HighLow21

North, wake up please!

My question is how to get to 4♠ by NS

No slam here is possible on correct defense due to a lack of major suit entries. Play it out.

...But the patient died? :-) I don't have many opinions on system, but the hand belongs in 4♠ for sure.

4♠ is a dramatic underbid, but depending on your system you'd want to either double again or cue-bid 5♦. This about shows what you have. Note that shooting 6♠ is a big mistake here because with the following hand... ♠x ♥Qxxxxx ♦T98 ♣xxxx ...6♠ is in jeopardy but 7♥ is a lock.

2♦ and you can deal with just about any reply by partner. - Over 2NT you can bid 3♥. - Over 2♥ you can pass. - Over 2♠ you can pass. - Over 3♦ you can pass. (Too many likely side suit losers to invite game.) - Over 3♠ you can pass or bid game. (It's close, but you do have a ruffing value and a side suit.) - Over 3NT you can either grin and ride it or take out to 4♥. Your choice. I'd expect 3NT to make on that auction more often than not. If partner has the right 12/13 count it makes easily. - Over 4♦ you can accept the game invitation here. This hand is a lot stronger than the HCP suggest and you have about an 85% chance of a fit in one of the 3 suits besides clubs. Even without a fit you may survive. By the way -- good choice to open 1♥.

Give partner and RHO the following and be prepared to apologize... Partner: ♠AT75 ♥Q74 ♦AJ5 ♣Q83 RHO: ♠K2 ♥- ♦QTxxxx ♣JT9xx 4NT is not a terrible bid White vs. Red with these cards. Now you are probably down 2 while 5 of either minor loses 6 tricks, and maybe 7.

Wow... This is a tough one. At MPs I might venture 6♥ but we could easily be off a trump and a pointed suit trick, or 2 trumps. One thing I KNOW we have is 3 minor suit tricks, so at IMPs I am doubling. There's no reason slam is necessarily making and equally no reason they can avoid -4.

Cool! So yet again I disagree with the majority of the posters. I love being the underdog. And I still think it was a bad decision--good result aside.

M'kay then. Nice to meet you too.

Possibly, but perhaps I'm overly influenced by the fear of going down more than necessary. I have a bias towards pressuring the opponents early rather than playing for a short-suited drop (precisely Jxx with either opponent is what percentage? Maybe 20%? it's about as likely as Jxxxx in this scenario) and as I said, I love my chances if the spade finesse works. I did read his line and I agree it is also a good one.

Lord Molyb I enjoy your posts and think your comments are great but I couldn't disagree more on this reply. My vote would be: Pass = 0, 2♥ = -5, 3♥ = -50. What do you stand to preempt here? The opponents have already communicated that they hold the cards 90% of the time and don't have a fit. Lefty will double when it's right, bid a minor when it's right, and pass to his partner when it's right--and that partner will do the right thing regardless. You rate to escape the gauntlet from time to time, go down a lot frequently, and preempt their bidding dialog almost never. The suit is weak and at least one of your kings is in the wrong place. Partner could come down with a 9-count and you still could go for -1100 if those points are mostly in clubs.

Enjoy collecting -1100s with nothing on for them? Overcall 2H in this spot 100 times. You'll get a lot of telephone numbers.

Bergen is great for intermediates and beginners and there's a reason he's no longer a frontrunner on the national scene anymore. Much simpler evaluation: There are no wasted points (all prime cards), there are two tens, and there is a 5-card suit. This is going to play at least 1 trick better, on average, than a poorish 22 such as: ♠AQJ3 ♥J54 ♦KQ54 ♣AKQ. (By the way, this is a hand I would open 2♣ and rebid 2NT, but expect to go down fairly often.) Push this actual 22-count hand to the limit and insist on game! ;)

Looks to me like 2C followed by 2S wins? ;)

Way too good for a 2NT opening. By about 2 or 3 HCP. This would be the equivalent of opening 1NT with a good 18 points including a strong 5-card suit. 2C followed by 2S, and my next bid is either 4S with support, or 3NT without it. I realize that 2C/2NT will be the consensus here, but I want to get that spade suit in just in case partner has 3-5 small spades, shortness somewhere, and nothing else.

Win the spade in dummy, heart to the Q♥, and if it wins, lead the 10♣ and overtake with J♣. If this fails, wonderful. If not, I establish clubs and simultaneously unblock and establish my majors. I could go down on a diamond lead from lefty, but this line makes it more likely that if diamonds are going to be broached early, it will be by righty.

No it's more likely that the player isn't very good and "is playing the Ace to see dummy." :-)

The squeeze on righty has already begun, if there is one. (Even if there isn't, there is still pressure, as he is already discarding my long suit. And when declaring I love pressuring my opponents.) I play another heart to force another discard from righty. If it is a diamond, I try to run those, and if that fails, I hook a spade. If not a diamond, I take the spade hook--a priori, it is a 3 to 2 favorite. I like my chances a lot if the spade hook wins. (Back to dummy with the club, take the last heart and diamonds, watching the discards carefully, and by then I should know what to do.) If the spade hook fails, so be it, but I still have 11. (I realize I could lose a spade, a heart, and a diamond with this combo, but that would be one heck of an unfortunate parlay.) Here's my opinion on why partners leave after a minus (especially if they take the minus as dummy when a plus was possible, and especially on a big momentous hand like a failed slam or allowing a doubled contract through): on BBO there are a ton of terrible players. A reasonable heuristic is to leave immediately if you get a bad result, especially if you haven't had a chance to evaluate that partner and see signs that he/she is actually a decent player. I do it all the time, because I hate taking 10 IMP losses for which I am blameless. And people have done it to me--I take a 10-IMP loss on a difficult, incorrect guess, and they run away. Sure, in this case, I'm actually a good player, but they don't know that. All they know is that they got a bad result with me and as a result, from their perspective, it's much more likely that I'm a fool than that I'm a good player who happened to lose 10 IMPs on the one hand they sat down for. If they only have seen this one hand, my odds of being a fool have increased from, say, 20% to 80%, and they leave based on that data. (Call it Bayesian analysis with a very small prediction sample.) They are also far more likely to leave in that case if they themselves are bad players. This is because they are much less likely to differentiate between a "bad guess/hard luck -10 IMPs" and a "you're a terrible player -10 IMPs." In this case, your partner played the hand and probably ran away because (1) he couldn't follow your bidding logic, (2) he was embarrassed, (3) he blamed you for putting him in a difficult contract in which he failed.

Why on earth is diamonds righty's best suit? My lead is a diamond, period. A lead from the queen is much more likely to be fatal than 4 to the jack. edit: Even if Z's theory is correct this does not have to be fatal. Partner could have the singleton 10.

Yet again, bidding 4♠ over 4♥ in an aggressive auction situation is the winner. Why is anyone surprised by this anymore? The WORST possible scenario is that 4♠ is down two while 4♥ is off 1. But that will very rarely happen. Much, much, much more likely is that: (1) N/S have a second suit (judging from East's hand, that's almost certainly clubs). (2) E/W can make 4♠ or are 1 off with 4♥ making. The double was absolutely horrific.

1NT and partner is free to take me out if he is weak (spades or a garbage stayman come to mind). If I get a bad result, so be it. It happens. I'm much more likely to get a bad result on this hand, and the following hands, and the partnership as a whole, if I don't follow system. In my view, righty or partner has the key card (Q♥) about 75-80% of the time. I stand to gain from the opening lead and I also have potential in spades and clubs. Both include tenaces over the opener. If partner has the right 8-count 3NT could be on. I would venture that in this spot bidding my values and shape, i.e. 1NT, beats double or pass hands down in the long run, but clearly there are posters in this thread who disagree with me. And clearly, like so many deals that land in this forum, in this case it worked out poorly (otherwise why would one choose to take the time to post the hand in the forum)? Agreed with Rainer's assessment that conditions matter. Add the following condition: you're already up 2-0, so playing conservatively does make sense. You're far less likely to suffer a double-digit IMP swing by passing, and you are already ahead in the game. And vulnerable and partner has passed. Agreed. In spite of all those factors in the long run I think 1NT is the winner.

Low diamond. There are 4 of them on your right, not on your left. A spade lead seems like an easy way to let them set up their long suit and get on to the next hand (or at least fork over a tempo). If partner has a diamond honor we will be striking hard and quick. A heart lead also seems poor to me. I'd be shocked if partner had 5+ of them, and you have no honors to set up there. I estimate my chances of beating this hand at about 10-15%, by the way. Partner with a diamond honor seems, to me, to constitute the VAST majority of those scenarios.

I think many people forget that "Pass" is one of the most powerful bids in the game--especially at the right moments. They are white, we are not; My suit is bad and the situation is not worth a fight. It is very risky and rates to at best, try to interfere with a non-vul game. I will balance 2♥ if 2 of a minor is passed back to me. But it probably won't be.

Wait. Why try to take 11 tricks rather than 3+? When all of your high cards are in righty's suit? Against a bad split in diamonds and with 3 poorish trumps? Double is clear as day.