gszes

If you are not using leb strongly consider adding it to your system. w/o leb your 3c bid can literally be xxx xxx xxx xxxx up to say xx KQ xxx Kxxxxx. This range is so enormous it is unplayable. What you give up is the opportunity to play 2n - a very small target among a wide variety of possiblities still available. If not using leb or elc 3d is a hand probably worth around 20 points but not good enough to bid 3s.

the minority report: pass If p cannot balace with x we will probably have a difficult time making 2s and thats the good news. There is no strong reason to assume 2s cant be slaughtered. with say KJTxx xx xxx xxx 2s no problem but this rag will probably only work on hands p can x with in po seat.

opening 1d might be "safe" but I find it difficult to see it as "effective". What can you possibly do after opening 1d that will help p make rational decisions about the bidding?? Given that p can't make rational decisions how can you trust their judgements? your bidding goes 1d 1s 2d 3n are you going to bite the bullet and pass or are you tempted to overrule??? If you open 1d opps bidding p passing are you willing to remain quiet or will you try a delayed preempt?? What if p x in a competitive auction??? can you pass? IMO opening 1d with this collection leads to far more nonsense than starting with a simple preempt. Opening 3d has one major benefit here. It shows a 1 suited hand with little defense and around 8 tricks at this vulerability. Seems to be exactly what you have so go for it. P will know you either have exceptional length or a trick on the outside for this bid and hopefully they can make a more reasoned decision on how to proceed. 2d is out of the picture because it makes the range of a 2d bid so wide as to make it impossible to use. 4d is a close approximation but has 2 drawbacks. 1. It bypasses 3n (this is a rather large problem) 2. The 2 aces make it a low % the opps have a high level contract so making a huge preempt at this vul short of playing tricks seems overly aggressive.

as usual i will be on a bit early in case a sub is needed to get started

I didn't see this hand but it is difficult to imagine slam with all those quacks. I would pass 3n but I would consider a 4n raise to be a bit less than average. Giving up 4c/d/h as natural bids is a poor idea IMO. pass = 10 4n= 4

IMO since a 2s bid does not show club length and can be done with a much more balanced hand w/o a heart stop. This would require a lot more power than a 3c bid which can easily be made with long clubs and merely competitive values. This type of problem is why neg doubles flourish because using one here can show the difference btn a strong hand with spades and a weaker 2 suiter.

looking at the dummy and remembering p bid 3n (they may or may not have a spade trick). If they only have one leading a spade is a sure way of making them lose it. Declarer playing the club K off the board is almost assuredly short in clubs and we know from the bidding they are short in hearts (unless they are crazy). From there we can easly imagine them having 4+ dia and the rest of their hand would not permit them to run the dia to their dia suit because they know they would lose the a and another trick even if we cant see it. They cant know they are losing a heart so only a trump loser could cause them a headache. Returning a low club will make transportation almost impossible for them. They wont be able to ruff enough diamonds and still be able to pull trumps. As long as we dont make it easy for them the contract should fail on its own lack of ability.

w/o knowing your entire system its difficult to speculate but why not use 4c/d as voidwood vs splinter? You can usually pattern out with your system with a bit of lying by bidding 4c/d raise over 3n to show your short dia and slam interest? As it turns out p will show 3 keys and you will have no trouble bidding 6s and p better bid 7c with the spade K and you can safely bid 7n. As an aside--when was the last time you happily used a PJSR?? 7n is easy to reach after 1c 2s strong jump shift (max 1 loser) in spades.

I do not believe the N hand will be happy defending 6h or 7h. That being the case at least N should bid 7s. Even if E is able to pass and show the spade A their partner (who didnt know what to do over 4s) will have to make a decision with precious little extra information. Maybe we can preserve some of our ability to sacrifice. I see little benefit to bidding just 6s (if we go -6 it is only 1400 and is a save over 6h). the 5s x left rho with the opportunity to not only show spade control but show outside stuff as well. This extra space might be all the opps need to bid 7n and poof goes our ability to sacrifice.

E didnt bid 5s I wonder why?? If they were say 6052 maybe even 6043 and no defense 5s would seem to be a stand out bid. That question alone seems to indicate E thought they had some defense so I would tend to try for the ruffing finesse. hight trump to table top clubs and (assuming Q didnt fall from w try the finesse------- we still have small trump as entry to the clubs if this works.

I use namyats (not the classical use which takes up too much room with a bid hand) just to help show the difference btn this hand and say KQTxxxxx xx x xx my 4d bid is with the AKxxxxxx or AKQxxxx type hands and my 4s bid is with the weaker more distributional type (figuring the distribution is more important to hide). w/o namyats I would open 4s at this vul and not be shocked if we missed slam because p was unable to see 6 with a lot of controls but short spades.

ill be hanging out on bbo by 145pm in case we are short

cant pass too risky--there are far to many ways my hand can be limited to 2 tricks on defense and that requires 4 tricks from partner to set them. P did not x to begin with they overcalled and made a balancing TOX. Hard to imagine 4 tricks from p with this bidding. If my partnershipe plays 2n here to show the minors (my preference) I will bid that. If not I will gamble on 3c hoping the opps take the push to 3h.

5n dont see the benefit of either 6c p cant possibly cue bid 6d so we are left with 6h 6d p cant possibly bid 7h not being sure of club suit 5n shows a desire to raise to 6 and leave open exploration for 7 while denying spade control. It is virtually impossible for you to be making this bid w/o 1st round control in both minors since you can always bid 6c or 6d to show that control and deny the other. Over 5n p can show a long minor if they have one. If p bids 6c I will settle for 6h if p bids 6d I will bid 7h.

I will take the tepid way and go with a small spade. Even if this is not a winner it might not be a loser since it starts to attack the limited dummy entries and might set up a 2nd spade.

I would start with 5d unless that is clearly exclusion blackwood. If p bids 6c I bid 7c over 5h/s I bid 7 of suit over 6h/s I bid 7 of suit over 5n (p is unsure what to do) I bid 7s if p bids 6n I will leave it there and hope 7 doesn't make. there are times this wont work but the vast majority of the time I would expect excellent results. Preempts work :)

bid 3s even if p bids 3n you are not satisfied with this hand 17 count and solid dia suit. If p cannot bid 3n you have to be seriously thinking about 7. If p bids 3n you have to at least introduce your slam desire by bidding 4d (cue bid by p expresses interest 4n is a sign off). do not hesitate to convert any number of clubs to your solid dia suit and you might be surprised how far p might go upon learning you have solid dia.

I took the poster at his word, he had seen the whole hand and was interested in the best way to play for 7 because he knew 6 was cold (the only way it is ironclad is if trumps are 3/2) and no dia ruff at trick one. Under those conditions there is no sense in taking the finesse. Taking the finesse at trick one is a superior play to make your contract and try for an overtrick in a limited number of circumstances but that was not the question.

did you see that if hearts break 32 (68%) wayyyy better than 50 (dia finesse) you are cold for seven because you can pitch both dia losers on the spades????? 5h (4 regulare heart tricks and 1 club ruff) 5s 1d 2c = 13 the mere question of overtrick assumes hearts are 32 and the finesse gives you nothing we refer to this as a practice finesse. No purpose to it wahtsoever but it makes you feel lucky or something when it works. that is why this belongs in the novice/low intermediate forum. It is possible this belongs in the intermediate forum because the LOP used is called a dummy reversal (setting up the dummy as good vs your hand).

I am a passed hand and I didn't bid 2d over 2c this is important becasue my power is limited by my previous lack of bidding. I can now bid 3d because my hand will be limited to around 8 hcp and some playing power. This not only happens to be just what I have but none of it is wasted in a club suit my p rates to be extremely short in. Passsing is a gamble (bad at MP but positively gross at imps) that could easily go horribly wrong. When p makes a tox they do not expect you to convert it just because you have a bunch of tram tickets in the opps suit. P with as little as KQJxx KQJx xxxx void has enough for us to luckily make 5d and the opps might easily score 6/7 clubs and 2 aces ouch. While that ex is a bit extreme p can be way more powerful than my example and not a whole lot weaker. As far as 2d goes I would save that for hands that have less than the expected "seven" your p assumes you have including distribution.

I am not the world's biggest fan of light openers and I admit I would pass the N hand. That however is not the reason this hand doesn't work well. IMO S has a very decent game forcing hand opposite anything but a 1s bid. If p opened a club and the dummy hit with say KQx xxxx Jxx AQx we would consider it very bad luck to run into so much "wasted" in the spade suit. On the given hand p opened 1s this should scream potential misfit and we need to evaluate our hand down because now it would be good luck for p to NOT have wasted values in spades. IMO s should realize the danger and treat their hand as invitational instead of game forcing. This will not always be right but only because p opened 1s with a cruddy suit. IMO s should bid 1n forcing and rebid 3h. I know this is not popular and I have my flak jacket on already. This hand could be far worse in the sense there is no reason the 1s bidder can't have even more spades and less hearts and downgrading can save you a big minus. Bridge is a game of % especially in game going bidding. Find a partner that you are compatible with and work with them. Nothing will be right all of the time you just have to be happy about how you arrived where you did.

lets have a cheer for the "practical" thinkng. Playing a squeeze or finesse propostion should really only be a major consideration when it is to make the contract. Here you are risking your contract to get an overtrick. Makes little sesne and most likely will end with your name in the daily bulleting for the wrong reason.

Pass saving x here for hands where our 9 count is outside the opps longest and strongest suit has a much greater probability of occuring. Not only that but the probable imp gain from x = tox vs penalize with x is huge in comparison to the tiny amount of imps we gain from having our x = penalty. If p x again we will happily pass expecting a huge penalty. If p bids 4s I must admit I will probably bid 5h since my hand rates to provide 2 quick tricks with the weak hand on lead. Partner already knows we dont have a tox of 4h and bid 4s anyway:)))))))))))

Its also possible their declarer felt the dia T was the right way but wanted to increase the likelihood of a swing since they were pretty far behnd at this point I believe:)

the 5th club give us enough "juice" to try 2n and we have a 5 card heart suit also. 1n 2d 2h 2n while it might be wrong it leaves us with 2n 3h 4h and 3n p can bid and if p bids 3h i'll probably bid 4h I would not super accept either (though its close with all of those aces 4 card support bah) since my super accepts gnerally mean my hand has improved beyond the 17 realm. thats for standard-------------- temporarily forgetting a convention playing with a new partner is welll sheesh semi normal but I have a feeling that the invite was not done because of game time decision not forgetting.