bidders have discretion with all semi-balanced hands, its not mandatory

and opener can reject a major transfer with 2N to say slow down, i might have a weird shape

Lol that's really terrible man

yeah definitely dont play that.

it never comes up


probably better for imps than mp, but its a hardy-sanctioned method

Hardy never drops in 2M?

It's atrocious at all forms of scoring

he says

'when opener bids 2nt in response to jacoby or stayman he shows an unexpected hand for 1nt opening bid (6-3-2-2 or 7-3-2-2). Opener should take this action only when he feels it is important to play in NT or his opening suit rather than in a major suit responder may suggest. Responder may escape to opener's minor suit by bidding 3c and opener will pass or correct do diamonds."


So he doesn't provide a ton of guidance on exactly what situations he feels are appropriate. He also advocates only opening 1NT with those shapes with some stopping power in the short suits, otherwise he prefers opening the long minor.




Perhaps he would bid 2N over a H transfer with a hand like the below.

Ax xx KQx AQxxxx

The Hardy book is like 20+ years old?

It's good you are reading and the Hardy book was I'm sure revolutionary at the time, but it's kind of like playing online poker after reading a 20+ year old book, you would be destroyed.

IMO you should listen to this thread and stop playing that. Opening 1N with the hand you suggested is fine to me but if you are going to not take the transfer then that would be a disaster. You have a known 7+ card fit, and partner is 0+. If partner is weak I would much rather play 2H than 2N. If partner is not weak they will bid again.

While your point has merit, I would suggest that poker has does a much better job publishing and validating game-theory innovations than the bridge world. That Hardy's books remain so popular even now is in some ways a galling reminder.

It's often very difficult for a non-expert to know which books on bidding systems provide good value or really much of any value at all. Most bidding books don't have full system notes or spend enough time on competitive auctions.

I would welcome suggestions on good 2/1 system books in the last 5 years. I strongly suspect that one reason I don't own more of them is that most of them aren't very good.


Edit: Any interest in publishing your own book?

MP - NV, ops silent

AKQT96
Q983
A
K6

Having made the questionable choice of opening this hand 1S instead of 2C. What do you bid after forcing NT?

fun hand same tourney - got the 100%

Auction goes
P - (P) ; 1C (P)
1N - (P) ; P (X)
2D - (X) ; 2H (P)
P - X

2H and 2D are both cold

with

8752(spades) AK94 Q4 K73

opposite

K93 (spades) Q76 JT832 86

8752 AK94 Q4 K73

Yeah most def. I think you are doing it the right way, reading the books but also posting on forums and asking questions.

I don't know of any good 2/1 books that have been published recently, but I do know that Larry Cohen was in the process of writing one (no idea if he abandoned that or not). I would assume that would be very good.

On his website he has a series of artcles on 2/1 and LC standard: http://www.larryco.com/BridgeArticles/

Fred Gitelman wrote a series on 2/1 that I found very good when I read them but I think even those are very old lol. Just because it's Fred I'm gonna assume they are still good!

http://www.bridgeguys.com/pdf/GitelmanImprove21.pdf
https://bbi.bridgebase.com/articles/fg/2over12.html

In googling the Fred articles I found this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Lm2...02%2F1&f=false

which references Fred's articles. Apparently it was written in 2010 by some guy I've never heard of. No idea if it is good or not.

As far as writing my own book, no real interest. It seems very time consuming and would make me almost no money, so I guess the only reason would be to enhance my name value or for personal satisfaction, but I prefer to try and use that time to improve my bridge game (or let's face it, to be lazy lol).

I realize in my original comment I came off as disparaging to old books on bidding, I guess really what I meant is they are still useful but they are going to have some stuff that is out of date in modern times so take them with a grain of salt. Continue to do what you are doing, reading books but also asking questions to see what still applies and what doesn't.

Master Solvers Club in The Bridge World is one of the best resources for bidding imo. Might want to look into that, best bridge magazine hands down.

I like the 1S opener and now I would bid 3H.

This isn't remotely close to a 2C opener.

You can't really go wrong listening to the guy who said bid 3H.

+1

It's close... if you make it:


AKQxxx
AKQx
xx
x

thats not a 2C opener either

Also lol'd hard at the rice/pinata idea just fyi

Me too.

This is not a hard auction.

P (P) – 1H (P)
2H (P) – P (?)

Third seat opener with a minimum-ish balanced hand should be happy to have such a good heart suit to open. (He will pass any response except a drury call.)

If bad guys compete to 3C, north can offer a 3D alternative if he chooses. Over 3C I probably would.

[Note that the semicolon is for the end of each round (but is unnecessary where the auction is written on multiple lines, as I put here, but in a paragrpah you would write, e.g., P (P) – 1H (P); 2H (P) – P (?). The dash is for the middle of each round. Parentheses set off bad guys' calls; hyphens there are unhelpful.]

And rebidding 2NT over a transfer after having decided to open 1NT slightly offshape may not be the worst treatment ever, but it's up for consideration.

Anyone have some good recommended methods for bidding after

1N (3m)



The hand prompting this query went:

Imps Vul all

(P) 1N - (3C) 3D
(P) 3H - (P) 4H


KT52
AK73
KQ9
42

QJ98
T95
AJ7654
-

We survived the moysian fit but would like to get to a better contract next time.

In this auction you have an extremely easy 3S bid after 3H. Partner should (close to) never raise to 4S with less than 4S, he should either rebid hearts with 5H (if opening 1NT with 5H is possible in your system), bid 3NT with a a stopper of give preference to 4D with nothing good to report.

This seems like a decent spot to play negative doubles. It has some disadvantages, of course, (1NT opener will be practically forced to reopen with a dbl with a doubleton in the overcalled suit in a spot where responder has nothing), but they don't outweigh the flexibility you win in this spot.

Besides that, I think you need to have bids for two suited hands (5/5), especially if the jump overcall is a minor.

1NT-(3C):
4C=Diamonds + a major
4D=both majors

1NT-(3D):
4C = Clubs and a major
4D = Majors

When you face a 3m premptive bid you must be aware (ask opponents) that most of the time opponents do not have a way to show clubs or diamons at 2-level, making their range for 3m wider (and you should double them quicker).

Most opponents will have a way to show a single major at the 2-level, which makes their 3M jump overcall much more "pure" and you will be better off with negative doubles.

Negative doubles at the the three level is quite common, and a good treatment.

Gabe's proposed two-suiter bids after 3m look like a good addition. Or you can play the 4C cuebid as stayman, which works well on the actual hand but is risky.

Re the need to penalize in the minors more often: Sure, but you still get there with negative doubles. Responder doesn't make one without values because opener will rarely convert, so opener can leave a double in with an appropriate hand; you'll miss some opportunities, sure, but you miss some playing penalty doubles, too.

Oh, in case it wasn't clear: Natural non-jumps on that auction need to to be NF, or you just get hammered. Yes, you are forced to guess on game-invitational hands, but that's life.

Note that this means opps can take advantage by bidding at the three level often (remember that next your RHO opens 1NT...), but the payoff is the penalties you get, meaning that, with or without negative doubles, you do have to leave doubles in some of the time if you're playing optimally.

On the actual hand, with no agreements, I would bid 4C. And I'd do that even playing negative doubles; I don't want a double left in almost regardless opener's hand. We probably have a major suit game, and if not, 4D will pay fine. Notice that I am absolutely fine with the idea of playing 4H opposite four of them.

Note also that in practice the opps were incredibly timid, which allows us to get both majors in; my experience is that decent opps with eleven-card fits don't subside at the three level.