The_Badger

Even using a basic bidding system, passing 3♦ is wrong. Opener rebidding at the three level in any suit is usually unconditionally forcing - that's how I play it, others might have their own views on this. Edited: The majority of players treat a rebid of the same suit at the three level (after a one-on-one response) as invitational only. My partner and myself played it as forcing for one round in the same way as a reverse. An expert way of handling this 3361 hand would be, assuming you are bidding up the line as you do in Acol, is to make a false reverse of 2♥ with the West hand. That would be (hopefully) safe because if partner East has four ♥s too, then he will have at least 5♠s. Though obviously, confusion might happen in the later bidding as to the trump suit if you are not familiar with this technique.

Human nature, sadly. (I had seen the videos previously.) However, it did direct me to another video courtesy of Peter Hollands. Now this is serious :)

Tough. 3NT may work on some days, pass on others. Any other bid risks misleading partner.

The other commentators have rightly said that players might not distinguish between 2NT and 3♣ as a second negative, but that's by agreement. What the problem is (as Cyberyeti says) is that this hand is a borderline 2♣ opener that could be opened 1♠ but I could see many players opting for 2♣ as partner needs very little for game to be viable. But the awful thing is partner - if partner saw 2NT as a second negative, pile of junk, etc, or even moderate values - raising to 3NT with a 6214 hand. That is just lazy bidding.

Balanced 'seven' point hands shouldn't be balancing at the two level vulnerable against vulnerable opponents. When deciding on duplicate decisions, I try to put them into a rubber bridge perspective. Would I want to balance at game all at rubber? Certainly not! There's a small case for balancing at matchpoints, but only a very small case, I feel. Balancing at IMPs looks kamikaze to me. And trust me, I'm the first to want to compete to two of a major or three of a minor against a weak two opening bid, but this hand looks lightweight (despite its intermediates) and too balanced.

Hi. Welcome to the forum. Well it all depends who you are playing with, and what system you are playing. Awm's, Tramticket's and pescetom's replies are three ways to play it. I see that from your profile you are an experienced player, so playing with a player of similar level I would expect:- 2♠ to be a transfer to ♣s, and 2NT is a transfer to ♦s. Opener bids the next suit up (2NT for ♣s; 3♣ for ♦s) without support, but bids the transfer suit with 4 card support or three to an honour (Ace, King or Queen). (Some players may only use three to A or K here.) Some players prefer to bid shortness after that, others prefer their second suit to be a four card suit. Alternatively you could just use a variation of Blackwood, with the transfer suit automatically agreed as the trump suit, even if opener has showed minimal support when asked to transfer.

I'm not totally au fait with all squeeze positions, but I believe that most stepping stone plays start off with a strip squeeze, and strip squeezes start off with two losers generally. (I'm sure someone will correct this.) It's an unusual squeeze nonetheless, and thanks for posting :)

I think it's possible to overanalyse these hands. That said, other players have different ways of handling these scenarios - e.g. Bergen, Drury, etc. Passed or not passed, I think it is slightly criminal making a pre-emptive raise with two aces. On the first hand, I might (reluctantly) raise to 4♥ if I were a passed hand, bidding to the level of the fit, though partner only needs ♠AKxx ♥Kxxxx ♦x ♣Kxx and a slam goes begging. If there were any way that both hands could be shown by a limit raise of 3♥/3♠ showing 10-12 points and four card+ trump support then I don't think you are doing much wrong. In my opinion, that's what both hands are worth, hand one with the fifth trump but with two doubletons, hand two with the useful singleton. Splintering with hand two is also a possible option as Tramticket says.

Oh come on it's only 23 HCPs, Hrothgar :) (29.70 on K&R though)

Double jumps for me are pre-emptive and non-forcing, 6 card suit minimum (double of a major) or 5/6 card suit (double of a minor) and if partner has game going values he just cue bids the opponents suit instead. Single jumps are about 8-11 and can be made on 4 card suits.

Welcome to the forum :) I see from your profile that you play Benji Acol, so if you feel a little uncomfortable around the edges opening 2NT with slightly off shape hands including singletons, you could incorporate a variation of the Kokish convention into the 2♣ bids (although that would probably work better with Reverse Benji - I've never been enamoured with Benji, but's a personal opinion) to show these hands, or even possibly after a 2♦ opening. Failing that you could adopt 2♣ as the big hand with a Multi 2♦, still with some Kokish aspects. https://www.bridgehands.com/K/Kokish_Relay.htm What I am effectively saying is that I'm not keen myself opening 2NT with a singleton, even a singleton ace, but sometimes you have to lie to partner about your shape. Strong 4441's are notoriously difficult, and so are 5431's where the five card suit is a major. If you adapt a series of relays around your two strong openings, that will get around most scenarios but there are always holes whatever conventions and systems you play: none is prefect. I'm more inclined to open 2NT with 4441 with a minor suit singleton than a major, though I hate bidding it. 5431 with a 5m I will chance opening at the one level generally. 5431 with a 5M I might open at the one level but I very conscious of missing a game. 6m322 is always for me a 2NT opener, except if the main suit is dire. 5422 is similar to 5431 except there's no singleton, so if the five card suit is a minor I might open at the one level or 2NT. If it's major I would probably open 2NT, etc. Obviously, this all is dependent on the actual cards in your hand. I hope this helps.

You're right in that respect. No guarantees at all. 5♠ was probably the wrong card pulled out of the box; or alternatively, a mish-mash of Blackwood and RKCB where responder had three keycards, and then proceeded to answer by way of a normal Blackwood response instead of RKCB.

Your partner's reply of 5♠ can show the Q or extra length in the trump suit. Not sure whether it is applicable with a seven timer after a 3♥ rebid though?

Your suggestion is an alternative, Helene, but I think the big problem here is that North hasn't (I assume) got the option to splinter after your 2♠ bid. Don't think you'll miss the slam if that happens, however... ...East then proceeds to find the extraordinary lead of a small ♦ :)

That's the problem with borderline slams, Graham, just one card can make the difference. If the hand was ♠x ♥AKxxxx ♦AKJxx ♣K swapping the red suit jacks, the slam looks a far better proposition. Whilst I totally agree that the slam may prove difficult as it stands on the cards in the OP's diagram, I would still be a little miffed that we chose the safe option of game on the bidding and didn't even contemplate a higher level. And then when dummy's actual cards hit the table, I may then think again "better to be in game here, despite the controls and the good suits" :)

I would be horrified - as you were - to be making 4M+2 or 4M+3 on these cards. Other than the opponent's opening bid, there's absolutely nothing that suggests you shouldn't be in slam on these cards. As to how you get there, that's another matter. Given that a direct 3♠ by South would be interpreted as a Western Cue Bid, I'm ever-so-slightly-but-not-totally-convinced in favour of a leaping Michael's Bid here (4♦) to show ♥s + ♦s though as Cyberyeti has rightly indicated South's hand is an extreme example, and most Leaping Michael's hands would be bid on far less and be typically 5-5 usually than this near rockcrusher of a 6/5 with two suits headed by AK. It's a shame that South hasn't got the sequence Double - 3♣ - 4♦ available as a delayed Leaping Michael's here showing a more powerful type of hand.

But there again, Ken, diplomacy hasn't always been a George H. W. Bush trait. Months before the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, where a Pan Am plane had been brought down by a bomb over Scotland with the loss of life of over 250 passengers and crew, Bush had said this about a similar incident (where a passenger plane had been misidentified and a similar number of innocent people killed.) Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, who was running for president in 1988, said at the time of the U.S.S. Vincennes incident that he would “never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are.” (reported in The Washington Post) That to me summed up the bellicose, over-patriotic rhetoric of a man obsessed with power.

That's where it all went wrong, I feel, PeterAlan. Obviously there was the option of bidding 5♦ exclusion instead of 4NT, but technically 4NT is where a partnership want to establish the presence of all the keycards to make sure slam is good. That's probably why Joe Grue thought Bobby Levin had ♦A and went the extra mile and bid 7NT. I'm not getting into the other pro's and con's of the bidding sequence to reach the final contract as Levin and Grue have played this game at a far, far higher professional level for many, many years than me, and I am not privy to the agreements that they have in place, but for me personally if I were bidding with a regular partner I would be using a Soloway jump shift of 2♠ over 1♥ with the East cards.

Not being a tournament director I'm not going to get involved with the implications of the break in tempo (BIT) and the jurisdiction thereafter, but all I can say is that if South had doubled 7NT it would have indicated to me as North, who had doubled the 4♦ cue bid, to lead my suit. (That is how I would have interpreted it in a conventional sense.) It is interesting that a player of the calibre of Bobby Levin didn't have in his armoury a bid (Redouble maybe?) to indicate the void after the 4♦ cue is doubled, and chose a 4NT RKCB bid instead. That way they would have ended up easily in 7♠ without even 7NT entering the equation.

http://live.acbl.org/handrecords/NABC183/11291301 (board 23) The gist of it is that E/W reached 7NT(!) on the cards, but there was a (not in tempo) hesitation in the bidding and North found the killing lead from ♦KJ843. This resulted in an appeal. (The ACBL link has been copied, I acknowledge, from Phil Clayton's comment on Bridgewinners.) Edited: And this is the whole hand, with the decision of the appeal (Acknowledgements to Mickie Kivel on Bridgewinners) https://cdn.acbl.org/nabc/2018/03/bulletins/db9.pdf (page 9)

That's what I thought initially, eagles, too, until I looked at the hand records. East is one of those idiots who joins various tables and spoils games..

These days a Yarborough can be described as any weak hand, though originally it was any hand with a card no higher than a nine. Given that both East and West passed on the first round, East is only bidding to the level of the fit n-1 (both vulnerable, adjusted Level of Total Tricks) to try to disrupt the opponents, A second round double by a passed hand should always guarantee four card (at least) support for both of the unbid suits. West interpreted her partner's bid innocently, I feel, And as sanst has corrected said it doesn't take much for South to work out that East is bidding on fit level, not values. To me, there's nothing psychic about the bid in today's game. Indeed, a really aggressive East realising that North/South have game values, possibly slam values, might have pushed the boundaries by bidding 3♥ and even that wouldn't be a psychic bid given that players are encouraged to the level of the fit.

GIB cannot think like a human player, and hasn't been programmed as such. By the way, there are some players who would use a forcing 1NT response with the South hand, and then correct to 2♠ if North rebids a new suit at the two level. When the bidding goes 1♠ - 1NT - 3♦...I don't know if GIB would raise 3♠ to 4♠, or that you have to chance a 4♠ bid with the South hand.

It's a 2♣ opener every day of the week. Reasons:- a) 5 and a half quick tricks b) Partner needs very little for game to be made c) TWO five card suits headed by AK d) An easy sequence (most of the time) to describe hand, the only real exception if partner bids 3♣ over 2♣ - but that's not a good enough reason not to open 2♣, and, e) On calculation - though it's not that difficult to realise - K&R evaluator puts it exactly at a 25.00 count

Yes this. Just swap the black jacks and it's there. I assume you are playing a variant of Acol here, so you haven't got the option of a forcing 1NT - and that in itself might wrong side a contract if opener is balanced and strong - or Bergen responses. So you are left with a fairly non-descript 2♠ raise. It might be possible - though you'd have to analyse this thoroughly - to have a flexi option of 2♠ being a constructive 8-11 with 3♠ or <8 with 4♠ here. Though whether that will help on this particular hand is open to question. I think you also need to know what a competitive X means in this type of auction by both partners, and that it adds to the system constructively. I'm not totally convinced that East should compete to 3♠ as a) 4♥ may be cold and you could push them there; b) South could be sitting with a trump stack over East - North is likely to be short given the bidding. Though admittedly, it's a lot easier seeing all four hands here. It'll be interesting to know how the bidding went at the other table, and their agreements.