EricK

1) I have never made one at the table. I suspect I am not good enough to recognize the position in advance if it arose 2) I would love to make one. For a start it would demonstrate that I am good enough to recognize the position at the table! 3) Look at the links psoted by sceptic (although there are a few typos I have spotted). I don't think there is a simple description which covers all types of Backwash squeezes but doesn't include other, related, squeezes. What they have in common is that South trumps one of dummy's plain cards and West is squeezed in 3 suits, one of which is the trump suit. His cards in the outside suits are genuine guards, but the small trump usually serves some subtler purpose. As an aside, the squeezes I have made at the table are Simple squeeze, Double squeeze, Triple Squeeze, Show-up squeeze, and strip squeeze. I have also made a pseudo-progressive squeeze on BBO (i.e. West, squeezed in 3 suits, discarded incorrectly on the squeeze card and so got squeezed again). So next on my list to get are a genuine Progressive squeeze, a Criss-Cross squeeze and a Trump squeeze Eric

Absolutely right! Opening this 1♣ is another example of 2-handed as opposed to 4-handed bridge. If the opponents were to keep quiet, 1♣ would allow you to find out exactly where you want to play. But since they aren't going to keep quiet it is not sensible to give them the chance to find out exactly where they should play! Eric

If he is going to bid a slam, why not 6♣? 6♦ can't really have much of a play if you fail to cue-bid either major, but 6♣ might just scrape 3♣, 6♦, ♥A and a ruff in each hand. There is probably a lot to be said for some sort of "coded" responses to jump rebids. Something like: Cheapest suit agrees partner's first suit, next cheapest suit agrees partner's second suit, NT is natural, other suits show no support and inability to bi NT. So here, 3♦ shows ♦ support, 3♥ shows ♣ support, 3♠ shows no ♥ stop, no support, 3NT shows ♥ stop and no support. I don't think much of partner's 3♣ bid on such a weak suit. Obviously he didn't think much of it either, else he wouldn't have put himself back into ♦. I don't think this is a fast arrival situation, but I would say that 4♣ is a raise based on high cards, and 5♣ is more distributional (possibly a 4-1-2-6 minimum hand). Eric

If only bridge players did learn so easily... Eric

You shouldn't leave low level take out doubles in for penalties unless you are sure it is right. Here you ♣ are not strong enough (only one of AKQJT9 is not a good 5 card suit), and you have a good support for one of partners implied suits. IMO 2♥ is the correct bid. Note also that the hand is bound to play well for you. You will be able to ruff ♣ in dummy without the danger of being over-ruffed.

opener can have a strong 3-card support for spades too and no heart stop i.e: [hv=s=sakjhxxdaqxxxcaqx]133|100|[/hv] Don't tell me you open this one 2NT. ;) Al But on this one, he'll put you back into 4♠ when you bid 4♣ And why not open it 2NT (if your range includes this strength hand)? Eric

Are you worried that partner only has 3♣? Can you construct a hand where partner would bid like this where 1. he has 3♣, and 2. you are not making 5 or 6 ♦? Eric

I like that psyche. On Wednesday I had ♠AQJ and rags outside. I was preparing my 3rd seat 1♠ psyche when RHO opened 1♠ in front of me :angry: Eric

The other night at the club, we were playing against a husband and wife pair. They are both fairly good by club standards but he is better than she. After the first hand he berated her quite strongly for her bidding which (according to him) caused them to end up in 4♠-2 rather than 4♥. On the next hand he found himself declarer in 4♥ which was cold for 12 tricks. But he butchered the hand so badly that he only made 10 and got approximately 0 MP. To his credit, he immediately apologised to his partner for misplaying it. But I thought the juxtapostion of the two events was quite amusing. Eric

How many Club honours would you have to move to spades before you decided that you could no longer afford to suppress the spades on the 4-1-2-6 hand? Eric

Competitive bidding is one of the most interesting facets of bridge, but also one of the hardest. It doesn't readily break down to simple rules, but if I had to explain things to a beginner I would make these points: 1. Not all 10 point hands are the same! I would hope even a beginner already realises this, but if not, it is important that they find out sooner rather than later. 2. Determine how much you want to declare the hand and how much you want to defend (what Robson and Segal call the ODR - Offense to Defense Ratio) a. Distributional hands want to play, balanced hands want to defend b. Hands with concentrated honours want to declare, hands with scattered honours want to defend c. Hands with support for partner want to declare, hands with shortage in partner's suit want to defend 3. If your hand wants to declare, be prepared to bid a level higher than you would in a non-competitive auction. If it is neutral or slightly defensive bid to the same level as you would in a non-competitive situation. If it is really wants to defend, hold back more than you would in a non-competitive auction. 4. Try to involve partner in the decision. You don't want partner "bidding one more" when you were about to double them. Similarly, you don't want partner doubling them when you haven't yet told him that you really want to declare. So you should play some methods which at least attempt to portray to partner your ODR, and (especially on offensive hands) the level you are prepared to bid to. Since I don't know the beginner in question I am not sure how much of this they would understand. But I think that the basics of "offensive v. defensive" are understandable by anyone who has played the game a few times and is inquisitive enough to ask sensible questions. Obviously, as they get better they will realise that there are many subtleties to determining one's ODR and that point 3 is a vast over-simplification. But I feel this is a good start. Eric

This, like other reverses, shows extras. e.g. If you just show shape and partner's next bid is 3NT, what do you do with extras? If you bid on you risk going down if partner is minimum; if you pass, you may miss a slam if partner is maximum and fitting. The main (only?!) benefit of 2/1 is that after a 2/1 partner is not going to pass your minimum rebids. This allows you the time both to find your best fit AND differentiate between minimum and maximum hands. If you ignore the latter possibility you are giving up much of the benefit. Eric

And what does the name mean? My guess is: "Unusual Major Jumps - Usefulness Not Obvious" Eric

I think Henry Buckle, the 19th Century Chess player, said it best: "The slowness of genius is hard to bear, but the slowness of mediocrity is intolerable". My partner likes to say "If you're going to make a mistake, at least make it quickly" Last night, our opps were playing in 3NT after my partner had opened a weak NT (thus placing all the points). Dummy had 5♥ to the AT and 3♠ to the Ace but no other high cards. Declarer tries to set up the ♥ (he had a doubleton), and partner gets in and swithces to ♠K from Kxx - A Merrimac coup! Declarer immediately takes dummy's Ace, but because the ♥ don't break, he has no entry to the long ♥. Now he stops and thinks for a fair while, but still misses the obvious throw-in on partner and drifts 1 off. Now this is a guy who really loves his bridge, plays every night of the week, and has done so for many years. But I have no idea what he is thinking about when he lapses into thought. It certainly isn't about the earlier tricks, becasue even after the hand he didn't realise he could simply have ducked ♠K. Eric

I believe that "standard" is 4NT is two suited and X is take-out. In other words, X looks like a standard double of 1♠ only much stronger. However, becuase the take out doubler is likely to have on average only 4 cards in each suit, and because the take out doubler is likely to have enough high card strength to defeat 4♠ a lot of the time, the "take out" double is often left in for penalties. Note that 4NT as two suited also applies to the partner of the take out doubler. So (1♠) P (4♠) X (P) 4NT would ideally show some 5-5 hand. This avoids playing in a 5-3 fit when there is a 5-4 (or even 5-5) available. Eric

I agree that this should be a splinter. And playing with an expert you can be fairly sure that it is. But playing with a pick-up partner of, say, intermediate strength, how confident are you that partner is on the same wavelength?! Eric

It means he is torturing you by making an undiscussed conventionalial bid. It is probably either a splinter or some sort of Gerber. In either case, the simplest thing to do is to bid 6♥ as there should be some play opposite a splinter, and it must make if partner is asking for Aces. Eric

In the first instance, West has a perfect count of the hand after the opening lead! Partner has led his 4th highest ♦ so has a 4 card suit. He is very unlikely to have a 4 card major as he would have preferred that lead to lleading dummy's suit. Declarer has also denied a 4 card major for his bidding. Hence East must be 3-3-4-3 and declarer 3-3-3-4. Now West should ask himself why declarer is playing on ♠ and not ♣, and why he played a small spade away from his Q and then ducked the T, rather than leading up to the Q. It is clear that he doesn't have Axx or AJx to play that way so he is fooling you. As an aside, East can also work out that declarer doesn't have Kxx or KJx in ♠, so should overtake the T with the J, and play A and another ♠. In the second case, East will have a count of the hand: Partner will have shown a doubleton ♦ and 4♥ (his ♥ return will have shown count). The bidding will show declarer has 3 ♠ (at most) and so partner has 5 of them. Now, from the bidding (North's 2NT) he knows that partner has one high card outside of ♥Q. If it is ♣A, then he can afford to cash ♠A before setting up the ♥ and get attitiude signal from partner, because declarer can not possibly have 9 tricks. If partner's high card is ♠K, then it is necessary to cash out in ♠ because declarer has 9 tricks (4♣, 3♦, 2♥). Eric

I am a 2♥ bidder. I do have a nice hand, but the singleton ♣ is a negative factor, and the ♠ suit is weak. So I don't like the reverse into 2♠ or the off-shape 2NT. I can understand why 2♦ might be popular, but I don't like it. In general, you don't need both players trying to describe their hand to their partner. It is enough that one player does. Here, if I rebid 2♦ partner will think I am taking on the describing role, so I don't want that bid to be a lie. If I rebid a waiting 2♥, partner will continue describing his hand to me. That is exactly what I want to happen. If we were not playing 2/1, I think 2♦ would a lot more going for it. Eric

I've never analyzed this specifically, however, I'd bet dollars to donuts that the auction 1N - (P) - P - (P) is a damn sight more common than either 1♥ - (P) - P - (P) or 1♠ - (P) - P - (P) I am a very firm believer that preemptive bids should be "natural" so that Responder can pass the suit opened with a high frequency. The same holds true for MOSCITO's 11+ - 14 HCP NT opening. This adds another factor to the equation. A weak NT does act as a pre-empt, and it may be that this factor is more important than making the "described" hand dummy. Eric

I note, for instance, that Moscito uses transfer openings for suits (which tend to make the unknown hand declarer) but still uses a natural 1 NT opening (indeed an even more limited than normal 1NT in that it denies a good 4 cd major). So they go part of the way, but still have the problem I highlighted. Eric

Thanks for your answers. Part of what got me thinking about this were auctions like 1NT 3NT 1NT 2♦ 2♥ 3NT 1NT 4♦ 4♥ 1NT 2♣ 2♥ 4♥ 1NT 2♣ 2♦ 3NT and similar auctions beginning 2NT Here, as soon as dummy goes down, the defense has an excellent idea of the whole hand. At MP they know whether they should be trying to defeat the contract or restrict declarer to eg eleven tricks. At IMPs they know whether they have to take desperate measures to defeat it, or whether passive defense is called for. It seems to me to be a fundamental mistake from the point of view of bidding theory for one hand to limit itself so much in shape and strength AND to arrange for that hand to be declarer in so many auctions. Are there any systems which try to avoid these problems (by not opening or rebidding NT on balanced hands with a well defined HCP range)? Could a useable one be designed? Eric

Can we have some system information? eg. Do we know what the 2♠ bid showed? Eric

I think that if you open as if you are 4-4-2-3 then you should continue to bid as if that is your hand (at least until your partner has bid something). So 2♠ seems wrong. What would X mean? If take out (which it should be, I think) then it is a better bid than Pass or 2♠. Eric

Declarer is holding exactly AT, and the guy leading has Ax, Kx, or xx of hearts. If he goes up third hand high, declarer takes the A and T of spades. He then leads a heart towards the queen. The A or K of hearts gets taken if available, a minor suit back to declarer and then a heart to the queen and two top spades, declarer sluffing two minor suit cards. On the other hand, if you don't go up with the Q, declarer can never make more than 3 spades. I believe there's also some cases where declarer has AT of spades and only 4 hearts where by playing it this way he can force LHO to ruff with a good trump. I know it's far-fetched, but suppose your partner never, ever, upon pain of death underleads an ace. What is the harm in ducking? If the guy leading has two hearts, then declaer has seven. He also has 2 spades (if you are giving him AT) and some diamonds from the bidding. it just doens't add up. Unless I have misunderstood your point. If declarer has the Ace, then he lamost certainly doesn't have the Ten (given the play of Jack from dummy and partner's leading the suit). In which case covering gains. Eric