rmnka447

Many thanks for some great hands! Great chance for all of us to "sit in" on a high level competition.

T/O oriented probably on a 7 count or a bad 8 that you declined to raise on. It's important in this auction to let partner (1 NT opener) know that you have the balance of the points. If you want to defend any balancing 2 bid over partner's 1 NT opener in pass out sit, it has to be undoubled.

At IMPS, you've got to bid your games, so 4 ♥. But fully expect opponents to bid 4 ♠. If partner has a "normal" T/O double, opponents may have 11 or 12 card fit. If 4 ♠ is passed back to me, I bid on to 5 ♥. If partner doubles 4 ♠, I sit.

4 ♥ Give responder 7 HCP, opener a max, then it implies partner has to have about 10 minimum. ♥ would seem to be reasonably placed as opener can't have less than 2 and because of point count would be more likely to hold honors. You've got a lot more distribution than originally promised.

As much as I criticize the undisciplined use of the Rule of 20, this is a hand that I would have no trouble opening 1 ♦ at MPs even vulnerable. It meets the rule of 20, has 2 QTs, and an easy 2 ♣ rebid. The biggest negative is the poor ♦ suit, but it doesn't take much in partner's hand to make a good part score. Once North passes, I'd find it hard to compete over 3 ♥ with either hand.

+1 for gszes.

I'm passing. As ahydra says, they could yet end up in 4 ♠. Also, it seems like partner probably has the rounded suits so 3 NT may not be a piece of cake.

I'm passing also. 4 ♣ doesn't look like a good spot for them, so I'm not going to double and perhaps find a better spot.

Pass, we're in a game force and partner gets another bid. So pass should show a minimum and let partner continue to tell his/her story.

Double, also.

I'm passing. The opponents seem to have the balance of the points and we have a misfit.

3 ♦ isn't exactly showing much. Red vs. white I think you've got keep on track to find your game if it's there. So I'm bidding 3 ♥ to show my stopper and let partner make the next move.

I don't think that West has done anything wrong in the auction. The problem with a negative double isn't on this hand, but on a hand where West holds the same cards but opener holds a minimum hand. Then there's a pretty big risk you'll get too high. East has a huge hand -- 3 losers -- good enough to open 2 ♣ if so desired IMO. So after the essentially undefined 4 ♣ preference, how about East making a slam try with a 4 ♦ cue? West can still signoff in 5 ♣ with a yucky hand. Then even with 7 HCP, West should find a 4 ♠ cue because the big club fit and shortness in opener's 2nd suit are huge positives.

After LHO plays the 2, the universe of possible card holdings are LHO RHO 2 K3 32 K K2 3 K32 - You can throw out LHO 2 RHO K3 because no matter what you do, you're losing a trick. There are 3 combinations of cards breaking 2-1, so out of the 39 times the cards break 2-1 in a hundred deals, any particular combination occurs 13 times. There is only 1 combination where the cards break 3-0, so we would expect that to occur 11 times in a hundred deals. If LHO would always play 2 from any combination that has the 3-2 in it, then taking the finesse is right in 24 deals and wrong in 13 deals, roughly 2-1 odds for finessing. If LHO would vary what is played from the 3-2 in any combination, then the frequency of those combinations is reduced. Let's assume LHO is as likely to play either the 3 or 2 when holding both. Then the likelihood of the finesse working is 13 deals for K2 - 3 and 5.5 (11x0.5) for K32 - which equals 18.5 deals in a hundred. The likelihood of the finesse failing is 6.5 (13x0.5) in a hundred deals. Overall, the odds are a little under 3-1 for finessing. So, when finessing or not can affect the results, the odds favor finessing.

I'm making a reopening call. Depending on our balancing agreements, it'll most likely be double. Yep, once in a while opener will have a big hand. But more often partner will have a hand with values and some ♣ that's not able to double, bid NT, or overcall.

I'm doubling also and leading a ♦ if partner passes.

4 ♠ in a flash.

Pass If 6 ♥ is a make, I'll tip my hat to the opponents and move on to the next hand. LOTT says 19 trumps minimum between both sides, and 20 possible. If 6 ♥ makes, that suggests 6 ♠x is down 5 or 4 respectively. At IMPs, I'd rather explain sitting for 6 with some prospect of beating it than taking an unsure sac and gifting the opponents IMPs when 6 ♥ goes down. I like the defensive prospects of the hand. Declarer is likely going to be forced to ruff the opening ♠ lead. That may assure the ♥ K sets up. Your hand is ruffing behind dummy if ♦ aren't running. At MPs, sacrificing when 6 ♥ makes may be getting you almost as bad a score as sitting unless everyone else is bidding slam also. (In an average field, there will be some modest pairs who'll surely have trouble bidding it.) It's sure to get you a bad score when the slam goes down.

Sorry, gang, but some of the Anti-Christian comments in this thread go beyond being offensive. Using that rhetoric is no better than the comments by those who would generalize about Muslims from the acts of ISIS. Call it what it is, bigotry. It is especially disturbing considering the genocide against Christians and others being perpetrated by ISIS in the Middle East. It's fair game to criticize and condemn the specific group (WBC) for their behavior. Generalizing from the action of a small group or individuals just isn't right.

LOTT says at least 18 and probably 19 trump between the two hands. ♥ Kx below the big opponent hand. Even if ♦ K is worth a trick, partner needs 3 tricks to beat 4 ♥. White versus Red opponents, I'm bidding on to 4 ♠ and letting them try to figure out what to do

You've posted a good timely subject for discussion. I'll admit to having been a Flannery user for years. I've had so many good results with the convention over the years tied in with the way it makes other bidding in a 2/1 GF context cleaner that it's been difficult to replace. Using 4 ♣/4 ♦ as transfers to 4 ♥/4 ♠ was an original suggestion of the convention creator Bill Flannery from Pittsburgh. The idea being that there are certain hands where responder may want to have opener's hand concealed when playing 4 of a major. But in practice those hands come up so rarely that you could easily use those bids for something else. With one partner, those bids are used as RKCB respectively for ♥/♠. That leaves room for follow on asks, but still doesn't address those potential slams where specific controls are paramount. But beyond that, we really haven't really outlined how to explore for slam other than by using the forcing 2 NT response to find out what opener's distribution is and try to proceed from there. So, I'm just as interested to hear about other's slam investigation methods if they exist.

I'm in the support with support camp, so would raise to 2 ♥ with the West hand.

Playing 12-14 NTs, you have to have a runout strategy for when you have a weak hand over a penalty double. So agree to something. With my favorite partner, we play similar to what zel mentioned where all bids are transfers. So with the second hand you proposed, we would redouble and 1 NT opener would bid 2 ♣. With first hand, we would pass which conveys a willingness to play 1 NT doubled OR a lack of a 5 card or longer suit. Opener has the option to pass if willing to play 1 NT doubled (rare), bid a minor if the opener was based on a 5-3-3-2 hand, or redouble to request responder to bid 4 card suits up the line. After a redouble by opener, responder can pass if holding a hand willing to play 1 NTxx. If responder has 8-9, opener 12-14, and doubler 14+, then after a pass of a redouble by responder, doubler's partner with few points will be under tremendous pressure to pull the redouble. With the first hand, you're good enough to sit for 1 NTx rather than run. I'd also have no problem sitting for partner's redouble either if you were playing similar to the way we do.

I agree that direct or reopening 2 NT should show the minors. Typically you don't double for penalties unless you've got a huge hand or a hand where there's great potential that you can set up a large number of tricks quickly and be able to get in to cash them. The hand you're asking about has some points, but the broken suits may take some time to set up so doubling is dangerous. It isn't clear whether the opening 1 NT in this auction was strong or weak. But in either case, it's possible for the opponents to have up to 23-24 points and not bid. So a double may be really stepping into the soup. Yet with all the distribution you have, playing in a minor part score doesn't rate to be too bad.

I agree with the step responses to 5 NT GSF. At the very least, 6 ♣ can be no high honor, 6 of agreed suit 1 high honor, 7 of agreed suit 2 or more. The only time you have some problem figuring out if pard has a high honor is when the agreed suit is ♣