Are transfers on?

Playing with an occasional partner in a strong club game, I ran into questions of what standard 2/1 is.

Opposite an overcall of 1NT, we play "systems on",  so that:

1C - 1NT - P - 2H

the 2H is a transfer to spades.

But how about this situation:

	♠986 ♥- ♦Q86 ♣AJ87432
♠K743 ♥A87542 ♦42 ♣5		♠A2 ♥JT93 ♦AKT3 ♣K96
	♠QJT5 ♥KQ6 ♦J975 ♣QT

North deals and opens 3C.  Partner (East) bids 3NT.  Now, as West, I had a problem.  Are transfers on, or off in this situation?  This is the bidding:

3C - 3NT - P - 4H

Is this a sign-off in hearts, or a transfer to spades?

I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and passed.  Partner played 3NT beautifully, squeezing South in diamonds and spades to pick up 10 tricks. But there are 11 tricks in hearts, and so it was not a great board.

Once you are playing "systems on" after NT overcalls, Stayman and transfers should be on over a 2NT or 3NT overcall as well.  On this hand, though, I have an even better bid available -- I could have bid 4C to cater to partner having four spades.  Since clubs is North's preempt suit, this would be unmistakably Stayman.  I simply was not thinking.

Flyer for 2/1 class

My flyers for EasyBridge and for a newcomer's game were apparently quite popular.  So, even though we no longer live in Oklahoma, I got pinged to create a flyer for an upcoming 2/1 class in OKC.

This is what I made:

Here is the Word document incase you want to modify it for your purposes.

Vulnerable in Hearts

"A book about bridge that is not really about bridge at all," is how Sandy Balfour describes his book "Vulnerable in Hearts".  It's about his dad in South Africa who taught him to play in "the golden age of apartheid", and about his son who was born knowing how to play bridge.

"Everyone loves bridge," his father says at one point, "they just don't know it yet.".

This lovely, lyrical book is about a complex game, a complex man, and a family that makes it through the decades with love and understanding.