gszes

Sigh I hate to admit this but after winning trick 1 with the club A I would exit with the heart T. I realize this play loses a tiny amount of the time when playing hearts from the top would bring in 9 tricks when the Q is singleton or doubleton. I hate the idea of squeezing dummy and giving the opps the opportunity to signal. I feel the odds of the opps returning hearts is minimal (whomever wins the heart Q) and anything else they do runs the risk (to them) of yielding an extra trick for me. Who knows maybe lho will even duck Qxx of hearts:) ok let me have it.

match point greed perhaps? careful or not MIKEH with the plan as usual

I am going to play the club Q. I realize the ODDS FAVOR PLAYING FOR THE HEART SUIT TO BREAK 32. What I am unsure about is if the odds are what I should be looking at here. LHO would have NO KNOWN REASON (if they do not possess the club K) to assume a club is going to be of benefit to the defense since declarer has a known singleton in clubs UNLESS: LHO has both 4 hearts and the club K. The club switch is mandatory to break up a squeeze against lho. If we rise with the ace the squeeze is gone because the club Q is no longer a threat. It is a TON easier to find this defense when looking at the club K and 4 hearts. For those that think it is automatic to ruff the 3rd diamond and return a club to give declarer a GUESS: How does lho know for sure declarer does not have a 4th diamond and it is necessary for lho to ruff the 4th round to keep declarer from pitching a potential heart loser?. IMVHO the defense at the table should ONLY be perpetrated when it can have a positive outcome vs a theoretical positive outcome i.e. LHO can see breaking up a potential squeeze but they cannot verify declarer has only 3 diamonds.

5n by the 4n bidder would be a sign off but should happen in the rarest of circumstances. This is because the 4n partner is showing their aces in the hopes of bidding a diffcult to reach 7 and the 4n bidders p is willing to go to the 6 level (they might prefer playing in a long minor with few NT entries).

Good hand and excellent point about pitching a useless diamond on the 2nd club. Stepping into the bidding. After 4N (quantitative), what does anyone think of the idea (when willing to accept invite to 6) of answering it like it was regular blackwood. This sort of acceptance would indicate not just a willingness to bid 6 but to bid 7 if our side has all of the first round controls? This idea would have allowed us to reach 7 on this pair of hands.

i heard there is a great class on pickleball at the university. I may take that up and give up this grrr contrarian sport. ANYWAY 1S. IF we are going to reach a slam opposite anything like a moderate hand by p it is because we have an 8 card (44) fit or better. Starting with 2c might allow us to find 44 spade or dia fit but oddly it may make it almost impossible to discover if we have a 54 or even a 55 club fit since a simple 3 club raise could easily be from 3 card support. Most hands will end up in 3n or (4h when p has a pretty decent heart suit). A 1s start gives us our best chance to discover a hard to reach slam. Same power but 4036 I would start with 2c. STAY WELL

sigh i hate it when i am contrary to the world but i will go ahead and try to justify my cowardice (pass) anyway. Say p has Kxxx void Kxxxx Axxx. We have pretty decent play for 3n. However, most players I know will x 3h with that hand so p does NOT have that good of a hand. That means the upside of bidding seems much much smaller than we like to think. Giving p a random 8 count, and comparing it with our hand, shows 3n to have a pretty small % chance of making. I realize this will score poorly on some hands but getting those positive scores no matter at imps or mp keeps me from getting slaughtered. Its not just that but it seems so RARE when the cards are going my way so pass caters to the pessimist in me. STAY WELL

I agree that playing low looks like a better shot but for different reasons. W KNOWS E does NOT have the AK of dia due to the opening lead. If W has the dia A it seems unnecessarily dangerous to underlead it and risk the (admittedly small) chance declarer has the singleton K. Attacking diamonds is the right defense when looking at all of those club winners so low from the Q is perfectly normal because what have you got to lose? :) I would pass 2h as 3n is too small a target.

given your system, I would start with 3c and after p bids the expected 3d, I should be able to now bid 4n keycard for diamonds. Once we establish all of the aces I should always be able to ask for the spade K so we will end up in 6n or 7n.

get well soon

get well soon

if you are playing with a human 3d seems fine because it focuses their attention on the dia suit. GIB just blatantly ignores that and seems to raise almost any time they are not near dead minimum. opposite a robot, i would just bid 3h and make it tougher on the defense (no dia knowledge) and be willing to miss the occasional game.

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SIGH I hope I am reading this right. It appears that south is getting dealt 15 - 17 not 17 (of course the intent may have changed) I see you like variables vs just plugging in numbers thus and HCP(south) == 17 do you work for a coding company that gets paid by the line by the government?:))) I am assuming top2 is reserved code asking for the A or K in the given suit since it is undefined elsewhere. good job:))

no wonder i have no clue. This game really is rocket science. :))