[ASkolnick]

Don't worry, I can take the criticism and always happy to hear the alternatives. As much as people are saying it is awful to play because there is a difference between a strong balanced hand and a good single suiter, maybe I should give you the other portion.

We play transfers, so an overcall of 2C shows diamonds, 2D shows heart

1) If I have the "penalty" double, partner does not usually pull until they run, but can. 2C isn't really stayman, it more "garbage" stayman since with values he is sitting.
2) I would put money on the fact that 75% of the time, the person holds the balanced hand, not the single suiter that wants to penalize.
3) With a single suiter, I can bid and raise myself to show a strong hand if I choose not to penalty double. Yes, I lose an occasional penalty double. But with a strong hand and a single suiter, I can always break the transfer if partner runs to show a good hand.
4) You don't get to play in 2 of a minor anyway, especially if they play a value showing pass.
5) You have the advantage of playing lebensohl/(U/U) which leads to very constructive bidding since you will trap the point count as well as the shape.

So, as much as you may think this is an "awful" system, I tend to disagree.
As for the hand shown, I can get out in 3C quite easily.

[ASkolnick]

Never mind last quote. Misread post.

[kenberg]

Fred's method has its attractions to me, the downside being that it seems to require some substantial partnership discussion. For example, (1N)-X-(2H)-X-pass-?

What is expected of original doubler now? A spade bid of appropriate level when ever he has four spades? A pass whenever he lacks four spades but has four hearts (I gather that second doubler often has two or three)? Or maybe he needs some extra defense to pass?

This sort of approach, leaving some fair amount of room for judgment, sounds good to me, but it could be disaster prone, especially at imps, without knowledge by second doubler as to when first doubler is apt to leave it in.

I watch a fair amount of viewgraph but I missed the MR psych. Congratulations to him. I still like the FG method. If I ever play against Zia/Rosenberg and hold Fred's hand I will remember to bid 4S.

[jdonn]

ASkolnick, on Oct 3 2008, 08:58 AM, said:

Don't worry, I can take the criticism and always happy to hear the alternatives. As much as people are saying it is awful to play because there is a difference between a strong balanced hand and a good single suiter, maybe I should give you the other portion.

We play transfers, so an overcall of 2C shows diamonds, 2D shows heart

1) If I have the "penalty" double, partner does not usually pull until they run, but can. 2C isn't really stayman, it more "garbage" stayman since with values he is sitting.
2) I would put money on the fact that 75% of the time, the person holds the balanced hand, not the single suiter that wants to penalize.
3) With a single suiter, I can bid and raise myself to show a strong hand if I choose not to penalty double. Yes, I lose an occasional penalty double. But with a strong hand and a single suiter, I can always break the transfer if partner runs to show a good hand.
4) You don't get to play in 2 of a minor anyway, especially if they play a value showing pass.
5) You have the advantage of playing lebensohl/(U/U) which leads to very constructive bidding since you will trap the point count as well as the shape.

So, as much as you may think this is an "awful" system, I tend to disagree.
As for the hand shown, I can get out in 3C quite easily.

2) Firstly, it can be a 2 or 3 suiters, not just a single suiter. Secondly, you ignore the fact your hand isn't 15-17, it's 15+.
3) It's not just losing a penalty double. You also lose a level of bidding!
4) You do on a weak hand by bidding right away.
5) You can play this anyway.

[fred]

kenberg, on Oct 3 2008, 08:51 PM, said:

I watch a fair amount of viewgraph but I missed the MR psych. Congratulations to him. I still like the FG method. If I ever play against Zia/Rosenberg and hold Fred's hand I will remember to bid 4S.

If you like interestings psychs you might want to try to find the record of this segment.

Shortly after the Rosenberg psych (perhaps on the next board) I made a much more dramatic psych - a psychic lead-directing bid at the 6-level that allowed us to take a cheap sacrifice at the 6-level when the opponents had a laydown grand slam.

That was fun - it is hard to trick Zia

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

fred, on Oct 3 2008, 04:14 PM, said:

kenberg, on Oct 3 2008, 08:51 PM, said:

I watch a fair amount of viewgraph but I missed the MR psych. Congratulations to him. I still like the FG method. If I ever play against Zia/Rosenberg and hold Fred's hand I will remember to bid 4S.

If you like interestings psychs you might want to try to find the record of this segment.

Shortly after the Rosenberg psych (perhaps on the next board) I made a much more dramatic psych - a psychic lead-directing bid at the 6-level that allowed us to take a cheap sacrifice at the 6-level when the opponents had a laydown grand slam.

That was fun - it is hard to trick Zia

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Justin is the only one I have seen do this before. You are all a lot trickier than I am.


Unless I'm bluffing

[dburn]

If you play that after you have doubled 1NT for penalty the opponents are not allowed to play two of a minor (or two of anything) undoubled, the following scheme works pretty well - or at least it did when I played it with Brian Callaghan, whose idea (as far as I know) it was.

After (1NT) Dble (2X)

Two of a suit = "I have nothing but the long bad suit I have just bid."

2NT = "I have a long bad suit that I cannot bid at the two level, or a very distributional game force."

Three of a suit = "I have nothing but a long good suit (maybe KJxxxx or better)."

Double = "I would pass your penalty double of 2X." (Note: advancer does this with a bad balanced hand as well as with scattered values, and concedes 280 or 670 or whatever, but sometimes when aggressor* doubles 1NT and advancer* has nothing, all you can do is pick a grave in which to die).

Pass = "Either I would double 2X for penalty, or I would not pass your penalty double of 2X. In the latter case I will bid, and we will be in a game force (else I would have bid earlier)."

After advancer's and opener's passes, aggressor doubles if he would have passed advancer's penalty double and bids if he would not (2NT is defined as a strong two-suiter, or a very strong three-suiter short in Xs that does not want to double).

This isn't perfect (nothing is), but it does at least avoid collecting 350 instead of 680 or 1430 against Rosenberg, and makes the bidding of other awkward hand types somewhat easier.

*Aggressor: the first member of the non-opening side not to pass. Advancer: aggressor's partner.

[fred]

kenberg, on Oct 3 2008, 08:51 PM, said:

I watch a fair amount of viewgraph but I missed the MR psych. Congratulations to him. I still like the FG method. If I ever play against Zia/Rosenberg and hold Fred's hand I will remember to bid 4S.

Here is a record of the session, courtesy of "The Vugraph Project":

link

The psychs I am referring to happened on boards 59 (Rosenberg) and 48 (me).

I am fairly certain that board 59 was played first at our table.

Quote

You are all a lot trickier than I am.

As far as I can remember that was my only psych so far in 2008

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[dburn]

fred, on Oct 3 2008, 05:03 PM, said:

As far as I can remember that was my only psych so far in 2008

You mean you made all those other bids on purpose?

Soon after I started playing the method I have described above, the following murderous problem confronted me:

♠Q432 ♥2 ♦Q10873 ♣432

One weak no trump to the left, double, two natural hearts to the right. I could hear the sniggers of the takeout doublers as I considered whether I should double ("I would sit for your double of 2♥") or pass ("I will not pass your penalty double of 2♥, but my next bid will be forcing.")

Eventually I decided that playing purely natural methods, I would have passed and sat for 2♥ doubled, so I doubled and sat perforce when partner passed. But I wasn't any worse off than the takeout doubler in the other room - he doubled happily, thus transferring the problem to his partner, who had a 3=3=3=4 seventeen count.

We beat two hearts doubled a trick (phew); at the other table our team-mates beat three clubs a trick (three diamonds was cold, but how could they get to that when aggressor could have had a club one-suiter?) We modified things so that we weren't actually in a game force if advancer passed and then pulled - but since then, no murderous problems seemed to confront us. Maybe we were lucky.

[kenberg]

I will study David's approach (it seems to need a bit of study).
Fred's link brings up stuff in pretty raw form. I gather I have to work with it a bit. I will.

The suggestions here are just what I was hoping for. It was mentioned that on bbo the weaker the nt the better the results. This isn't surprising. It could of course be that weak no trumps are just superior. I don't want to get into that discussion. But clearly weak no trumps, when opponents have thought little about how to defend against them, are apt to be effective. Even at a Regional or National tournament in the US, there is a fair chance you can play a two session event w/o once having a weak nt opened against you. So we don't think that much about it. With the more global bbo environment, I guess it's time to think a bit.