wbartley

Since whatever you do is going to be a guess, I'm going to give up on 7 since 9/10 times RHO will hold the heart A. Now, the question is whether or not partner holds the club K because if he doesn't, you're going down in 6. I double and if partner bids 4 diamonds I bid 4 spades. If he bids 4 clubs, I bid 4NT and if he shows me one key card I bid 6 spades. Trying to maximize my chances here in a guessing situation.

I would double and bid 2N over any minimum suit response. That should show a good 20-21. I would bid 3N over a 1N response, obviously. Your partner isn't broke so you're probably not in too much trouble in 2N. Standard on here might be that 2N is natural but why not use the more flexible double? Bidding 2N directly pretty much guarantees you aren't going to defend and I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather defend a two level contract than play 2N opposite a queen.

To consider anything other than double here seems nutty. I'm with the people who say double=10 everything else=0. My plan is to bid 4C over 3M, Pass 3N or 4M, and bid 6C over 4D.

I'm leading a spade. Seems like the goal here is not to give away a trick and I think it far more likely that declarer has the DK than that the outstanding spades are favorably placed for declarer. The only reason to prefer the club K over a spade is if you think your partner has club tricks that need to be set up quickly but I don't see where declarer's club losers could be going. You don't want a ruff. A trump could also easily give away a trick.

Pass

Pass. Overcalling 1NT will often get you to 2S going down when you can get +200 defending an eventual 1NT by RHO. A 1H overcall shows five and all your total tricks partners will be bidding 3H on air against the opponents' 3C and you'll be down again when you're getting +200 defending 3C and you'll never recover from double so pass is your bid. Frankly, I don't see what the problem is.

Dinarius mentioned the possibility of partner protecting in fourth seat. The fact that partner will protect on some portion of the layouts where we make game, pass may be more attractive than it seems. In other words, in my original analysis I ruled out passing because I felt the possibility that either side is making a NV game is too high. But you have to subtract those hands where partner protects. I still think a computer analysis would be invaluable here, especially if we could somehow quantify what a fourth seat balancer's hand contains.

I think the probability that you're making game combined with the probability that the opponents are making four hearts takes pass out of the picture although it would be interesting to see a Monte Carlo analysis assuming RHO holds AQJ eight times in hearts. Anyway, my gut tells me that pass is a bad idea and obviously so do the guts of everyone else who bothered to answer. The next question for a computer is, how often will partner have five or more spades when you double and he bids spades? Since there are likely eight or more spades out there, the conditional probability that partner has five or more spades has to be fairly high. So, my inclination is to double and leave him in whatever he bids. If LHO doubles four spade, run to clubs. If he doesn't double and you're not making, you may not be making anything.

1. P 2. P 3. 4S 4. X 5. P (and take my plus score) 6. X 7. P 8. P (and take my plus score) 9. 4S 10. 4S 11. X 12. 4S 13. P 14. P 15. 4S 16. 4N (I think partner has values here but only 4 spades since he didn't bid) 17. 4S 18. P 19. P 20. 4S 21. P 22. 4S 23. X

I agree with the people suggesting trying the heart finesse early and if it doesn't work, a dummy reversal ruffing diamonds high, finessing against the spade ten and hoping either hearts break or a club heart squeeze. I'm also a simple soul. If there's a better line it would never occur to me. I guess it was obvious that if the heart finesse wins, cash the high club and a third round, ruffing the club as high as is necessary for safety, then pulling trump, pitching a heart on the ace of diamonds at some point along the way.

There are good arguments on both side. I pass and my argument is that with so few tricks in my hand I can easily imagine our side buying the hand for two hearts, undoubled, and going off 200.