gszes

available HAS ANYONE playing the challenge matches developed any sense of reasonable play on the part of any of their opps? I ask this because it still seems tough to get random pairings together to play vs JEC on the weekend. Just curious----

you realize of course the heart W must keep will invariably be LARGER than the 3 or the 2 thus preventing your 3 from becoming another entry:))))))))))))))))

Preempts work they make life tough for the best. Quit worrying about how it is plausible for N to find a 6 level bid merely because they have 2 aces and a fit. The 4n bid can be make with a weaker and more distributional hand Qx void QJTx AQJxxxx. Just getting to 5c should be sufficient in almost every case. Note how I suggest clubs vs diamonds even with 4 of them. South did not take advantage of a 2n bid over 1h so their club suit rates to be 2 cards longer than their diamonds and thus a club contract would be generally vastly safer. The 44 dia fit might be the only way to make 6/7 but that point is generally moot since we appear to be stopping in 5c. I agree with the 4n bid

14 12 (S&E) hands are always tough to judge but here 2h seems reasonable. N would generally rebid nt with a spade stop except when really distributional so for the time being we have to assume N rebid 3c because there was nothing better to do. S has a problem here. The 3d bid looks reasonable enough but is scary if the partnership may all too easily treat the bid as a non forcing preference. I do not care for 3N with only the ace as a stopper since the ace is a great card for both 3n and 5/6m. The hand is better since we have 3 dia vs 2 (openers hopefully 5+ minor Jxx K AKQx xxxxx) but I still feel NT should be in the mix IF we can get N to fess up to a partial spade stop. I vote for 3s. Opener not responding NT (vs 3c) all but denied a spade stop so this bid should clearly ask for a partial stop. N will gladly bid 3n ending the proceedings with N a little bit edgy due to the extra values but not feeling too bad because of all the jacks. ummm err the QUESTION asked and avoided so far what would I do as north over a nebulous 3d? I have extra values so even if the original 2h bid was shades somewhat we should have close to game values I guess I will continue with 3s hopefully asking p to bid 3n with a partial spade stop. This might be wrong siding 3n but its the best I can do once p has bid 3d.

MKGNAO 7.5 gszes 8.5 http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:33171465.fa49.11e7.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1516057795&u=gszes

MKGNAO 9 gszes 7 round 2 http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:fd81718e.f869.11e7.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1515851976&u=gszes

MKGNAO 11 gszes 5 OUCHIES http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:55a3d0fe.f6e3.11e7.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1515684191&u=gszes

fine with me i will be there around 145pm just in case.

17 hcp 12 for p if they are min. SURELY the opps own 5hcp in spades (i say with huge regret normally). That leaves the opps with around 6hcp outside spades. If lho has no spade 6n should be pretty easy to make and if lho does have a spades we have to cross our fingers and hope against hope rho has no outside trick (I have said with huge regret many a time). Put me down for 6n as I cannot reasonably search for 7. Please do not ask me my opinion about pass. :) It might make D Trump look civilized by comparison.

My question was based on an auction that began 4h 5h --- that might not have been 100% clear I meant 6h as a follow up (after 6c) and if p thinks that's natural I want to face them in the challenge matches.

RKC is definitely worth knowing but it is not the holy grail. This hand a good example where RKC would have failed you since your partner would have shown 2 "key cards" and you would have no clue if your side was missing 2 aces. At least when using regular blackwood you would have known you were not missing 2 aces and merely had to depend on luck being with you if your p did not have it.

available

TOAST1 7.5 gszes 8.5 http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:5448fdf4.f42b.11e7.9789.0cc47a39aeb4-1515385259&u=gszes I hope this works. I asked for the challenge result on a separate page then I copied that address and posted it here. I will check this reply after I post it to make sure the hand appear. I will give a yea or nay soon so hang on

I will hazard a guess and say that the vast majority of partnerships would have no trouble showing this stiff spade if they had 1 long minor probably via something like 1n 2s (transfer to clubs) 3c 3s or something similar. I have long felt pinpointing such problem hands with 2 minor suits (even as few as 9 cards) and otherwise GF hands needs equal attention. I think 1n 3h/s solves this conundrum and has much more utility than most of the other alternatives. After 1n 3s the opening bidder's hand becomes a HULK. It is difficult to imagine many responder hands where 6 diamonds has no play and even 7d should be in the discussion if responder has as little as a Q of extra values. As opener I would just take charge and bid 4n (regular blackwood since the trump suit has not been set). Responder will realize such bidding by opener is only possible with a huge trump fit (or huge double fit) and gladly respond 5h which is music to opener. The 5s bid asking for anything extra to consider 7 (5n would be pick your minor we have a double fit). Unfortunately responder has nothing else of interest (if those 2 stinking jacks had been the heart K (a 5n bid to show something extra but that cant be shown w/o passing 6m) or club Q I would be bidding 7) and quietly subsides in 6c. This POC bid has to be made since we do not know which suit opener has in case they fit only 1 minor.

I would not get too concerned with missing this slam. Your side almost always has one heart loser and most of the time you will need the club finesse to make 6. That does not mean you should not have the tools to consider slam in case opener is a tiny bit stronger. I would bid 4d over 3n as a way to start a slam conversation and allow opener to bid 4n as a sign off else a cue bid. With this hand I would cue bid with as little extra as changing the club Q to the club K OR changing the heart suit to HH. So I would be VERY close to accepting a 4d invite but would have to bid 4n for the same rotten score you had. I would also downgrade the dia J as virtually useless after hearing 4d.

IMHO always try and bid like your partner knows what is going on. I recently had a conversation where I was chatting about splinters and my counter part asked me if I realized my 4d bid (after my counterpart hand made a 3s splinter 1d p 1h p 3s p 4d) was cooperating in slam bidding not a game invite. Ok THEN you can dial back your expectations but until then try to avoid masterminding simply because you are unsure of the knowledge level of your partner. They may make as assumption that YOU are the one with a lack of working knowledge and move on quickly to someone else and a rich partnership might be missed. I would save the 3c cue bid followed by an eventual 4h with a hand around an ace stronger (not the club ace) than the one shown in the problem. There are many hands responder cannot cooperate for slam opposite a direct 4c bid but they can readily cooperate once you show extra values. You did not mention how strong you would need to be in order to use 4c as a splinter (if at all) and you might need more values to use the splinter. I can only suggest that the stronger hand goes slower as a standard method for handling hands with wide ranging values and thus suggest the immediate 4c with the weaker problem hand and save the 3c cue for stronger hands.

There are 2 main things to take into consideration when making the x. Is it possible that partner has a penalty pass of the overcall (here the answer is clearly NO). Is it reasonable to assume the opening bidder might wish to penalize the overcall? Once again we have to assume the answer is NO. Even if opener wanted to penalize 1h why do it there are probably many other safer places for the opps to play. Say opener has AX AQT8 KQxx KJx. Defending 1h might indeed be pleasant if we could just shut the opps up. But they might all too easily go to safer havens in 1n 2c or 1s. The point is that playing the x as penalty is too small a target and should be treated as TOX. ONCE the concept of catering to a penalty pass has been taken into consideration and discarded, we next must try and find the best way to proceed. With a 4(+?) card spade suit it is vastly easier to merely bid 1/2s. IMHO the x will DENY the presence of a 4 card spade suit. That makes this hand perfect for x with extra values and the 3 card spade support keeping a possible 8 card major suit fit in the picture. Once responder thinks it through and realizes it is improbable at best for opener to have 4+ spades they have a much easier time deciding what to do as they will no longer feel compelled to compete in the master suit. Once lho bids 2h responder still has no reason to bid. They are completely broke (let me see a show of hands how many think the heart Q has any value) and the hand has little or no redeeming values aside from the telling p of the existence of a dia fit. The dia fit is surely trivial information if opener peep again over the 2h bid so pass should be easy for responder over 2h. W/O the 2h bid responder should easily bid 2d and that 2d would be right over either pass OR xx by lho. What would it take to bid 3d over the 2h bid?? Something similar to JTxx xxx Kxxx xx.

I chose other since I am a strong advocate of texas transfers and would easily bid 4d with this hand. There is no guarantee we will make game but taking up all the bidding space will make it very hard for the opps to compete. Since our side has at least 9 hearts that means the opps have at least 1 8+ card suit of their own and the power of the deck is evenly split. 4h does not have to make to be successful, all it has to do is go down less than whatever the opps can make. When p opened 1n they showed 15-17 and at least 2 hearts so they have all of the qualifications needed to try for game opposite a "weak two" heart if we had been the first to bid. Wellll we just happen to hold a 7th heart which makes up for our lack of extra HCP so we should view our hand as a maximum weak 2 bid and bid game.

The fact that the 4 level might not be safe is no reason to avoid searching for slam as long as we can shut down the search at game level when it does not look good. The ace of a splintered suit is NOT AS GOOD as having those HCP outside the splintered suit because we want to aggressively seek slam and can do so with less HCP when a void is present. The 4c bid simply asks partner to consider slam if they have a hand with no wasted values in clubs and are near max for their bidding. If partner holds a good 10-11 count they should be able to freely bid at the 6 level. With slightly less making an interim bid (if available) like 4d could show some slam interest but not enough to go beyond game.

ackk I just read this. UMM how do I know where to find the results. I see the others posting a link but the file names seem anything but all inclusive and the ones I do see are all different (sorry for being so freaking clueless). BTW I saw this msg by accident as I was making sure mine had posted "properly". Maybe best to msg me on bbo with the proper technique TY.

I like the idea of trying to get p to play the hand. What could go wrong with 6h asking p to pick one of the other 2 suits. Even if it is not 100% clear what can go wrong? If P fails to read the message that way and does not bid dia or spades you can still bid 7s :) just a thought.

I agree with the discussion by others that this hand is nowhere near strong enough for a 2c bid. That having been said -- most play a double by responder (after a 2c opening and an overcall) shows a hand with little/no power. If that is your partnership agreement, How can it be reasonable to leave 4sx as a final contract. How do you expect your side to collect anything close to the 4 tricks needed to set them? As a minimum you should expect them to score 7 spades the dia A and the club AK. Once it seems clear 4sx appears to be a non winning move what would be the best way to proceed? IMHO i think you should try 4n representing 2 places to play (cannot possibly be to play else you would almost always have an easy pass of 4sx) (do you see why opening 2c with such a weak hand is a poor idea?). Hopefully the combination of a preemptive 4s bid promising little/no defense and finding a fit anywhere will keep the doubles away. With your hand I would hesitate to x even 5s if the opps bid further.

ok ok its tooooo cold outside to even think about anything other than a chance to play bridge against some of the best in the whole freaking WORLD. Available.

When p opens 2s a critical look at your hand will make you realize that 10 tricks should be at worst on a finesse (50%) or a double finesse (75%) and that is when p opens a sub minimal Axxxxx and out. Once you picture the reasonably easy 10 tricks the next step is to investigate slam. I freely admit to being a feature fan and the 2n bid asks opener for a feature (A OR K) if they are near the top of their range (8-10). If opener shows a feature other than clubs we can toss 6n out the window as too dangerous but here we have a pleasant surprise and a 3c bid comes our way. We can now count 6s 1h 1d 2c and that is only if p has the spade A and the club K (and they should have more for their 3c bid). Ten top tricks some other honor in openers hand and suddenly counting to 12 tricks should be no worse than the odds of making game opposite a dead minimum. We can safely choose 6n because of our double club stop and this can be beneficial to play of the hand because we might be able to delay tackling the spades (and the extra entry to the N hand) in nt.