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???????? do I understand this inquiry to mean that because N had this precise distribution vs say 222 123 114 024 033 plus a 7th undeserved club that you disagree with the idea that playing in clubs (vs nt) as an overall concept is wrong? please tell me this last question was not based on the hindsight of this particular dummy hitting the table PLEASE:)

1) Is the west hand worth an opening bid? Just barely below my minimum but not much heartache when this is opened. 2) Is there such a thing as a hand with 4-4 in the reds that does not make a negative double after 1S(2C)? YES BUT most of the hands that would not have 4+ support for openers major. 3) Who if anyone bids NT, and when? (On the actual deal, DeepFinesse says 2N makes but of course that's on a particular NS layout). east should bid 2n on their 2nd round vs 4h. The main reason behind 2n is that when opening these kinds of hands you need to cater to the possibility opener might have significantly less HCP and when there is no apparent fit it becomes tougher to make game. West will also know u have 4 hearts and can always convert back to 3h or 4h (if they have 4). 4) Does west's 2H call promise four hearts? NO 5) What is a sane auction to a sane contract? 1s (2c) x (p) 2h (p) 2n all pass

I consider my advice here to play in the minor to be VERY sound and I do not care one whit how much better you are than I am. Foolish of me, possibly, but I hope anyone that reads that advice uses it successfully many times throughout their bridge career. Oh and make it 100 euros.

THE MINORITY REPORT is back. I do not necessarily care for 4c as minorwood (vs a natural slam try) but it just seems wrong to not give this at least a looksee. There was SOME reason p felt bidding diamonds a THIRD time was more important than some number of NT over our 2s bid. These kinds of delayed NT stoppers tend to be the ace and spaces. Opener will not normally go out of their way expecting 100% of our values in the black suits AND a max 1 loser club suit that is just way too much optimism. The hand may indeed be a total misfit 1471 (opener) but then there may be little play for 3n. My main concern is deciding between 4n and 5c if not bidding slam (after minorwood response). It is hard to accept the idea of 5c at MP and signing off in 4n might still be a winner if slam is not desirable.

THE MINORITY REPORT continues. 5d this is a tougher problem if rho was not limited. As it is we expect partner to have somewhere between 4-6 hcp and there is a pretty good chance we will find a vey decent fit. If p has a big heart fit our diamonds have enough "body" to come in for maybe 1 loser. It will very tough for the opps to set 5d or 5h for 800 while the opps making 4s looks like a decent shot with the spade Q falling and us having very little "extra" defense behind the opening bidder. Its a risk vs reward game and I would be a ton happier trying to beat 5s than I am trying to sit and set 4s.

With this bidding I would consider pass IF the vulnerability were reversed. We have a virtually certain 8 tricks and a vulnerable game if p has something more than mere trinkets over there. I see no sense in letting the bidding proceed any further than 3n by me. I do not want to muddy the waters with x followed by 3n since that might encourage my weak partner to try something like 4d or 4h with 7 of them (or 6 even). I do not really want partners opinion of this hand since slam seems improbable and our best shot at game looks like 3n.

The fact we have a rock does not mean as much as it should since p passed over 1s w/o obvious spade length. We do not really want to "muddy" the waters with anything like 4n since p might all too easily bypass 5c with a 3343 hand (ouch). 5c seems the safest place to play. While there seems to be little chance the opps can make 4s that does not mean they wont get close and taking the money here seems like guaranteeing chump change when big money may easily be available. Lets not LOSE the match on this hand go for the risk vs reward bid of 5c and IMHO I would do the same if I opened a nat 1c OR a nat 1h. The artificial 1c merely makes me happier about bidding 5c:)

defense is hard but I must admit I do not agree with ducking the first trick. We cant afford to lose 2c 2s and 1d so we need a LOP that gives us our best shot w/o too much guess work. Since I would much rather finesse rho for the club J vs the club K (if needed) I think the best lop is to win trick 1 and laydown the club Q. In less lho has the stiff club K or KJ they might just think it is a good idea to duck that trick so their p can win and put a spade through. This idea not only allows us to still finesse rho for the club J (if the defense continues with great accuracy) but gives the defense a top notch easy way to err early in the hand. If we opt for ducking the first trick and get heart return I would finish with a club to the A and the club Q since I feel lho is much more likely to hold the club K than rho. Though I might be convinced to try a dia to the T if lho has tossed a dia honor:)

w/o knowing what 4d or 4h would have meant (over 4cx) we cannot readily imagine different hands p might have for this bidding. Having said that it is hard to imagine we have whatever p might need to make 6. Surely QJ and out of spades is maybe even sub minimum. We do not have a void I am not sure that is enough to move) which at least would be a positive feature. If we had as much as the club Q I might be more interested in case p had something like AKxxx AKQJx void Kxx. If we cannot set 6d p is playing around far too much at this vulnerability. SOOOOOOOOO with nothing of interest I am afraid I am going to x with my zero trick subminimum hand. Lead a heart if it goes PPP.

create a dummy first hand that you do not care about and when that is rejected your regular first hand should show up (practical work around)

One thing to remember is that 3s is STRONGER than 4s since we are in a GF auction. IHMO the 3s bid should show a hand rich in aces and major suit honors even if near bottom of hand. the reason for this is we have already established a GF and strain so the next question is slam or no slam. The opening bidder takes advantage of the extra space to show a hand appropriate for slam. A small extension of this thinking means the opening bidder can now bid 4c or 4d to show a concentration of values in the majors and the bid minor (nothing of value in the other minor) in case responder has slam aspirations. While this extension does not settle strain responder merely chooses hearts at the appropriate level (POC) and opener passes or corrects to spades. Kxxx Qx Axxx Axx (is a great 3s bid) Kxxx Qxx AK xxxx (is a great 4d bid).

Pass and hopefully sans a nasty grin on my face while sharpening my axe. While I would not pass in a zillion years with something like Kxx xxx KJx AQxx this hand screams lets try to win the match on this hand. Bad breaks probably abound so trying for 3n carries a lot of risk for not that much reward. Setting 3h 1 should be trivial pursuit and depending on what kind of card p owns (ie aces vs queens) this could easily bring - 3 or 4 vs nothing for us since there is a good chance lefty will have to play the entire contract from their hand. Even sound preemptors run into bad breaks occasionally so lets take advantage of their misfortune.

it is just as reasonable for me to be 65 56 or 55 with this bidding and p choosing to "decide" I must be 65 seems rather short sighted. (with 23 in the majors and no desire to go higher will readily pass). Sometimes they will be 22 and guess wrong that is life.

The world is filled with people that are filled with self importance and/or impaired judgement (for any number of reasons). There will be those that literally dream up things that are wrong with almost any comment whatsoever-- In order to not get involved with these touchy feely situations it is probably best to try and keep comments to a minimum.

Since you are playing for thousands of euros let me state that I think this approach to bidding is pennywise and pound foolish (pun intended). When u are short in p long suit ruffing might play a huge part in making your contract so tend to play the long strong minor rather than 6n. Feel free to send me 10 euros every time this advice works:))))))))))))

robots sigh if human partner I would suspect they had 3244 hand with 3 decent spades and near minimum robots who knows

the minority report returns and it seems x got outvoted by hmmm I guess technically it was unanimous. I think the 4h x 4s bidders are not looking at the risk vs reward concept of IMPS enough. If p has completely nothing for us 4333 nothing bigger than a 5 spot we still rate to go down only 2 in 5h. Note that that same combination of hands would seem to make 4s also unbeatable. Starting with x followed by at worst 5h will give p a vastly superior idea of our hand vs a 4h jump followed by x which I would save for a hand like A QJTxxxxx AK Ax where I have strong expectation of taking 4 defensive tricks. nuff said lets see if any minds can be changed.

totally nuts is opening 7n or something so 1n is not THAT bad. I would call it merely very poor (lets assay a 3 on a 1-10 scale). The worst part is it seems based on a concept of things are always going wrong anyway so why bother with looking for game philosophy. 1N might work but spades will usually be better than any other strain so why purposely handicap your partnership by hiding your best asset?

We sometimes treat really bad 5 card suits as a 4 card suit (when we have decent alternatives available) and we sometimes treat a really good 5 card suit as a six card suit (when we have no decent alternatives available). The "book" bid of 2c is far from horrible but playing 2h has a fair chance of beating almost any partscore out there. I would rate 2h as 8 and 2c as 7 with nothing else better. Pass rates a 1/2 simply because it is better than random stabs at various game/slam bids. Pass is also highly irritating to partners because they "know" the pass is based on a desire to mastermind vs depend on partnership.

I hate the 2c call for various reasons but I will deal with the set of conditions as presented. I opted for pass mainly because bidding 4c just all too easily will force our side to bid 5c if/when the opps bid 4s. We have enough offense to consider 4c but not enough defence to beat up 4s (maybe zero defence). Opening lead will be the club A mainly because I have zero clue how to defend this 3s contract and maybe I can stay on lead and have a better clue when dummy hits. There is also too great a chance the club A could be lost if not taken immediately. Your partner probably knows u are short in spades (after the 3s bid) yet they chose pass so bidding on because you have short spades is not a good reason at this point since we have no clue why p bid 3c in the first place.

If I had to choose a final contract with this hand w/o the benefit of bidding (IMPS) I would go for 6c as probably a safer overall contract. With that thought in mind, it seems we should try to use our bidding space to give p as much a chance at participation as possible. I would opt for 2c followed by 2s and ending up probably bidding 6c. If p feels compelled to bid 6s (unless 6c is x) I will feel confident enough to bid 7s. Hopefully p will not feel compelled to take a preference with a singleton spade and a club void. It just seems too dangerous at IMPS to take a chance on a 1 level opening bid and miss out on not just vul game but probable small and maybe grand slam bonus.

At MP (where searching for thin games is unimportant) I would pass. At IMPS game is still a realistic possibility so I feel compelled to keep the bidding open in some way. In this case I would hold nose (playing behind screens I presume) and bid 1N. I hate it but I have no strong feeling game is available and 1n seems to get us in the least amount of trouble when there is no game. If p were to conjure up a 2h bid I would squeak out a 3h bid. Trying a NF 2c bid with this "suit" seems wrong since there is no guarantee p clubs are any better than our spades and we are a level higher in an inferior scoring strain.

While this hand is a tad light for my taste (change the heart K to the A for me to open) I agree with the 1s bid vs 1h. Being able to show both suits is so much easier when you start with 1s but that is not the end of the story. Say the bidding goes 1s 3d p p would you feel better placed if you had opened 1s or 1h? I would not hesitate to bid 3h IF I had opened 1s but I would not be happy to bid 3h if my original choice was 1h. No matter what you choose there will be times it goes wrong but opening 1s will normally cut down on the number of bad results. good question

Even if you two consider x to be totally off the wall nuts why not try and help the other readers with WHY you might consider X to be such a poor call. No one will ever learn anything from "bold". You two are among the strongest contributors to this forum and any information you wish to share can only help others learn :))))))))))))

Whenever your main suit lacks quality (like this hand) and otherwise your distribution is almost perfect IMHO you should prefer x over bidding a moth eaten suit. Assuming you are playing LEB this hand plays out nicely with N bidding 3d to establish a GF. Now S bids 3h and even though this shows only 5 is should be a five good enough to play opposite Hx. 3N by N admits to having spades stopped but the earlier 3d bid means N does not consider 3n to be a wonderful spot w/o help. S gleefully runs but where is the best choice? 4h = 8 one more try at heart game using the theory let's settle on where to play game before worrying too much about slam. 5d = 6 definitely the value bid but this is MP and the minors are usually held in disdain seems better to try any of the other choices first 4d = 5 if hand was a little weaker or more balanced this might be the ideal choice to try and get best spot (nf imho) 4s = 5 has the benefit of showing extra values (do we have enough though) and no clear direction but has the downside of bypassing 4h which might be our last playable spot. 4c = 4 interesting but has a tendency to show 5 clubs (and we have only 3) so N might badly misjudge the hand potential even though we can easily convert to diamonds.