How deep is your love (of the rule of 15)?

[mgoetze]

[hv=d=s&v=b&e=sk9862hkq9dt3ck97&a=ppp?]166|300[/hv]

Your style is to open all balanced 11s, so partner has at most 10 HCP. In case it matters, you play reverse Drury (2♣ only).

[eagles123]

i would pass we in 4th seat and have no aces

 

but who knows

[Bbradley62]

1S

[BillPatch]

1 ♠. About 65% that we have an 8 card ♠ fit. We also may find a fit if partner has 10 hcp and 5 card non-pointed suit. Only a slight underdog if partner plays it in 1 NT.

[Mbodell]

1♠ seems clear to me. Unless maybe it fit your 1nt range where you could consider that instead, but I'm happier bidding 1♠.

[mgoetze]

We play 14-16 1NT in 1st through 3rd, 15-17 1NT in 4th seat, so our systematic opening would be 1♠.

[Hanoi5]

1♠ Not much need to think about it.

[mgoetze]

1♠ Not much need to think about it.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thought about it. This board was passed out at

 

1 out of 10 tables in 1st league

1 out of 10 tables in 2nd league

3 out of 30 tables in 3rd league.

[rmnka447]

I'm a 1 ♠ bidder also.

 

Partner must have a little something, especially in this day and age when opening light in 3rd seat is so prevalent.

 

You have the high ground with the ♠ suit anyhow.

[ArtK78]

I open 1♠. The rule of 15 only applies to marginal opening bids. This is not marginal.

[sfi]

If you don't open 1S on these hands they stop dealing you spades and give them to someone who deserves them.

[mgoetze]

[hv=b=23&d=s&v=b&e=sk9862hkq9dt3ck97&w=saqh876dj86cqjt84&n=sj4ht43dak542c632&a=ppp1sp1nppp]400|300[/hv]

Teammates bid and made 3♦ - lose 5.

[the hog]

[hv=b=23&d=s&v=b&e=sk9862hkq9dt3ck97&w=saqh876dj86cqjt84&n=sj4ht43dak542c632&a=ppp1sp1nppp]400|300[/hv]

Teammates bid and made 3♦ - lose 5.

 

It appears that South also passed an opening bid. Certainly this is a 1S bid in 4th seat.

[Mbodell]

[hv=b=23&d=s&v=b&e=sk9862hkq9dt3ck97&w=saqh876dj86cqjt84&n=sj4ht43dak542c632&a=ppp1sp1nppp]400|300[/hv]

Teammates bid and made 3♦ - lose 5.

 

I don't agree with hog that S has a clear opener. Depends on style and I'd say a fairly common style would be that S is a maximum pass, not an opener. But regardless N/S are entitled to +110 in 3♦. If you instead bid 1♠ and W plays 1NT you likely make -1 for a push, maybe -2 or -3 if unlucky. It happens.

[sfi]

The result has more to do with West not bidding 2C than East's opening. This is the downside of playing Drury that promises a fit, and one of the reasons to stop using it.

 

The alternative is to play 2C as clubs or an invitational raise (which is, I believe, Drury's original idea). If you're not a passed hand you can throw balanced FG hands in as well, but I suspect this will be banned anywhere that doesn't allow system innovation.

 

What's the downside to not guaranteeing a fit? Both opponents have had a chance or two to bid, so they're unlikely to get in the way now. You don't get to jump to 4M on hands that will accept a limit raise, but that hardly seems a loss (you can always have a sequence like 1S - 2C; 2D - 2S; 4S). And you can still open sub-minimum hands to the same effect as now.

 

If you can bid clubs at the two level, you pick up 5-6 IMPs.

 

 

Side note: If you regularly open South's hands, give up playing Drury - most of the time you will have already opened if you would want to use it.

[Fluffy]

The level of the opponents is ihhgly relevant info when opening in 4th, also their opening style.

[whereagles]

1♠ obv. Why didn't pard bid 2♣? Oh wait...

[lycier]

The purpose of the opening at the 4th seat is to get some winning scores,not for other at first.

There are some disadvanages in this hand I think.

1- This hand's values without Ace will reduce one point.

2- Bad trump suit,it is allowed to open 1♠ if hold ♠KQXXX, ♥ Kxx, ♦10 3, ♣Kxx.

 

So I never open 1♠ in danger.

[foobar]

In context of the system, the lack of aces, poor suit quality, and uninspiring shape convince me to pass.

[Jinksy]

Well lots of stronger players than me are opening, but I would have said beforehand this was a clear pass. The opps rate to have the values (inc top intermediates, often important on 20-20ish hands, esp when they have 2.7 jacks between them), so owning the spade suit just makes me think we have a cheap sac over their part score.

[Vampyr]

The alternative is to play 2C as clubs or an invitational raise (which is, I believe, Drury's original idea). If you're not a passed hand you can throw balanced FG hands in as well, but I suspect this will be banned anywhere that doesn't allow system innovation.

 

We do the former. I think the latter is interesting, and I have sometimes wondered about using Drury by an unpassed hand, but there are a lot of hand-types to untangle here. Plus you lose your 2♦ rebid (I assume) which seems like a high price. I would be interested in knowing if it can be made to work, though.

[mgoetze]

We do the former. I think the latter is interesting, and I have sometimes wondered about using Drury by an unpassed hand, but there are a lot of hand-types to untangle here. Plus you lose your 2♦ rebid (I assume) which seems like a high price. I would be interested in knowing if it can be made to work, though.

It works very well when your club hands are of at least GF strength (invitational club hands being bid with a direct 3♣ or via 1NT), but I doubt it would work as well if you wanted to allow weaker club hands (the sort that would bid a 2/1 in simple ACOL).

[biggerclub]

deleted.

[Cthulhu D]

I play the same thing as you - I've seen the results in this case so I am subconsciously biased, but I regularly pass similar hands 4th in because partner is more likely to have clubs and the points are 10-10-9-11 around the table best case, and if they don't open balanced 11 counts, it could be a lot worse than that (11-7-11 with no good suit, 11). I could lose a heart fit, but thems the breaks.

[sfi]

I think the latter is interesting, and I have sometimes wondered about using Drury by an unpassed hand, but there are a lot of hand-types to untangle here. Plus you lose your 2♦ rebid (I assume) which seems like a high price. I would be interested in knowing if it can be made to work, though.

 

I've played a version of this in most of my serious 5 card major partnerships over the past couple of years, including Precision (which we added 2/1 just for this), Polish Club with 2/1, straight 2/1, and Standard American.

 

The basic idea is that you have 4 possible types of hands:

- Invitational raise of the major (typically rebids 4M over an acceptance or 2M over a rejection)

- Balanced FG (rebids NT; you can allow a 3NT rebid to show a minimum with a doubleton trump, or use the jump for something else)

- Balanced minimum FG with fit (rebids 2M over an acceptance or 4M over a rejection)

- FG with clubs (bids something else, including 3M with 5+ clubs and 3 card support)

 

Opener then rebids:

- 2D to say "accept game try with nothing special to say" and opener clarifies hand.

- 2H (after 1S opening) to show 5/4, nebulous about whether accepting game try. Inv raise now bids 2S or 4H (with double fit, you want to be in game). Bad balanced FG raise bids 4S.

- 2M rejects game try.

 

In the standard system, we reversed the 2M and 2D responses and didn't cater for the balanced min with fit (that went into a 3NT response, if I recall). That all worked fine, but I've never worked out whether there was a reason for reversing the bids.

 

Advantages:

- You can invite and stop at the 2 level. That's a potential 5-6 IMPs every time you do this.

- Responder can easily show strong balanced hands, which is a problem in many systems.

- Responder can show strong (say 16+) balanced hands with a fit with a sequence like 1H-2C, 2D-2NT, 3C-3H. Now you are off to slam in a sensible way.

- Opener can take over and start a slam sequence by bidding above 2M ("I'm interested in slam opposite an invitational raise"). Responder now cooperates in the slam try rather than trying to show their hand.

- You gain a jump to the 3 level, which is typically preemptive, without having to give up other 3-level jump shifts to something like Bergen.

 

Disadvantages:

- Opener can't bid 2D naturally. The hand often gets to bid 3D naturally (even over 2S), so the real issue is not being able to show shape with the 5/5 hands since the diamond rebid is actually what gets lost.

- It can be susceptible to preemption, but they still need a hand willing to get in the middle of a potentially FG auction.

- The opponents get to double 2C for something.

- You lose preemptive value with your 3 card limit raises.

 

Overall, in my experience it is a big win. It's increasingly common among Australian players, but I think the ideas came from Europe (Germany maybe?) initially.