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club 10/9 according to your methods rates to be best overall however if you need a top or a swing at IMPS the club A is the way to go because if you can set up the club suit after the ace lead you have turned your hand into the danger hand so declarer will finesse you (and you have little outside) instead of your partner. This should either result in a non field result (what you were hoping for at MP) or a surprise set (declarer taking an anti-% lop because they think you have an entry) and an imp swing. I think the club A lead will only work around 30-40% of the time so it is a bad idea under normal circumstances. There is no set of conditions where leading the queen will benefit that is not already covered by leading the 10/9 or the ace. The Q is much more likely to lead to disaster so avoid this lead unless you love negative press.

the bidding indicates p will rarely have more than 3hcp the lead of a spade can all too easily pick off any help p has there and cost a trick. The lead of a low dia benefits anytime p has small help there and wont often cost a trick when p has no help there. low D both forms of scoring.

the history of bridge is filled with bad MP scores for pairs that let opps play 1M 2M and out. You have ideal distribution for another x so go for it and there is no reason to take the vul into consideration. It is a game of % this wont always work but in MP there is a good chance of improving your score from your predestined poor if you pass.

we are wayyyyy too weak for a 3h bid which should show almost an ace more than we have. If opps bid 4h and p x after our 3h bid we have a really tough time passing that x because of our overbidding. at these colors 3c should be sufficient if p cannot move over 3c it is unlikely we have a game. 3c warns p that they might have less club defense than they think and is right on with overall power so we can respect any penalty x p might make if opps continue. We also have a tad in reserve so if it goes 3h p p we can bid 4c w/o too much concern. anyone that bids 3c with a hand like Kxx xxx Kxx Jxxx at these colors needs a new playbook. Your current hand is close to minimum you need for a 3c bid v/nv. Having said the above i have a certain respect for a direct leap to 5c hoping to give opps last guess. It is a rather large gamble at these colors though so my weak heart tends to avoid such extreme bids. I would bid 4c on about a k less than I have so it is also pretty far off on values. IMO 3c = 10 5c=7 4c=4 3h=2 pass=1* *better than say 7n

2n fits my hand perfectly and there is a strong chance we can make it with only a small amout of stuff from p. It seems anti % to assume p has 5 little clubs and hope we can score 5 club tricks. Lets just make a normal bid here (no reason to avoid it) and see if p has enough power to raise us to 3n:)) My only concern is if it goes 2n p p x (enough reason to not have my fingers crossed when i bid 2n) i admit i would probably run from 2n and bid 3c.

agree with artk78 after 1h u have to worry about potential misfit and be a bit conservative. Save the 2d bids for hands with at least halfway decent diamonds. The other BIG downside of 2d is potentially losing a large club fit. It is very unlikely you have a game if p cannot bid over 1n (since i dont know system doing best i can). If we assume the bidding proceeds in a simlar fashion 1h 1n 2s 2n 3h Your hand is golden for suit contract and p knows you have a maximum xx hearts yet still bid 3h. The heart J is easily as good a xx and your KQ spades and side ace are much more than p might expect go for game. 3S while a decent bid on values leaves p with illusion you might be void certainly at most 1 small heart and odds are mighty thin p has 5 spades.

I am not a huge fan of 1n overcall (vs pass or x) and feel my hand is just wayyy too strong to pass. I would also x and as the auction continues the 2nd x which sounds like a balanced 18-19 is a very reasonable x because spades probably wont play well for the opps. P has bid 3c despite looking at probably 4 spades and short diamonds. THEY ARE BROKE do not consider there is much of any game chance here and be happy p wasnt the one bidding spades.

1D yes indeed I wholeheartedly agree that our clubs are MUCH better than our diamonds. Preparation for rebids is also very important as well as giving p as much info as possible so they can participate better. Opening 1d and rebidding 2c gives p much more information about our hand than 1c 2c does. p holding as little as say xxxx xxx AQ xxxx has good reason to feel good about their hand (ie bid 3c) after 1d 2c rebid and little reason to like their hand (ie pass) after 1c 2c rebid. If the bidding goes say 1d 1s 2c 2d (noint) we can then bid 3c which should help clarify our 56 status (with 55 64 or 65 we would not bother with 3c we would merely bid 3d if we felt it was wise). I would not always open 1d vs 1c with this distribution. My personal preference is the dia suit has to be headed by at least the Q and have at least 50% of the power located in the club suit or be headed by the K or better. The hands also have to be weak enough to not qualify for a reverse.

advertising a rotten suit has a ton of problems associated with it-- 1. huge penalties when opps can manage x 2. partner can almost never lead properly when they lead your "suit". 3. convincing p it is a better idea to lead your "suit" than theirs. These risks are taken hoping p has a big fit with your suit and your side can win the bidding. It is not "wrong" to bid 1h (forget X since p making a penalty pass would be umm err damaging to the future existence of the partnership) on any given hand but it is anti %. If you need a top at MP or are behind at IMPS overcalling 1h can be just what the doctor ordered.

humongous ranges are unplayable. noone opens 1n meaning anywhere from 12 to 21 so why play a response that has a range from 0-10? We would bid 1s over the xx with say xxxx xxx xxx xxx and our hand is around 3-4 tricks better than that so both hands cannot be bid the same way. IMO a 2s=10 2d=6 1s=2 at least 1s is better than bids like 7n the general standard is assume p has around 7 points and one generally subtracts 7 points from hand and bids from there with 0-7 being minimum and above that extras. Here we have a decent 9 count and a 2s bid seems appropriate and if it werent for the overall loathing of minors a 2d bid would be even more accurate. Once p bids 3s we have hit gold and our 9 count (ignoring club J) and ruffing value in hearts puts us over the top and we would bid 4s and I would not be averse to seeing a 4d bid warning p that we have only four spades and offering up a non forcing choice:) do not bid 4d unless you have discussed this stuff with partner. after p bids 3s 4s = 10 pass = 6 remember that after this auction the play will practically be double dummy.

at imps invite freely accept dearly at MP invite dearly accept freely. when opener bids 3h they are very close to a 4s bid themselves (this is where invite dearly kicks in) but need to cater to really bad hands where you might have say KQxx of dia as most of your power. Well you have the A not the KQ and lets face it the JT of clubs opposite at least a 5 card suit are like a gold mine. You have enough stuff to make defense difficult for the opps to cash tricks before clubs can be set up. IMO this is a clear cut bid of: 4s If p is always inviting hoping you have a max and no wasted values (in dia)at MP they are overbidding. That is an IMP tactic.

any other position I would pass over 3h and pull to show this extra value monster. 3rd seat I will do the best I can do and since KQJxxxx xx Kx Kx is a decent 4s bid I will not do that with my so much better hand. I will try my best and bid 4h this should be an obvious slam try with long spades and short hearts. We should allow p to bid 4n to PLAY in case they are VERY short in spades. We should also honor a 4s bid from p. The real downside of 4h is how does p proceed to show slam intertest? My suggestion is they cue bid lowest control at 5 level. Once that happens opener can bid 6d and offer a choice of contracts. It is indeed possible to miss an easy 7d contract this way but just making 6 will probably be good enough

at both MP and IMPS I would rise with club K at trick one. If it held I would lead heart T intending to finesse and if it is covered by the J I will duck. WHY rise at trick 1 you ask? Tempo and the bidding. lho could have bid either 2c (rather than pass) or bid michaels over 1h. Having failed to do either of these it seems safe to rule out a hand similar to KJxxx A AQxxx xx heck with KJxxx x AQxxx xx I probably would have bid 2c vs passing 1n that seems to leave us with lho having a hand similar to KJxxx A Qxxxx xx or KJxxx x Axxxx xx hard for me to picture lho choosing to lead from Qxxxx when the spade suit almost assuedly is better and at least as long as the clubs so I rise with the K because I think Axxxx is a ton more likely than Qxxxx.

bid 2d at IMPS at MP I would hazard 2h if I needed a top else 2d. we constantly see this type of situation and come to the conclusion that it is a TOX type of hand that just wasnt strong enough to take action 1st time around. The main reason for this is there appears to be little reason to play the X as penalty because it is all too easy for opps to run to what might be a 9 card club fit. While it is hardly impossible p could have a hand where X wants to be penalty, the % of hands where this is the case is surely wayyyyyyy down there in the probablity scale (any of you computer geniuses want to try and do a hand comparison?) We try and tailor our bidding to what gives us the best overall probability of success and in this situation TOX makes a ton more sense than penalty. If p hand is that good they will just have to now bid 2s and we will pass.

I think we are big favorites to make 5s BUT I still think pass is right. 1. Can anyone really say we can beat 7 of a red suit 2. Can anyone say we can beat 6 of a red suit the fact that we can set 5c is almost irrelvant--one of the earliest things we learn about penalty x is to not do it when opps (probably) have an easy place to run to. AT IMPS while we might be able to make 5s we have zero clue just how much the opps can score against us so it is insurance to pass and make sure the damage is minimal. At MP we are scoring a plus where 5c (no x) might be going down more than either red suit with x assuming opps can be set at all. We may not score a top this way but odds are huge we wont score a really bad score (not bad odds for a pure guess).

in both cases I am a 2s bidder. Keeps bidding low informs p of extra power (which a tepid 2c or 2d does not). No worries about p going crazy since we cant have an 8 card spade fit. If p were to rebid 2n u could pattern out (representing 4531) with your minor suit and let p decide what to do. If p has not raised hearts I have little worries about hearts being the right place to play. If p raises to 3h it is almost always going to be 3 small hearts and minimum especially for those that play constructive raises. quality hugely impoortant for jumps in suit since we are essentially naming it trumps and all of p future bids revolve around that idea.

I think the majority has missed the fact that we are a passed hand. the 3d bid merely informs p we are near the top of our passed hand and does not promise another call. There is just too much potential with this hand to bid a mere 3c which could more easily be xxx xx xxx xxxxx. p knows we are a passed hand and we either have both majors or are near max for passed hand with no dia stop (too easy to bid 2n or 3n) and if we have one 4 card major too easy for us to bid it at 3 level. P knows we are a passed hand when they x and would have taken a 3d bid by us into account for rebid purposes. If p has extra values they would have to bid 3n or 4c or 4d (pick major) with a minimum p 3s might be a 5 card suit but more easily could be 4 spades and 3 hearts. In either case since p chose 3s we should pass since we have only 2 dia maybe a moysian fit is feasible. 3s from p severly limits their hand since ours is already limited by our initial pass. Note how this works well in case p bid 3h (with 44 in majors) over our 3d bid. We could not pass but we can bid 3s and p would know it was only 3 card suit using the same thinking as above.

PASS hearts are probably 544 and what seems like a decent chance at heart tricks could end up with close to none (especially if we warn opps of poor trump break). I feel N bid of 3d (followed by 4h) was a mild slam try that has been turned down by S. The X here will be lucky to get 500 more likely get 200 and take a risk of giving opps 790 vs -100 we might get if opps play for a normal trump break. X here just not worth the risk at IMPS --- at MP I would X and not be shocked if this turned out to be a 50% action in the long run (netting 7 good boards and 3 really bad ones)

I came late to the party so I know both hands KQJ832------KQJ832 void--------432 QJ84--------A2 AQ6---------A2 two opening hands roughly equivalent in HCP you open both 1s and lho bids 2c and your p x then pass to you what do you do next? the hand on the left seems to have a ton of potential while the one on the right seems much more pedestrian. One might be tempted to bid 3s with left hand and a more conservative 2s with the right hand and both would be wrong because p hand is xx AKJx xxx xxxx and 3s is too high with left hand and 2s too small with right hand. Point is opps have 9 hearts and p manages to have 100% of their minimum tox in your void. This wont happen often so dont let a small % probability hand negatively influence your future thinking. If this were IMPS I would bid 3d (because I do not fear 5d like I do at MP) At MP I am torn between 3s and 3c and would probably lean toward 3s since I am not crazy about club Q (though it will almost surely make defending the hand tougher) switch my hand to KQJ832 void AJ84 A32 and I would bid 3c. As an aside if playing SAYC and p bid 2h I would now have a tendency to become more conservative because p heart length and concentration of values swings much more toward being in hearts than it does after a neg x (with opps maybe holding 9 hearts):))))

PASS P hand will most likely have to produce all of the tricks we are going to take on offense so that means they have a hand that can expect to take say 10 tricks (with short hearts) and they x? not very likely. A much higher degree of probability is they have a more reasonable 18 count or so and we have close to zero chance of making anything and the opps are getting hammered in 3h X. It will be exceedingly rare the opps can make 3h and I would hazard a guess it is probably less than 10% of the time.

if this was MP (where we straaaaain to avoid minors) I can see 1n and auction ending in 3n. At IMPS 1n is too limiting a 2d rebid has a much higher upper range and promises some dia length (a decent 5 is surely good enough) after 2d 2s 3n showing near the top it seems quite an easy matter for N to consider slam (p with dia length and probably around 15-16 and some distributional feature that kept them from opening 1n) admittedly I would probably end up in 6d vs the vastly superior 6n.

once E has shown not a double neg type hand you have a big arsenal of bidding tools available to you. Pass and pull is stronger than bidding directly so over the 4d bid i suggest 4h around 4 points generally balanced p pull p probable x to 4h around 7 balanced 4n your favorite form of blackwood* p and pull probable x to 4n to play* 5d dia control (almost assuredly short around 4 points) (promises H suupport) p pull probable x to 5d same as 5d bid but around points)(promises heart support) 5h around 10 balanced with heart support 6d dia void around 4 points (promises heart support) p pull probable x to 6d same as 6d but around 7 points you still have 4s 5c 5s 5n available for different agreements * these two reversed using pass/pull logic because there is an inference available that when p does not take control of the bidding it is because they cannot. Therefore the immediate use of 4n as blackwood leaves this inference intact. Using this method I would bid 5d over 4d but I downgrade queens and especially jacks for slam purposes so I would treat this as aropund a 5 point hand.

IMPS lho opens 3c x p and we hold r/w KT74 6 A972 AJ96 IMO bid 3n w/w or r/r it is a close decision (IMPS=3n MP=p) w/r p Save the penalty pass for hands where our probable penalty score is better than our probable game score or when there is no viable alternative. This is especially true if slam is still within the range of possibility. Note that changing the club suit to KQ96 would change the equation significantly because of the greatly reduced chances of slam being made. In that case w/w or r/r I would pass at IMPS

All white, imps, you dealt and hold: ♠JT98 ♥7 ♦T532 ♣KT65 Pa-Pa-1♣-X Pa-1♥-1NT-2♥ ??? Incidentally, what range do you expect from partner? What shape? 18-19 bal no 4 card spade suit does p have 4 spades (they better not) I would much prefer to hear about their 4 card spade suit vs 1n. They are competing opposite what could be a broke p and a very strong hand behind them so competing as safely as possible makes a ton of sense and 1s is inherently safer than 1n. The fact that they might have 18-19 is irrelevant since game probability is low given the position of the remaining hcp but we might be able to compete effectively for a part score. having eliminated 4 spades from p hand the worst case scenario is if p is 3433. all other distributions will contain at least 4c so our competing should be with a 3c bid not an x which might convince p to bid 2s with 3 card support (even if they were 3334) or even worse to pass for penalty since they would have to take 5 tricks (6 if our club k is useless) in their hand alone with declarer being able to play practically double dummy.

e 100% w does not know what 3s means (could be a cue bid looking for a stopper looking for a partial stopper whatever). E should be aware of this and realize that the given sequence (4d) should be looking for slam missing a spade control. This makes it impossible for W to ever bid slam if they trust p. E has no clue how much wasted dia power W has and wants to make a mild slam try. The best way to do this is to bid 4s this is an obvious patterning out bid and should make W realize the wonderfulness of their (dia A and out) for slam. 5d bid now helps differentiate btn no wasted values in dia and having the A so p wont consider a grand if they have a dia void. Easy way to arrive at 6c. As a side note IMO after the 4s bid 4n should be a sign off (already limited hand) with lots of stuff in dia suit (ie poor opposite shortness).