[straube]

Really nice. Thank you. It never occurred to me to describe opener's 5431s. I guess if you have a min 6S/5H hand partner passes in a 6-2 fit and you're golden and if he corrects you rebid the hearts. After 1S-2D, 2N-3H would be useful as 3 hearts in case opener has 6/4 or 5/5. 1S-2D, 2N-3S would be 2S denying 3 hearts? 1S-2D, 2N-4m splinters and 1S-2D, 2N-4H to play.

[straube]

It looks like you put your 5S440s through three starts. One would be 3C (grouped with 5422 and 7411), the other through 2H (showing diamonds) and the last through 2C (including clubs).

The grouping of the 7411 with 5422 in this instance makes me wonder if you've adopted this for (for example) your semipositives. It used to be that you grouped them with the high short.

I know the knock on grouping 7411 with 5422 (as was done in the first standard symmetrics) is that the 7411 is so much more infrequent, but a counter-argument is that 3C as full resolution of a 5422 is very low. I think standard symmetric resolved...

3C-even short
.....3D-asks
..........3H-7411
..........etc-5422s

since this affords more space for the 5422s, but then you have the problem of the relay captain wanting to find full shape but not wanting to give permission for the 5422s to pass 3N. I've been thinking...

3C-even short
.....3D-asks
..........3H-5422, 4-6 QPs
..........3S-5422, 2-3 QPs
..........3N-7411

or something like that. For positives (reverse relay for example) when pattern is shown at +1 and the "even short" resolves at 3D. Now I guess....

3D-even short
.....3H-asks
..........3S-11+ QPs
..........3N-9-10 QPs
..........etc-7411s

What do you think?

[shevek]

Kungsgeten, on 2017-September-12, 10:44, said:

In our current relay methods we play key card asking bids (and 4D as an end signal) after shape is resolved. We've previously played "control ask" (asking for aces and kings), followed by DCB, but gave that up because we weren't comfortable with it (the auctions took a lot of time, we would have to count on our fingers to see which steps should be skipped, etc).

- Simply "man up" and practice DCB style bidding until we're comfortable with it.

What's your experience playing QP asks? Is it often that slam is out of the picture after a response? If not playing DCB, the idea of QP ask would be to limit the hand further. We currently play relays after our 1M openings (5+M, 11-16) and our 1D opening (4+D unbalanced, 11-19), what QP ranges would you recommend for these?

In our opinion, QP ask and DCB are nearly essential after a strong club and unlimited positive. Otherwise, relayer is often guessing about combined strength. No point in going to the trouble of getting pattern & strength, then giving up on locating honours.
We play 16+ 1♣. QPs start at 5, kontrols at 2. Occasionally responder will give a positive with 4 QPs. We don't cater for that.
We zoom a bit but it's complicated and maybe not worth it.

Playing symmetric, 95%+ hands come out by 3♥. QP ask, then DCB has worked well for us.
Our rules (not standard)
- Stopping shows 0, or 2 with the ace (so 0 or 4+ QPs)
- Switch to +ve cueing with singletons (Ignore stiff queens, count stiff K as 1 QP)
- 2nd pass locates lower honours, so KJ, KQ, QJ. (But not AJ, so relayer won't confuse that with KQ)
- If 0/2 shown, 2nd pass confirms 0 (unless can't be the case) then stop shows 2 only, next step = 3 (AKJ, AKQ, AQJ)
- etc
The 4D mild slam try has been good too (see earlier post)

Our 11-15 openings start QPs at 6. Range is 6-10, since AAAK opens 1♣.
With your 11-19 1♦, suggest you start at 7.

[Zelandakh]

shevek, on 2017-October-25, 00:51, said:

In our opinion, QP ask and DCB are nearly essential after a strong club and unlimited positive.

Clearly this is not the case as straube's PCB examples prove. There are also plenty of successful systems using CPs rather than QPs - in this case an extra step is usually used after shape resolution to show strength (1st step = min; zoom with extras).

[Kungsgeten]

We've chosen to change our relays after 1M-2C a bit (allows for showing more shapes, but still no separation of min/max), and use 1D-1NT (which may be balanced invitational without a major) as the relay instead of 1D-2C, but after the diamond opening we can show min/extras early since it is more wide ranging. We'll keep the RKC bidding for now, but have discussed changing it to ORKC instead, to cater for slam invites. I think its pretty standard stuff, except perhaps how we show single-suiters:

1M-2C;
2D = Clubs or 5332 or 5440
2H = Diamonds
2S = 6+M
2NT = At least 5-5 majors.
3C+ = 4 card major.

1M-2C; 2S-2NT;
3C = 7+ major, no void. Relay for shortness (no/low/mid/high).
3D = 6322.
3H = 6331, low short.
3S = 6331, mid short.
3NT = 6331, high short.
4C/D/H = 7+ major, void up the line.

1D-1NT;
2C = Two-suited minimum (about 11-15). Not canapé. Responder can invite with 2NT.
2D = 6+D (11-19) or 5C and 4D (11-16). Responder can invite with 2NT (F1).
2H = 4+ clubs, extras. Not canapé (well, may be 6C-5D).
2S = 4 hearts, extras. We open 1M with 6D-5M.
2NT = Three-suited, extras. Not canapé.
3C+ = 4 spades, extras.

1D-1NT; 2D-2H;
2S = 6+D minimum.
2NT = 5C and 4D. We're one step higher here, but can't be 6-4...
..3C = R.
....3D = High short.
....3H = 5422.
....3S = 5431 low short.
....3NT = 5440 low short.
3C+ = 6+D extras.

[Zelandakh]

A couple of observations. Firstly I am a firm believer in showing shortages from high to low rather than the other way round, as it means the most expensive step will contain one or both major fragments. I notice that you already do this in your 1♦ auction so I think you should carry that over to your 1M structure for consistency. Secondly, you presumably open 1♠ with 5-5 majors so your 2NT rebid in the 1♥ opening is presumably 6-5 in reality. This part could therefore probably be improved upon.

[Kungsgeten]

Zelandakh, on 2017-October-25, 08:37, said:

A couple of observations. Firstly I am a firm believer in showing shortages from high to low rather than the other way round, as it means the most expensive step will contain one or both major fragments. I notice that you already do this in your 1♦ auction so I think you should carry that over to your 1M structure for consistency. Secondly, you presumably open 1♠ with 5-5 majors so your 2NT rebid in the 1♥ opening is presumably 6-5 in reality. This part could therefore probably be improved upon.

We use the symmetric relay principle "length from low to hi, shortness hi to low" in all relay auctions, except when showing single-suiters. In the rest of the system, where we can ask for shortness, we use none/low/mid/high (the reason being that's what we're used to). The reason for using none/low/mid/high when showing single-suiters, is that it mimics our Jacoby/Stenbergs structure, which make the memory load somewhat easier. Any time 2NT is used as a major suit raise, we play the following:

1M-2NT;
3C = Minimum, no void.
3D = Extras, no shortness.
3H = Extras, short club.
3S = Extras, short diamonds.
3NT = Extras, short other major.
4C+ = Void up the line.

This structure is very popular in Sweden (I would say standard), and while there's probably better structures we haven't bothered changing it.

The part about 5-5 majors is absolutely true. It's probably a waste making 2NT show 6-5 majors, but I think we'll use that anyway to make things simple, then 3D = 5-6-0-2, 3H = 5-6-1-1, 3S = 5-6-2-0. Otherwise I actually think nullve's idea of opening 1H with 5-5 majors and max is interesting, but we don't do that.