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4nt is sufficient for now because no matter what p does we can get the idea across that we are slammish. we may end up in clubs sometimes when spades will score better but thats usually the worst we will do. The 4n showing 2 places to play allows us to bid slowly and probably more accurately than just a blast to 5/6 spades or a 4s bid that shows you do not trust your p. if p bids 5c bid 5s this will verify our black suited hand and is forcing to 6 since we had to be willing to play 6c if p cannot play spades (we could have bid 5d or 6d to show a spade dia 2 suiter). 5d bid 5s (this will show our black suited hand and is forcing to 6 since we had to be willing to play 6c if p needs to convert) (if we had dia we could pass or bid 6d. 5h if p concocts a 5h bid it seems senseless to bid less than 7s 5s bid 5n this should be asking p to choose a minor suit at 6 level if p does indeed bid 6c or 6d we can now nicely go to 6s which should show our grand slam aspirations and worries about a heart loser. yes we can blast but some hands lend themselves nicely to a slower approach and IMO this is one of those hands where slow is better.

If rho has something like Kxx xx AQTxx Qxx I think there is little doubt they would pass the original x to try and slaughter the vulnerable opps. I think the 2n is more likely a single dia stopper than a bunch of dia so go for the lead that seems to offer the best chance for success and lead a small dia.

Agree with the above leading a spade from Qxxx in this bidding has to look almost completely pointless at best. The lead practically screams singleton and the lack of bidding by lho seems to indicate at least 2 hearts. Therefore winning trick 1 and leading a heart to the A should cater to all reasonable distibutions and may even luck out and pick up the stiff heart K with rho. Decent slam opps could have practically handed me the contract with a trump or a club lead and even as it is I think we still have tremendous play.

3h best of a bad lot of choices (support with support). Even playing 3d as competitive spades it is still probably better to be able to bid 3h. Against 6d I x because I am headed for a horrible score if the opps make it anyway and who knows how much we will gain from the x since our p might be muted over 6d with 2+ tricks and long hearts. I would x at IMPS, while I am not too concerned with losing a ton of imps from the opps making 6d x I am worried about losing a ton of imps if p were to bid 6h and get x'd.

the risk of missing a spade game looms very large here and by starting with 1h vs x we are taking a big chance for little positive reason. Our shape screams double and the only way a heart suit of that quality finds its way in print is for someone to show it in a forum like this. IRL I would not have any trouble passing over 2d after my initial x but I would have grave concerns if I had chosen a 1h balance and would be strongly tempted to now x (ie do what i should have done the first time). P will know the second x was made under duress and they will probably "underbid" their hand by a significant amount which is exactly what we fear might happen.

i echo the 3c > p > 1c do no see the benefit of a 1c opening bid. Not enough defense and it fails to stress the only decent thing about this hand a fair club suit. 3c will not keep us from bidding/making game when it is there (mostly 43 heart fits) and gets our hand info across in one quick volley. IMPS/MP all the same thinking here.

Even if we can count 5 spades and 4 clubs we need either a heart trick or a heart ruff to make 10 tricks. If spades break 4/1 we might even need both. I do not see the benefit of playing a second round of trumps and would have started by leading a small trump to the A and leading a heart toward my hand. Pulling 1 round of trumps takes care of most situations where trumps break 41 and the vast majority of 32 trump breaks will not cause us any harm. We need to start trying to get our 10th trick due to concerns of being forced in the dia suit so by all means lets go after hearts and see what happens.

There are very few hands p will x with that are perfect for us to make 5d for ex will p x with say AQxxx Kxx Qxx xx? probably not. P is much more likely to x with a holding like AKQxx xxx Qx xxx. So IMO bidding 5d will probably be wrong far too often and there is a decent chance we will be able to crush 4h. PASS

preempts work so keep using them. Here we have a guess on how to proceed with a very nice hand. First things first there is no decent mechanism available for finding 7 so our only real problem is how high do we go. I agree with fluffy that it is difficult to imagine a 3h bid that wont give us decent play for 6h so that is what I am bidding. P will not know what to do missing the AK trumps even if they have all of the controls and extra values (though they might get excited if they have a dia void and we didnt bid 6d).

opening bids are so light that when one sees a balanced 14 count they see the stars. There is nothing special about this 14 count except that it would be considered slammish opposite a partner making a mild slam try. That won't happen here since p is a passed hand. I have little interest in having p suddenly bidding 3n with a 9 count stuck in between 2n and 3n. We are probably better off if P can play the hand since we have nothing in dia and only the spade K vulnerable to attack. The best way to avoid the negatives and steer the hand into p is to start with 1C

HAND 1 You have made a mild slam try and p has said they also have slam interest. Your partner has expressed slam interest missing the trump AQ and the dia A if your side does not have enough to make slam your p hand evaluation was most likely wrong. There appears to be no good reason to avoid slam at this point so just bid it you were never interested in 7 anyway so cuebidding the dia ace is treading water. Bidding 6 immediately gives away less information. Save the cute bidding for hands that have real problems (like how to get to 7). HAND 2 NON-SERIOUS 3N does not mean you have no cue bid to make merely that you are minimum and cannot make a cue bid BELOW 3N. The cue bid of 4C (bypassing 3N) was designed to show extra values which you really just do not have (your not totally hopeless but lets face it this hand falls well into the minimum opening bid category). Having made one mistake do not compound it by denying a dia control. Bidding 5d now tells p you still cannot take control of the auction despite knowing all of the suits are controlled. At least p will have the advantage of that information before proceeding.

p rates to have a max of around 3 hcp. If p has the dia K we may have no chance no matter what we do since a low dia lead might set up a ruffing finesse in dia. If p has the club K it is either a trick or not. If p has the heart K we are toast. If p has the spade K however there is a very good chance we need to lead the spade A at trick 1 and continue spades. The opps far too often will score 6c 4h 2d before we ever get another chance to collect our spade tricks. Another reason for a spade is the bidding lho rates 2h max rho 4h max p has 6+ hearts 3/4 dia a club or 2 not much room left for spades even if p has nothing we can still set if the very strong hand got excited about slam with KQx spades (sorry Fluffy) becasue p can ruff (hopefully). Finally leading the spade A might be the only way to keep opps from making 7 if p is broke.

partner is limited to 4 hearts that means the opps have at least 7. I find it extremely difficult to imagine p bidding 6d missing both AQ of hearts (courtesy bigbenvic) and a heart ruff may be our only way to score a trick that isnt off the top. I just dont imagine too many hands where leading the spade A (a rare disagreement with jlogic) will be overly helpful and it might just give up on getting us a heart ruff. If the heart K holds the trick (which should have a good chance) we can make our switch to trumps if it looks like a good idea. I do not care for any dia lead because it risks giving up 1 or even 2 ruffs even though declarer likely has at most 1 quick entry. (the dia K has less risk of this but still seems mostly like treading water at best).

a decent number of "borrowed" 7 count in partners hand give us a great chance at game. Our suit quality is very good and p will not want to raise us with hands like x xxx KJxxx Kxxx so 2s is too weak. 3S should be saved for very strong hands that are primarily 1 suited (making slam searches easier) and use x for most other hands. That means at these colors we should probably bid 4s and have the anti acid ready if we get x.

DUCK and encourage (my carding tells me to follow with the 2) First and foremost we need to keep communication open in case P has another club (nothing in the bidding makes that impossible). The other main advantage is that declarer is now going to be forced to take all finesses into p hand and we may gain a couple of extra tricks to make up for the 2 clubs we lose when p has a singleton club and we dont cash. A third smaller chance is that declarer will try to make the contract by taking no finesses at all (fearing clubs) and go down on a contract that takes a simple heart finesse to make. If we clear clubs declarer can finesse us in hearts with impunity (something we dont want to encourage since we have the Q). If there seemed some reasonable alternative to ducking the club it might be beneficial to take the top 2 clubs and switch depending on how p signals. I am unconvinced p has enough on their own to set this contract and believe our best chance lies in the club suit.

HAND 1 The majority of the time when p has a max I want to be in game so I intend to invite. The major problem is how to invite and a lot depends on your partnership style. In my style I would bid 2s since any help reviving the spade Q will go a long way to helping us make game. I cannot bid 2s however if p has the ability to jump to 4s. I limit p to 3s with a max and 4/5 card spade support. Opener can then decide where to play (ie this hand would convert back to hearts). 3d might seem like a decent help suit game try but i really dont need much help in the dia suit headed by AQT. P may be too happy with xxx xxx KJxx Axx (double fit an great dia help) where as a p with Kxx xxx Jxxx Axx will down play their hand. HAND 2 I have a weak 2 bid not even close to the top opposite a partner pretty much limited to a not so great maximum of a minimum opening bid. See little upside here for game and am happy to settle in 2s. I am not happy with the idea of trying to preempt the opps further with my AK for defense so I would not bid 3s if it was a preemptive bid.

when we make this 3h jump shift we are doing it in the hopes the hand is not a total misfit (otherwise we would open 2c). That means one suited minor hands can bid their suit at the 4 level w/o fear opener will take the bid as a cue bid and warning p of the total misfit and the non viability of 3n. Having said that this hand is not a total misfit. This hand also rates to make at least 1 if not 2 extra tricks just from spade ruffs (who knows maybe even setting up extra spade tricks(s) and we even have a side ace. 3n does indeed provide minor suit stops but the lack of entries makes this hand mostly unuseable except for stops and the extra tricks a heart contract can provide are almost a sure thing vs a lot of hopefuleness in 3n. P should not rebid 4h with AKQXX AKQxx xx x mostly just because we cannot support either major when we bid 3n and the hand will most likely play just as wll in 3n as 4M. 4H

return a heart admittedly the odds are slim but in case declarer has something like QJxx AQJTxx KQx void we need to eliminate one of dummies entries so the club suit cannot be set up and used leading a trump is a heck of a lot safer than trying a spade (k or small) and it will keep you out of the newspapers for all the wrong reasons:)))))))))))))))))

PASS Partner has heard that dia hearts and spades all have one opp with at least 4 cards in each suit. Despite this information p has doubled once again. This has to be based on very strong values and we have 2 probable heart tricks and what seems to be a useful club Qxx for opening lead purposes. If I cannot pass with this hand then p has made a very poor 2nd x.

the minority report returns is this a good hand for forcing pass to apply??? P has freely jumped to game at equal vul (though limited by not cue bidding first to show power) Is this alone enough to eliminate forcing pass?? I do not believe so. N original x has a very wide range and it can be very important to let p know it is inadviasable to proceed here. I think once you take FP into consideration the very minimal N hand should x to tell p about the minimum nature of their hand. This does not guarantee a set of 5c it is designed to warn p about the hazards of continuing. IMO n should x over both 5c and 4n to show this minimum and leave the rest to partner.

2s non forcing is way too short sighted with this monster. There is no reason this hand has to be limited to spades. I do not know the whole system but in any case I would begin with 2n (forcing i assume to at least 3h or 3n+ which would make a 3s bid forcing). Once again a lack of knowedge of potential responses hampers my ability to guess on about potential outcomes but lets assume opener bids 3c to show max and "stuff" in clubs. At the very least we can guess to bid 3n though i think that might be a poor idea if p is showing max. Bidding 3s (has to be at least 6) and if p cannot raise spades hazard a 5d bid which will allow p to bid a slam with a fit and aces instead of quacks.

What was the 3s bid? Presumably partner already knows we do not have 3 card support for spades and they did not bid 3s so their suit cannot be overly great and having to ruff dia with the AK of trumps opposite a not so good spade suit is a recipe for disaster. P is looking for a dia stop and we do not have one but we do have a singleton so this is a wonderful time to bid 4d in case p has slam in mind.

no matter imps or mp at these colors there is little room for error and our hand has far too little offense and bad shape to bid. We probably have a fit but there is no guarantee and the still unlimited opening bidder is behind us. We could be turning a simple -110 into a -200 to -1100 just by doing anything other then PASS Of course there will always be gamblers among us that win with x from time to time and forget all the bad things. Anybody see a casino around?

If there is any blame I place it on N* and the rest on misuse of system and the system failing to produce when it would have worked even when used improperly. S needs to consider the possibility that there can be 3 losers off the top when p has a singleton spade and cannot move beyond 4h with any degree of safety. N has to take into consideration that S may have a balanced hand and even some wasted spade values (not enough to bid 3n) making pass not totally unreasonable. *I admit looking at a spade void and near the very top of my range a 4s bid would have helped your side reach at least a small slam (small risk of down one vs possibly getting to a grand and huge reward). The range is just too large to be easily workable and there appears to be no safety net when opener is near minimum (for ex: why would responder ever bypass a possible 44 heart fit just to show a nebulous "better" major which could be 3 vs 0/2 or 2 vs 1/0?).

Even if i had a bid like 5n that could ask for 2 of the top 3 dia honors and 6 dia, I am not sure I would want to play 7d. If rho were to lead a trump from even 9xx p will need at least one outside entry to allow for a club ruff and still safely pull trumps. Given that we do not have the ability to find out how many dia p has i think trying for 7 is a poor idea and just bidding 6d should cover just about any semi normal looking 2d bid p might have. Of course I may just be a pessimist and 5n will work wonderfully when p has JTx J KQ9xx xxxx the opps x and lho leads a heart and alls well that ends well.