HighLow21

more than anything they're representative of one's knowledge of GIB

True the stack is in front of him not behind him--but are they really making 4♠? And are you really making anything above that?

the only choices are 3♠ and 3♠. 3NT seems like giving up. Slam might be there and partner wants to know what you control. Play along.

Mike Lawrence covered this topic as well in Dynamic Defense. Yes, J is the right card.

Another example of mgoetze being an arrogant, snippy little jerk.

Proof that cue-bidding leads to terrible results when in the wrong hands. How on earth could someone drive to slam, let alone grand slam, opposite this bidding from partner? He's limited. He's signed off in 4H. And while I have no idea what the 5S bid is, I don't understand how an reasonable person could get to a slam with 3 aces missing on this auction.

Glad to have my arrogant, fool counterpart back. Funny that he doesn't even get the basic concept of statistical analysis but enjoys insulting mine.

You have to hand it to the right wing. They are very talented at disseminating BS and getting a large group of people to believe it. I mean, literally to the point where there is no changing their minds. Evidence be damned.

Honestly you don't belong in game in my opinion--though I empathize with the feeling when 3♠ comes back to you. The hand isn't that distributional and they have half the deck. If you play spades the wrong way, they have a heart ruff available. I don't see the point of stretching to a thin non-vulnerable game when even 3♠ is not cold.

In either case I feel like 5♥ is better--unless partner has something like 1-4-1-7, and even then, there might be 11 tricks in either suit. 5♥. Partner is probably going to hate my hand--all 8 of my pointed-suit HCP are likely to be useless. My kingdom for some aces.

I'd play for clubs no worse than 3-1 and trumps no worse than 3-2 (or 4-1 with RHO having 4 trumps and a single club OR either opponent with a stiff Q♠). Ruff the heart, Ace of clubs, Ace of spades, low club to the K♣. If the club is ruffed by RHO he is ruffing a loser. If it is ruffed by LHO, then I have got to play for LHO to have exactly 3 trumps (or 2 to the queen). If spades are 4-1 with RHO then I might run into control issues, especially if the 2nd round is ruffed and a heart is returned. (If it is not ruffed I can ruff the 3rd club low and probably make it home on a cross-ruff.)

If anyone West, but really I think this is "one of those things." Why West? Because looking at his hand, it seems there's a good chance both sides have a double-fit... at the very least, the 5th spade and the diamond fit are completely unknowable to East. To put it differently: East knows there is at least a 4-3 spade fit but that's all he knows. West is the only one with reason to suspect that N/S might have a lot of tricks in the rounded suits combined. I cannot blame East for passing the double. He's looking at two aces including trump control, and the 1♠ bid could be a bad 4-carder (or spades could be splitting 1-5). Might easily be worth -300 with no game on for E/W. I can't see a double on this hand by West, at all. But it will happen at the table from time to time. Reverse West's minor suit holdings and to me the double is clear-cut. Nevertheless I don't see any truly "bad" calls let alone egregious. Difficult choices, and this time it worked out poorly. My vote is unquestionably "No blame" but if I had to assign it with a gun to the temple, it'd be West.

The original title is a mistake. It should read "How to respond after Unusual NT?"

3♦ is a gross underbid. 4♦ almost does the hand justice, but in my few is also a slight underbid. All the points are working except the J♠, and that's a small loss compared to the massive upgrade available to all the other assets. Personally, I think 5♦ is too much for East to bid, because of all the defense with East, and because the club shortage could be wasted. Plus I can't imagine West accepting game by bidding 5♦ over 4♦ with so few high cards, but he might. (He does, after all, have 1st or second round control of all side suits and an extra trump to boot. All of his values are working overtime.) He absolutely will not drive to game if the reply is 3♦, though. That is a certainty.

If RHO wins A♥ and a diamond comes back, I'm ruffing a diamond high, drawing trumps, and running all trumps but one. I will have to make some guesses, but I figure my odds are better after some detailed distributional information than trying to guess the J♥ (am I finessing it or dropping it at the end?) To me this beats the pants off of trying to guess the J♥ early. (note: if you do guess the hearts early, I'm almost positive the finesse is the better play, because trying to drop it doubleton or tripleton also requires clubs 2-2.) By the way, when I'm down to Q♠, QT♥, 7♦ in dummy and Ax♠, 6♥, and 8♣ in hand, then and only then am I cashing the spade Ace. There's just too good of a chance that playing the cards in this order will result in one of the opponents having to blank their last spade prior to the Ace, and the card they follow with may well tell me everything I need to know. Final point: if the heart ace is ducked, I'd draw trumps and play lefty for the heart ace (or a show-up of the J). To me it's far more likely that the Ace was ducked than that righty made a great hold-up play, his good-player status notwithstanding. Odds-wise, he only needs to grab the ace a very small fraction of the time, I believe, for this to be the percentage play as declarer. I also don't like the Vienna Coup line--this only improves the odds if they misdefend or if either player has a singleton spade. This is virtually impossible. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong--I very well could be.