HighLow21

You mean the 6♠ slam that fails on a diamond lead?

I would play low to the 7 then low to the 10.

There is one very tiny risk of going down --> if RHO was dealt a singleton 8♦ or smaller. Otherwise you are safe. If LHO holds a doubleton honor ♦ and you misguess, or if RHO holds a doubleton that does include the 10♦, you could cough up 5♦ and a ♣ but then you claim the rest. 4♣ + 2♠ + 1♥=7. Discard carefully, yo!!! If RHO shows out on 1st or 2nd club be sure to discard ♥ from hand as you run the clubs. You need all 4 ♦ to guard against some layouts. If you have 5 club tricks, the big question is whether to shoot for the ♥ finesse. Taking it risks losing too many ♦ and ♠. I would scrap it. 8 tricks in NT ought to be a pretty good score, especially since 2/1 makes it so hard to stop in 1NT!

Not sure about the labeling thing... but I can tell you three things from my experience. (1) I hate it when my opponents are chatting away in a language I don't understand. (2) Twice I have caught them cheating in so doing. (3) I keep a nearby browser window handy --> tuned to translate.google.com. Hope this helps. -Tate

Ummm... what slam??

I'm with Mr. Ace.

http://bridgeanalysis.blogspot.com/ Here's a snippet from today's blog post on Voids: OFFENSE EXAMPLES WITH A VOID [hv=pc=n&w=sat72hk2djt953c86&e=skj9843hatdckq974]266|100[/hv] Slam is great here. As long as you find the Q♠, which you will at least 89% of the time, the 21 HCP slam only requires that clubs behave. All in, about a 73% slam. [hv=pc=n&w=sqt72hk2djt953c86&e=skj9843hatdcjt974]266|100[/hv] How often will you make the game on 15 HCP? About 80% of the time. How often will this be doubled, especially if N/S opened the bidding? Oh, probably about half the time I would imagine. THE DEFENSIVE ARGUMENT A void also means that, provided that the opponents win the auction, you often have great defensive potential. One possibility is that you can take as many as 4 ruffs in your hand to start the defense when partner has the opening lead and 3 entries. What fun for them to have their 4 side suit winners ruffed by you. Especially if they bid a suit game and you doubled for penalties. ... Topics covered: Probability of a deal containing a void. Probability of a deal containing TWO voids. Offense Examples w/ a void. Defensive value of a void. Full writeup and analysis of a double-void hand I played. Bergen, Cohen, Lawrence, LOTT, Hand Evaluation and more.

Wow! Thanks, Nige1. There is a new post up today on voids if anyone's interested. In reference to my decision about my self-assigned skill level --> the point I was trying to illustrate is that it was not a rash decision. It was very carefully, painstakingly decided upon. Are there some self-assigned Intermediates who are better than me? Certainly. Are there self assigned Experts who I am better than? I am playing against one right now. Does it really matter? No, not really. All I ask is that you judge me on the quality of my blog and my insights here, to the extent that you are not familiar with my play.

Dead on so far. Next question --> what is the probability that declarer has 5 tricks in clubs? An estimate is reasonable. Does your intuition tell yuo 4 or 5 is more likely?

Good question. Declarer and partner follow with low spades. Defenders are playing standard signaling methods.

East has some camels out back to sell you. West can show you the way to his tent.

A reasonable point, but a losing action on this hand. Still, go with the prompt --> after leading K♠ at trick 1, what do you do at trick 2?

This hand happened to me recently (I was the partner of the exposed defender's hand and was saddened by his error at trick 2). I submitted it to Ben, i.e. Inquiry, for possible inclusion in his B/I Defender's Play series. He asked that I post it in the Forums. Here goes my first attempt at using Hand Editor: [hv=pc=n&w=sak832hj98d854c52&n=sq97hak6dajcakq73&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=2cp2dp3cp3nppp]266|200[/hv] You lead K♠ at trick 1. What do you do at trick 2 and more importantly, why? A/E responders, please hide your replies in a "Spoiler" tag. Thanks! -Tate

Thank you for this very thoughtful and balanced reply. I am indeed trying my best to recover from that early rough impression, which was a direct result of my own brazenness and I was duly socked for it. I will keep your secret safe from Fred.

Agreed with everything you posted above that I replaced with a "..." here. In terms of the last statement.... I'm glad at least one person thinks so! ;-)

I disagree entirely. Aces are always good but to paraphrase Orwell, "some Aces are more equal than others." The A♣ is the least valuable ace you can have in a suit contract because it cannot possibly contribute to the establishment of length tricks in any suit. Any other Ace would have that potential. You have 7 HCP, slightly below the standard expectation of 8, and 5 of them are in the opener's suit. Contrast with ♠AJxxx ♥Qxx ♦xx ♣xxx. If partner is void in clubs, you only have 2 working points. You have 5-3-3-2, one of the 3 worst shapes you can have. (OK 4 if you side with Reese on the idea of 4-4-4-1 being not good for offense.) Your long suit is emaciated. Your partnership's finesses will be into the hand most likely to hold the missing honors, unless we're talking specifically about Axx(x)♥ and playing RHO for the K♥. Your spot cards basically stink. You have every reason to expect bad breaks and your hand won't handle them well. I agree that 4♠ is possible, but it usually won't be there unless partner can raise me, and sometimes he WILL raise me to game and I won't make it anyway. The fact that the opponents preempted does NOT make your hand any stronger than it actually is. You have no unexpected assets. Your hand will not be unexpectedly pleasant to partner however he bids over 3♠. Expect 3♠ to fail sometimes; expect partner to raise you to 4♠ often and for it to fail about half of the time that he raises you.

One way to do so is a way I like to think of it--> the number of points to add for a void is equal to the number of trumps you hold. This can be modified various ways but just on the surface, this makes the club suit alone worth 12 points. Even with various modifications to this, it's still at least 10.

It's amazing how easy it is to sound dumb here simply by misreading 1 word. SORRY!! I agree that North has no reason to shoot 5♠. I cannot see why South doesn't do so.

I'm learning the hard way here that (1) one has to be very careful how one phrases things here; (2) any statement that can possibly be construed as arrogance or boasting will be ripped to shreds, especially if the statement is made by a relative unknown; (3) tact is at a premium here. (Interpret (3) both ways.)

Um, explain to me how EW can take 1♣ and K♥K♦ when you hold ♣ void and K♥? The biggest danger is that EW can take A♥ and 2♦, but if that's the case, 5♣ is probably making.

"You're a jackass" is terrible; "The 1C opening is stupid" is arrogant and insensitive. "The 1C opening is ill-advised for the following reasons" is much more reasonable and thoughtful. But then again, I would only expect the reasonable and thoughtful response from someone who has truly earned his stripes, not from someone who is trying to demonstrate to everyone how amazing his stripes are.

You are right I did -- 2-3 is 6% of all trump splits, but JTx is only 3/10ths of those. Thanks for the clarification.

Ah, I get it now. You also are making fun of me. Yes, I self-rate as advanced because I am advanced. Switching my self-rating to Advanced was not a decision I took lightly. What I lack in tournament or other ACBL-sanctioned experience I make up for in many other areas. I am most definitely not an Expert for that precise reason, but I am not an Intermediate either. I rated myself as Intermediate for a long time. I made the switch recently when I realized I play the game far better than most people who were self-rated at least one class above Intermediate. Humility is not composed of arrogance nor boasting to be sure, and I am guilty of those mistakes in some of my previous actions and I confess those mistakes and have made a direct attempt to amend them to the extent possible. It is also, however, not composed of self-flagellation nor false modesty. There are tens of thousands of players who are far better and more experienced than I am but there are more who aren't as good as I am. Do I have holes in my game? Absolutely. Feel free to indulge your whimsies by trying to locate them and poke at them. After all, isn't that what being an Expert at bridge is all about?

Belittling others you don't even know is not humility.

I'm sure I'll get a lot of flak for quoting Marty Bergen here, but I like what he said on the matter-->"If the idea of having your opening bid passed out at the one level makes your stomach turn, open 2♣." A similar thought would be something like: "If you can make a game opposite the majority of hands that would pass opposite a 1-level opening, open 2♣."