Jinksy

Added most of the ones I understand. The others: What's the link? Gerben already took something almost identical (Every Second Hand an Adventure) for his version, so I don't want to copy him (and it makes the system sound like you should be playing EHAA :P) What's the link + meaning? Ditto. People I play with offline won't know my screen name, so I wouldn't want to take one of these unless they had a link to the system. Do they?

Don't geddit :huh: Is it a contraction for something?

Some friends of mine 'invented' a Precision-based system that, after substantial tinkering with, they decided they'd earned the right to nickname Mjollnir (Thor's mighty club*, geddit?). * Usually represented as a hammer but, my learned friends allege, ambiguous in the original language Given that I've done at least as much tinkering with Fantunes, and I don't much like the de facto name anyway (hard to pronounce and neither familiar nor evocative enough to really have any use in describing to the opps), I want to give it a similar name, somehow - though perhaps loosely - themed over the system's characteristics. The salient two characteristics as I see them: Strong low bids Highly aggressive, imprecise two-bids Weak NT with wider than normal shape I've got a few candidates based on these: Imprecision (my original favourite, unfortunately taken by awm, I believe) Blunderbuss (feels like a good description, though sorta blunt) Rapture of the Deep (or maybe just the more elegant, less expressive Rapture. The lower you find yourself, the happier you are, geddit?) Nitrogen Narcosis (ibid above, but with more gravitas and even more obscure) Strong Ones, Nominal** NT, Expansive Twos (SONNET) ** Yeah, this isn't great - I just thought of this one, but I can find a better word later. If I get to introduce my variable NT to the system, it can become 'Nomadic'. (ETA: WellSpyder suggested 'nebulous', which I think is an improvement) I haven't included any 'other' option, but if anyone has further suggestions, I'll add them to the poll.

With you in 4th, the auction goes 1H 2H 4H P / P 4S. I'm keeping this deliberately vague, because I'm looking for a general answer not dependent on vul (or your own hand). Just broadly, what sort of hand do you expect from P? Does it depend on your agreed range for Michaels? (If so, ours is very wide-ranging, obv with an eye on the vul/ODR on weaker hands)

[hv=pc=n&s=sa7haj83dktcqj764&n=sq64hkdaq9754ca53&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=1d(14%2B%20unbalanced%2C%205%2BDs%20unless%20exactly%204441)p2c(GF)p2d(any%20min%20without%204Cs)p2hp3cp3d(3C%20set%20the%20suit%2C%20so%20this%20just%20shows%20K%20or%20A)p3h(not%20sure%20about%20this%3F%203D%20looks%20like%20a%20cue%2C%20so%20maybe%20just%20solicits%20cues%2C%20but%20conceivably%20we%20might%20want%20to%20play%20in%20a%204-3%20H%20fit%2C%20so%20maybe%20should%20have%203%20cards%3F)p3sp4c(shows%20even%20number%20of%20KCs)p4hp5c(4N%20would%20have%20shown%20the%20QC)ppp]266|200[/hv] We play mixed cues. (eta 3♥ description cut off: since S's 3D showed a card, it looks a lot like a slam-seeking bid, in which case 3♥ makes sense as a cue. But a 4-3 ♥ fit could be our best game, so perhaps opener's 3♥ should be patterning, showing 3 cards in the suit?) I'm not sure there's any blame here since there's not much room for anyone to have bid differently, but S said the undisclosed Q♠ made the slam playable - without it (eg with Q♥ instead), on a ♠ lead, he struggled to see how he'd pitch the S loser given N's missing KC. Even with it, slam looked a long way from laydown N didn't disagree, felt he'd made a bunch of systemic bids describing his hand, which S also agreed with, with the conceivable exception of 3H. So - blame? Bad luck?

No, sure. I would think the best strategy for winning would be to play solid bridge through 80-90% of the event, then if you're in the top few, start looking for a few marginal decisions. That said, that's probably more true in a stronger field. If the top contenders aren't that impressive, then just playing sound all the way through and letting them make their own mistakes might work as well or better.

Showing your own S suit that you want to play in?

Having looked at the scores and all four hands, I'm still not sure what would lead to the best result. We could end up just about anywhere after 2♠. Meanwhile 4 looks like one down on a diamond lead, which doesn't look that unlikely if the opps like passive leads at MPs (though I think I'd lead a ♣).

Without thinking about the hands specifically, it seems like in the context you give, the best strategy might be making marginally anti-% choices to generate swings. It depends on your utility function, but if you attach infinite value to winning, for eg, I'd think it clear to do so. That said, I'm not sure what such a call would be here. Pass and 4♠ look anti-% and swing-generating, but probably too much of the former so to consider seriously. 2♠ and 3♠ look like the choices most likely to put you with the room, with 3♠ slightly edgier and without so much of an upside. If it's right for them to X (and they're capable of it at all), they'll probably do so whether you bid it now or a round later. I think I'd just go for a pedestrian 2 against the opps you describe. There's an outside chance of that getting passed out and making on the nose, and everything else seems to be gambling too much - P will still have a chance to get a chuck or try for his own marginal gamble in the play. At IMPs I'd probably try 3♠, without much conviction that it's right to do so. P will frequently raise me when we're making 4, and the chances of going for a number if I raise to it directly look quite high.

I don't normally play DONT, but what would 2♠ be here? If it's a paradox bid, then I'd be tempted to try that and maybe look at game if P bid on (unless by bidding it I'm suggesting an inv hand anyway, in which case I'd just respect whatever call he made in response).

Depends a lot on the range of hands your P will bid 4♥ with. If it could include reasonably strong hands, then xx Axxxx xx Kxxx might not raise to 6 anyway (what does Ax xxxxx xx Kxxx do?). If it's sufficiently thin then P might have bid something stronger with mikeh's hand. While I think with most Ps, 5♣ would be odds on constructively, I'm also worried that when we don't have six on (most of the time), it could push them into a good 6-level sac over over our game, so I marginally prefer the more ambiguous 5♥ bid.

Yeah. You don't normally have another ♠ bid.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or if this a language barrier issue, but assuming the latter, 'impress on' means to make sure they understand, not to flash my bidding muscles.

Well sure, but no-one said this was a random. And this is indeed something I try to impress on my partners - 50% of my BBO card is 'rarely have my bid in third seat'.

Assuming 4♣ is a splinter, 4♦ seems crazy to me. We had soft values for our Drury to begin with (and only 3 cards, as Broze said), and now our hand's best feature has disintegrated. If all P needs to make slam is a second round ♦ control and a smattering of quacks, surely he could either have set the suit at a lower level and forced cuebids, or can now push on over my signoff? ETA - didn't register 4♦ was last train. Not my finest morning. Anyway, given that, I feel like it's even worse than bidding it as a cue would have been.

Maybe at IMPs this makes sense, but at MP what does W do with such as x KJT Axxx xxxxx?

Wouldn't consider passing at those colours. Let me guess - they raised on a balanced hand with support and this didn't end so well?

Incidentally, assuming I'm not playing penalty Xes, pass seems fine to me at MPs, for just the reason whereagles gave. It won't get passed out often, but when it does that should be an easy top, and when it doesn't you and P will have a little more info to play with. Given that you pass then enter at (at least) the three level, P should surely read you for a single-suiter that thought it could make +200 from defending 1N - ie a hand like this.

Given that you have got this far, I don't see much point in bidding now, especially if you're planning to bid 4♠. 2N is obviously F1, so why not let responder tell you which minor he has before placing/playing the contract?

This probably isn't the kind of answer you're after, but I play penalty X over a strong NT, so would have just done that first time around. That would presumably make my life easier when the bidding came back to me.

Oh, snap. They probably think the system evolved naturally, rather than being intelligently designed, though ;)

Hah! I still get asked what I'm studying, more than a decade after that stopped having a sensible answer :P Less flatteringly, I couldn't persuade a LOL that I wasn't a beginner after I described my P's 'weak 2' as '10-13 points with 5+Ss'. It didn't help my image that, holding 7♣s, I then neglected to respond 3♣s (showing long diamonds). Suspect she might have been slightly more willing to believe I wasn't (mis)playing her system had I had an extra few wrinkles.

To be honest, the idea that 'early-mid 30s' is considered a young age for competitors says a lot about the state of the game...

I (W) haven't really got the hang of Xing with such info. I like Mike Lawrence's theory that with both a fit and an outside shortage you should bid up, but here Xing (even assuming my P didn't take it as penalty) would feel like bidding his hand for him. Other than being able to place P's shortage, my hand doesn't feel like it's got any better on the bidding. Is the info from S's pass really worth so much more than eg the ability to stay a level lower had I Xed the first time? (this isn't meant to sound rhetorical - I don't have a clue with this hand, but I'm in reassuringly good company)

I've pretty much given up posting bidding judgement questions in the expert forum, since I can never tell in advance what other people will consider difficult. In order for me to post a hand on BBF, normally I'm unsure myself, or possibly I have an answer I feel confident about, but my P feels the same about a different answer. In either case I don't have much epistemological basis for gauging how difficult a question it is :)