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Im trying to think which one is better. Basically its both the same, but still there is one resson i can think of that make the not serious 3nt supiriour. this is because when you are strong you are more lackly to give a comfortable cue bid in the 4 level, you are more likely to hold a control in club and diamond then when you are weaker, now when you play non serious, your partner will be stronger (or else he will just bid game) and he will have a confortable 4c/4d. cant think of other ressons for either side. I wonder what fred has to say about this since in his 2/1 article he use serious 3NT. one more thing to know, there are other ways to use the 3nt bid, my partner and i use it as turbo, which is to distinguage between odd/even keycard. 3nt can also be use as a counter cue bid for example after 1h- 3h- 3s - 3nt would show a control in spade. or as just a non convetian cue bid avaliable with good hand. or as showing good trumps.

You should try to understand it, wather you discover or they tell you is a nice aid for memory but you better understand the principle behind it.

Its ok to analyze the hands, but dont lose the main point of this thread, The example hand i just gave is not something i took hours to think about, its just an example to expalin the idea of the monty all trap, do you understand the point in it ? Do you understand why saying west got 4 clubs and east only 3 therefore there are more chances that east has more diamonds is a wrong conclusion ?

6sp is a teriable contract that you dont want to be in no matter what the scoring is. 7c is a much better contract then 6sp, even at MP. i like to be in 6cl in MP.

If west wins and give a ruff to east then you need hearts 3-2 or else you lost 1 spade 2 diamonds and 1 heart. I won´t lose another ♥ unless the player ruffing is short in trumps as well, surelly very unlikelly since bidding wasn´t posted (requires a 6-5 or 7-4). If west has A10xx in diamond and a short heart he doesnt have to give a ruff to his p, he can just lead something else. I'm not saying you're line isnt good, but i htink its more or less makes when atleast 1 suit behave.

I dont like the penalty double, but im a MP player, in imps and extremly in rubber bridge maybe this double is good when you can get 1100 once in a while. Two things that i dont like about the pd first its ignoring the total trick law which usually suggest playing at the 2 level, and secondly the pd is a gamble double, you basically gamble that your partner is stronger then dummy.

If west wins and give a ruff to east then you need hearts 3-2 or else you lost 1 spade 2 diamonds and 1 heart. So basically your play succede when atleast one of the suits are 3-2 (with the add of A diamond single in east) and you dont get to be ruffed in clubs. If they dont take the first diamond, then you lose even when diamond breaks but hearts dont if you get ruffed by the single heart. You can make things better if you play the K of heart before diamond, then you wont be ruffed by the singelton heart holder. There is a simpler line with about the same chances , you win the A of club , play AQ and K of clubs, drop another spade on the K of club, and you are home if either suit is 3-2.

I don't understand how you do this math. you said there : With WEST having 6♠ to east's two, the odds of dropping the ♣J in three rounds (J, Jx, Jxx with either), is 69.5%. The hook of EAST for the ♣Jack is only 66.5% (and that includes teh 5-0 split which isn't that helpful, and with WEST having 6♠, odds of 5-0 is 5.4%, reducing the ♣ hook to 61.1%). So clearly hooking ♣ as your partner did appears wrong. How did you avoid the monty all trap here ? cascade later on the same thread gave his chances, which i suspect have the monty hall problem in them meaning they arent accurate. About the ex problem here, yes we dont know for sure that west doesnt have a 4 card major, but the chances for him to have it is smaller, and even if it was even chances to lead a major or minor with 4/4 its still a restricted choice here. I'm sure that on this hand the right play is to fineese west for the Q. About Luis's remark, i dont think someone would bid differently with 6 card major and 4 card side suit, especially if the other suit is a minor, so it need some adjustments.

432 A3 AJ106 6532 A65 K876 K987 AK the biding goes 1NT - 2NT - 3NT west leads the 4 of club explained as 4th best. you have 5 trucks outside the diamond, and you will make the game if you can hook the diamond q, the question is on which side to look for it. Now lets take the simple approach Ben took on earlier problem to figure out the odds. we know west has 4 card clubs and east has only 3, we go to this nice program distribution calculator put 4 known card for west, and 3 for east, we put Q in the missing cards, and click GO, we get that the chances for the Q to be on west are 47.368 while with east 52.632. now clearly we finnese east for the queen right ? NO Lets examine this in a different way, west has 4 card club, we also know that west doesnt have a 4 card heart or spade because he didnt lead any of them, this give him at most 3♥ ,3♠ and 4♣, this leaves atleast 3 cards in ♦ this mean that west is clearly longer in diamond and we must finnese him for the queen. How did we go wrong ? We fall into a trap, we took the information of west having 4 cards in club and adressed it as an new ifnormation, while this wasnt new but a known info, we knew west has atleast one 4+card suit, and we knew he will lead his longest suit, this just happend to be club, for it could just as well be heart or spade, his having a 4 card suit doesnt put him with less diamonds. Now to the general question, how to know the odds ? I cant say because its too complex , but in genral its a good idea to take an avarage lead to be out of 4.5 card suit, this mean if the lead was from 4 card suit, there is a lil more chance that the leader will hold more of the suit we check (diamonds in the example) while a 5 card lead will give the leader lil less chances, and a 6 or 7 changes the odds in more drastical way. This isnt only valid for leads, lets say your LHO bid a takeout double over your 1h which exlained as showing exactly 4 card spades, this might put you in similar position to the lead problem, you shouldnt approach the 4 spade cards and a new info, because you already knew he will have a 4+ card somewhere. In the discussion with Ben west bid showed 6 card major, 6 cards in a suit are more then avarage, making thier holder less chance to hold a certain card you are looking for, but how less are the chances ? you cant use the program with a known 6 card on one side and 2 on the other side, you have some new info, but some was already know, i would say that 4.5 cards in the long suit is the know info, so we only have 1.5 "new cards" not 6 new cards. You can find a chapter about this in granoveter's book "for experts only", with some good examples, unfortunetly i dont have it with me here, but hope i manage to expalin it anyway.

Ben i'll open a new thread b/c i think this might interest other members that already gave this thread up. unfortunetly I dont have the granoveters book with me here, but ill give my own example and try to explain.

Ben i think you have a principe mistake in there, this program cannot be use for this, and maybe its almost useless. I must leave the comp now, but later i will explain with some example from a book by granoveter.

I would open this 1♠ way before i ever heard of Zar points. You have 11 hcp, 12 hcp is an opening, doesnt 6 card suit worth 1 point ? it is an opening in the rule of 20, or goren's count. also i dont like opening premptives with hands that doesnt look like a premptive, too much defense. Showing extra later was the impressing part.

If you only ask about the club precentage i would probebly play like your partner, play the K of club first and then first finnese, but on the all hand i think its better to duck a spade twice, then play clubs 3 tops this gives you some more chances when the clubs doesnt work if the diamonds A is with your RHO, i wouldnt however play the finnese like Free suggested, this is imo worse then your partner's line.

133|200|Scoring: IMPS wow... my first thought is that both have clubs stopped, west has spades so i give east the diamonds heart to the ace, hoping both follow... if so, play flame's line - ♦A, K, ruff high, ♥ to the K, ruff another high, draw trumps and hope for <!-- PARTNERSNS begin --><table border=1> <tr> <td> <table> <tr> <td>Dealer:</td> <td> ????? </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vul:</td> <td> ???? </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Scoring:</td> <td> Unknown </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td> <table border='1'> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> 10 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> 2 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> 8 </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> J </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> AJ][/hv] squeeze east in ♦ and ♣ first, then west in ♠ and ♣ if east does have 4 trumps i'll need to still ruff the diamonds, but take a chance with lower trump on first ruff... if west has the diamond, it's easy... just toss a club on the last heart... if east has it, same as above i hurried, the sopranos is about to start, so sorry if i missed something obvious If you play the AK of diamond and they dont ruff it, you wont need the sqeeze because your last D is high.

I play that 3sp is to play (not inviting) but double is cooperative D which is like inviting spade but p can leave it doubled. this is only when their bid is one level under ours, if for ex we had spade and their suit was diamond i would bid 3h to invite and the double was to penalty (still parnter can pull it out to 4sp with the right hand). even that i play double on heart to invite spade, i would still prefer it not to be tottally offesive meaning i woudnt bid it with void and probebly not with a singleton heart, doublton or 3 times are the normal for this double of 3h, while double of 3d or 3c would be more like 4 card or 3 nice ones. if i got an offensive invitation and they bid 3h i will just shoot to 4sp and hope for the best.

I play Q of ♥, then if ♥ arent 4-0 i play AK of ♦ ruff a diamond with high trump trump back to dummy, another high ruff, trumps out and club to my diamond trick in dummy. If hearts are 4-0 with west having 4, ill go with the same line as before, but if east got 4 of them, and east have 4 of them, ill play trumps and get some kind of squeese either West for spade and diamond , or something more complex with the clubs.

Its importent to notice the different between the first 4 answers and free's one. All the first 4 look for something extra before checking stopers, this is imo a good idea, that will not get you to 5m with 24 balanced hands that have no play while 3nt cn make on bad diffence or good breaks.

You are right that the best defense can take the contract down (unless someone will show otherwise) but to do that you must not jump with the A of diamond, or else its just a simple sqeesze on east.

I think it can be done vs almost (or maybe all defense) After two clubs and a trump shift. taking in hand playing diamond to the K. If west go up with the A, then if he doesnt cont diamond its a simple sqeese on east (After taking the AK of heart out) If he west continue diamond you take the K play trumps getting to this possition -- AK 9X -- X J10x -- -- now if east saved 3 card hearts and only 1 diamond u will get into dummy with the A of heart ruff a diamond and the last D in dummy is high , if he saved only 2 hearts u take the AK of hearts and the Q drops. If west doesnt go up with the A, you take the king and take out trumps leaving -- AK 9xx -- X J10x J now you play the J of diamond, if wests take the A we are in the same squeese as before. if he doesnt take the A easy wins but he still have only 2 hearts and 2 diamonds meaning after entreing dummy and ruffing another diamond trhe last D is good.

Didnt understand if 2D here is GF or just 10+ if its 10+ i will bid it, if its GF i will only double since i dont think i have a game if p is minimum. On the 2h rebid ill bid 3h on both options.

Maybe I'm missing something but surely the whole point of supp X andXX was to show 3 card support for partners suit? --- ESPECIALLY of only playing them up to the 2 level ;) But do you always want to show three card support? eg ♠5432 ♥432 ♦AK2 ♣AQ2 After 1♣ (P) 1♥ (1♠) do you really think it is important to show 3 card ♥ support? Even 1♥ may be too high! Eric My opinion is to show the 3 card support here. If partner have 5 card suit he will not bid again unless i'll double here, he might not even bid a 6 card suit b/c i can have 0-2 cards in the suit.

We play something different then normal after 1c-2c We play that 2h/2s are natural showing 5♣-4♥/♠ This might look stupid since 2c suppose to denay 4 card major (its not a total deny in our system) but i think there is a point to it. we first discover the shape now we know if we got an alternative contract to 3nt, if we dont then there is no point in investing for stopers, this will only help the opponents, if we do then with no stopers we will play 4-3 major or a minor game, if 2h/2s show stopers you might not know about the 4-3 (and sometimes 4-4 in our sys) major fit to land to. 2d is either a minimum hand (including balance 12-14, we save our 2nt for 18-20 bal) or 5♣-4♦ 11-21 after which we have some relays. the rest of the bids are : 3♣ = 6+♣ 16+ HCP with SGL 3♦ = 6+♣ 16+ HCP without SGL 3♥ = 4144 18/22 HCP 3♠ = 1444 18/22 HCP 3nt = 4414 18/22 HCP

Do you play that a support double shows extra ? or do you bid it with any minimum hand with 3 card fit ? im talking about a 1/2 level support double.

I dont see a problem there.

If 5 card major doesnt interest you, then why is 4 card interest you ? why ask for stayman at all ? just shoot to 3nt and dont help the opponents. In my expirence and i guess someone did the necessary tests, its good to be able to check for 5 card major.