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Hmm. If this is in SAYC context, then 2/1 forces to 2NT or 3-level of the 2/1 suit. Then I would assume we are not allowed to stop below 2NT in competition either? Well as i said once or twice i dont know sayc, and i dotn think many ppl play this as forcing to 2nt(even those who claim to play sayc),the way i play, 1sp-2c-2s and 1sp-2c-2d-2sp arent forcing.

This is only my logic about the meanings of the bids when without special agrements First i think it shouldnt be forcing situation, i think 2 over 1 is forcing up to 2 in our suit, so 1s-2d-(2h) would have been forcing but (2s) isnt. If its not forcing then pass is the weakest bid. Now to the 3C, here the logic is the same as after 1H-2D-2NT (no interferences) would 3c be forcing now ? would it show extras, or just show a weak distributional, i think most play it to show extra, so i would play 3c after the 2sp overcall as the same, non minimum hand. Double would be negative, which could still have minimum hcp, pass by opener could have been a trap pass. I think a better structure can be found, but is this my natural one.

I dont know how it is in your place and i believe it might be different but here in Israel i believe people doesnt call the director enough on tempo situations, and people take are not even ashame on benefiting from thier partner esitation . I see people cheating, i dont think they even know it but they do, they make noises when they dont like their partner play at the diffence, they make faces, they say things they shouldnt they cheat but thik samll cheats are part of bridge, i wish things were different and people would call the director more, calling the director is taken the wrong way by players, they get offended when the director is called. I believe bridge teachers do bad job by not explaining enough about the director and the bridge law.

ok got few more seconds, my first line is good if you think hearts are 5-3, if you suspect they are 4-4 i think there is a better line. Take the K of heart finnese to the 10 of club, take the heart return play A club and another club for 9 tricks (3C+2D+2S+2H) if west return spade instead of heart, your in a problem and will have to hope the club finnese works, but i think it takes a very good defender to shift to spade here, so maybe this line is good unless if you think hearts are 4-4 and LHO isnt an expert.

knowing how small might be importent to know if hearts are 4-4 or 5-3. Anyway strangly diamonds has more potential then spades, if you find Hx in diamonds you can make 4 diamonds 1 club 2 spades and 2 hearts for 9 tricks. Holding up the heart is normaly right, but here its not, a spade shift will hurt you,so take the first heart in hand, play AK of diamond, if an honor drop play the 10 of diamonds, if not play spade to to the A and club to the 10, take the heart return now a new dilema to play or not to play the K of spade, i think you shouldnt play it (giving this trick up) i think it doesnt matter much, so i will play it, then finnese clubs again. actually there are some nice issues here that i didnt have time to think about, g2g.

Im thinking to myself why is it so easy for everyone to see that pass is out of the question while i would sit for 2 minutes before i would bid 4h. I have 2 possible answers 1. its harder for me because i got this gift that i can not be effected by seeing the hands and knowing the results,while others are influented some more some less. 2. Its because im a mp player , played mp most of my life, and in mp the chances of 3nt being suppirior to 4h are higher then in imp, infact the solid suit which was said to be a resson to bid 4h ("can play even vs a void") is many time very good for 3nt. I think its a mix between those ressons.

If you are sure about it then ok, i cant say i do, therefore i would rule the way i explained. Generally i can tell you most directors i know arent good enough players to make judgment calls especially when time is short, presure is on, and seeing all the hands and the result influence even the best of us.

Ron i dont know if you are a director but you might be missing the point here. I'll explain to you what the law say here. There are two ways to make justice here, the first is the director way the second the commitie way. The director way is to check if passing is a logical alternative, logical alternative is a bid who would be taken buy 3 of ten people, so if pass is a bid taken by 3 of 10 people you should change the score to 3nt-4. Now if you want to solve this as a director you must answer the question, are 3 of 10 will pass here ? if you think 3 will pass the result will be -4. if you think only 2 will pass it will be 4H made, can you tell for sure how many will pass? and do you really think giving one of the two extremes is the right choice ? The better answer is the commitie, they got good players (the director is not suppose to be a very good bridge player and i hate it when they think they are) there are more minds there, they got more time, and above all this they can make a nice calculated adjusted score which will reflect the chances of north passing and the chances of him bidding 4h. Imo a director shouldnt be overconfident in his bridge judgment, and when its a bridge judgment question rather then law question, the commitie will have better tools.

QJ10x xx Axxx xxx Kxxx xxx Jxxx Kxx Kx xxx Jx Kxxxx Q10x xxx Jxx xxx QJx xxx Jxx Kxx J10xx xx Qxx xxxx AQ xxx xxxx xxx KJ10 xxx xxx xxxx KQx xxx Axx xxx 109xxx xx Q10x xxx should i continue ?

It always intresting to see how everyone know the right answers when they see the hiden hands. I can give you many hands which partner will have on which 3nt is better then 4h. remember the question here is not wather 4h is a better bid then pass, the question is : does pass over 3nt is a logical alternative, and i as a director wouldnt be able to say it isnt, and would send the players to an apeal commitie.

I wish it was as clear to me as it is for you. Just put K of spade instead of the Q at partners hand and 3nt is the right contract, or give him the J of spade, or even the 10.

What Todd said about not blindly judge against the non offended side is right, but when there is a doubt i will not rule agaisnt the non offending side, this got to do with bridge ability , i dont feel strong enough bridge player to judge that bidding 4h is an easy or blind bid, but maybe a beter player would think it is, although the law talks about people of the same skill as the player who actually played the hand and not expert.

I think 3nt is better contract then 4sp here, maybe only when no vul. (not that they shouldnt have bid 4sp)

First of all, the rulling should be based on the question what is south bid without the pause, not what should he bid with the pause. Now to the rulling, imo this hand should get to appeal commety (the director should advice the players to appeal) because a director cant give a right score here. As the appeal commitie I would give a calculated score, a score that will reflect 3nt-4, and the actual score. I think any other way wont give justice to this. As a director i would give an adjusted score of 3nt-4 and advice NS to appeal, this is based on the aggrement that a director should never rule against the non offending side, the appeal commitie should represnt them.

In general (without knowing about the spade break) you play to play 2 top spades, then AK diamond and d ruff, then A club club ruff, A heart club ruff, K heart club ruff. If spades are 2-2 or 3-1 this will give you 2 spades+ 2 hearts+2 diamonds+1 club+4 ruffs = 11 tricks.

Another line to consider is dummy reversal, you have enough entries, but im not sure if its a good line, anyway even at dummy reversal i think you should play spade at some early point because you dont want the clubs to be ruffed by Qx or 9x of spades, actually playing dummy reversal might be the only way to go down here (if you play A spade first)

At first, This is not a suit play problem, forcusing on the spades is wrong. You need to make 4sp, the best line is to ruff two hearts in dummy (unless they break 3-3), so you wont even have a choice about the the spades, you wont play them utill late (not even once), and later you will play K and A. Now after you play 3 rounds of heart and see the break you can think about the spade suit, if its 3-1 you have no problem (you can afford to lose 1) you need to make sure you wont go down on 4-0 (and north have 4 spades), which will only happend if you play A of spade first, any other line makes.

First i advice you not to pass, even if it thoreticaly right to pass , there are two adv in opening, first your bidding system is best define after you open, second your opponents system is best define when they open, and third (lol those first two were just one) bid openning with the field is better. Now 1c/1d ? i think there are advance to each, more important that you will agree with partner on it.

My expirence wasnt too different from yours, and i felt i want to change it too, i wanted to change it to a more frequent hand, like a hand with a good suit but only minimal fit for partner, on these hands i know it might be better to play my long suit but support with support tell me to support when i can. 1SP (2C) 3H xxx KQJxxx Kx xx Biding 3h here i dont mean partner i have a nice fit (4 card) and a hearts suit, and ask him to consider his move at the 4 level, what i mean is to give him a choice of trump. The choice of trump hand come more, but the effectivness of the bid might be smaller. Also i can tell you that it might be smarter to use a jump in suit as showing a fit instead of giving up the natural 2nt, true nat 2nt isnt very importent, but its still more importent then one of the jumps in suit.

Welcome to the bridge world.

I believe you know what you are saying but i wonder how many of those who play sayc know about this, i think people play 2sp as 12-14 NF 3sp as 15-17. I remember a similar problem with 1S-2C-3C which i thought is a weak bid but people said in sayc it shows extra (actually it make sense).

Dont Signal with a card you might need, its that simple. Partner suppose to read the situation. You need a good signaling method which define the order of cards from incarage to discarage, for example if you play odd inc, then 3 is more incarage then 5 7 and 9, if i throw the 9 , partner checking the spots missing might understand that i actually discarage the suit. In general dont overrate signaling, they are only second to normal carding, some good players dont even use signaling at all (atleast at total score or imp) some like me rarly give count.

1. 4H (but its irelevant to the director work here) 2. Yes, north has the information that his partner 3nt is not clear, anyway in any chance that information was giving we go with the non ofending side, actually i have never heard of a case where a thinking was ruled as not giving information. Now to the importent part in rulling here, dummy's hand is close to irelevant for the rulling here, we know south esitated, now we should look at his partner bid (4H) and see if its a clear bid, a bid that he would oviously bid without the esitation of his partner, if it is then no need to change the score, if its not clear then the score should be change (only if it helps the opponents) to the score that would have probebly achived (in doubt we rule infavore of the non ofending side) if north has bid what he was suppose to without the esitation , for example if north normal bid is pass then we would change it to 3nt and check how many trick they would do in 3nt with best diffence and resonable decleraring. To know if a bid is clear on not isnt easy, a common way is to ask other players who didnt know about the case, what would they bid after 2c-2d-3h-3nt (without esitation) and eccept the 4H only if 70% of them would bid it. Anyway as you understand there is no way to rule here without looking at north's hand.

I was thinking of 3c too, but i think its wrong especially at this vul, we know there are maybe 80% that we belong in 4sp, so i would rather bet on it then bid a non forcing 3c . Double can get us into a better place but what are we going to do on 5D by the opponents ? i guess at this vul 5d wont happend too freqently , but on different vul you will here it alot with a void in diamond. So maybe double here, 4sp on other vul.