HighLow21

Excellent point Cyberyeti -- and that happens. Sometimes, both players decide to be a little too aggressive; sometimes, it balances out. If only bridge had half-bids available! ;-)

i.e., about 1.25 times in a lifetime (assuming you play half a million hands in that life of yours). Of course, the confidence interval on the sample (assuming each hand is independent) is 0.60 to 1.89, so who are we to say it is not indeed once in a lifetime?

In all fairness, the reason I usually do this is that I'm checking partner's profile and the most recent results at the table. If partner is an obvious beginner OR the recent results my way are poor AND my partner was there for them, I'm usually out. I'll sometimes look at the play-by-play of the most recent hand to see why the results are so bad (perhaps it wasn't partner's fault). But that's why. I'm checking to make sure it's a decent seat to be in before I make any bids.

I can't imagine leading anything but a top heart. If delcarer is bad, good, amazing, doesn't matter. (Though the worse he is, the better the heart stands out.) Leading a spade is as gross as it gets in my book. Leading a low heart is speculative and dangerous. (Sure a top one is too, but much, much less so than a small one.) Minor suit leads into this auction are probably just going to help declarer guess and/or establish his sources of tricks. This is a least of evils lead to some extent, but my votes would be: any ♠ 0; Q or J♥ 10; low ♥ 3; J♦ 2; T♣ 1.

4♠ is a somewhat crummy game... borderline at best. I don't blame either frankly -- as many of half of South's points might be wasted and he has a worthless spade doubleton with no ruffing value. And look at the game itself -- on a major suit lead it's a mediocre contract at best (lack of entries for a double diamond finesse) and even on a club lead, it might very well go down (either a 3rd round club ruff or a lack of entries for the double diamond finesse). And by the way, the double diamond finesse CAN fail here. I don't like 4♠ at all. In fact, I admire the restraint by both players. Change the Q♣ to the Q♠ and South should go 4♠.

At the very least this hand should be corrected to 3♥ + however many (undoubled). The incorrect explanation both shut N/S out and led to South's (correct, on the information available) double. He has 2 aces and every reason to believe he has dummy's side suit protected. How on earth are they going to make 10 tricks? If I were director I'd at least be tempted to award N/S an average-plus. I find East's raise to 4♥ after the preceding events is also despicable, from a bridge ethics point of view.

2♣ all day, every day.

It absolutely was Reaganomics -- the beginning of the dismantling of the economic system that provided strongly for all, supported labor and asked the wealthy to contribute a large share. He had a point -- government at the time had become too controlling, bloated, and inefficient. Business was being choked. But he went way too far, and more importantly he instituted a mindset among the electorate that is still all-to-prevalent today: that government ITSELF is the problem, not TOO MUCH or OVERREACHING government, but government period. Too many Americans believe this blindly today, and they don't see how they are casting their votes for the wealthy and against themselves, while the wealthy laugh and shake their heads on the way to the bank.

I might intersperse a blackwood of some type, but yep :-)

My point is that I don't see how 6♥ is more probable -- my gut tells me 6♠ is. I could be wrong about this.

1♦. To pass is weak and to open 2♦ misleads partner about your diamonds (they're pretty weak) and your overall strength (you have enough to open at the 1 level).

No -- by law, in fact, they're not allowed to. That's the problem. We praise a system in which corporations and those connected with power and money are given even more protection and privileges, while everyone else is left to fend for themselves. The problem is that system. The problem is that our government, which controls what is allowable and what is not, has cultivated a corporate system that works increasingly well for a select few, and all others be damned. The government has the power to allow whatever system it wants, and for 30+ years, this is exactly what it has allowed. So this is what we get. And we voted for the people responsible for it, so we get what we deserve. A country that is decaying from the middle outward, while the fortunate watch their bank accounts and power grow. In a sense, we all chose this. Reagan, however, is the one who made it look appealing. And for THAT, I find him despicable.

I realize there are some serious problems with their methodology, so their results have to be taken with a grain of salt, but David Bird and a colleague wrote books called "Winning Suit Contract Leads" and "Winning No-Trump Leads" in which they analyzed all possible opening leads against 5,000 simulated hands that fit the auction, covering all kinds of different scenarios/defensive holdings. The goal was to determine which leads from which holdings perform the best over the long run (at IMPs and MPs). Several of their takeaways I find suspicious -- maybe a result of the assumption that everything is played double-dummy after the lead, and the bidding system is assumed to be fixed and rigid. (For this reason, blank Aces performed well, because they enable the defenders to always defend double-dummy from that point forward. It also assumes a Stayman bidder, for example, NEVER has 5 of a major.) All this aside... two of the most interesting takeaways, that I believe make perfect sense when you think about them, are: (1) Singleton leads very frequently work out well, even when a ruff doesn't develop (and they also work well under the right conditions at No-Trump). (2) Opening leads from hands that have broken honors -- K-J-x-x, K-T-x-x, Q-T-x-x, even Q-T-9-x -- perform pretty poorly against NT and exceptionally poorly, most of the time, against suit contracts. For a diamond lead to work well here, we need partner to hold the AK, or the A and declarer the K, or we need partner to Jack (and the King would help a lot); these scenarios all are greatly augmented if dummy and declarer each have 3 of them. This is a successful parlay on this hand but, in my view, a big loser in the long run to the simple play of leading your singleton in partner's suit while holding 4 trumps and control of the trumps. And just imagine the problems with partnership morale if the heart lead would have worked and the diamond lead permitted an overtrick!

I'm struggling to figure out how: (1) Partner can fail to have good enough spades for 6♠ to have 2 losers even in spite of the Q♠ missing. He did jump the bidding and we do hold 18 excellent HCP. (2) 6 of anything can make if there are indeed two spade losers. I suppose it's possible if diamonds and hearts have no top losers and we can make 4 club tricks, but that sees unlikely. We would need something like: ♠KJ7x ♥KJxxx ♦AK ♣QJ AND spades offside, 4-1, with the singleton not the T or Q. That's a pretty specific scenario to play for. We're talking 8% on the spades alone. I cannot think of any other holding with partner, combined with a defensive holding scenario, in which 6♥ makes but 6♠ doesn't. Help me out.

Depends on your system. Not in mine. I would play it was 10+ HCP with at best a spot-doubleton in hearts, and usually 5-5 in spades in diamonds. It's screaming to play something other than hearts.

Playing matchpoints, I have a serious dilemma. I would probably go 6♠ on account of the fact that partner has only 4 minor suit cards at most. We could be down 4 in 6NT whereas 6♠ will depend on finding the queen at worst. Other than matchpoints, 6♠ has no parallel.

I'm bidding 3♦. Game is still not out of the question and unless partner has a semi-solid heart suit, there is very likely a better spot than this. It could be 5♦, 4♠, 3NT or a part-score in any of 4 different strains (excluding clubs). If he comes back 3♥, I'm finished... and not sure what I'd do if it goes 3♥ doubled back to me. I would probably stick it.

That's awesome. Although on Bridgebase, it's far more likely that the ace underlead was NOT intentional in this regard... and when it works, it's all I can do not to scream!

I completely agree -- the Reagan administration and era ushered in a very destructive chapter in America. Its effects still linger, and the politics that became prominent contributed to many of the financial disasters we've experienced since.

This seems like an obvious case of "resulting." There's no reason we can't often win the first 3 tricks on a heart lead, and equally no reason why it isn't the case that a diamond lead is the only one to allow the contract to make.

Don't tell me you ended up in 3NT. I can't see anything other than double.

♥. To me this is a case of creating problems where none exist. If partner was unprepared for a heart lead in case his LHO declares, he shouldn't have bid them. If some other lead works out better, that's too bad.

'Tis a winkle. Terence Reese wrote about them frequently.

OK I guess I just need time to get used to their quirks. Still, I've had them make mistakes no human would make (and avoid ones that few humans would avoid!)

A trump.