msjennifer

Sir,partner can have only 3 HCP.The only possibility and wishful though is CK or SQJ If he has the latter he will have no entry to cash the winners.Leading from two unsupported Jacks may turn out harmful.That leaves only the club suit.So I shall lead a club.7.Even if he does not have the CK but if he gets the lead he can push a club through the declarer.The contract may thus be (hopefully) limited to minimum .Even if I don't lead clubs there may be a throw-in position.

Sir,sorry but it appears you have missed a point.Felicity clearly mentioned that all were using only ACOL.In ACOL all 2C/D/H/S/NT opening bids are strong hands much better than normal11-15 hands.As such Felicity had to either Pass or open 3H..As I mentioned ,If one wishes to open this hand 1H then one must be sure that you are playing Drury with a stranger partner(verified from his profile.).THANKS.

Sir,I do not know much about ACOL so it was a toss up between Pass and 3H.I chose 3H looking at the vulnerability.3H is at least lead pointing if not ideal.Opening 1H is confusing.Playing standard I have voted for 2H as the Drury convention is not a universal one and partner may not be knowing it.T he HCP could be divided 10=11-9-10 and may have gone ALL PASS IF I TO DID NOT BID.I t is far too preposterous to JUST IMAGINE that opponents have the strength to bid game (which may not be on). 2H solves all these problems and conveys the correct message to partner.I still remember a hand where a similar hand was opened 3S (it was the suit) and it P-P-x minus 500 was a complete debacle losing 11IMP.for no reason when it would have gone ALL PASS just like the other table.When his partner asked the reason for opening 3S the player replied that it was TO INTIMIDATE the opponents.!Curtains !

SIRS.I sincerely thank all of you for the comments given.I was expecting a reply from any ACOL expert to make any comments as they play strong 2 openings .I t shall be looking wishfully for someone.

In a monthly pairs MP event this month this computer deal came across.BOARD 7 BOTH VUL. Silent opponents. South: S-K109,H-K73,D-AKQJ105,C-9. NORTH::S-A5,H-A10,D-983,C-J108542 .In a field of 18 pairs ALL PLAY ALL not a single pair bid this slam.May I humbly request the experts to throw a light on this one .All Souths opened this hand a normal appearing 1D as the hand is too weak for it to be opened 2Club and not suitable for 1NT.All of them played in 3NT.

Sir calling the director has NOTHING TO DOI WITH DESPERATION to win at all costs.If it was an unimportant game I would condone the oversight and would not call the director.As per the conduct of the game any player except the dummy should call the director if ANY INFRINGEMENT occurs at the table.When Declarer said ANY then he should have corrected himself IN THE SAME BREATH as per the rules..Furthermore when the RHO followed to the trick it was too late for any correction.The late correction is an infringement.In a tournament of seriously minded players I,personally,,would certainly have called the Director and appealed had he allowed the card to be withdrawn.

SIRS.We will pass the North hand.It is neither worth a 1S opening as it lacks lower limit of 10HCP for any 2ND seat opening.It is totally unsuited for a 2S opening as there is a 5 card heart suit and one can easily miss a little or even a grand in hearts ( if S holds some thing like x-AKQxx-Axxx=xxx and the H are 2/1 and S 4/2 normal expected breaks.). With the given hand, S will open 1S (or 1C in PRECISION).and the bidding will stop in 5S as N denies the HK (no heart cue). Of course as is normally expected the argument that what if W does not lead DA or that it is east who has the DA and west makes a harmless trump or club lead then 6S is ON ICE Quite true.But that does not justify one's poor bidding.

SIR,there is a slightly better treatment given in the EXPLORER relay of 2C which is made on a hand with at least one 4+ major suit and 8+HCP..Opener replies 2D with 15/bad16 HCP with /without a major.The responder with 8/BAD9 HCP then bids his major and opener holding support passes or with no fit and with a 4+Spade suit bids 2S (Over responders 2H bid.Without these he bids 2NT.If over openers 2D responder wants to force a game he bids 3C(extended relay)and opener bids SUITS UP THE LINE(AS IN BARON) IF opener has both 4 card majors then over 2C relay he bids 2H with 15/bad16 AND bids 2S with 16 good /17 HCP.This relay has helped us to play a deal in 2H/S instead of 3H/S(going one down) with the normal invitational Stayman sequence,The 3C extended relay has helped us in not missing minor suit slams with 4-4 fit. NOTE-The above is only a part of the Explorer relay which I have described for finding out major suit fits.As also this method does not apply if the 1NT opening is permissible with a 5 card major unless one incorporates precisions trump suit asking bids eg 2H-3H OR 2S-3S..With a hand holding 16 good or 17 HCPand any 4333 pattern(D may be 5 cards) Opener bids 2NT and then a 3C relay bid asks the opener to show his four card suit ,with 3NT bid used to show the C suit and 3334 .Lastly with 16 good/17HCP and a 5 card C suit and any 332 pattern opener jumps to 3NT over the 2C relay.The entire Gamut is practically covered for investigating NT openers hand for HCP range as well as suit lengths.

Sir,the Question asked is how many points are required to make a STAYMAN bid opposite a 15/17 NT. My personal opinion is a good 8+HCP.THESE DAYS a tendency has crept in to use GARBAGE STAYMAN even with zero (as one can not have any less than that) HCP.There are more varieties likeCRAWLING STAYMAN and EXTENDED STAYMAN, Stayman used in conjunction with JACOBY TRANSFERS and the SMOLEN convention.I ,personally do not like the garbage variety invented BASICALLY to fool the opponents although there are a few advantages in it if one is playing with a REGULAR partner and it is futile to use it in BBO and other tournaments where you got to play with different unknown partners.By the way it was not Stayman who devised the convention under his name.Stayman described it in 1945.But the ideas behind that were two others the British JACK MARX in 1939 and Staymans partner GEORGE RAPEE in 1944. The distribution of HCP in different suits has most impoortance and so do the singletons /voids.One has to adopt LEBENSOHL or similar treatments to be used if opponents intervene.More information may please be obtained from books on NO TRUMP BIDDING IN BRIDGE,

Sir,amongst the books passed on to me ,I came across a very good hand where in 2nd position his partner passed holding both vulnerable, S-VOID,H--A76 D-K852,C-K98542 which he passed holding only 10 HCP and a not very decent club suit.Dad opened a discouraging 1S.They were not playing anything like Drury in those days so the bidding went 1S-2C-3C-3D-4C-5C.When the clubs divided 2/1 they scored 12 tricks.This is not a hand constructed by me.I am only describing it as an interesting hand as reported therein.My dad held S-109765 H-K.D-A97 C-A763.on which he opened 1S after three passes.

Sir we play reverse Drury so partner uses the 2C bid, bid 2S,or bid 1NT depending upon his holdings.I have a rebid of 2C over his 1NT.We very rarely pass a hand holding 2 ACES and a KING.We have the 5 carder spade suit where partner may compete at the lowest suit level for a part score.Where partner bids 1NT and then bids 2D/H/S,I shall Pass that.Apparently the remaining 29 HCP must be 10/10/9 and without a 6 carder suit else that someone would have called.I also know that quite a few will open 1S and pass partners 1NT.

HA HA HA,Some RHO ROBOT this one and North too.In fact ,playing against these so-called ROBOTS is nothing but waste of ones time ,energy not to mention money.!

SIR,this hand is a difficult one to convey exactly what we have by ,I personally feel, any method.We will bid 1NT-2H-2S-4D and hope for the best.

Sir,We open such a hand at favourable vulnerability only.I am not much used to playing 2/1 .We will show immediate support by bidding 3C.

Soir,And why not ? 12HCP.No wasted points(except perhaps CQ .We don't consider it wasted). 2 honor tricks and only 6 losers,Good support in 3 suits.One does not need any thing more.Easy rebid is an added virtue.

Sirs,we do not bid 2C over West s 1D with the given hand as there are 9 losers and just a five card broken suit.However as South we will certainly make a TOD with the given hand over Easts 1H.to indicate a four card spade suit and tolerance for clubs.

Sir,I humbly ask you, if the opponents are silent, would you bid 2D transfer AND THEN RAISE your partners 2H to 3H. In other words does this hand possess enough values to invite a game in Hearts.?

SIR,With all due respect to you ,it is alright if one wishes to go for a ruff in one of the minors.I REQUEST you to kindly let all know which minor will you specifically lead on table ? A club or a A diamond and the reasons therein ?

Sir.as per the original Lebensohl convention, 2NT bid asks opener to bid 3C which the 2NT bidder passes or corrects to 3D as a sign off .A 3H bid by the 2NT bidder is an invitation to 4H and IS NOT A SIGN OFF.AS such, unless modified ,the 2NT bid can not be used on this hand which has 9 (at least) losers as played in hearts.If the 2NT bid is reserved for indicating a hand with heart suit alone then what about hands with C/D suits.(Remember that we yet do not know that LHO is going to bid 3S which leaves the opener completely in dark as to what is our long suit).Anyhow,leaving all that aside, what does one lead and why is the question posed by the OP.

Sir,the only suit which I can be of any use and where opener very likely can have a honor is hearts.ANY minor suit lead MAY help the declarer by opening up tenace positions,I shall lead the 4th best , as per our leads, the 7 of hearts.A passive trump lead may possibly be suggested by some (who never post in these columns)

Sir,I am not at all surprised that this problem has got quite a few cleanly STUMPED.(a term from the game of Cricket, one of my hobbies).It is very easy to bid if one can see partners hand but unfortunately one can not.I posed this problem to my trainees and they too were nonplussed..What is my polite and humble request it to put yourself in the doublers seat and try to imagine hands with which you will make a TOD in a vulnerable position..Is it not likely that the partner of 2S opener is a complete Yarborough or say only has QX of spades and doubles if you bid 3NT.Will your partner dare remove holding x or void in S and say 1444 hand? .In my personal opinion this hand is a toss up between PASS and, most of you will scoff,4H..This hand reminds me of an almost similar hand where I held xxxx of S and in heart suit only AJx and was the only one to bid 4H and dummy came down with 9754 of hearts getting a clean top.i beg of you to fully understand that I ,hereby ,am not boasting and trying to prove other pairs wrong but only humbly putting forward a different viewpoint or say aspect so kindly pardon me.

SIRS, we play LEBENSOHL just as we play over opponents 2H/S weak openings.I personally agree with Cyberyeti that 3H does show values.This is exactly where we wish to differ also.While applying Lebensohl we take into account the following(1) USEFUL HCP.(2) The length and the quality of the suit we are going to bid. AND (3)The NUMBER OF LOSERS in the hand. This hand contains only 5 USEFUL HCP. The suit quality says only 1 loser as it is a 6 card suit headed by KQ.(as a matter of fact we don't assume that doubler will have the HA and xxx .).The suit length unilaterally is very good.There are 4 losers in the minors and 2 losers in Spades(this is where we assume that doubler can have xx or a likely x only in S) The total hence works out to 7.The doubler has to have a maximum of 7 losers. Hence 18 minus 14(the total number of losers in our side ) =4.So 4 Heats is what we bid.1S opener is the doublers LHO and we will not double with the hand given by some eg xx AJxx Axxx KJx. which has 8 losers.Change the club holding to KQx and we will.4H MAY go down one in this case.

Sir, thanks a lot for the reminder.I frankly do not know what XYZ is neither am I interested in finding what it is .If and IF only the OP desires to know how the auction will progress as per XYZ then I express my inability.I only expressed what WE PLAY.I withdraw my explanation hereby.Just by the way till now I believed that after opener has limited his by bidding just 1NT to a maximum of 14 HCP then any a reverse bid or a jump bid in a new suit by responder alone is a forcing bid.Hence 1D-1H-1NT-2C is non forcing ,if XYZ says it is a forcing bid and opener can not pass it is hard for us to swallow. However 1D-1H-1S-2C either known as (as per my little knowledge ) the new minor bid or the 4th suit forcing bid or a Checkback as opener as I said can have upto 16-17(BAD) HCP.I sincerely hope that I have made myself clear enough the way WE play it with the assurance that there was no hint of intention that others follow it.THANK YOU AGAIN.

:DELETED.REASON :I,frankly,donot know what is this XYZ SYSTEM of bidding.

Sir,I fully agree with you.Will the pundits of puppets stayman please explain es to how the responder will judge the hand and whether to play in NT or 4H !Will he foresee SUCH A STRONG 5 card heart suit which may decide the final contract on this hand which is a BORDERLINE hand in which only conjectures will not guide the responder to decide the contract.The bid of 1NT is also made so as to protect the DAQ tenace from immediate attack.In my personal opinion it is a toss up between 1H and 1NT.Although I shall open this hand 1H ,sometimes I may open it 1NT particularly in the 3rd seat after two passes just to make it a wee bit harder for the opponents.Some pairs do play the GAZZILLI convention on the sequence 1H/S-pass-1NT-pass auction.Just for my knowledge, may some who do play it kindly explain the further bidding and if/whether they can discover the strong heart suit.