[Beto]

I agree with 3♥. Now i Bid 4♠.

4♠ directly over 3♣ will take a lot of bidding space if partners
intention is slam.

A) AKQxxx Axx x AQx
AKQxxx x Axx AQx

Wouldnt you want to hear 3♥ on hand A?

[pigpenz]

Jlall, on Oct 11 2005, 11:47 AM, said:

pigpenz, on Oct 11 2005, 11:42 AM, said:

I dont know maybe I am missing something here, trying to be too delicate or precise.

Maybe, certainly 1S-2S-4S is reasonable and I like it at imps, but I think you bid it fine. Many hands that raise 2S offer little play for game (given that you don't play constructive raises which you said you didn't) and 3C gives you room to explore.

thats why i asked at matchpoints usually your gonna find a 66%-33% difference between being there and not.

I bid 3♣ if partner bids 3♦ i like
if partner bids 3♥ i dont!

at imps close your eyes and bid game

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Oct 11 2005, 11:28 AM, said:

I suppose all of the 4S over 3C bidder's partners will know what to do with AKQxx Axx x AJxx. And if the diamonds and hearts in responder's hand were reversed, they would also know what to do.

Of course I would know what to do

Okay, maybe not

But you did give opener a lot of Aces in your example, Justin. Sometimes opener has slam interest without quite so many Aces:

AKxxxx x KQ AQJx

Now you no longer have 5 level safety if 3♥ might not show that Ace.

Yes, you may still orchestrate an auction stopping at 4♠ and, yes, this is a strained construction.

BTW, I would not play a jump to 4 of a new suit by opener as a splinter. I think that it is more useful as a very powerful 2-suiter, stressing good suits:

AKJxx x AKQxx Kx

1♠ 2♠ 4♦: partner looks at Aces outside of the two suits and minor honours in the 2 suits and can evaluate for slam purposes.

This even sometimes finds the 5=4 slam compared to the 5=3 major fit.

[Al_U_Card]

Whenever I accept a game-try, I won't stop until I get to game. The 3S bid is asking for q-bids, as I have accepted the game-try with 3H (1 loser in D and a decent suit for pard). If pard needs an ace for slam then I can't help, but maybe he is "lookin' fer granny" so I bid a quiet 4S and await developments.

[Al_U_Card]

I would have thought that pard can expect you to have accepted the game try when you don't return to 3s....He may want to try for slam and in this case wants to know about the C ace before bidding 4D.......who knows......

[mikeh]

Partner may have two suits in which he needs help: a hand in which help in either suit is enough.

He makes the cheapest help suit try, knowing that partner can bid 'in between' with a good hand that does not help the 1st suit.

Thus with AKQxx Qxx x KQxx, I might decide that I will try 3♣, willing to be in game opposite the ♣ Ace (if this seems wrong, adjust the hand accordingly: I am merely trying to explain why 3♥ would not (for me and Justin, at least) commit to game).

I bid 3♣ and hear 3♥. To me this suggests one of two things:

either partner was accepting the game try and cue-bidding (the Ace or concentrated values, depending on agreement) or

partner was denying help in ♣ but showing a good hand in context with stuff in ♥ in case I had one of those: 'need help in one of two suits' hands.

I see no downside in this approach and lots of upside.

[Al_U_Card]

Appreciate the insight as lack of playing makes the rust thicker all the time. So pard could never bid 3S as a waiting bid on that sequence, as it could be passed. 3NT would be the serious variety, or is there another method lurking?

[pigpenz]

Jlall, on Oct 11 2005, 11:47 AM, said:

pigpenz, on Oct 11 2005, 11:42 AM, said:

I dont know maybe I am missing something here, trying to be too delicate or precise.

Maybe, certainly 1S-2S-4S is reasonable and I like it at imps, but I think you bid it fine. Many hands that raise 2S offer little play for game (given that you don't play constructive raises which you said you didn't) and 3C gives you room to explore.

But on the 1-2-4 auction like you said at imps is very good, you yourself posted about how little sometimes Meckwell give away on bidding to game which makes it even hard to defend against.

One of the least recorded things is what good pairs do at matchpoints Almost all bridgeworld articles are on major imps events and almost all VuGraphs here are on imps.....how about some matchpoint events sometimes.

Justin your too young to have gone against Barry Crane, but wouldnt you like to be able to check out how Barry used to do the things that he did to win so many matchpoint events? Even in Bridge World there are only several articles that followed his antics at matchpoints.

[luke warm]

i voted pass on this one... opener makes a game try, responder says "no" but makes a counter try, opener says "no" and signs off... bidding on doesn't make much sense if i understand what's been going on so far (and i might not), since neither player wanted game in the 2 game try suits

[pigpenz]

Jlall, on Oct 11 2005, 05:13 PM, said:

As far as I know, Barry's tactics were mainly successful in weak fields like regional pair games where he just obliterated everyone. I don't think he had great success in national pair games relative to his success at the regional levels (did he really win like 50 % of his regional pair games?). I would love to see what he did to these people because no one else can win close to that much. Sadly, regional pair games are not popular anymore because of knockouts.

He did win a World Championship Pairs with Kerri Shuman in 1978.
Spring NAC open pairs64,70,71,72,74,77 and at least several other mixed pairs and team championships at the national level.

It would be great if there was a record of his bidding, tactics, and hand records from those events. At the time of his death Mike Albert was working on putting out a book about his systems and tactics but it never came to be

[pigpenz]

Jlall, on Oct 11 2005, 07:56 PM, said:

I'm not saying he was a slouch at national pairs, but he was certainly unmatched at a regional level.

The ACBL regionals until middle eighties were entirley different than they are today. there were no Knockout other than the ones in the morning and everyone, i mean everyone played in the paris events cause thats all there was. Yesterdays non life master was far more experienced than most life masters of today.

[mike777]

pigpenz, on Oct 12 2005, 09:20 AM, said:

Jlall, on Oct 11 2005, 07:56 PM, said:

I'm not saying he was a slouch at national pairs, but he was certainly unmatched at a regional level.

The ACBL regionals until middle eighties were entirley different than they are today. there were no Knockout other than the ones in the morning and everyone, i mean everyone played in the paris events cause thats all there was. Yesterdays non life master was far more experienced than most life masters of today.

Well in yesterday's events they use to take away Master points at the end of the year and you only got 10 pts or so for winning events such as Spingold. Win 10 and lose points as new year starts.

As for Barry Crane if even 50% of the gossip is true you have several great books, add in the tall tales and you got 10. I guess it is "Mission Impossible" to write those books.

For you young folks that was one of Barry's tv shows.

[pigpenz]

yes managed to work full time and play bridge at the same time.

[mikeh]

mike777, on Oct 12 2005, 10:57 AM, said:

Well in yesterday's events they use to take away Master points at the end of the year and you only got 10 pts or so for winning events such as Spingold. Win 10 and lose points as new year starts.

I joined the ACBL in 1973 (I think), and they certainly did not take points away back then. I remember, as masterpoint inflation became increasingly rampant, some letter-writers to the ACBL BUlletin proposing that the league adopt a policy of deducting points as time went by. One of the perennial problems with the masterpoint inflation was (and is) that mediorce players eventually acquire so many points that they end up stuck having to play good players. The league did not adopt that policy in response to those letters, and I did not see any refernce to the policy having existed in the past, nor do I see it in my old Bridge Worlds (altho, admittedly, the BW was not exactly friendly to the ACBL in the early days, so did not pay much attention to masterpoints).

Some of the letters were funny (altho not intended as such), reflecting an apparent belief that the object of the ACBL should be to ensure that average players could continue to win tons of pasterpoints without ever having to play against good players. Sadly, that philosophy has triumphed in North America: relatively few players seem at all interested in getting better: just in getting masterpoints. There was a time when the latter was accomplished by the former.

[mike777]

Yes, they use to take away points. This was decades before 73. Before the Spingold was called Spingold in fact .

Yes, it is funny to see how masterpoint inflation has for eons been debated but I do think it ultimately has been a superb marketing tool for the game.

As a 16 year old I remember savings my slips to get that first magical point.