Thursday, February 23, 2012

Support doubles

I have been playing support doubles with Elwood all along, but I've started playing them with Agent 99 as well. Looking back over this blog, I don't see them being mentioned, so a new entry seems to be in order.

Support doubles and redoubles arise in auctions that begin
1suit – (something) – 1major – (call < 2major);
That is, Advancer bids over Responder's 1major, and it is still possible for Opener to raise to 2major. The commonest situation is an auction that starts 1minor – (pass) – 1major – (something), but the convention still applies if overcaller bid something other than pass as long as the basic framework is still there. And it applies to auctions 1H – (pass or double) – 1S as well.

The idea is that in this situation, Opener's rebid of double (or redouble, if Advancer doubled) shows exactly three card support for Responder's major. Raising the major explicitly therefore shows four-card support.

I am not a fan of The Law, and usually don't worry too much about whether a raise shows three or four cards. But in this particular situation, the support double turns out to be a useful bid when Opener might not have anything else really clear-cut to say. Systemically, Opener might have been planning to rebid 1NT or 2NT with three-card support for Responder. After the intervention, no-trumps may or may not still be attractive, but the double conveys good information without raising the level, keeping everything in play, so to speak.

A question I asked Elwood was whether support doubles only applied when Responder's major might be four cards. The dubious auctions would begin 1m – (1H) – 1S, where Responder is promising 5+cards. A counter-question is, if not support, what might a double show? There are various answers, but Elwood favors ignoring the complications and retaining all the doubles and redouble as support. I'm going along with that.

Another question was whether support doubles were mandatory. Elwood's answer was no, but if you don't have a good descriptive or temporizing call available, you should go ahead and double.

So that's a quick run-down of support doubles. There are other ways to play, but I would recommend giving them a try. I was skeptical at first, but I find that they do come up and are useful. You can't ask more of a convention than that.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

postscript

No sooner do I post something than I have to amend it. There is a small system change for Agent 99 and me.

We play the weak NT (12-14 in all seats) with 4-suit transfers. Five card majors are quite acceptable, and 5-3-3-2 hands with 11-13hcp should certainly be opened 1NT if they are to be opened at all. We used to play that 2S transferred to clubs and 2NT transferred to diamonds, with acceptance. We are now playing that 2S is Baron, 2NT transfers to clubs, 3C transfers to diamonds, and 3D is Optional Stayman, looking for a 5-card or very chunky 4-card major.

We lose the acceptance on the minor-suit transfers, but gain a couple of bids in return. 2S as Baron provides a route to playing 6minor in a 4-4 or 5-4 fit. I'm not sure we're going to keep it, but it's in for now. 3D as Optional Stayman is definitely a good idea. If we are opening 1NT with a 5-card major quite frequently, as indeed we are, it makes sense to give Responder extra tools to handle the situation.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

"New" system

Since Agent 99 and myself had such a long hiatus, it was natural that when we returned to play that our bidding would change to reflect what had been happening. So here is where we are now.

We are playing 2/1 Game Force “except when suit rebid”. The way I'm interpreting that is very restricted. Sequences
1major – 2C; 2any – 3C; and
1major – 2D; 2any – 3D;
are not forcing: Responder is showing a 6+card suit, 10-11hcp.
The sequence 1D – 2C; is also not game-forcing, for reasons I commented on years ago.
All other sequences that begin with a 2/1 response are unconditionally forcing to game.

We play the 1NT response to 1major as forcing, with the method sometimes called Bart after 1S – 1NT; 2C.

We play inverted minor suit raises, and use the “criss-cross” raises (jump-shift to the other minor) to show a mixed raise.

We play the weak NT (12-14 in all seats) with 4-suit transfers. Five card majors are quite acceptable, and 5-3-3-2 hands with 11-13hcp should certainly be opened 1NT if they are to be opened at all.

The rebid of 1NT shows 15-17hcp, and the jump rebid 2NT shows 18-19hcp. The 1NT rebid has to be alerted per the ACBL. We use New Minor Forcing after both these rebids to allow Responder to investigate major suit fits when he is invitational-plus.

We play 4th suit forcing to game.

Our main slam-bidding convention is RKCB 1430. We use Redwood when a minor suit has been agreed.

We are playing Support Doubles and Redoubles.

Our defence to 1NT is Lionel.

Meanderings

I haven't pushed blogging back into my routine, not yet anyway. But I have pushed bridge back into my life, and when I consider it, there are a few good topics that have cropped up.

Playing got started before directing, of course, but I have directed a couple of games at the Manhattan. It was noteworthy (to me, anyway) how much work seemed to be involved, and how stressful it all was. Overall, directing a game seemed to be quite an unpleasant assignment. I know I didn't feel that way before. Apparently, a break of nine months or so is long enough to introduce significant rust into the gears. Hopefully, I will shake it out and start enjoying directing again.

I have landed a decent client, and played several pro dates with her. She has accumulated about 600 master points, but almost all black points. My assignment is to play with her in regional and sectional tournaments, and win her enough gold and silver to be a life master. I could debate the proprieties of such a transaction, but suffice to say I think it is ok, from a theoretical as well as a practical standpoint. The truth of the matter is that I may be good, but if she plays like a bonehead we won't win much. If we win some points, she will have earned her share.

And playing as a pro has helped me focus on my game, also. The thing is, the client isn't a great player, so the partnership is certainly lop-sided. The pro is not expected to make any mistakes, because the client makes enough for the two of us. So all those things that people say (but so rarely do) - like paying attention to every trick, every board, and having a reason why that particular card, every card – all those things suddenly are real. For example, a couple of weeks ago, we played in a sectional. The client put me in 4S in a horrible 4-3 fit, as clients sometimes do. At first glance, the contract was hopeless, and indeed, the computer analysis gave 9 tricks as the limit. But the defence made a couple of mistakes, and suddenly I was racing for home. But then a careless error at trick 11 dumped it again, down 1. Time was, I could shrug that off – we were too high, and made the appropriate number of tricks. But this time, I see the difference as about 1.5 silver points that I could have – should have – won for my client. And weeks later, it still chaps my ass that I blew the hand at the last moment.

I'm also trying to get back into a regular playing rhythm with Agent 99 and, to a lesser extent, Elwood. (The putative partnership with Rose has bitten the dust, not explicitly but by tacit mutual agreement. Our personalities and styles just do not mesh very well.) I'll make a separate entry to talk about how we're bidding these days.