Jinksy

I've just been trying this some more when with 5S4H and weak I xfer rather than bidding Stayman, and it seems to be looking better so far (though it's harder to specify the hands, so there's a lot of random noise). If you play this way, is there a standardish meaning for the sequence 1N 2H / 2S 2N?

I think you mean 'endorsed by kuhchung'.

If it's takeout, take it out. If it's penalty, do the other thing.

Do you have any way of finding a 5-3 ♣ fit over 2N? Is P supposed to bid 3♣ with 3 of them? I've been thinking about adopting the 2C as 'clubs or balanced' style, but not sure what the implications for auctions like this are. Assuming you're playing that way, would opener's 3♣ rebid (over 2♣) promise 5 of the suit? It seems like (short of having a highly artificial relay system) you're always going to struggle to find at least one type of 8-card fit in the suit?

I seriously doubt Bird/Anthias would have advocated the AS on that auction. Even in their chapter on leading empty aces from medium length suits, they basically apologise for it, IIRC, and say 'this is the most double-dummyish part of the book'.

Two balanced 15 counts, you say? (okay, if you squint a bit :P)

I still wake up in cold sweats :(

Rightsiding makes very little difference opposite a weak NT, and I'd be surprised if it was worth nearly as much opposite even a strong NT as just finding the best contract. Not sure what you mean about 3415/3406. Do you mean 4315/4306? In our system, 3m after a Stayman response is weak TO, partly so that you can try your luck on shapes like these, but if I didn't have that available I wouldn't chance it on these hands - there's still too much chance of ending up in a 3-3 or 4-2 (or on a really bad day a 3-2) fit, when 1N was likely to have been a respectable contract.

Hadn't seen that before. I dunno if people will be interested, since this is all quite subjective, but I've just tried a number of hands (around 70 including redeals, at a rough guess) on BBO where opener had a balanced 12-14*, and responder had either 5S 4H 0-12 points or 5Ss 0-4H and 10-12 points. I discarded all hands where it seemed to make no difference (ie you'd end up in the same contract in each system), which introduces a very slight bias in favour of Phil's method above, since rightsiding the contract toward the stronger hand (via the alternative of xferring then bidding 2N) looked worth very roughly 1/10th of a trick whenever it came up. I don't know how to share the hands atm, but I'll save them all and, if anyone's interested, upload what look like the key hands. My analysis is fairly superficial crypto-DD, based on a combination of what GiB can make in the contracts I let it judge (I can't rewind and check it on other when I bid from a teaching table, which I find otherwise much easier) and about 60 secs per board of looking at the outcome of the best DD play I could find. That said, if I saw an obvious example of DD play making a significant difference for one contract and not the other, I'd note it. Testing the three meanings for 1N 2C / 2D 2S - a) 'any invite with 5Ss and 0-4Hs', b) 'invite with 5Ss and 4Hs', and c) 'weak takeout with 5Ss and 4Hs' - I'll skim through the hands again now and try and give a rough account. I'm assuming if playing a) or b), c-type hands bid Stayman then 2H unless the S suit was significantly better. This let's you find more 4-4s at the expense of playing in more Moyesians when there's a 5-2 (and, rarely, a 5-3) available, which seems like a decent tradeoff, but YMMV (if I do this again, I'll try having these hands just xfer to Ss, and see if I get noticeably different results). In a), if opener had a poor S holding, I corrected to 2N, so when it came up, it could normally only make a difference if you made in 2S vs going off in 3S, or made an extra trick in 2S when opener didn't correct to 2n but would have passed it. (On most hands that followed this sequence, opener did have a poor S holding, so while it came up quite frequently, it made a difference on relatively few occaions). It might also matter if with a highly distributional hand you got to make an inv 2S bid (subsequently accepted) where you'd otherwise have given up on game and settled for a weak 2S bid, but this didn't come up. a) 1 overtrick saved (in 2S vs 2N) x1 b) This only came up once, and I accidentally hit redeal before I could read it out. c) 1 undertrick saved x4 2 undertricks saved x1 1 overtrick saved x2 Part score saved (ie 2S making, 2H going off, and other methods end you in the latter) x2 * 'balanced' may be 22(54), which was key on a couple of the deals c) gained over/undertricks on, so if you prefer to open those 1m, downgrade c) appropriately. I think in retrospect it might be a mistake to start with Stayman on 5S4H hands when not playing c), so I'd like to revisit this. Still it seems like c) is fairly dominant for the weak NT. Last caveat is that this fit with my prior expectations, so I've probably suffered some bias in my evaluations - would be interested to hear if a proponent of a) (or b, though I doubt it) has tried something similar and had different results.

If I only want to import the hands, without bidding or play, what's the simplest way to get them to display on the forums?

I tried bidding several random BBO hands where 1N 2C / 2D 2H could be on 4-4 or 5-4 (or 5-5) in H/S, and at least opposite a weak NT, I found that it was a huge winner over requiring 5-4. The goal was to free up 1N 2C / 2D 2S as inv with exactly 4Hs, 5Ss, but I ended up finding - again, emphasis opposite a weak NT - that it was a much bigger gain playing that the old way - 4Hs, 5Ss, weak takeout. I want to try the latter one more time, possibly later tonight, but from the few dozen hands I bid, the results were overwhelmingly in favour of the 2H-could-be-4-4, and strongly in favour of the 2S-weak meanings (ironic, given that the former was supposed to be a sacrifice to enable something different for the latter). I'll report back if I do, but atm I feel pretty confident that the UK standard approach is a poor one (given that it's generally played with weak NT).

Yeah, N's raise is dubious. But nowhere near as bad as S's call (and S's complaint wasn't that N wasn't shapely enough, which IMO would have made more sense, since it looks like a competitive raise).

Yeah, after posting it I was thinking about it in relation to this hand, which most of the posters want to bid 3 with. Rotate the suits downwards and it could be the hand you find opposite here: KQJ965 Q7 AQJ T9 vs Tx ATxx xx Kxxxx I think even at this scoring, that's not a game you want to be in - though obviously that's scraping the bottom end of P's set of possible hands (and if you switch opener's round suits it looks much better). I also wonder if Kxxxx isn't a worse holding than eg Kx, since on hands like this with a large disparity in strength, it seems like the weaker hand's values work best when they're supplementing the stronger hand's longer side suits (though maybe that's less relevant here, since he doesn't have a 4-card side suit worth mentioning).

Lack of aces holds me back from a GF.

I'm curious to hear arguments for and against forcing pass after X. I can imagine a case for each, but can't persuade myself of either.

I'd normally just bid my suit, but here it's so disgusting that I'm torn between it and 2♣, which could systemically be three cards if 3433 exactly - which this isn't far from. I voted 2♣, but I think I've already changed my mind to 2♦, to deter a lead against a possible 3N. Not touching 3N with a pickup P. I have no idea how they'll take it, so we could end up playing there when they have 5♥s running against us, or not playing there when it's the only making contract.

Liking for the quote, but I'm still leading a ♦ :P

I liked a low heart (obviously staring at all four hands at the time). Nice and passive, which is what I think we want, but I'd be slightly worried about carving P's honour doubleton and establishing a finesse position if I led the 9 or 8.

I will pass. Having the ♥ suit multiply stopped seems good for game and bad for slam, since it suggests fewer points where we'll need them as sources of tricks. If I bid 4N, I'd expect P to go to slam with a decent 18 count or better, which I'd expect to leave us struggling for tricks, and possibly off two cashers.

I can't remember the other hands for sure now, but I remember the actual outcome and GiB's analysis - they were from a Camrose match I kibbitzed (I'll try to reconstruct them below). Tony Forrester held the OP hand and led the K♦, which looked dubious to me. According to GiB it was the only lead to let the contract through (and made making trivial in practice). Of the others, a heart lead was supposed to net an extra undertrick, a spade and club both took it one off. The full hand was very roughly this (though I'm not certain I've got either the honour layout or distribution quite right, never mind the pips :( ): [hv=pc=n&s=s4ha5djt98654cq54&w=s975h9842dkq7cat9&n=saqj63hkqj6da2cj3&e=skt82ht73d3ck8762]399|300[/hv]

What would partner's pass mean over 3♥?

Who said it was obvious? It's obviously close, but I don't think 'primes' are nearly as important on balanced hands, esp when your AK are tripleton. I play in a country where you'll get dozens of weak NTs opened in the average bridge session, and in my experience inviting (or opening) weak NTs on such hand has been losing bridge. Post-Bird and Anthias, a ♥ lead looks clear to me. Well yeah - when the opps' cards split 3-3 in both your 7-card fits, they have no long suit to set up, and your finesse is onside, you make game. That doesn't make it an attractive game. Btw, do you disagree with awm's analysis that you're not distributional enough for the strong NT sequence to change things? I can't tell if you're saying you'd invite opposite an opening weak NT, but not after a 1x 1y / weak 1N sequence?

That feels like quite a significant change. For eg, you could change the club king to the QJ, and my guess is people would still pass? I think I phrased it misleadingly with 'minimum change'. What I meant to ask is something like 'adjusting the hand so it's as close as possible to the OP hand in playing strength, what is the strongest recognisable version of it on which you'd pass?'

I thought you opposed profanities on this forum, even if they were proper nouns?

To all: what's the minimum change you'd have to make to the hand to make it a pass?