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Rho 3h vul preempt virtually guarantees the opps have the heart ace. That means slam is going to be 5050 at best depending on who has the club K (lho or P) and rho still has a tiny bit of room left for the club K as well. Top that off with the possibility of Jxxx with lho and slam appears to be a reasonable amount short of 50%. IMHO simply leap to 4s At the very least p will assume we have a really decent spade suit and decent values and they will not get carried away when they have diamonds. Sure it seems like a pansy bid but 4s I reasonable given the facts of the stats on this particular hand. The tools to bid this slam all come with too much risk or are too "fuzzy" to use reliably. There is no science here to use do what you must but consider all of the facts before deciding.

3s Even with 4 trumps I do not consider this hand a super accept. The SJ and DJ are highly overrated and even the possibility of a club ruff is minimized opposite a known 5 card spade suit. Yes I have 4 trumps and 21 HCP but GAME is not such a hot prospect opposite a vast majority of hands p was going to pass with over the transfer. The idea of a super accept is when one's hand has exceeded the original range or is of exceptional value after hearing the transfer. IMHO this hand meets neither of these criteria. FWIW I also like to use 3n as asking for shortness but only with hands I will super accept with. 4C and 4D are super accepts with a side 5 card minor that do not meet the use of 3n.

DBL P cannot assume we have more than 2 defensive tricks for our x so if they decide to penalize the opps our 2 aces should be more than sufficient to set the opps. If we pass now how can we ever reasonably expect to find a sac if we have one?? Bridge is not just about making games it is making educated guesses if/when to intentionally overbid. P as a passed hand means game our way looks hugely unlikely but surely we want to lay the groundwork for a sacrifice. TBH I am even more sure we should x here than I would be if p were unpassed*. I do not want our side to have to make its first foray into the bidding at the 5 level with nothing but a prayer we find something substantial. Deciding to pass here gives up this hand to the opps when they bid game and that is a dangerous prospect at these colors. the distribution is too perfect and we have the right amount of defense. The general worst case scenario is to hear p bid 3n which we would leave alone if no x probably going down 3. Hardly a blip on the IMP radar so there is not much risk to x and possibly quite a bit of reward sound like action is called for. Make the hand similar to void **Kxxx KQxxx Qxxx and with maybe zero defense pass is much closer to being correct than x even opposite a passed hand* because the lack of defense means it is only good for sacrificing. That does not mean it is wrong to x just far les flexible. With the original hand I would rate x = 9 pass = 5 with the ** example above pass = 8 x = 6.

I would much rather see x over 1n than pass. Surely game chances seem somewhat remote after p passes 1h. That means we should be aiming for the safest overall contract at the 2 level and we have no strong reason to assume it is spades. The heart K is poorly placed but there is still a chance the cards are split 2020 and if we have a fit the best way to find it is x right away. Even if lho can xx p will pass with no special distribution and we will get a 2s bid in. X will either allow us to find a fit at the 2 level or at worst a much better than minimal fit at the 3 level. That is a lot of extra flexibility for very little overall risk since the opps have not had the opportunity to fully define their values. I notice no one else has suggested this so just consider it another example of the minority report.

If I were looking at 4 spades to the Q I would definitely want to shorten trumps in dummy since the only way declarer can pick up my Q is to lead small to the (8 or 10) on the first round of trumps. That is a huge position to take. That means if either opp has 4 spades it is east. If you were east looking at a trump void and the heart K would you not encourage a heart continuation since it appears dummy promised the trump Q and it is missing? Surely you would try to protect your partner? That is a LOT of evidence that only rho can have 4 spades. It is then technically correct to bang down the spade K and when both follow and 40 becomes impossible once rho plays a second small spade we should play for the 22 break. With precious little information to work with (neither opp bid so their distribution is not too radical) we gave ourselves an extra chance by planning to finesse against the only player that realistically could have 4 trumps. Be happy you came up with that concept and if it works fine if not life is like that.

I like your start through 2s but you went astray with 4d. Why not a simple 3d which shows slam interest? When partner then cues 3s you have to be pretty much convinced there is no heart control and can sign off in 3n. P might have a singleton heart and will not bid 3h showing a control but they are not forced to settle for 3n they can make a belated 4h bid to now show their shortness since you lost slam interest when they could not bid 3h and also they are near top of a minimum. This is not really a deep set of agreements (fine for an indy) and I had a different grandmother who had a heart of gold and would have been upset if I bypassed her favorite suit:)

This would be my choice of play and not just for the reasons you gave. Even if lho has the ace (sans Q) they may duck the king in order to keep us from rectifying the count for a squeeze or keeping you guessing with heart KQT

3c This is not without risk since we all too easily can miss 4s. The 3c bid offers a lot of flexibility in return for this risk. We might be able to play in clubs nt or even spades and possibly even make slam bidding easier (especially in clubs). X has some benefit but really isnt as safe or flexible as 3c the odds of 3dx being right are really slim and it may actually make reaching 3n harder than the 3c bid. 3c = 8 3s = 7 x = 6

Leading the Q and intending to let it ride followed by rising with ace if it loses is the best in a vacuum. If possible look for safe ways to try and determine distribution (or any opp bidding) that might cause you to rethink your plan. For ex if your lho opened the bidding leading from hand to the Q would be far superior or if rho made a big preemtive bid you will probably also be better off leading from hand toward the Q since lho would become a big favorite to hold more clubs than rho.

ALL systems have weaknesses. If the 1c opening bid is within tolerance of your system than your partnership has to make a decision. Let these kinds of hands go Or double as south did and pull with trickless wonder Or have more defense if south before applying the hammer. It is no different than deciding to invite game and finding p with a rock bottom minimum and going down. The main problem with these type of competitive hands is that when the decision to x is wrong it can be quite a swing. There is no blame to be assigned here aside from system since it appears both players made reasonable decisions within the confines of their agreed system. If it were up to me I would pull to 5c at these colors since the expected size of the penalty 4sx is probably small anyway and the likely penalty for 5cx is likely not that huge if p can x the opps. Decide how your partnership wishes to proceed and accept the bad along with the good:)

pass cruddy heart holding and I am not going to win the match on this board by balancing but I certainly could lose it too much risk too little reward.

The bidding should always indicate which player has shown/implied the stopper for the x suit (in this case dia). In your given examples south has promised at least 2nd round control in all side suits or some other type of bidding should have taken place (cue bidding splinter etc). When the player with the shown/implied control is going to be declarer there is no problem because they are positionally safe from an opening lead disaster and we use the x to our advantage. 5h is to play - pass asks for the trump Q - xx promises the trump Q and asks for more information (what kind of information is highly partnership dependent). If the player showing/implying dia control is destined to be dummy we might have a serious problem for slam purposes if a king is attacked at trick 1. We use the extra space to determine if slam is still a good idea with a dia lead. 5h is to play - PASS shows concern for the dia suit and denies the trump Q - xx shows concern for the dia suit and promises the trump Q. Pass and xx both are asking responder to sign off if they do not have the A KQ or dia shortness and the pass also asks responder to sign off without the trump Q. If responder has the minimum requirements they can then start showing extra values (what kind of extra values is highly partnership dependent).

There are at least 3 ways to raise spades 2s support but minimum overcall 3s support average overcall (12) 2c followed by spade raise support and near top of overcall (15). This cue bid can be a variety of hands not just spade support. Overcalls have a HUGE and unwieldy range and require special attention. Note that the jump to 3s shows a hand more than an ace better than a minimum overcall. This is important information as we need some way to help narrow down the monster range of the 1h overcall. It is simply too difficult for a simple 2s bid to cover ranges from 7-13.5. Once in a while we will get too high but our chances of bidding games is tremendously increased. It is not easy for east to raise spades since there is such a monstrous gap between 7 and 13.5. Even though the heart K is a great asset it borders on looking for a miracle hand that rats to make game around 25% of the time. Too much risk for too little reward. Even vulnerable this is a tough sell but they do pay a big bonus for bidding game there:)))) so squeezing out a 3s bid is not too bad. This is IMPS and the search for game is important. IMHO west should have begun with 3s.

pass lets see vul vs not p did not raise hearts which means small fit at best with very weak hand or no fit. P could not x the 2d bid to show spades so they are too weak or don't have them. Lho is still unlimited. All signs point to further action = suicide so PASS.

Every instink I have is yelling nay screaming do something anything but alas I will punk out and pass and while I may yet overbid I will see what my cho has to say before deciding how to mess this hand up:)

If this were MP I could be convinced x was the way to go. This is IMPS and while I might win at least some MP for setting 4hx I lose mucho IMPS if we make 4S. That means we sort of have to accept the opps transfer to 4S as a form of insurance. I would be much happier playing 5hx than 4hx. No logical method to search for and no reason to assume we can make slam so we do the best we can.

This is sort of a partnership thing. What do we expect from a 1H vul overcall AQJXX and out?? If that is the case than I can see trying to be a bit conservative and going with 3s*. If p has shown a bit more we would have to be completely unlucky to have no play for 4s and I would not be shocked to find the combined hands have serious play for slam. xxx Axxxx Axxx J and 6 is a virtual lock and even if the club is small vs the J the opps have to begin with a trump AND be able to play another on the club Q. I do not recommend trying for slam but surely we can stop being so pessimistic. 4s = 9 3s = 7* else 4 slam searches = 3 2s = 2 (better than 7n I guess) This is IMPS and the bonus for vul games is still pretty large.

Let's back up to trick 2 and review what we have learned. Lho lead a club (3/4/5) surely if they held the spade AK that would seem like a much stronger lead than a club lead. That means we should mentally assign not only the club K but one of the top spade honors to rho. There are very few hcp left for lho to hold 1 top spade honor DQ CJ HQ even for a 1s overcall hard to imagine them not having pretty much the rest AJxxx Qxx Qx (J)xx is still pretty ugly (I have seen worse sigh). How about that 3s bid did rho bid 3s with Kxx xx xxx Kxxxx or the far more likely Kxx x xxx Kxxxxx? My money is on the second hand since that first offering seems way too much like a 2s bid:) IMPS I answered the quiz question finesse lho for the heart Q because I feel they are a huge favorite to hold that card given the bidding but since we are huge favorites to lose only 1s 1h 1d I feel it is totally wrong to do anything at trick 3 beside lay down the heart A and lead another heart (playing for the drop if possible). There is actually a pretty fair chance we should not be taking the dia finesse at all much less early in the hand when there is still danger of a dia ruff lurking about. MP If this were MP some risk is tolerable I would exit dummy with a low spade at trick 3 intending to ruff a spade and finesse lho for the heart Q.

Heart Q Even as you say it, it seems wrong to purposely risk our 100% shot at 50% but flying with the ace is short sighted for several reasons. 1. KJT is a very reasonable attacking lead given the bidding. 2. If 1 has indeed happened we have 2 quick club pitches and no longer need the spade finesse (I would not take it anyway). 3. If the heart loses things are not as grim as we make them seem. We are pretty sure rho has at least 1 top club honor and the heart K and we sort of need them to hold the spade king. That means lho has to hold the dia A and I think it would be nearly impossible for lho to rise with the ace if we can play the 10 toward the J. That means there is a really good chance the dia J will serve as the entry we need to get to dummy to take the spade finesse. That means the heart Q serves its best purpose by trying to secure our contract at trick 1. This can be ruined of course if rho wins the heart K and returns a dia and lho has the intestinal fortitude to duck our dia K (not an easy thing to do). 4. We may still be able to reach dummy via the club ruff route which is how the other declarer will have to go w/o the benefit of a heart lead. 5. Taking the successful heart finesse means we no longer have to depend on the spade finesse so treating it as a lower priority is generally wrong but more specifically wrong in this case with the fog of war so much on our side. 6. Who knows but by starting with the heart Q we may find out rho started with both club honors (along with the heart K) and thus it would be impossible for rho to also hold the spade K indicating we need to play for the drop vs finesse:)))))))))

oddly enough in both cases I would plunk down the heart ace and lead another toward the Q. 1. Both leads are "odd" since each is a unsupported honor. 2. In each case it appears that there is a reasonable chance a ruff is impending. 3. In case 1 if rho has Kx they can always give their p a spade ruff so the finesse for the J is useless much better to play the Q hoping lho began with Kxx. 4. In case 2 once lho plays small to the 2nd heart it appears to be a complete guess since a ruff seems to no longer be a factor. The lead of the club A (trying to give p a ruff) is much more likely when lho is looking at a quick entry and the only plausible quick entry this hand has is the heart K. Once we play the ace and another heart all thought of a ruff disappear and lho plays small hoping to give us a chance to go wrong and finesse for the J they hope p has.

the bidding has gone (you are the dealer) 1d p 1h 2c 2d p 3d p and you hold Ax(x) x AQJxxx K9x(x) what would you bid? I think 3n would be a huge favorite. The reason for this question is that once you think about it declarer is probably missing 1 of the following given the bidding SA DA CK or DQ. If p has the CK or DQ we seem doomed to go -110 or -130 and maybe worse if we do not make a spade switch at trick 2. So what about the other missing cards DA and SA? If p has the DA there is no big benefit to us unless p is short in clubs and the neat part is that switching to the spade K will still allow us to score up 5 tricks whenever p has a singleton club (unless declarer is specifically 1264 or 1174) p If declarer wins the ace and plays a trump p will rise with the ace and return a spade and we can return a club (2 asking for a heart) and return another club for a 2nd ruff giving 1S 1H DA and 2 club ruffs. Note that if p cannot ruff the club (because they started with 3 small nothing will have been lost and we will quietly go minus 110 after scoring up only CA HA DA and 1 spade trick. If p has the spade A AND they are short in clubs when we switch to a spade at trick 2 they will discourage and when we hold the trick we can then return a club for p to ruff (the 2 asking for a heart) p leads a heart to our A and we give p another club ruff at which point they can try and cash their spade ace (for +50 or +100). If p is not short in clubs they will encourage and we will quietly go -110 or -130 depending on 1 or 2 spade tricks. This means on close examination a switch to the spade K at trick 2 seems mandatory as it will leave us with our best chance to score all of our defensive tricks and still leaves open a couple of ways to defeat 3d when it was possible from the beginning. Returning a club at trick 2 is way too much putting all of your eggs in one basket and is only necessary when partner started with say Qxx in diamonds and a singleton club and even then we are -110 since declarer began with 12 or 21 64 and we cannot score more than CA HA and 2 club ruffs.

4h It is very tempting to want to at least try for 6 since it seems unreasonable for rho to have any holding that equals 4c where we cannot make slam. The problem is not just the opps there is always that CHO (center hand opponent) that will think a bit too highly of their holding and put us one level too high. If p decides to try and push us toward slam after we bid 4h we should be all too happy to accept.

It is always a good idea to supply vulnerability. It should not matter much on this particular hand but it is a good habit. After 5c 5n should show dia and a major (aquahombre) and 6c should show both majors. Once p bids 5n there is essentially zero benefit to asking for partners major because there is no room to investigate. I would use 6d to play 6h as Pass Or Correct (POC) and save 6c as a highly specified grand slam try. My use would be first round control of clubs and (1 other ace or the dia K) and a fit with at least 5 trumps. xxxxx xxxxx K Ax or Axx xxx xxxxx Ax or xxxxx xxxxx Kxx void. Overcaller can then use 6d POC with no grand interest(advancer then p or bids 6h POC) or 7d POC Advancer then P or bids 7h POC). I do not pretend this is standard though so adopt at your own peril though this concept of "exceptionalism" can be applied in a variety of preemptive circumstances to search for small slams also.

I did not read all of the advice (30 responses) but the first few missed an important point ---- it is not reasonable to have (when both are available) to have 2 ways of asking for aces. If you really feel the need to simplify it is probably best (when both bids are available) to use 4c as always gerber and 4n as quantitative. I do not recommend this arrangement because slam bidding involves some of the most creative 9cue bidding) and enriching sequences in bridge (did I mention mind boggling?). It is fine to try and win but learning is much more important than taking short cuts but that is up to you.

I would have bid 4n which pretty much has to be taken as rkc for hearts since with something like 28 hcp balanced (and a spade stop) I would probably prefer to x 4s rather than risk a natural 4n (I will pay off to a hand that makes exactly 10 tricks in nt that cant make 11 in a minor when in possession of a long minor). If p cannot come up with a key card slam just seems too unlikely to pursue. Once you know of the heart K asking for the Q would still seem prudent if one is to pursue slam and I would bid 6 after finding it. Do not concern yourself too much with your partner's lop since you will continue to find other partners as your bidding and play skills develop. Get into good contracts for the right reason and you will be surprised how many people will notice:)