semeai

I suppose you do something like have the 2m openers be 6+m or 5m-4om? Here's a simple symmetric/symmetric-like relay system for this, using 1N as GF relay. I've allowed you to open 5m-4om-2-2 with 1D if you judge it best. 1D-1N-2C: (4 hearts, longer minor) or (balanced, no 4 card major, not 4333) 1D-1N-2C-2D-2H: 4 hearts, 5+ diamonds 1D-1N-2C-2D-2S: balanced, no 4 card major 1D-1N-2C-2D-2N+: zoom to 4 hearts, 5+ clubs 1D-1N-2D: balanced with a 4 card major or 3-suited red short or 4C-3-3-3 or 5C-4D-2-2 1D-1N-2D-2H-2S: 4 hearts 1D-1N-2D-2H-2N: 4 spades, not 4 hearts 1D-1N-2D-2H-3C+: 3-suited red short or 4C-3-3-3 or 5C-4D-2-2 1D-1N-2H: 4 spades, 5+ diamonds 1D-1N-2S: 3-suited black short or 4D-3-3-3 or 5D-4C-2-2 1D-1N-2N+: zoom to 4 spades, 5+ clubs For the 4M-5+m hands, see the 2-suiter table here (includes 4M-5m-2-2). 1D-1N-2S or 1D-1N-2D-2H-3C+ followups: 1D-1N-2S-2N-3C: 4m333 or 5m4om22 (do them in this order next) 1D-1N-2S-2N-3D: minor suit short (do 4-4-(41) then 4-4-(50) next) 1D-1N-2S-2N-3H: major suit short (41)-4-4 1D-1N-2S-2N-3S: major suit short (40)-4-5 1D-1N-2S-2N-3N: major suit short (40)-5-4 1D-1N-2D-2H-2S followups 1D-1N-2D-2H-2S-2N-3C: 4H, 4S (then 44-23 44-32) 1D-1N-2D-2H-2S-2N-3D: 4H, 4D (then 44-23 44-32) 1D-1N-2D-2H-2S-2N-3H: 4H 4C 23 1D-1N-2D-2H-2S-2N-3S: 4H 4C 32 1D-1N-2D-2H-2S-2N-3N: 4H 333 1D-1N-2D-2H-2N followups 1D-1N-2D-2H-2N-3C-3D: 4S 4D (then 44-23 44-32) 1D-1N-2D-2H-2N-3C-3H: 4S 4C 23 1D-1N-2D-2H-2N-3C-3S: 4S 4C 32 1D-1N-2D-2H-2N-3C-3N: 4S 333 1D-1N-2C-2D-2S followups: 1D-1N-2C-2D-2S-2N-3C: 5 clubs (then 2335, 3235, 3325) 1D-1N-2C-2D-2S-2N-3D: 4-4 minors (do 2-3-4-4 then 3-2-4-4) 1D-1N-2C-2D-2S-2N-3H: 2-3-5-3 1D-1N-2C-2D-2S-2N-3S: 3-2-5-3 1D-1N-2C-2D-2S-2N-3N: 3-3-5-2

Here's a way to fix the first link to include balanced hands in 1D by putting them in 1S, 1N, and 2H. It's not ideal in that 1D-1H-1S may be on 3 with a balanced hand without 4 hearts, which hurts your non GF auctions slightly. Added: Oops, this is more than you asked for. All hands opening 1♦ in your system have a 4-card major (or possibly are balanced)? What I have here is for 1D nebulous, excluding a 5 card major or a single-suited 6 card minor. 1D-1H: natural or GF relay 1D-1H-1S: Not 4 hearts. (4 spades) or (3 spades and balanced). 1D-1H-1N: 4 hearts, any. 1D-1H-2C: 5+ clubs, 4 diamonds 1D-1H-2D: 4 clubs, 5+ diamonds 1D-1H-2H: 3 hearts and 1-2 spades. (Some overlap with 2m; use judgement.) 1D-1H-2S: 5-5 or longer minors 1D-1H-1S followups. 2C = relay. 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D: 3+ spades, balanced, not 4 hearts 1D-1H-1S-2C-2H: spade-club 2-suiter 1D-1H-1S-2C-2S: 3-suiter short in hearts 1D-1H-1S-2C-2N+: zoom to spade-diamond 2-suiter 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D followups: 2H = relay. 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2S: 3 spades, 4+ diamonds 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3C: 3-2-4-4 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3D: 3-2-5-3 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3H: 3-3-4-3 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3S: 3-3-5-2 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2N: 3 spades, not 4+ diamonds 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2N-3C-3D: 3-2-3-5 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-2N-3C-3H: 3-3-3-4 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-3C: 4-4 spades and diamonds 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-3D: 4-2-3-4 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-3H: 4-3-2-4 1D-1H-1S-2C-2D-2H-3S: 4-3-3-3 1D-1H-1N followups. 2C = relay. 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D: balanced, 4 hearts or 3-suiter short in spades or diamonds 1D-1H-1N-2C-2H: heart-club 2-suiter 1D-1H-1N-2C-2S: 3-suiter short in clubs 1D-1H-1N-2C-2N+: zoom to heart-diamond 2-suiter 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D followups. 2H = relay. 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-2S: balanced, 4 hearts 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3C: 4-4 majors (then show 4-4-2-3, 4-4-3-2) 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3D: 4-4 hearts diamonds (then show 2-4-4-3, 3-4-4-2) 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3H: 2-4-3-4 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3S: 3-4-2-4 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-2S-2N-3N: 3-4-3-3 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-2N: 3-suiter short in spades 1D-1H-1N-2C-2D-2H-3C+: 3-suiter short in diamonds 1D-1H-2H followups. 2S = relay. 1D-1H-2H-2S-2N: 1 spade (then show 1-3-4-5, 1-3-5-4) 1D-1H-2H-2S-3C: 2-3-3-5 1D-1H-2H-2S-3D: 2-3-4-4 1D-1H-2H-2S-3H: 2-3-5-3 It might be good to move more hands to 2H, as there's room.

Here's a fairly simple symmetric relay system using 1♥ as hearts or GF relay over 1♦. Here's another using 1NT as the relay. They both assume not balanced, but could be tweaked.

Sadly many of the votes in the poll are by members who joined today.

The next time my opponents enter a live, non-fit auction at the 2-level after passing up the opportunity to do so at the 1-level, I'll worry about that.

I like raising with three, but here I think the hand is too strong. You can afford to bid 2♣, planning on bidding 2♥ over the expected 2♦ call. This shows your shape and extra values and will even get you to the good game when partner evaluates xxx of spades opposite shortness and ♦QJ, ♣J opposite length positively. I'd argue the hands aren't so similar. Here it's likely hearts is best, but you can afford to show extra playing strength by bidding 2♣, rarely passed and probably not terrible if it is, and still likely get to bid hearts at the two level. In the original hand, the clubs are so long that it's unlikely spades are the place to play a partscore.

Nice hand. Then you get 3 natural club tricks and still make 5.

I can't say for sure what Bradley was thinking, but: I think Bradley was just saying that this is a possible sequence when opener has a slam try, not that it guarantees a slam try, and that often responder doesn't need to know whether it was a game try or a slam try. Responder declined what he thought was a game try. Opener, who actually had a slam try (or something else), was content to stop in 4♥ given that.

I don't remember where I learned it, but it is in there. There's no need to play that way, just play the "simple" way described above. Ignoring the 'how I'd actually play in active competition' bit from my previous post, here's a general rule with a major suit fit that should serve you well: Below 3 of our major suit, new suit bids show shape and general location of values. Above 3 of our major suit, new suit bids are cuebids. The former may be interested only in trying for game or choice of game or may be showing shape/values with the intent of later trying for slam. The latter shows slam interest. I mean this completely generally, i.e. even if you're already in a game force. The only exception would be if you already have specified meanings, for example maybe you play specific rebids after Jacoby 2NT. Even so, notice that showing shortness after Jacoby 2NT ties in with the above philosophy: opener is showing shape below 3 of your major, just by showing shortness instead of length.

This is actively contested, so there are other issues. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to suggest how I actually play in this forum. One simple way to play: Cuebid 4♣ or 4♦ with a slam try, just as in the auction 1♥-3♥ (limit raise). How I'd actually play: It's more valuable to know whether to compete over their 4♠ than to make a clear slam try. I would play 4♣ and 4♦ as a side suit & values, not necessarily showing slam interest, but initially taken as consulting partner on whether to compete over 4♠. As in the slam-try-starting-as-game-try case, you also do this with a slam try. [Yet less appropriate for this forum perhaps: If your choice is 4♣ and the 1♠ bidder passes next, partner has a bid between 4♣ and 4♥ with which to suggest a good hand for slam if your bid is intended as a slam try.] To further explain: By consulting partner by mentioning a side suit, I mean that partner will be more likely to choose to defend with shortness in the suit I mention, and more likely to choose to compete with length in the suit I mention.

I think it can take a while to improve, especially if you haven't played many trick-taking games before. Learning the basic strategies and actually applying them are two separate things. Especially counting is very important and sounds simple in the abstract, but in practice it takes a while to get your brain to think in the right way and takes real effort. I don't know what to suggest here other than to keep at it and approach it gradually, first counting the one most important suit and remembering the honors that have been played, and then expanding to counting two suits, and so on. Also, it's easy to play quickly without much thought, especially online, leading to playing lots without improving much. That said, even if you don't do this, your progress sounds likely normal for the amount of time you've played. The rest of this post maybe should've gone in your thread about how to improve, but I'll leave it here because I've written it at the same time. Here are some good BBO-related ways to work on your play (I don't mean to advertise for them, but we're here and their stuff is good) that do not involve human interaction. Human interaction is good and you need to play with and talk to better players and review hands with them, but previous posts have advice there so I'll go with something different. Without other people to worry about, you can take all the time you want. 1) There's the free Learn to Play Bridge and Learn to Play Bridge 2 software, available from the ACBL here. The first one goes slowly but with lots of good explanation and has a few hands to practice with toward the end of the play section. If the first one is boring, try the second which has a bunch of hands to practice playing. 2) If you've done the above and liked it or want more/harder hands, there is Bridge Master 2000, which isn't free, but is very nice. There are versions for beginners with more hands at the easier levels. If you have the windows version of bridgebase, you can try some of the Bridge Master hands there. These two are good, but they're more about getting things right in theory than in practice. A middle ground between the two: 3) Rent a robot on BBO ($1/week for the lower quality ones or $1/day for the better ones) and play at your own pace. Sit south and play duplicate imps against 3 robots in the main bridge club, and everyone you're scored against is also playing with robots. You'll get to see after each hand how everyone else played with the same opposition, i.e. GiB. Note this is not for learning bidding, just [mostly declarer] play! I haven't actually tried this, but I've played in a few robot duplicate tournaments (downsides: has a time limit, costs more money per hand at 25 cents per 8 hands at the cheapest), and it's nice to both play at your own pace and get to compare your play with many others, even if when you're past the beginner stage the opposition isn't very good. Item 3 is surely controversial and you shouldn't play only or even mostly with robots, but I think there's a lot to be said for getting to play slowly enough that you can practice what you need to practice. It's hard to be able to do what you'd like to do at a good pace without first doing it slowly. Maybe if you try item 3 and try playing slowly and thoughtfully it will be especially helpful to get some more experienced people to look over the hands and offer suggestions. I'm sure if you asked on the forums many would be willing to help.

As you likely know if you've read this far into the thread, xxhong and mikeh have nice solutions, in fact including declarer's actual hand up to spot cards (see the vugraph archive of the event for the full hand)! Sorry about the lack of bidding and carding discussion! I should've taken more care there. Is this about the diagram? I just checked West and South in the hand diagram editor and entered their cards and that's how it displayed. It seems the bidding display is in the center of the table. I think other posts I've seen have had the green square as the center of the table. I don't know why it happened this way. Sorry if this was confusing. Well done to you both!

I've displayed the cards for each trick in the order W-N-E-S regardless of who led. The card led is bold, to tell you where to start each trick.

By way of equivocation and to answer a question with a question: Is it the bidding, play, or both that you feel you aren't improving at?

What's the distinction you're making? Do you mean in Meckwell precision you open lighter, so 1♣ should also be lighter? Bonus points for the double-obvious!

This is the second-to-last and deciding hand from the GNT finals. Berkowitz, West, defended correctly in this position to defeat 6♥. The other table faced the same effective problem, but with slightly different bidding and a few different cards played. [hv=pc=n&s=saj732hq86da7542c&w=sk98h932dkcjt6542&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1sp2hp3hp4cp4dp4sp5hp5sp6hppp]266|200[/hv] Added: Bidding: Sorry for leaving this out. As mikeh deduces below, Partner, East, leads ♥5 as the opening lead. Play (card led is bold): W-N-E-S ♥3-7-5-6 ♣2-3-7-♥8 ♥2-A-4-Q ♥9-K-♠6-♠2 ♦K-Q-3-2 Your play as West? (Unfortunately, I can't say for certain what your carding is, but looks like udca from other hands.) [hv=pc=n&s=saj73hda754c&w=sk98hdcjt654]266|200[/hv] A follow-up question and mild spoiler:

Anything other than A) pass..5♣, B) 4♣..5♣, or C) a direct 5♣ carries too much risk of partner bidding/passing a strain that is not clubs, I think. Slam doesn't seem likely enough to worry about, plus I see no way to both show clubs and invite slam without risking another suit being in the mix. I don't know which is best. Perhaps it depends on my opponents' evaluation of my skill level. If so, I'm not even sure that the ratio between the relative worth of any two of A, B, C is monotonic in their evaluation of my skill level.

4♠, 4NT may be better than 5♣ in practice. It feels wrong to have either of these be "the answer" in theory, i.e. on the forums, for some reason, with it seeming much more objectionable if 4♠ is "the answer." Probably I should just get over that feeling. Has Challenge the Champs or any other bidding competition ever included points for "never showing your spade weakness" or similar well-defined concepts? I'd love to see something like "5♦ 10; 6♦ showing club weakness 8; 6♦ without showing spade weakness 4; 6♦ showing spade weakness 1" as the scoring on this hand, assuming we're off the top two spades and partner only has three of them.

For me: If the fact that partner declined the game try made you certain there's no slam, bid 4H. If not, cuebid over 3H. The way I play this doesn't convert 3D into a cuebid. It's still a long/help/short/whatever-you-play-it-as suit.

It seems like a fine choice to me. I don't think the purpose was to get more people to post on the forums, but rather simply to share something with the broader community. It's funny, which people like, as well as being a relevant critique of an undesirable behavior present in the community.

I think 3♥ over 3♣ shows 3, or conceivably a good doubleton that you actually want to treat as 3. There's no need to take a preference in a game forcing auction, you can just bid one of 3♦, 3♠, 3NT with any hand with 2 hearts (or, more rarely, something above 3NT). Notice that over 3♦, partner can rebid 3♥ with 6 hearts or 5 particularly good ones.

Your main point is very good, and with a partner who thinks like you do your examples are fine, but I must point out that many would not have the negative inferences you point out in these two auctions. In auction 1, many bid 5N as a courtesy to partner, not specifically trying for the grand but simply confirming all keys. On your specific auction, partner is unlimited, after all, and bidding 6H directly would leave doubt as to whether you're missing a keycard. You can argue over whether in that case you should have bid 4♠, letting partner bid keycard, but I won't get into that other than to say that you may be bidding keycard to confirm the small slam, not necessarily to give the best chances for the grand. For auction 2, see this rather good post from Fred disagreeing.

I agree, or at least passable diamonds and heart concentration. Fair enough, if you remember or can work out such things. Possibly more mundanely a cue with a hand that is now good, but they're not so different that it's likely to matter too much if partner interprets it as the wrong one. ! Even if I remembered or worked out that 4♣ is/could be/should be a Bluhmer bid, I'd have to reserve 4♠ as a suggestion to play there. Possibly: KQJ10xx AQx Axx x edit - this is too good. maybe KQJ10xx KQx Axx x? opposite - Jxx KJxxxxx Axx This is not what I'd guess they had, of course.

Fair enough, our comments weren't that similar. :) What you're discussing is surely more related to a normal interpretation of the poem. I was just mentioning what it made me wonder about.

Yes, the splinter is surely best, good one qwery_hi. I suppose my sequence would be used if you move a small club or diamond to spades.