msjennifer

Sir,if you are playing the double as general purpose double then I,personally would have bid a waiting 1S looking at the club void and values in diamond suit which In my opinion would be useful in a no trump contract only.I feel that the 3S bid is a rather inconsiderate bid and not correct.The 4C bid by the doubler is 100% forcing.If you are playing 2NT as take out in hearts and clubs then I will prefer that to a TOD.

Sir,I have never ever come across a hand where GERBER would be more useful than all the various normal or artificial bids.In fact, personally I dislike the Gerber convention.We ,therefore use the 4C and 4D bids as transfer to 4H and 4S respectively.(I think this is known as South African TEXAS convention ).And the 4H/S as natural (when responder is afraid of a lead going through his Kx if the hand is played by the opener..)

(Sir.,to simplify things we consider an unnecessary jump in a new suit as an exclusion Blackwood.(only where it shall not be confused as a splinter bid). In fact ,that is why in Modern Precision the opener never makes a splinter bid .

Sir, we would have bid 1D-1H-2C-3NT.We shall certainly not bid 2S over 2C as we are not interested in finding a 3 card heart fit after opener has shown a normal opening hand and we do not wish to play in 5D.

Sir, since the 1D opening can be on a three carder suit if the hand is 4432,it is better to respond a natural 1H.For bidding an inverted 2D on this hand the diamond suit is not good and NORMALLY it denies a four card major.I fully agree with those who suggest that the heart suit is too miserable to be bid but then it will mean impossible to bid such a hand unless one finds an artificial bid of 1S as the suit is good enough even though 3 carded.For me the response is 1 HEART.

Sir,playing with regular partner ?partners one must have already discussed such situations and can bid accordingly.If playing with a strange partner one should see his profile and if it mentions Lebensohl then bid accordingly.If there is no clue in his profile then I feel one should pass with 0 to 6HCP aND bid naturally with 8/10 HCP considering the LTC if one has 4+ card s in the doublers suggested major.With 11+ HCP and 4+cards support one should make aeither a cue bid or any other appropriate bid depending upon the distribution and controls.

Sirs,pardon me but in my experience going just by playing the modified HCP as suggested does not give good results,,LET me give two examples taken from actual play.How does one estimate, playing the HCP, a hand x-AKxxxx-KJx-KJx .One opens 1H AND LHO overcalls 2D .Partner bids 2H,and RHO passes.Partners 2H when White against Red can be just 6 HCP with four card support.Does one PASS OR BID 3H OR ANYTHING ELSE? .HAND-2 Playing 15/17 NT partner opens 1NT,RHO overcalls 2C (LANDY FOR MAJORS) You hold KJ10XXX-109XX-QJx-x.What now? .If one decides to bid 2S is it passable?I.One may suggest a PASS or anything else ? I shall reveal what happened at the tables .YOU playing SAYC and opponents Standard with LTC.At your closed room table both pairs playing SAYC.the results may or may not surprise you.At your table opponents made 6C (doubled) and the contract was cold.In the closed room your opponents holding your hands made 4S.One need not remind the artificially constructed hand in which the side holding THIRTY FIVE HCP could not score even a single trick.Distribution plays a very big role and that is exactly why the LTC,SST,LST in conjunction with a standard system based upon HCP works far better than just the HCP method.

SIR,when playing the LTC ,it is advisable to play it along with SST (short suit try) and LST(long suit try) which gives a far better accurate answer.I shall not go in details here for restriction on space.Hand 1 .A holding of AJ10xxx has to be counted as only ONE loser when fit is established.HAND 2 where RHO raises to 3C then playing SST a double by S shows a non-wasted singleton in club suit.HAND 3.THE value of a singleton DK is not at all known.And even the long club suit is not solid.Exchange the DK for CK and see what happens.Even on seeing all 26 cards one can see that a club finesse or a singleton CK drop is essential.I,personally will not.advise bidding game for these 2 reasons. Finally my POLITE and HUMBLE suggestion is 'always play LTC in combination with SST and LST " THANKS ALL.

Sir ,I do not know your concept of preemption,Is there any difference if partner had bid 3S ? Something like a 3S guarantees the ACE and 4S bid is purely a high preempt denying any defensive trick.Also when opponents are in a GF auction( in this case) what does a 4D bid over opponents 2D suggest (if doubled then a runaway to 4S is available) ? Admittedly you had a guess but a CA lead should have been given a consideration before switching to S or continue with C after a look at the dummy and as per your signalling methods.Very difficult to find a fault with your unfortunate decision on the table.

Sirs,I find it strange that East opted for a bid of 2S holding the given hand, on the given vulnerability, when in my opinion it is a safe 1S opening playing Drury.Leaving aside that, holding the given Hand with a four carder heart suit and only a doubleton SA it is an unwise 2NT overcall .And after a double North has to make a Baron bid of 3C to show 9 plus hand when playing Lebensohl or failing that to bid 3S to deny a 4 carder heart suit but game force asking doubler to bid suits up the line.Knowing that responder does not have four cards in hearts South can start with the lowest minor suit.On a different hand doubler can bid his 5+ heart suit or 3NT etc as the hand warrants

Sir,I shall duck the diamond lead(not fearing that diamonds could be 1/7).win the diamond return and continue to draw two rounds of trumps and cash CK.Return to remove the trumps and then lead a club toward the Ace and now if west shows out I shall finally play on the spade finesse,.If W answers the second club but the Q does not appear then I shall personally fall back on the spade finesse.This keeps the automatic =Vienna Coup on West if he has both Queens.If not then I can fall back on the Spade finesse .I feel that this line is a good one.THANKS ALL.

Sir,we as SOUTH bid as follows over RHOs 4H bid.DOUBLE shows first round control.PASS shows a second round control and 5D as not having even a second round control in H.

Sir,we as SOUTH bid as follows over RHOs 4H bid.DOUBLE shows first round control.PASS shows a second round control and 5D as not having even a second round control in H.

SIR, the 2S bid is a jump shift reverse and forcing to game.It is a stretch as responder may have a bare 6 HCP.We would have bid 1D-1H-1S-2C-3D-3H-4H. 2C is the other minor forcing bid.3D shows a solid suit 3H shows a long strongish 6+ suit and desire to play in it and 4H is sign off fearing misfit in spade suit.When I gave the hands to some of my friends some of them ended in 3NT by W making 6 on a club lead.

:SIRS,i humbly would like to know if the following is a good method. RESPONDER: bids 1) 2NT an OGUST bid.(2) a 3C bid asking opener to show a singleton (3) A new suit bid as a natural suit bid forcing for one round.

wrongly posted .meant for another post

SIRS,whichever way one decides can only be played with a regular partner/partners.I,personally,feel that one should stick to the actions which are standard and which one can easily interprete leaving aside a Robot partner.

SIRS.I,personally ,think that three day statistics is too low a sample and so the results have to be based on the Standard Error.A lager sample over say two months period may show a different picture as it then will be based upon the Standard Deviation..When price of any commodity is increased the sales go down but gradually become normal again as people get used to the new prices.The sample ,therefore, has to be much larger ,let us say 3 months and then one may notice that there is not much change when it will be calculated based on the Standard Deviation and not the Standard Error.

SIR,I presume that you were partnered by a stranger.With that in mind I shall first look at his profile and if it mentions unusual NT I might just, but only JUST,try 4NT,although the hand is a wee bit unsuitable for it(At 5 level one must have at least 5/5 or better in the two suits) .Make thew spade Ace the D ACE and it becomes an easy 4NT bid.We play a 4NT bid as ANY two suited bid.A double ,as we play it is an optional double.(I need not explain this as most, if not all, are familiar with it), With the present hand ,we certainly consider, and consider only, biding 5 Clubs and not 4NT (as we can not possibly confidently say that partner will have 5 diamonds if he chooses to bid 5D). To conclude unless I know what is the meaning of 4S bid by RHO when I can decide my bid..A few days back while kibitzing SILLAFU play where he opened 3S first hand his partner held a STRONG hand and raised to 4S.Opponents (RADIATORS and his partner)passed without a wink.Plaing with a ROBOT I shall bid 5C and forget the deal.

SIRS,From all the artificial things which have been suggested the OP must have rightly concluded that there is no SIMPLE AND NATURAL way to investigate a slam in a minor suit (more particularly the Club suit).Since tthe opportunity to use the 4C bid as Gerber for Aces very very rarely arises in ones lifetime ,it is better to forget it and treat it as natural asking partner to Cue up-the-line. with club the agreed suit and 4D bid used for investigating a slam in Diamonds.This understanding is a simple one with no artificiality involved ..I am sure it will be easy for any one to explain to any new partner in a line or two.Please bear in mind that I am not making any comments whatsoever on the various different treatments all suggested in good faith by the other friends.WISHING ALL A HAPPY HEAlTHFUL NEW YEAR 2019.

PASS..Distribution not worth taking a risk.

Sir,In fact that was my worry too. It is not SO simple as it appears.Some guesswork is indeed needed .

SIR,I am eager to see the solution since a duck has been suggested .I can visualise a AJx,xx Qx,AK10xxx with West,But as has been suggested win the SQ then play a Diamond and duck if West plays the Q is OK but as has been suggested that "play a diamond to dummy and remove trumps and then play a diamond does not work as West will jettison the DQ on the third round of trumps .)

SIR,a 3S bid will confirm the distributional pattern which was earlier suggested by 2S reverse (I am assuming that it was not a LST which some pairs do play with a forced 2NT by responder after which opener shows his long suit by bidding 3C/3D with 3H showing a spade suit.) To ask partner to cue bid controls, opener bids a forcing 3NT and not 3S.

Sir,i fully agree with you.It all depends upon the partnership understanding.Without any special agreements,NORMALLY this 4D bid must show(since this bid has avoided any other TEMPORISING bid like say 3NT) a first round control in Diamonds with no first or second round control in Club suit.