[P_Marlowe]

DavidKok, on 2025-August-11, 11:58, said:

That's false. Transfers definitely have some sacrifices and some gains. Personally when I started playing transfers in competition, in more situations than just advancing seat, I identified three primary benefits and four primary costs. There are more, but I think this is enough for a broad overview:

Advantages:
<snip>

Disadvantages:
<snip>
[*]Transfer always have to start somewhere, e.g. 'at their cuebid' or 'at 2♣' or 'at 1NT' or 'at (re)double'. That lowest call is sacrificed to enable the transfer responses, and usually gets tacked on at the end of the transfer bids.
<snip>

I agree.
Missing in your adv. list is the fact, that xfer usually gives you a add. raise of p suit, tightening the spaces / ranges.
This is the major gain.
Sidestepping the decision that new suits are forcing / nonforcing is secondary, it is nice, but secondary.

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2025-August-11, 11:58, said:

That's false. Transfers definitely have some sacrifices and some gains. Personally when I started playing transfers in competition, in more situations than just advancing seat, I identified three primary benefits and four primary costs. There are more, but I think this is enough for a broad overview:

Advantages:

• NF new suits let you stop in any suit at the cheapest level. F new suits guarantee you get to show multi-suited hands and strong hands, and improve your chances of finding the best fit. Transfers offer a best of both worlds - and showing your suits even on relatively weak hands (if you so desire), and being able to stop at the cheapest level, and offering a rebid in case of a shapely or strong hand.
  
• In the case of transfer responses, not advances, it puts overcaller on lead more often. This means they are often leading away from strength, and certainly leading with less information than their partner.
  
• Using a cheaper bid to show a hand gives partner an extra step. They can, for example, use that freed up space for strength and/or shape clarification, which might be more difficult in natural systems. In this way transfers in competition can improve on the classical 'complete the transfer if you would have passed a NF response'.

Disadvantages:

• They can be a lot of work, especially if you only play them in some competitive situations, or have different agreements for different situations. Furthermore, a system forget is likely irrecoverable - partner will play you for a completely different suit than the one you actually have.
  
• While transfers allow you to bid more shape-oriented and with more hands, this also means you no longer have the inference that partner has a solid hand if they do use a transfer. If partner transfers and RHO bids (again), this creates new and unique competitive problems that require new skills to handle.
  
• Transfer always have to start somewhere, e.g. 'at their cuebid' or 'at 2♣' or 'at 1NT' or 'at (re)double'. That lowest call is sacrificed to enable the transfer responses, and usually gets tacked on at the end of the transfer bids. Normally, a little something is lost along the way - we can't fully take a cheap natural meaning and slot it in at a higher bid free of cost. Transfers claim to gain more on the rest than they lose here (and I agree), but e.g. people disagree on the value of a natural 1NT in competition or a natural redouble and this immediately results in different transfer schemes. This cost is real and needs to be managed somehow.
  
• We're not the only ones who can take advantage of that extra space - the opponents are listening too. They get the usual suite of double-then-pass, pass-then-double etc. as well as the cue bid (the suit we're showing, not bidding) that they wouldn't have available otherwise.

We aren’t discussing transfer responses so your digression onto that is an irrelevancy if you’re trying to persuade people not to try transfer advances

As for your other points, I ask…so what?

Your main complaint appears to be that they are complicated. Ok, for the club player who plays only at club games or in casual partnerships….yes, they are way too much work. But these players struggle with most advanced topics. And very few of them would be interested.

Transfer advances can be played very simply (in my main partnership we have an elaborate structure but I play transfer advances with other (good) players with a very simple structure, well within the capability of an advanced pair). Will they have a forget or two early on? Almost certainly. As I tell all players with whom I’m starting even an occasional partnership, I’ve screwed up every new convention I’ve ever played. But I don’t screw them up much after that!

A simple structure takes maybe five minutes to explain. After a 1 level or 2 level, non jump, overcall, then transfers apply ONLY if advancer has a 2 level cue in opener’s suit available.

Unless that is true, transfers are off. But if it is true, then transfers are ALWAYS on.

(1C) 1H (x) 2C…..diamonds

(1C) 1H (1N) 2D…..good heart raise.

Transfers end at overcaller’s suit. Overcaller bids 1x…2X is a weak raise. 2x-1 is a good raise

Am I claiming zero downside? No. As I’ve said before, literally every single method ever invented has a cost.

Your point about the opps listening is valid. But I’ve played transfer advances in many hundreds of sessions, including against some of the best players in the world and imo the cost of the opps listening is as close zero as it’s possible to be. Indeed, the stronger the opps, the more important it is to be able to compete as often as possible. Stay out of the auctions of WC pairs, and you’re basically giving up.

At lower levels, the cost is even less since non expert opps often don’t understand what’s going on and don’t or can’t take advantage of information leak.

Now, it’s possible to over complicate methods. I play transfer fit- jumps by responder (not advancer) but we’re thinking of abandoning them. They’re kind of fun to play but they don’t seem to help much. And we do play transfer advances starting at a 3- level cue but these rarely arise and I’m not sure they offer much gain.but a simple two level advance structure is incredibly simple.

[DavidKok]

P_Marlowe, on 2025-August-11, 13:27, said:

I agree.
Missing in your adv. list is the fact, that xfer usually gives you a add. raise of p suit, tightening the spaces / ranges.
This is the major gain.
Sidestepping the decision that new suits are forcing / nonforcing is secondary, it is nice, but secondary.

I think you get the same two raises as without transfers, or are you thinking of structures where you get a third one?


Mike, I have no idea what you're on about. I am not trying to persuade people not to try them, or making any complaint. It bothers me a lot that you have a habit of inventing an opinion on my behalf and then attacking it. All I wanted to do is share that transfers improve bidding in competition, but that the full picture is complicated with multiple upsides and downsides. Initially I was planning on staying out of this thread, but the comment that transfers make no sacrifices made me want to chime in. I've listed the few aspects of transfers in competition that I find most important to address.

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2025-August-11, 13:34, said:

I think you get the same two raises as without transfers, or are you thinking of structures where you get a third one?


Mike, I have no idea what you're on about. I am not trying to persuade people not to try them, or making any complaint. It bothers me a lot that you have a habit of inventing an opinion on my behalf and then attacking it. All I wanted to do is share that transfers improve bidding in competition, but that the full picture is complicated with multiple upsides and downsides. Initially I was planning on staying out of this thread, but the comment that transfers make no sacrifices made me want to chime in. I've listed the few aspects of transfers in competition that I find most important to address.

David: I hope that one day we can sit down and have a beer. I think we’d find that we have a lot in common.

Posts are easy to misconstrue. You did that some time ago when you misconstrued my posts about a forcing pass situation, doing precisely what you are accusing me of now….inventing an opinion you attributed to me then criticizing me for holding this imaginary view.

You often stress that, in your opinion, conventions suggested by others have significant issues that, in my long experience, I’ve almost never seen at the table, either in my partnerships or those of my opponents. I took your listing of disadvantages (which are valid but in my experience extraordinarily rare) as an attempt, whether so intended or not) as an attempt to dissuade people from playing the method. I’m happy to accept that I misunderstood your position.

[P_Marlowe]

DavidKok, on 2025-August-11, 13:34, said:

I think you get the same two raises as without transfers, or are you thinking of structures where you get a third one?
<snip>

We play a variant, that gives us a 3rd.
As I said, it is homebrew.

Originally I looked at Rubens Advances and after a short glance, I did close the book, ... it was to complicate, I am not
arguing the merrits, just the complexity was to high.

We went with a simpler variant, which has its minus due to not being symmetric and space efficient, but it works, and the
the 3rd raise is worth it alone.

[P_Marlowe]

DavidKok, on 2025-August-11, 13:34, said:

I think you get the same two raises as without transfers, or are you thinking of structures where you get a third one?
<snip>

We play a variant, that gives us a 3rd.
As I said, it is homebrew.

Originally I looked at Rubens Advances and after a short glance, I did close the book, ... it was too complicate, I am not
arguing the merrits, just the complexity was too high.

We went with a simpler variant, which has its minus due to not being symmetric and space inefficient, but it works, and the
3rd raise is worth it alone.