gszes

if my hand were ATxx Q KQx xxxxx I would bid 5h and since my current hand is at best 1 trick stonger I see no reason to deviate from a 5h bid the heart Q should provide sufficient support to the 4h bidder and anytime p has decent power along with great hearts slam should be a favorite.

an x (for penalty) here is badly timed--the opps may still have plenty of places to play and a penalty x here would merely warn the opps hearts is not one of those places. There is also no guarantee the opps intended to stop bidding. Waiting to x might get you a much bigger penalty especially if it becomes obvious hearts is the only place opps can play. This leaves x available for more productive concepts like a hand that wanted to penalize 1s but has extra values and wishes to compete over 3h. (I would assume p does not have anything in hearts and is making a general power x). With a trap pass and a couple of heart tricks it would be easy to bid 3n so p having a heart stack makes little sense.

one simple rule (of many) to create forcing pass If opps are bidding what looks like an "obvious" sacrifice it establishes FP for us. The more accurate the opps bidding the better the rule works. If the 5c bidder was not a passed hand FP would be OFF.

The post belongs in the beginner/intermediate section because the 2n bid is so bad (bid 3s). That alone is not helpful so let me try to say why. You have heard of stayman puppet stayman transfers,checkback,nmf,fsf etc. All of these devices exist because of the importance of the 8+ card major suit fit. It does not mean playing in a 44 major suit fit will always be better than 3n but it will beat 3n a LOT. Thats important but even more important is a raise to 3s allows p to reevaluate their hand for a suit contract. P might have a side singleton or void that makes 3n not only unappealing but provides enough extra "points" to allow them to bid a game otherwise missed if you had bid 2n. Finally p with 5 little spades and "knowing" you could not have 4 decided to not look for a 53 fit and wisely chose 3n. They chose 3n because you gave them bad information and they came up with the wrong conclusion. The point is you have found at least an 8 card major suit fit (pot of gold) and you failed to share this wealth of informaton with p and your side ended up in a vastly inferior 3n contract. There are times rebidding 2n might might be worthy of consideration but they look nothing like your hand. 1. balanced distribution 4333 best 2. POOR trumps (yours are superb) 3. ALL side suit double stopped and/or better xxxx AKx KQJ KQT thats an example of bidding 2n vs raising spades When you decide to avoid playing in a major suit fit have a GOOD reason to avoid it. W/O a good reason you will probably be best off playing the major suit contract.

With shortness in the majors the 2c system (2d waiting) works quite well 2c 2d 3(h/s) shows 4441 short in suit bid p can bid your short suit to ask for power or 4n to ask for aces or try to place contract. The same system can also use 4c/4d for the same purpose but runs across the problematic bypassing of 3n for speculative reasons. I have also played multi with a strong roman component added just for these types of hands. 2d 2(h/s) 3(c/d/h/s) all show roman style hands of 22+ 2d 2n 4(c/d/h/s) all show roman style hands of 22+

Principle of fast arrival helps solve a ton of dilemnas. When S bid 4h it should send a message that S was minimum (or a tad worse) for previous bidding. While north has a superb hand for slam (all controls) the 4h bid by S should have given N pause before proceeding to slam especially in the light of expected poor breaks. I blame N for selective hearing (ie heard 3d but not 4h).

I use 3d as a means of telling p I am near max for my passed hand with the hopes we can reach 3n or higher. I use 4d as primarily a preemptive raise with the idea that if we are making anything it is probably 5d (or more in a suit somewhere)--I use 3d (while wishing I could bid something else) as a stronger (hcp wise) hand than 4d (it may or may not be less distributional than 4d).

1n 15-17 2c stayman 2d no 4 card 3d dia and forcing 3n shows stops in all suits but dia might have dia as well 4c clubs and slamming 4h cue bid agreeing to clubs else 4d first 4s cue 5d cue extra values else 4n to show min 5h cue makes a 5s cue available for p in case 6n better than 6c 5n have another useful card denies spade control cant go beyond 6c 6c 6n too dangerous w/o spade K settle

Assuming our 4sf is also GF I dont see the downside of bidding 2n. If p is interested in hearts they can bid 3h. P will know from the original 2c rebid followed by 2n that you have a max of 2s and are a huge favorite to be short in spades.

this type of discussion happens a lot with little/no agreement. I am for the passing camp as opposite a passed hand there is little chance of game and it might be better to back into the bidding when the opps have shown limited power. If we lose the auction an x here makes the play practically double dummy for the opps (not usually a good thing for us).

looks and feels too much like a 3s bid to me vul vs nvul.

Prefer 3n vs x even though Kx not the best stopper in histroy of game has to be better than 2 less spades than promised. After our x we have boxed ourselves into a corner. If we had bid 3n we would have no problems trusting p to have long spades here that is not necessarily the case after our x and we might even be better of in one of the rounded suits than spades. Pass (ugh) and note to self bid 3n next time.

change my hand to AJxxxx x Qxxx xx and I would bid 4d but here I think that risks missing 3n far too often the extra queens convince me to bid 3d this not only leaves 3n in the picture but might also enable us to reach 4s far easier that a direct jump to 4d.

I dont know sigh would we bid 2h with say xxx QJTxxx QJx x?? I would, this makes it very difficult for a forcing pass situation to apply to the weak hand. I think pass over 4s merely says I'm min and cant do anything. and why did p choose 2c vs X? do they have a flaw and/or reallyyyy good clubs? Was p hand not strong enough to x then clubs??? p (under the gun) bid 4h (so their flaw was not short heart) how good does p have to be to bid 4h when their p could bid 2h with my proposed minimum hand??? This hand is just too strong for a 2h bid I think starting with 2s is better. However we survived our 2h bid and now have to decide what to do over 4s. Given how much better our hand is than min it seems impossible for 4h to go down and the only question is x for penalty or explore for slam. It may no longer be possible for p to envision us having such a good hand. This makes slam exploration iffy at best. I feel it is iffy to x the opps in 4s when they might have 10 spades. If they have 10 p is void and we might miss a really good grand. for ex: void Kxxx Kx AKxxxxx IMO we should start with 5d which will show slam interest and may help on defense if opps keep on with spades.

time now 0745 am I will be off line for the next 10 hours but I will be back by 645pm just in case you have not yet filled out a team. Posters take note---NOONE is making fun of anything done by other posters when they participate in these matches. The same types of questions generated in the adv/exp sections are generated due to decisions made during the match. We are ALL (hopefully) trying to maximize our potential in a pretty darn intriguing game. It has been said in all sporting events. You NEVER achieve your potential until you try your hand at playing the best. Please make life easier for MRACE and sign up to play in these 700pm est matches vs JEC before they just wither away and a huge opportunity for growth is wasted.

QJXXX XX QX KXXX 1H 1S 2C its not just 8 points its where they are that matters the most. this isnt the worst possible 8 but it is close. Even if p has a 64 hand the hearts are likely to be of poor quality since p would prefer to advertise hearts rather than (ugh) clubs (especially at MP). There is also no reason p cannot be 55 or 56 and clubs would be a vastly superior place to play. I vote for pass here because your hand really doenst look much better than xxxxx xx xx Kxxx making game a lonnnnnnng shot at best. change your hand to say xxxxx QJ Qx Kxxx and I would bid 3c and with xxxxx KQ xx Kxxx I would bid 4c

you have a very nice heart suit --but bidding 3d (vs 3h or ughh 2h) is better not just because it sets up a game force but it may also uncover a huge dia fit. Bidding any number of hearts again will probably bury any dia fit. The fact that 3d acts as a lead inhibitor in this case is merely a side benefit. Getting to 4h here is a very good idea (prior to seeing the dummy) p has a completely useless hand for you thats the game:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I have zero problems with the bidding until we jump to 7s---when p bids 6 spades they are denying 1st round dia control because it is too easy to bid 6d (in case we belong in a grand) with first round dia control. Passing opps 7c bid and thus showing 1st round club control was entirely correct.

the priciple is precisely the same in second/third seat. the play of the Q from Qxx is almost never a good play. Therefore the play of the Q practically guarantees the K (lowest of sequence). Playing the K guarantees no Queen and this allows you to start counting declarer's hand. It is even worse if you hold AKQ and play the A unless you intend to continue the suit immediately to let p know what is going on p has every reason to assume declarer has the KQ. If you play the Q from AKQ and it holds now p has strong reason to suspect you played from botom of a sequence. In your examples you admit no actual information is exchanged and it depends on other factors to help determine p holding. Playing lowest from a sequence can indeed give a lot of information immediately.

number 3 this hand 1n I prefer to raise with (reasonable) 3 card support when I have a major problem with 1n. If my hand were say KJ9 QJxx xx AQJx I would bid 2s since I have a fairly serious concern about dia and the 2s might make it harder for the opps to find their dia fit if p is min. I would also bis 2s with the more distributional hands shown by others. The downside of the 2s bid is that we might be closing out the heart suit and playing in an anti-field 53 fit vs 44 in hearts I prefer to raise with 3 card support sparingly for that reason alone.

1h normal 2d normal 2h normal 3c normal leaving room for p to bid 3d 3s the search for nt continues showing a partial spade stop and no club or dia fit. This could also be a cue bid but that will be revealed later. This bid might also help right side 3n. 3n too hard to avoid the obvious contract at MP especially.

As usual I am available

if playing 2/1 i do not care for the 3n bid (I would prefer 1n forcing) but having said that I have no heartache with the bidding until S PASSED over 4h. Youve discovered at least a 9 card heart fit and you have THREE (lets recount) YES THREE ACES. There is a huge possibility there are no minor suit losers and p has no idea your hand is so slam oriented. You can imagine a high % slam if p has as little as Akxxxx Kxxxx x x. Since p has said we are playing in a major suit I would bid 4n blackwood (cant be to play) and bid 6h after p shows just 1 key card.

your bidding appears to be based on relays it might help in the future to explain what all the artificial bids mean so we have a clue how to comment:)))))))))))))))))

what the hey are HUM's and BSC's sigh I lead a sheltered life???????????????????????????? I will try and recruit a friend since my p from last tourney is now the TD>