EricK

Are you playing that your 1♠ bid shows 5♠? If so, then partner's 2♥ bid is just a general force, probably denying ♠ support, and you should now show your ♦ support. If you only promise 4♠ for your bid, then 2♥ will often include hands with 3 card support. Whatever your bid showed, I don't think partner is strong enough to bid 2♥. She should have settled for 3♦ which you can happily pass. One point is that you are unlikely to have great length in ♠ bearing in mind that you passed originally. Perhaps your partner should have figured this out.

I'm not certain I am right, but my plan would be 1♠ followed by 2♥, often followed (eg after a preference to 2♠) by 3♣. In this case, partner would of course support the ♥. Over your 3♣ bid, I would have bid 3NT. Thgis seems like the best way to tell partner I have both unbid suits stopped. You can bid 4♥ over 3NT. I wouldn't (but then, as outlined above, I wouldn't have got myself into this mess in the first place:) ).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your pass. The fact that you would be bidding your weakest suits is a big negative factor. Of course once you have passed, your hand becomes massive. As long as you don't force the bidding too high, you should definitely bid strongly. If partner is not in the habit of opening light in 3rd seat then you can play 2NT as a maximum pass with 4♥ (so similar to Jacoby). If partner does open light then you should probably bid Drury with this hand. You were certainly right to look for a slam. Your hand could hardly be better at this point. Your correct bid was 3♦ however. Your partner was probably thinking that neither of you had a ♦ control so quickly signed off in game.

The 2NT bid is terrible. The only "justification" I can find for it (and please don't take this the wrong way) is that your partner wasn't happy with your declarer play and was trying to hog the declaration. I don't think you are strong enough to double 3♣. You LHO heard you open and heard your partner's NT bid and still chose to freely bid 3♣ in preference to defending a part score. Unless he is mad you are probably at best getting this one off (changing +50 into +100). At worst, however, you are doubling them into game. But I probably don't double enough, and I wouldn't say that the double was a bad bid. [Actually it looks like good defense gets it two off - ♦AQ follwed by ♥ switch and then more top ♦ promotes a trump trick.] 3NT is another bad bid. I wonder whether your partner thought that your double showed the ♣ stop which he was supposed to have! Or perhaps he believed his own propaganda from the previous round.

The previous replies have covered your question well - you are minimum for your bidding so far. But I would add that if you had a similar but stronger hand (eg ♠Ax ♥KQxxx ♦xxx ♣KQx) theb 4NT is still not correct because of your weak ♦. On that hand, if you want to look for a slam, then a bid of 5♣ is in order.

I don't like 1♠. The main reason is that if the bidding starts 1♥ 1♠ 2m 2♥ partner will not know you have genuine support. A secondary reason is that your spade suit is really weak so that partner might misevaluate a spade honour or a spade shortage. A third reason is that it makes it easier for LHO to get a lead directing bid in or double to show both minors. A fourth reason is that if the opponents do compete, partner might blow a trick with a spade lead. 2NT is OK, although I can understand any doubts you might have about it. Will partner simply bid 3NT if has something like ♠Qxxxx ♥Jx ♦KQx ♣xxx? The only alternatives are: 3♦ followed by 3♠ over the likely 3♥ (which will mislead partner into thinking you have a singleton ♣, but at least will guarantee you have the ♣ stopped if you end up in NT) 2♦. Which has the same advantages and flaws as 3♦, and the added flaw of being NF (you could easily miss a spade game if partner passes with a 5134 hand) 3♠. This looks too commital, but may work out OK even if you get to a 4-3 fit. (It is more likely to work out OK if 3NT by partner would be natural showing a 42(34) hand with weak spades).

Yes, and to think otherwise would be moronic in my opinion. The biggest problem by far that the ACBL has is declining membership. They should cater just about every decision to what most members currently want. I have no opinion on how good a job of that they are actually doing. But surely antagonizing the majority of current members would just be a step toward the end of the ACBL. If the membership is declining because current members are leaving then arguably they should try to appeal to the current membership. If the membership is declining because old people are dying (or becoming to ill to play) and they are not being replaced then they should try to attract new members - because they will not succeed if they try to prevent people dying! But since they will always lose some membership as a result of death and illness, then they should be doing things which encourage new members anyway.

One point to consider is that if they are going down in a freely bid slam you are probably getting a good board whether you double or not. But if they happen to be making it even on a ♥ lead, then a double could be very costly for your side. A Lightner double is not designed to get you an extra 50 points. It is designed to help you beat a slam you wouldn't otherwise beat. If it helps you beat the slam enough of the time then it will show an overall gain. If you have already told partner what to lead earlier in the auction, the odds completely change, and double now becomes much more risky as there is only potential for a much smaller gain, but the downsides (they make the slam anyway; they can run to a making slam) still remain.

I don't advocate using 3♠ as a puppet to 3NT and 3NT as artificial unless you have a good memory! These auctions come up realtively rarely and it is all too easy, especially towards the end of a session, to accidentally pass after 2NT 3NT, or to accidentally bid 3NT instead of 3♠.

I don't like the 3♥ bid. When partner opens my singleton I am never keen to stretch in the bidding and South had already bid his values with the double. But 3NT is just wierd. Partner can't have a strong hand or else he would have bid 2♥ on the first round. Hence he has a weak hand with long ♥ (OK he doesn't have that hand, but he should!). There is no way that 3NT is going to be better than 3♥.

It's romantic. That's not enough for you? I have a girlfriend, I don't see the advantages :P B) She may decide that she prefers gerben since he is more romantic.... Modern girls prefer diamonds. Stone age girls prefer clubs.

Justin, as usual, makes a very valid point. If you have a very marginal opening hand, then other players at the table will also have near opening strength. If you are playing against a pair who open light, or against a pair whose third hand openings are light, then there is an increased chance that the second best hand at the table will be your partner's in second seat. This seems likely to swing the odds towards bidding. When were Pearson Points first formulated? Was it at a time when opening bids were in general stronger so that the above argument no longer works. In that case,if there was another near opening strength hand at the table it was 2:1 against it being your partner's hand, so bidding with short spades becomes more dangerous as the opponents are now more likely to win the part score battle.

That is right. But note that in the case where declarer wins the lead with the King, South must underlead his ♦AQ on the second round as well. If he leads one of the tops, then declarer ruffs, drives out the other top trump and South is in a dilemma. If he plays the other top ♦ he sets up dummy's suit so he can't froce declarer again. But if he underleads to partner's J, declarer can discard a ♣ and North can't force declarer as he has run out of ♦.

If I am playing WJO I will bid 1♠. If I am playing IJO I will bid 2♠. I have voted for 1♠.

Here is an interesting hand. The contract is 4♠ by East. Do you want to play or defend?[hv=n=s86ht98642dj73c82&w=s52hk7dkt965caj95&e=skjt94hajd2ckt643&s=saq73hq53daq84cq7]399|300|[/hv]

I reckon I would have bid 1S. The double does not promise 4xS If doubler has 4xS it does not prevent us from having a 4-4 S fit. If we end up in Spades (presumably only when the fit is adequate) we will know who to play for the opposing Spade length, which will somewhat offset the disadvantage of the likely bad break. We have a Diamond fit to fall back on if we don't have an adequate Spade fit. If we have a Spade fit and I don't bid 1S at this opportunity there is a fair chance of the fit going missing. Partner will not thank me for that. To my mind the bidding was fairly normal. There were a few bids that were marginal but excusable. I reckon the leap to 4S takes the blame, if North is under pressure to support with 3 cards You might have a 4-4 spade fit although it is unlikely. One further downside of bidding 1♠ on this auction simply because you have 4 ♠ is that it prevents the opponents from wandering into their 4-4 ♠ fit. If you give the opponents a chance to go wrong, maybe they will. I think the downsides of bidding 1♠ outweigh the upsides. I realize that this opinion is against the mainstream, but, like in so many other areas of competitive bidding, I think many players remain stuck in their "two-handed" thinking and forget that the opponents are trying to reach their best contract too.

I hate much of the NS bidding. Going through each bid in turn: Playing Strong NT I would have opened 1NT but 1D isn't bad. The double is OK I don't think much of 1♠. RHO is likely to have spade length so even if we have a ♠ fit (which isn't all that likely) a ♠ contract might not play very well. We certainly have a ♦ fit though and that will play well. Furthermore, opponents surely have a ♥ fit, probably 9 cards long, I want to make it harder for them to locate the right level if it is their hand. 2♥ is OK 2♠ would be fine opposite the sort of hand I would have bid 1♠ on. Not so much if partner can have a weak 4 card suit. Pass is fine. He has a minimal double and partner has bid his shortest suit. 4♠ is an overbid if partner has 4♠. It is a gross overbid if partner might only have 3. A 3♦ bid tells partner everything about your hand. It is a common mistake to rebid 4 card suits which have been supported. If partner has 4♠ he can always go back to them later. If he only has 3 he might be thankful to be given another option. The next two passes are fine, but East's double is aggressive. For all he knows, NS might have 5 spade tricks and 5 diamond tricks.

I would have bid my ♣ rather than agree ♥ straight away. This loks like a slam hand and I want to find the best slam (i.e. best suit and best level). But I have a question for you: Why were you so desperate to stay out of slam? You have 18 points and a fit opposite an opening bid, and partner has not given you any reason to think the 5 level is unsafe. And yet you gave up at the 4 level. ♠xxxx ♥AQxxx ♦x ♣AKx Is enough for a grand slam and I don't think partner would have bid this hand any differently. When you have a strong hand opposite an opening bid, you should actively look for a slam, not look for excuses to stay out of one.

♦J I'm not going to give any lengthy rationalisation, it just looks right. I can't see any reason to prefer one major over the other, or either major over the ♦. A ♣ might work, but if partner has ♣ length as well, responder to 1NT is more likely to have an unbalanced hand and so mightn't have left 1NT in.

GIB has a fair number of bidding bugs. When Matt Ginsberg was still working on the program he would respond to such bug reports quite quickly. It was a shame when he had to stop. One of the last things I recall was that there was an issue with GIB's simulations not allowing for the possibility of a penalty double of its aggressive WJOs, so the simulations were making them out to be more effective thean they really were. I don't know if that ever got fixed.

Other times in the same scenarios it is better not to lead trumps but to let partner over-ruff dummy (or declarer shorten the trumps in his own hand)

You appear to have a sound opener (5 card suit headed by two honours, controls in two outside suits, 12 HCP). You also appear to have a raise to 3NT opposite a 12-14 NT (which is what partner showed). Partner is a results merchant. If you had got to 2NT and he had made 3, he would have blamed you for that as well.

Your partner should have made a game try in ♦ because your points might be in diamonds. After all, with a 4234 shape you will always open 1♣ even with much better ♦

The first one is a bit silly first to speak. But you certainly picked the right pair to do it against. The second one is fine opposite a passed partner. I bet that not all your pre-empts work out as well as these ones did!

Well the reasons are to better define all your 1M openings as either 6+ or 5+ with an outside suit, and to guarantee that you can show the balanced nature of an opening hand without going above 1NT. The fact that it makes rebids easier on a couple of sequences is a pleasant side effect.