gszes

I said it was hard to imagine too many hands not that it was impossible:)) it is still a game of probability and catering to low % probabilities is a losing position in the long run.

echo the 6d bid too hard to imagine many hands with Axxxx diamonds where partner might feel confident forcing to 5 level. If we lose more than 1 trick maybe our standards need to change some but preempts work sometimes that's why we do them.

the opps have a 9+ card heart fit and with inv+ no guarantee they have game. That means the hand could still belong to us and we need to find the right strain. x showing the minors gives us best opportunity to still win the bidding. I can see why some might prefer x to ask for a spade lead to win the defense but I remain unconvinced we need to worry about tactics when strategically it is sounder to fight for the board in the bidding.

sort of similar and natural/invitational (2 quick tricks up to say a poor 10) with the first sequence promising a spade stop and the 2nd promising a heart stop and little desire to penalize (stiff ace for ex). Some feel this is too small a target and prefer the 2n to show the minors or even prefer 2n to be leb. PARTNERSHIP rules:)

P has made a tox for us to play at the 3 lvl and we failed to x 3n? The mere 3d bid was bad enough. Lead a top dia honor and get a signal before deciding. If we had any chance at game the defense will quickly become obvious after we look at the dummy and get a signal from p.

I See no reason a 2d bid cannot look like xxx xx QJTx QJxx and I would not want that to be GF opposite 18-19 bal with a single spade stop. I also would have little qualms passing such a hand if playing inverted minors on in comp since opener has another chance to bid. Caitlynne ex would be a 3d bid IMHO no matter which way I was playing.

The singleton heart (yes even with 3 lousy trumps) makes the south hand appreciably better than a mere balanced 10 count. The N hand would be stymied even with a better hand in the face of 3 possible heart losers off the top. If the north hand is pretty much minimal for a 1s overcall it should be VERY normal for south to envision 4s. It will not always work but the odds seem to be in favor of it making. 100% south. An aside: If n did not overcall 1s and it went 1h p p x 4h I bet N would have little trouble bidding 4s:)

1n seems perfectly normal with any 8 to 10 count balanced (2 card or single honor in opener's M) that does not wish to xx. There is zero sense in passing such a collection. Pass risks getting shut out of the bidding when our side holds at least half the power. Faced with a very natural bid and being able to play virtually double dummy means 4s seems like a perfect choice especially at imps. Lho will be hard pressed to x even with a great hand and 4s is doomed.

I will show up in case there is a problem getting started susina has little trouble getting someone to fill in if someone has to leave

spoken like a player that would not bid the same way if the club Q was the dia Q and 5d ice cold.:)

P is not reopening (that would be your job after 4h p p), P has decided to enter the fray )opposite your now limited passed hand) and force us to the 4 or 5 level opposite what could be zilch. Wellllllllllllll we have a whole kit and caboodle of stuff here that we failed to show with our first pass and it seems now or never. I would begin with 4n and raise 5m to 6m. Preempts work and they work a lot better when we fail to take early decent action:)))))))))))

I would really like at least 1 club trick and the best way to get it seems to be to lead one from dummy toward my Q hoping both opps duck and they bet way to accomplish that is to play the heart 10 from dummy at trick since it is a great chance of creating an extra entry to dummy. If I can score up one club worst case scenario seems to be reverting to hearts to get my 2nd heart trick and falling back on the dia finesse for trick 7 if the opps fail to play spades for us. Having played the way we did maybe best is to just plunk down the club Q and see if the opps will duck for us.

the 2s is a catch all for many hands where 2n seems not right for some reason. We do not know (strongly suspect is not good enough) why opener bid 2s but we have the perfect hand to find out and yet keep all strains in play. 2n we have a nice rebid of 3h if opener now bids 3c or 3d and then if opener began with six spades (and cannot support hearts) they can bid 3s which we can raise. A huge benefit of 2/1 is hands like this that does not have to commit to anything immediately and can keep the bidding as low as possible.

it looks like you are covered but I will show up 20 min early just in case of dire emergency good luck

In my case it happens to be easy since x of WJO is always penalty if there is no other major(s) available to bid. The very nature of WJO invites this kind of penalty x due to the sheer lack of power inherent with the bid. Creating a relay with at least 2 cases of probable overbidding (a weak raise or dropping p in diamonds and hoping there is a fit) just seems like a poor treatment). It seems wrong to pass and hope that the overcaller will reopen with x when the overcaller is much more likely to have extra distribution and not feel comfortable with the idea of penalizing the opps. If the opps can make these kinds of preempts w/o consequence you will get stolen blind. WJO like occurred here can indeed win boards so the idea I to try to make sure when they do not win outright they are slaughtered (very helpful at imps).

bidding goes 1h 2d 2h and you are looking at either xx Kxx K(Q)xx Kxxx OR xx xxx K(Q)xx Kxxx Would you bid 3d with both or would you be more likely to try 2n with the first example? It just seems wrong to try and play rho for Kxx hearts when they are known to hold a dia honor and the club k. Lho might have had an easy trump lead from a small trump vs the more speculative club lead but if they held the trump K not so much. For those playing the Ace because it seems very secure it is not. Only the bidding seems to make playing the ace right.

IMPS = pass MP = x I expect to get a positive score around 70% of the time with the opps playing 3m. x At MP makes a ton of sense since increasing a penalty by a mere 50 translates into more MP. The same cannot be said at IMPS. The x brings only a tiny amount of imps and the times the opps make turns a quiet board into a disaster. 3n sounds like a fun bid but partner rates to hold 3/4 spades leaving them with much less room to have a long suit. With the spade honors poorly located, we will be hard pressed to come up with 9+ tricks and if p pulls to 4h the opening spade salvo is going to put us in a bad situation immediately. 3N is bound to work sometimes but will it make up for the many times it fails or fails disastrously? I am unsure and it feels wrong to put so much on the line when I like our odds of a plus anyway. Sometimes the opps make preempts that find you with a difficult hand to bid they WORK.

SPADE Why would declarer risk playing diamonds before pulling trump? IMHO it is because they need to give the opps a reason to make a mistake. Declarer may easily have solid hearts and a spade loser knowing that if they pull trumps first then go after diamonds a spade continuation is the only hope for the defense. BUT if they go after dia first maybe a defender will try almost anything other than a spade and they will waltz home. There is little reason p cannot have begun life with KQJx vs KQJxx for that 1s overcall and the LOP seems to indicate something weird is going on. Picturing declarer with something like 2623. Your partner loves to show top of sequences and at times it is an advantage:)

My profile with normally standard carding but a negative message carries greater weight than a positive. 4th best stolen bid x no support x. Top of nothing and generally try to avoid leading from 3 small unless it is partners suit.

Logically speaking it must be patterning (jinksy). The main reason for this conclusion is that opener did not bid 3h (over 1n) but chose the 3c artificial message because they had more to say than a mere 3h. The only rational conclusion is they wished to be able to pattern out to not only increase the probability of getting the right strain but level. What partner does NOT bid is just as important as what partner bids. If 3h was unavailable please ignore this opinion :)))))))))

The hand belongs somewhere btn 3n and 7c so exploration is definitely needed. How to proceed w/o extensive system notes is tough. Beginning with 3c and hearing the 3s bid at least tells us a lot about openers distribution. Assuming opener indeed has 42 in the majors AND assuming with 43 in the minors they would have opened 1d (don't know how strong that assumption is) we can peg opener's distribution to either 4234 or a very unlikely 4225 since the bidding would probably be different. With distribution alone and zero HCP from opener our combined hands are worth 8 tricks and opener has shown 18-19 so there is plenty of reason to assume slam is quite plausible. I would suggest 4c to not only sniff at slam but hint that diamonds might be a problem at NT. I am hoping after 4c opener has a 4n sign off try available if they have dia well covered and a non slamish hand. If opener cannot sign off in 4n we will at least hugely increase the odds in favor of 5+ clubs being the final contract.

It is untrue that slowly walking the dog will generally be far more effective than immediate blasting. We expect zero spades and only with huge luck will we generally score 1 defensive trick. It seems to be that the best bet is an immediate 7s and be happy with =1700 and -1400 if p has some nice distribution. This will generally guard against the opps managing to bid 7n, which is a bid we can do nothing about if the opps can effectively use FP to get there, so we do what we can to guard against that.

its only thur evening plenty of time:))) I will show up 20 min early just in case sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

SO that's why I keep screwing up!!!!!! yet I give opinions with such confidence. The K is right.

I indeed cared not for the original x but instead of just not liking it I tried to explain WHY (missing from the other posts). I also specifically suggested 2s (not some kind of vague reference to a cue bid) as a great route to begin to not only explore 3n but to find out if opener had any wasted dia values before deciding to go ballistic. I did not care for 3d and strongly felt 2s was the way to go. When lho showed spades and dia the two suits suddenly became worry suits for NT and since we had no easy path to discover hearts our next best bet was nt (even if we were going to suggest a club slam over 3n). If your complaint was I failed to give either poster credit for partial explanation I can understand that but it will surely take up a ton more space if I have to read and credit every single line (and what of previous posts on similar topics?) that someone else types that happens to coincide with my opinion:)))))))))))))