EricK

With regards to the 2H vs X question. You said you went with double partly because you were strong enough to double again. This seems to be a reason to bid 2H first. That way you basically get to show your whole hand: 5H, 3 places to play, extras. It is on minimum hands, only worth one bid, where you might well choose to double first.

I think 2Sx goes down on optimal defense as declarer keeps getting forced in hearts promoting a third trump trick for EW

But suppose in Nigel’s diagram you instead remove a C? Don’t you need the guard squeeze element now as both defenders have a heart control?

A 4 card major opening is quite preemptive. In fact that’s one of its main advantages. But preempting also preempts partner, and the stronger you are, the less you will want to do that. Here you want to leave room to find the best contract and for partner to be able to make descriptive bids. 1S will very often get a 1NT response which here not only wrong sides a NT contract, but doesn’t tell you what suits he has either. 1C will nearly always get a response in a suit and will allow you to bid NT yourself. Compare this to holding the same hand but with ♣A732. If you are playing a strong NT, then it is far more reasonable to open 1S. We preempt LHO, without really affecting our ability to bid constructively to game if partner has enough (as he will be strong enough to make a descriptive 2 level bid).

In 4th seat, North should open 2♦ or pass. Weakish hands with short Spades are dangerous in 4th seat as often the opponents will have a spade fit and be able to outcompete you. A 4th suit pre-empt is not a weak hand, but a minimum single-suited opening bid. It makes it harder for opponents to enter the auction and makes it easier for partner to know when to compete if opponents do butt in.

Maybe other players had different bidding and got a different lead. Imagine a sequence like 1NT 2C 2H 3NT. Now you are likely to get a D lead, and will likely make 5C 3D 2S 1H or something like that.

Since the robot would expect you to double with 4♠, he would only bid this way with 56 in the blacks. This hand is probably worth a 5♥ cue, as you have the fillers in his ♣ suit.

I would not have led a heart. When you defend 1NT all pass, especially at MP, there is very often no need to rush. If partner has help in hearts you will normally have time to switch later, but if he doesn’t it will blow a trick more often than not. So with a 4 card suit headed by two honours, I think the risk/reward ratio is not in my favour. While no lead is attractive on this hand, I rate either minor as a better MP lead than a heart.

I have repeatedly seen an issue where the given bidding sequence is illegal (a redouble occurs without a double preceding it) and then it gives an error message and leaves the game. The error message is the same one you get when there is an issue contacting the server.

In an ideal world, players make a statement when making a claim.

I would probably accept this claim. But I, myself, would never make a claim without some sort of statement. The laws say I should make some sort of statement, so I do. And I think not doing so is not only (slightly) unethical, but also (slightly) slows down the game as the opponents have to work out the line you intend for themselves. So, not knowing any of the participants, my sympathy here is with the non-claimers. Obviously, I do not play at the exalted level of the people in the OP. And I realise that, at that level, there has arisen some sort of "honour code" where claiming without a statement is accepted. But I still don't like it.

I would pass, but it wouldn't take much more to make me double, and I wouldn't mind if partner chose to double with a hand like this. I agree with Phil_20686 that if you take away the ♦Q then it is much clearer to pass - but I fear that RHO's ♦A will take away my ♦Q!

On 1, West has completely mis-evaluated his hand, IMO. He has 2 first round controls and 2 second round controls - all of which seem to be working, whereas a normal minimum opening will often have half that. Give him, instead, something like ♠KQJ3 ♥6 ♦J952 ♣KQJ2 so he has a genuine minimum opening, and 4♦ is the limit. Since East has know way of knowing which hand West has, it must be up to West to make some show of strength here. Number 2 looks like a fix to me.

Why is this a stupid agreement? If you have no keycards yourself you almost certainly shouldn't be asking for keycards in the first place so you don't really need this as a way to sign off with 0 opposite 3. And it allows you another way to probe for a grand slam.

I think a Vinje cough has quite a favourable ratio of usefulness to ease of detection/decoding. A cough shows 1 even suit and 3 odd, no cough shows 1 odd suit and 3 even. Or to mix it up a bit a cough on an even numbered board shows 3 even 1 odd; whereas a cough on an odd board shows 3 odd 1 even. This way each player coughs on average once every two boards, and they can do it at any time during the auction.

But she replaced the STOP card with an illegal call (doubling her partner's bid). And nobody tried to restrict her bidding at all (beyond asking her to make a legal call!).

Since splitting up with my previous regular partner, I have become a player-for-hire (with a fee of zero) at my local club. I played with a new partner last night. First some mid-hand chit-chat: Dealer on my right opens 1♦, I overcall 1♥, 3rd hand passes. Partner sits and thinks for a while, and pulls out the "Stop" card. She looks at it bemusedly and says "I didn't mean that card, I meant Double". After we pointed out that she couldn't do that. She reluctantly decided to pass with her 4153 11 point hand. This. surprisingly, turned out to be one our better boards, as I made 1♥ +2 with all games going down. The previous board against the same opponents had already told me this wasn't going to be a great evening: [hv=pc=n&s=sa4hk754dj732cak3&n=skqj5hj6dat6cqj84&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1hp1sp1np3nppp]266|200[/hv] The lead was the ♦K, and as I put down dummy I jokingly said "You'd better make this". And make it she did. Exactly. With no overtricks. She ducked the opening lead, won the small ♦ continuation with the T, played ♣AK and ♠A, and then played on ♥, with the opponents taking 3 more tricks before reluctantly conceding the rest to dummy. When the hand was over, she said "I was trying to get an extra trick. But I don't think it was possible." This person has been playing many times a week for years. And she has a reputation of dumping partners who don't meet her expectations!

Although it might be useful to eliminate some hands from the 1♥ opening to allow more definition. eg including minimum hands with 5♥ and a 5 card minor would allow sequences like 1♥ 1♠ 2♦ 2NT 3♦ to be forcing. This is just an idea off the top of my head. I haven't given much thought as to whether a decent set of responses to this "extended Flannery" can be made to work.

I think this is what Chien-Hwa Wang calls a nosittej squeeze in 'The Squeeze at Bridge', but I don't have my copy to hand. The name, if you are wondering, is the reverse of Jettison. The point being that the situation is similar to that of a jettison squeeze, but there's no actual need to jettison the singleton honour. I have two points to make: I don't recall seeing the name elsewhere so this probably isn't standard; and I am doing this from memory so might be completely wrong about what a Nosittej Squeeze is!

Is there a standard approach to which 4 card suit opener should rebid on various 544 hands on the second round if responder bids the void or 1NT? There are a few different situations: eg with 5♠ 4♥ and 4♣ after 1♠ 1NT, is it normal to rebid 2♥ (because majors are more important) or 2♣ (to leave maximum room for responder to bid)? Is the answer essentially the same with 5♠ 4♥ and 4♦ after 1♠ 1NT? What about if the response is 2♣? Or with 5♥ 4♦ and 4♣ is it normal to rebid 2♣ or 2♦? Does it matter if the response is 1♠ or 1NT? Presumably the answer is the same with 5♠ instead of 5♥. And what about 5♠ 4♦ 4♣ after 1♠ 2♥ where there is much less room? Of course here there might be the option of repeating the ♠. And then there's 4♠ 4♥ 5♦ after 1♦ 2♣ Again rebidding 2♦ might be possible allowing responder to bid his 4 card major (but what if responder is 4405 - what is his standard 2nd round choice?).

The 'rule' I suggest to a new partner who wants to play Acol is that you are strong enough for a 2/1 if you want to be in game opposite a strong NT. Almost any natural bidding system works much better if 1x 2y 2NT is forcing, otherwise responder is guessing on the second round, or opener has to take up extra room to jump to 3NT before responder has had a chance to describe his hand. That's not to say that you should always bid a 2/1 if strong enough. If partner opened 1H and you had eg a 4135 hand and 10 points, you should respond 1S rather than 2C. This is because you are not strong enough to mention your Spades on the second round if partner shows up with a minimum hand, and you would lose the Spade fit if opener had a hand like in the OP.

It's a very nice program. One minor issue: A couple of times this has happened: I have played the hand and made the contract. At the end it says I could have made one more trick. Following the annotated play shows it playing exactly the same as me except for a meaningless difference in the precise card played, at which point the defense does not cash all the tricks it can, so it allows an overtrick to be made. An example is Hand 61 of the NT declarer play group (called "What if East were a good player"). I played the top club on the third club trick to knock out the Ace, the annotated play the low club. In the first case, the defense switches to spades and takes a couple of tricks; in the second it continues Hearts.

Imagine this scenario: Twelve world class players who have all played with or against each other frequently play an individual tournament on BBO. They have all been sent the same system to use, and it is a basic system which leaves a lot of scope for improvisation and eg "bashing" vs a more scientific approach. And they are given the same defensive carding system to use, but again they have scope eg about whether or not to signal in various. They are not allowed to communicate with any of the other players. They all have code names eg A, B, C, D etc so they know when they are playing with or against someone they have previously played in the Indy. Assume they know the identity of the other eleven players, how quickly (if at all) would they be able to identify which one was A, which one was B etc? Assume they didn't know the identity of the other eleven players (just that they were eleven world class players who they had played with or against frequently), how quickly, if at all, could they identify the other players?

Although to be fair, North was also a passed hand. So he can't have an invitational hand either.

Maybe he thought you opened the bidding. Or maybe he's a jerk. Or maybe both.