[mikl_plkcc]

Douglas43, on 2025-April-27, 02:46, said:

Re the earlier comment about which 4 card suit to open in Acol with a 4-4-3-2 that is outside your no-trump range, I would suggest don't over-think it. I tend to look at suit quality and ease of making a rebid, so quite often bid 1m-response-1NT. My regular partner is keener to get the major in. Both seem to work OK.

The only exception is 4-4 majors and 15+ hcp, when you open 1H.

We have to have exact rules on which suit to bid in order to have infererences because the other suits are not bid, such that we can work out the exact number of cards in each suit when trying to find a fit, and in competitive auctions.

For example, in a 5-card major system, if 1♣-1♦-1NT does not deny a 4-card major, responder must use checkback Stayman whenever holding a 4-card major to avoid losing a fit, similar to a 1NT opening; if 1♣-1♦-1NT denies a 4-card major, responder can raise direct to 3NT holding 13 HCP 2=4=5=2 and a ♠ stopper without the need to disclose the ♥ holding.

[shyams]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-April-28, 08:50, said:

... if 1♣-1♦-1NT denies a 4-card major, responder can raise direct to 3NT holding 13 HCP 2=4=5=2 and a ♠ stopper without the need to disclose the ♥ holding.

What, according to your exact rules, is responder supposed to do with 13 HCP 2=4=5=2 but missing a ♠ stopper?

[mike777]

Interestingly the first 4 months of ACBL F2F bridge attendance is about the same as 2024.

However the Gatlinburg regional, by far the the year's largest, was down almost 30%. KO teams attendance was the only event with an increase in tables.

Virtual club online attendance was decimated.

[mikl_plkcc]

 shyams, on 2025-April-28, 09:30, said:

What, according to your exact rules, is responder supposed to do with 13 HCP 2=4=5=2 but missing a ♠ stopper?

I will first reverse to 2♥, if partner has a ♠ stopper he can rebid NT, but if not we will have to stay out of game.

[akwoo]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-April-28, 16:28, said:

I will first reverse to 2♥, if partner has a ♠ stopper he can rebid NT, but if not we will have to stay out of game.

Long experience of many bridge players has shown that staying out of game on these hands is losing bridge.

Sometimes the spades will be 4-4 and you will still get 9 tricks.

Sometimes your spades are Qx opposite Jxx and that will add up to a stopper.

Sometimes your opponents won't lead spades, especially at matchpoints, where leading away from KJxx could be a disaster.

If your 3N bid doesn't promise a stopper, sometimes opponents will now lead spades to your AQxx (when they wouldn't have if it promised a stopper), giving you a trick (or at least a tempo) you wouldn't have otherwise gotten.

All this adds up to gaining more often than it loses. Sure you go down sometimes, but you will lose even more from missing games that would turn out to have made (even if they wouldn't make if opponents knew where all the cards were).

Bridge is not a game of figuring out as much as possible, then doing the right thing based on the known information.

Instead, bridge is a game of managing known unknowns, doing what is the probabilistically overall more likely to gain thing given you don't know everything. The right action isn't the one that works all the time - it's the one that wins 10 IMPs 45% of the time and loses 6 IMPs 55% of the time. (Or, if you're behind by 8 IMPs going into the last board, it's the action that wins 10 IMPs 5% of the time and loses 6 IMPs 95% of the time.)

There are definitely parts of bidding systems I play that are designed to keep opponents in the dark, even though it keeps partner in the dark at the same time, because opponents would be able to use the information better than partner.

[mikl_plkcc]

We played again tonight, this time in matchpoints, and kept doing silly things.

On a board, partner thought that my 3♣ overcall to a 1NT opening was a transfer to ♦, and ended up in a wrong contract.

On another board, I tried to finesse against the trump K to make the contract, but there were no entries left. I tried to lose my lead but the opponents refused to lead a trump back and kept playing into my hand until I only had trumps left, then I lost count and allowed the opponents an extra ruff! I got down 2 instead of down 1 at the other tables (all tables were in the same contract), which was fatal at matchpoints.

On a defence hand in a suit contract, the declarer was on my right, I got the ♦A and the ♦K and Q were not known, so I refused to play the suit. The declarer ended up discarding the final ♦ loser to the dummy and we never won the trick, where the ♦K was in my partner's hand (there were no hint from the bidding about that).