Siegmund

Even at matchpoints, there is something to be said for requiring more than Qxxxx for 2-level overcalls. :( Double is a much smaller lie. Unanimity is indeed possible on the AE forum for this hand.

At MPs you might be willing to consider 2H, given your potential side entry. If you had a weaker hand (no potential entry outside clubs) the case for 3C would be more compelling. It is probably the right bid anyway at imps. If you had any honour in hearts, or if you had the CAQ instead of KQJ, I would be willing to play 2H even at imp.

Yes, suitplay counts KTxxx in front of the ace as 4 tricks when you hold the 7. If you re-run suitplay on Q93 opposite AJ842, you'll be offered three equally good lines, one of which is leading to the jack at trick 1. Leading to the jack gains against Txx-Kx and loses to xx-KTx. If you have the 98 in the same hand without the 7, or you are missing the 8, there will be one clearly better line that preserves a tenace.

6A requires that (for hand dealing) "each pack is thoroughly shuffled," i.e., you cannot incorporate information about other deals into how the pack is prepared for this deal. 6E1-6E3 says that the boards can be hand-dealt in advance. 6E4 covers all non-hand-dealt methods: "the Director may require a different method of dealing or pre-dealing to produce the same wholly random expectations as from A and B above."

Absolutely right. Most of us have a strong preference to play 26 (well, I'd prefer 30 or 32) out of 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000. If you have us play 26 randomly selected deals out of 30 balanced ones, you'll have undone almost all the "good" you were trying to do by balancing them, and just slightly reduced the complaints about your dealing procedure.

Because for some of us, 4♠ after 4♦ would be a cuebid in support of diamonds? I would certainly take 4♦ as agreeing diamonds as trumps and leaving room to explore for slam.

As bb79 said - the fact the opps are constrained to 13 cards each means that the 32 five-card distributions and the 128 seven-card distributions are not equally likely. Working out the 5-card case all the way: Opps have (say) 5 spades and 21 non-spades. There are two 5-0 breaks, for each of which the non-spades can be dealt 21!/(8!13!) 203490 ways. There are ten 4-1 breaks, for which the non-spades can be dealt 21!/(9!12!) = 293930 ways. There are twenty 3-2 breaks, for which the non-spades can be dealt 21!/(10!11!) = 352716 ways. That is, the 3-2 breaks are more likely than the 4-1 breaks by a factor of 12:10, and the 4-1s more likely than the 5-0 breaks by a factor of 13:9 (so a 3-2 is more likely than a 5-0 by a factor of 12X13 : 9x10.) You can now calculate 20 / (20 + 10 / 1.2 + 2 / 1.733 ) ~ 20/29.487 ~ 67.8%. Similarly, in the 7-card case, the seventy 4-3 breaks are more likely than the 5-2 breaks by a factor of 11:9, the 5-2s more likely than the 6-1s by a factor of 12:8, and the 6-1s more likely than 7-0s by a factor of 13:7, and you can now calculate 70 / (70 + 42 / 1.222 + 14 / 1.833 + 2 / 3.405) ~ 70/122.588 ~ 62.2%.

Now we come to our senses and quit playing FSF(game), or this hand has no rebid. :) Given where we're at, I'm going to try 3♠, in hopes that I have a heart ruff in the short hand and/or running diamonds if partner decides 4♠ is best.

4NT directly over 4♠ for me.

1) flip a coin between 2♣ and pass 2) 200% pass 3) 300% pass My answers to 2 and 3 depend in part on the notion that partner had some options what to do over 2♣ and chose to say he had a one-suiter with diamonds.

Interestingly, as South I had 3♦ or 4♦ available as a fit-jump after 1♣-1♥-1♠ at the table. Our agreement is that this shows at least five to the KQ+, but if I remember the 3♣ raise leaving a somewhat bad taste in my mouth, and 3♦ might have been the more descriptive bid. Of course on this deal, 3♦ from me would probably cause partner to bid 6 of a red suit expecting to make it.

IMO the use of 1m-X-1M-X as penalty became much less appealing when 1M=forcing became the standard treatment. (At any rate its name should be something more like 'spades-showing' than 'penalty' since 1♠ isn't a possible final contract.) I have no beef with a pair that agrees to play it as the unbid suits, especially given the rarity with which the average tournament player EVER psychs in the US. I play it that way myself with my reg p. But do be aware that the standard meaning is spades, and if indiscussed that's what you should assume it is.

I wish I had another point for 1NT, but I probably bid it anyway. When the suppX-pass-pass comes back to me, I retreat to 2♣, and make a mental note that my opps are good enough to have discussed the meaning of that double and to judge when to leave it in.

At my table the auction was 1♣ - 1♥ - 1♠ - 3♣* 3♠? - 4♥ - pass? - pass 4♠? - 5♥? - pass? - pass double * 3♣ = 8-10 raise of hearts, with better clubs than spades East did indeed have a pulse, as he managed to get in his car and drive home after the game, but it's hard to tell. The popular approach at the club was 1♣ - 2NT - 4♠ - 5♦ and then off to the races. Nobody was allowed to go down in 6♠; all those tables sacrificed in 7♦X. I like both gwnn's 3♥ and my partner's 1♥ intending to rebid diamonds better than I like 2NT but I am not surprised that many chose 2N.

No, its not limited to 13 HCP; but I sure hope it's not routinely a 4-loser hand! If you play sound openings I'll believe there is a 35 or 40% chance of a game in the hand somewhere, so I can see why the "vulnerable at IMPs gong" is sounding. My own style is to lighter openings (a majority of 11s) and sounder responses (5HCP about once in 3-5 sessions) than many... so I feel like I'm giving up more like a 25% chance of game along with a modest chance of 2S being a better partscore.

We see a lot of magic-fit "bid this grand" threads, and a lot of "diagnose this misfit as fast as possible" threads. Here's a "hey, look, we've got a fit... how crazy should we let ourselves go?" one. [hv=d=w&v=n&n=s63haqj875dt9532c&w=sajhk632dq87cqt84&e=skqt9742hd4caj963&s=s85ht94dakj6ck752]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] My table, amazingly, actually reached the double-dummy par contract, but via a hideously nonstandard route. What's your pleasure?

I play a style where 2♦ is only forcing 1 round too. And this hand looks like a passwtp to me at IMPs. MAYBE at MPs you could persuade me to fish for a spade contract, but I might be losing more in 2NT/3♣ than I am gaining in 2♠.

Simple straightforward 2♠. Apparently my partners make more subminimum takeout doubles than your partners do, if you think this is the top of the range of 2♠ hands... I'd call it more the middle of the 2♠ range, and a full trick shy of insisting on game.

My coolest-ever auction was cool in the opposite way: (3♠) - 4♥ - (5♦) - 6♣. I was the 4H bidder, raised my p to 7♣ because I had the ace of clubs, got doubled, and partner made it when RHO guessed wrong whether to lead a spade or a diamond. Happened in a hand-shuffled sectional team game. We called the director over to look at the auction. He copied the hand down, saying "Im gonna show this to the people who complain computer-dealt hands are too weird."

Would never occur to me that it might not be minors. Even if 2H is weak, 2S is (ostensibly) strong. The psyching argument is intriguing, but even common pyschs are rare enough that it'd be strange for the undiscussed meaning of a bid to be psych-trapping.

This morning I had a rather disturbing experience at a money bridge table. Four tricks into a hand -- a game for my side which I looked very likely to make, but I didn't know if I might make 4 or 5 yet -- my opponent (defending) claimed 8 of the remaining 9 tricks for minus 500. I got lucky; my mouse was busy clicking the next card, and the claim got more or less auto-rejected. One trick later he reclaimed one trick and gave me +680, then declined the next deal and left. IMO my opponent was hoping to trick me into accepting the claim without looking carefully at it, and stealing $6 from me (half-cent table.) I will refrain from naming names on a public message board, and there is a (tiny) chance it was a legitimate accident and the opp meant to concede the hand and didn't care about the extra overtrick and just misclaimed (I've never seen an opp do this in a cash game, but at imp tables it happens), but I do want to ask: is this a known/common scam at the money bridge tables? To whom should I be reporting this username? Is there recourse for someone who is unlucky and accidentally accepts such a bogus claim?

I am sorely tempted by 4♥, but it hath been written on the stone tablets: thou shalt not preempt with two aces. I used to ignore this rule routinely, but it got beaten into my head, 300-points-against-a-partscore at a time. I voted for 1♥, but I wouldn't object to passing and coming back in with some number of hearts later if the auction developed favorably either.

Sentiments like this one have been expressed several times in the thread: I think y'all have this backwards. If you hold ♠KQT9xx ♥xxx ♦x ♣Axx, you hold a hand that is clearly focused on spades, and is moderately unlikely to take more than one trick defending. That's a perfect textbook maximum 2♠ bid with the vulnerability against you (at favorable and perhaps equal I'd open 3♠.) The original posted hand, ♠KJTxxx ♥Qxx ♦x ♣Axx is overall a slightly less powerful hand, yes; but more to the point, it is a lot less spadecentric. Along with the spade suit being between 1/4 and 1/2 trick weaker, it has a trick in defense of an opponent's heart contract, and an extra cover card in support of partner's hearts. In 3rd seat, open it 2♠ anyway if you want, fine -- but it doesn't scream "preempt!" at me, and in 1st seat I think it's simply a question of pass vs. 1♠ and I wouldn't give 2♠ serious consideration at all. As lobowolf put it - not because you are too strong, because you are unsuitable.

imo glen hit it pretty much on the head. This is similar to your own suggestion about requiring 44 minors, in a way - though you might just require 3+3+ in the minors. (In my own experiments with 1NT 11-14 no 4CM, 3rd seat is one of the times I really like it, for the trouble it inflicts on fourth hand trying to get his majors into the bidding.)

I realize this is going to be a minority viewpoint here: For me, the main value of 2/1 is that in a pickup partnership, there are not too many things I have to ask my partner in order to avoid spectacular dumped-in-a-forcing-bid type accidents. That's part of what bluecalm meant, perhaps, about SAYC being difficult to play. SA has become kind of a poor stepchild of 2/1 rather than seeing much proper system development of its own; and SAYC as-published has some uneasy compromises. (No reason why it omitted splinter bids, for instance, except to make the card less scary-looking when it was published 20 years ago.) For that reason, if you and your partner want to pick up a book on a system and memorize it, you will probably do better with 2/1 unless you go back to very old but well-written books (Commonsense Bidding + all of Modern Bridge Conventions except forcing 1NT, for instance; or, closer to 2/1 style but still not purely 2/1, Aces Scientific.) If, on the other hand, your question was "is there a fundamental reason why the sequence 1M-pass-2m ought to be GF in any sensible bidding system?", no, that's not the only way to build a good bidding system, though it's a very popular approach especially if you like IMPs better than matchpoints and/or you live in a country where artificial relays on the first round aren't legal. It's quite possible to take a SA foundation and turn it into a tight modern system without making 2/1s game-forcing, but it's going to involve a fair bit of study and work on your own part rather than just copying ideas blindly from books.