eagles123

Really cool problem. My gut feel is to finesse, but it's a difficult situation for sure.

Think West has a pretty clear upgrade to 2N with a good five card suit, three aces, and useful spot cards. What east then does depends on methods, if there is a sophisticated way to show that hand then so be it, but I think 2N - 6C is a practical auction absent high level methods.

Sorry delete

agree with smerriman, North to blame here, KJxx is an awful holding opposite a splinter, we have a clear 4H bid rather than 4D.

3♣ for me.

I agree that X was a mistake, I think it was an auto instinct to X with 4 other major, but it's clearly a mistake. I doubled and partner reasonably passed, that was -1. 5D was cold.

[hv=pc=n&w=saq86ha5dkq965cqt&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=1h2cdp2d3c]133|200[/hv] What would X say? What should I bid? thanks, eagles

When you play in small fields with and against weak opposition you're bound to have a few random results. 4S here is not a good contract at MP, needs club and spade onside and hearts to be guessed correctly. I would either seek a better standard game/partner, or just ignore the results as really in such a weak field they're pretty meaningless.

Edit ignore

Have to say I don't like the method much at all, seems like we're going to be guessing a lot of the time for not a huge amount of upside.

I would pass at MP.

It’s clear you have the king if you didn’t u would’ve given P a trump promotion by playing a third club. You should still play a club at trick 4 no reason why the 9 and 6 of spades couldn’t be switched for example.

if you want to bid 2S now, you should have bid 2S last time.

I would pass now there’s every chance opponents have slam on

I polled it on BW, at the time of writing 21 votes for 3C, 2 votes for 1C, no votes for anything else ... http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/bidding-problem-2-5qpq97mos8/

Weak players always bid too much, people overcall on random shite like 1S 2D on xxx Kxx KJxxx Kx or something, which no sensible player would do. Also they'll often have auctions such as [hv=d=n&v=0&b=1&a=2s3hpp3s4hpp4s]133|100[/hv] or some nonsense which again wouldn't happen at a better standard. So they will be a couple of reasons that you defend more, but it does seem if you're defending over 3/4 of the time, that probably you do need to be balancing a bit more, etc.

Recommending kickback then then stopping in 5 has to be the most ridiculous bit of ‘advice’ I’ve ever seen on this forum

76.4% defending seems pretty remarkable over a large number of boards. Are you sure this isn’t just hands where u personally aren’t declaring?

I start with 3C see if partner can support diamonds or maybe even raise clubs 5404 clubs would likely be our spot.

I’d definitely bid 3 clubs 3rd seat favourable, if we go for 1100 oh well next board

Ace and a club

Firstly imo you have no reason to bid 5 diamonds but the defence is utterly hopeless from your partner.

I agree that I don't like 4D, especially in an undiscussed sequence. 5 diamonds seems normal to me.

I'm struggling to come up with a construction where declarer is 5422 and A) doesn't have an immediate game bid, and B) partner doesn't have a 3D preempt. So think maybe declarer is 5332. Something like QJxxx AKJ Kxx xx seems possible, giving partner Kx Qxxx T9xxxx x, where we can beat the hand by giving partner a club ruff and scoring three trump tricks and the Ace of clubs. Therefore I'm probably wrong but I play a club. Thanks Mike for a great problem, look forward to seeing the solution!