PhilKing

I hesitate to say it's completely standard, because there are at two people who don't think so. But it's standard. Cue = two places to play. The corollary is that the doubler bids 4♥ over the cue with 54 in the majors in case partner is 2425 but bidding panels usually drop the ball when this problem is posed (and it tends to do rounds every decade or so). As to the second point, I think "everyone" plays 4NT as RKCB.

On the hands I looked at, running was invariably correct, but that's partly because the doubler was a high card short I guess!

A priori the chances of the opponents keeping silent with 11 or 12 diamonds are low. But here partner has shown a dstribution hand with clubs and hearts, and then raised spades. Maybe opponent has xx jx Axxxxxx xx and didn't fancy overcalling (other hand Kjxxx). A more mundane example: xx AKxx Qx AQjxx is a finesse for seven. Opposite xx Axxx Qx AQjxx you might make only ten tricks on a heart lead, but they are probably leading a diamond, so slam is solid. I would also fancy my chances opposite K QJxx qx AQxxxx. I would just bid Six Spades as East.

Make the hand x AQJ9 Q Axxxxxx, and now 4♣ over 3♠ would be insane. 3♥ strongly suggests 64 for me, when you have a forcing 2NT available.

TY. Glad my mini sim was not too bad. I was surprised a heart was worse than a club on my (human) sample. But I have my doubts on your methodology. Partner sometimes passes on a 3334 or similar bust and sometimes pulls with 4 weak spades and a five card suit, but you need human input to decide that. One of the occasions a club was the winner on my sample required no help - dummy held cAT8 and declarer cQ9, yet a club was still the only winning lead. Who can work out the hand how that is possible, I wonder?

North made a bizarre duck of the ♠A and wants some point back for no reason whatsoever.

Before you give East a free pass, how would West bid x AQJ9 x AQxxxxx, where 7♣ is on a finesse? He shows a game force with long clubs and four hearts and signs off when East just keeps bidding spades. I give both players 110% of the blame - this is the modern vernacular for outstanding effort, so I feel the same should apply to failure. They both settled for game on hands that might have play for seven. Obviously West should bid 2NT over 2♠, then East bids 4♦, but all the subsequent bids were terrible.

Before the answer is given, I would like to bet that Two Spades went for a large penalty.

I think it's quite difficult to costruct a hand where righty passed over 2♥ with a stiff heart. Trumps are almost certainly 2-2. Plenty of people including me, you and random BBO opponents overcall 1NT with a 3244 17 count now and again, but not many pass with 4-6 points and a stiff heart opposite the 1NT overcall over the 2♥ raise.

This IS the bar - I am currently drinking a glass of Cahors. Anyway, I did a slightly inaccurate sim which eventually produced 23 hands that matched the facts. The contract was beatable 9 times. The diamond jack beat it 8 times, club 7, heart 5 and diamond ace 6. I have them in PBN file. Obviously the double worked horribly overall.

For me, RKCB here is a little high, however you modify it, but opposite the range you give, it is can only be tweaked in the sense that zero is impossible. You can come at it from the opposite angle of the card already shown being ignored, but in that case RCK is still nearly as good as anything. If 4♥ would be your only way of agreeing clubs in the hypothetical situation, then I would just play cues over it (If other bids are cues for ♣ obv then 4♥ is an ask). To still get to grands after cues, use 5♦ as "sand wedge" RKCB. And if partner bids beyond 5m after an exchange of cues, he does so with a "sand wedge" response. If the asker is balanced, you could play 4♥ as a general control ask (a=2 K=1). Rosenkranz had a method for this (confit), but you have to learn a table of expected controls for each balanced range. From memory, for a weak NT the expected min was 3 (obv you could have less, but that all gets lumped in step 1). Responses would be step 1 = 0-3, 2 = 4, 3 = 5 and 4 = 6. When I played this I went down a notch and played step 1 as 0-2. After showing aggregate aces and kings we relayed for specific queens. The trouble here is that you are relaying with a hand that is probably unbalanced that may need to know which side kings are held and basically you are just to high to find out.

♦J looks best by a distance. As long as dummy does not have a singleton, this should keep us in the hunt.

That was my point - 4.2 spades (or whatever, it doesn't really matter) was his expectation before he passed. The auction doesn't stack up for partner to minimum given the lack of action by our RHO. Righty has at most two hearts and kept silent even though we know they have at least half the deck. Partner has 8-9 here for sure. I rather expect him to have 4 or 5 spades, so he will not be able to place us with short diamonds particularly.

I don't agree you got it wrong. If partner bids on (which is doubtful) it's MUCH easier to construct hand where 3NT is cold than where Four Spades is. Partner punished you for competing in a position where Four Spades would often go down even if you were slightly stronger (you have a near max) and you might have had a lot less than you did.

There is a straw in the wind that strongly suggests partner is maximum. Consider the whole hand. We have 11, give the 1NT bidder a near max - say 17. That leaves twelve for the others. Give partner a seven count and it doesn't really stack up, since that would give righty a take-out double of 2♥ (he would have at least five points and at most a doubleton heart and on average just over four spades). If one is playing with a dullard (which is possible, despite the star :( ), that makes inviting perilous, since with a max he will count his points and accept. A good partner will know we can only be inviting with 10 cards in our suits and will bid appropriately. With a borderline hand with the diamond king, he can stall with Three Diamonds (and now we would bid on with a singleton spade). Partner should never accept with no points in clubs. We want partner to guess high with AQx xxx Qxxx Jxx (or even Kxx xxx Qxxx Axx), and he can do some detective work of his own, reasoning that the lack of spade bidding marks us with two cards in the suit. Oh, and don't worry about a trump lead or a ruff - everything is breaking once righty passes over Two Hearts.

I, for one, can live with this kind of ambiguity. One can never have too few cards in suit when trying to cash out. This position is a bit like when you follow with a singleton - although holding to two is so much clearer than having to play a woolly seven.

It was in one of Rosenkranz' books about 20 years ago - I think he called it "RKCB min/max zoom" - not very catchy, but I still use that description. He also had some relay situations where, after showing shortage, you bid step 1 with a void and make a "zoom" RKCB response with singleton.

2♠ all day long. I assume it worked out badly. OK, it's a non-fit auction, but they are generally making 2♥, and we have a fair chance of turning a minus into a plus one way or another. It's obviously not gilt-edged - I once had a similar hand at high stakes Chicago where LHO was 5-6 in the majors with 14 points. I went for 1100! FML.

Mercifully, the Premier League is played under WBF alerting rules.

A subtle reason for opening Three Hearts on hands like this is that partner gets to make a lead directing bid of bid of Four Clubs, as Simon Cope did against me, so they led one against my Four Spade contract.

My bad. I just get mad even if I here that someone has borrowed a bridge book.

Please do not do this. :angry: Pay the man!

It can be annoying when both partners refrain from overcalling on a balanced 19 ... :blink: :huh: :(

The doubler PASSES with a minimum. Bidding 5♥ on a 5404 minimum is insanity. Pulling to 5♥ must show a 5-carder and shows a hand that thinks, of all things, that he might make 11 tricks in hearts. You could be doubling 5♦ on a 3334 hand with a couple of useful, so it's no time to get fancy. Only pulling to 5M on good hands also helps on slam auctions - partner can raise or bid 5N when he has anything to spare. On your 6♥ hand where the auction started this way, you and Forrester should double 5♦, the way I see it, and the big 5440 hand bids 5NT pick-a-slam, and you would pick hearts. I might be in a minority here, since the man who doubled (Price) ended up with a lousy result, and the intrepid 5♥ bidders were soon (ok about 5 minutes later) writing down 1430 when partner turned up with a mountain.

If this board occurred after the slam where East flew with the ♣A I think you should have gone easy on partner and just cash out (although the jack is a sick sick card, but there's no point dwelling on East's defence). I don't really think Gunnar would open 3♥ with the 4711 hand at favourable, but his hearts may be KJTxxxx, ditto 4612 but it is possible. West has made an expert play, but sometimes an expert play can be idiotic. I would not brand this as idiotic since Gunnar preempts heavier than most.