[mycroft]

I like to think that we can play a good, safe, enjoyable game at the club without "protecting" against "interesting" behaviour at the level you would expect required at a national championships or at the Cavendish. Of course, some of the "interesting" behaviour I want to protect my club players from is considered "normal sportsmanship" at national championships or the Cavendish, so there's that.

I also like to think that the ones who take advantage of that "enjoyable" game in the ways pescetom is talking about (and it's nowhere near only the "not new to trick-taking games, just to Bridge" people, I remain pleased that one person in particular has moved halfway across the continent(*) and I don't have to play or direct against(**) him). I do know that the new crop of local directors have picked up on the Usual Suspects quite quickly, and since they don't have 30 years of history, can "I can't say for others, but we expect better treatment of other players in my game" without being proved wrong yet. Because I hear the director "gossip", I know that these kinds of suspicions/frustrations are being communicated.

(*) Okay, I have too, at least during the winters. But in a different direction :-).
(**) phrasing, in this case, quite deliberate.

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2024-January-02, 15:24, said:

I do know that the new crop of local directors have picked up on the Usual Suspects quite quickly, and since they don't have 30 years of history, can "I can't say for others, but we expect better treatment of other players in my game" without being proved wrong yet. Because I hear the director "gossip", I know that these kinds of suspicions/frustrations are being communicated.

Exactly so: the alibis for a new TD evaporate in a lot less than 30 years, even 3 is a long time.

[mycroft]

Ah, I may have confused. The "30 years of local history" is that they can't say "this is not acceptable in my game" because it has been a fight for decades and nothing happened, in the way that the new directors can pretend to not know that they've been doing this for decades.

Other ways this can work is "orders from on high" whether that be club committee or national guidance. But if something's been tolerated forever at "this level", it's very hard for long term director to change it to "this level" without some reason (yes, even if it's "I'm getting a bunch of complaints about it, so I'm tightening it up. I used to let it slide unless it caused a problem, now I'm going to nail you for it even if it isn't a problem on this hand" Much easier if it's "the club committee has recieved a bunch of complaints about this...").

[TylerE]

Appropos of nothing, when I played quite a bit of 10-12NT, I had much, much better results playing strong NT style responses than 2 way stayman and natural 2M, both of which were big losers in my experience.

[Gilithin]

TylerE, on 2024-January-03, 14:02, said:

Appropos of nothing, when I played quite a bit of 10-12NT, I had much, much better results playing strong NT style responses than 2 way stayman and natural 2M, both of which were big losers in my experience.

Did you try this one?

[TylerE]

No, I could never have gotten any of my partners to go for something that complex. It was sort of one of those deals where you had the 3 or 4 people locally who liked 'fun stuff' and created a very low memory load hyper-aggressive system (Basically a slightly tweaked EHAA, but with local expert standard for the minor and major raises (modulo being a 4 card major system), strong NT style responses, and that sort of stuff. Certainly maximized for stories, but often the results were quite good too, and any random pairing of us could set out with no more than 30 seconds of discussion. Just hammering out NT defenses and carding.

The hilarious thing was we would often catch heat from some of the stodgier pairs for playing all that "weird" stuff, then they'd get really made when we pointed out that they made far more artificial bids than we did. Every opening AND response promised at least 4 cards, and so did 95% of the second round bids - with 5=3(23) opener could simply rebid spades rather than bid a quasi-natural 2c. Reverses were never faked off distribution, there was no need to.

[Gilithin]

OK, next follow-up question. As you dislike 2 way Stayman, does that mean you also prefer transfers to 2-way Checkback after a 1NT rebid?

[TylerE]

Nope, because the information exchange position is very different. We already know if responder has a major or not, for a start. Thus on those auctions you are much more insured against aggressive opponent interference, which is my beef with 2 way stayman. 1NT - p - 2D - (4S) - ??? Aren't you hating life right now, especially vuln vs not where +500 might be no salve?

[jillybean]

Gilithin, on 2024-January-03, 14:22, said:

Did you try this one?

The font is unreadable for me. I could go through and decode the suit symbols but it seems like a lot of work.

[jillybean]

TylerE, on 2024-January-03, 14:02, said:

Appropos of nothing, when I played quite a bit of 10-12NT, I had much, much better results playing strong NT style responses than 2 way stayman and natural 2M, both of which were big losers in my experience.

I'm happy playing 2 way stayman and nf 2M in our 12-14nt. I would have thought it was more important to have this structure with 10-12nt

[TylerE]

They're ok if you only play against terrible opponents. In a decent matchpoint you'll get eaten alive for either missing games or being in the wrong part score (or even just from the wrong side.

[DavidKok]

I play the 2way Stayman over 10-13 or 9-12, but regular Stayman and Jacoby over 14-16 and 15-17. Personally I think the second set is better always, but this is local standard (and also played by Team Oranje) so it's unlikely to change.

As far as I understand, the argument for two-way Stayman over a kamikaze NT is fivefold:

• The four point range means we have more invitational hands, so having a structure dedicated to inviting is useful.
  
• The direct 2M 'to play' is supposed to confer a competitive benefit.
  
• It is much less common that we have a slam-going hand or want partner to declare our 4M games, so with a six card suit and enough points and/or shape we can just blast 4M. This means that a bunch of sequences after a Jacoby transfer are underutilised.
  
• It is standard to use 1NT-3X as an offer to play facing kamikaze, as the preemptive option is more frequent than slam interest (and if we only want game usually we can just blast 3NT or 4M). This frees up the 2♠ response.
  
• We can bid 2♣-then-3m to make a NF invitational bid in a minor suit at the 3-level, something that might be difficult otherwise.

I've run into people citing point 2 most often, which I ironically enough think is false. On the auction 1NT-2M (to play) both opponents are aware of the fact that we are trying to get out low, and they can prebalance or balance as normal. On the transfer auction 1NT-2red; 2M-P it isn't until the final pass that the opponents know that we have a weak hand, so it puts more pressure on the opponent sitting over the 1NT opening. On balance I think the transfer is more difficult to deal with, despite giving fourth hand two rounds to enter the auction.

The downsides I see of two-way Stayman are threefold:

• We leak a lot of information. After a 2♣ response the opponents will be able to place the high cards to within one point or so, and we are also about to share most of our distribution.
  
• Most invitational sequences after 2♣ end at the 3-level, it is not very common that we can sign off in 2NT. There are several response schemes to this and I don't know how to feel about them. In one we just respond as if the 2♣ was regular Stayman. An alternative is to have opener jump respond with a maximum, so we can drop opener in 2M or even 2♦ with a minimum if we wish.
  
• As mentioned above, it's almost never slam facing a NT this weak. Therefore the 2♦ response is almost always a start of a choice of games auction, and responder usually knows which games are in play (it's often 3NT versus one of the two 4M's). Having opener describe their hand en route when responder really only wants to hear about a specific 4cM or 3cM gives the opponents a lot of information about the hand, especially if opener ends up declaring 3NT or 4M.

All things considered I don't like the two-way Stayman. I think there is room to do better with regular Stayman and Jacoby (and even better with other schemes). Keeping in mind that it's almost never slam I would like to have more low-information choice of game tools and cheaper ways to invite at or below 2M, while keeping a suite of natural preemptive bids.

[mikeh]

TylerE, on 2024-January-04, 00:23, said:

They're ok if you only play against terrible opponents. In a decent matchpoint you'll get eaten alive for either missing games or being in the wrong part score (or even just from the wrong side.

I’ve played 10-12 and, nowadays, 10-13 in world championships. I guess I must have been lucky to only draw terrible opponents��. Not that we’ve done well at those events but our failures haven’t been due to our notrump structures, and I think we had to play pretty well to get there.

In lesser events, say regionals, we only play top bracket KOs and our record in the last 12 KOs we’ve entered has been, iirc, 6 wins, 3 seconds and three losses in the semi finals. I’m not sure why we keep finding terrible opponents in these events, lol.

Now, we play a complex response structure. I wouldn’t play a simple two way stayman structure for pretty much the points made by David.

Imo, a method in which responder is primarily describing his hand, as transfer methods do, is inefficient for slam and to some degree game auctions when responder is, by definition, often holding most of the partnership assets…and by a wide margin in slam situations. Our methods are designed to maximize the chances of responder declaring while also, on many hands, concealing responder’s hand…we use a relay based 2D method. Obviously that doesn’t mean that we can get responder declaring 3N, but we have a reasonable chance of responder declaring any non diamond suit contract without having given away any significant information.

[jillybean]

---

3 bullets, I'm disappointed to bid only 2N

[TylerE]

jillybean, on 2024-January-07, 13:53, said:

---

3 bullets, I'm disappointed to bid only 2N

Pretty much that hand is why I'm a big fan of 10-12 rather than 10-13, which I think is unworkable large, especially at MP.

I would just pass 1N with those cards, honestly. 13 is unlikely, and is no guarantee of game. I expect pard to struggle to make 7 tricks, never mind 8. I don't expect partner to have a good source of tricks.. with a strong 5 card suit, I would tend no to open 1N. Even if we have points, I just don't see us being able to get a ton of tricks before they blow us open in at least one suit. Plus, opponents just hate to pass out 1N, and I've seen them turn +90 or even -50/-100 for us into +200/300/500/800 pretty regularly.

[mikeh]

Pass. Even opposite 13 this hand is very bad. I love aces but 4333 is the worst shape and no spot cards above the 8 is discouraging

[jillybean]

I never imagined I'd see 3 A's that I didn't like.
Our system notes say "a 13 count with a 5c suit is too good to open a mini nt", I shouldn't have hesitated with the pass card.