Michaels cue bid - weak, intermediate, strong?

[paulg]

In England, by far the most popular way to play Michaels is the 'either weak or strong' method, with intermediate hands overcalling in the major and hoping to get the other suit later.

 

Apparently this used to be common in Scotland too, but last year Mike Lawrence did a seminar series and at one of them he said that using Michaels with most 5-5 hands, independent of strength, is the way to do it. (Half of the Scottish players have now apparently adopted this method, it just needs their partners to do so now!)

 

Some of the world's top pairs also seem to be moving to specific 2-suiters (and leaving one 2-suiter unbiddable).

 

So I wondered what current 'expert' thinking is?

 

Paul

[MickyB]

I've got no idea about expert thinking, but here is mine...

 

The traditional weak range (6-10) is too weak when vulnerable, it is too unlikely that you should be declaring so you are just telling the opponents how to bid and play the hand. I also don't consider an 11 count to be anything like enough to bid both suits when 5-5. I'm now playing the ranges as 8-12 or 16+. A continuous range is fine if it doesn't start too low.

 

I prefer specific 2 suiters - too often you need to know partner's 2nd suit to work out if you have a (double) fit, if you know both of his suits you can preempt the opponents, if you only know one of his suits then they can preempt you.

[hatchett]

I like specific two-suiters and any range. Knowing the second suit is often crucial and I think showing both suits in one go as often as possible outweighs the disadvantage of partner not knowing whether you have a 9, 13 or 17 count. When I have a big fit a fair amount of the time I am going to want to bid the same thing either as a save, a two way shot or to make and I don't need to know how strong partner is.

[keylime]

I normally play the weak-strong variant, i.e. 0-7 or 15+. However Marshall Miles in "Competitive Bidding in the 21st Century" espouses Michaels for any range.

 

In KLP, I use 1NT as a three suited takeout, so two suiters are known and very specific in shape and strength (also, there's no regular Michaels -> that bid is for something else).

[joshs]

I have always played the weak/strong varient, and there still is no consensus on this but I do think that expert opinion has been shifting toward the "show shape/offense first and catch up on values later" philosophy toward competative bidding. This of course does involve some guesswork about if you have enough values to big again....

[whereagles]

I go the 'marshal miles way': I bid the 2-suiter in all ranges, on grounds that shape is more important than strenght.

[000002]

it's always existing an invitational bidding on there when we adopt the wide-range Michael.

for example:(1♠)-2♠-(/)-3♦,invite 4♥ with 3+cards ♥and 3+honor to partner's hand.

 

this is the one reason of all that we all like to cuebid Michael with 11-15hcps&5-5 suit

[Free]

These days I also don't use michael's and natural overcalls, we play specific 2-suiters starting from 4-4 with powerdoubles to backup all strong hands. It works very nice!

 

When playing with other people, I usually play the strong/weak variant, because it seems most logic: if you bid again, you have the strong variant... However, I don't know what the current trend is at top level, and why it would change.

[Fluffy]

I confirm you that, always used the weak/strong one, but recently one of the top players here has convinced many others that the tendencies have changed and experts now do specific suits on any range. He doesn't throw one of them though. He throws away the 3♣ preempt to show all 3 possible 2 suiters with cue/2NT/3♣