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Splinter raise of ♠.

Helene was right, and rather sooner than later. I can't imagine anyone voting for Gove, such an unattractive pompous treacherous little man, that whole scenario was clearly planned from the beginning. He knew he hadn't a hope of getting Brexit through without Boris so he played his role well, then tossed him. Sort of like how Harper got into the Conservative leadership in Canada originally, that also relied on an absolute betrayal of trust. Judging from here, Gove hadn't much success reforming the education system when he was in charge of it, what with parents and teacher rebelling and all, so it's difficult to see what possible reason anyone would have to vote for him. May will likely benefit from the fallout of people feeling outraged at how he treated Boris and turning it around to "anyone but Gove." Politics is an ugly business sometimes, no wonder there's no honor when they get to the top echelons.

I thought about this too. Declarer sounds like 2515. Declarer Needs SK and da plus one club honor or cKQ for bidding to make sense. I really have no idea what's going on but there's nothing positive I can do if I hop cA.

Win with the ace and play the ♦3, which will hopefully look like a singleton. (If partner has ♣Qx, then declarer has to guess both minor suits for this line to be wrong. Even if partner has the stiff ♣Q or ♣K you'll get the trick back if declarer misguesses diamonds.)

The point being? If they were using the 'expert' 3♥ mixed raise, the result would have been the same (excellent with a nine card fit), but they wouldn't have given the opponents the extra space along the way.

When I transfer to clubs with xxx xx xx KQxxxx and my partner can super accept, I know we have good play in 3NT. This would be impossible to find with your method. I don't understand why everyone wants to get rid of bidding Stayman without a 4 card major. After the auction 1NT-2♣-2♠-2NT, the defense will not know whether responder has 4 hearts or not, which can only be a good thing.

5-5 invitational, 5-5 GF, or some sort of spade raise, depending on agreements. If 2d is a GF I would assume 5-5 inv.

There are pairs (or individual players) who play 2♣ overcall as "Stayman" - asking for 4-card major, but not promising 4+/4+ in the majors. Some players call this "Landy". It is possible that this is North/South's understanding: they should be educated about how to disclose this understanding and may be that there is misinformation on this hand.

in normal circumstances, no. i've no idea how many diamonds they have. but they're quite sporting, so i'd smack it on the assumption that if they're close to making 3, they'd be in 5.

Yes, restricted choice principles still apply. For me, the easiest way to do these problems is just to look at the initial probabilities and tally up which holdings you are picking up: 1. 8 card fit. If you play for QJ tight when an honor drops offside, you are picking up 1/10 of the 2-3 breaks (10 ways to choose 2 cards out of 5). 1/10 * 1/2 * 67.83% = 3.39% If you hook if an honor appears, you are picking up 2/5 of the 1-4 breaks. 2/5 * 1/2 * 28.26% = 5.65% 2. 9 card fit. QJ tight is 1/6 of the 2-2 breaks. 1/6 * 40.7 = 6.78% honor stiff is 1/2 of the 1-3 breaks 1/2 * 1/2 * 49.74% = 12.44% The main time you should be playing for the drop in these restricted choice situations is a suit like xx opposite AKQ9xx where you would get owned by someone who is capable of playing an honor from JTx offside on occasion if you decided you were going to try to hook instead. Most other cases finessing tends to work out better.