gszes

I agree with mikeh in principal but not in detail. with a 2/3 rounded suit hand and no slam interest responder should bid 5c. The same bid they would make with 22 rounded or even 12 rounded. with 21 rounded I would bid 4h. Therefore we must conclude that 4c is an attempt to set trumps with at least some slam interest. This means 4h is totally forcing and almost assuredly is short in hearts with a large club fit.

I would tread cautiously with 4 hearts and maybe even 5h because of the singleton club. There is unlikely to be enough trumps to pull and set up clubs. The number of spades is of no great consequence per se it is the lack of a club fit that is the problem. On top of that the dia A would serve your side much better if it were the club or spade ace. This is especially true if p is void in dia. with 6 hearts I would hazard a 5d cue bid and hope p knows what to do from there

bidding seemed quite good until it went off rails after 4d bid. It has already been established your side has all the controls needed for slam but maybe power is lacking. After 4d why not just bid 4h so that someone on your side can finally limit their power?

the hand is pretty good but I have to admit I would downgrade the hand enough to bid 2h vs 3h. If the dia was stiff and the clubs Kx i would be much happier with 3h Given the conditions of contest I would bid 3n over 3h.

seems unbelievable to me that noone wants to bid 2h (over 2d 1rf). We can always override with spades whatever p may want to do later. Letting p know about at least 9 of the cards in our hand allows them to make much better decisions on how their hand fits with ours. There is no reason slam is out of the question and 2h keeps the bidding as low as possible and allows for as much exploration as possible. imagine p has x QJT Axxxxx Axx bidding goes 1s 2c (opp) 2d 2h 2n 4s p knows you have indpendent spade suit and your delayed jump indicates at least mild slam interest (principal of fast arrival). What other bidding sequence allows p to know the full value of their heart holding?? If p trusts you at all they would jump to 6s with that hand.

I prefer 3c over 2d the heart suit isnt that great and the power btn the hands appears to be at best split or in favor of the opps. 3c rates to be a lot safer and keeps 3n in play. after 4d it becomes apparent p has something over there and I would bid 4h which should leave p well placed to pick btn hearts and clubs though admittedly it will be far from clear you have 5 hearts.

3c has no limit however there are many hands where 3n has no play but 5c is a standout ie KQxx void KQx Qxxxxx bidding 3c over 2n conveys message that we are concerned about heart suit stopps and asks p to bid 3n if hearts double stopped. The 3h bid by opener then not only denies a double stop but cue bids the ace. this is especially helpful if responder is not minimum and may be considering slam

no trouble with first double after 3d I am convinced p has some useful stuff I just dont know where it is. x again over 3h* - 4d over 3s - 4s over 3n - 4h over 4c - 4h over 4h* - 5d exclusion over 4s* - 5d exclusion over 5c* - 5d exclusion * these should not occur often If p wants to defend I am not unhappy with defense (not thrilled at maybe missing 63 heart fit) but not unhappy. My second choice would be 3h over 3d. If P has the stuff I am convinced they have (and it is not in dia) we should have little trouble reaching game. The downside of 3h is if p bids 3n we wont know if its a single stop or two (after x we know it is one else p for penalty) and we might miss games in spades or clubs. I would rate x and x = 8 x and 3h = 6 nothing else is better and neither is perfect. who knows maybe you can make 4h on a 61 fit when they break 33:))))))))

deleted this post in favor of one 3 down.

1s 2d 2n* (slight lie 1 dia but all stoppers and the spades arent that great) 3d slam interest 3s 6+ spades headed by at lease A or K slammish hand 4c cue 4h cue 4n rkc 5h 2 w/o 5n kings 6h heart k 7n rather than "safer" 7d (ie no disaster in case dia dont run) because 7n might still make by running spades. *In most 2/1 systems 2s does not promise 6 spades it is merely a waiting bid that is unable to bid 2n for ex. The bidding sequence is based on the assumption that dia is the trump suit since responder did not bid 3s over 2n.

MY BAD I never dreamed of looking here for updates (I usually look every 2/3 days) I will be more diligent from now on and can play 2/23 if there is a session then. I watched a fair amount of the match last night but didnt see this message until just now sigh!!!!!!

consistent with the bidding, the only reason for p to x 4h is they need a dia lead and dont want you to lead a spade. It does not mean their x is perfect it merely means in their opinion a dia lead will give your side its best chance of setting 4h. the odds of p being short in hearts AND void in dia have to border on 0%. It is much more likely they have AQ or AQJ of dia and knowing hearts are splitting badly they are trying to get you off to the best lead possible. If P is x 4h with their WEAK 2 SPADE bid merely because trumps are splitting badly, it is time to find another partner because they are assuming you are too stupid to find an x when trumps are splitting badly.

a balanced 18 count with clubs stopped (twice?) makes 2n appear reasonable. I am unhappy with 2n for 2 reasons. 1. no spade stop 2. too much risk of losing the heart suit. an x goes a long way to solving my problems with 2n but has one big problem that cant be ignored. P may vastly overvalue their hand thinking they have a spade fit. IMO there is only one bid that fits these circumstances and that is 2h slightest lie by a ton (short a dia) and leaves us room for nt hearts and diamonds and maybe even spades since we could now trust any spade bid by p to have extra length/quality. bidding 2h here wont guarantee a great score but at least we will have found a heart fit.

way too much potential here for a 4h call not to mention we might be missing a vastly superior club contract. I would merely start with 2s listen to what p has to say and bid accordingly. Even if p has balanced weakly with great distribution 4h (or 5c) should have excellent play so 2s leaves room to explore when p has a stronger x.

i am unsure what you mean by y>x did you perchance mean y>m?? here y>m 1c 3s 3n p 4s here y<m 1h 3c 3n p 4c Yet both sequences are excellent candidates for exclusion if your partnership feels there is no better use for them. You give up things to use others for ex would I prefer 1c 3s 3n p 4s to be exclusion or showing this type of hand. void KQxx KQxx AKQxx how about a bit weaker? after 1h 3c 3n p 4c KQxx AQJxx KQxx void these are much more common than hands where opener can suddenly take control with exclusion (and most of those will be grand slam hunting where normal exclusion (at 5 level) is fine.

if i started with xxx xxx KJxx xxx I would lead a low dia vs spade if i started with xxx xxx Jxxx xxx I would avoid a dia and lead a spade with xxx xxx Kxxx xxx a diamond once again vs a spade. IMO lho is close to broke and was trying to hit p with spade lead. I find it impossible to believe lho has whittled themselves down to 3 dia and began life with Kxxx or KJxx dia. This means even if lho began life with 4 dia Jxxx is the most they had. Rho has the dia K or lho has reduced to KJ dia stiff with an original holding of xxx xxx KJx xxxx (with or w/o Q) so rho has any 2 dia any 2 clu K xxx KJx x even the hugely unlikely J xxx I would lead a dia to the A and a dia and be shocked if this wasn't 100%

we have pretty much a piece of junk minimum and bid 3c P knows we would prefer to bid 2n if we had a heart stop. If p needs a partial heart stop they can now bid 3h to ask for one and we will dutifully bid 3n. If p is short in hearts the fact that we lack a heart stopper might allow us to reach a minor suit game we might otherwise miss. 2n would keep us from finding that game.

2c x = stayman 2d transfer to hearts 2h transfer to spades 2s and or 2n depending on agreement relay to minor if you stick with your basic system you have solved a ton of bidding problems right from the get go--your 2d 2h (2s/2n) bids should be at least competitive. with hands that dont fit into the above you can wait to hear rho suit then use 2n nat invite (1 stopper) x for penalty cue bid rho suit to show game forcing no stop 3n nat at least 1 stop (depending on vulnerability sometimes you will x for penalty instead). dont let the 2c bid disrupt your natural bidding mechanisms in the hope of scoring up a cheap penalty x at the 2 level. If you do so the opps may have won the battle already. this is not a classic leb circumstance you do not need to bid weak hands here which you are forced to a lot when using leb ie you hold xx xxxxx xxx xxx bidding goes 2s x p ? leb here helps differentiate btn this garbage and xx AQxxx Kxx xxx where you would bid 3h immediatley

I vote for pass with 3n coming in 2nd (when I am feeling adventurous). I have my sp sometimes preempts work apology card ready to flash if pass backfires. hard to picture much of anything having a chance of making our way if we cannot set 3d. Also many ways 3d can go down with our having no shot at game.

too large of a subject for this forum a reasonable explanation of the use of 2n (2 lowest unbid) formula is at web site. http://omahabridge.org/Documents/mh_UNUSUALN.pdf this site alows briefly touches on the idea of when to emphasize 1 suit with an overcall vs using 2n.

im 100% in the camp of the 1s bidder should have bid 2s After 2d I feel the next proper bid is 2s* which should show a hand worth somewhere in the area of 18 asking p to go on if near the top of their minimum (roughly 0-7/8). a 3s* bid here should show somewhere around 22 points. there is no reason to play 2s* here as competitive. Your p will have another bid and they can compete further if they are closer to 7/8 than 0 (a huge range) they heard your x there is no reason to repeat the same values twice. In any case 3d is just a huge overbid opposite a 1s bid which could be xxx xx xxxx xxxx I much prefer x to 1s overcall because there is too much risk of losing the heart suit. I would also prefer 2d michaels over a 1s overcall with so much concentration of values in the majors.

There is roughly a TWO (ugh)% chance the opening leader has no clubs they must find the killing lead (if there is one at trick one lets say you hold x Kx QJT AKQJxxx) so lets agree from the bidding the contract is not hopeless. 2% is NOT a good % to hang ones hat on when deciding to bid can we do better? The example you gave your hand might have looked something like x Kx AJTx AKQJxx If p leads a non descript club (around 60% of the time) how do you know to cash a second club trick?? Is it because declarer is more likely than partner to hold a singleton??? NOPE thats not it because p is a 2/1 favorite to hold 2 clubs (after trick one). If you stop to think about that you have to consider other ways to set the contract. Is a spade switch necessary in case declarer was 2641 that might work but is a disaster if declarer was 3622 Is a dia switch needed to try for 2d 1c and hope p has the heart T well thats a disaster in many other circumstances. If you continue a club and declarer ruffs declarer will make their contract an enormous amount of the time. While indeed my example hand with all cards exposed has no prayer ----- under normal circumstances anyone that thinks about the defense will probably switch at trick 2 and it will be wrong around around 80% of the time. I dont see 50% as being a poor overall estimate of the chances of 4h with the hand I gave. It has 50% not because of poor defense (it would not be poor defense to switch just defense that didnt work that particular hand) but the backs of the cards make defending a ton more difficult.

you are right about the AJTxxx but lho has around one (opening lead) opportunity to find a killing lead (if there is one) after this bidding a club lead is by far the most common and has a high degree of probabilty of eliminating any entry into lho hand (unless it is dia ace). If this is indeed the case 4s does have play at IMPS--I would not try this at MP since game rates to be somewhere overall in the upper 30% range but vs my specific example hand I rate game as closer to 50% with a normal club lead

first time seeing this post great opportunity to play against the best---if you need me my regular bbo name is gszeszycki so please send any mesages to me on bbo

Everyone ast the table should have a pretty good idea what everyone else has at this point. The 7/5 concept is ok for starters but restricted choice needs to play a part in this equation. Both opps know decarers problem and that the % action is to play rho for the spade Q. Sitting idly by and doing nothing will result in declarer getting the problem right most of the time. The defense needs to steer declarer away from the proper LOP and they can at least give declarer a viable option to go wrong by using reasonable carding. If RHO started with Qxxxx (no T) there is nothing they can do to dissuade declarer from finessing them but their p might be able to help. On the play of the spade A LHO can drop the T (from Tx) to at least give declarer pause that they have QT. If LHO started with Qx (rho should try very hard to convince declarer they started with QTxxx and they should play the T at trick 12. The abscence of these plays would seem to indicate the opps were unable to create anything special with their actual holdings. I would draw the conclusion that lho did not have the spade T and their small card was forced from Qx. If the spade Q is with RHO the failure of LHO to play the T under the A would border on criminal. RHO might have just a bit careless knowing the % play was to finesse them for the Q and they were so confident the finesse was going to lose they carelessly played small vs the T and thus failed to continue the illusion that the finesse was destined to succeed. IMO I would play to drop the Q if playing readers of this forum but finessing rho for the Q would be better overall in most regular games:)))))))))))))))))))))))) To me, a more interesting problem would have been what to do if the spade T dropped from LHO on the A:)))))))))))