gszes

Defense is TOUGH. The backs of the cards manage to confound the best efforts by the defense to divine declarer's intent. There is no way the defense will picture you with precisely AQJx in spades. At least one defender will probably wonder why you are not playing on clubs (your obvious long suit) and that opp might all too easily err thinking you are trying to steal a fast dia trick before leading clubs. From a purely psychological point of view playing a low dia toward hand (at trick 2) gives the best impression of trying to steal a dia trick. There is no successful LOP period if the opps are due 4+ dia tricks and playing on clubs would seem to be the surest way to get the opps to make a deadly switch if it is available. Playing on dia yourself gives you quite an edge under a lot of circumstances. dia can break 33 or they might block and a suspicious opp (looking at Hxx in clubs might even suspect that their p has top club honors as the reason you did not play the suit yourself and lead it. IMHO lead a low dia at trick 2 and insert the 9 if rho plays low. This should keep things as confusing as ever for the defense and who knows what they will do:)

Pass on a "nicely played" to your niece and congrats on passing your skills in this great game of ours to the next generation.:))))))

The idea of a strong jump shift is to accomplish 2 things. first is to convey great power and 2n is to give the partnership a safe haven at the game level in case slam aspirations do not pan out. The N hand has more than enough power for a strong jump shift but the spade suit is a far cry from what it needs to be for the second consideration to be met. The suit quality should be such that there is at most 1 loser in the suit opposite a small singleton. KQJTxx should be pretty much the minimum standard for such a bid. The jump shift takes up a LOT of room and so the message should be quite strong. Do not waste space jumping around when the partnership has no clue what strain is the best much less how high. Back to the bidding after 2s I would bid 3h with the south hand rather than 2n with that speculative dia holding. This bid does not promise radical distribution merely takes time to point out a potential flaw in the argument for playing NT. With more radical distribution I would easily choose 3c over 2h.

I will show up around 145 just in case

available

yes indeed that play caters to Kx clubs off side and only loses if the 2nd round of spades get ruffed a GREAT trade off. WHOknowswhathappened to Kx off side in my analysis when trumps break 30

If you do not play negative free bids there are many more hand that need to be covered by beginning with a negative x. The straightforward answer to your question is to bid hearts 100% of the time. The main reason is not the ability to run from 2hx but to cater to some of the other type hands responder might have when not playing negative free bids. Responder has Kx Axxxxx xxxx x after 1d 2c what are they to do? Responder must start with x and the worst case scenario if they have to rebid hearts they will have not only shown 6 but limited the power of their hand by not bidding 2h immediately. If opener can bid 2h responder's hand suddenly becomes a monster and they have a nice easy 4h bid. Reverse the majors and if opener can bid 2h responder can then bid 2s and acts as a mild invite if opener has a nice minimum with spade support also change the hand further to AQJxxx xx xxxx x and over a 2h rebid by opener responder can now bid 3s as a strong invite but still limited in power when they did not bid 2s the singleton club and secondary diamond fit make this had a lot stronger than the mere 7hcp they hold. Another type of hand might be xxx Kxxx Axxxx x. If responder cannot use a neg x their side might all too easily lose the heart suit. If opener sometimes bids 2s (when opener is 44 in the majors) instead of 2h they also will surely lose the heart suit.

CUEBIDDING is begun when one or both partners seeks slam and NEITHER one has sufficient information to make a decision as to how to proceed. CUE bidding continues ONLY until either partner has enough information to place the contract or take over the bidding. The first cue bid is the lowest possible suit that meets the partnership requirements for cue bidding. Any suit that is bypassed means the cue bidder does not have the minimum requirement to cue bid that suit(s). Further cue bids must promise at least the minimum requirement for all bypassed suits and either show another cue bid OR (if only 1 bypassed suit is left) ask for a cue in that suit. After a start of 1c 3n 4c let's assume 4c* is slamming with a long strong club suit and asks for cue bidding. This sets the stage for the following sequences please do not be upset with the lack of hands since they are not important to the thought process or the meaning of the bids: 1c 3n 4c* 4h cue bid that denies the minimum requirements for a diamond cue bid 4s has the minimum requirements for a diamond cue bid and is now asking for a spade cue bid (note that this is possible because spades is the ONLY suit left that has not been cue bid so far either directly or inferred). 1c 3n 4c* 4d diamond cue bid 4s spade cue bid and denies minimum requirement for a heart cue bid. Any further bidding (aside from a 5c sign off) cannot have more than 1 loser off the top in the red suits. 1c 3n 4c* 4s spade cue bid and does not have minimum cue bidding requirements in either red suit. Further bidding (aside from a 5c sign off) means opener cannot have more than 1 top loser in the red suits. 1c 3n 4c* 4d dia cue bid 4h heart cue bid (most likely this bid is made because this hand has no spade control but that is not always the case. 4s denies a spade control but has other values of use that cannot be safely shown (else a simple 5c bid). With a spade control this hand either takes over the bidding with 4n (blackwood) or merely cue bids where their other values lay). That is pretty much the basics. This is a BIG topic and you can learn much more by reading about Roman cue bids and Last Train

congrats and keep those words of wisdom coming our way ty:)

WACKOJACK 6 gszes 10 1 4SN+3 510 50% 4SS+3 510 2 4SN= 620 50% 4SN= 620 3 4SS+1 450 50% 4SS+1 450 4 3NS-1 -100 0% 2NS= 120 5 6HN= 1430 100% 4HS+2 680 6 2HS-1 -50 50% 2HS-1 -50 7 5CNx-2 -500 50% 5CNx-2 -500 8 1SS+2 140 50% 1SS+2 140 9 2DN+1 110 100% 3CE-1 100 10 3SE+1 -170 0% 3SE-1 100 11 6HS-1 -50 50% 6NN-1 -50 12 1NN+2 150 100% 1NN+1 120 13 6SN= 1430 100% 5CS+1 620 14 2HN= 110 50% 2HN= 110 15 P 0 100% 4SS-1 -100 16 3NS+1 430 100% 3NS= 400

I am staring at the scoring and cant believe 4d -2 was a next to top :))))))))))))

available and I am slowly going to eliminate Gszeszycki and start using my forum name GSZES so pass that on if I am playing since I only need 2 names when I am testing out my programming.

trick 1 win club K trick 2 again low club toward QJx for same reasons as above hopefully ducked for the same reasons as above trick 3 low spade toward K. If the K holds trick 4 a low dia to the J trick 5 another spade toward the Q trick 6 if all of these win i will then run my diamonds and hope for lho to be squeezed in clubs and hearts while rho will be squeezed in spades and heart the reason for this is becasue i hope the ending looks something like: Note that a small club was kept in the dummy until the final diamond play to force lho to keep the club A. ----------void ----------KJxx ----------void ----------void void-------------A(x) (Q)xx------------(Q)x(x) void-------------void A----------------void ----------xx ----------Ax ----------void ----------void If there are 6 hearts left I play a spade to rho to set up my small spade settling for a 12th trick or play the heart ace and finesse lho for the Q for (11 or 13 tricks) if there are 5 hearts left I have to decide to play the heart A and finesse hoping to make 13 tricks OR play the heart A and then a heart to the K hoping for the squeeze as a way to make 13 tricks (11 or 13 tricks) oddly rho is best off whittling down to the stiff spade A if they hold Qxx in hearts in the 4 card ending so they force us to settle for 12 tricks rather than risk us guessing the squeeze worked and scoring up 13 tricks but it is a cat and mouse game because if rho divines the position (and wants to play for the best score possible) they will allow themselves to be squeezed and then declarer will have to guess the right play for 13 tricks.

intermediate/advanced will normally not have these high level agreements I was clarifying the use of 01234 vs any form of key card. We open this can of worms because IMHO I think a 4n opening should probably be best served with the responses being 1 red 1 black 2 same color 2 different colors 3 with specific K asking bids once we have decided to play slam and wish to search for 7. This would allow the 4n opener (with hands similar to this) to be used with all 4 suits.

It NEVER helps to play any suit before starting to draw trumps. It might (rarely I admit) give a surprise ruff to the opps they do not deserve.

With a long suit and little to no defense the first thing to think about is how high can one preempt. If we are bidding in a vacuum then going slow may make some sense but those pesky opps are always looking for a reason to enter the bidding. Look at the vulnerability. Ten tricks is a LOT of tricks that means the 5 level will almost always be safe (that means no more than down 1 no matter the vulnerability). This will not be popular but I suggest opening 4n (yes even with a void). Bridge is a game of % with some science creeping in via slam bidding. This hand needs aces for slam and IMHO asking for them immediately is the best way to go. This is a straight blackwood since there is no agreed trump suit. If p shows 0 or 1 I suggest stopping in 5h. If p shows 2 the odds heavily favor us making 6h and if p shows 3 bid 5n asking for specific kings (If partner shows the club K bid 7n (at imps 7h is always ok) else bid 7h. The 4n bid gives us a LOT of preemption and still gives us a decent chance at bidding slam when it is there. It is NOT perfect but little else in bridge is perfect. Another benefit of the 4n bid is that we might be able to x the opps (if/when they compete) if we know how many aces partner has. If the question is how to bid these two SPECIFIC hands I would not worry about it too much. Note that even if our side managed to reach a makeable 6h. All that bidding space might make it far too easy for the opps to find 7d which is far cheaper (no matter the vulnerability) for them than letting us play 6h. Even us stopping in 5h (like my suggestion above when partner shows 1 ace) might keep the opps silent and we would luckily wind up making 5 when the opps take the first 2 tricks off the top.

I did not know this play had a specific name every time I have seen it in print the author merely called it an unblocking play or get that ace out of your hands like a hot potato.

its beyond me good problem :)))) cant wait to see answer

I THINK I understand the problem. You would like to know how to discover a club stop in the opening 1n hand opposite your singleton/void in clubs and a long dia GF suit. The simplest for me (playing 4 suit transfers) is 1n 2n (transfer to diamonds) 3d followed by 3h 3s 3n to show a problem in the specified suit with 3n = club problem). With the first hand opener can safely pass 3n but they cannot with the 2nd hand. With their minimum and no ruffing value I would suggest running to a NF 4d and responder with extra values and a singleton go to 5d. I hope that helps. GF to me is 3N 4M or 4m because it takes around a K extra to make 5m and we need to cater our bidding to 3n before worrying about 5m. The same can be done with long clubs 1n 2s 3c with 3d 3h 3s all designating a short suit.

I assumed u meant the original problem with the black suits changed. It is probably a POOR idea for responder with say 2452 distribution and around 10/11 HCP to introduce the diamonds since chances of 5m are slim. 1N 2c 2d 3n would probably be best under those conditions. With 1453 the chances of 5m increase dramatically (while 6m decrease dramatically compared to when a void is held) and now it becomes worthwhile to show the diamonds in the hopes that opener can solve our "spade" problem. Once again after 1n 2c 2d (opener has a max of 3 spades) the opps own 9/10 spades and 3n is still quite a hazardous proposition with 5m (including clubs) being a very plausible target. I was stating that when opener cannot solve our short suit problem for sure we are probably best off keeping 5m in the picture especially if opener is limited to 2/3 in the majors and our short suit is a major.

R we playing puppet?? this can make a huge difference since its all too easy to imagine a spade contract could be vastly superior to nt. w/o puppet i would bid 3n with 23/24 (why does p always have to have a min?) at IMPS but stick with 24+ at MP

ill arrive aroun 1350

The short answer is there is NO perfect bid for responder (with a minimum of around 10 hcp) under these circumstances. Having said that odds are strongly in favor of us avoiding 3n due the fact the opps own 10 or 11 spades. Once in a while opener will have something irritating like AK AQT KQJ or some such but the overwhelming amount of the time 3n will not be a good place to play. I would pattern out with a NF 4c and hope opener can navigate us to the best spot (even if that spot is 4N ouch). This might allow us to score well at 4m 5m or 6m or 7m when 3n is going down the tubes. Getting to 4N ouch is not necessarily a disaster and can keep us in the ball game along with the rest of the 3n guessers much of the time. With extra values (around 14) and responder can bid 4s and we might still be able to back in to 4n (but not so ouch this time).

available and hopefully this fine opportunity to play against some of the strongest players in the WORLD will not dry up due to lack of interest I haven't stopped break dancing after a 1 imp victory over them over 3 weeks ago (great exercise program) even if all if the credit belongs to my partners and teammates, none of whom I played with before.

gsesz 6 mkgnao 4 still no response from 0nsfvalue including to a message alerting them that challenge 11 had begun