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Free did you mean hands one and two as just the shape of the hand, meaning x could also be an honor ? I didnt understand it before and so did luis. Ofcourse if you enough hcp you can act further. how much exactly im not sure but im guessing invitation is enough.

Actually i forgot that the anamination play works also for QJX on either hand, that probebly turn the chances in favore of this play.

I was going to say im with whereaqles, but lets first check how good his line his. You need A sgl diamond - this is about 30% You also need to get the heart , this is less then 50%. Combining it gives you 15%. You also makes it when the QJ of spade are doublton, i dont know how much it adds but it is certentily less then 10%, als some overruffing should take the chances a bit lower, so you have less then 25% . finding RHO with both spade pictures is 25%, so its better. Going for simple squeeze will be imo less then 25%. So its probebly best to begin with a trump, play 1 more to take them out,and finnese spade twice. i wouldnt play small if LHO wining the A of heart come back with heart, because usually the opponents doesnt give present for no resson.

Im not sure what the term automatic (which luis uses alot) mean exactly, but when a player like luis say he would bid 1nt rather then 1sp, it mean the is atleast a resonable alternative. I think ill try Luis's approach of not showing a weak 4 card major sometimes, and see how it will result, it feels right to me.

I got a student really fast , just few days after i signed up, but he never showed up or answer my emails.

Learn from your mistakes, trust me you make lots of them. Dont teach your partner, iv seen so many players teach their partners , they dont know enough to teach, i also remember doing the same mistakes myself , i even know i told my partner things i was sure about which later i understand i was wrong. play against good players, only by seeing better player you will get the motivation to get better. read the right books.

A director should check if there was an infomation avaliable to one side and not the other, and wather this information made a different to the score. In this example its not even close. First the 3sp bid is not a psych, its not a regular bid but its an accpetible one. Second the partner didnt seem to know what his partner had and even if he didnt know he didnt use it and normally bid 4sp. Third - it wasnt the resson for the bad result,let say there was an hiden info and lets check what would happend if you also had this info so you knew the opponents could have only 5 card spade with an unbalanced hand, as i see it you would probebly bid the same (wather its a mistake or not) even when the director desided to change the score he should give an adjust score probebly 4sp*-3 and not an art score of 60-40. again not even close and a really bad decision of a director, making lots of mistakes, imo this person shouldnt be ac director because he doesnt understand his job.

This director is a very bad one, i think the only thing you can do is complain in writing to your bridge federation.

2 things that you might have missed Free, first i didnt bid 7NT just told my partner that i will, and second, i never complained about psyches just believe its bad for most partnership including mine.

You think you will miss a slam if you pass a 3 hcp hand ? Imo slams are your concern that passing this 3 hcp is better, because if your 1sp will show partner a real 6 hcp , the chances of you to reach the slam (when you got the 6 hcp) are higher. I actually i think bidding 1sp with the 3 hcp at MP, then at imp, because at mp 1c all pass might get you a bad score of 90 instead of 140.

1 ) that's an option 2 ) In SAYC, it almost always does. Mike :D Why ? what is the sayc bid for 6-9 hcp with 0-3 spades and 0-1 hearts ? example AQx ---- xxxxxx xxxx

Believe it or not , i changed my mind. I agree that what i'v said about the thoretical problem of psyching is not really about psyches, its an all around problem that can never be 100% solved. Anyway this wasnt my main point , i dont want my partners to psych, because i dont think its good for my partnership.

Its not that stupid, cue bidding 4h or even 4s could be misinterete by partner to be natural (especially with non 100% solid partnerships) 4nt has the adv of asking about the Q of club, i guess if get an answer of 2 aces and the Q of trump you will bid 7, and maybe even with 1 ace and the Q of club, for a 50% grand slam in the worst case.

Yes luis i agree, but again this cant be done in 100%, its just not possible to tell them exactly what you know, maybe even there are things you know about your style that you arent aware of. I tried to examplain this point is 100% thoretical (and shouldnt prevent anyone from psyching), in practice it happend wather you psych or not, you will sometime not give all the information you have.

Ok lets examine this example, partner bid 2sp over 1c and partner have AKQJxx. Lets say that the chances of partner having a weak two in spade when you have AKQJxx are 0.01% (just an example number) they are not 0, because partner could for example bid 2sp with a 7 card to the 10. Now if im your partner you know for 100% sure i have a honsest weak 2 in spade and although its just 0.01% chance you know this 1 in a 10000 just came. If anyone else here like for example The_Hog, you know he makes 1 psych every 1000 hands (again just an example) so chances are it is a psych. The opponents doesnt have this knowlege , and there is my point it wasnt 100% fair (although it was very close to it) Now you will say they can know because in the CC we write our psyches (never frequently etc.) but what if you and your partner have some 3-4 psyches you freqently or rarly makes but you never makes any other psyches ( i think with most good players this is the case, they have psyches the do often like the makwell pair like the 1d-1M with 2/3 cards and a weak hand). Point is you almost always know something they dont, even if its 0.0001 piece of knowlege its still a little problem.

The syac "book" bid is 1sp, so you shouldnt feel bad for making it. You can do what luis suggested, skip this major suit because it will show the hand better.

Sure, agreeing with pard that he must never psych is a plausible agreement, and you have every right to be disappointed with a partner who breaks agreements. But what you do not have the right to do is punishing partner with bids or play which willingly lead to a bad board. Why ? If you are a good player it should be obvious to you: you are not punishing only your pard, but also all the other pairs at the other tables that will be damaged by the gift you just handed to your current opponents. Hey I didnt say i have bid 7nt , only that i said i will , it was just to make sure partner will realize how much it bothers me. I do my best when i play calmly , i hate having a private director checking on my table, like happend lately with the partners im playing with. I also prefer my opponents to feel good, and i dont like it when they think we cheated (even when we dont).

Thxs for the advice Luis, i agree with you, at the table i considered 2d, but decided on 1h, next time i will go for the 2d option.

If that's the case, you should have supported ♦ to begin with, either with inverted minors or some other way. You are already at 3 NT without r pd knowing you have a big ♦ fit. And if you want to be in game 5♦ much more likey then 3 NT. And some people might consider 3♠ a psyche, especially if not alerted. Mike ;) And what about the heart suit ?

I'm playing inverted minors , i just dont play them with 4 card major. Do you complitely giving up on the heart suit when you bid 2d, or you can get it back later ? (how ?) And mike i thought this worth a game vs a minimum opening, its just a matter of hand eveluation.

As i tried to say before, psyching have a big problem which is basiclly unsovable, you will never know if his partner had any clue (not talking about knowing the smallest clue is wrong) that his partner could have made this psych. Im not against the idea of psyching, but i believe there are many problems with it, the suvire one is what it can do to my partnerships , and another one which is more theretical about the fact that most times the partner of the psycher will have some clues (ex: seen it before, read about it on the forum, done against us, done by us, read in abook) , this one is theretical problem which dont have and couldnt have a 100% solution. I strated playing bridge about 17 years ago, and trust me i had my share of psyches. I was trying here (with no much success) to take them off it. Notice that more psyches are made by unexpirience players, and it costs, both in board result and more in the partnership. Just to make it clear, im not advicing any world class player not to psych, sure when you have a solid partership that can take this psych , and you know how to psych (and when not to), it might help you, but in the real world its usually just a move by non expirence player trying to win the world by himself , just like a soccer player takes the ball and try to score rather then passing for a better appotunity.

2sp ment to show some power in spade to help partner bid 3nt if he got something in club. How should i'v bid it ? 3D doesnt sound like forcing to me.

Thanks guys, i like the club line.

Why ? What in imp make it better to bid here ?

I agree with free, imo hands with 5 card major and 4 card minor should bid the major, with maybe an excption of good 4 and bad 5, but maybe its better to change the system so 2c cant have 4c and 5sp. Still i would pass those examples hands and hope for good.