner is listening to the auction too. Make the best value bid you can and involve them in the decisions.

100% agree the boundary is fuzzy. Personally, in the above case my POV would be based on the 2/1 style if 9 counts and the like are allowed => definitely Acol if 2/1 promises rebid but is not GF => SAYC variant if 2/1 is GF or is GF unless suit is rebid => 2/1 GF or KS variant (questions about how the minors are handled would further clarify.)

The gambler's are supposed to be playing gambling games, not Bridge. "There are bold Thieves, and old Thieves; but very few bold and old Thieves." Speeding kills. Often the speeder.

Licking their wounds and apologizing to their teammates. LOL! nice come back.

Huh. I always considered "Acol" to be a= 4cM's (or at least 4 card H's and 5 card S's) b= a weak or variable 1N opening c= an "interesting" 2/1 and Reversing style. 5cM + Strong NT + a 2/1 promises a rebid but is not GF looks like SA to me. 5cM + Strong NT + 2/1 GF looks like, well, 2/1 GF to me.

Hear, hear. IMHO, this is far more important than people usually think when making System choices. Better to play something simpler that your partnership knows 100% than "superior" stuff where "The Wheels come off".

An important principle rest of this is based on is *All X's by Us below 2N in this auction are for Take Out, not Penalty* 1= with your original hand of ♠AT9xxx♥x♦Qx♣KT9x and the opponents having a fit in ♥'s, the odds are very good that Our fit is in ♠'s. Pard only needs 2 ♠'s for Us to have a fit. Rather than 4 ♣'s. Change the hand to ♠AT9xxx♥Qxx♦♣KT9x and the principle remains the same. With a min, you can't afford to introduce a 2nd suit anyway. 2= If playing SA w/o gadgets like Negative X's when holding 55 in ♠+♣ and the auction starts 1♦-(1♥)-??, you have a number of choices depending on the strength of your hand: a= min= 6-9 HCP => X, showing at least 44 in the unbid suits. Then if it goes 1♦-(1♥)-X-(2♥);pa-pa-?? you X again to show extras. In this case, extra shape. (All this changes once you start playing Negative X's. Then, perversely, this hand becomes harder to bid) b= Med= 10-11 HCP => bid 1♠, then 3♣ over (2♥) c= MAX= 12+ HCP => bid 1♠, then make forcing calls until We are in Game or They are X'd at the 3N level or higher. 3= 66 is like 55 only more so. Now the HCP ranges for min, Med, and MAX are ~ a K less than the above ranges I gave you +and+ you avoid letting Us make Penalty X's like The Plague. You don't make them holding 66, and you pull partner's if partner makes one. 4= 45 or 56 S+C. These are very different hand types from each other; and again, your strength range matters. a= min 45's => X to show S+C's and pass the hand out if the auction goes 1♦-(1♥)-X-(2♥);pa-pa-?? b= Med 45's => Bid 2♣'s and hope Opener can bid 2♠ c= MAX 45's => Bid 2♣'s, then "Reverse" by bidding 2♠'s: 1♦-(1♥)-2♣-(2♥);pa-pa-2♠ *Responder's Reverse is Game Forcing* 56 hands are like 45 hands only more so. :) ...and you don't make Penalty X's or let Penalty X's by partner stay in :huh: You bid min 56's as if they were min 55's: X. Then X again to show extra shape.