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hand too good for mere 2h im a jump (3h)shifter after 2n P has to have both minors stopped just bid 3n odds of slam are tiny at best. a 3d bid IMO is a bid designed to warn p against nt generally a weakish 5440 hand thinking that 3d might be last playable spot. KQxxx Axxx Kxxx void

my gut feeling is that the player behind the 2c bidder will have a trap pass on the rarest of occassion BUT that is not the reason for the x over 2c being for takeout vs penalty. Even with a club stack behind the 2c bidder you are probably going to get a good score if p cannot x again. Even this is a secondary consideration to the following. There is simply no way to recover (except via luck) if the 2c bid was needed by the player behind the 2c bid to properly describe their hand. This does not matter one whit imps vs mp it is simply a decision to (maybe) forgo a rare monster penalty in order to avoid mini to large disasters. Using this logic alone it seems prudent to accept the concept of the 2c x as takeout.

pass this x only under rare circumstances. If the opps wrap 4h on you p will become ultra conservative. The only time I consider passing the x is when I have a heart holding simlar to Kxxx QJx KJx or better and little to nothing outside hearts. P can be incredibly strong for any of these x and passing and missing slam with outside tricks and 3 small hearts is a recipe for disaster. a word of caution, with a holding similar to Ax of hearts and out you will probably still be better off bidding 4s due to that one ace massively improving the odds of a slam for your side.

cde b is close but the risk seems to outweigh reward becasue it rquires much more of p (or a lucky dia honor split) for a dia lead to hurt opps nt. If p is w/o the required extra help there is significant danger 2d could get hammered for a huge loss. cde all have some degreee of danger but significantly less.

6c worst easily but not because the hand is hopeless (it is quite good hand after p neg x but because the suit itself is not self sufficient (pard neg x did not promise clubs). IMO a better bid is 4s. While this hides a decent 6 card suit for the time being it getsthe idea across that you have a tremendous hand and no clear direction (unless you have heart support and will show it later). I know this goes against the grain to temporaily suppress AKxxxx but the mean opps took away a ton of space and now we do the best we can and step one should be to show that our hand is slam oriented. A far worse problem might have been what to do if it went 1c 3s x 4s:)))) count your blessings

assuming our 2c 2d 2n showed 22-23 I think p is showing a hand around 13 balanced. Not enough for a direct 2c 2d 2n 5n but very very close and has promised all of the aces practically begging you to bid a grand if you have some kind of hidden surprise (like AKQJx clubs) bid 7n at mp and 7c at imps only because it might be a tad safer.

there are good/bad things about all bids. The mere act of opening is inherently dangerous if it is not a stong 2. Do not let tiny % chances like p being 4432 change your basic bid. You may decide to can 5542 if promising 4th dia rarely shows good results and inhibits your ability to bid 3c on hands like this. Do not deviate from basic strategy (bid 1d) w/o thoroughly duiscussing it with p. They will believe you have diamonds (which you do not) and a huge disaster can occur plus a weakening of partnership trust.

I would much rather open a hand like Axxx Axxxx xx xx than the load presented here HOWEVER even I admit that it can work favorably and while I would normally never open the dreck shown here ------If behind at imps (probably due to opening hands like this) or needing a top at MP (probably due to opening hands like this) this hand has enough merit to at least consider it as an option. I hope to see SOTM (state of the match) as an option in these surveys so I dont have to keep qualifying like this. Opening hands like this on a regular basis will wreck any chances your partnership has of competing effectively and you will give the opps a license to steal because your p will never have a clue when to x. Have your SORRY PARD unhappy face ready if you decided to open.

club 9 p cant depend on us have such a marvelous spade suit but they can see if they have marvelous clubs (and an outside entry). OR in a slightly more gambling mode something like AQJ of clubs 2 small spades and maybe another card hoping to use club entries to lead spades through rho.

correct in fact when you ruff the 3rd round of clubs you will know right then if you can make it or not. rho has (in theory) 2 chances to toss a dia if none show up you are toast. I was so happy using the term pseudo threat I quit looking at the problem and the necessary dia blockage ty for pointing that out.

X partner knows I have a pretty good hand to force the bidding to the 4 level (or 3n or penalty pass). What are partners options pass whould happen only rarely since we would probably prefer to be in 3n since the long spades rarely rate to have an entry p probably has a hand similar to QJx xx AKxx Kxxx 3n obvious over which we will now bid 4h and p will know we had slam aspirations with hearts. 4c couldnt bid 3n minimum and merely bidding suit probably 3154 or 2254 minimum with such good hearts I would still hazard a 4h bid hoping p will correct to 5 of a minor with more radical distribution. 4d cant bid 3n doesnt like hearts and couldnt bid clubs I would bid 4h happily 4h with p having a 4 bagger and us having rightsided hearts for a slam (if p has Kx spades)I would raise to 5h asking for spade contol (not 100%) but highly probable this will work well.

At MP where searching for 40% probablity games is a losing tactic (unless you need a top) I would pass At IMPS however where vul games are premium bids some risk is needed and this might be the time to trot out the old help suit game try. My choice of game try however would be 3c. Hard to picture many hands where p has club (especially if its shortness) help that wont make 4s. Any finesses I need rate to be onside so what might look like a 35% contract could easily soar to above 60% merely due to the bidding. There is risk here but in cases where p rebids 3s and we go down one we might still be better off than if we had passed and opps compete to 3c or 3h and make.

while no guarantee of success this option gives us our best overall chance of success. Opps preempt for a reason------this is one of them, hoping to get us into awkward bidding sequences. Pass might indeed result in a moderately bad minus score (in 4h) vs a small plus or small minus we will get from a pass. X has the potential to reach an otherwise unreachable game or even slam (I know how optimistic can one get) for a huge payoff. Risk vs reward seems to lean toward risk with this hand so I choose x and have my SP frowny face all ready if it doesn't work (and hopefully they will say np p I would have done the same thing).

As poor E stares at yet another motley collection of cards KJTx QJxx x xxxx , there is actually a brief surge of optimism as this the best hand they have had in months. Surprise surprise P has actually opened the bidding 1c (p only player in universe that seems to hold worse cards then E does) the opps might not be able to bid a slam (for the umpteenth time today) Rho overcalls 1D and E happily X knowing that noone could possibly fault them for using the bid on a hand which is practically out of a textbook. Lho pass and P shocks (not with the expected 1h or 1s sign off try) but with an astounding 2d bid (somewhere in back of our mind we remember this is a game force) YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY and even better with our rock gut minimum hand we can now make yet another perfect bid of 3c. We are content and pleased that we have so perfectly described our hand that we can now sit back relax and p should be able to place the contract. Our realm of contentment is suddenly shattered as after pass by lho p now bids 3d and rho p again. BUT we have already told P everthing about our hand dead minimum 4414 how can we possibly bid anything now?? P has a HUGE hand for this kind of bidding so we might be looking at a plus score instead of trying to garner all of our imps/MP by holding down opps overtricks. Breathe yes thats right dont panic P is a very thoughtful bidder and surely knows we can do something intelligent in case we were dead minimum but WHAT. Surely jumping to 5c and wasting huge swathes of bidding space to almost play slam cant be right (with a dead minimum) I doubt that would be right even if I was 4405 instead of a much more plebian 4414. We cant possibly bid 3N (surely P is not searching to see if we have the stiff dia A) because we lack either the K or Q of diamonds in case P needs a partial stopper for 3n. Hmmm in context bidding-----what about a major suit? P knows we cannot possibly have a 5+ card major suit since we did not bid it over 2d so P will never mistake us for extra length----might they mistake a major suit for a cue bid???? maybe maybe but they have shown us a monster hand and surely with a cue bid and extra values we could proceed beyond 3n if p happens to bid it and p would then know our 3s bid was a cue bid. So which major do we choose? Seems logical to choose the major we have most of our stuff in so we now bid 3s. P now bids 3n and we happily pass. Even better as 3n makes and the hand is over P looks over at us and says well bid P very thoughtful of you to make a good bid and still keep all of our options open --- I knew you had it in you but next time with both majors stopped (having 4 small not a stop) bid 3h that way if I needed hearts stopped I can bid 3n and if I need spades stopped I can still bid 3s:)(BUT ill bet 10 bucks you at least thought about bidding 5c at one time thinking you might have a clue why I was bidding the way I was---be honest now).

1c 1d x p 2d p 3c p 3d p 5c p 6c

1 lead club J to club Q (unless it is covered) and (assuming it holds) play the ace and ruff a club playing this way has two advantages if finesse works and clubs break 43 I get 2 pitches from the club suit (and need not worry about spades being 33) if clubs dont break I fall back on 33 spades the other advantage is someone looking at K9xx might mistakenly think it is a good idea to cover the club J with the K (especially if they are looking at the heart T and dummy with no obvious entry) playing for the ruffing finesse can gain 1 trick at most and we are dependent on a 33 spade break

after opps win spade A if they return a club that is a good thing now the 2nd spade and 3rd spade (assuming it loses)will undoutedly get another club return. ruffing 3rd round of clubs now isnt a big problem since the 4th club will remain in dummy as a pseudo threat. Opps knowing you are out of clubs will be less likely to think you might also be void in hearts so when you now run your spades (retaining 1) rho will almost assuredly let go of a dia (or more) and you are home free. If opps switch to a heart you will just have to depend on luck becasue the backs of your card are no longer your ally.

You have to hate that 3s bid. There seems to be no reason why n has to bid 3s right away. I think it is vastly better to pass 3h and wait and see what p wants to do. Here s will x and n can now bid 3s (pass and pull) to show slam interest. s now bids 3n (not to play they already said they cant bid 3n) but in an effort to show a minimum and deny a decent dia suit (having a decent dia suit would qualify as slam interest--decent should mean at least 5 cards 2 of top 3 honors) opener is well placed now to stop in game and bid 4s because slam is difficult to visualize. I hereby blame N 100% for premature spade bid.

I assume from the bidding we are playing sayc so I offer the following 1s 2c 2h 2n 3c 3d 3s 4s correcting 2n to 3c (to play) is a terribly tiny target so opener should not bid 3c with some total minimum with 5413 KJxxx KJxx x KJx 1. there is no 100% guarantee that responder has 5+ clubs 2. game looks out of reach stop bidding since 2n might be last viable spot once we conclude opener cant be minimum 5413 opener needs either extra values and/or extra distribution to bid beyond 2n. in our case opener has a fair amount of extra values but no extra distribution but still some concern about nt vs spades. the 3c bid is mainly asking responder to make sure 3n is best place to play 3d shows dia ace and no other dia stop (opener can now bid 3s to ask about honor x in spades with 3n denying) 3h some other dia stop and honor xx in hearts (opener can now bid 3s to ask about honor x in spades with 3n denying) 3s some other dia stop and honor x in spades 3n does not fit 3d 3h 3s bids and cant go beyond 3n. opener should be well placed to make a final decision on where to play. Opener should not be looking for places to play other than nt unless they have viable alternatives. Here the spade suit is good enough to offer a viable alternative to 3n and thus justifies the 3c bid.

At MP if u wish to pass and try to set it is perfectly fine but at IMPS (only 1 board) it is a much scarier proposition because we could easily be losing a double game swing so we need to take out insurance. 4s seems to be the best insurance with good quality suit it is hard for opps to x we can make game on as little as xxxxx xxx Ax Axx and have to hope to set 4h 1 trick

dont overthink this too much just treat it as rkc for hearts and assume u are playing dopi (by far most common even if i personally prefer podi) bid 5n which should show 2 w/o heart Q and let p take it from there

a tremendous exercise in the use of mathematics. Now let us work on a different tack (a shortcut if you will). we begin with the probability that the opps spades will break 32 just shy of 70% (after both follow to 3 rounds of diamonds. Since there is nothing in the bidding or play thus far that prevents W from having the spade J and even assuming it is 100% that the only viable distributions for east are 4432 4333 or 3433 the two combinations with e holding 4 spades are nowhere near the 70% probability. If you are playing MP and looking for a top (or imps when trailing and needing to make up ground quick) THEN it might be reasonable to look for the second best LOP. At IMPS and MP you will be much better served taking the known 70% vs a much more speculative guess. You will not get in the papers this way but you will spend much less mental energy looking for ways to avoid the obvious for no good reason.

not a horrible start after p bids 2h you have learned a WHOLE lot about their hand they are not 55 65 56 else they would bid 3c (not 2h) p is almost assuredly 64 so the only question is how are the other 3 cards distributed? they could be 1714 2704 1624 2614 0724 0634 you seem to be best served by bidding 4s now there is only one instance (out of 6) where you would be better off in hearts. Taking any more time to arrive at your contract makes it seem you are seeking slam (fast arrival) Light openers can pay off big time when there is a fit but they suffer when there is not. It is difficult to assume p is always dead minimum becasue you will miss a huge number of easily biddable games. Decide if you are willing to suffer the occasional overbid or not but dont let it dramatically affect your bidding otherwise.

3d mich-b is on track everything we do is in context. 3d best option for the following reasons: 1. we have a superb hand just no clear direction as yet. 2. with 6 running clubs and 2 major aces we would have bid 3d (not x) 3. we suspect p is short 1D not 100% (opp raise to 2d with AQ for ex:) 4. P heard us x yet all they could do was bid 2h 5. P will know that we need d stop + club help to make 3n (see 2) 6. 3h 3s 4c by p are all good enough for us to raise to game (though at MP I might would consider passing 4c) 7. we can pass 3n (see 6)

bid 3s do not worry about this showing extra length you already denied that when you bid 3c the 3s bid shows good enough spades to play in a 43 spade fit and also denies heart support. There is also the important advantage of keeping 3n alive as a contract. With a (not too) much weaker spade suit you would have had little choice other than to bid 4c.