gszes

there is no reason to rush to judgement with a 4s bid. The suit has a ton of holes and you need help from p for spades to be a reasonable trump choice. There is no reason 3n or clubs cant be the best contracts. save your jumps in 2/1 for highly descriptive and safe bids. KQJ9xxx Axx void xxx would be a reasonable 4s bid 1 loser opposite a singleton or a bit of luck opposite a void. start with 2s rebid. This bid alone goes a long way toward describing your hand. Your void opposite p dia suit is a bad thing tread gingerly.

i completely agree with this agreement:)) go mikeH

i prefer my operations to not overly lie about my overall strength since p will rarely be in on the joke (what is 6c x making?) i chose 1n since it doenst lie about power. If p has extra values nothing can go wrong. If p is min then we have a ton less defense than normal and we have to hope the opps misjudge how high they need to go. 4s might work if you are going to jump maybe 5s is better but is is still a guess and may be preemting p (same with 4s) vs the opps. With any luck the 1n bid might cause some concern among the opps about their p having wasted spade values. i am curious though if p cannot x 6c why didnt we bid 6s? we have zero defense surely we can score 7 tricks on offense (hmmm I wonder if driving them to 7 is a good idea :))))))))))))))))))))))) Welcome to no limit holdem i mean bridge.

1. 6c 7c is certainly within reach and it might seem perfectly reasonable to search for a grand here but do we have the tools to do it safely??? If we bid 5h (IMO best for grand search) and p bid 5s how do we ask p to bid 7 with dia AK?? I dont know and if we were to bid 5n telling p we were still interested in a grand how would p know the dia A was not sufficient??? Taking this into consideration the best bid would be a simple 6c bid since we are going to be on lead anyway (if the opps sacrifice) and no benefit can be gained from a 5h bid. Sometimes preempts work do the best you can. 2. 5s P should have decent spades for their VUL/NV 3s bid. If P has great spades only a dia lead could pose problems to 6 and that's a reasonable gamble. 5s here (cant possibly be a preempt) is asking p to bid slam with a max 1 loser spade suit (KQJTxxx). If you meekly bid 4s you are showing little confidence in p 3s bid. 3. pass Once you do not bid 1n directly over 1s (a very reasonable decision) you have nowhere else to go at this point. A x here is to for the other two suits in po seat not asking for a spade lead. If your p agreement is to not let the opps play 1n then you have to x hoping against hope that p bids hearts (or even 2/3d). If p bids 2c your partnership agreement must be that 2s is to play at this point. If p bids 3c (ackkkk) your guess to p or bid 3n is all you have left choose wisely.

This contest is against some of the best in the WORLD. Enjoy the experience and learn from it. Let's give everyone a shot at playing before we repeat too much (for posters I mean). IMO any poster (with or W/O a partner) that has not had a chance to play yet (and is willing to play with another poster that does not have a partner) please apply and I hope the powers that be will give all a fair shot. As usual I will be around at game time if we need another player.

the 11 16 range is very important. At IMPS we are constantly pushing for game and the one doing the inviting would normally just bid game if all they needed was an average hand from you. Your hand (after evaluation) falls right in the middle of your range and you should pass. P is asking you to bid game if you are near the top of your range for your 2h bid and you are about a K short.

it is hugely unlikley rho has a spade stack and is waiting to clobber us in 4s. If that is the case I see little reason to not venture a 4s bid (a slight overbid) with the hopes that we make it or rho takes the bait and bids 5d where I would feel a lot more comfortable with x. Lho having a spade stack is possible but most wont have the nerve to x 4s and rho might still bid 5d:))))))))))))))))))))

we need to make life as difficult for the opps as possible. If we have a large heart fit (and p is minimum) we have no defense against 4s. I see no problems with bidding 4h right now since I need so little for 4h to make and it also has the advantage of being very preemptive. I reserve xx here to show heart support and 16+. This helps show the difference between very distributional hands like our current one and hands with a lot of power. p knows our hand type and will take that into consideration if the vul opps compete further.

n failed to neg x over a 2h overcall that looks more like a 3h bid to me. S needs to reopen with x in case p has a penalty pass of 2h and they can use ELC to convert 3c to 3d. After the 3d bid N displays a complete lack of trust in S bidding by passing. Enough has been said about this pass already so let me say that I would have tried 3h myself (since I would be willing to try 3n if p can bid it). Once p cannot bid 3n (they will probably bid 3s or 4d) I would make one stab at slam with 4h before settling in 5d. If p were to jump to 4s or 5d I would bid 6d.

with a 3c bid available there is no reason the s hand cannot x 2s for penalty. Is this the right hand for it?? hmmm you have 3 tricks and you are expecting your p to also take 3 tricks when they could not take any action over 2s. This does not compute. This hand you are lucky and can set 2s but just imagine e hand with the club A vs the totally uselss KJ hearts. 2s rolls. This is a game of % so the penalty x really need to show a hand worth 4 defensive tricks to be reasonable. AKQx xx Axxx xxx is a much more reasonable penalty x that has little chance of going wrong (that means sometimes they will make). Think about the bidding and you will realize a penalty x here is a poor % plan better saved for a hand where you need a top to win an event---even then you better be sure you need it.

You have been reading the forums and the x stuck in your head vs the (ick) 2c bid. WD You have a reasonable defensive hand and p surely expects to take 2 tricks for the x. At these colors it is hardly a strectch to think you could have a fairly large gain here by passing. Since p x vs bidding a suit (or 4n) you can expect p to be fairly balanced and that makes your hand much better for defense and much worse for offense. Sit tight and hopefully enjoy the ride. Now for the next thread what to lead:))))))))))))))))))))))))

p heard our 1d bid and opted for 2h IMO our hand is quite average for a 1d bid and our p does not expect game unless we have something surprising for our 1d response---welllll we dont have it. No heart fit a doubleton spade and 2 hearts just means more probable misfit. If p thought we might do better they could have x again or bid 3c but they chose a mere 2h bid because they expect little chance at game if any. pass

good start but I admit I dont understand the bidding 1h 1n 2s 3n 4c 4s(cue)4n would have been sign off 6c too hard to imagine 7c

not sure what evidence you saw makes switch advisable. Setting up p spade suit easily be right if p has an entry. Nothing in the bidding hints at delclarer having a long suit that will produce tricks for 3n. I would consider a spade continuation perfectly normal. As for the bidding i hate those jumps to 3n for no good reason. too much good bidding space is wasted when we have the balance of the power. I would start with 2s and after 3d by p we realize they are highly distributional and the idea of 5d (with our major aces) starts to look like a strong candidate. I would not start with neg x becasue of the fear p might bid 4h and we would have nowhere else to go.

it is dependent on finding the dia J in p hand a not very likely probablity given the bidding w/o the dia J it is a marginal contract at best. Don't beat yourself up even if you picture x AKxx xx AKQxxx slam is hard to reach 3n is fine.

change your hand to Qxx xxxx AKxxx x and I would bid 3h (or 4c splinter if allowed) your current hand seems much more suited to a 3s bid (remember p is counting you for 7 when they bid) so a simple raise should show around 9-10.

n should have been able to tell that our side is unlikely to set 3n if you dont have something in hearts and they should signal for a heart switch (however you do that in your system). Absent a heart signal I think a spade switch is perfectly resonable since your p is marked with 5 spades and probably cant afford to throw them away.

i dont know enought about your system in order to intelligently decide how to proceed however from what I know so far we have a 9 card suit missing the Q and missing one other key card. This alone would normally limit me to 5c. Here we cant count to 12 even if we manage to lose only one trick due to club Q and missing key card. state of the match or no it is bad for parnership morale to arbitrarily push to slam on a prayer and a whim.

1h perfectly reasonable wasting space with a reverse makes little sense save it for hands where it is needed. P heard our bidding and while we indeed have 8 probable tricks we woud need 4 from p for slam. Surely if p had something like 4 probable tricks they could have found a bid other than a simple 3n. If p has no spade stop after this bidding find another p. pass

hard to imagine a hand where 5c is superior to 5s and p has no clue we have a solid suit. We cannot bid 6c since we have no clue if there are 2 heart losers off the top but we can certainly tell p about our wonderful spade suit. Who knows where the contact will go from there but we have most likely improved our score (especially after x club ruff heart club ruff heart club ruff sigh)

playign 12-14 there are far too few hands p can have that make 5d the best choice. There is no reason to assume 3n is out of the question and it is a vul game so bid it.

we need to downgrade our hand some due to probable misfit. I would bid 2n. This leaves us with a bit more latitude since we can pass 3h if p bids it and be a ton happier if p bids 4h. 16 opposite 10 in a misfit hand doesnt produce game often especially when the opps strength is generally behind our 16. bidding 2n at least aks for a tad extra from p before proceeding to game.

it is an awfully big position to pass 2h here. You do have reasonable hearts but not enough tricks especially opposite a limited p. I would bid 3d. I also would p 2h as west. The x does not rate a large gain and our side must be able to make 3 of a minor or p pass the x for it to work. There is nothing even close to suggesting this might be the case. We are vul if we go down one it is no better than letting them make 2h let it go.

at MP (where + 200 might be a huge score) I can see the potential in pass. At IMPS the risk/reward of a 1 trick set is way too small. There are still many games we have available and it is far too easy for the opps to score up making for a large swing for little probably gain. 1N

there is just no need to bid now. Both opps unlimited and bidding vul/nvul and your system does not even allow for an accurate description. It is not timid to pass just reasonable. Wait and see if opps are going to let the bidding die lho next call and rho call should give you a good indication if backing in is safe.