gszes

where did i hide my flack jacket?????????????????? If p has 4 tricks on defense and short hearts as expected it becomes VERY difficult for us to not make 4s. If p does not have 4 tricks for defense it becomes very diffcult for us to beat 4h. All roads seem to lead to a 4s bid. I also echo marcd feeling this defenseless wonder looks a whole lot more like a 3s preemptive raise than a 2s constructive raise. xxxxxx x AKx AKx can partner really be this good??? if so we might still make 4s maybe even x if rho misjudges and x becasue they have AJT spades.

they are both roughly a 3h bid however hand 1 has the extra potential to cause an error in opps estimation of their hand and that seems to make it worth the extra level.

i am heading to 7h the only thing standing in my way is 7n and since this is mp there is no harm exploring. if i trust my p 3h 4c (forcing) over 4d/h/s 4n key card for clubs if instead p bids 4n/5c 5d key card for clubs after getting zero from p i then ask for trump Q if yes i bid 7n if no i bid 7h If i am unsure how much to trust p i will just bid 7h. this type of planning comes up quite frequently when your eventual trump suit is above a suit u have a problem with.

1d (1s) x 2d 2s forcing but not game forcing 2n 3d GF (with invite 3d over 2d) 3n club stop (since p has established GF odds are strongly against lho being able to attack clubs effectively and this allows us to use 3s with a hand that has only a partial club stop. 4h cue bid slam search (denies club cue) 4n no club control must sign off(starting to regret bidding 3n vs 3s):)

i have to admit that i also think the partial elimination play is right but for a different reason. trick 1 haeart A trick 2 win dia in hand trick 3 dia to dummy (discovering 31 break) trick 4 ruff a heart small (if rho started with 8 hearts applaud their restraint) trick 5/6/7 run 3 spades (if rho started with 6/7 hearts and 5+ spades do not buy a lottery ticket) trick 8 once we see rho follow to 3 spades we know they have at least 6H 3S 1D seeing our lack of club spots (and strong defense) the only holding where running the club 9 will work is if rho started specifically with KJT or JT(x). This is very odds against since they can only have 3 clubs max. I will try for a better solution and now (drum roll) lay down the club A. trick 9 ruff a heart high (sighing since lho follows it is still possible for rho to have 3 clubs. We are not dead yet. this is our end postion leading from our hand void void A Qxx void void Kx xx trick 10 lead a club toward the Q if lho rises with the K the hand is over if the Q holds hand is over if rho wins the K we still win if they only had kx and have to give us a ruff and sluff.

even w/o specific agreements sometimes an auction is so informative that you will have a strong clue how to proceed when given the chance. Did you realize that the 3h bid was an invite to game in spades? The only way this bidding makes much sense is when there is a much smaller heart fit (say honor x) than spades. Your lho appears to have decent offensive potential to invite game opposite a weak 2 spade bid as well as fairly long spades. Your p rates to have 4 hearts here under declarer and lho has decent values to make a game try and they are behind you. All of the information seems to suggest pass as best since there is zero tactical advantage for lho to lie about having a big spade fit. This is still a great example of how ANY agreement over artificial bids is better than none because both partners are operating mostly in the blind when no agreements are present. As an aside, I have found that X of an artificial bid to show that suit (when no other agreements are present) is still one of the strongest defenses around saving a "raise" of the artificial bid as a preempt. This one agreement helps to show the difference btn say xx xx KQJTxxx xx (3d) and Axx x AQJxxx Kxx (x).

assuming you are playing 2n showing two lowest, p did not take immediate advantage of 2n to show hearts/clubs. The choice of 1h followed by 5c would show a much better heart suit than clubs and greatly increase the odds of p being short in dia. If p wanted a club lead all they had to do was pass the only way to get a dia lead here is to x. lead a dia and if p cannot ruff have a chat with them about the wonders of lightner.

i realize this is after the fact but the principle is the same --- when you are IN FRONT of declarer the quality of your trumps needs to be significantly stronger than if u are BEHIND declarer. This is especially true when you are virtually certain pard is void in their trump suit. Declarer has a lot of advantages and knowing about a poor trump break may help them make an otherwise unmakeable contract. Bidding 2s here rates to be safer in the long run. Think of it as insurance--it may not make but it eliminates almost all of the worst case scenarios and there are few postive scenarios with this hand.

since 3d would be pretty automatic missing the dia Q I see no reason to avoid 3n with this hand. 11 tricks seem a fair distance off and 3n would seem very diffcult to beat. My two kings may well be usless in a dia contract but are definitely useful in nt go for it.

the only times 1s will work out better than x seems to be when u can make only 1s. This consideration is so tiny as to not matter. There is tremendous potential here especially behind opener and a 1s bid will cause us to forfeit a huge number of game contracts where p has minimal values and has to pass. x for me followed by a raise of hearts or bidding spades at lowest level. There really just not that many hands where making a simple overcall with 16-17 is reasonable because the potential (most especially behind opener) is generally too great.

in my system I would start with transfer followed by 3d to show red suit 2 suiter and game forcing. I have no intention of stopping at 3n. how the bidding proceeds from there depends on what opener bids. if opener bids 3s (showing spades stopped but not clubs) (unless they are cuebidding with a max where they will cue bid some more) i will bid 4h as a sign off try. if opener bids 4c showing clubs stopped but not spades (responder may still be able to bid 4n as an invite to 6n). I have sufficent values to bid 7h. if opener bids 3n i will follow with (4s or 5c) --in this case 4s- to show my 0652 hand slam invitational (10-13) 0553 (14-16) and let opener decide where to play (though i will convert dia contracts to hearts). (opener will usually place contract at proper level or bid 5n to encourage 7 if responder is near the top of their range) The key is letting p know about the 2 suited nature of your hand. This allows them to make a much more intelligent decision on how high to go. Sometimes it is best to let the player looking at their cards decide how well they fit with yours instead of your worrying about all the possible great vs horrid fits available.

2s as a non passed hand 2s as a passed hand need Qxx of spades vs xxx to make a drury call missing Q may not seem like much but it means our hand is short around 23% of the power we are promising with drury.

sometims the best result possible is diffcult to acheive when there is a language barrier (ie bidding) btn partners. Instead try thinking of a way to get the best result possible under the circumstances. There is no reasonable/safe way to search for 7 so why not just bid 5s asking p to bid 6 with decent spades. Sure it will miss some slams when p has the heart A and 4 small spades but at least your going to be in the ball park instead of confusing your p in a bidding sequence you know they will not understand.

hold your cards closer to you so declarer cant see his lho has AKx that way your side collects + 50 for 3c down 1 at least (3 clubs 2 dia). you were unlucky to have opps that were playing inverted minors. I would not lose to much sleep over missing 3s here.

after s passes the x of 4h and given the bidding N did not trust south. There is no reason for south to assume N has KQ of hearts vs say KJ with the lead going through n at trick 1. S is still interested in slam and the N hand is essentially a super max. hearts solidly stopped a 5th spade when promising 4 (egad extra values) and no wasted spade honors like the Q or J in a ten card + fit. Once p passes the double of 4h and encourages there is just little reason for North to not just bid 6s. It is difficult to imagine your hand being any better. Even w/o detailed bidding it is possible to get to many good slams and this is one of them if partners trust one another.

HMMMM looks appetizing whats the catch? Like do the losers owe the winners or does your team owe only if it loses? huge difference:)))))

deleted garbage failed to take into consideration the 1s overcall

the overall hand starts with the 8 ever 9 never theory of the 22 split being superior to trying to guess if its right to play for 31. The problem is that if there is 31 split you have already found it (ie LHO did not show out) and now a new set of calculations must take place. Helene_t points out that at the point of decision open spaces dictates that lho actually has a greater chance of having a 3rd spade (and thus the Q) than rho has of starting with a doubleton. Playing for the 22 split was originally favored by almost 14% but at this point the finesse is favored 57-43. Even this % is based primarily on the probability the Rho holds at least 6 clubs and that might be wrong. It is quite possible that the evidence of the auction was not considered critical enough to sway declarer away from this origina 14% distribution advantage. IMO the (theoretical) evidence supplied by the bidding and opening lead --where we are 7:5 favorites at least ---carries more weight in this decision then the hard probabilty of 14% advantage due to distributional probabilites. That's why we do not have duplicate results everywhere.

odds of the opps making 5c are slim however I am anything but certain the odds of us making 5s are slim. Our hand was was a 4s bid with noint and the fact that the singleton is a club makes our hand just a touch better. If p has a hand where they are interested in slamming they will rarely be diappointed with our 4 trumps to the K 2nd round club control and a great side source of tricks (diamonds). I would be happier at MP trying x since any positive is usually worth at least 30%. At IMPS 5s is unlikely to be a huge disaster and could be worth a ton of imps especially if p has a slammish hand.

at the 2/3 level any passed hand that introduces a new suit should be making a fit showing hand. It is far too unlikely a passed hand will have the quailty and/or length required to suddenly introduce a new suit of their own especially if it is a level higher that the original overcall. This is aimed primarily at passed hands only. If there has never been an opportunity to bid I feel the ability to warn p of a potential misfit (and quite possibly a safer place to play) is far more important then trying to reach a thin game based on luckily finding a double fit. yes and yes to these examples fit showing.

all we know so far is lho started with the club Q and rho the club K. Now we have to guess. We can eliminate lho starting with AK of KQJ of dia since a club lead while safe is probably unproductive at best and a dia would look a ton better. So rho probably has at least the dia K. That is 8 out of the 20 the opps own and even if lho started with only 9 (and their p an unlikley 11 with 6 clubs and still bidding only 2c) the odds still favor lho having the spade Q by 7:5 and the stronger lho is the more likely they are to have the Q. Take the finesse. Have a quiet chat with your p after the session and tell them to please trust that you would not have bid 2n if short in spades so at the very least bid 3s vs passing since 3s rates to be a ton safer.

most bids in bridge are designed to be successful overall. Anytime we have to waste some of our precious bidding space for a preempt something is going to go missing. Hopefully it hurts the opps more than it hurts our side. This hand is a very reasonable weak 2 and it is only a lucky lay out that allows your side to make 4. Note that if your short suit had been spades instead of clubs 4h would have 2c and 2 dia losers off the top and only a friendly lead could save you from going down. Your p was resulting and that is a shame. Keep up the good work

p 3h bid should be considered a "super accept" (some pairs play x as a super accept with 3 hearts and a direct bid of 3h to show 4 or even 5 hearts).The concept was designed to get to game when responder had around 7 points and would not be strong enough to invite themselves. You have 6 hcp admitedly all queens ugh but your singleton lends some cheer to your hand so bidding 4h is the best bet here.

it makes no sense to x 2d for penalty--if opps wish to stop in 2d thats great for us the only thing a penalty x will accomplish is to give them every reason to hunt around for a safer spot. The x here is a much more valuable tool as tox for the black suits preferably a nicely distributed 55 weakish hand similar to Qxxxx xx x Kxxxx we could have more tame distribution but then we would need more power to compensate with a hand like KJTx xx xxx KQJx.

you are not taking into consideration that x followed by 3c shows a very strong hand. Not at all dissimilar from the hand you are holding. If p cannot move over your 3c follow up your sides chances of missing game are remote. If your dia K were the Dia A then a belated 3s would be ok because all you need is a spade stop for 3n. The dia K means not only do you need a spade stop from p but dia help as well that is a lot to wish for. Bid 3c and trust that with a reasonable 6 count p will be able to find 3n.