David Stevenson
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
One thing that is important is to distinguish what is permitted by the rules of the EBU and what is sensible. In fact I deal with the former and Julian Pottage deals with the latter.
There has been a growing problem in the United Kingdom of people opening 2C and calling it strong and opponents missing game and are surprised how weak it is! So they have tried a few rules, but the current one is this:
If you open a two level “strong” bid you must have:
A At least sixteen points, or
B At least twelve points and at least five controls, where an ace is two controls and a king is one control.
That does not mean you should start opening 2C on any hand that satisfies those requirements, just that if you satisfy those requirements you can call it strong.
The hand you quoted is interesting because it has 18 points, so it is legal to open it 2C and call it strong. It also has 8 playing tricks. If I was playing Benjamin I would open it 2C, but if playing three weak twos, I would open it 1S. But as to the most sensible approach I woud ask Julian.
It is not possible for system cards to show much detail apart from initial actions. The main effect of fully completed system cards is that you are expected to complete each section.
Incidentally if ever you want me to look at a full hand which you have played on BBO you go to your History, find the hand, click on the top right hand corner (three parallel lines) and one of the choices is Export. Click on that and one of the choices is Handviewer link. Click on that and you will get a URL (web address). Copy that and if you include it here everyone can see the full hand including bidding and play.
You seem to have already asked this. I replied:
Certainly. You concede by using the Claim button and claim no tricks, but after you have made any claim there is a button on the claim marked Cancel, so you press it.
Certainly. You concede by using the Claim button and claim no tricks, but after you have made any claim there is a button on the claim marked Cancel, so you press it.
Having seen the hand I notice that the pair are Indian so they might be playing a system more common in India.
I have known people who play a Strong Diamond system, similar to a Strong Club and it is possible it was one of those. However it was one point light to be a legitimate Strong Diamond opening. Whatever it was it required an alert and explanation, unless it was a purely natural bid but a misclick, so he meant to open 1S. However his partner’s bidding would then be strange as well!
System cards generally only show initial actions. I would not expect any reference to later doubles to appear anywhere on a system card.
—-
All takeout doubles can be passed by partner if he has a suitable hand. That does not require an alert or explanation.
The system of alerting doubles in England and Wales is very simple: if you double a natural suit bid of 3S or below, such as 2D in the above sequence, then either that double is for takeout or it is alertable. So that double, being for penalties, is alertable. Thus on BBO the doubler taps Alert and writes Penalties (or just ‘pens’ will do!) in the Explain box. For some reason, despite the simplicity of the rule, more people get alerts of doubles wrong than any other alerting. In live bridge the partner of the doubler would alert, only saying penalties if asked.
A lot of pairs play this sequence as takeout. Such players do not need to alert nor write anything in the Explain box since an unalerted double is for takeout. Of course it would not hurt to write takeout (or t/o) in the Explain box.
If you want to be careful you should say in private chat to East “What are your discards please?”. In practice most people just say via table chat “Discards?”
This is the same as live bridge insofar as you have the right to know their system, not the meaning of the actual card. For example, if they play “High to encourage, low to discourage”, which is often called standard attitude or HELD, they do not have to tell you whether a six is high or low: that is for you to decide.
Of course if the answer is not helpful, for example they say Lavinthal and you do not know what Lavinthal is you can ask further. For those of you who are interested Lavinthal is a system of discards invented by an American, Hy Lavinthal, whereby a high card asks for the higher other suit, and a low card asks for the lower other suit. In the British Isles it is often called McKenney after another American who publicised the method. For some reason McKenney is often misspelt.
One of the problems that I run into quite frequently is the fact that different people play agreements in different ways. When players are taught bridge they learn to bid in a specific way and teachers rarely stress that the method they teach is not the only way. It is true that traditional Acol Twos are forcing but it is perfectly legitimate to play non-forcing strong twos. Whether that is a good idea or not is more the sort of query to ask Julian Pottage.
In live Bridge all opening two bids are announced, or alerted if they are artificial. If an opening two bid is strong but can be passed then it should be announced as “strong, not forcing”. Similarly if playing on BBO before opening such a two bid the player should write strong, not forcing in the explain box.
Are you sure? The Multi is common throughout the world as an artificial 2D opening, and more rarely an artificial 2C opening, but 2H and 2S as a Multi I have not heard of.
The WBF/EBL rules for what is permitted, which is what is used in Scotland, have very little restriction on natural bids so a natural two of a major that is either weak or strong is legal. I would have thought it was unplayable and would have serious doubts as to whether they were really playing this, but if they are, then it is legal.
On BBO (note some other platforms may be different) the explaining is all done by the person who made the call. If they have not provided an explanation you click on the call and they explain it. Explanations done before the call and in response to a query are seen by the two opponents, not by the partner. If they have made an explanation and it is insufficient then clicking on the call asks them to explain further.
Of course sometimes the explanation is not clear enough and you need to ask a specific question. In that case you click on the person’s name and that opens private that to him. Hopefully he will answer using private chat.
