PhilKing

I play it your way. I think Five Clubs is too valuable as a slam try (ie this hand) to reserve for Exclusion, which I only play with majors agreed.

This tilted me pretty hard, lol. His last sentence is comic genius.

Your new points make my case for me. You originally you stated that if the two did not appear, you would assume the world class player had false carded! There is still a need to look at his card, since he should play the two 100% of the time (it is the card he is known to hold) but might forget on a bad day. Playing the two is his only viable strategy, albeit one the entitles him to less than GTO. Regarding the always pin or always drop method, you are making a statement of the bleeding obvious - I don't get why you brought this up since you are trying to beat GTO yourself. To focus in on the relevant strategy, could you clarify what your strategy is when West plays the seven or eight and East the two? Not against this pair, but against two good players (say two Europeans you have never seen before in a strong pairs event). I think I am clear on what you do when neither player plays the two, which I hope you have reconsidered. Anyway, I now have a huge headache, so take your time!

Your example of the two not appearing and West being a client misses the point. Rodwell could play the two from T72 100% of the time, for instance, and West may also always play the two, but for different reasons. You have guessed that Rodwell is the falsecarder in an imaginary position that he can ensure never happens. This opens you up to exploitation. Besides, my statement that b was incorrect stands since your answer is a red herring - I was not referring to clients who never falsecard. I was referring to this statement "If they would find the falsecard at least 50% of the time, it does not matter what you do, so you do not lose by playing restricted choice."

Statement b is erroneous. They can falsecard 100% or 0% as appropriate. I assume you are playing for the drop if the two has not appeared? After all, East has the easier falsecard. (If your answer is no, at least you will sometimes make the contract, but it means you may as well not have looked at the spots in the first place). Against this strategy the defence can simply withold the two from both sides when the king is not dropping and you go down 100% of the time. East plays the 2 only from T72 and T82, eschewing the more obvious falsecard in the main variant. It is a game theory catastrophe when they counter with an unbalanced strategy. Perhaps Rodwell is reading this thread and will now own your soul. The Anders Wirgren article is in the July 2008 Bridge World for any one interested.

It's still a good hand.

That was the play OP envisaged, but East beats the contract by ducking since declarer loses two clubs instead.

Maybe they will unblock the king. :ph34r:

♥J. Don't think it beats it, though. There's a sort of black suit double squeeze by delaying the Fork in spades. The six-card ending is: .............2 .............- .............K7 .............654 ....J54.............A98 ....-...............- ....-...............- ....KT9.............J32 .............KQT .............- .............- .............AQ8 On the penultimate trump East discards a club, declarer a club and we are cooked.

I think I may need to know whether the suit is clubs, diamonds, hearts or spades. I'm not sure how easy it is for West to play the 8 from K82 with appropriate frequency, since the wrong hand is exposed and the eight could theoretically cost a trick. Even so, playing a safe 2 makes us too predictable. I think Wirgren said each defender should play middle half the time from three even when that will occasionally cost and we should vary whether to pin or cash to avoid being owned. The article is from about four years ago - I will try and find it. I would tend to go for the pin against most players, the drop against very creative types and just balance my strategy if they are genuinely World Class (if the suit is black I go for the drop and the pin if it is red).

The jack is completely clear if partner knows declarer can't run nine tricks. If we have KT9xx it merely cost the overtrick, and it's not as if we are fishing out a low club from KT8x on this auction. But it spares us the guess here and often scores big when declarer has Kxxx.

♠AQTxxx ♥KJ ♦Ax ♣xxx I think it is going to end in tears.

You've missed something. On a spade lead, eliminate and play the heart jack. Assuming trumps 2-1 (and some 3-0), you make it when the 9 is onside, plus when East has KQ9(x) Q9, K9, 9x, 9, so the nine finds itself. As to the bidding, opponents who stop in One Spade with 11 trumps freak me out.

5♠ should be as safe as the Bank of England. Oh, wait ...

Which one? I think we all want to know what the Baron said.

2♣ stopped the lead. Now 4NT leads to an even better auction than suggested by OP. It's clear to bid it even missing two key cards, since the opening lead is 90% likely to be a singleton spade and partner may have the AK of diamonds.

That is correct.

Why not? It's natural with 4 or 5 clubs. Partner can pass or bid 3♣ appropriately.

♠Jx ♥ ATxx ♦xx ♣ATxxx Wibble.

For me a reopening double from partner woud show: ♠xxx ♥AJ9xxxx ♦Qxx ♣- or similar. Obviously that can't apply if we are looking at six trumps.

When I went to Chiang Mai, we had to build a boat out of bamboo and the use it to wild water raft our way down a leech-infested river to rendezvous with a herd of elephants - even now it sounds vastly preferable to claiming a contract at the local bridge club.

If you have only one card left in the suit (and choose to return it - you do not have to), our methods break even. Playing my way, partner is safe to unblock in scenarios 2, 3, 4, and 5. Yours loses in the Q43 scenario and gains over mine exactly never. You also somehow overlook the QT74 scenario, where we break even! Qx is a bit of a red herring since declarer cannot have five, apparently (I assume declarer can still have four, otherwise this is the worst problem of all time). If I had nothing worthwhile to switch to and choose to return the suit with only two (I am talking about the generic 1NT-3NT situation - not where declarer has denied hearts), the chances of beating the hand when you are considering an unblock will tend to be low, but we would need to see a whole hand to illustrate the point.

You need good agreements as to when double is not for take-out. Along with quite a few players here, I use the "double is takeout unless we have an agreement to the contrary" method. This one comes under my list of penalty double situations: "We both bid, they protect." Had East, passed over 1♣ and then wandered in with 2♦, double would still have been for take-out, rightly or wrongly.

What you learned back in the day is wrong. The correct return is the three. Returning the four is consistent with Q43 - highest of our remaining two. From partner's point of view, this gives declarer T972, so he can't afford to unblock from KJ85 since that would burn a trick. Returning our lowest card makes it safe for partner to unblock the jack, since we indicate three remaining cards in the suit as you said.

I play 5NT to show a grand slam try, and that's what I would have done, since AQJxx xx x AKQxx and Ax QJxxx x AKQxx are in range (we play 4♣ as four or five losers so we need 4 cover cards to try). 7♣ will make with the major 4-1 a fair amount of the time on the cases where partner lacks the major suit jack and opener is, say, 1372. I get to an indifferent grand when pard has AQJxx x x AKxxxx. 6♦ just asks partner for his major and denies interest in seven. Obviously tanking for five minutes is ludicrous. Firstly, we should have done our thinking on the previous round of bidding. Secondly, it shouldn't take long to construct hands where seven has no play, particularly when the opposition made it easy for partner to show no grand slam potential by doubling 6♦ for a laugh.