[aguahombre]

Yes, but Ken was making a joke about the pass being a second negative.

[lexlogan]

I don't think the posted hand violates any law, or would require any special alert or disclosure in ACBL land, unless you mark your card "22+" with no other description. Personally I check the "Strong" box and give no further description, as it is impossible to summarize the various standards for a 2C opening; "Strong" just means "I'm afraid of missing game or slam if I open anything else." It's a strong hand that, in the opening bidder's judgement, is better described starting with 2C rather than 1H.

That said, I would open the given hand 1H and plan to rebid 4H, or 5H if necessary. There is virtually no chance 1H will be passed out, and the game rebid describes this hand well IMO. Sunday I picked up AKQ107642 -- 10 AQ97, opened 2C, and rebid 4S. (I then went brain-dead and raised partner's 5D bid to 6; 6S makes on the club finesse, with other chances; only one pair bid and made slam.) I describe the 2C-then game sequence as "game in hand with good controls but fewer high cards than expected for 2C." In other words I require 10 tricks, or better than 9.5, and something like 4+ quick tricks. Note that my hand has all the key cards needed for slam. There is still relatively little danger of being passed out at the one-level, but I can think of no way to describe such a monster after opening 1S.

[Fluffy]

jillybean, on 2012-December-16, 21:03, said:

Hi Ron, I don't understand your question?

I don't play namyats

Maybe this hand is a little extreme, it is actually a hand that my partner opened 4♥ and I said
at the time I would rather open 2♣. I would hate to open 1♥ and hear the opps come in with 5m.

You are admitting that the reason for 2♣ opener is to preempt opponents off 5m and IMO this means that you should not do it.


There are some 12 HCP hands posted here and there on this thread, I have read on WBF's site that an average hand is 10 milton work points, and a opening hand is a king above average hand or something like, I don't remember, but I think it could be argued that below 13 HCP has to be forbidden by that rule.

[blackshoe]

Fluffy, you have to know the — bizarre, IMO — rule in the ACBL. The General Convention Chart gives two options for a non-natural 2♣ opening: a three suiter with a minimum of 10 HCP, or "a strong hand". Nowhere in any ACBL regulation is the latter defined. If you call ACBL HQ and ask, you will be told "'strong' means whatever the player making the bid thinks it means" . I had a ruling a couple of years ago that S AKQJxxxx H Jxx D - C Jx is a legal "strong" 2♣ opener.

[johnu]

Based on the General Convention Chart and with no other defintions around, I would have assumed that a strong hand is 15+ HCP's since under Opening Bids in the GCC, for 1NT:

2) FORCING 1NT OPENING BID (15+ HCPS) indicating a strong hand, balanced or unbalanced.

But this is the ACBL, and you know what happens to people who assume

[aguahombre]

Fluffy, on 2012-December-27, 19:32, said:

You are admitting that the reason for 2♣ opener is to preempt opponents off 5m and IMO this means that you should not do it.

Whether Fluffy's opinion above is in accordance with a jurisdiction's laws or not, it represents my opinion. The intent of the opener should be the key; when I open a hand such as AKQJXXXX - X AQXX with 2C, it is not to jerk anyone around or to represent power I don't have. It is because I might be able to find out about a particular key card or two.

If I opened the OP hand 2C, and then jumped to 4M, I could not honestly convince myself that I was doing it for a constructive reason and should acquiesce to an adverse ruling. If I opened the OP hand 2C and then rebid my major at the 2-level it would be because I (perhaps wrongly) wanted to treat it as a 9-trick one-suiter, not a preempt; that evaluation should be legal.

[mr1303]

I think 2C then 4H should show something like

KQ
AKQJxxxx
K
Kx

Partner should then have a good idea of how to proceed.

[lexlogan]

Incredible! I picked up another 8-card major monster today: AKx AQJ10xxx Kx -- . Although ten tricks are not certain opposite a random bust, they seem likely, so I once again opened 2C and rebid game in my major. Amusingly, I play 2H as a bust response with this partner so he played 4H in his void! Hard to believe I got two of these hands in three games this week.

[mgoetze]

mikeh, on 2012-December-17, 11:47, said:

[I]n the real world there is no rule requiring [...] your partner to routinely bid 2♦.

Actually, in many of my casual partnerships, there is. Of course it's not optimal, but 2♣ openings are just too rare for it to be worthwhile to do anything fancy over them.

(Not to say that I disagree with the rest of your post; I don't.)

[mycroft]

Heh. I ran into my first "positive" in years last week. 2♣-2♠; 3♦-3♠; 4NT-5♠; 7NT needing a 3-2 spade break or a 3-3 diamond break. In a reasonable, but not great field (containing several "4NT is the only slam try" pairs), we were the only ones in a grand, and 3 were +720 (after, I assume, 2♣-2♦; 3NT). We sort of thought it was mindless and automatic, and hoped only to beat the people who stopped in spades for some reason. Apologies to our opponents, who got a zero for no sane reason.

One person actually asked us how we knew responder had the ♣A. "Uh, Blackwood?"

[aguahombre]

mycroft, on 2013-January-04, 10:51, said:

Heh. I ran into my first "positive" in years last week. 2♣-2♠; 3♦-3♠; 4NT-5♠; 7NT needing a 3-2 spade break or a 3-3 diamond break. In a reasonable, but not great field (containing several "4NT is the only slam try" pairs), we were the only ones in a grand, and 3 were +720 (after, I assume, 2♣-2♦; 3NT). We sort of thought it was mindless and automatic, and hoped only to beat the people who stopped in spades for some reason. Apologies to our opponents, who got a zero for no sane reason.

One person actually asked us how we knew responder had the ♣A. "Uh, Blackwood?"

Double heh. Down here, with a shuffled deal, our hapless opponents encountered the same situation with the same two suits...also the only ones in 7NT.

Poor babies. After discovering the spades to be JT9XX opposite zero, declarer hooked KT tight opposite AQ7XX into the hand known to have the 5 spades. Unfortunately she also had JXX of Diamonds.

[Cthulhu D]

jillybean, on 2012-December-19, 09:52, said:

And remove that awful gambling 3N now that 3N becomes our 4m preempt.

Can I suggest another option? The biggest problem I have with Naymats is that it's pretty easy for forget because it's not frequent. It seems to me that it makes as much sense to restructure the bids so 3NT is the power major, 4X is natural. This has the added advantage of being much harder to forget. It gives you maximum space to explore slam as you have both 4C and 4D - I play 4C as a one under transfer and 4D as a slam try which probably isn't the best, but hey.

[blackshoe]

Kantar 3NT, if the major is solid, which it must be under the GCC (ACBL).

Responses (from Preempts from A to Z, Andersen and Zenkel):

4♣: Asks for a side K. Responder's 6♣ rebid then asks opener to bid 6 of his major.
4NT: asks for side queens. Can be used immediately, or after the 4♣ ask. In response to 4NT, opener's simple new suit shows that queen and no other; 5 of his major shows no side queen, 6♣ shows the queens of diamonds and the OM, 6♦ shows the queens of clubs and the OM, 6♥ shows both minor suit queens.
5NT: asks opener to bid 7 of his major if his suit can play for no losers opposite a void.

If I were going to play this, I'd want to come up with meanings for responses of 4♦, 4OM, and 4M (to play, presumably), at least.

[jdeegan]

I like your bid. In principle that sequence shows a no-loser 8 or 9 bagger and an outside ace. Imho, you are close enough.

[mycroft]

So, this weekend I saw another "strong" 2♣ opener (granted in the B game, but I would have thought...):

---

Well, it's 3 losers...

Luckily partner shows up with

---

, so E/W weren't going anywhere past game, and N/S aren't going to preempt in a black suit to the sky and make it. Of course, they might preempt to the sky, get doubled by partner, and be pulled the first time to the -1 level.

[Wayne_LV]

jillybean, on 2012-December-16, 18:30, said:

---

I love these hands! I open 2♣ and jump to 4♥ over any response from partner.
With stronger hands, I will make the normal 2♥ rebid and with weaker hands preempt 2,3 or 4♥'s.
After 2♣ 4M partner knows I have this type of hand, I'm going to make 4M opposite very little or nothing.
It doesn't shut partner out but suggests this is the maximum unless partner has some 1st round
controls in other suits.

I have had some players object to me "preempting" with a 2♣ bid. This is obviously not a preempt
but I have made the same bid with weaker hands. Is it correct that if a player believes their
hand to be "strong", then it is acceptable to open 2♣?

2♣ openings are marked as "22+ or 8.5 playing tricks" on our CC's, if asked do we need to spell this out?

I am a strong advocate of 2♣ showing either 22+ hcp or within a trick of game in hand. The problem with opening 2♣ on a hand with 5 losers with the intent of jumping to 4♥ over any response is the 2♣ opening bid can be more easily overcalled and with only 12 hcp, this is a very likely event. If you know you are going to go to 4♥ just open 4♥, which (playing rule of 2 and 3) would show 5 or 6 losers and would not confuse partner. If partner can cover 4 or 5 of your losers, then partner can explore slam over the 4♥ opening bid, otherwise partner would pass and hope for a good outcome.