gszes

not sure what you mean by semi-positive is there a limit (like say a king up to maybe 7 hcp)??? If so it can make a huge difference on what your subsequent bids mean. I agree your hand is worth close to 25 and is very slammish with all those controls. Your p is resulting your bidding due to the misfit in clubs for shame. For some reason the explanations of your bids is hidden on my computer so I am speculating here. Your decision to quant has to be based on the definition of semi positive and w/o further info I cannot specualte if p overbid or the quant was an overbid. You should not evaluate your hand state it and then increase its value based on no positive information. In general this means ionce you upgrade your hand to say 25 you should not make a quant unless something in the bidding makes your hand better. nuff said

Apparently my 2h mesage was not received properly since it makes no sense to ask for a heart stopper here. A partial stopper request however can make sense. No matter i have nothing and now I have to decide how to proceed. In many ways I have a miracle hand with my superb spade values fitting nicely a great probability of a club fit (maybe even a spade fit). My hand can hardly be much better than it is but i have no fit for sure. Bidding 3s has some benefit I cannot see the case for 4c. 3S while getting the idea of a 3 card support works but I dont think it shows just how good this hand is and I think we will make partner suffer a bit more and bid 4h. Where is the part 3 poll?:))))))))))))))))))

While I would have x first time around (denying 4+ spades) dealing with the enforced pass leaves me little choice here but to bid 2h. I have to show some life p can easily be lowballing with a great hand since my previous pass promised nothing. 2h should show a maximum pass with no clear direction.

too small a % chance of game to take vul risk. Who knows maybe opps will get in over their heads w/o any help from us whatsoever. pass

I echo this trying to stop in 3d seems too pessimistic despite the probable misfit

I must be BLIND never saw that pass after 2s sigh my bad i will delete my garbage

ill be around as usual

Whenever you are in a nearly hopeless contract (like 6s here sigh) you need to do what RHM has done and envision a lie of the cards that makes it possible for you to make your contract and play for it.

4s Has to be to play as we cannot suddenly be looking for slam via splinter or exclusion. P chose to balance with 3d a dangerous come back vs double which is a lot more flexible. That means p most likely has a serious flaw in their distribution that prevents them from using x and IMO increasing the likelihood of them having at least some spade length.

didnt see pass after 2s deleted garbage

while we are favorites to make slam if p has say AJT xxx xxxx Axx that's a pretty darn small target. I would trot out my handy splinter 4d and if p can muster a cue bid beyond 4h I will then decide how to proceed since the 5 level should be safe. If they sign off in 4h i will be satisfied.

I dont disagree often but I think 2N really misses the point on this hand. While technically 2n does not deny 3 spades most total minimums will be more than happy to pass 2n rather than pattern our their 3514 minimum hand. 2N not only risks missing an easy to make 4s but also risks missing an easy 5c or greater. The JT of hearts are very nice cards with 5c making opposite as little as xx KQxxx xx AKxx and 3n having almost no hope. I like the 2d bid which keeps all options open and the bidding as low as possible. After p bids 3c (with Kx(x) of dia they might have preferred 2n/3n even if 55 we all hate the minors) (with Qxx and a tad extra they might have bid 3d to show a partial stop). P hand is limited but the "limit" is still quite high and slam should not be left out of the picture. I am unsure a 4c bid should be forcing here contrary to a lot of popular opinion. There are quite a few hands where both opener and responder have 3 small diamonds and 5c has no prayer (where 4h might). 3h (showing honor x) seems like a reasonable continuation and allowing p to choose 4h. The problem with this is it not only supresses the club support it fails to show the slam potential that exists here. I would try a 4d bid here to show my dia control and slam interest and club support. I am not really concerned with 4h as a final contract here I am much more interested in finding out if p has extra values. If p continues with 4h continue with 4s if p bids 5c give up.

Duck a diamond it matters not if dia 4-1 it never hurts and it may help rectify the count for a squeeze. East can easily pitch 1 or even 2 dia when the opps take heart tricks and all of our options are still open. We can manuever any (2 suit) squeeze that might be available and we can keep the throwin of N in reserve or even take a spade finesse as last resort if no good squeezes show up (unlikely) or even use the three spades for a compound squeeze if the distribution warrants it. This lop leaves the opps with little recourse and if they do not take their 2 heart tricks immediately after taking the dia they risk getting squeezed into us making 5

I will also be around if needed

next time consider immediately bidding 4h over 2c. In this case anything you do is a complete guess and your p has shown no interest in exploring your heart suit. Your shortness in clubs is also a reason for caution. PASS

A good rule of thumb is to treat all bids as natural unless it is totally unreasonable to do so. Take into account your system and remember what p does NOT do is just as important as what they do. 1. To play x x x KQxxxxxxxx (u could have started with a game forcing spade raise) 2. To play KQJxxxxx x xx xx (u could have started with a game forcing heart raise) 3. KQJTx x x KQJTxx not much stronger some small leeway on suit quality (no other decent way to show this hand) 4. exclusion agreeing to spades. It seems like nonsense to try and make clubs the final contract when spades are agreed on. If you are worried about p having raised u with only 3 spades temporize and find out

Before we trot out a convention (lets say 1n 5n asking p to bid 6 with a min or 7 near the top) we need to make sure it is the right time to use that particular covnention. Here we will make 7N if p has as little as spade K heart A and a minor K and this means p will stop in 6 with a whole ton of hands including the above cards and anything resembling a minimum. Once you look at the problem this way you will see that 5n quant is not the way to go because there are far too many instances where the grand will not be reached. Since it is reasonable to be missing an ace (we have btn 34-37 hcp), bidding 1n 7n seems irresponsible since making 7 will probably be impossible missing the heart A. IMO this hand is best handled using a simple A/K asking sequence (any of them will do as long as it asks for aces then kings in some way shape or form). The reason this works is that when we ask for aces and p shows one and then ask for kings---opener will be able to leap to 7n with a surprise source of tricks (ie KQJx in either minor). If p has only 1 K (and no surprise source of tricks) 7 is probably a poor idea anyway at best on a finesse or a squeeze. If p has 2 kings 7 should be impossible to stop. Now how do we ask for aces after a 1n opening. Gerber if agreed is the easiest. Blackwood is possible but care must be taken to ensure p will not interperet your ace asking bid with quantitative. Those of you that play Texas Transfers have the easiest method. 1N Texas followed by 4n is your favorite form of Blackwood while 1N Jacoby followed by 4n is quantitative.

I will save my 3h bid for something a bit more classically correct. I see nothing wrong with a "feeble" 2h bid here which helps act a both a lead director and sacrifice suggestion. If p does not have a fit then it may accomplish little but there is far less risk at equal vulnerability. Living on the edge with 3/4 hearts may be more fun than defending but maybe a ton less fun when comparing scores (pick your poision). The opps opened 2c it is their hand and they both know it so how "safe" is it to compete at high levels.

an excellent bidding sequence. A very reasonable 3n contract with no reasonable alternative game and right sided to guard against the seemingly most dangerous spade lead. Keep up the good work. The responder hand (after a 1d opener 3+) is worth at least 4 tricks and has a 25% chance of 5 tricks opposite 3 small and a spare Q and 2J on top of that. Thats game forcing. You will not make every hand you bid this is a game of % dont look upon failure to make as a "mistake" per se. Look at the 2 hands objectively and see if you bidding got you to a spot you are happy with under normal circumstances. I would normally be pleased to be in 3n with this combination of hands. Keep up the good work.

Our hand and vulnerability make it :safe: to sac at extremely high levels. With the opps having only the minors and nt to work with I see little reason to wreck our bidding chances with a 4h bid. For now I will be happy with pass and wait and see how the bidding develops since it is almost impossible for the bidding to get passed our from here. If my other 5 card suit had been a minor I would have been much happier with bidding 4h here.

Pass p saw our 4c bid and they decided to bid 4h. I see no reason to assume p is completely misguided in their thinking and I have precious little more than p might imagine for a 4c bid.

I'm not all that happy we passed over 3h where a 4c bid would surely show an unbalanced offensively oriented hand (avoiding a possible 3n). I am not going to let the opps steal away with an easy 3s contract when all it takes is maybe xxxx Qxxx x KJxx to give us an easy 4c and a tad more xxxx Axxx x Axxx and we may be looking at 5 (though it is probably too late to get to 5c unless opps push and p "sacs").

I think i read we were scheduled to have one dec 8th but i see no post for it. Did we move the topic or rename it? Please post any updated info thanks.

I think the odds of lho beginning life with QJx and not inserting a club honor when we lead it is too much to ask even in a "weak" field. That does not mean we are toast however. If lho began life with 1 spade and 2 clubs we have a very real threat against west if they hold at least 6 hearts and the dia K. dia to the ace and the club k (which we are going to ruff no matter what rho plays) now run all of the trumps reducing our hands to void A64 void void void K3 Q void If LHO started with 6+ hearts and the dia K they are toast on the last spade where they have no good discard from their 4 card holding of void QJT K void.

we have all heard the theory that p "borrows" 7 hcp from p when getting ready to make a TOX. If that is the case we have something close to zero extra for our response to the tox. I do not see a 3s bid at all i see a 2s bid. If p has around 18 they will raise to 3s and we can accept the invite. If the heart Q had been elsewhere than this hand is worth a 3s bid.