[Venom]

Hypothesis #1: On average, the opponents open the bidding approximately 50% of the time.

Hypothesis #2: On average, either you or your partner compete via either a take-out bid or an overcall approximately half of the time that the opponents open the bidding. (Math/ Computer expurts, please verify these hypotheses.)

If the above hypotheses are true for your partnership as well as for the opponents, then about half of all deals will involve some form of competitive auction with both sides bidding.

We spend a lot of time trying to build a better mousetrap, i.e. perfecting our personal "bidding systems" and determining what is theoretically best. This applies to about a quarter of the deals that we play.

Well, how about competitive bidding systems. What agreements do you have and how extensive are they?

I read the system of overcalls and responses that the acbl recommends teaching to students and found it to be somewhat complete, at least for the first two rounds of bidding. The recommended range for overcalls is about 7 to 17 hcp or 8 to 17/18 Total Points, the lighter hands being based on good suits. The responses to overcalls are as follows: New Suit not forcing: the weaker the hand, the better the suit. Jump-shifts are constructive showing about 11 to 14 Total Points and a good 6-card suit. Cue Bids = either a limit raise or better (fairly standard) or a forcing 1 or 2-suited hand. Simple raises are 6-9 while double raises were not clearly determined. (We play them as falling within the mixed raise range with 4-card trump support.) It was stated that some might choose to play jump cue bids as 4-card limit raises or better. This system has a few flaws in it, particularly in terms of cue bids being either a limit raise+ or a strong, forcing hand. Other hands, including NT ranges, are fairly well defined. The acbl system allows the partnership to get in, share information, and get out quickly.

The above is in contrast with playing new suit responses as being forcing (to what? what are the responses?)

Excluding the Fouts et al Overcall System with power doubles, etc. I am curious to know what types of overcalls others make and what set of responses and follow-ups to overcalls people play. How prevalent are transfer responses and at what point do they begin? If you play that new suit are forcing, what is the lower limit of your overcalls, and what are overcaller's rebids? This seems to be an under-discussed area of bidding.

As always, thank you all in advance for you efforts and input.


DHL: aka Double !

[frank0]

Someone share this link http://www.bridge.is..._2054397795.pdf to me when I asked question about fit-showing jump before. You may be interested in it.

If you are more interested in the actual system than the theory behind it. Jump directly to the end of chapter one(briefly look at the summary) and go to chapter two. Basically the author argues that we should use more bid to describe the hand with support in partner's suit than the hand without support.

New suit forcing becomes obviously necessary if you play cue bid response promise support and jump new suit is fit-showing. Otherwise you don't have the bid to show good hand without fit . You definetly give up single suit weak hand without fit(which can be shown by NF new suit bid) by doing this, but the advocators will argue the cost is relatively small compare to the gain of showing fit in partner's suit and hand type early in the auction.

[fromageGB]

My preferred method of handling overcalls is not standard, but not uncommon : I prefer transfers. They allow you to make both stronger and weaker support raises, and allow you to bid a suit eithet as weak, to play, or as a force. Sometimes.

Assuming responder passes, ours work like this. All suit bids higher that partner's, but lower than opener's, are natural and forcing. Forcing partner to speak, but not forcing you to speak again if he says nothing exciting. But forcing to 2 of his first suit. A cue bid of opener's suit, and any higher suits lower than partner's, are transfers, where you may have the equivalent of a weak 2, or may be stronger and intend rebidding something such as delayed partial support, a forcing non-specific cue of their suit, NT etc.
After 1♦ 1♠ pass, 2♣ is natural and forcing, while 2♦/♥ are transfers. Depending on the suits, there may or may not be any natural bids.

When partner is bidding a major, we use a transfer to 2 of partner's suit as a standard 3 card raise with a balancedish 9-12 count; this means a direct raise to 2 is weaker and preemptive, but again with 3 cards. With say 13 upwards (rare), we bid something else, then support. Fewer HCP on all these if shortages. For 4 card raises, we again transfer to the suit, this time with a jump, as stronger than a direct raise to 3, and the transfer is of course game invitational. We think it important to distinguish the length of the major support - this helps in the bid on/stop decision when they bid again.

In this situation, "responding" to our overcalls, we do not use fit-jumps, as we like the weak/strong raises to the 3 level, and while 2♦ after the above start could be a weak 2 in hearts, we use a jump to 3♦ as a more preemptive take-out, probably with 7 cards. This latter, though, could be employed as a fit-jump or something else without affecting the basis of the method.

We do the same if RHO doubles, and all NT bids are natural. However, if RHO makes a bid, it is different, but again involving transfers.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

You may be interested in Rubens Transfer Advances.

[Zelandakh]

Hypothesis 1 is certainly not true for me. Playing Acol we open the bidding alot more than 50% of the time, playing strong club the figure is considerably higher. Forcing passers open the bidding even more often. Some observations: the standard system of responses assumes a new suit is forcing for a 1 round, precisely the same as a new suit response to an opening bid. If you are completely unwilling to put work into overcall structure then you can actually play the same after a 7-17 overcall as a 10-20 or 11-21 opening, just have Advancer subtract 3-4 hcp from their hand. This is obviously not optimal but works ok most of the time. If going the other way and wanting to put some additional effort into overcall structure then, as others have already mentioned, transfers in conjunction with fit jumps are probably the way to go. If partner's suit is a major then 2NT is better played as a raise than natural too. I recommend a thorough read of Robson-Segal once you get to this stage.

[Cthulhu D]

 Venom, on 2012-January-05, 22:29, said:

Excluding the Fouts et al Overcall System with power doubles, etc.

I'm playing Fout's overcall structure at the moment (and loving it), but we're considering transfer responses to give us two ways to raise 1 of a major while reclaiming a natural 1 NT. Some limited testing reveals it works well. It's hard to see what's not to love about transfer advances to be honest.

[phil_20686]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-January-09, 06:58, said:

Hypothesis 1 is certainly not true for me. Playing Acol we open the bidding alot more than 50% of the time, playing strong club the figure is considerably higher.

This just cant be true. Imagine you were playing yourself?

At best you can open the bidding more often than most of your opponents. Obviously, if one mostly plays club bridge its easy to end up bidding a lot more than your opponents, buf if you are playing a relatively strong team normally at least 90% of the opening bids are the same at both tables.

[Cthulhu D]

 phil_20686, on 2012-January-09, 10:57, said:

This just cant be true. Imagine you were playing yourself?

At best you can open the bidding more often than most of your opponents. Obviously, if one mostly plays club bridge its easy to end up bidding a lot more than your opponents, buf if you are playing a relatively strong team normally at least 90% of the opening bids are the same at both tables.

If you're playing an anti field system that is also very agressive - something like Tangerine Club (opening 8 counts), or anything that systematically opens balanced 10 counts (10-12 NT anyone?) you're going to be opening a lot more than your opponents even in a strong field I would have thought? Even good players are going to routinely pass a flat 10 count, so it's very possible that your real experince can be that you rarely meeting opponents who are playing a system that is aggressive as yours.

Playing a mirror match you're definately correct, but anti-field system players may experince radically higher or lower percentages. I imagine a player using Roth Stone would open less than 50% of the time playing in a sea of ACOLities.

[Mbodell]

 fromageGB, on 2012-January-06, 16:44, said:

My preferred method of handling overcalls is not standard, but not uncommon : I prefer transfers. They allow you to make both stronger and weaker support raises, and allow you to bid a suit eithet as weak, to play, or as a force. Sometimes.

Assuming responder passes, ours work like this. All suit bids higher that partner's, but lower than opener's, are natural and forcing. Forcing partner to speak, but not forcing you to speak again if he says nothing exciting. But forcing to 2 of his first suit. A cue bid of opener's suit, and any higher suits lower than partner's, are transfers, where you may have the equivalent of a weak 2, or may be stronger and intend rebidding something such as delayed partial support, a forcing non-specific cue of their suit, NT etc.
After 1♦ 1♠ pass, 2♣ is natural and forcing, while 2♦/♥ are transfers. Depending on the suits, there may or may not be any natural bids.

When partner is bidding a major, we use a transfer to 2 of partner's suit as a standard 3 card raise with a balancedish 9-12 count; this means a direct raise to 2 is weaker and preemptive, but again with 3 cards. With say 13 upwards (rare), we bid something else, then support. Fewer HCP on all these if shortages. For 4 card raises, we again transfer to the suit, this time with a jump, as stronger than a direct raise to 3, and the transfer is of course game invitational. We think it important to distinguish the length of the major support - this helps in the bid on/stop decision when they bid again.

In this situation, "responding" to our overcalls, we do not use fit-jumps, as we like the weak/strong raises to the 3 level, and while 2♦ after the above start could be a weak 2 in hearts, we use a jump to 3♦ as a more preemptive take-out, probably with 7 cards. This latter, though, could be employed as a fit-jump or something else without affecting the basis of the method.

We do the same if RHO doubles, and all NT bids are natural. However, if RHO makes a bid, it is different, but again involving transfers.

I play similar to most of the above except the transfer to partner's suit is just the same as the cue in the standard system (I.e., a system like what OP describes the ACBL of teaching). Also, obviously, if advancer is a passed hand then his suit bids below the transfers are NF. Also, overcaller does not need to complete the transfer. He breaks the transfer if he'd be sad playing in the transferred suit if advancer had the weaker end of NFConst bid of that suit.

[fromageGB]

 Mbodell, on 2012-January-09, 23:14, said:

I play similar to most of the above except the transfer to partner's suit is just the same as the cue in the standard system (I.e., a system like what OP describes the ACBL of teaching).

This could be a significant difference. Does the expression in the OP "limit raise" imply a 4 card support? If so, then with that I would transfer to the major at the 3 level, and with a 3 card support I transfer at the 2 level.

The other disadvantages of using the cue in this way are

1) it leaves more room available for opener to bid other things, which is unnecessary
eg 1♣ 1♠ p 2♣! leaves room for all of X, 2♦ and 2♥,
whereas 1♣ 1♠ p 2♥! leaves room only for X.

2) you cannot transfer to diamonds (eg, above example). And if 2♦ is natural, you cannot transfer to hearts ???

 Mbodell, on 2012-January-09, 23:14, said:

Also, obviously, if advancer is a passed hand then his suit bids below the transfers are NF. Also, overcaller does not need to complete the transfer. He breaks the transfer if he'd be sad playing in the transferred suit if advancer had the weaker end of NFConst bid of that suit.

Absolutely, I agree entirely. Good points.

[Cyberyeti]

 Cthulhu D, on 2012-January-09, 21:18, said:

If you're playing an anti field system that is also very agressive - something like Tangerine Club (opening 8 counts), or anything that systematically opens balanced 10 counts (10-12 NT anyone?) you're going to be opening a lot more than your opponents even in a strong field I would have thought? Even good players are going to routinely pass a flat 10 count, so it's very possible that your real experince can be that you rarely meeting opponents who are playing a system that is aggressive as yours.

Playing a mirror match you're definately correct, but anti-field system players may experince radically higher or lower percentages. I imagine a player using Roth Stone would open less than 50% of the time playing in a sea of ACOLities.

Indeed.

I'm not sure if the OP meant "at the 1 level", but an Acol player playing weak 2s will open a lot more hands than one playing strong for example.

[Mbodell]

 fromageGB, on 2012-January-10, 05:06, said:

This could be a significant difference. Does the expression in the OP "limit raise" imply a 4 card support? If so, then with that I would transfer to the major at the 3 level, and with a 3 card support I transfer at the 2 level.

The other disadvantages of using the cue in this way are

1) it leaves more room available for opener to bid other things, which is unnecessary
eg 1♣ 1♠ p 2♣! leaves room for all of X, 2♦ and 2♥,
whereas 1♣ 1♠ p 2♥! leaves room only for X.

2) you cannot transfer to diamonds (eg, above example). And if 2♦ is natural, you cannot transfer to hearts ???

To be clear, I was saying that I'd play 1♣-1♠-P-2♥! as the 2♥ bid has the same meaning as a standard person in the ACBL would take a 2♣ call at that point. That includes the limit strength raise (3 or 4 card) as well as a bunch of stronger hands without a fit.

[fromageGB]

 Mbodell, on 2012-January-13, 17:43, said:

To be clear, I was saying that I'd play 1♣-1♠-P-2♥! as the 2♥ bid has the same meaning as a standard person in the ACBL would take a 2♣ call at that point. That includes the limit strength raise (3 or 4 card) as well as a bunch of stronger hands without a fit.

I get you. Sorry I misunderstood. So you do have transfers, but the "transfer to 2♠" has more than one meaning. The reason I don't do that is that it makes life difficult for partner when next hand bids 3/4♣. If he has a weakish hand and knows you have 4 card support it could be a simple 3/4♠, whereas if he knows you have only 3 cards, pass or double could be better. Similar problems when partner is stronger, to bid game or double. Showing your length immediately is usually best in my view. But the crucial benefits of the transfer methods are being able to have different ways of raising with different strengths, and the ability to bid a new suit either weak or strong. And if one of the common alternatives of the cue bid is a forcing one or two suited hand, this is more usefully shown by a transfer followed by another informative bid. Otherwise there may not be room when next hand bids 3♣.

[phil_20686]

 Cthulhu D, on 2012-January-09, 21:18, said:

If you're playing an anti field system that is also very agressive - something like Tangerine Club (opening 8 counts), or anything that systematically opens balanced 10 counts (10-12 NT anyone?) you're going to be opening a lot more than your opponents even in a strong field I would have thought? Even good players are going to routinely pass a flat 10 count, so it's very possible that your real experince can be that you rarely meeting opponents who are playing a system that is aggressive as yours.

Playing a mirror match you're definately correct, but anti-field system players may experince radically higher or lower percentages. I imagine a player using Roth Stone would open less than 50% of the time playing in a sea of ACOLities.

Sorry but I strongly disagree.

At best you are adjusting the margin by a small amount. Suppose you open all balanced 10-12 counts, but otherwise play normal system. well, most people open at least some 11 and all 12's essentially, so say we call the extras half of the elevens and all the ten to round up to 15% of balanced hands. Now balanced hands make up a bit less than half of all hands, so the extra hands make up 7% of the total hands you hold, but you also have to have no one open in front of you. Now you have to make a correction for people opening hands in front of you. Obviously this hand will occor 25% of 7% in each chair, so i used DDS to look at a player who played greater than 200 boards a month and got 40% 24% 20% 6% for auctions that were opened in each chair, which looks about what I expected, so you get 3.5% roughly. All this is for a particular hand, that you would open but your oppos would not, but of course, half the time they will hold this particular hand, so the real number is 1.75%.

Another way of saying this is that opening "all 10-12 balanced" will let you open an extra hand once in 57 boards, vs what I consider to be a fairly mainline style of opening roughly half of balanced 11 counts.

Obviously, you can shift the margins, but you have to be really very extreme to open as much as 60% of the boards in your partnership vs todays typical expert partnerships, and you can usually only do it with hyper aggressive two level openers.

This is one of the reasons I decided to move back to a slightly sounder opening style than most, so that partner can 2/1 on any 12. I thought the gain there was greater than the relatively small number of extra boards that you get to open.

[Cthulhu D]

 phil_20686, on 2012-January-15, 12:17, said:

Another way of saying this is that opening "all 10-12 balanced" will let you open an extra hand once in 57 boards, vs what I consider to be a fairly mainline style of opening roughly half of balanced 11 counts.

Obviously, you can shift the margins, but you have to be really very extreme to open as much as 60% of the boards in your partnership vs todays typical expert partnerships, and you can usually only do it with hyper aggressive two level openers.

This is one of the reasons I decided to move back to a slightly sounder opening style than most, so that partner can 2/1 on any 12. I thought the gain there was greater than the relatively small number of extra boards that you get to open.

I did some (1,000,000 dealt hands) simulations of this system:

http://bridgewithdan...ms/Incision.pdf

against a standardish 5 card major system opening all 11 counts (balanced or otherwise) with a brown sticker weak 2 style that can open 3 weak twos on any 6 carder suit with 6-10 HCP, and all 5/5s with 6+ points, and Incision opens 14% more often in first seat. This should work out to opening 7-10% more often than standardish players. (part of this depends on how you define unbalanced, my simulations where willing to open on a 6322 hand with 8 points).

Tangerine club is more aggressive still. Incision is only opening unbalanced 8 or 10 counts, Tangerine gets all balanced 8 and 9 counts which increases its opening frequency substantially (a bit less than 10%). Intrestingly it isn't the two level openings that are ramping this up (playing Lorenzo or whatever would do much more), it's dropping your standards for an opening of 1 to include 10, 9 and 8 counts which are some of the most frequent hands. Just playing a Kamikaze NT won't ramp up your frequencies that much, but there are other things you can do if you want to ramp it up a lot.

[phil_20686]

 Cthulhu D, on 2012-January-15, 17:09, said:

I did some (1,000,000 dealt hands) simulations of this system:

http://bridgewithdan...ms/Incision.pdf

against a standardish 5 card major system opening all 11 counts (balanced or otherwise) with a brown sticker weak 2 style that can open 3 weak twos on any 6 carder suit with 6-10 HCP, and all 5/5s with 6+ points, and Incision opens 14% more often in first seat. This should work out to opening 7-10% more often than standardish players. (part of this depends on how you define unbalanced, my simulations where willing to open on a 6322 hand with 8 points).

Tangerine club is more aggressive still. Incision is only opening unbalanced 8 or 10 counts, Tangerine gets all balanced 8 and 9 counts which increases its opening frequency substantially (a bit less than 10%). Intrestingly it isn't the two level openings that are ramping this up (playing Lorenzo or whatever would do much more), it's dropping your standards for an opening of 1 to include 10, 9 and 8 counts which are some of the most frequent hands. Just playing a Kamikaze NT won't ramp up your frequencies that much, but there are other things you can do if you want to ramp it up a lot.

Yes, but this type of system is really fairly extreme. Also, having to open 13+ shapely hands with one club is an unbelievably large handicap on some fairly normal hands. I dont think that it is close to optimal, given the level of competitive bidding. In realitly the difference between "sound" and "light" in expert bridge seems to be, do you play a style where you pass most 11's, or a style where you open most shapely tens.

[whereagles]

The standard system of responses to overcalls is quite enough

1x 1y pass ??

Suit: natural 1-round force (but NF if RHO acts)
1/2/3NT: 8-12/13-14/15-17
Jump suit: fit-bid, inv+ values (preemptive if you prefer - discuss with pard)
Cue: strong hand, usually with 3-card support
Jump cue: good 4-card raise

A more advanced system is Rubens advances:

1x 1y pass ??

2x...2y-1: transfer, 2y-1 being a good raise. ON in competition if 2x is not taken.
Suit (if not in the above): natural, as in standard
Rest: as in standard

You can agree to use Rubens advances at ANY level (nx-ny-pass-??) and at high level is where it really shines: what was

3S 4H pass 5D = oh well, anyone's guess

now becomes either

3S 4H pass 5C
pass 5D pass pass = really had diamonds

or

3S 4H pass 5C
pass 5D pass 5H = diamond cue + heart fit. It's your choice now, pard.