[Al_U_Card]

Your comments please:

DBL = clubs or diamonds or the red suits or the majors
1♦ = Hearts
1♥ = Spades
1♠ = Spades and Clubs
1NT = minors
2♣ = Clubs and Hearts
2♦ = Diamonds and Spades
2♥/♠ = preempt

over the dbl, name your best suit, if it is corrected to the next number of clubs, then the dbl showed clubs. Any change of suit at the one level by overcaller (dbl-p-1♦-p-1♥) would show the majors etc.

[Vilgan]

I play precision, and tbh it seems like you are just giving your opponents more lines of communication.

For example, if it goes 1 C, X. Now partner can pass with 0-4 HCP. bid 1 Diamond with 5-7. XX for 8+ points and no 5 card suit, or with 8+ and a 5 card suit.. take their normal bid (systems vary a lot on that). So just by doubling you have greatly increased how much he/she can tell me about their hand.

Gotta head out, but the more natural your bidding is over precision the better imo. Admittedly I haven't run into all the various systems that exist, but bidding naturally against precision always seems to be the most effective.. and the least likely to go for a major penalty.

Anyways, g'luck

Eric

[awm]

Transfer approaches in general give the opening side two chances to bid. For example, over:

1♣ - 2♠ (natural)

This applies a lot of pressure. Responder may not want to pass with an intermediate (5-7 point) hand because the auction could end at 2♠. But if responder is going to bid with both game forcing hands and intermediate hands, it overloads a lot of the followups.

On the other hand, compare:

1♣ - 2♥ (spades)

Now responder has the option to pass and come in later. Double is also available to show "cards" without losing the opportunity to penalize (or making it harder to penalize because double was just general values without shape information).

My feeling is that the best defenses involve either natural bids, or multi-meaning bids where one of the options is holding the bid suit. The multi-meaning bids carry the risk of being passed out in a non-fit, but they also make things very difficult for the opening side because it can be the case that both opener and responder have length in the bid suit, making it much harder to use takeout doubles effectively. My current strategy is to play mostly natural bids (okay, mathe, natural 1NT overcall is silly) at vulnerable and psycho-suction at nonvuln. Psycho suction btw is:

Bid any suit = either a one suiter with the suit bid, or a two-suiter with the next two suits (so for example 1♠ is either spades or minors).
Bid NT = two-suiter with non-touching suits

[Free]

What is "artificial and forcing"??? Is it strong, or is it multiway like Polish ♣ or siege, or is it just short? This makes a huge difference imo...

[Al_U_Card]

Your typical 16+ hcp version.

[Free]

Overcalling with known 2-suiters seems not a good idea, since opps get 2 cuebids and a Dbl. A 2-suited overcall with 2 known suit basicly gives opps more opportunities to show their hand as responder: they can bid natural with gameforcing AND semipositive hands, and no problem to show a difference!

It's a good point to have natural overcalls so they're NF. This obviously puts pressure on opponents. However, it's harder when the 2nd suit is still unknown.

I'm also used to play strong ♣ (15+hcp), and I'd be glad to play against this structure

[MickyB]

Free, on Apr 11 2006, 08:18 PM, said:

What is "artificial and forcing"??? Is it strong, or is it multiway like Polish ♣ or siege, or is it just short? This makes a huge difference imo...

Siege's 1♣ opening is just short, it isn't multi-way or forcing.

I think I've talked too much about Siege recently so I'll try not to mention it for a few hours.

[pigpenz]

I still prefer CRASH

[Free]

MickyB, on Apr 12 2006, 12:29 AM, said:

Free, on Apr 11 2006, 08:18 PM, said:

What is "artificial and forcing"???  Is it strong, or is it multiway like Polish ♣ or siege, or is it just short?  This makes a huge difference imo...

Siege's 1♣ opening is just short, it isn't multi-way or forcing.

I think I've talked too much about Siege recently so I'll try not to mention it for a few hours.

Lets not get into this (offtopic), but when you're unbalanced and you open 1♣, it's natural... So it's 'quite' multiway

[Gerben42]

Sorry it does not follow my Golden Rule, which is that interference against strong bids is either

* Natural
* Multi-meaning with the suit bid as possibility

The reason is that anything else is easy to defend for the Strong Clubbers

[P_Marlowe]

Free, on Apr 11 2006, 04:14 PM, said:

Overcalling with known 2-suiters seems not a good idea, since opps get 2 cuebids and a Dbl. A 2-suited overcall with 2 known suit basicly gives opps more opportunities to show their hand as responder: they can bid natural with gameforcing AND semipositive hands, and no problem to show a difference!

Hi,

I beg to differ.

Assuming 2-suiters include 4 card suits,
and going to the extreme, maybe even
4-4, you definitely have a problem.

... They bid 2D on KDxxx in diamond
and xxxx in spades, and they "stole" the
spade suit.
Assuming 2-suits are know, partner will be
able to preempt direct after the move, which
means the add. options of the 2 cue bids are
counter balanced.

If the bidding is on the 3 level after the first
round of bidding, you will have problems, and
the 2 cue bids wont help you a lot.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[P_Marlowe]

Gerben42, on Apr 12 2006, 05:00 AM, said:

Sorry it does not follow my Golden Rule, which is that interference against strong bids is either

* Natural
* Multi-meaning with the suit bid as possibility

The reason is that anything else is easy to defend for the Strong Clubbers

Hi Gerben,

only X, 1D, 1H are "transfer" responses,
X not really, bids which dont kill space,
i.e. whatever they mean, is fairly irrelevant,
and if they promise constructive values, great.

Playing 1NT as minors makes sense as much
as anything else and because both suits are known
partner can pass, if he thinks 1NT best or preempts
has high as he dares.

So in effect your golden rule "Natural" is fullfilled.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: Personnally I believe, that X should rarely be
used, because they have an add. option (XX).
If it is used, it should allow partner to kill space with a high
frequency, ... one option: arbtary 3-suiter, never comes up,
but in case it does, partner can always jumb to the 3-level
with 4-4.

[Free]

P_Marlowe, on Apr 12 2006, 11:40 AM, said:

Free, on Apr 11 2006, 04:14 PM, said:

Overcalling with known 2-suiters seems not a good idea, since opps get 2 cuebids and a Dbl.  A 2-suited overcall with 2 known suit basicly gives opps more opportunities to show their hand as responder: they can bid natural with gameforcing AND semipositive hands, and no problem to show a difference!

Hi,

I beg to differ.

Assuming 2-suiters include 4 card suits,
and going to the extreme, maybe even
4-4, you definitely have a problem.

... They bid 2D on KDxxx in diamond
and xxxx in spades, and they "stole" the
spade suit.
Assuming 2-suits are know, partner will be
able to preempt direct after the move, which
means the add. options of the 2 cue bids are
counter balanced.

If the bidding is on the 3 level after the first
round of bidding, you will have problems, and
the 2 cue bids wont help you a lot.

With kind regards
Marlowe

It's not because you show a 4 card suit that you 'steal' the suit. Apparently you haven't played against strong clubbers with good agreements on that. To take our example here:

1♣ - (2♦) - ?

Dbl = penalty
2♥ = semipositive, natural
2♠ = GF with 5+♣
2NT = GF bal with stops in at least one of the suits (probably ♠ since otherwise probably Dbl)
3♣ = semipositive, natural
3♦ = GF with 5+♥
3♥ = "I want to play in ♥ whatever you have", GF
3♠ = natural and GF

Especially when you're behind a suit, opps haven't stolen our suit... Even if you 'steal' the suit, sometimes you get them in better contracts! Bidding a suit where you know LHO has that suit as well seems quite stupid, but sometimes, yes, in a rare occasion, you'll steal a suit. Bidding it behind the suit is still reasonable.

Btw, responder gets in BEFORE RHO can preempt... When responder is ridiculously weak, THEN it works the way you describe ('cuebids wont help'), but then every method works well enough.

I play an agressive overcall structure over opponent's strong ♣, but with ♠xxxx and ♦KQxxx I'd rather show ♦ alone!
I've tested 2-suited methods for a long time, and I've noticed that a tophonour in both suits is a must to bid it. With my regular partner, we open AND intervene with 4-4 hands (even after natural openings), so I know what I'm talking about. Most disasters happened when the opener/overcaller didn't have the quality in one his suits.

I agree that Dbl should be used as few as possible. The dbl in this scheme is quite silly imo: too frequent and partner can't preempt as he should be able to do. I'd rather reverse the meanings of Dbl and 1NT here: 1NT takes away bidding space AND still no suit is known, where Dbl will give initial extra bidding space but now partner can jam the auction.

[Gerben42]

Quote

So in effect your golden rule "Natural" is fullfilled.

That's the whole point with transfers: Opps get a free double as well as the cuebid. If you compare 1♥ (Spades) to 1♥ (Hearts), I prefer to play the latter and prefer my opponents to play the former.

[P_Marlowe]

Free, on Apr 12 2006, 07:39 AM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Apr 12 2006, 11:40 AM, said:

Free, on Apr 11 2006, 04:14 PM, said:

Overcalling with known 2-suiters seems not a good idea, since opps get 2 cuebids and a Dbl.  A 2-suited overcall with 2 known suit basicly gives opps more opportunities to show their hand as responder: they can bid natural with gameforcing AND semipositive hands, and no problem to show a difference!

Hi,

I beg to differ.

Assuming 2-suiters include 4 card suits,
and going to the extreme, maybe even
4-4, you definitely have a problem.

... They bid 2D on KDxxx in diamond
and xxxx in spades, and they "stole" the
spade suit.
Assuming 2-suits are know, partner will be
able to preempt direct after the move, which
means the add. options of the 2 cue bids are
counter balanced.

If the bidding is on the 3 level after the first
round of bidding, you will have problems, and
the 2 cue bids wont help you a lot.

With kind regards
Marlowe

It's not because you show a 4 card suit that you 'steal' the suit. Apparently you haven't played against strong clubbers with good agreements on that. To take our example here:

<skip>

1♣ - (2♦) - ?

Dbl = penalty
2♥ = semipositive, natural
2♠ = GF with 5+♣
2NT = GF bal with stops in at least one of the suits (probably ♠ since otherwise probably Dbl)
3♣ = semipositive, natural
3♦ = GF with 5+♥
3♥ = "I want to play in ♥ whatever you have", GF
3♠ = natural and GF

<skip>

Hi,

- it maybe true, that the partnerships did not have
good agreements, ... not my problem .-)
- In your agreements you lost the spade suit,
if responder holds only a semipos. hand with
spades, plus you have no way to ask for a
specific stopper.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Al_U_Card]

Free, on Apr 12 2006, 07:39 AM, said:

[Apparently you haven't played against strong clubbers with good agreements on that. To take our example here:

1♣ - (2♦) - ?

Dbl = penalty
2♥ = semipositive, natural
2♠ = GF with 5+♣
2NT = GF bal with stops in at least one of the suits (probably ♠ since otherwise probably Dbl)
3♣ = semipositive, natural
3♦ = GF with 5+♥
3♥ = "I want to play in ♥ whatever you have", GF
3♠ = natural and GF

I like your agreements. Recited them from memory, I'll bet. As would your pard during the auction......as well as the continuations toward your eventual contract or defence.........the idea is to get in the way of your routine and well practiced sequences and force you into these more esoteric and problematic ones.....Cubs win!

[luke warm]

i play the same as over 1nt (or like to)... the level of the bid doesn't matter, the meaning is the same:

x=c and d or d only
2c=d and h or h only
1d=h and s or s only
1h=s and c or c only
1s=s and d
1nt=c and h

as i said, the level doesn't matter.. so over (1c), 4c=d and h or h only

[Free]

Al_U_Card, on Apr 12 2006, 06:52 PM, said:

Free, on Apr 12 2006, 07:39 AM, said:

[Apparently you haven't played against strong clubbers with good agreements on that.  To take our example here:

1♣ - (2♦) - ?

Dbl = penalty
2♥ = semipositive, natural
2♠ = GF with 5+♣
2NT = GF bal with stops in at least one of the suits (probably ♠ since otherwise probably Dbl)
3♣ = semipositive, natural
3♦ = GF with 5+♥
3♥ = "I want to play in ♥ whatever you have", GF
3♠ = natural and GF

I like your agreements. Recited them from memory, I'll bet. As would your pard during the auction......as well as the continuations toward your eventual contract or defence.........the idea is to get in the way of your routine and well practiced sequences and force you into these more esoteric and problematic ones.....Cubs win!

Basicly it's not written down anywhere. It's our general agreements over 2-suited overcalls with known suits... So no real memory work

[Al_U_Card]

luke warm, on Apr 12 2006, 07:17 PM, said:

i play the same as over 1nt (or like to)... the level of the bid doesn't matter, the meaning is the same:

x=c and d or d only
2c=d and h or h only
1d=h and s or s only
1h=s and c or c only
1s=s and d
1nt=c and h

as i said, the level doesn't matter.. so over (1c), 4c=d and h or h only

This one I like, a lot. Makes sense and is easy to remember.