msjennifer

Sir, thanks indeed.I do not play ACOL but it appears from your reply that they open a four card major often when they get such a hand but then if responder bids 2C and ,as you say.a 2NT bid by opener is game forcing then certainly with 15 HCP with 11+plus with responder a game will always be bid in this or that strain.As also if one is afraid that this is not a game forcing hand then the easiest rebid is 2H to show a five card suit. A 2C bid with just 9 HCP is very uncommon unless the responder desires to play in a 3C contract.And on this particular hand ,with Axx in Club one should not mind bidding 3NT.(Or at least I do not).And as I clearly mentioned that hands can be artificially constructed where either opening is correct/wrong and a preparatory 1C opening will hit the jackpot.The hand has 6 Losers and these with 8 losers announced by the 2C response most certainly can be played at 3/4 level in any suit with responder(club in this case.).THANKS.

Sir ,pardon me for side tracking.If one opens the hand 1H and responder bids 2C then there is a fully descriptive rebid of 2NT available.Thanks.

Sir.I,personally,very much appreciate your candid reply.Thanks.

Madam ,YES.why K and R ,even Culbertson et. al would say "the hand does not have three and a half honor tricks as are necessary for a 1NT opening".Personally ,going by my experience I do not believe in following and quoting either KR or Culbertson,.

Sir,this one is a typical holding which one can use when teaching 5 card major opening to new students in order to learn the differences opening 1H/S and a 15/17 or for that 13/15 weak type 1NT. 1 This hand has 15 fully BALANCED HCP. 2 .The Kx and AQx need to be protected from a lead through. 3 If one opens this hand 1NT then responder knows the hand strength to be exactly 15/17.If he has one or more 4+ card suits ,one or both 4+ cards major then he is sure make a Stayman or Puppet Stayman bid and so your heart suit is not going to get suppressed.'(or Garbage Stayman for that matter) 4 This hand has NO second 4 card suit which may prove useful in a H contract but not necessarily in a NT contact. 5. An 1NT opening certainly takes away the 1S overcall from the opponents, 6 An 1H opening surely will convey the 5 card suit but the HCP may vary any where between 10-21 ((see the Rule of 20).Qxxxx is not a quality suit where one would like to play in a 4H game (or for that matter in a heart slam ) where one has to make one trick more than a 3NT game with such a BALANCED hand.As opposed to that a 5card suit in responders hand can be established ,if necessary.in a trump contract.As also 1NT takes away an one NT natural or artificial overcall from opponents.((as it does to a 2H or 2NT overcall) 7 the responder MAY easily pass on a flat balanced 5/7 worthless HCP when one opens 1NT but which he can not if the opening is 1 Heart. ALL IN ALL, I,personally , shall always open this hand 1NT and not 1H. Playing Precision. I HAVE to open this hand 1 Heart (11/15 ,5+Hearts)as one may not conceal a 5 card major suit.Although the hand fits in the 13/15 NT range ,it takes away the valuable Forcing 1NT bid from the responder. 8 One of course can artificially construct responding hands,(but that is not the issue here) wherein either opening may prove correct.

Sir, With due respect to all ,we have to be able to discover both the Jacks in order to bid the 7NT contract.If East does not have either of them then we can not count 13 tricks,Given the hands to two good bidders using standard system did not want to bid 7 as they could not discover the Jacks and did not want to bet everything on a club finesse in case both the Jacks are well guarded .I then gave the hand to two of my super precision playing friends,. 1♣-1♥ 1♠2♦ 2♠-3♦ 3♠-4♣ 4hearts]-4NT 5♥-5NT 7NT. 1♣ 16+,1♥ 5+ H and 8+,1♠ask in S,2♦Support and 0 to 2 controls,2♠ clarify,3♦ 2 top honors,3♠ do you have Jack?,4♣YES,4♥ask in♥-4NT,5cards and one top honor,5♥Do you have the Jack?.5NT-YES. Now can count 13 tricks and bids 7NT Goes down only if an opponent holds 5/6 hearts and can not be squeezed if a club is led.,

SIR, Me too likewise.

Sir ,I, personally would not bid 4S with the North cards.He almost decided to play a slam by that bid.His 6H bid was not justified and considering the D void and the not so useful SJ should have just bid 5H to ask partner to bid 6H with two top honors in Hearts..

Sir.We have a different method. 1NT--2NT Tr to D 3D--3H/S double suiters with slam ambition D and the bid major. 4C D and C ,slam ambition better D 1NT- --2S Tr to C 3C---3D D AND C SLAM AM,BITION and better clubs 3H/S C and the bid major ,slam ambition Quoting here a hand we bid and no one else did. 3S showed D/S DOUBLE SUITER. 4D agreed D.5C was 3 keys.5H was queen ask 6C said DQ,SK BUT NO HK.So the earlier 4H cue meant Hx. And we could count 13 tricks in D.By the way WEST held the HK. and 7NT would fail. [hv=pc=n&s=sqj7haq9dkj86ck62&n=sakt9h7daqt92ca84&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1np2np3dp3sp4dp4hp4np5cp5hp6cp7dppp]266|200[/hv]

Sir,yours is the most ((in my personal opinion) accurate description when playing SAYC (as described )I fully agree . Thanks.

Natural if not alerted. If alerted ,then one can ask for a FULL explanation.We play it as Hearts and the unbid minor.

Madam ,Thanks a lot.I presumed the same.

SRY.Typiing mistake.Please read S-J985

BOARD 7.IMP scoring. what is the most descriptive bid? Would it be the same if it is MP scoring ?[hv=pc=n&s=s7632h97643daqcaq&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1hp2dp]133|200[/hv]

Very first BOARD 7. [hv=pc=n&s=sj98h97642daqcak]133|100[/hv] . South opens 1H and North replies 2 Club..What would be Souths appropriate rebid ?

Sir,I never tried playing rubber bridge nor do I like to comment on the various crazy bids that occur there.However since this is posted in the column I felt like doing so.I begin with begging pardon of all rubber bridge fans.1)The 1H bid is not to every ones taste in the 4th seat but is a reasonable bid in the 3RD seat for the reasons practically most ,if not all,know. 2)The TOD by the passed W hand is debatable ,yet not unpardonable.3)The E hand is worth a raise to only 2S ( or better a bid of 2H) had N passed keeping in mind the fact that W is a passed hand. The deal is somewhat what can be labelled 'Fortunate to be lucky" for NS.Thanks.

Sir.ithe 4NT bid is ,in my personal opinion, an over exhuberant bid. If the partnership is playing a 3H bid as GF then I would bid that.A 3S bid solves the problem to some extent. We would require two honors support for a secondary suit in order to bid 3S when playing Precision.Bidding 4H means taking the reins in ones hand since opener will never know our singleton spade wherein we can make 6 hearts even with an appropriate minimum opener.Playing a Standard system I certainly would have preferred to bid 3S.

Sir the responders hand has NINE losers 2S,2H,3D 2C.Assuming a normal 7 losers hand with the opener 9 plus 7=16 and subtracting from 18 the result is =2. 2S ,in my personal opinion, is the bid on this hand.However,openers hand has 5 losers so 18 minus five and minus 9 is equal to 4. So 4S is the limit of these hands .And even if we deduct one loser from West hand as it has a 4 card suit headed by AK and 7 Controls still we get the answer as 5.So even with corrected LTC the limit of the hand is 5S only if played in Spades.The responders hand ,I feel, is not worth a raise to 3 spades with a flat 3334 hand with no quickly establishable Club suit and no ruffing values.It is a hand more suitable for a NT contract and if playing Precision the bid would be a forcing 1NT (of course W will open 1C (16+ any)on the given hand.). You were very lucky to find the exact cards necessary for the slam.

Sirs,we dislike Bergen bids for obvious reasons.There may be a slam in the four card suit which responder has but unable to show as in the example above.And we can easily construct hands where responder does not possess the CQJ and even the SK for that matter and have the required HCP in H and D.As is said umpteen times " it is easy to reach a PAR contract when one sees all the 26 cards by using some fresh gadgets to suit the occasion." Why not admit that it is almost impossible to bid 6C on this hand after the 3S response.?.Some may reach 6S on an aggressive auction.THANX. =

Sirs, the way we play it is to bid 3H just now showing a spade 5+suit and club 2 honors to 4 support,(since 1C may be even xx in clubs).Our next bid , if available is 4H showing a spade suit capable of winning 10 tricks on its own and a heart void.Without the void in heart we just bid 4S on the next turn.Hence my bid just now is 3H.We have an entirely different development procedure after a bid of 2S just now.If LHO bids 4H then we do have a support double and other bids available to opener as per his hand strength and distribution pattern.

PASS. This hand is short of a 1H opening and a lot troublesome to open 2H and then handle in VUL vs NV position in the FIRST seat.And I do not like to give 4Hx going for 1100 by opening 4H. (2) In this position the question is ""Just who are you trying to Preempt ? "

Sir,thanks for posting a really intriguing hand.i honestly have to admit that we would play this one in 3NT. Lebensohl does not work here.I worked and thought of a solution.Since EAST has bid a Landy 2C for majors a double may be considered as a MINOR SUIT Stayman and forcing to game and when North shows a diamond suit a bid of a major to show a 45 (or 54)hand with a bid-major singleton or void may work as N has 3 ACES and can easily afford to play in 5D.He can((may)bid 4NT RKC and reach 6D.IT IS ALL TOO EASY WHEN ONE SEES BOTH HANDS.It is difficult right on the table. THANX

sir, Robots are bozos most of the time..We had made three tricks and all the robot had to do was cash the two winners for one down in 3NT. Instead of cashing the winners the Robot SHIFTED to another suit and so 3NT was scored with one overtrick

Sir.I would PASS both for obvious reasons.Our balancing 1NT is 11-14 with gadgets available.tto responder to find out range 11-12 or 13-14 and the distribution too.Make S holding Qxx and we do balance.The hand NO';1 is a very borderline TOD.We shall not, .Replace the HQ elsewhere and we shall.THANKS.

Sir,I shall take the same line of safety play in trumps after discarding the club x on the spade winner having unblocked the spades earlier as has been described by Mikeh.