[Zelandakh]

MickyB, on 2013-April-05, 04:58, said:

How do you suggest diagnosing when to play in a 4-3 fit taking the ruff in the long trump hand rather than playing in your known 8+card fit?

How about bidding 2♠ with 3334 and enough heart values to think that the force will not be a problem? But in honesty I was thinking of more general auctions since I want agreements in this auction to be the same as are used elsewhere.

MickyB, on 2013-April-05, 04:58, said:

3C as natural, weak and dbl showing extras is very intuitive once you think of the 1NT bid as showing clubs. Having said that, it occurs to me that you'd want to bid 3C on 4153 in these methods as well, which is rather less intuitive and would miss your 8-card fit opposite 3334.

So you play the unopposed auction 1♦ - 1NT; 3♣ as a simple raise too rather than a strong hand? If we have that hand and the opps had not overcalled, the auction would have gone 1♦ - 1NT; 2♠. Any reason we cannot still bid this way after a 2♥ overcall?

MickyB, on 2013-April-05, 04:58, said:

X showing extras gives you more flexibility to stop low on those hands - including in 2S when you don't have an 8-card fit elsewhere - unless you are suggesting that X be weak-or-strong and 2S/3C be NF showing extras, which sounds reasonable. Once again, this would leave us wanting to bid 3C on 4153.

I think that X being competitive or GF and bidding with invitational extras is an excellent solution in many auctions and one day I might get around to formalising some rules to make it work in the general case (a blue moon day). Sadly I have not done this yet, so just have to settle for a more standard competitive double approach. However, it is quite appropriate to double with a GF hand and no direction even then, since you can basically either bid game or make a cue bid over any response from partner.

[Zelandakh]

han, on 2013-April-05, 05:30, said:

Codo posts that he understands the pass by south on hand 1. Can somebody explain it to me?

I think the basic premise was that if X is played as 3 hearts, partner might even be something like 3154, which does not look so promising opposite 3433; but I could be wrong about the logic. In any case, do you not agree that system is relevant here and that North can also do more if 2♣ did not promise more than 5-4?

[ahydra]

Zelandakh, on 2013-April-05, 06:20, said:

I think that X being competitive or GF and bidding with invitational extras is an excellent solution in many auctions and one day I might get around to formalising some rules to make it work in the general case (a blue moon day). Sadly I have not done this yet, so just have to settle for a more standard competitive double approach. However, it is quite appropriate to double with a GF hand and no direction even then, since you can basically either bid game or make a cue bid over any response from partner.

X = competitive or GF sounds like a good idea, but I have a couple concerns about it: 1) you can cuebid with a GF hand, and 2) loss of definition on the double. If one is needing 15+ or so to bid, then (say 1D-1S (2C); X) a double has to cover everything from a 14-count 1543 to a 9-count 3730.

If responder is limited, e.g. after he responds 1NT, then I quite like the idea of X = general competitive hand or INV+ and bids showing non-invitational values but more shape (5-5). Still, you're far better at bidding theory than me... can you expand a bit on proposed followups after the "competitive or GF" double?

ahydra

[Zelandakh]

ahydra, on 2013-April-05, 08:14, said:

can you expand a bit on proposed followups after the "competitive or GF" double?

The basic idea would be that Doubler passes partner's bid or makes an agreed conversion-style bid with the competitive hand, whereas following up with anything else would be game-forcing. So here, if partner bid 2♠ over the double, we might agree that 3m is competitive and anything else is GF. Or, if 3♣ is advanced then 3♦ is competitive (one-suited) and anything else a GF hand. As I wrote, I have not formalised rules for this approach yet but that is the basic idea. One reason why it might take a blue moon for me to work on the idea is that transfers are probably of a similar difficulty and are now commonplace, so the rewards from making the effort are probably not worth the effort involved.

In practise, what I really do is effectively play a modified form of everyone's favourie Stolen Bid Double convention where you double if you want to compete in one of the suits their overcall preempted and otherwise bid normally. That is surely not going to be a popular approach on BBF but I have found it highly effective at intermediate level and something that is intuitively easy for players not interested in bidding theory to grasp.

[Codo]

han, on 2013-April-05, 05:30, said:

Codo posts that he understands the pass by south on hand 1. Can somebody explain it to me?

I wrote that I understand his wish to pass and that it would be a close descission to bid opposite a possible 2254 or 3154 hand.. There is no need to follow the law religiously, but here is no need to violate it either.

It looks as if you have zero ruffs in your hand, a horrible shape and maybe just 4 working points... It does not look as if you have much defence but at the same time you have no wish to compete too high. So I understand his WISH to pass,if you don't, fine.