[Yogeshdg]

Drury is cool especially 2 way drury. It allows you to open 4 card majors in balancing seat with 8+ HCP.

[EricK]

Gerben42, on Nov 7 2007, 09:49 AM, said:

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Drury is not needed if you open lite in first or second seat.

Nonsense.

Monday I held as dealer:

Scoring: MP

---

Calling this an opening bid even when "opening light" is just ridiculous. Your bid after

P P 1♠ P ?

You can choose between:

* 2♠ (underbid)
* 2♦ (not forcing)
* 1NT (denies fit)

Have fun!

That is how the cookie crumbles!

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1. It allows LHO a cheap pre-balance at the two level on a known fit auction (eg P (P) 1S (P) 2C allows LHO to bid X, 2D or 2H).

Which might be a bad idea if it's only a 4-3 fit.

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2. It takes away a natural bid.

Replaced by 2NT which now shows ♣.

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3. The hands where you are most likely to benefit (i.e. where partner has opened very light) are the hands where you are least likely to be able to use it - because your RHO, with the strongest hand at the table, will probably bid.

Opposite my hand from Monday, I'd want to play 2♠ not 3 opposite a standard Rule-of-20 minimum. Being able to invite without going to the 3-level saves MP and IMPs alike.

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5. If, because you play Drury, you open some hands which you otherwise wouldn't, then it does look like you are using it as a psychic control.

Not if you now open rule-of-18 hands now rather than rule-of-20 which you couldn't before because partner on the hand above would force to the 3-level to invite, fearing to miss a very cold game.

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6. On the other hand, if you would open those hands anyway, then agreeing to play Drury is rather cowardly!

The cowards are the ones standing in the end when the brave have died in battle!

On your hand, 2♠ isn't really an underbid - a 9 loser hand with 3 small in support. Obviously it would accept any game try but if partner passes I doubt you'd be too high.

But note that if you play fit non jumps here, so that 2♦ would show the raise to 2♠ plus a ♦ suit then that is a massive improvement on Drury. For one thing, it allows partner the chance to evaluate the ♦Q or singleton ♦.

As to some of my original 6 points,

1. It must be an advantage for them to be able to balance at the 2 level rather than the guess whether to balance at the 3 level. Even if you have a 4-3 fit you have to decide whether to bid to 2M (which might make) or let them play or double them. And I don't think either player will generally have enough info to make consistently good choices.

2. If the benefit of Drury is that it allows you to play at the 2 level instead of the 3 level, I am surprised you are so blase about replacing a bid which allows you to play at the 2 level with one which forces you to the 3 level! Especially as Drury is used when you have a known fit but your 2NT bid may be on a total misfit.

3. But this applies whether you are a passed hand or not. You are really making a case for an artificial low-level invitational raise of partner's suit in all positions.

[lilboyman]

I don't like Drury because it doesn't come up very often due to aggressiveness of my opening bids. Thus, when it does come up, if my partner doesn't forget it, then I do.

[foo]

whereagles, on Nov 6 2007, 11:35 AM, said:

mike777, on Nov 5 2007, 01:16 AM, said:

Drury is great if you open sound in first or second seat.
Drury is not needed if you open lite in first or second seat.

I knew of a very aggressive matchpoint pair who used permanent Drury, so as to be able to open consistently on 8-9 hcps

Barry Crane wanted to be be able to play Drury in all seats. The ACBL would not let him.

Drury by an unpassed hand was considered a psychic control by the reviewing authorities.
They were and are correct.

If you are playing Drury in 1st or 2nd chair, you are playing a method that is not legal in many jurisdictions.

OTOH, Drury in 3rd and 4th chair is a very useful way of probing for games and slams based on degree of fit and controls or of getting into the auction and out quickly with hands that are not interested in game or slam.

I prefer Two Way Reverse Drury because
a= as the saying goes, "The 9th trump is the most important card in Bridge."
b= Robson and Segel: "We need more ways of raising partner."
(which is why I disagree with them about Support X's not being needed sometimes. They always are.)
c1= Responder is rarely going to have a natural 2m bid
c2= When they do, the opponents are not letting you play 2m very often.

The bottom line here is that Drury is not a license to open on dreck (Yiddish for crap, filth, or garbage).

Even "light" 3rd seat 1M openings should have a reason, for instance being lead directing, for the opening.

EDIT: and xxx/xx/KJxxx/AJx or the like is a perfectly normal raise to 2S.
9 losers, 9 HCP, 3 controls, etc. I could go on and on.
An Invitational+ hand has 8- losers and 3+ cover cards:
xxx/x/KJxxx/AJxx
This hand is an Invite and might be worth a GF opposite the correct minimum 1S.
xxxx/x/KJxxx/AJx
This hand is a GF opposite a full opening bid of 1S.
Yes, the 9th trump is that important.
(I suspect Gerben gets too high a lot...)

[hrothgar]

foo, on Nov 13 2007, 02:25 PM, said:

Barry Crane wanted to be be able to play Drury in all seats.  The ACBL would not let him.

Drury by an unpassed hand was considered a psychic control by the reviewing authorities.
They were and are correct.

More "wisdom" from Foo

Playing Drury opposite a first or second seat opening bid can hardly be considered a psychic control. Crane played methods in which a light openings in first and second seat were systemic. The light openings practiced by his partnership were not exceptions. They were not random deviations. They were integral parts of the system and should not be described as "psyches".

In much the same vein, the artificial 2♣ advance that Crane wanted to use wasn't a "psychic control" any more that Drury over a 3rd/4th seat opening is a psychic control. (Even the Brits have stopped describing Drury as a psychic control).


I agree that the ACBL has the authority to ban Drury over a first or second seat opening. (They can sanction or refuse to sanction whatever they damn well please). However, if the ACBL is going to ban a method, they should do so in the correct manner. They should openly state that they don't want to allow methods that support light openings in first / second seat rather than hiding behind intellectually bankrupt arguments.

From what I can tell, the entire concept of "Psychic Controls" has gone by the wayside. These concepts were discarded when people got more sophisticated about what constitues an "agreement".

Its sad to see folks trying to resurrect this sort of crap.

[FrancesHinden]

I play drury opposite 3rd and 4th seat openers, but not because I open rubbish in 3rd seat. I only open light in third with a good suit (or a good lead), and I don't open light in 4th at all (who does?).

So for me the main purpose of Drury is not to stop at the 2-level when opener doesn't have an opening bid. Particularly if we have a 9-card fit, there's usually no way to stop at the 2-level anyway as the opponents tend to bid.

I started playing Drury because I was fed up with the auction P P 1M P 2m all pass when responder had a limit raise. As opener in third seat, I thought it was normal to pass the 2m bid looking at, say, KQJxx xx Axx xxx and that led to silly contracts. There are various solutions to this:

- play 1NT as forcing
- play 2m as natural and forcing
- play non-fit jumps (2m promises a fit for the major)
- give up on 2m natural and play Drury

We went for the last option. I know that in theory this costs us because we can't bid 2minor natural, but somehow in practice I don't seem to lose out having to bid 1NT on that hand. Maybe non-fit jumps are better, I haven't tried them.

[Gerben42]

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I started playing Drury because I was fed up with the auction P P 1M P 2m all pass when responder had a limit raise.

Me too. Okay my hand was a bit light but I hope the idea was clear. Change it to:

---

Unsuspecting natural bidder:

Pass - 1♠
2♦ - Pass

The Drury bidder can show his raise.
Unlike Frances I play 2♦ still as natural (and no fit!) and 2NT as ♣:

---

Not a vuln. 3♣ opening, not 1♣ either...

[mike777]

1) example one is an easy 2s.....8-11 support pts. I do not think this aceless wonder is worth 12 support pts but say it is close enough.... If you do then bid a semiforcing 1nt. Partner will pass with a minimum and the opp will bid some hearts I suppose. They have 9 hearts.
2) your example two is an easy one club opener, if you open lite, 2 quick tricks and an easy rebid.

My point only is a 3 card limit raise is very rare. A natural 2 of a minor(no wk twos in the minors) over 1M opener is more frequent.

[Trinidad]

I fully agree with Frances. To me Reverse Drury is not a checkback to see if partner had his bid or not. It is a conventional raise of opener's major.

Common sense says that the only passed hands that can envision game opposite a minimum are the hands with a fit. That means that it is useful to devide the responses in bids that show a fit and bids that deny a fit. Bids that show a fit are forcing. Bids that deny a fit are not forcing.

If you can't separate the forcing bids from the non forcing bids, you will get a mess when it isn't necessary.

Rik

[Gerben42]

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1) example one is an easy 2s.....8-11 support pts. I do not think this aceless wonder is worth 12 support pts but say it is close enough.... If you do then bid a semiforcing 1nt. Partner will pass with a minimum and the opp will bid some hearts I suppose. They have 9 hearts.

1♠ - 2♠ by a passed hand does NOT show 8 - 11 support points for anyone I know. It's simply 6 - 9. Since 1♠ - 1NT can be passed now, it denies a fit.

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2) your example two is an easy one club opener, if you open lite, 2 quick tricks and an easy rebid.

That is for each partnership to decide. You can change it to AJTxxx if you like. If you still open that, I give up.

[tnsaint]

I really don't see the problem with the bidding on this hand
It seems to me the only thing that would defeat the contract is
the AJ or KJ of clubs behind the Q - or a bad trump split

[awm]

Well it seems clear that when you have a fit for partner, it is silly to make a non-forcing bid that doesn't show the fit. This causes you to play a lot of poor contracts and miss a lot of games.

But I don't see that as necessarily a reason to play drury. If you're willing to play at the three-level with a limit raise opposite a third seat opening, there is really no problem at all. The advantage of drury is that you don't have to play at the three level with a limit raise opposite a third seat opening. These examples where "oh no, we missed our best fit" because we weren't playing drury are missing the point. Basically responder was afraid of the three level and so decided to make a non-forcing bid in a side suit instead of using a fit jump or making a normal limit raise.

Now obviously there are advantages to stopping at the two-level when you have a limit raise and opener doesn't want to go to game opposite that raise. In particular, sometimes the three level doesn't make. Sometimes the extra space allows opener to make a game try which enables a more accurate decision between 3M and 4M. The more frequently opener has a lousy hand, the more useful this is likely to be. The tradeoff is that it's harder to get to the right spot with a suit-oriented hand that would bid 2m natural. Now you have to either bid 1NT (which partner could pass, and in fact will pass when he has a balanced hand, which is almost exactly the time when the minor plays better) or jump to 2NT or above to show your hand on what could be a misfit opposite a light opening bid. It's all very well to say "I play 2♣ drury but I can still bid clubs -- 2NT shows clubs" but how happy will you be when partner has some ten count with singleton club opposite your ten count with six clubs and you get to play at the three-level, quite possibly doubled, when other people reached (say) 2♦ in a 4-3 fit or 2M in a 5-2?

[MickyB]

awm, on Nov 13 2007, 09:08 PM, said:

Basically responder was afraid of the three level and so decided to make a non-forcing bid in a side suit instead of using a fit jump or making a normal limit raise.

Fit-jumps and direct limit raises are often played as showing four-card support. It's the three-card limit raises that are the issue.

[mike777]

Gerben42, on Nov 13 2007, 10:16 AM, said:

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1) example one is an easy 2s.....8-11 support pts. I do not think this aceless wonder is worth 12 support pts but say it is close enough.... If you do then bid a semiforcing 1nt. Partner will pass with a minimum and the opp will bid some hearts I suppose. They have 9 hearts.

1♠ - 2♠ by a passed hand does NOT show 8 - 11 support points for anyone I know. It's simply 6 - 9. Since 1♠ - 1NT can be passed now, it denies a fit.

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2) your example two is an easy one club opener, if you open lite, 2 quick tricks and an easy rebid.

That is for each partnership to decide. You can change it to AJTxxx if you like. If you still open that, I give up.

1) Gerben if you open lite then 12-13 becomes an invite hand...not ten or 11.
2) if you change the hand as you do then i can bid a natural 2clubs.......that is the whole point. Partner will play me very often for some weak two bid in the bid minor.
3) As I said a few days ok if you open sound in first or second seat, drury is great. Heck we could have a slam with my passed sound hands in first seat.
4) none of this means fit jumps or nonfit jumps or whatever are bad, I just do not know them....

[ceblair]

I think most people open light too often, and that Drury encourages them
in doing so.

[Zelandakh]

The only issue I have with Drury is that it is inefficient. It seems far more useful to use 1M - 2♣ for a variety of hands, only one of which is a [3-card] limit raise. There are several such methods to choose from. Many of these methods even partially hide one of the drawbacks of Drury (easy double) by making the bid natural a large portion of the time.

So why use Drury, when you can play Drury+? (no I don't really need an answer )

[Gerben42]

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I think most people open light too often, and that Drury encourages them
in doing so.

You make that sound like a bad thing. It's a tactical concept.

[calabres]

I think DRURY conventios is very usefull as many others, if well agreed.
Is a strong tool po play a Partial Score, to bid a Game and sometimes a Slam.

I use Drury with 3 and 4 cards, and I have obtained amazing results with the Convention.

My DRURY:

2♣ = 4+ cards 8/11

2♦ by ptn asks strenght: 2♥ = 8/9 and 2♠ = 10/11

2♦ = 3 cards 10/11

After Knowing strenght and nº of support cards, its very easy to make decisions.

[mike777]

calabres, on Nov 14 2007, 09:09 AM, said:

I think DRURY conventios is very usefull as many others, if well agreed.
Is a strong tool po play a Partial Score, to bid a Game and sometimes a Slam.

I use Drury with 3 and 4 cards, and I have obtained amazing results with the Convention.

My DRURY:

2♣ = 4+ cards 8/11

2♦ by ptn asks strenght: 2♥ = 8/9 and 2♠ = 10/11

2♦ = 3 cards 10/11

After Knowing strenght and nº of support cards, its very easy to make decisions.

Why do your opp allow you to play at the two level in a 9 card fit. No wonder you get amazing results.

If you are being forced to the 3 level then why not use your two level minor bids as natural?

[skjaeran]

One reason I like Drury (2-way) is that I frequently open 4cM in 3rd and 4th seat. 2-way Drury is then a good tool to evaluate the fit (number of trumps) and strength at the same time.