Julian Pottage
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I find Precision Club rather easier to play against than the Polish club favoured in Poland and nearby places.
Generally speaking it is fine to have kibitzers but you do not want them talking top players unless one of the kibitzers is someone you are trying to learn from. Most tables will get very few kibitzers anyway.
The recommended start is 1H-2D-2S-3H-3S; I have added the 3S cue bid you mention to what I said early. East bids 4NT and, holding the HQ himself, he does not need to ask about it. When West shows 4 key cards in response to a 4NT enquiry, East can count 14 tricks – 5 hearts, 7 diamonds and the black aces. East can therefore bid 7NT with confidence.
Since West has no club control, it is is always likely to be East asking for key cards rather than West. It is nearly always better for the player who has lots of tricks but not so many top cards to be the one to do the asking.
If you go to ‘Account’ and then ‘Convention Cards’ you can either use one of the default cards or create one of your own by selecting the option the says ‘Title Partner’
Sorry do not know what the numbers are starts mean – the more numbers and stars the better the player is likely to be but I do not know the precise meaning – contact one of the Yellows if you want to know
I am not familiar with the MP version of Precision Club but I have played Precision myself and I have C C Wei’s original book on the system. In the early 1980s a lot of pairs played Precision but then the system fell out of fashion.
Both East and West made unneccesary jump bids. A simple reverse of 2S is forcing, indeed game forcing after the two-level-response. I play the jump to 3S as a splinter, so it would be unthinkable to rebid 3S on the West hand. When you have a good hand, you want to keep the bidding low to leave space to establish the best denomination and perhaps leave space to suggests a slam without going beyond game. If West had rebid 2S, East could have bid 3H to establish hearts as trumps and later checked on key cards.
With the semi solid seven-card diamond suit East might have started with a strong jump shift of 3D, although the 2D response should have worked out OK. Once West jumped to 3S, however, there was no reason to jump. East could not bid 4H because that was likely to end the auction but 4D would be a reasonable shot.
Traditionally a double of a 4S is more penalties than takeout (it is easier to take 4 tricks than 11). Partner can take out to a contract that he thinks he can make (or to 4NT if he has a shapely two suited hand).
Some modern experts play the double as showing shortage in spades, so partner will remove the double more often, though of course it is still hard work to make 11 tricks.
You should most definitely have bid 4S. Your partner was happy to hear 3S from you even if you held only four spades, so with 6-card suit you should be very happy to bid 4S. It is likely your side has a 10-card fit, so you should contract for 10 tricks. Partner will sometimes have only three spades but he will generally have a better hand to compensate. If you had not been vulnerable, I would have said you should have made a 2S weak jump overcall on the first round.
Please can you be more specific about what you are trying to do? When you log in, you can log in as invisible if you wish. If you are setting up a table, a match or a tournament, you can specify whether kibitzers are allowed. If you are setting up a table, you can specify whether players can simply join or whether they need the host’s permission.
If you want to know whether it is legal to play transfers after an opponent has doubled a 1NT opening, you need to ask David Stevenson about that. If you already know the answer to that and wish to know whether it is advisable, I am happy to answer.
You have partly answered your own question. The most important thing is that you and your partner agree on whether transfers still apply. The main reason why you might wish to play differently is that if partner opens 1NT and nobody doubles, you are usually happy to let 1NT play if you have a five-card minor. If, however, someone doubles, you might have weak hand with a five-card minor and prefer to play in that rather let partner struggle in 1NT doubled. Continuing to play transfers (and Stayman) after an opponent doubles has the merit of simplicity but will make it difficult to play in 2C or 2D. The default position is that 2C, 2D, 2H and 2S are all natural after the double – but many pairs play sort of rescue, including as someone has suggested redouble asking partner to bid 2C.
This is a difficult question and there is no easy answer. If you do not want partner to return the suit, you want to lead the second highest. For example if you have A-Q-J–x in some other suit, you will want partner to switch to that other suit. If you have a five-card suit headed by the ten plus a couple of entries and the opponents are in NT, you probably do want the suit and you should lead fourth highest. If you are opponents are in NT and you are playing Smith Peters, leading fourth highest becomes more attractive because you can signal later whether you like the suit.
Just because the EBU card lists Hxxx and 10xxx separately, I do not think you can infer a ten is not an honour. It seems to me that the card designers recognise that some people treat a 10 differently to a higher honour and so have provided space to do so. You really need to be asking David Stevenson on matters about the system card.
With one of my regular partners, the card says to lead fourth highest and with another it says to lead second highest. I would suggest you go with what Bernard recommends.
Mike Lawrence wrote extensively about overcalls in general and overcalls on 4-card suits in particular. For an overcall on a 4-card suit to stand a good chance of working, the suit needs to be chunky and you need to have opening values. It is also likely you have length in the suit opened (otherwise you would be making a takeout double). With the hand you quote, either you overcall 1S or you pass first first time with the intention of doubling on the next round if LHO bids 1H and RHO raises to 2H. Because the suit is good and the opponents might not bid and raise hearts (or might jump the bidding if they do), I would rather get in first and overcall 1S.
I am having difficulty interpreting what you say about your partner’s shape. If he had a doubleton diamond and was 4-4-3 in the other three suits, he should have made a takeout double. If his doubleton was not in the suit opened, particularly if it was in spades, a takeout double would not be right but a 1NT overcall might well be.
Notwithstanding that partner should have bid differently, you should indeed have removed the double because the bidding was still low and you had a void. Partner has only promised a 5-card suit, which means the opponents would have several more trumps than your side has. I realise that a retreat to 2C means raising the level but it is quite likely your side has 5 hearts and 8 clubs, which makes it well worth raising the level. You have not given your precise shape but perhaps if you had four spades and certainly if you had five spades, an SOS redouble would be better than bidding 2C.
Someone has suggested that partner should have removed the double himself but he did not know that the double was going to be left in at that point.
