EricK

4m is my favourite pre-empt and I look for sensible opportunities to use it as much as possible. Here is an opportunity, so 4♦ for me.

Pass? Surely not. Even Reese came to advocate that a sequence like 1♥ - 2♣ 2♦ was forcing (I think, can't find the reference) In the Foreword to "Acol in the 90s" by Reese and Bird (first published 1990): But they do not advocate that 1♥-2♣-2♦-3♥ is forcing. In fact it shows the same sort of hand as 1♥-1♠-2♦-3♥, except with a ♦ suit instead of a ♠ suit.

My initial thought was 6NT. Not so much because I think it is the best technical bid, or necessarily the best contract. Bitter experience has taught me that if I try to get too "clever" on this sort of hand something goes wrong - someone will pass an "obvious" cue bid; someone will bid RKB for one suit but partner will respond for another; someone will mistake a 5NT "pick a slam" for a 5NT grand slam try etc.

It's probably not very surprising, that whatever you think the minimum combined strength should be for a game forcing auction, it comes up most often when it is equally split between opener and responder. Although this is not surprising, it isn't immediately obvious (to me at any rate) that it follows that that will also be the answer to the question I asked. Huh? I thought that was exactly the question you asked. I don't think it is :) 24 points come up most often when they are split 12/12. But how does directly imply that in order to maximise the probability that 1. dealer has an opening bid AND 2. responder has enough to know that the partnership has at least 24 points you need to set the minimum range of the opening bid to 12? It may well be true. But it isn't obviously true to me. That much should be obvious, because if it were obvious I wouldn't have asked the question in the first place :)

It's probably not very surprising, that whatever you think the minimum combined strength should be for a game forcing auction, it comes up most often when it is equally split between opener and responder. Although this is not surprising, it isn't immediately obvious (to me at any rate) that it follows that that will also be the answer to the question I asked. Can we generalise this method so that we can say the answer to the question "What 3 point NT range maximises the probability that the auction goes 1NT 3NT?" is simply 12-14 (assuming 24 points for game)?

You are still answering the question. The only difference is that you are using a lower requirement to force to game than other people. Just out of interest, you will presumably get to game with, say, an 11 point "plausible" 1♠ opening opposite an 11 point "liberal" 2/1 response even if there is no fit. Would you also get to game if the suits were rearranged in such a way that the auction started 1x 1y instead of 1p 2q? Or do you use the extra room to help stay out of game in that instance?

The weaker one's requirements for a 1M opener, the more likely it is that you will be dealt such a hand, but the less likley it is that partner will be strong enough to bid a 2/1. But conversely, the stronger your requirements for a 1M bid, the less often you'll be able to bid it, but the more likely partner is to have a 2/1 response. This suggests that there is a minimum strength for a 1M bid which maximises the probability of an auction starting 1M 2y. Does anybody have any idea of how to work out what this is? I realise that there is no unique answer to this as it depends on what combined strength you think you need to make a 2/1 and also on exactly how you measure the strength of a hand (i.e. both HCP and distribution). But given answers to these subquestions, a unique answer should exist to the main question.

In 1 and 2 I bid 3♥ expecting the auction to often continue 3♠ 3NT. In 3 I bid 3NT. If partner isn't interested in my side suits, I'm not telling him about it (although it depends to some extent about what "good suits" mean in this context)

3♦ at this vulnerability, 4♦ at others.

At what stage did south realise that their '♦KQ' were actually ♥s? :rolleyes:

I would lead ♠J, and I wouldn't have bid 2♠.

When you have a 2-2-5-4 hand, how often do you open 1NT (if within range) or rebid 1NT after 1♦ - 1M (again, if within range)? What about opening 2NT or rebidding 2NT after 1♦ - 1M? My feeling is that it generally works out better than bidding ♦ then ♣ (unless your high cards are very concentrated in the minors). But once you have an idea like this, it's easy for confirmation bias to take over and prevent you from thinking disinterestedly about it.

Playing pairs last night, I got into a shaky 3NT (misfitting 12 opposite 12), which needed quite a few finesses and friendly breaks etc to make. About half way through the hand, I thought, "I'm actually making this". That didn't really"feel right" (if you know what I mean) so I carefully counted and recounted my tricks taken and winners left, but got to nine every time. So I ran for home with those 9 tricks. When I said "just making", the defense pointed out I had ony made 8 tricks - unusually for me, I had one of the early tricks turned the wrong way. When we looked at the traveller everybody else in NT had only made 7 tricks. And I would have too if I had tried to take an extra trick! Does anybody else have any stories of mistakes whcih turned out well after all?

Absent any agreements about WJS, I think that double followed by ♥ at the cheapest level is reasonable.

Can anybody answer this question: You have a 3-3-3-4 distribution dummy is 3-3-4-3. You get a spade lead. You cash ♠AK, ♥AK ♦AK all following. At this point, what are the probabilities for each club break? Ignore the fact that the information so obtained might be useless and that we have almost certainly already misplayed the hand!

At the start of the hand the 4-2 break is more likely than the 3-3 break. But if you come down to the last three tricks and none of this suit have been discarded then the 3-3 break is now certain. So, do the odds of a 3-3 break go relatively smoothly from "less probable" to "certain", or is there a large jump right at the end with 3-3 being less probable nearly all the way? If the former is the case then that would make Reese right, wouldn't it?

My intitial thought was to bid 6♦. Having read the other replies, I still think 6♦. But Pass should be forcing here, I think.

You are forced as far as you were by the cue-bid. In practice, it is hard to see this stopping short of game.

1♣ 2♠ 3♠* 4♥ 4NT etc *or 4♦ would be my auction. But you probably don't play SJS.

There are two situations, and it's not clear from your post which applies. 1. Partner passes and then frequently goes down in 2M. In this case, partner must learn to play the cards better. 2. Partner bids on and then insists on playing with that major as a trump suit (because you have already agreed it). Partner needs to understand that you often raise on three, and then take that into account in future bidding when he only has 4.

The easiest way to look for a diamond slam is to bid a 3♥ splinter straight away. Of course this pretty much gives up on finding a ♠ fit, but if you don't have methods to force over 1♦ 1♠ 1NT, you have to give up something!

While these "modern" methods might work in theory, we see time after time on this forum how they don't work in practice for the average bridge player. North makes a space saving response of 1♥ instead of a "wasteful" SJS, and as a result he is forced to make one vague force after another and finds out no information of any use. Meanwhile, South has a balanced minimum but manages to bid three suits on the first three rounds of the auction. By the time the bidding gets to the 4 level, neither partner really has much idea of what the trump suit is going to be, nor whether the hands fit together for slam. It's always easy after the event to show how the bidding should have gone using these sort of methods, but for most people, at the table, it constantly proves too hard.

I have a nagging suspician that if we followed hrothgar's ideas about disclosure, the optimum strategy might be to claim to follow a certain mixed strategy, and then just bid straight down the middle. Similarly, the optimum strategy with regards to psyches, is possibly to never psyche but to foster the reputation that you are someone who psyches frequently.

This style of bidding is quite alien to me. Both players have balanced hands and yet neither seems to have been able to impart that basic information to the other. South has managed to bid 3 suits on a 4333 hand, while North's only suit bid has been in his second best suit, and he's followed it up with FSF (what exactly is he looking for?) and a pick a slam bid (again, why?)

yes, North made a dubious bid, but that doesn't mean he should get the blame. Swap the ♦K and ♥T for ♥K and ♦T, and North's bid is much less dubious and South's pass is equally bad, and the contract still wrong.