EricK

For some reason, pinning a singleton honour seems to be a lot more fun than dropping a singleton honour. Can anyone explain why that is?

What is the best way to play this hand single dummy? I think I would have played King and another Heart and run a few trumps to see if I could guess who was guarding what. Obviously after that nothing works on this hand, but I don't know whether in principle it is better to go for the ♣ finesse the ♦ finesse or some sort of squeeze.

I don't get this one :unsure: Can somebody explain? If you play a small card then declarer is faced with A8x opposite Qxx with the K, T and 9 still out. The only way he can possibly hope to avoid losing another trick is if the K is now singleton. So he will play the A next. Fortunately (for him) this works. If, on the other hand you play a high card, say the T, on the first round, declarer is faced with A8x opposite Qxx but now there is K9x outstanding. He now has a choice of plays for all the tricks. He can play the A as before (playing West for an original holding of Kx and East for T9x) OR he can now come back to hand and play the Queen (Playing West for an original holding of Kxx and East for an original holding of T9). By making the false card you give him the chance to go wrong. Although if he knows about this falsecard and suspects that you know about it as well, he may still guess the position right - but at least you will have given him a guess to make!

Well, the defense has to start with two rounds of trumps to prevent the ♦ ruff. And then a switch to a ♥ is the only continuation which doesn't immediately give the tenth trick. That much is obvious. But since one of the best players here considers this an interesting hand I suspect that declarer can actually make after this. It must involve running all your trumps and then throwing someone in as I don't see an obvious squeeze - so probably you need to ruff a small ♥ to get back to hand to keep the ♥ tenace in dummy. Now for his last 5 cards, West needs to keep two ♣ and two ♥ so must come down to singleton ♦, and East must keep ♥Q and two ♦. If he keeps fewer than 2 ♣ he can be thrown in in ♦ so he must come down to 2♣ as well. Dummy comes down to ♥AT and ♣AQT (he discards the small ♦ last of all else the throw in in ♦ can't materialise). Then ♦A discarding the ♥T followed by a ♣ finesse forces West to give the last tricks to dummy. Suffice it to say that at the table I would probably have taken a different line.

Declarer leads towards KJx in dummy and you have the Ace. Is it ethical to play low quickly in an effort to deceive declarer? What about thinking for a while when you have the Queen but no Ace? What about thinking for a while when you have no honour at all?

I wouldn't mind a game bid on 1 and 5, but wouldn't necessarily always make one. I would tend to avoid a game bid on the others, but sometimes might make one anyway if the fancy took me!

The program "Jack" does this. Probably other bridge playing software does as well. Obviously this is a bit of overkill if all you want to do is work out the par score.

I wouldn't bid 4m with the example hand in this thread. I was referring to the rule about bidding game on 7-4 hands. Obviously, some 74 (or longer) hands are worth a bid at the 5 level, and it makes sense to bid them at the 4 level if you are bidding a major. But surely, The suggestion isn't that all 7-4 hands are good enough to bid at the 5 level?

The rule seems odd to me. Why should a 74 hand be worth the four level if the 7 carder is a major, but be worth an extra trick if the long suit is a minor? Now if the rule said that 74 hands should open at the 4 level then it would make more sense. As an aside, 4m is in many ways a better pre-empt than 5m as the opponents are less likely to want to double you (and you go off one fewer trick if they do!) but they have no room to sort out which major they should be playing in.

But surely you can have a 2 suiter which is strong in context? Nope.. I play a convention invented or at least explained to me by my friend Mishovnbg in which ALL strong two suited hand (and it doesn't have to be taht strong) are opened either 2NT, 3C, or 3D... At best I could be 5-4, 6-4, 7-4 and strong, never 5-5 or better and strong. Search this forum for Misiry if you are curious... Unless all two suited hands which are strong enough to be opened are opened conventionally then you will have a two suited hand which is not strong enough for your conventional opener but is strong enough to open. Some of those hands will strong in context. I am not suggesting that a jumping to the three level after a 2/1 on those hands is a good idea (nor that it is a bad idea for that matter).

But surely you can have a 2 suiter which is strong in context?

This is what I would recommend too. I actually thought this was the normal approach.

What is the strength of a 2♦ opening in 3rd seat? If it is still 9-13ish then can't you use a jump to 3NT to show this sort of hand, as the lack of opening bid makes a natural 3NT repsonse impossible?

The squeeze and defense are interesting, but why were ♥ never supported?! 6♥ seems a much better contract than 6NT and there isn't even the excuse that it is MP.

I agree that a lead from AQx is not at all what one would expect here. But then I'm not sure I agree with almost any of the actions taken on this board. When one is playing in that sort of game I am not sure what inferences one can safely draw.

I guess this is one of the best descriptions I've ever seen, and it's valid for all kinds of competitive games/sports/events. Some people just think they're better than they are (it's called a dream, a wish, hope) but they don't get results. Why???? They won't think the reason is themselves, nooooo, for once they won't think only about themselves. It must be someone else's fault! "They must be cheating, because opponents can't be better than me." Next thing they'll do is sum up all their worthless credentials and hope someone will also see a better player in them than they actually are... It also explains the popularity of some of the more, um, extreme political viewpoints amongst some of the, um, less educated members of the population. "I'm an intelligent enough guy, why can't I get a decent-paying job? It can't be my fault, it must be the fault of the illegal immigrants (or the capitalists, or the Jews, or the illegal immigrant Capitalist Jews)."

That was my first thought too. But with the King pretty much marked on the right (I know, I know) the Ace won't cost a trick and it does allow you to definitely hold the lead and see what outside suit might be the best souce of tricks.

I bid 4♥. I presume 3♥ would be a splinter, so what is the difference in hand type if 4♥ is a splinter as well?

Maybe the best ( :) ) sequence is (in a strong ♣ context) 1♣ 2♣ 2♦* 2NT 3NT 2♦ is asking for more information (normally a 4 card major). Now East is on lead and is unlikley to find a ♦ lead. However, West might double the 2♦ bid for the lead (or make some overcall in ♦). Now we have a fighting chance to reach 4♥ as the opponents have revealed their secret weapon.

I can imagine a stone age Acol sequence like 1♥ 2♣ 2NT 3♥ 3♠ 4♥ 3♠ shows concentration of strength and pinpoints ♦ weakness.

With the hand you quote, you pass. Yes you will beat 4♥ (unless declarer has void, and partner can't supply a trick), but since partner has passed over 4♥, you probably aren't missing anything much your way, so the loss from not playing a penalty double will be minimal. But if you play a penalty double, you can lose heavily on hands where you have a take out double distribution (like the one in the OP!). Why force yourself to guess in an auction where there is probably some sort of game or slam your way? So playing take out doubles you lose slightly when you have a penalty double hand, and playing penalty doubles you lose more heavily when you have a take out double hand. But that is not the end of it. Since LHO has advertised a long suit, you are far more likely to have a take out double type hand than a penalty double hand! Playing take out doubles won't work all the time, but it will work more often than playing penalty doubles, and that is all you can ask for a method - especially when you are at the 4 level.

You must bid again. You could easily have a game or slam here. Double keeps all options open so I would bid that - but there is no guarantee that partner will make the correct decision (which is why people pre-empt).

For that you would need tutti frutti.

I do read tons and tons of bridge books. In the last couple of weeks I have read 4 books by Kelsey (well 7 in fact as one of them was the compilation of his squeeze books) and reread bits of some other books. Show me an end position with all 4 hands and can probably sort it out very quickly. A month or so ago, for instance, a guy at work showed me the bridge column in his paper which had an end position. I looked at it and immediately (i.e. after a second or so) thought "It's a backwash squeeze.". As indeed it was! My problem is that in the middle of a hand, there is nothing inside my head but total confusion. I know someone showed out of spades but was it LHO or RHO? What was the bidding again? Are there three clubs left out or only two? What was discarded on the third round of trumps? And even if I am having one of my good days so that I can answer those questions, I still can not get a clear picture in my mind of the total position, and as a consequence I can't work out what to do. I would like to ask any of the experts here, what is going on in your head during a hand? Do you picture everything at once like in a bridge diagram? Or do you, perhaps, only see one hand at a time, but that is enough for you to work out the best play? Or perhaps you don't see anything but can just see the solution anyway?

But probably the most important thing about any game is the scoring. If you don't know what scores what you will have no idea of what to do. Ultimately, every bridge action should relate back to the scoring table.