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1h 2c 3c 3h this has set hearts as the trump suit. If we reach slam level we can offer clubs as an alternative to hearts or nt but until then we are playing hearts. The remainder of the bidding must be viewed through this prism. w/o serious/nonserious 3n after 3s we have to "cuebid" 4c. Failure to do so may doom any grand slam exploration before we even get started. There is no reason to stop cue bidding below game level just because you are minimum. Just do not cue bid beyond game with a min if not cuebidding is a reasonable alternative. I disagree with 4h over 3s opener is now making 1 last slam try (they must have dia control and are denying 1st round spade control) asking us if we have anything "interesting" spade A is indeed interesting and since we failed to cue bid 4c our club K is also "interesting" I would cue bid 5s and let p choose which slam we play. If we miss 7 our missed opportunity to bid 4c might be the reason.

bidding goes 1d 1h and you hold Qxxx xxx QJx Kxx do you make a neg x? that is what a min neg x hand looks like. Yours has the same power but the singleton heart makes your hand very much better from an offensive standpoint. If p freely bids 2s your side cannot be far from making 4s. Think of the 4s bid as insurance at IMPS. Your downside passing 4h can be say -420 by bidding 4s -100 is the worst case scenario. How much better does 4s look when you make it +420 vs -420 is a rather huge swing.

This hand has become so good that I am searching for a grand and starting with 4n. This should eliminate all doubt immediately about having a heart fit. If p shows me 2 with the Q I am bidding 7h --2 w/o the q and I am settling for 6h If p shows 1 (assuming I am playing 1430 when hearts are trumps I will bid 5d and be happy with 6h if p has the Q.

I would pass 4d to see if p can xx or not (never a desire to play merely to inform of 1st round control or not IMO) If p bids 4h I am forced to pass since both 6h and 6n have been wrong sided due to our system (one of the advantages of jacoby 2n is precisely the kind of flexibility we have lost here).

2c opener leaves us much better placed. first over 2h p gets the chance to cheaply bid 2s 3c/3d with little power but having suit length. P inability to show a long suit over 2h would leave us much better placed to use clubs as our trump suit but would still leave us w/o much recourse as to how high to bid. I would take an educated guess at 6c if rho still bid 4h because it seemed they are trying to preempt me out of something and I would know its not 6/7 spades and probably not 6/7 diamonds. After opening 1c p has little flexibility to bid with weak hands and anything I do here is uneducated guessing. I am not x here and that seems safer than blindly going forward in the assumption we have somewhere safer to play and we can find it. PASS

i dont see the rush to lead a heart-it requires quite a bit from p to be right and there is a fair risk it just gives up a heart trick for no good reason. I IMO lead a low dia since all I need from p is the J to get us 3 dia tricks or possibly get dia going so we can get 3 dia tricks any time rho has Kxx or KJx and p gets in to return the suit. A dia will rarey give up both a trick and tempo while a heart will do both a fair % of the time.

AT MP if we are in slam territory I can see passing the x because setting 3c 3 tricks becomes much more likely and could be a huge MP score (in what is probably an very unusal auction). AT IMPS it seems like way too much risk of missing a game for a more likely down 1 or down 2 if p is close to the min for their x. Our hand would like to ruff spades and pull trumps but we will have to settle for leading trumps. There is no reason to assume p is near minimum for their x. We could be selling out for 500 when we are due 980 this may be acceptable risk at MP where just getting 500 might be great but at imps it starts to become a large loss when slam is available. bid 4h at IMPS Who knows how high p can go??????

since NVUL vs Vul requirements for suit quality border on nonexistent (not to mention length) there is little doubt KQTxxx qualifies as a good suit. Once you get lucky enough to have p bid 2n then your void makes your hand VERY good. I agree wholeheartedly with the 4c bid mentioned earlier which should say good suit good hand AND a short suit how much more do you want p???????????????????? If you are hesitant to make a 4c bid here then at least show good suit good hand and let p take it from there (talk about how you really wanted to bid 4c later).

came to party late as usual have seen openers hand. Does not change my opinion. I am not going to rage over the 3n bid which I think was overly optimistic (choose 3c because we arent making 3n if p cant provide a club honor and exta values hmmm what about 5c though). IMO after 1s responder has no fear of rebidding 1n. The bidding does not require responder to be balanced here they merely have promised 1 dia stop and no spade raise. From responder POV there is no reason 4h cant still be a viable game so they need to make a bid that allows hearts to be found yet still keeps the bidding as low as possible in case there is a misfit (like this hand). I would give some credit to a 2s bid (huge favorite to be a 3 card raise since we did not neg x) but that puts the partnership in a bind when opener has a much more balanced minimum type hand and also makes finding hearts much more difficult if opener is a bit stronger.

Ithink the 3c bid should be reserved for weak hands with clubs IMO this hand should bid 2s if we are going to be stuck in a 43 fit we are better served playing spades vs hearts. This should show extra values since with a minimum we would bid either 2h or 3c. We also have 2n 3n 3d 3h and 3s bids available for different hands:))))))))))))))))))))

AT MP i can see passing--not willing to go -100 vs -90 AT IMPS this consdieration is almost trivial and x is called for not just because you might make something but because the opps might go to the three level and you can set them. This is almost a risk free 2nd x p will never leave it in (they are relatively short in dia).. I personally hate the 1n overcall because p still can raise to 3n and be upset over the quality of your dia stopper too much risk.

at these colors I am promising a good 6 card suit (max 2 losers) and not much else outside. This hand meets that definition. There is still a chance this hand belongs in hearts or nt so preempting beyond 2s seems unreasonable. Opening 1s with this hand has little appeal.

how about 1c 1d 2d (limit + in clubs) that would keep the bidding low you wouldnt have to lie about having both majors with neg x (why your p didnt bid spades i dont know) and your side would have plenty of room to explore majors nt etc etc. with your side maxxed out at around 29 hcp (and a lot of jacks) slam really should not be a strong consideration pass 3n.

i am unsure what e was doing with 3s bid--why not a simple 3d?? the only way your side has a viable contract other than 3n is if has extra values and short hearts (and at least 5 dia). Bidding 3d gives p a lot of room to start to limit their still unlimited hand and still suggest 3n as a possible contract (either by bidding it or bidding 3h to show a partial stop). Here p would bid 3n and that would be the end of the bidding (one woudl hope).

yours was not a terrible line but may i suggest trick 1 duck trick 2 win A trick 3 spade toward K trick 4 club toward J (assuming it loses) rho must return a club to give you a problem trick 5 win club** trick 6 spade to A trick 7 club toward hand If rho ruffs we hope rho must return a dia from the K If rho ducks we win and ruff our 4th club (hoping lho has the 3rd trump)* If rho follows we hope clubs are 33 or rho has the 3rd trump so we win and ruff our 4th club. *if you are convinced rho has 3 trumps and did well to duck you need to change your LOP to the dia A and a dia to the T (hoping rho has to win the K) win any return in hand and pull last trump. **If the play convinces you lho has 2 clubs and 3 trumps trick 6 trump Q trick 7 dia A trick 8 another dia toward the Q if this works you are psychic and should consider buying a lottery ticket today. Playing the hand this way gives us a lot of flexibility and depending on how the play goes several ways we can triumph. If we attack dia early we lose these options while essentailly hoping for a defensive error or a lucky dia break instead of taking our optimum plays to work with clubs.

lets assume your ability to read the opps is unparalled (almost good enough to piture the cards in their hand). Assuming your p lacks the same ability about you what do you possibly expect to gain no matter what you choose to open with this hand. give me xxx xxx Axxx KQJ and you can talk me into a 1c opener. Here you have nothing but information to give the opps or horrific info to give to poor unsuspecting p who has a great chance of being on lead or making a preemtive raise of your only lead directing bid (H). You have a tremendous gift--try to curtail its use to hands where you have a reasonable chance to benefit w/o all the risk. For heavens sake try to talk these opps into some friendly low stakes games where you can use your ability to help fill your wallet. pass

4h 3n and 5d are all possible here (slam rarely). There seems to be little reason we dont start with 2d transfer followed by 3d. If lho throws in a 4 spade bid we can still bid 5d with a reasonable degree of safety. Using this method when opps dont interfere we can trust p to choose hearts dia or nt. It is just too unilateral to decide hearts is the only way to go. Even if p has 3 hearts nt might be better if they are cruddy hearts.

p knowing you have 11-12 hcp must have a hand with enough power to play at least 6 if you have a good hand for them. A good hand would be say 10-12 hcp (not counting jacks) outside clubs. This means with 12 hcp you can leap to 5n with 11 you can bid 6 and with 10 you can bid 5h. these quantitative bids leave cue bids for hands containing the ace in the splintered suit and little else wasted. I dislike last train bids in a splinter sequence since they waste space if p is looking for a grand. If p uses the splinter properly having the A and little else wasted should make playing at the 5 level safe. My suggestion is to cue bid 4s which should show the club A a spade cue and 6-8 hcp outside clubs. It should also deny a dia cue. That alone might be sufficient to stop a search for a grand.

p knows you dont have a side ace but there is still a decent amount of latitude for your 4s bid anywhere from AKxxxxxx xx xx x to QJxxxxxxx x xx x 4n by partner may merely be trying to find out if slam is a good idea. Your having a heart void is nice but probably not important to making slam (unless p has long hearts and your void makes it unlikely slam will work:)) Just cooperate with blackwood and let p decide where to play dont try and be a hero here. Think this way--since you have 8 spades it would hardly be a huge surprise if you had a void.

while it is true that we might never get our 2 dia tricks if we dont lead them I think leading a dia here is just trying to be a hero. There is no reason to think the opps will have an easy time of 6h (you have 3 trumps) none of the side suits are splitting well and a dia lead might be the only way the opps can make their slam. try to avoid a trick one disaster and lead the spade J this will help p avoid any cover/lack of cover mistake. This lead has only a slight chance of giving the opps a trick not due them.

we have a monstrous spade fit (when p overcalls 1s) rho x the opps also have a monstrous fit but they have not identified that yet. We have little defense in a deck that looks split. Don't bid a mere 2h bid a robust 4s. Just maybe that will buy the contract at worst it will make it a lot tougher for the opps to find their monstrous fit and proper playing level. That aside---pass I am unhappy I am not on lead (where i will start with a low club) but p did jump to 4s which can be done on such a wide variely of hands bidding 6s becomes an exercise is guesswork rather than % bidding. Note that pass here is not FP since both sides have already shown they are happy with playing at the 5 level.

Ususal opponents or not low from dummy (intending to play the 9) allows us to pick up 15 of 16 potential trump positions though two of those 15 (rho K8 or K5) will require us to guess well when we continue the suit. We for sure lose out only to stiff J with lho and we will probably lose out to Jx with lho because it's tough to give rho credit for being able to duck with Kx. The net yield of this play is at worst 13 of 16. As shown below the worst this LOP can yield >= the best of the other choices. playing the A and toward the Q loses to lho KJ8 KJ5 KJ85 net yield at beat 13 of 16 starting with Q intending to take double finesse loses to rho KJ8 KJ5 KJ85 net yield at best 13 of 16 leading low towards the T intending to double finesse loses to tho KJ KJ8 KJ5 void net yield at best 12 of 16.

2s sigh where is the opinion poll a rare chance for me to be part of the majority:)))

p bid 5c i think it is hugely unreasonbale to assume p will raise you to 5c with xxx :))))))))))))))))))) worring about such a slim % chance will cause you to use wayyyy too much anti acid during your bridge career. and if Qxx is offside (assuming p raised to with xxx --now my stomach is beginning to hurt---how do you avoid a club loser anyway:)))))))))

my hand is more than strong enough for game in hearts or clubs sooooooooooooooooooooooo if 2h is forcing (I dont know) thats my choice if 2h nf than 3h (hearts may still be best game) There is no reason to insist on what may be a 9 card club fit (assuming it isnt a temporizing bid and p has 3 hearts) and give up on an 8 card heart fit or more). The heart bids also keep the bidding lower than jumping around in clubs in case p has visions of slam.