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bridge is a game of %. We have 15 hcp a long great suit and we should be feeling very optimistic about the future of this hand. This doesn't mean it will always work out well but our side should have way more than half the deck and normally the hand will be ours ranging from 3d to 7n. An opening bid of 5d will cause us to miss only a tiny portion of those probable contracts especially the slams What else can p do but pass after 5d looking at Axxx Axxxx void Axxxx> and 6n wouldnt even be on the radar. The fact that the opponents will get a portion of the hands is what we mean by %. Open 1d and do not let the pessimists out there convince you otherwise. There is no law against the opps making a contract now and then and contray to opinion it is not all that much fun going down 3x vul opposite nothing for the opps. The ones opening 5d have been playing way too much goulash. IMO once we open 1d we are probably best served by remaining silent. P was unable to respond so our chances of making anything but a partial are small and any number of diamonds will merely convince the opps(s) short in dia that p has little wasted there. Opting to bid 5d now is much better than in 1st seat but once again we have no idea just how weak p is and we are making it a ton easier for the opps to x and possibly set us a fortune.

opposite a passed partner----our chances of slam diminish to virtually non existent. This may be our only chance to get the offensive nature of our hand across to partner before the bidding gets too high. 2N vul gives an extremely good description of our hand (no it is not perfect) to our partner which will allow them to rightly cherish red suit honors for offense and downgrade black suit (non ace) ones. a 2n bid will get us to generally the right place while choosing a 1h bid will generally force us to the 4/5 level in order to maybe get to a perfect spot and many times we will be making a unilateral decision to bid em up w/o input from partner. I would not convert P's 3d bid to 3h. I do not think this hand is good enough to foce to game and would not use 3n to show this hand even if 2n was not available.

This topic comes up a lot. The main question is why did N not begin with xx??? If this has no special meaning in this partnership it should mean they fit clubs and have extra values. This means the absence of xx makes all other bidding more distributional and less powerful. for ex why cant N bidding mean something like Axx void AJxxxx QJxx where 3n seems a far cry from the right spot and 5c a much more likely spot under most circumstances?? Beginning with xx would have given the partnership a much firmer ground for slam exploration. It is difficult to blame south for signing off since the only card they have that might be considered not already shown in the bidding is the 6th club. If all p needed for slam was the two top club honors they would have used blackwood. the failure to use blackwood suggests opener needs more and S does not have it.

PASS This is my way of going for a great score mr ace noted the decreased probability of slam and 3c x is game with extra values. The opps may still have 3h to run to so I see no reason we should warn them of their probable demise in 3c x. Take the money and PASS.

Lets look at the problem from another direction and see if it helps any.. We have learned from the bidding that p has a lot of values located in clubs and that means our chanced for slam have dropped a ton (no sense in using a splinter since we already know the answer). This means we have a large expectation of losing at least two tricks outside clubs. The opps have at least a 8 card trump fit and P will have to attack the trump suit from their hand. So how many times will the opps score less than 4 trump tricks under those circumstances? IMO it will be way less than 40% of the time. Using this analysis it seems to be a poor MP bet and at IMPS forget about it. Be happy with 3n or 4 of a major.

when you are unlimited, this works very well but a passd hand---IMO (since opener may drop the bidding at anytime) youshould concentrtate on getting the the major suits before showing minor support especially when its only kinda sorta support:) if p opened a dia and you had say Kx Qxxx xx AQxxx would you bid 1h or 2c as a passed hand? IMO it is once again far more important to show the major:)) 1h for me for polling purposes

The Hog, Mikeh, PhilKing, Cyberyeti, Rhm, Jlogic Aquahombre, Han A partial list of prolific BBO posters that have not tried to represent the forum in play vs JEC. I know I would be happy to partner with any of you. It's still a chance to play against some of the best in the world for free no less. Noone is going to agree with their partner on every detail but we have all read each other's opinions and it should not be overly difficult to find someone with similar opinions to your own. I am trying to send an open inviation to those that are writing on the forums and trying to help others improve their games. CALL TO ARMS:)))

Im guessing the dia T---this is mainly because declarer intends to stake their play on the club suit trying for 4c 2h 2s 1d. The dia T play is a what the heck why not play that --if allowed to hold- gives us our 9th trick w/o having to worry about where the club K is. The hand is such that the opps winning and continuing diamonds is unlikely to keep us from winning 8 or 9 tricks and maybe just maybe will allow us to win 9 or 10 why not I say.

This is not the right shape to bid 3h with the intention of playing 3n. There are far too many hands where p has a heart stop where 5c/d or 6c/d is a vastly superior contract. IMO we would have been much better served if we had started with (a very descriptive bid since we did not bid 2s) x It is necessary to save an immediate 3d call for a weakish but competitive hand like x xx Axxx AQJxxx. The x not only keeps the bidding low it allows for a great deal of flexibility in most future auctions and it makes it far easier for p to show minimum or extra values (very important for slam bidding). You endplayed yourself in the bidding and it is now difficult to run from 3n since it may well be the last playable spot. With really good hands try to keep the bidding as low and flexible as possible.

something a little more natural p 1c 1d 1h 3c 3n you can also use inverted minors p 1c 2c 2h 3d 3n both should work nicely since opener would not rebid 2h unless there was game interest opposite a passed hand (they would merely bid 3c at which point responder can bid 3d to make one more game try which will show their radical distribution).

id love to pass this hand and take a chance that I can back in later if needed but there is too much danger the next bid might be 3n 4d 5d and I will no longer be able to compete with any degree of safety. I would much rather take my chances at a relatively low level especially since an x now will probably provide the opps with any overly useful information as to how to play the hand and possibly lead us to a decent sacrifice if the opps go to say 3n or even 5d. We will occasionally get overboard since we are a bit light on values and shape but it is probably worthwhile to bid immediately especially at imps where a good sac can be worth a lot of Imps.

hmmm if we are holding say x AKxxx xx KQxxx we would probably bid 2n 3d 3h 4c to show the 2 suited nature of our hand and slam interest----I see no reason to not adopt the same approach here 2n 3d 3h 3s to show 2 suits and slam interest. This will allow p to focus on how their hand compares to ours for slam purposes. Even if p prefers hearts we can overrule and bid spades above their preference. We can arrive at some seeing eye grands this way xxx AKQ AKxx Axx. I am not happy using exclusion because it fails to concentrate on hearts and it also fails to ask p if their hand is slam oriented or not for ex JT KJx AQJ AKJ when p shows 1 do you gamble on 6 ewwww yet with JT KQJ AJx AKJ it is a good gamble. bidding this way will also allow us to avoid disaster when opener has something like JT QJT AQJT AKQx when p reailzes almost 100 % of their power is located outside our 2 long suits and we stop in game.

the age old question play to make your contract via a simple finesse? or go for the more headlines grabbing squeeze. You have to start deciding at trick ONE how to play the hand so dont touch a card until you come up with a plan. The obvious play for an extra trick is a vienna coupe hoping an opp with long clubs also holds the dia K but this hand isnt as simple as that we have more options. The first thing to realize is that neither heart in dummy is good for a squeeze card because they will disappear on the second heart lead anyway. We may also have to throw an opponent in before spades are set up. With this in mind we should play the heart Q at trick 1 not so much to "discover" where the K is but to do our utmost to keep the heart J hidden from the opps as long as possible. Playing the heart Q (if covered) may also (depending on the play) allow us to take a finesse in hearts against the T with rho. trick 1 heart Q if it holds while we "know" lho holds the K it is the advantage of the hidden heart J that might pay off if lho holds the presumed long spades. trick 2 spade Q trick 3 spade K assuming they dont split did we luck out and have long spades with lho??? if so when we continue with trick 4 spade K (dia pitch) trick 5 spade (dia pitch) lho will have to lead and they must avoid a dia or a heart and they may well be tempted to return a heat since we may well have decided to play low on the first heart if we had J. If lho returns a red suit the hand is over. If they return a club we can then decide to either play for the vienna coupe (dia k and clubs) or take a dia finesse. Most of us will want to play for the squeeze because we can make with either the clubs breaking 33 or the player with the dia K also has the long clubs (has to be much higher than 5050. trick 4 spade A pitch a dia trick 5 spade pitch a dia assuming rho wins and returns a red card trick 6 red ace trick 7 red ace trick 8 club to K trick 9 spade pitch the dia Q trick 10 spade pitch a heart dummy has void void J xx your hand void void void AQx if either had started with the dia K and 4+ clubs they were squeezed on the previous trick down to 3 cards and they cannot hold the dia K and 3 clubs so you will be able to claim. This hand may have been as simple as taking the dia finesse and it still might work if rho also had the long clubs but it will be a lot more entertaining if lho had the dia K and the long clubs. the planning starts at trick 1 and do not touch a card until you think the entire hand through.

there is someone out there more conservative at trick counting than I am amazing:)) a good 2s bid would be a hand like the one shown w/o the spade T9 with the T9 is is a fine 3s call:))))))))))))))))))))))

i was going to play in the 4/6 match but had a flat and arrived when board 21 was starting sigh so I admit I am sort of chomping at the bit to try to play in the next one.

good catch it is 4/27 saturday fixed post so let me know if sat is ok (vs erroneous sun)

We try to learn methods that allow us to produce good results from the cards we are dealt. Some have a treasure trove of systems and pet conventions that are used for the specific purpose of getting every imp possible out of a specific card combination. One thing all of these gadgets need is space. When you bid 3s with w/r with KQJxxxx xx x xxx this eats up a lot of space from both sides BUT it has the advantage of allowing p to immediately size up their hand opposite what our hand probably looks like and allows them to generally come up with a pretty close approximation of not only our sides potential but the opps as well. When we decide to open a hand such as the one presented we have left the realm of scientific bidding and entered the EHAA zone. Noone has any clue (except maybe an opp that wants to x your 3s for penalty) the offensive/ defensive capabilites of anyones holding. We may indeed disrupt the opps with a 3s bid but we may also disrupt poor partner. As we learn more about this game the more we want to be able to use that information and using a 3s bid this way makes it impossible. Some are arguing aginst 3s due to the side 4 card heart suit to me it is irrelevant it is the overall hand pattern that creates the problem. With space your hand is so good that 7 level might easily be reached by using a touch of scientific bidding that is gone once you bid 3s.....Another way to look at this---would you play a system where you open 1n with a range of 12-19 balanced? its unplayable and thus avoided. It would have its tops and a ton of downs. Another thing--do you really expect the bidding to get passed out and you never having a chance to bid? This hand is so good the opps might go to 4h and you could still bid 4s on your own w/o expecting to take a huge loss. Opps in slam? very unlikely missing 2 aces. Can you say the same about our side and will p every consider a slam??? The more you learn the less you will want to preempt your side trust me and your patners will not hate to hear your preempts because right now they are little better than a coin flip.

i like the 1s bid we are not overly strong and there is little reason to assume the bidding will end at 1s. I was less happy with the pass over x i would have bid 1n but pass is far from the worst bid ever. The real problem is the next bid where the bid of 2s is a free bid but more along the lines of competitive vs decent. Why not bid 3s here? This hand is worth 8 tricks opposite nothing and the bidding could easily have kept p quiet (sensing a misfit). The 3s bid will let p know spades are not a problem (due mainly to great length since we chose not to x 1n or start with an x). P should be able to judge their 2 aces are golden and bid game. It is not reaonable that 3s would be a preempt here since we had the opportunity to preempt earlier. hand 2 I would have stopped in 2n but i am a big chicken 3n is hardly horrible but on this particular collection of cards it just happens to have little/no chance - more bad luck than anything else dont worry about it.

P opened 1d so while it may be theoretically possible for p to have 5s the overwhelming majority 99+% p will have 4 or less spades.

Lets imagine p with 4 aces and out (well below the 20+ they have shown). Once you do that you start to see the slam potential but the problem is in the details of how to poceed safely. You want to invite slam and IMO the best way to do that is to concentrate on using spades as trumps. 2n 3h(transfer) 3s 4s. This differs from 2n 4h (transfer) 4s because we are not using the principal of fast arrival. Using jacoby followed by a raise to game is a mild slam try. This aks p to look at their hand consider the trump suit and their controls and decide how to proceed. This is a highly effective method that allows the partnership to avoid some slams where the trump suit itself is the problem since opener can bid 5s to say they are slammish but have doubts about the trump suit (where say they hold only Hx) courtesy philking above---Kx Axx AKx AQxxx. We cannot always accomplish everything we want in the bidding and our choice of how to proceed is dependent on our overall objective. Once we see the slam potential of this hand we chose a method that would best allow us to get to slam rather than worrying about playing in a 44 heart fit.

Public service announcement since i am unsure anyone goes to read forum events anymore:))))

1. It is indeed possible for us to have game-- there is also a strong probability that p does not have long/strong spades since they failed to open 2/3 spades. The question is --- at unfavorable, is there sufficient hope for game and does the reward of a tox here outweigh the risks? we may have game if p is near max for their passed hand and if they are near bottom we face a huge penalty. At this point it is not even impossible they may make 6h. We are generally slated for somewhere between +100 to -450 if we pass if we bid +620 to -1400. Disgression seems to be the right course here PASS 2. a small trump There is no reason to suspect leading from our honors will benefit the defense. Leading a trump very unlikely to cost us a trick and could be beneficial if the opps could cross trump. 3. this problem depends on how strong your agreements are for weak 2 bids at unfavorable in 1st/2nd seat. I will generally have at a minimum KQJTxx OR KQTxxxx and can have another honor. Using my standards I have to invite.

STEP RIGHT UP for another chance to get slaughtered. We are behind in the series about 4000 imps to 37 lots of ground to make up. We have THREE WEEKS to gather volunteers and prepare. We have lots of thoughful posters and I hope with 3 weeks notice we will have a strong turnout. IMO if we have too many (am I being too optimistic?) that want to play we should consider having a starting 4 and subbing after 14 boards but we can all express an opinion about that also.

When you are worried about trumps breaking you are an optimist feeling the opps surely cant have 10/11 spades right? Also any spade honors p has will probably take 1 trick less than normal. Add all this up and the odds of setting 4s start to shrink considerably. Think of 5c as a form of insurance where you hate the idea of the opps scoring up 620 so much you are willing to pay off up to 500 and risk missing out on an occasional +100. Once you do that 5c will look like a better idea. Always listen carefully to the bidding and the positional advantages/disadvantages before deciding how to proceed. Also think about this---the opps are not making a push to give you the last guess they have no reason to believe our side will even have a guess about competing further (unless they have a massive trump fit) so they are bidding to make not blocking.

impossible to have realistic discussions about each subject when we have to answer this way all at once (not to mention the pain to the bbo peeps trying to supply answers. Take the time to keep it down to 2 (I even hate 3) hands for each question come up with a catchy title "more high JINKS Yo 1" for example that way you can keep track of the number of posts if u want there is some good material here make it easier for everyone else to answer/read