kereru67

I think if you play a weak no trump you need a garbage Stayman to escape with hands like this: ♠Jxxx ♥KJxxx ♦x ♣xxx Pass a major response, sign off with 2♥ over 2♦. ♠xxxx ♥xxxx ♦xxxxx ♣- Pass any response. Of course it can also be used with stronger hands. If you want to invite game you can rebid 2NT or 3 of a major. On the other issue, removing a high level penalty double should only be done if you have not already properly described your hand. As that article says "You should pass partner's penalty double unless you have information that partner does not havethat would decrease the chances of taking defensive tricks."

What are some of the things partners do that annoy you? A few of mine: (1) Pre-empting twice, e.g. 3♦ - pass - pass - 3♥ - 4♦?? When pre-empting or sacrificing, bid as high as you are prepared to go, then shut up. Don't get pushed up one more level. If you keep on bidding and bidding and bidding while your partner is passing and passing and passing, you can bet they are silently cursing you. (2) Overbidding in competitive auctions, i.e. preferring to go down for 200 or even 500 rather than let the opponents play a part score. For a normal hand where the points are about evenly divided between the sides and there are 8 or 9 card fits competing, usually someone will go down at 3 level. Therefore, normally compete as far as the 3 level, and even then you won't get it right every time. It's very annoying to get raised to 4 of a minor when you know you had a good chance of beating their 3♥, and 4♦ is a no man's land of a contract, requiring game values but not even giving you game if it makes. (3) Not paying attention to vulnerability in a competitive auction (4) Failing to double an obvious sacrifice when partner has passed the decision on whether to double or bid on back to you. (5) Taking partner's decision away from them. If there is a bid on your right, and partner knows more about your hand than you know about theirs, then shut up and listen. Partner might be itching to double. (6) Removing partner's double because you don't trust them, e.g. (in a competitive auction of ♦ vs ♥): 5♦ - 5♥ - X - pass - 6♦?? If you were prepared to bid 6♦, the why didn't you bid it last round? If you're bidding it just because you're nervous about my double, then you are a bad, non-trusting partner. If I say I can beat 5♥ then I can beat it. (7) Asking to play a convention that you don't know how to use. Sure I'll play Roman Key Card, but if you're going to give me the wrong answer when I bid 4NT what's the point? (8) Repeating 5 card suits unnecessarily. A repeat of your suit is never a welcome bid. Sometimes it's correct, sometimes it's an unfortunate necessity, but it is never what your partner wants to hear. Try to find some other bid, e.g. a second suit, NT to show point count & semi-balanced shape, or raise of my suit with 3 card support and ruffing value. If I responded in NT, it's probably because I have a doubleton in your suit, maybe even a singleton. For the sequence 1♥ - 1NT - 2♥ you need 6 hearts, not 5. Worse still, some will even bid 1♥ - 2NT (11-12 balanced, non-forcing) - 3♥?? with a mid range hand, a ragged 5 card suit, a 5-3-3-2 pattern and decent play for 3NT. (9) Reluctance to support my major with 3 cards. Just because we're playing a 4 card major system (not my preference but I can play it) doesn't mean my major suit opening will normally be 4 cards. If I bid 2 suits, it's 99% certain that my original suit had 5 cards, so support it with 3. I shouldn't need to repeat a 5 card suit to get that message across (see 8) (10) No concept of "captaincy" and making decisions that aren't yours to make. E.g. 1NT - 2♣ - 2♦ - 2♥ - 3NT?? My 2♣ bid does not "show" any particular number of points, it is an asking bid, and the 2♥ bid is a sign-off in a 5 card suit. When you make a highly descriptive bid like a 1NT opening, your partner is best placed to make the final decision. Respect it. (11) Raising my minor suit when you have a four card major you could have shown at 1 level. Minor suits in general suck as final contracts. Try to find a major fit, or failing that NT; only play in a minor suit if nothing else works.

Anything with 2 honours carries the risk that leading low will block the suit. This also applies to holdings like KJx. I had a few points here and there and reason to believe that my p had very little outside his suit. So maybe under the circumstances Q or T was a better lead.

I made what I thought was the standard lead of the low card from QT2 in a suit my partner bid. Dummy had Kx and played low, partner played J and won, then lead out the A to capture dummy's K. I was unable to unblock, and partner had no side entry, so the contract made. (Yes he could have ducked a trick to dummy's K to maintain communication but he wasn't such a great player). My question - is it better to lead the 10 from this combination? I still don't really like leading the Q from this because the K might very well be on my right.

An immediate response of 4NT might work (although I usually hate it when partners do that to me). The problem here was when I bid 4NT he assumed ♥ would be trumps and responded 5♠ to show one A, ♥KQ. I bid 7♣ and went 1 down after ♠A lead. 6♣ was a laydown.

My actual bid was 2♦, reply was 2♥. This is where I went wrong bidding 4NT instead of 3♣ to set the trump suit.

Dealer N, N-S vul. N opens 1♣, S has: ♠9 ♥A6 ♦AKQT ♣K97654 Bidding system is 5 card majors so 1♣ might be a 3-card suit. Playing RKCB. What is S's best response, and what is the intended continuation over N's likely rebids?

Intuitively it seems less of a stretch to me to try for QJ bare than to play for a very specific distribution, but it would be good to get actual figures. As pointed out the 6.8% chance of dropping QJ doesn't necessarily mean the contract is home, and clues from bidding and card play may sway the odds in favour of attempting a Devil's Coup. In Dorothy Truscott's example she didn't give any bidding (because "there might be children reading") but if East West are passing throughout, that makes it more likely that their hands are balanced. I also wouldn't make too many assumptions from the J♣ lead, it might be from JTxx or a doubleton in an unbid suit or even a singleton. Is there an app that can calculate odds for things like this?

This is the example given in Dorothy Truscott's "Winning Declarer Play". [hv=pc=n&s=sa764hkq9dat532ca&w=s832ht42dq76cjt98&n=skjha763dk94cq642&e=sqt95hj85dj8ck753]399|300[/hv] North-South have overbid to 7♦ (6 is easy). The line given is: West leads ♣J. Declarer wins ♣A, then cashes 3 ♥, ending in dummy. ♣ ruff, ♠ to K, ♣ ruff, ♠A, ♠ ruff, ♣ ruff, ♠7. Now if west ruffs low, declarer overruffs with ♦9 and AK become good. If West ruffs with ♦Q, declarer overruffs with ♦K then finesses against East's ♦J. For this play to work, the following conditions have to be present: (1) ♥ must split 3-3 (odds = 36%) (2) ♣ must split 4-4 (odds = 33%) (3) ♠ must split 4-3 (odds = 70%) (4) ♦must split 3-2 (obviously they will be if conditions 1-3 are met), with Q and J in different hands (odds = 50%) So my estimate is that the odds of this line succeeding are about 0.36 * 0.33 * 0.7 * 0.5 = about 4%. The more prosaic play is to lead out the AK of trumps. This will work if trumps split 3-2 (odds = 68%) and the QJ is doubleton (odds = 10%), i.e. odds about 6.8%. So it seems to me the Devil's Coup is never a mathematically sound play, unless I've miscalculated.

My actual hand was ♠4 ♥AQT652 ♦J42 ♣AQ3. I bid 3♥, hoping my partner would take it as forcing. My partner was a competent player but unfortunately we'd only played with each other once before. He passed, and I made 6.

After partner's 1♦, RHO bids 3♣ (presumably weak with 6 or 7 cards). How should the various responses be treated? Are 3♥ and 3♠ forcing? Is double negative or for penalties? How would you express slam interest without over-committing? In general, are methods for combating 3-level intervention covered by standard bidding systems, or would it require some kind of partnership agreement?

Mendelson advocates leading the Q from AQTxx against NT contracts. Has this been analyzed mathematically? Seems to me any lead could be "right" or "wrong" depending on the distribution in the other three hands. Which lead has the best chance of success?

Something I've never seen covered in a bridge book is how to get the best results with a partner who has trouble counting to 13, leads 4th best from QJTxx, passes forcing bids, thinks every single 4NT bid is Blackwood and every single 4C bid is Gerber etc etc. There are many such players at my club :) Any tips?

20 years ago even weakish chess players like me could beat computers, and cell phones were bulky and mostly used for business. So there wasn't really much concern about using computers to cheat. These days anyone with a smartphone can run a program strong enough to beat Magnus Carlsen. Cell hones are now banned in chess competition - in high level tournaments at least, if your phone goes off during a game you'll be instantly forfeited (in lower level tournaments you might get off with a warning). And if you're spending a lot of time in the rest room, people are going to get suspicious. As far as I know bridge programs haven't quite reached that point yet.

Thanks all, 1NT made easily on the actual deal, south didn't even need to hold up the diamonds. I'm just interested in the theoretical question of how best to play K98 in this situation. I agree I should wait until round 2 to overtake, and she shouldn't overtake the return. No point overtaking unless you're going to continue the suit.

Hi, My partner led the QD against a 1NT contract. (Bidding was simply 1NT passed out). Dummy showed three low cards. I had K98 so naturally I was happy with the lead, since I assume she has QJT. I overtook with the K, which was allowed to hold, then returned the 9. Declarer played low, my partner overtook with the T, thought for a moment, then made a poor switch to a suit where declarer was strong. In fact she'd started with QJT7. Her problem was she knew declarer had the ace, but didn't know where the 8 was, so she thought she might be giving away a trick if she led another diamond. Would it have been correct to play the 9 rather than the K, intending to overtake the J on trick 2? In that case, from her point of view declarer might have started with AK8x and I might have played the 9 from 9x, so J doesn't look so good. Opinions on the correct card to play for both players?