[ASkolnick]

Add my 2 cents worth even though noone will listen. And I will say both sides are probably right.

As for Foo's statement, I think there is some merit distinguishing between
Dbl-5C and 5C and I don't think its necessarily flexibility. And I can tell you many times where my partner double with 6-4 type hands and gets us in trouble. I think its "playing strength" versus "HCP strength". So, I think 5C says this is where I think the value of the hand belongs based on partners expected 7 HCP. However, it does not bar partner from bidding again. But, the two things which I think are very important for you to have are controls and support. Its not that lack of aces (AD may not be important) that worries me, its the fact I only have 2 clubs. So, there is still a possibility of losing a major suit ace and possibly a club, so I pass and go plus.

[foo]

So the fundamental problem here is the josh and I disagree about =system=, not simply about the meaning of a bid or two. Where I come from, "the slower you go, the more you've got" in constructive auctions. No matter what level they start at.

The slower ways of bidding to 5C here are stronger than the faster paths to 5C for me. Always have been. Very likely always will be. This is also true of just about every expert I know. I actually can't think of an exception of ATM, but josh is a good player so I'll leave him the wriggle room.

RHO opens (3D) in 1st or 2nd. This tends to show 5-9 HCP. Call it 7+-2 most of the time.

If I have 10 HCP, pard's expectation is 11.5, or ~3.5 covers.

Thus if my 10 HCP are something exceptional like xxx.xx.x.AKQJxxx, my expectation is 6 losers - 3.5 covers= 2.5 losers,
and I want to bid 5C To Play at any form of scoring.

If I have a better hand, say 4-5 losers, 5 losers - 3.5 covers= 1.5 losers. We may have a slam, but GOP and I need to talk to figure it out.
Single suited hands of this type are strong enough to X, then bid ♣'s.
Hands that could be a good dummy for 3N or better are also appropriate for X here.

Most are going to play a 4D cuebid here as a GF hand with both S+H, or a =very= big ♣ moose (Grand slam interest ♣ hand for instance).

X then cue bid then ♣ bid is probably ~3-4 losers.

If we were playing that 4C were Natural, it would be ~7 losers; and would clearly be invitational.

Given that We do not have a natural 4C bid available, we have to do something with the 7 loser hands. Some are going to have to be passed. That's the price for playing 4C! artificial. Some single suited ♣ 7 loser hands are going to be assigned to the X, then bid ♣ sequence. Some are going to be assigned to the direct 5C bid.

Now look at the OP Advancing hand: KJT2_KQ32_AJ4_76.
6C requires that pard have
at least 2/3 A's +KQJ of ♣'s, or
that trumps are solid and there is only 1 loser in a side suit, or
etc.
If you construct those hands, they are not the uber-strong 7 loser hands. Nor are they 5-6 loser hands that bid 5C To Make.
The hands you need for slam are ones that are best described by the other sequences.

Therefore you pass 5C.

[foo]

All of my previous post gets tweaked depending on how many highs you have combined with the assumption that the (3D) bidder has 7+-2 HCP.

That leaves 33+-2 out, and one has to look at their hand and decide how many Advancer is likely to have before deciding how to bid what they are holding.

If you figure Advancer to have a minimum response to an ordinary opening, you play them for ~2 cover cards.

An invitatonal hand opposite an ordinary opening is ~3 cover cards.

A minimum opening bid as responder tends to have ~4 cover cards.

Once you figure out what the odds say you + Advancer should have between you, then you can decide how safe it is to bid and what is the best path to describe your hand.

The main point here is that bridge is a 4 handed game and the proper way to bid a hand is context dependent.

[ArtK78]

Interesting discussion.

I had a hand last night in a team game which falls right into this discussion.

Scoring: IMPs

(2♠)-?

---

Do you bid 3♦? Double, intending to correct clubs to diamonds? Something else?

I chose to double, figuring that I could correct clubs to diamonds at any level. The operative word here is ANY.

The auction continued:

(2♠) - x - (4♠) - 6♣
(P) - 6♦ - (P) - 6NT.

Fortunately, our opponents were not that swift. The AQ of hearts were sitting over my KJxx, but the opening leader decided to lead a spade into my partner's AQT. My partner, who held AQT xx x AKTxxx was able to run the diamonds and squeeze opener in three suits to make 6NT (opener had the ♠K, ♣Q and hearts to lead to his partner's AQ).

[hrothgar]

hrothgar, on Dec 21 2007, 07:00 PM, said:

I'm at work and don't have access to any of my books on Blue Club so I can't check anything immediately.

I do recall that the section on competitive methods discussed using Jump over calls of a 1 level bid to show intermediate strength hands with 2 known suits.  (Strong 2 suited patterns were shown with a jump in NT)

I don't recall any discussion whether such methods applied over preempts.

So, I made it home:

My copy of "The Blue Club" by Garozzo and Yallouze (adapted by Resse) does not cover jump overcalls after a preemptive bid. The book does have a section describing two suited overcalls of one level opening bids. (Please note: The system described is Ghestem and not Roman Jump Overcalls.

My copy of "The Blue Club" by Garozzo and Forquet recommends that jump overcalls over a one level opening shows single suited hands. This book does have a short section describing "Overcalls over Opponent's Opening Bid of Two or Three of a suit" which starts with the following statement:

Quote

Against these opening bids our system uses two conventional bids:  The double and the notrump at level.

Double is used as a classic negative double, denying the other majors. Notrump overcalls promise 4 cards in the unbid major.

I also checked "The Roman Club System of Distributional Bidding" by Belladonna and Avarelli. Pages 105-107 discuss

Quote

Overcalls after the opponent has Opened Two of a Suit

Jump bid at suit

Holding not more than 4-5 losers and a hand containing 2 suits at least 5 cards in length - the suit bid and the suit immediately above it in rank (skipping the opponent's suit).

Example:  Over 2 Hearts, holding KQxxx - xx - x - AKQxx, bid 3 Spades

So, there is evidence that Roman Club used jump overcalls of preempts to show two suited hands back.

However, I still don't think that any significant number of players used jumps shirts over preempts to show two suited hands until relatively recently. And I certainly don't think that a jump overcall of an opening preempt "traditionally" showed a two suited pattern which was your original claim.

[mikeh]

foo, on Dec 21 2007, 02:37 PM, said:

So the fundamental problem here is the josh and I disagree about =system=, not simply about the meaning of a bid or two.  Where I come from, "the slower you go, the more you've got" in constructive auctions.  No matter what level they start at.

The slower ways of bidding to 5C here are stronger than the faster paths to 5C for me.  Always have been.  Very likely always will be.  This is also true of just about every expert I know.  I actually can't think of an exception of ATM, but josh is a good player so I'll leave him the wriggle room.

Very kind of you to leave josh (who, on all the evidence available to me knows one heck of a lot more than you do about this game) some wiggle room

I echo all of what josh wrote in his earlier posts.

You have some idiosyncratic views that you tend to assert are expert standard. Now, you and I play, I presume, in different geographical areas, and there are undoubtedly regional differences in 'expert standard', usually based on the preferences of local guns. But these differences diminish (in terms of state of knowledge) at the higher levels because the best players read a lot, or travel a lot, or play a lot with other experts who do, so that there is a remarkable degree of uniformity amongst most experts about what 'expert standard' is. That is not to say that everyone agrees that the expert standard usage is 'correct'.

If I sit down with Josh, for instance, even had this thread not been posted, and even tho we have never met nor spoken, if this auction came up, I would very much have expected to be on the same wavelength even if, personally, I prefered to play it your way (which I don't, not for a moment).

Now, you clearly think of yourself as an 'expert'. Maybe there are aspects of your game where your skill is expert (declarer play, defence etc). Maybe on some level your idiosyncratic views are better than expert standard. And we are all free to post, which makes this forum entertaining. But don't claim your personal preferences to be expert standard, when the consensus of those experts posting here is dead against you.

[whereagles]

there's a simple rule for this:

If opps' opener is STRONG (i.e. 12+ hcp opener), jumps are WEAK
If opps' opener is WEAK (max 11 hcp), jumps are STRONG

so simple..

[foo]

mikeh,
Let's be clear that at no point in this or any other discussion have I claimed to be an Expert.

I want my posts to stand or fall on their merits, not on some claim or non claim of skill or accusation of non skill by others.
(...and given that neither you nor josh has ever faced me ATT here on BBO, you both really are making some assumptions.)

Now that we have the implied Ad Hominem attacks, Arguments from Authority, and all those other logical fallacies out of the way, let's talk Bridge.

Preempts suck. They rob of Us of badly needed bidding space on exactly the boards we need the space most. No matter what We do, there will not be enough sequences to cover all the hand types we need to be able to show, so we design System to take the least of evils.

If you are really going to claim that X'ing then bidding ♣'s is not stronger than a direct 4C overcall or a direct 5C jump overcall here, then I submit that it is you who has the non-standard view of expert standard here. Not I. Want to call the BridgeWorld and set up a poll? With respect, you and Josh do not constitute a world-wide expert consensus under any circumstances.

IMHO, ArtK78 made a perfect example of the use for X'ng then bidding ♣'s here, and I agree with him completely. His example shows why X'ing then bidding ♣'s here has to be stronger than a direct 5C bid. Which means a direct 5C bid must show a weaker hand.

Similar comments can be made about the other slow routes to 5C vs the direct bid of 5C, and for similar reasons.

Unfortunately, there are two issues intertwined in this thread:
a= just what to expect of the 5C overcall under normal circumstances, and
b= what to expect of the 5C overcall given the lack of an available natural 4C overcall.

Particularly given what I think the system implications of "b" are, IMHO Advancer's hand is not good enough to force to 6C.

Now if you have Bridge logic to refute any of these POV, or if you think there is some important hand type that can't be handled properly based on what I posted, by all means please present your case.

While Josh and I disagree on this hand, and we have on others and probably will do so in the future as well, at least we are exchanging our differing views based on bridge rather than personal comments. (For the most part. The call for a "gag action" by uday was a bit over the top. I'll chalk that up to people sometimes getting overly excited in the heat of argument. More so the younger they are.)

I'm perfectly happy to discuss the merits / weaknesses of any particular systemic approach. I'm perfectly willing to discuss bidding judgement, cardplay technique, etc etc. I make mistakes too and the only way to learn from them is to analyze and discuss them.

But please bring substance to the discussion (like you usually do).

[ArtK78]

While I agree with some of what foo wrote in his post, I have to disagree that my example proved his point.

In my example, I held --- KJxx AKQxxxx Jx. I chose to double as opposed to bidding 3♦ not because my hand was too strong for a 3♦ overcall, but because I had 4 hearts. If I held --- KJx AKQxxxx Jxx instead, I would have overcalled 3♦.

I would not have bid 5♦. I don't think the hand is good enough for a 5♦ bid.

I used to agree that, in most cases, doubling and bidding a suit is stronger, but not differently shaped, than just bidding a suit directly. But I am not so sure anymore.

In other threads, I brought up the issue of doubling versus overcalling when one has a very strong hand. I related the story of a hand that I played against Meckwell's team in the opening day of the Chicago GNT. I held a very strong hand with long clubs and a shortness in spades. My RHO opened 1♥. I felt that my hand was too strong for a 2♣ overcall, so I doubled. My LHO bid spades and my partner freely bid 2♣. We wound up in 6♣x making (my partner could have made an overtrick but he was more than satisfied to make). After the hand was over, my partner - David Treadwell - expressed his dissatisfaction with my double. He told me that even though I had a very strong hand, I should not double without the unbid major. A simple 2♣ overcall was sufficient unless the hand was an absolute monster. This was a new idea to me (even after playing for 30 years, new things come up all the time). At the other table, David Berkowitz held my hand and overcalled 2♣. He and Larry Cohen conducted a tortuous auction and arrived at 6♣ also, but my teammates were able to find their VUL AGAINST NOT SACRIFICE AT 6♠! They went down only 2 tricks.

The moral of the story is that in this new world of bridge, overcalls can be very strong, and you should not double and bid a new suit just because you think you are too strong for a simple overcall. To double, you must have either a more flexible hand (to borrow the term from what some other posters have stated) or your hand is so huge that you can handle anything that partner may do over your double.

[foo]

To hold myself to the same standard I am asking josh and mikeh for, let's look at some possible hands for overcaller.

All these hand types have "only" 10 HCP: the excellent holding of AKQJ in ♣'s.
I would bid each of these differently ATT:

#1= xxx.xxx.x.AKQJxx
This is IMHO a natural 4C Overcall. Without a natural 4C overcall available, I'm stuck.

#2= xxx.xx.x.AKQJxxx or xx.xxx.x.AKQJxxx
I want to bid 5C to play.
(xxx.x)xx.AKQJxxx
The "death holding" of 2 small cards in Their suit downgrades this hand to a 4C overcall when such is natural.

#3= (xx.xx.x)AKQJxxxx
But this time I'm X'ing then bidding ♣'s

Now the ones not restricted to AKQJ of ♣'s.

#4= Most single suited 7 loser hands with 6+C
Natural 4C overcall
(Axx.Axx.xx)AKxxx, So what I have 7 controls and 15 HCP. I also have an awful lot of losers for Advancer to cover.

#5= Just about every single suited 6 loser ♣ hand I can think of
5C To Play.
The most common exceptions I can think of all have xx in Their suit.
They get downgraded.

etc. I'll continue this exercise for other hands types if someone shows interest.

[foo]

Art,

You and I actually have very close to the same POV. The point I'm trying to drive home is that you have to take the percentage action and you have to play GOP to have taken the percentage action.

I note wryly that =your= WC opponents did not find the 6S sac despite the fact that Meckwell are far more aggressive bidders than LarryC and DavidB.

That "long tortuous auction" told your teammates where the cards were so they could take the sac.

In short, what constitutes an "absolute monster" and what the best way to bid a hand are is context dependent.

I haven't seen Dave Treadwell in years. How is his health?

[jdonn]

mikeh, on Dec 21 2007, 04:20 PM, said:

foo, on Dec 21 2007, 02:37 PM, said:

So the fundamental problem here is the josh and I disagree about =system=, not simply about the meaning of a bid or two.  Where I come from, "the slower you go, the more you've got" in constructive auctions.  No matter what level they start at.

The slower ways of bidding to 5C here are stronger than the faster paths to 5C for me.  Always have been.  Very likely always will be.  This is also true of just about every expert I know.  I actually can't think of an exception of ATM, but josh is a good player so I'll leave him the wriggle room.

Very kind of you to leave josh (who, on all the evidence available to me knows one heck of a lot more than you do about this game) some wiggle room

I get wriggle room AND wiggle room?? It's gonna be a fun night tonight!

I don't see how Art's example shows anything. His double was surely based on his holding four hearts, not the strength of his hand. (In other words, dare I say, he doubled because of an aspect of his hand that was flexible?)

As for the last post I am only going to comment on the first example. xxx xxx x AKQJxx is a passsssssssssssss over a 3♦ opening bid. I'm sure partner will not appreciate your desire to show a minor on the four level on your ten count when he was about to bid 3NT or his five card major. This is the four level we are talking about...

[rogerclee]

foo, on Dec 21 2007, 05:22 PM, said:

#1= xxx.xxx.x.AKQJxx
This is IMHO a natural 4C Overcall.  Without a natural 4C overcall available, I'm stuck.

I think you'd have to be crazy to bid 4C on these cards. I'm making a takeout double before I bid 4C, and scoring it Pass - 10, Double - 0.2, 4C - 0.

[foo]

I think the point Art showed with his example is that T/O X'er must be able to handle any response by Advancer.

The greater the disparity between the actual hand and the prototypical "perfect" 4441, the more extra strength the hand must have to be able to handle the potential following auction.

So both shape and overall trick taking power matter.

As for (3D)-4C with xxx_xxx_x_AKQJxx at IMPs,
I have 6 nigh unto guaranteed tricks for pard.
For me to bid this hand the same way I would a 4333 zero count or any other hand that rates to take zero, or even only 1 or 2, tricks would seem to violate one of the basic tenets of Bridge.

Nonetheless, I'll completely agree it won't always work out. I never claimed that after all.

[mikeh]

Foo, in the words of one of the other real experts to post here: you are full of crap

You say that you don't claim to post as an expert, yet, when putting forward your view of the auction, you state that this is the view of 'every expert I know'. So even if this isn't a claim of expert status for you, it is an assertion that your view is the unanimous expert view, and this is crap.

You say that 'x followed by a new suit has !never! shown a flexible hand'.

You then suggest that I contact the BW. If there is one thing I have learned from reading the past 60+ years of BWs (I'm not that old, but I bought a complete collection of old ones years ago and have subscribed for 20 years), it is that the current expert consensus (and I think it has been the consensus for many years now) is that double of a preempt followed by a new suit is, for almost all current experts, a flexible hand. You assert, categorically and with emphasis, a proposition that it simply untrue. And the dangerous thing is that most readers here probably don't have access to the BW and so don't know that you are stating, as fact, something that is FALSE!

To add absurdity to your posts, early on, as a 'note' on the methods, you stated that 'traditionally we use the jump overcall of a preempt to show a 2-suited hand'.

This is ridiculous.

[3♦] 4♠ is a 2-suiter???????? This is the 'traditional' meaning?

[3♦] 5♣ shows clubs and a major???????

I don't like the usage of [3♦] 4♣ as a 2-suiter.. I think it is horrible, but that isn't because I would ever expect ANY player, expert or otherwise, to use 5♣ as a club-major two-suiter I would prefer to overcall the major, risking losing the club suit, but preserving the natural meaning of 4♣. That is not to say that there won't be hands on which the 2-suited 4♣ works like a charm, but, on the whole, I don't like it, especially since advancer may have to guess the major... and/or be unable to suggest his own heart suit, out of fear that this would be pass or correct.


There are some aspects of your comments with which I agree. Preempting does consume valuable bidding space, and our methods should be designed to accommodate, as best we can, a variety of hand-types.

I disagree with the bridge logic of your suggested methods. But my earlier post was not primarily intended to be either a critique of your ideas or a discussion of my preferred methods. In that regard, as I noted, I agreed with Josh.

What I was trying to do was to point out that your views are not expert standard.

I was not stating that Josh and I constitute a consensus of WC opinion, nor even of expert opinion. My saying that your ideas are not expert standard is not a claim that mine are.

[ArtK78]

I apologize for injecting a post with a tone of civility. It is clearly out of place in this thread.

I have not seen David Treadwell in a couple of months, as I have not been to many tournaments. Since I will be at a Sectional in Wilmington Delaware on Sunday, December 30, I expect to see him then.

Dave is doing quite nicely for a man of 95. I cannot say the same for his jokes. They are getting worse (if that is possible). Also, the fact that Dave's memory is not as good as it once was means that he tells them over and over. Excruciating.



Dave and I last played on the weekend at the Bethesda Regional in July. We finished 7th in the Jerry Machlin Pairs (qualifying and barometer final - fun event) and 5th in the Sunday Swiss teams. We might have done better except for a couple of hands on which Dave revoked. But he is still pretty sharp.

Dave drives himself to and from tournaments. But when we went to Bethesda, I insisted on driving. I had had the unfortunate experience of having Dave drive me back from the District GNT in Scranton, PA, to Cherry Hill, NJ - a three hour drive. David has a very heavy foot on the accelerator and not the best attention span. The combination leads to a white-knuckle trip. If Dave ever offers you a ride somewhere, I suggest that you walk instead.

[foo]

ArtK78, on Dec 21 2007, 06:02 PM, said:

I apologize for injecting a post with a tone of civility.  It is clearly out of place in this thread. 

I have not seen David Treadwell in a couple of months, as I have not been to many tournaments.  Since I will be at a Sectional in Wilmington Delaware on Sunday, December 30, I expect to see him then.

Dave is doing quite nicely for a man of 95.  I cannot say the same for his jokes.  They are getting worse (if that is possible).  Also, the fact that Dave's memory is not as good as it once was means that he tells them over and over.  Excruciating.



Dave and I last played on the weekend at the Bethesda Regional in July.  We finished 7th in the Jerry Machlin Pairs (qualifying and barometer final - fun event) and 5th in the Sunday Swiss teams.  We might have done better except for a couple of hands on which Dave revoked.  But he is still pretty sharp.

Dave's jokes and puns are notoriously bad. Often very bad.
He is "one of the good guys" in bridge though. And for that, I'll even put up with his (often painful to hear) sense of humor.

Thanks for letting me know how he is doing. His health was good, but delicate "even" when he was 90. Nice to see him still hanging in there.

...and I have =never= let him drive me anywhere. I was warned by friends before that possibility came up.

NA bridge will definitely lose something when he passes.

Now I'll go back into the fray...

[foo]

mikeh, on Dec 21 2007, 05:51 PM, said:

Foo, in the words of one of the other real experts to post here: you are full of crap

You say that you don't claim to post as an expert, yet, when putting forward your view of the auction, you state that this is the view of 'every expert I know'. So even if this isn't a claim of expert status for you, it is an assertion that your view is the unanimous expert view, and this is crap.

You say that 'x followed by a new suit has !never! shown a flexible hand'.

You then suggest that I contact the BW. If there is one thing I have learned from reading the past 60+ years of BWs (I'm not that old, but I bought a complete collection of old ones years ago and have subscribed for 20 years), it is that the current expert consensus (and I think it has been the consensus for many years now) is that double of a preempt followed by a new suit is, for almost all current experts, a flexible hand. You assert, categorically and with emphasis, a proposition that it simply untrue. And the dangerous thing is that most readers here probably don't have access to the BW and so don't know that you are stating, as fact, something that is FALSE!

To add absurdity to your posts, early on, as a 'note' on the methods, you stated that 'traditionally we use the jump overcall of a preempt to show a 2-suited hand'.

This is ridiculous.

[3♦] 4♠ is a 2-suiter???????? This is the 'traditional' meaning?

[3♦] 5♣ shows clubs and a major???????

I don't like the usage of [3♦] 4♣ as a 2-suiter.. I think it is horrible, but that isn't because I would ever expect ANY player, expert or otherwise, to use 5♣ as a club-major two-suiter       I would prefer to overcall the major, risking losing the club suit, but preserving the natural meaning of 4♣. That is not to say that there won't be hands on which the 2-suited 4♣ works like a charm, but, on the whole, I don't like it, especially since advancer may have to guess the major... and/or be unable to suggest his own heart suit, out of fear that this would be pass or correct.


There are some aspects of your comments with which I agree. Preempting does consume valuable bidding space, and our methods should be designed to accommodate, as best we can, a variety of hand-types.

I disagree with the bridge logic of your suggested methods. But my earlier post was not primarily intended to be either a critique of your ideas or a discussion of my preferred methods. In that regard, as I noted, I agreed with Josh.

What I was trying to do was to point out that your views are not expert standard.

I was not stating that Josh and I constitute a consensus of WC opinion, nor even of expert opinion. My saying that your ideas are not expert standard is not a claim that mine are.

let's take these one at a time and hopefully remove a few evident misunderstandings.

1= I don't claim to know every expert. I do know quite a few of them. My experience with the POV of the ones I know is a reasonable large sample. Not a unanimous sample, and not even a majority sample of all world experts.
So I've never claimed to know unanimous expert opinion.

Heck, I doubt such a thing exists for any but the most simple things in Bridge. Maybe not even there. Bridge players are usually a fractious bunch when discussing Theory. (This thread is a case in point )

2= I stated that X followed a new suit shows a strong hand. Stronger than an ordinary overcall. I also stated that if it was a single suited hand it was a very strong hand. I never made any statement about it not being a flexible hand.
To use ArtK's example again, had his hand been of the same shape but a little weaker, I'd suggest that overcalling his long suit and then reversing would have been a better way to bid it rather than by starting with a X.
There are two ways to bid ArtK's 64. Starting with X is the stronger of the two.

3= My sole argument with you and Josh re: X'ing then bidding a new suit is that Josh has stated that it does not show a stronger hand than a direct game overcall. I strongly disagree with this.
I have not said that it can't be a flexible hand. I have only said it must be a stronger hand than a direct game overcall and that the less flexible it is the stronger it should be. This is to my understanding standard expert practice on this matter.

4= Your examples re: jump overcalls to show a new suit seem to have ignored the basic bridge tenet "any non game jump overcall". I believe I explicitly mentioned that when I first stated the use of 2 suited jump overcalls, but if I did not it was because we =are= in the Expert/Advanced forum where such things should be safely understood rather than in the Beginner forum.

To be as clear as I would if talking to a novice:
Jump overcalls of a preempt show 2 suits when they are not jumps into game.
(3D)-X Everything we ever taught about T/O X's, adjusted for the auction level.
(3D)-3M Natural
(3D)-3N To Play
(3D)-4C Natural
(*I'm assuming we are teaching Standard here, not the system OP*)
(3D)-4D GF S+H (the rarer hand types I will ignore for now)
(3D)-4M To Play
(3D)-4N GF C+M or C+H, I'm not sure there is overwhelming consensus here.
(3D)-5C To Play.

Now what the OP's partnership seems to have decided is that being able to show C+M one level lower is worth sacrificing the natural meaning of the 4C bid for.

It may well be, but like anything else making it easier to bid some hands makes it harder to bid others. In this case, the relatively common ones that you would like to be able to start with a 4C bid with. (For instance if ArtK's hand had been a 46 M+C two-suiter not usually considered strong enough to X in this auction, what does ArtK do? The loss of 4C natural has made it impossible for ArtK to construct a reverse auction starting with 4C.)

Hopefully this will clear up all the mistaken inferences some have taken of my posts in this thread and remove the vitriol from the discussion.

[jdonn]

foo, on Dec 21 2007, 06:54 PM, said:

3= My sole argument with you and Josh re: X'ing then bidding a new suit is that Josh has stated that it does not show a stronger hand than a direct overcall.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Please don't ever testify on my behalf in court. Unless I'm really guilty.

[foo]

jdonn, on Dec 21 2007, 02:00 PM, said:

foo, on Dec 21 2007, 01:49 PM, said:

Let's be clear: are you trying to say that an immediate 5C bid with a single suited ♣ hand is better than any of
a= X, then bid ♣'s

That doesn't show a better hand than this, it is just more flexible, which is another way of saying less oriented toward clubs. If I had to pick, the direct jump shows a better hand since this 4♣ bid is not even forcing.

<snip>

So the attempted comparisons are moot, except with A which shows about the same strength as this (a direct bid of 5C) but a different hand type.

And yes I disagree that they (direct game bids) remove partner from the bidding. They bring him into it by telling him to a very close degree what you have.

There's your post saying that X, then bidding ♣'s is no stronger than simply bidding 5C.