KurtGodel

You'd quite like for partner to lead a heart.

The person with ♦Axx will duck one round after seeing their partner's count signal. The person with ♦Ax, will win and play another diamond, they might need to be careful about keeping an entry to their partner's hand in clubs though, this requires the defense to be wide awake. Either way, there is no hope of getting to dummy by playing diamonds, or by ruffing clubs. So the problem is actually simple: Which is the better shot 1) Opening leader has K♥ or the K♠ is single. 2) The spade finesse. Call the probability of the king being onside p. Then line one succeeds: p + (1-p)0.26 = 0.74p + 0.26, whereas the finesse works 0.5. So if you think the heart finesse works 32% of the time (or better) you should take it.

Things we know: 1) Spade honours are split. (Top one not led, continuing with a small one after playing the K, restricted choice to some extent about which card to lead) 2) West doesn't have a singleton diamond. (Didn't lead one, didn't try and put partner in after diamonds were played) 3) West made a strange lead. Why not just lead a spade? Your holding is a bit dodgy, but still. If they had xx or xxx of trumps they could easily have led one instead of Hxx(x) in clubs. 4) West has 3/4 clubs. 5) West probably doesn't have ♦Qxxx, as they might have played a diamond back (you are marked with some length). 6) East probably has 8x in diamonds. Since we weren't told they play reverse count, I don't really buy that they would play the 8 from 8xx. 7) West seems to have overcalled with junk. They probably have Q♥. 8) Vacant spaces suggest that West cannot hold 3 hearts, unless he is 5323 which requires his partner to have given false count, and for him to have exactly 3 clubs. I would cash the A♥ first, see if the seven drops on my left, and then probably play for the drop anyway.

I doubt it, it's easy to say that when you can see all the hands. I'm pretty sure that a sim would make pass a clear winner.

In the Junior Euros I had a queen guess of Kxxx on table with AJT9x in hand. I was intending on playing RHO for the queen as there was quite a big difference in vacant places. Just in case I advanced the Jack, LHO went into a 10 second huddle and then played low. Then it was my turn to think, eventually I elected to play low, of course this lost to Qx. I called the director, and my LHO said she was just giving count. The director told me that it would be ridiculous to cover (the bidding had shown I had at least 5 cards in this suit), and told me not to call for fatuous rulings! I got a bit het up, as this was worth 70% of a board. Then my LHO burst into tears, and said that she would never cheat. I decided to drop it after this, as she was a player from one of the weaker countries and the upset looked quite genuine. This sort of thing has happened to me dozens of times, nearly always in this sort of spot, or when I have a KJ guess. I now know that you will never get redress, because as soon as you call the director the opponents deny any hesitation, and you just look like a muppet. In these situations, unless I know the opponents to be honest, I just back my initial judgement rather than read too much into a hesitation, unless it is really blatant. I appreciate that this sort of thing is a little different to transmitting UI to partner, it's about transmitting false information to declarer. I found myself defending a contract where we had reached a 5 card ending and it was clear that the whole hand was just about a KJ guess. Declarer (who was decent) huddled for a long time and led towards dummy, my partner (for whatever reason) took ages to produce a card (not having the ace - of course) so declarer rose king. I knew and liked declarer, and so apologised for my partner. Declarer then called the director to ask for a ruling, and he explained the situation, saying that he would have at least considered playing the jack. The director awarded a split ruling of 50% of 4H= and 50% of 4H+1. I tried to argue quite vociferously that declarer should get it wrong anyway because 1) partner had led from Qxxx (in another suit) at trick 1, so restricted choice placed the queen in my hand, 2) I had pitched a discouraging club at trick 3 (I knew the hand). Director was having none of this...

You probably also have to discuss what 6♦ as a response to 6♣. I can imagine a disagreement about whether it is pick a major, to play or a general grand try. I would have thought it was natural, but there are some people with whom I play that if I bid this I can guarantee that they will think that this could be anything, but it doesn't show diamonds!

Drop acid, then the vibe of the interview will definitely be different at the end than at the start.

I forecast that he will put bids that aren't 4♥ as low as 7.

Dang, fair enough. I feel like a muppet now :)

If you trust your card reading, just duck at trick one (pitching a diamond). Double trump squeeze will result in 12 tricks on any layout (diamonds not 5-0). If you don't, take Justin's line. :) It's a trap!

Me too.

Agreed.

I still think that perhaps something needs to be fixed, either with the subs or standardising the card. I played this and had Axxx ATxxxx x xx. I dealt and the bidding went P - P - 1D - (1H) - X - end, partner thought I was making a penalty double! Luckily I happened to have a heart stack and he a rather good hand, so we collected more than the value of game, but I could have had a completely different hand and he still would have sat. My partner wouldn't respond to any noises from my end so we couldn't agree anything.

Yeah, to some extent that's why I posted this (and why I said in the OP - does it matter which honour?). I can't imagine anyone dropping the Q from Q9, that would be ridiculous. I thought it would be interesting how people thought about this situation. The rest of the hand was if no high card falls you should finesse the 8 and play for a trump coup with H9xx onside. On the actual hand it did not matter, as trumps were 3-3 and my drunken bidding (and the fact I thought P would have 3 hearts) paid off.

Fair enough, I concede.

What we would actually do. I think part of the element is deciding when someone falsecards from J9 et cetera...

Agree that it's a decent hand, but is it enough to move? Surely your partner could have quite a lot of junk? I guess to some extent it depends how you play these raises.

This sort of thing happens to me all the time.

Very difficult to fault North's bidding in any way, if you don't play any gadgetry it can be tough to get to game here. South might have bid 4♣, but from their point of view 3NT could very easily be the right spot. South might also have chosen 2NT, but this doesn't help at all, the only alternative is 2♦, which seems excessive to say the least. To some extent it depends on your style, if North frequently has fewer than 4 clubs, then I don't think anyone is at fault. Even if North nearly always has length, I think it is tough to get to 5♣. With the actual South hand I would just have bid 2NT, which would not have been a great place to be.

There are two basic reasons for opening 1♠. Firstly it will be easier to play in slam when slam is making, secondly it will be easier to play in clubs. I don't really think that we belong in clubs anyway, so this shouldn't really be an issue, with such a good and long spade suit we must belong in this strain nearly all the time. Opening 4♠ has some advantages: it will be a lot more difficult for your opponents to guess what to do. This might not be our hand, and in this case they will struggle to bid slam or find the right game. Or it could be our hand, but they bid anyway, and at this vulnerability we are getting very good odds. I don't think we should fret about missing the odd slam, yes partner might have two out of the following: red aces, Q♠/length and after all that they need a club control too. If you need to catch partner with an opening bid rich in controls then I think that you are asking for too much, and you should just pre-empt. When you bid 4♠, you will make life a nightmare for your opponents, especially if you open some junk too in this seat/position. They won't know whether you have a good hand like this, or some KQJxxxxx x xx xx rubbish. You might discover that they don't know their methods that well; yes your opponents look decent, but are they 100% sure that 4NT is 2 or 3 places to play, is some 5NT GSF or pick a slam etc... Since you are going to bid 4♠ at some point in the auction, you should do it now. Don't worry about slam, it's not even clear you are making game yet.

4♠ Then I will try and make it.

I was present for this one. I would bid 1NT, I think it's clear to upgrade.

After a questionable, auction you wind up in 6♥. The 9♣ is led, you try the queen from dummy and this fetches the king and your ace. How do you choose to play if when you play a heart to the king LHO: i) Plays low ii) Drops an honour (does it matter which one to you?) iii) Drops the 9 Try posting your answers as spoilers, as it might be a good opportunity for some to learn by working the problem out. I appreciate that this auction might not have a single call you agree with, but it's important to include the auction so that you can think about whether you were asking for a particular lead, or whether the opponents might have bid. [hv=pc=n&s=sahat873dkq4cajt4&n=sk9743hk6daj7cq82&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1hp1sp2cp2dp2np3hp6hppp]266|200[/hv]

A world class player I know often says when he is teaching weaker players he says you need three things to bid a slam: 1) Good trumps 2) A trick source 3) Good controls. We have all of those things, if we splinter we will never mention our trick source, if we bid 2NT we probably don't get to mention our trick source and partner won't be able to tell us things that are helpful (perhaps we will be warned off slam when he has heart shortage). The main disadvantage of bidding 2♥, is that partner is unlikely to play us for 4 trumps, but if they are open to this you should be okay. Also, you make it considerably easier to bid grand if partner has a monster. So I will try 2♥. I like splinters a lot, but tend to bid them when I am 4441 or when my 5 card suit is only good to fill holes in partner's hand, rather than trying to build tricks for ourselves.

After having bid this much I really doubt this will work. It also requires for us to have underled QJ of hearts rather than just the ace, which means we need to have two specific card rather than just the one.