PhilKing

If East is really an expert, I presume he intends to bid six if that happens to make, but stop in five otherwise. B-)

That is an invalid conclusion - the stats are only for when one side bids game and the other does not, and I should have mentioned that above. Often the side that went low will have a valid reason or reasons, such as bad spots, unsupported honours or whatever, so there will be more "bad" 25s in this group than average. One can speculate that the stats for combined 24s with no 5-card suit may be inversely skewed by players upgrading good spots or cards that appear to be well placed. Use with care!

The definitive article on inviting with a balanced hand opposite 1NT is Inviting and Accepting by John H Lindsay II, and Richard Zeckhauser (The Bridge World, May 1993). They derived their conclusions from a mixture data from actual play and computer simulations, and concluded the following: 1. Standard theory does not raise to 3NT often enough, and vulnerability matters a lot. We want to be in 3NT vul with a reasonable 24 even without a five-card suit. 2. Opposite a standard 15-17 NT, the optimal inviting range is 8.6 to 9.1 (Kaplan points) non-vul and and 8.2 to 8.7 vulnerable. In other words, it was losing bridge to invite with an average 9-count when vulnerable. The optimal accepting threshold was 15.5 nv and 15.6 v. We accept with 15.6 even though our combined max is 24.3, since although 3NT is a losing proposition compared to 1NT, we are already at the two-level. 3. The benefits of inviting were minimal even with the optimal range (0.4 total points per hand, so it would take over 50 hands to produce an expected loss of one imp when compared to an optimal bashing strategy, which for me means bashing on their entire invite range). One can't model for the cost of information leakage, so in my view, inviting is a flat out loser, particularly if you go via Stayman. For a statistical summary of how many points you need to bid 3NT go to http://www.rpbridge.net/rpme.htm which gives many 3NT stats from top-level play.

Yes, yes, yes!

Double. Unanimous! Even a squid doesn't need four hearts.

I don't care for the initial double, but I still give North 100%. The hand was way too strong for 2♠, which makes the sign-off even more shocking. Did they want another ace? South only just had a slam try.

Nice. For me agreement at the two-level = 15+ so it's not that bad, but I will give it another look.

It worked fine in Opera. There seemed to be two valid defensive solutions.

A good (standard) agreement when pulling the double is to play 4♠ as slammish (over which partner can retry with 4NT, so 4♠ needn't promise the earth) and a direct 4NT as just asking partner to pick a minor with no slam interest. Obviously we would drive game with nine Quilton's, but only after having noticed that they are likely to be working - it won't always be cold, but it can't be far off. And now partner should never bury us over either 4♦ or 4NT.

I'm guessing he is short. ;)

I agree with OP.

With approximately 57 different ways of showing two suits, god forbid we should have a way of showing that one of them is clubs. If one is prepared to give up a natural no trump, using it to show 5+♣ 4+OM makes a lot of sense. This would only apply versus a 2+ club or diamond suit, of course.

Cameron and I are available if needed.

You guessed it. On one hand, when it went Pass 1♥ 1♠ 2♥, I could not bid clubs WTF, so had to double . I prefer it to be nat even by a passed hand, but sadly I agreed to play it as a FNJ. :(

I wouldn't give a chicken a chicken sandwich, but that's just me.

When West was told they could bid what they liked, they passed, presumably in the expectation that partner would pass as well. Why do we think they would bid differently with FEWER options? Without restrictions, West potentially had available 2NT lebensohl (different meaning). With restrictions the only choice would be to pass or bid 3♥(which East would raise) or punt 3NT. But West chose none of those, despite them being available under the table ruling. E/W were given more ways to reach 4♥ legally, but they could only manage to do so with some blatant behaviour. The bottom line is that West was given a chance to bid and did not, and East's 3♥ should have been disallowed.

I generated a few hands to validate my position with a few carefully chosen examples. Conclusion - 4♣ was a fairly clear winner (1♣ was OK, Pass avoided a few bad boards but left us floundering too often) :angry:. There were a couple of caveats: After the auction 4♣-Dble-Pass-4M or 4♣-Pass-Pass-4M, we should double for takeout (we are bidding in front of partner whilst on lead). After the auction 4♣-4♠-Pass-Pass, we should make a LIGHTNER double. I know not everyone plays it this way, but it merely requires partner to have one reentry and can score some huge goals. However, it does mean we can't double 4♥ in the pass out seat as "extras". We needed these agreements or similar in order to punish sufficiently or bid on when right. In fact, on this particular hand, the right agreement was to play double as "lightner" even when on lead, suggesting a surprise in defence if partner leaves it, but a good hand for play if he removes.

Technically, discarded sandwiches should be recycled rather than put on the junk pile.

If you swap the West and North hands, it shows that East did not "clearly have a bid," since 3♥ would now go for 800 or more. That is by the by - West should have been forced to guess the contract.

18+

Four Spades. If I bid 4♦ followed by 4♠, partner should play me for long clubs and a FOUR-card spade suit.

I might be being a bit thick, but I thought One Eye was right on the strict definition: Question: we sometimes get to slam missing two key cards, does kickback solve the problem? Answer: You are asking the wrong question - you are getting to slams off two key cards because your partner is a lunatic who uses RKCB with spanners. One of the logical fallacies in the original question concerns being "forced to level 6" by the methods.

It's a slow-burner, but I agree there is limitless potential.

It's a slow-burner, but I agree it has huge potential.

3♠ = trump cue, 3NT = trump cue (case for 3N RKCB).