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. :))

my 2/1gf 1s 2h 3d 16+ 3n this unfortunate auction never learns about the 6th heart or 5th diamond but the singleton spade and icko QJx of clubs are a dia slam turn off anyway. If opener is a bit better i hope they bid 4h with something like AQxxx KQ KQJxx x then blackwood to 6h.

The "pass" is merely the manifestation of a much greater problem. NOONE defines every possible sequence and the mere idea is poor at best. If GIB does not know what a bid means it should assume natural and do the best it can (like a gasp human). Stop letting GIB pass in 42 (OR WORSE) fits if it is at all possible to go to another place even if it is at a higher level.

suit quality should be the number one factor here. QJT8xxxx would be sufficient. The main reason suit quality is so important is that even if there is a spade fit it may be far too easy to lose the heart tricks in a spade contract.

4H 1. 4c POC might be right, but hand is just too good to bypass game possibility. 2. If 4H X (penalty) follow up with 4S and HOPE p does not have void x in the majors and goes back to 5h (I hope they would bid their minor rather than go back to 5h) 3. PASS means you have not spent enough time at the gaming tables in LAS VEGAS. 4. 4S (intending to run to 5H if X) is the right kind of idea but takes on a lot of extra risk when 4h is the place to be.

there is little else posted here maybe a post on the advanced or expert forum of upcoming events would make this a more well known event.

my plan is to try for 3C 4D and 2S trick 1 duck trick 2 win and pitch a heart trick 3 club to A trick 4 dia to J trick 5 dia A trick 6 club J (make sure u save the club 6 as an entry back to your hand making 9 tricks if E has 2 or 3 dia (to the Q) and 1 2 or 3 clubs (to the K) some situations might even allow for an overtrick.

there are times we cannot get all we might desire from the bidding. We might miss a spade contract due to our 3c first bid choice but that does not mean we should lose sight of a simple fact. There seems to be no rational way to proceed to bid 7 of anything. Given this fact, bidding 6c now might be best since there is no way partner will know that say having the DK instead of the C or S Q is a useless card for a grand. If I also held either of the black suit queens I would hum and haw around somehow (probably 5h) to let partner know I am looking for a grand. It just seem to optimistic to me to play partner for 3 specific cards that would make a grand ideal. Bid 6c and worry what to do if the opps unexpectedly now back in with 6h

I didn't think MIKEH was still reading my input. ANYWAY I am glad your partner was strong enough to raise 1n to 3n for a game score but setting 1C xx only 1 is 400 which beats any NON GAME score opposite a partner with slightly less values. IMHO a low club gives away nothing and may very easily hold declarer to 5 tricks (even if they hold 7 clubs) if they have to play the side suits from their hand. I am assuming that switching to the heart K at trick 3 does not yield down 2 for an easy 1000 beating all GAME scores our way even if not the theoretical maximum for the hand.

the club lead has convinced me to forget about setting up a long club (for numerous reasons). Rise with the club K and lead a low spade at trick 2 toward the T (I am trying to avoid losing a spade when the K is stiff onside). If the finesse works it is easy to head back to dummy via hearts and repeat the trump finesse, if it succeeds, and back to hand via hearts to pull the last trump if necessary. If the trump finesse loses (and a dia comes back) I feel compelled to take the finesse to make my contract. At MP it is a consideration to hold our side to down 1 by rising with the dia ace but making 6 looks so much better than down 1 and down 2 doesn't look or feel that much worse than down 1.

the 2 of clubs comes tumbling out of my hand. I expect 2 club tricks and this will not cost me anything (who knows, maybe p has the stray 9). I do not see the situation as any more dangerous than my first pass and I hate making dangerous leads when a safe lead should cost me nothing. I realize I may get stuck leading another suit anyway but I will have better info available by then.