gszes

i am a tad surprised to see so many considering 1n 2n or x here---we are entering a live auction opposite a passed p at unfavorable and 2 unlimited opponents. bid 2d this should already show a very strong hand ----if p has anywhere near 7 power (and a dia fit) they will consider 3d if available. The heart KJ surely is worth at most 1 trick and there is a decent probability they are tram tickets. I see little benefit in too much optimism here. Be happy with getting your side off to what is probably the best lead. bid 2d then PASS over 4h

east bid 6c at even wioth so far no shape (ther than a bunch of clubs) its hard to imagine them bidding 6c w/o some type of shape and the only thing left is short hearts. I finesse W for the Q.

i would strongly fear a 41 trump break after that start and that puts my normal 10 tricks in jeopardy. It seems to me the best shot is to immediately lay down the club A and the club Q. If this is ducked I am back to ten tricks and can try for 11 if the trumps do split. If the opps win the club and return a dia i can win the A cash the heart K (pitch a dia) ruff a heart ruff a dia and now play a club (if an opp ruffs pitch last dia) I am only hurt if an opp with 2 trumps ruffs the club otherwise i have 6s 1c 1h 1d 1d ruff. if the opps win the 2nd club and return a 3rd club (threatinging an uppercut it depends on which opps wins the club if rho wins the club and returns a club i would pitch a dia since i am worried about rho having long spades anyway. if lho wins the club and returns a club if rho ruffs overruff dia to A heart K ruff a heart ruff a dia and play another club intending to pitch last dia if rho ruffs.

an overall general forcing bid (not a cue bid). The 4c user is usually asking p to pick a major or they have a stronger 1/2 suited hand they cant show by bidding it directly (they dont want to use up what little bidding space is left). The xer here has slam interest but questions about dia control and it would be best to start with 5c. This bid denies a dia control (4d a ton better for slam bidding here). A 5d bid now eliminates the dia control problem and the only problem left is how to settle in a trump suit. IMO once both sides show slam interest and all suits controlled the hand is forcing to slam so 5s should show a spade suit if partner is showing both majors. with little else responder should happily bid 6s. The play of the hand was interesting and (before I saw all 4 hands) I asked declarer why he chose to play for the drop vs taking the finesse once the spade T appeared (he also started with a low spade toward his hand. His answer was actually very good he smelled a rat. Since we had 6 diamonds to the AQJT98 there was no way the 3d bid could have been made with any degree of safety or usefulness unless it was mostly a lead director with club support as a run out in case of x. That greatly increased the probability of the 3c bidder having only 6 clubs and therefore increasing the odds of a 22 break significantly since a 3c bid with at most QJxxxx would be unappealing with a hand that was unbalanced hoping the opps would get too high. My partners all played a very good quality game and I applaud their effort welllllll done:))))))))))))))

your hand looks very much like a weak 2 dia bid with the added bonus of actually having the dia ace. You have no clue why p chose to bid 4d but they heard your 2d bid and nothing about your hand is special enough to consider making another call here leave it up to partner what to do. Another consideration is that 4s was pulled to 5c with your 4 small spades this means there is a much greater chance than usual to have many spade losers. P chose to bid 4d it is quite possible they chose 4d in the hopes the opps would get themselves in trouble. Let partner decide how to proceed they already heard your 2d bid an they are looking at their hand not you.

i think x is right here. There are far too many hands where p may have pushed to bid 4h making 5h a dicey contract when we are looking at 3 probable defensive tricks and a partner that saw fit to bid a vul game on their own. Yes indeed 5h 6h or even 7h may be missed but they will all be highly speculative contracts at best (due to opps interference) where here we have a chance to score up a probable 500-800 due to our "surprise" trump holding. Take the money and run.

best chance at avoding 3 trump losers would seem to be leading from dummy toward the K---the overcall by a passed hand skews the odds in favor of the overcaller having the A vs their partner.

you had a very sensible auction to 5d and you (your partners) at imps should be very happy. At Mp is might indeed be better to bid 3n (as per jlogic) at IMPS this is a highly speculative concept which might cause you to miss a easily bid slam.

I think this is a great idea when we are white) but when we are red there are far too many hands with diamonds that just cant bid over 1c due to danger. It seems very wrong to fail to show our overall power with a mere 1n espcially when we would bid 2n if we had an actual club stopper. There is little reaon to be so pessimistic here. P balanced with 1s does not promise a wea hand merely one that did not feel x was right. A simple 2c showing limit plus (Qx surely as good as xxx) is a much more accurate descrition of this hand. Even if your 2c meant just overall values vs support you should use it here rather than some number of NT.

u have all the side suits controlled and a great side source of tricks to go along with your 9+ card tump fit. The 5 level will normally be safe but you cannot safelyy use 4n since p might all too easily bid 5s and put us overboard. I suggest a 5c bid here to let p know about our slam interest and they should be able to figure out we were afraid to use 4n due to our lack of controls.

4c seems right i was unhappy with those that feel KTxxx AQxx xx Ax or some such was a good x over 1n my choice would have been 2d (majors) or pass if p wanted to play that as natural. There is little reason for p to strain to bid in a live auction without reasonably having what one expects you to have. That is why the po seat was invented, My hand is at the absolute top (5th club) of any hand p might have expected when they x. The lack of power in diamonds makes my hand even better. Cannot see selling out to 3d which is more likely preemptive than strong since rho could have xx with a strong hand.

Let me try and make a case for 3s vs double--- the spade suit is very very nice and perfectly playable especially opposite a singleton (especially the Q which p wont appreciate if we x). IMO we should reserve x for hands with much less clear direction AJxxxx AQx x Axx or some such similar hands. 4s is by far our sides most likely game and it seems a shame we would supress this fact by using x here. over 4d I would pass p heard our 3s bid and did not wish to continue (quite possibly having dead dia values even if they have a spade fit).

good discussion hand especially pointing out the impossibility of 2n being anything but a minor suit take out (with probably long dia) by S (which I would have used). I do not agree with playing all white contracts at the 3 level but this one offers a very good shot at having a fit and if we can play 3c what appears to be a ruffing value in the short hand (naturally i am wrong). I would take the same action at IMPS mainly because I have little fear the opps belong in 4s. Bidding here is mainly just to try and get them to push.

There is just too much potential here to sign off in 5d. We are looking at 6 if p has as little as xxx KQTx Kx Axxx and it is unlikely p started with x with that hand so we can generally expect more. There indeed is no rational way to show first round spade control and all this firepower so we bid what we think we can make and bid 6d.

it is hard to imagine why declarer would win the first trick with the dia K if they held AK. Given that information alone it seems something strange is going on p has the dia A or T or both from the initial carding. while the 9 may work most of the time it fails when p has only the AT left and made a desparation play to get a spade ruff (when they looked at that fantastic dummy) by ducking the first dia and getting us in with our J. The best dia play right now is the J which caters to all scenarios. If declarer started with AKxx pay off and get get some easier opponents to deal with sheeesh.

ill be there looking forward to some practice time

pass This hand resembles all too closely what i said i had during the bidding lets leave the judgement p to partner.

AGREE here wholeheartedly there is a valid use for xx and this is not it. The right time to use the xx is when your rho x and you have something like KQxx or KJxx trump support. The xx here serves the purpose of telling p that you have superb trumps and they are not a concern --this information may keep p from running to a possibly inferior contract becasue they fear trump losers.

partner has heard our bidding we have maybe a K above a minimum but the complete lack of fit and lack of body in our own 2 suits is a siren call for caution. P apparently ha no slam aspirations and we have no reason to assume they are wrong. PASS.

preempts work this time the 3c bid successfuly kept your side out of 7c if you and p are ok with bids like that than no worries if you dont like those kinds of results save your 3+ level preempts for more classically shaped hands.

a VERY nice teaching question:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

this line seems the most promising that spade return at trick 2 should look ominous virtually guaranteeing the suit wont break 43 ---rho had a much safer looking trump or diamond return. BTW include the bidding when possible becasue many defensive ideas are based on the known distribution in declarers hand:))))))))))))))))))))

this will indeed work when lho started with KJx or KTx planning on ruffing the heart with the A (in case lho started with 2) and finessing lho out of remaining honor however this line will fail if trumps broke 22 (rho starting with JT) Its just gotta be more irritating to go down when trumps break 22 when to make it with trumps 31 all u have to do is cash the dia A and if trumps 22 claim if not have lho hold at least 3 hearts (or the J drop doubleton)

i read all the above and not sure if this LOP was covered trick 1 same trick 2 same trick 3 heart to K trick 4 low dia toward Q the advantage of this line is that it works with all 22 splits and whenever lho has Kxx trumps and at least 3 hearts this also works when lho has the stiff K and rho has at least 3 hearts if this is a repeat of the above i apologize

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