PhilKing

Unless declarer is a drooler, he's going to be mighty suspicious if we don't play another spade, since it may be necessary to kill the discard. Not playing a spade reduces the chances our king will score. Play a third spade promptly, and let nature take it's course. Partner can ruff high with Qx, since we have three tricks in the bag, and in various other scenarios, we will still often make our king (as long as declarer thinks we would not preempt with AT9xxxx, a heart void and an ace). Playing the third spade wins legitimately when partner has ♦QTx, ♦Kxxx or an original ♥Qx, so it's not the right time to get fancy.

Wooooohoooooooo! I now have the top score. :P

You state 1) as a given, but it ain't so. Some of us just do not play fast arrival, and in this auction there is pretty much no upside to the method. I play as follows: 3♠ = positive. At least a decent slam try 4♠ = good trumps, nothing else. eg AJxx and no outside control. With a minimum for 2♦, just bid 2NT and take it from there. Jumping to four is crazy. Say you hold: ♠Qxx ♥xxx ♦xxx ♣KJxx Partner's next bid might be 3♣, and now your pile of dreck turns into a monster. In 2) you can do much the same thing: 4♣ = genuine positive 5♣ = good trumps, nothing else With a so-so raise to 4♣, bid 3♦ (Staymanic) and then 4♣ on the next round. And no - of course you can't stop in 4♣ after responding 2♦, but you can after bidding 2♥ showing a bust.

After 2♦-2♥-2♠, you can do the lot: 2NT = puppet to 3♣, then: .....Pass = to play .....3♦/♥ = to play .....3♠ = inv (please don't make any fatuous bids asking partner to tell the opponents his shape. It's not necessary. Partner knows you are 32xx/42xx or similar, so quant is best.) 3♣ = ♣s and ♥s, 55+ inv 3♦ = ♦s and ♥s 55+ inv 3♥ = inv 3♠ = pre The ability to show hearts and a minor has scored some huge goals, and is particulalry useful opposite the infamous "trash" multi. Back to the original question, raising this auction is no different from raising an opening 2♠ to three. After all, the hand that passed over 2♥ can have anything up to a pretty good take-out double of spades, and you need to price out his weaker doubles.

http://www.brickinstructions.com/lego_instructions/set/7115/Gungan_Patrol

Second double is defined as a 3NT probe for me. Without that agreement, it would still be rather shocking to play it as penalties.

I think it is pretty terrible advice. Two reasons off the top of my head: 1. It is bad from an information leakage perspective. Cue raise-game gives less away declarer's hand than double-new suit-limit raise-game. 2. If they jump to 3♠(or more) we are totally screwed. Partner can't bid 4♥ with, say, 14 points and 6-hearts or a 1543 with similar values. We could just punt 4♥ in the pass out seat, but that is also rather flawed. I don't mind it on a 3343 11 count, but not as standard practice. As to differentiating between 3- and 4-card support, that is important, but most of us use 2NT as the 4+ raise, so the cue shows exactly three.

Shame on you - do you think GIB has no feelings?

5♠. I play removal to 5M on this sequence as encouraging, so I am somewhat light for this action. But I'm not prepared to gamble a pass, so I will just have to hope this works out OK, one way or another.

Both actions are horrendous. 3♣ has a lot of strikes against it - 5-card suit, bad pips, good defence, poor playing strength, terrible spade holding, shortage in other major. 3NT is is slightly less bad - no honour in clubs, wrong spade holding, minimum values. To be fair, West was already out of winning options. Sometimes 3NT is not much worse a contract than 3♣ and it is rarely doubled.

I would recommend rereading the previous three posts.

I was wondering if anyone would bring up this issue. I am all in favour of being able to stop in 4m occasionally when we are unable to make 3NT or 4M, but I don't think this is an auction (1♣-2♠-3♥) we can sensibly apply the brakes without losing a lot of definition.

Sadly I play that 2♠ shows spades, so I would have to fall back on a take-out double. Perhaps I am too stuck in the modern era to base my methods around extracting penalties at the two-level with three trumps and use double instead to try and find our best contract. This is unlikely to be two spades in a 5-1 fit, when partner may have a real trump stack.

Partner is more likely to have been dealt a heart raise with a diamond control, but for most of us, there is a 0% chance that he would bid 4♦ with such a hand. So unlikely as it may seem, when partner bids clubs and diamonds, he has, of all things, clubs and diamonds. I don't think it promises 5-6. Partner could have: ♠xx ♥x ♦AKJx ♣AKxxxx, since it would be unreasonable to expect us to introduce Qxxx over 4♣.

Can't responder be 5134?

The weird thing is that the thread asked what the recommended defence was, yet that hardly received a passing mention. Basically, you defend as you would against a weak two opening but with a couple of important differences: 1. Double is for take-out, but does not promise support for all three unbid suits. The point is that they have one of the minors, so being 1444 or similar is not only unlikely, but is not even particularly desirable. So you should double 2♠ with: ♠xxx ♥AQxx ♦AKJxx ♣x I would even do so with the minors reversed. Is it risk free? Clearly not, but it works most of the time. 2. Pass and double is penalties. Example from the database: [Event ""] [site ""] [Date ""] [board "16"] [West "Jacek Pszczola"] [North "Andrew Gromov"] [East "Piotr Gawrys"] [south "Aleksander Petrunin"] [Dealer "W"] [Vulnerable "EW"] [Deal "W:8.K754.J8642.764 QT642.Q.T53.QJT3 AKJ953.AJ92..AK2 7.T863.AKQ97.985"] [scoring ""] [Declarer "N"] [Contract "3CX"] [Result "6"] [auction "w"]Pass 2S Pass 2NT Pass 3C X AP [Play "E"] CA C5 C7 CT SA S7 S8 S2 S3 H3 C4 S4 CK C8 C6 C3 C2 C9 H4 CJ S5 D9 DJ D3 HA H6 H5 HQ [Room "Open"] [score "NS -500"] [bCFlags "1f"] For those who find the hand unreadable, Gawrys was able to make a delayed "penalty" double on: ♠AKJ953 ♥AJ92 ♦- ♣AK2 Yes, he would be stuck if they find diamonds, but these people must be punished for bidding with 5-4!

The most obvious cue is DIAMONDS.

26% preferred weaker requirements. The 74% referred to those who wanted at least the requirements above - 18% wanted even more restrictive requirements, to the point where one wonders why bother responding anything other than 2♦.

I'm thinking of switching to something along these lines. So double would show length in at most one of their suits (and so almost by definition four cards in the unbid major, or a weak five), and about 9+ points - maybe a good 8. The next double from either side would be for take-out, with no forcing passes. Pass then double would be straight penalties, as you say.

The BWS 2001 poll was very strongly in favour of 2M responses promising 2 of the top 3 when holding a 5-card suit (74% of experts), but lower requirements were assumed when holding six (there was no follow up poll on this issue, though).

I'm not sure I agree this is right. After 3♣(borderline)-3♠, I think 4♣ just shows more clubs. Once we chose to show values and partner bids 3♠, I would assume we are in a game force, so I would bid 4♦. Sure, we are light, but our hand is pretty pure, and if partner pots a slam I will not be embarrassed. On this hand, we will be beating off a few grand slam tries ....

Playing Acol with a weak NT, raising to 2♠ is never a ten count, and only rarely nine. Partner is expected to pass with a minimum strong NT.

South seems to be rather thin for his actions. Are you sure South did not pass at his first turn? Over a double, partner has enough to redouble. BTW, I like your partner's approach - avoiding the undiscussed bid. Though if he wanted to do something to get you to 5♥ there was another alternative. B-)

Yep.

Double 3NT then bid 4♠ directly. Flexible.