KurtGodel

I was going to say that I would bid 5♣ until I read this. Seems like a pretty good argument to me, I just must have got dazzled by all my trumps.

The negative double is crazy, why bid with wasted values in the opponent's suit, no tolerance for partner's first suit and rubbish minor suit holdings? The comment made that the kings sitting over the overcaller were 'basically aces' is proven wrong on the layout! The kings are sitting over, so they can both score, that doesn't really stop the opponents cashing their aces though.

The problem is that you have poor hearts and a strong holding in the opponent's suit. I am on the fence between 2♥ and pass, probably bid at pairs and pass at teams. Would definitely pass the second time though - looks like a very juicy +200 to the good guys here.

Sadly the director was not sent on a foreboding mission.

At the risk of a torrent of "OMG you have a singleton how can you pass": the clearest pass I have seen for a long time. You have a fairly average shaped hand for this auction. You have worse spades than you might, you have better defence than you might. How many heart ruffs are you scoring with three trumps anyway?

OK I didn't realise there was a distinction. They were wearing the red shirts so I just assumed.

pp?

Well I can tell you now that I was East and I really have given you all the information that there is. This was an EBU event (Oxfordshire congress), and I could give the names of all the people involved if you want. I was basically wondering whether it was worth appealing this to the Laws and Ethics committee. Yes 2♠ is clearly mental, but you pay your table money, you can bid what you want.

I thought that most 2/1 partnerships would play double as penalty here, at least my side of the pond. For those reasons you can't really pass out 2♥, partner could have a rock crusher and he might easily just be making a forcing pass and intending to pull a penalty double, to show extra shape. I think on this hand I would probably bid 1NT if that is truly forcing and bid 2♣ if we were playing a semi-forcing NT. When partner bids 3♥, I think we must bid 3NT at any form of scoring/vul. I'm slightly confused, if your partner thought double was takeout, why didn't he make one himself?

As this was in EBU land it would be interesting to here what Gordon has to say.

Funnily enough slam has some play on a non heart lead (although not on the layout).

First off a bidding question: [hv=pc=n&s=sk963h4da8542ct43&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=1c(better%20minor)1hd(4%20spades)2c(good%20raise)2s4h]133|200[/hv] What is your call? You were probably expecting this to be a normal hesitation issue but... Your thoughts? I've tried to make this as impartial as possible, but I was in fact involved. I will tell you exactly how later. Thanks.

Thanks Gordon.

What do you play after 1m - 1M - 2M? Do you play different methods after hearts/spades or even diamonds/clubs? Can opener raise 3 cards in your style? Just curious, because what I play atm is woefully inadequate: i.e. 2NT is inv with 4, 3x is natural GF showing 5, 3M inv with 5, 3NT is GF with 4, 4x is splinter with 6, 4M to play. I've heard a lot about playing next suit up as GF inquiry, was wondering what follow ups people use et cetera. (That is to say 1m - 1♥ - 2♥ - 2♠ is art GF).

5♣ very much looks like it's to play.

I think I would just bid 6♠. Whilst I'm sure partner would raise with their actual hand, some times you just have to be practical. I'm guessing that 6♠+1 would be scoring the lion's share of the matchpoints. Bidding grands can often be tough, sometimes you have to settle for the best result possible rather than the best possible result. It also did not occur to me that partner could have two aces.

I think I would probably pass at IMPs, although that could easily be wrong; it seems to me that more so than ever that double part score swings determine matches. At pairs I think I would balance, although it obviously not without risk. I think either way it is probably closer than a lot of people here are saying.

Squeezing is not a beginner topic, I wouldn't get too worried about it, but you are in fact correct. Draw trumps, ruff your hearts in dummy and ruff two diamonds in hand, if the K♦ hasn't turned up then run your winners until you have. x - - Qx in hand and - - Q Ax in dummy. Now when you play a trump LHO holding - - K Kx will have to throw the king of diamonds or bare the king of clubs. It won't work against RHO because you need an entry in clubs to dummy. Hoped this helped. Edit: I meant criss-cross rather than trump squeeze. I got my blocked suit squeezes confused :unsure:

Seems like a farce to me, this guy's reputation is 'excellent', whereas I think you know as well as anyone that it is not even slightly excellent.

What is this comment? I bet you my bottom dollar that a sim will say that 4♠ is making more than 37.5% of the time, probably a lot lot more than that. Every time I try and voice my opinion I keep getting this rubbish: 'Action failed: You have reached your quota of negative votes for the day'.

I was just wondering whether anyone who played a mini notrump ever played 9-16 NT in 3rd seat (or 10-15 depending on your exact NT range). If so, how well did that work?

I know the feeling, the summer I really got into bridge I turned up at the club twice a day everyday without a partner. I think I ended playing with over 50 different randoms, I have literally no idea how I put myself through that, even as someone new to the game I could tell they were terrible.

When you're a passed hand you can pull it.

I think we'd all like to know what you are smoking and how much it costs - because it must be really really good for you to come out with this nonsense. Your argument that partner is providing 7 playing tricks doesn't really make sense, because what might be a lot of tricks in one strain may not be very many in another. Hands fit to a lesser or greater degree, you can't just say: he's got this many tricks, I've got this many tricks; so let's add them together and see where we get! For 5♦ to make is requiring quite a lot. Give partner xxx x AQJTxxx Qx (this is a very good hand!) and game will only make when ♦Kx is onside. There are a whole bunch of reasonable 3♦ openers that give you poor play: QJx x AJT9xxx Kx, xx xx KQTxxxx Kx, x Qx AKxxxxx xxx et cetera...for game to make you need only two losers in clubs and trumps. That's asking for a one loser trump suit and a club stiff/ace. To me, a one loser trump suit and the ♣A is a one level opening, so you are banking on your partner having a one loser trump suit (not set in stone), and a club singleton. Once you've given yourself a club singleton, 4♥ is basically made, partner has 2+ trumps pretty much always, so you can score 6.5 natural trump tricks, 2 spades, a ruff and either a diamond trick, a 3rd spade trick or a 2nd ruff. So pretty much any hand where you make 5♦, you can make 4♥. Your second point about pre-empting the opponents is from planet Mars. You said it yourself: we have 4 quick tricks, and you think partner has a singleton heart! So it looks like we have several cashing tricks, before we even get started with the possibility of getting diamond ruffs! I don't know what rock crusher they can have apart from a huge single suiter in clubs, how can you have a rock crusher with no honours in the major suits, and missing at least a couple diamond honours too? What do you think rock crusher means? This isn't a pre-emptive auction, this is our hand. I think I would probably bid 3♥, hopefully if they have a doubleton trump we will have some game prospects (trump behaving, club shortage, diamond ace), and if they rebid 4♦ hopefully we have a chance to make that too. I think pass is close behind. 4♥ can't be an option because it has all the disadvantages of 3♥, with very few gains (concealment of information is one thing, but if dummy has a void/single trump the person will be able to double with QJTx(x) of trumps anyway).

That's a good point. I feel like this sort of problem seems to crop up more at the table than in books.