[22tango2]

Do you? What's purpose and criteria?
22tango2

[eagles123]

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Think I might interfere in this situation


but more seriously, yes, especially non vul jamming opps room can work well

[pescetom]

22tango2, on 2019-May-04, 12:53, said:

Do you? What's purpose and criteria?

Purpose? To exploit their only certain weakness, being already at 2 level without having started to describe distribution.
Criteria? Safe vulnerability, a presentable pretext, check nobody has cut off my arm

[rmnka447]

Given an appropriate hand, it certainly is right to intervene over 2 ♣. The idea is to take away bidding space and make it more difficult for the opponents to find their best spot.

You do have to take vulnerability into account, but remember that the opponents are close to game on opener's 2 ♣ bid alone. You normally should have a distributional hand of some sort. The opponents are going to have a lot of values, so you need to offset that with hands where you can set up suits and/or trump their high cards.

Anytime you can make the opponents have to make some tough decisions because of your intervention, you've won. Even if they end up in the right spot, you will have got their attention. The trick is to learn when and with what to jump in, so that you don't take too many phone number sets.

[FelicityR]

Vulnerability is the key: white against red is an ideal opportunity. But as others have said disruption can lead to difficult decisions for the 2 club opener and his partner, instead of giving them a free run in the bidding.

The other factor is to offer partner should he/she be on lead a safe® option. Many a slam has been made on the wrong lead. Let's say the opponents bid a slam on 31 HCPs missing a KQ and an A. Maybe the only way for that slam to go down, perhaps, is for partner to lead from a doubleton/trebleton towards your suit containing KQTxx whilst the Ace is still outstanding setting up a second trick for the defence. If you don't bid then partner may be on a guess.

[pescetom]

FelicityR, on 2019-May-04, 15:49, said:

The other factor is to offer partner should he/she be on lead a safe® option.

This is a good point. The ideal interference over a strong opening is akin to first nuclear strike in cold war battle plans: it should be no stronger than necessary and serve a real defensive purpose.

[etha]

at club level bid with any hand works pretty well. I was once about to go for 3900 but the opps pulled it to 7 something 2 off. At competent level you can only really bid with decent weak jumps and preempts and you probably need 5-5 for two suiters.

[pescetom]

It depends also upon the level of opponents and their readiness to punish.
You can get some idea from their convention card (or at club level, from the fact that they have a convention card)

[mikeh]

If you and your partner never interfere over their 2C opening, you are being very 'soft' opponents.

However, you do need to pick your spots, and it helps to play methods.

When you make 'natural' overcalls, you need long suits with good internal texture. You don't really want a lot of hcp, since hcp will usually be good on defence. So KQ10983 is a good 2S overcall of 2C at favourable. It isn't so much about the lead, since more times than not you will be on lead if RHO opened 2C. It is about taking away bidding space and disrupting their auction.

The disruption need not end with the overcall: advancer, with a fit, should bid the limit of the hand immediately, to maximize pressure. Note that advancer shouldn't be going nuts merely because he has a fit for partner: he needs some shape as well, since his side rates to lose just about every available loser in the side suits. 4=3=3=3 is not a great hand for preempting. Picture partner with 6=3=2=2.
4=1=3=5 is a great hand for preempting.

Obviously vulnerability will impact your choice of action or inaction. Again, it isn't about hcp, since hcp are a two-edged sword. Since you expect to fail in your eventual contract, should you buy the contract, you want to be able to take tricks on offence, and would prefer that you not be able to take too many on defence. Getting out for -200 against their game is great, but if their game was failing, due to your strength, then it was a disaster.

By the way, and this may be too much for the I/A forum, but learning to use artificial defences can be very useful, adding to the disruptive effect. For example, in my partnerships we use Suction so that (2C) 3D is either a heart preempt or a marked 2-suiter in the blacks, and the 3D bidder only clarifies, if ever, on the next round, with advancer bidding as high as he can afford based on the least fitting of the 2 alternative.


(2C) 3D (x) 3S shows that advancer wants to play 3S if overcaller has the blacks but is willing to play at least 4H if overcaller has hearts (with no desire to play 4H, advancer bids 3H)

[HardVector]

Interfering with 2c can be very profitable...as long as you are not too crazy about it. You want to pick suits that are going to be hard to double, so you want decent honors in it. I remember some bridge pro saying that a 2c bid should be described as "Strong, forcing, and preemptive". Most preemptive bids are disruptive to the opposition, but 2c has the possibility of making it difficult for YOU to figure out where to play. Throwing salt on that wound may make it even more difficult. All you have to be careful of is the idea that you are giving them another option, the penalty double.

[fromageGB]

People have stressed the need for a decent suit(s) but if you do this you will not be preempting enough at matchpoints. Mix in some ropy suits, call pretty much when you have some shape, and opponents will find it difficult to double. If you play suction (or variation) when you adopt this style, then you do not suffer from causing partner to make a bad lead, as he is as much in the dark about your holding as the opponents are. You are happy to be doubled occasionally.

[rmnka447]

BTW, the same logic applies to interfering over big 1 ♣ openers. Most are opening 17+ hands and if you can get the bidding at or above 2 ♣ before opener rebids, they are trying to bid a much wider range of hands in the bidding space that "strong" 2 ♣ openers normally use.

Like mikeh says, the problems get really tough for the opponents when you use methods that are ambiguous to what intervener holds.

[HardVector]

fromageGB, on 2019-May-09, 11:55, said:

People have stressed the need for a decent suit(s) but if you do this you will not be preempting enough at matchpoints. Mix in some ropy suits, call pretty much when you have some shape, and opponents will find it difficult to double. If you play suction (or variation) when you adopt this style, then you do not suffer from causing partner to make a bad lead, as he is as much in the dark about your holding as the opponents are. You are happy to be doubled occasionally.

My first 2000 came from someone like you.

[fromageGB]

HardVector, on 2019-May-10, 20:13, said:

My first 2000 came from someone like you.

And this is precisely the point. I am not playing for money; I am playing for matchpoints. I am very happy to give you the occasional 2000 when in return I cause you to misjudge your contract or play on 5 times as many hands. Just miss a couple of games or slams that most others bid, or let my bid cause you to bid a game that does not make, and I win.

Actually, I hinted there at a benefit of the style that is not generally acknowledged. A number of times opponents have bid on (as they usually do) and in the play take an unnecessary losing finesse into my partner's trick because opener "knows" I have the strength/suit is solid etc.

[el mister]

etha, on 2019-May-05, 09:15, said:

at club level bid with any hand works pretty well. I was once about to go for 3900 but the opps pulled it to 7 something 2 off. At competent level you can only really bid with decent weak jumps and preempts and you probably need 5-5 for two suiters.

I see so many bad 2♣ auctions at club level, that I'm not sure that's true IME. If opps lack a fit, or end up in 2 / 3N opposite a broke dummy, you'll frequently get a good score just by keeping quiet. You're not really jamming anything coherent half the time, whereas against decent opponents you are.

[mikeh]

fromageGB, on 2019-May-13, 03:26, said:

And this is precisely the point. I am not playing for money; I am playing for matchpoints. I am very happy to give you the occasional 2000 when in return I cause you to misjudge your contract or play on 5 times as many hands. Just miss a couple of games or slams that most others bid, or let my bid cause you to bid a game that does not make, and I win.

Actually, I hinted there at a benefit of the style that is not generally acknowledged. A number of times opponents have bid on (as they usually do) and in the play take an unnecessary losing finesse into my partner's trick because opener "knows" I have the strength/suit is solid etc.

Sounds to me as if you don't play much against good players. At the club level, at least the clubs where I have played duplicate, one can get away with a lot of really bad bridge, especially if partner has learned not to take your actions seriously.

I know some people claim that they adjust their style according to the skill level of the opps, but my view is that this is a losing proposition.

If the opps are weak enough that undisciplined interference derails them, they are probably so bad that one will do quite well by staying out of their auctions. Weak players handle big hands very badly, in my experience.

If the opps are good, you are rolling the dice with undisciplined interference, quite often offering them a top score. Moreover, since your partner has to cater to your undisciplined style, he can't bounce as much, or as effectively, when you actually have your bid, since he has to assume you likely don't.

As for varying style: my experience is that it isn't as easy to do as one might think it is. We are creatures of habit, and we tend to remember and be influenced by good results more than bad. So we are undisciplined against bad players, get a great result, and when the same situation arises against strong players, our judgement is likely to be informed, even unconsciously, by our prior success.

I don't play much anymore, and when I do it is usually against fairly strong, and even occasionally very strong, opps, so I tend to try to bid the same way against all levels of opposition, just to stop bad habits creeping in. I can also say, with a lot of conviction, that I tend to do very well against the bad players without needing to generate silly tops. Most bad players can't bid worth a damn, and the stronger their hands, the worse they are. Plus my partners and I can defend quite well. If a weak player opens 2C against me, I would expect at least a 60% result on average If a good pair does it, I expect about 35% on average, but that goes down if I start offering them extra ways to get a top.

[jdulmage]

I play Mathe over strong club openings. DBL shows both majors, cheapest NT bid shows both minors. All other bids are natural.

With the opponents having a majority of the points you best be showing some sort of good distributional values. For the Mathe bids, 5-5 in the suits or better. For the natural bids, 6+ in the suit and more often than not a singleton or void elsewhere.

[rmnka447]

mikeh is several levels above where I am at. But our KO team has achieved enough to now be placed in the top bracket at most of the regionals where we play. That has meant facing some really good players.

I can assure you that when those players hold appropriate cards, they will indeed intervene over a strong 2 ♣ opener. But as mikeh implies, those players really know how to pick their spots and, for the most part, do so judiciously.

I normally play CRASH with most of my partners over both strong 1 ♣ and strong 2 ♣ openers. The only difference is that we don't use a double over 2 ♣ which shows a 16+ hand over a strong 1 ♣ opener.