gszes

available

AQJT9 xx KQx Kxx We are optimistic about slam as soon as partner opens 1c (16+) but there are so many questions that need to be answered and we begin the festivities with 1s positive response and GF in our short club system (I hope, where did I hide those system notes grrrr?) 2h well great there goes the 2 level and I cant bid 2s plus these kings might need protecting so I trot out 2n this accurately describes my distribution and stoppers but there is so much more we need to learn and opener bids 3h well of course there goes the 3 level and ANY hope I have of easily finding the spade K ---- unless 4c if opener cant bid 4d a grand is no longer possible so lets see what happens and if p does bid 4d we have a cute 4s key card we can use for extra safety 4d OK ok grand is still possible 5 minor suit tricks 4/5 spades both minors double stopped so lets look for the grand 4s 0314 RKC 5c 1 or 4 that is GREAT but our problems are not over if p has xx AKQxxx Axx Axx we can still only count 12 tricks unless we want to bid 7 banking on the spade finesse (ughh) 5d lets find out about the heart Q first 6h heart Q no extra stuff to report and presumably no extra length since 5n was available. Opener does NOT have the spade K. 6n is certainly viable 4s 3h 5 C/D 6s SURELY p will realize they have already denied something good in spades and this is only asking for extra heart length to bid a grand what happens next is the whole purpose of the exercise and I would end up bidding 6n no extra length and I hope I figured this out. Kind of odd that I arrived at 6n with 4s = key card and 4s = cue bid (see my useless earlier interpretations if u need a good laugh).

Whale spit was that there the whole time??? If so I need to seriously consider taking up a remedial reading course. Sorry for interrupting this diatribe with my nonsense. Maybe I will work up the courage to look at this problem tomorrow and see if I can make sense of the bidding once 4s is key card.

HEY mikeh welcome back :)))))) sorry I cut the rest of your response but I think it started with the wrong assumption that N keycarded over 4d. The next bid was 4s (unless there are more bidding corrections I missed (sigh). I see nowhere in this bidding where our intrepid 6s bidder categorically denied a dia stop but kept making bids to keep the bidding alive. The later 5d bid makes it appear obvious that responder had a dia control all along so those other assumptions about missing a dia control do not seem correct. IF 4s is suddenly key card (unspecified and unusual (imho) then forget all the below but otherwise the 4s cue is merely seeking out more information. If responder is strong enough to convert any slam heart bid to NT then temporarily pretending to have heart support is a fine way of gathering information. That is what I think is happening here. By pretending to have a couple of hearts responder has learned enough to try for a grand BUT needs solid hearts and once again we go back to my train of thought that if all responder needed was the heart AKQ and 2 side aces for a grand they would have keycarded over 3h:))))))))) and once again welcome back

6N IMHO I think N has a powerhouse with around 20 hcp and all suits double stopped all he needs is solid hearts to bid 7n and we do not have them I would hazard a guess that AKQxxx is not good enough (expecting at best 1 heart in n hand). If all p needed to bid a grand was the heart AKQ and the 2 minor aces they could have bid 4n over 3h and bidding 2n with a 5 card side suit (especially spades in a GF auction) makes little practical sense. 2n can be very useful in finding a minor suit fit if n is something like 4144.

I prefer to take the heart finesse for 4 tricks (if I need them) rather than relying only on a 33 split. With this thought I will win trick 1 and try a low spade toward the T. This play makes it possible to return to the spade A the second round (unless a 40 split is revealed) of the suit and ALWAYS know if 4 heart tricks are needed or not (and if a 33 split is needed or not so we can avoid a finesse when it is not necessary).

I never thought the QJ of diamonds were worth squat but here they should regain us the lost tempo of the opening lead. I am aiming for 4s 4c 2h but can settle for 4s 3c 1d 2h OR 4s 3c 3h. Pitch a heart from hand when rho covers the dia J and await how the defense responds. club switch uselessly try the 9 then small trump to A followed by the K and the J (assuming trumps broke 41 ruff the dia return (uselessly trying the other top dia) draw last trump and we are down to clubs breaking 32 dia if small throw another heart (4s 3c 1d 2h) attack trumps from the top. if high(?) go ahead and ruff small If rho bid only 2d with AKxxxxxxx they deserve to beat u:) (4s 3c 1d 2h) trump switch go ahead and let it ride toward the 9 because even if it loses to the stiff Q we have a huge chance of a club heart Squeeze against lho for 10 tricks if clubs break 41 (4s 3c 3h) heart switch win in hand and attack trump s from the top

just got back from 3.5 hours of tennis VERY tired will take a nap and come back at 145 in case of emergency break glass

I will go with the immediate spade finesse. I make whenever the K is onside OR the suit breaks 33 OR the T is singleton or doubleton AND (I do not now if this is IMPS OR MP) if the spade K is onside 3rd I have ten tricks on top and am playing for overtricks. trick 2 spade finesse (assuming it wins) trick 3 dia to A trick 4 another spade finesse (if it wins hand is over and we are playing for overtricks) trick 5 spade A to see if 33 if spades are 33 trick 6 cash the 4th spade who knows maybe some unfortunate soul with Txx in clubs OR diamonds (dummy does look entryless u must admit, AND our play to the dia A makes it strongly appear we started with xx(x) or Kx at most, will pitch 1 and we can run 4 clubs or diamonds trick 7 if a dia was pitched we have to try and see if the dia run since we will then have 13 tricks (5d 4s 2c 2h) if a club was pitched we have to decide to safely duck a club OR now try to cash the club suit ducking a club will squeeze either player if they are holding a club AND a dia stop but will fail if the minor suit guard are split. Cashing the AK will get us 4 clubs if they are now 22 and still get us a 3rd club if they are 32 (I go for the AK play because if we can score 4 clubs we might convince a player (pitching at trick 10) to come down to 2h and 1d vs 2d and 1h and if so we get 13 trick 4s 4c 2h 3d. if spades are not 33 trick 6 duck a club there is still the off chance one player might be stuck with 4c and 3d (maybe even the 4th spade) and will be squeezed IF i do not care to think of all the above (tired bored or whatever) i will simply duck a dia at trick 2 and if dia fail to break 32 I will hope for the K(x) spades onside to make my contract.

I wish I could say 1 size fits all but, like almost every aspect of bridge, my choice of opening depends on many factors. 1. The stronger I am the more likely I am to open 1c. This minimum hand should not be concerned about this factor. 2. The weaker the spade suit the more likely I am to open 1c assuming the club suit is better JTxxx AK A Qxxxx is a 1s for me. The spade suit here is above average and should not be worried about this factor. 3. AT MP I am much more likely to prefer a 1s opening since the minor suits rarely yield good results. The description sounded like it was MP favoring 1S. 4. When we are at unfavorable I prefer 1S since this might be our only chance at finding a spade fit before being barraged by the opps. We are unfavorable so 1s it is. My factors all point to either opening 1s or no opinion. FWIW I think the 2h bid was far worse than just passing 1s (which I also hate) and IF the 1s bid showed a black 2 suiter I think 3c was a vastly superior choice to 2h. If the 1s bid did not show a black 2 suiter than I think 2s is the best alternative (I am not a big fan of raising with 3 card support but the hand is just too strong to do much else though I could live with 1n).

small spade highly unlikely the spade J can ever help any but a low spade might be useful if a stiff honor appears in dummy. A spade lead probably wont hurt and it wont give anything away declarer cannot do for themselves. hate the club lead due to frozen suit possibility heart lead seems like we are giving up a possible tempo for little reward dia lead seems counter productive since that is the lead most likely to cost a trick

http://webutil.bridg...134451&u=Mkgnao I copied MKGNAO link because instead of opening my results in a new page i managed to close it and could find no way to get the results. these are right for the 3rd round MKGNAO 11 gszes 5 and i am shocked it was that close congrats to MKGNAO and I am going to merely write in my memoirs I came in second vs how badly I got slaughtered

http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:84693551.2a2c.11e8.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1521323132&u=gszes MKGNAO 6.5 gszes 9.5 round 4

I would start with 1d. This is a strong hand and I want to give partner as much space as needed to give opener as much space as I can to describe their hand. A 2c inverted raise takes up what may be a precious level of bidding and oddly make it harder to find a good club fit. Finding p with a 18 count 4432 type does not preclude a grand IF we have a club fit since a 13th trick might easily come from being able to ruff either a 4th round of openers other 4 card suit OR opener being able to ruff with their doubleton. In ANY (even w/o a club fit) scenario if our side has all the aces and kings (and club Q) I would go ahead and bid 7N since at worst I am missing 2 queens or 4 jacks or a queen and 2 jacks. Those queens and jacks are VERY likely to come under the guns of some form of squeeze.

http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:7a3a1778.2623.11e8.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1520879445&u=gszes MKGNAO 9.5 gszes 6.5 round 2

I ultimately blame N for passing 4sx BUT that is me. I would be thinking what the heck kind of 4h preempt can now suddenly have the 3 tricks needed to set 4sx? This is where the problem lies -- just what kind of hand should south have in order to suddenly say "partner if you do not think 4sx is a good idea I want you to sacrifice"? As North, where is the magic point where leaving 4sx in is a good idea --- x(x) AKxxx(x) Axx xxx should we sac or not? A TON is riding on this decision if 4sx makes we are chucking away at least 790 vs 620 for what an extra 100? If we sac and 4s was going down now we are talking about maybe -500 vs a +200 some serious coin. I think the x is wrong because it is essentially asking for TWO tricks OUTSIDE hearts for a pass to be right. This seems like a tiny target at best and the only real question would seem to be is our combined holding worth a sac or not in 5h. If it is absurd to bid 5h with a side AK and a balanced hand it is absurd to ask partner to do it. Opposite almost all reasonable 2h bids 5h should rarely go down more than 3. IMHO rather than hoping for a tiny target a 5h bid seems to have a much greater chance of bringing home a better score than letting the opps play 4s. The side AK and massive trump fit have a side benefit of making 5h harder to x. I would bid 5c over 4s giving p a lead director if the opps continue to 5s which I will NOT x. If p cannot x 5s I sure dont want to. The 5c bid might also be a strong inhibitor to an opps throwing a x at our 5h contract. Since I disagree with so much of the bidding I chose OTHER

FINALLY we get dealt a hand with enough intrigue to look interesting. One that allows us to shake off the dust from our thinking cap after what seems like an endless barrage of overly simple hand constructs. Lho opens a weak NT which does nothing to dampen our enthusiasm and we anxiously await our turn when p bids 4h. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr this takes almost all of the fun out of this hand. At least 4h has a chance of having won the bidding (making or not) since it looks like the opps have been robbed out of playing a probable 9+ card spade fit. So with one last wistful look at what might have been we casually reach out to the bidding box and with a small tear rolling down our cheek the PASS card softly lands on the table. Is it really wrong to hope against hope 4h will get axed by the weak NT opener :) ?

preempts work. This hand is not easy to describe over 3s so we do the best we can with the tools available. Others have mentioned the benefits of giving up natural 4c and 4d bids (I am not crazy about the idea but it has merits) but here we will try and get as close as possible to showing our hand by starting with x and converting a club bid to diamonds. This will get the general idea of our hand pattern and approximate strength across but suffers somewhat since we would prefer to be able to emphasize the 5 card major more. Preempts work and we do the best that we can:))

You have asked US to do your detective work for you. People do stupid things sometimes and if you were barred for your bidding on this hand the TD was doing a stupid thing. There may easily be much more to the story but YOU have to take the time and effort to find out WHY you were booted and, if the you dislike the reasoning supplied, take the matter up with BBO authorities. If the TD wants a reason why you chose to bid 1d vs 1h maybe they can consider that from your point of view bidding 1d increases the probability that your partner will play the hand. This might be beneficial since your hand has little to no reason to want to declare but the opening bidder can have quite a few assets that would benefit from being protected from attack via the opening lead. I have been known to fracture bridge bidding sometimes with a hand like xxx Axxx AKQ xxx and bidding 1d over my partners 1c bid in a desperate attempt to :rightside: whatever our final contract is.

This is the proper end position but I believe the proper LOP is to win the first dia (get the bad news) and immediately surrender a trick to the dia J. Playing 4 dia from the top will squeeze dummy on the 4th dia because in order to achieve your end position dummy must be able to retain at least 3s 4h and 2c when rho wins the dia J and if you play off the top 3 diamonds and THEN surrender to the J dummy can only hold 8 cards. This hand allows you to safely cash 2 dia then surrender to the J but it is a bad habit that allows the opps more opportunity to card information and thus increase the odds of a heart switch.

http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:2bb1372c.233a.11e8.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1520559338&u=gszes MKGNAO 8 gszes 8 round 1 of 4

gszes 10 twisterrz 6 http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:ca5680ce.2070.11e8.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1520252943&u=Gszes scoring was very unkind to twisterrz imp scoring was only 4 apart with me being lucky enough to win several 10-20 point boards

good luck

One legitimate chance of making involves 52 hearts with the hand with the 2 hearts needing to hold the club K (and maybe the J) as well as the spade A (slim pickings at best). The way we play a hand can have a significant effect on the outcome. trick 1 win the heart Ace in dummy. This may give the false impression we have the trump A so the trump K is a quick and untouchable entry to dummy. trick 2 Lead a dia toward the Q. This communications cutting play may give lho the wrong impression about what is going on. They may decide we are trying to set up the dia J for a pitch and feel it is urgent to switch to a club and essentially ending the defenses chances. This play is also crucial to keeping our one legitimate chance alive. Let's assume whoever wins the dia continues hearts grrrr. trick 3 Win in hand and assuming we can tell from the 3rd trick which player started with the hoped for 2 hearts we cater our play according to what we hope. IF we feel lho led from Qx a far less likely scenario but still possible. Let's say trick one rho surprisingly drops the heart J and returns the heart 9 when they win the dia trick. trick 4 start pulling trump with the intention of leading low toward the club Q If we feel rho started with 2 hearts we are reduced to rho holding the club K and J OR holding Kxxx(x) ducking when we lead the club Q from dummy since we cannot pick up the K if they do not cover. trick 4 start pulling trumps with the intention of leading the club Q from dummy. FWIW Having read the above, do you feel this LOP is better or worse than merely immediately pulling trumps and hoping the club K was singleton and we were always making? OR start pulling trumps hoping rho began with Kxxx(x) and will not cover the club Q when it is led because they are afraid we started with AJT9 and we might get two club pitches? You decide:)))))))

4c I bid where I live. p has maybe 2 dia at most (hopefully less) so 3n looks like a REALLY tiny target. 4c leaves 4c 5c 4h as all viable landing spots (slam anyone?). Dbl has some good things but ODR (offense to defense ratio) strongly favors bidding vs attempting to penalize and even if construed as TOX and extra values how much confidence will you have if partner bids hearts some more?. Over 4c we should be quite happy to pass knowing about the extra length promised. PASS seems just soooooo wimpy with such a good club suit and our hand is soooooo much better than a minimum the 3d bid might hamstring partner into passing when we have a game. 4c will rarely result in us getting hammered so the risk factor is pretty low.