bravejason

If you are making the opening lead and have a singleton trump, under what conditions would you lead it? I know that if you have multiple trumps and think declarer might have a cross trump or otherwise need to ruff several times then it might be correct to lead trumps. However, it is unclear to me if you would still lead a trump in that situation if you only have one of them.

What was wrong with bidding hearts? Partner would have then known you had short clubs and based on the 2S overcall could infer you were also short on spades. He'd then be in a position to take a preference or return to clubs. As it was, he probably thinks you have 6 diamonds, not just 5, based on the bidding), so passing with a singleton diamond honor made sense. Avoiding the NT seems a bit over cautious to me. You have stoppers in all suits (assuming partners clubs had one). There is a risk with the spades, but the overcaller probably cannot obtain the lead often enough to play all the spades (how many can his partner have) and overcaller likely does not have a side suit high card as an entry. Fundamentally, I think the issue was you wanted partner to bid again, but didn't make a bid to force him to do so. You said the cue bid was undefined. No way to know what partner would do except that he sure would have bid again after a cue bid.

since the hand has an easy opening bid, an easy rebid, some ability to play in NT if the auction ultimately heads that way, and avoids slightly misleading partner about the distribution, a 1 spade opening bid seems best.

I'm of the opposite opinion. I think East did too much. He has a flat hand, 14 HCP, and nothing about his hand suggests that it is worth more than 14 points. Yet, he invited slam despite knowing his partner held less than 20 points and also had a balanced hand. West bid the natural no trump, so his maximum hand value was known to East. I don't think West was wrong to think that he had a maximum for his bid. I think East was did too much with the 4NT invite because even if West has a maximum, the partnership is still missing 7 points, or an ace and king equivalent, so needing a finesse to make the contract was very possible. And as another poster said, the flat hand means that declarer has to take all or nearly all of his tricks with high cards. Also, East is the one with the 4333 distribution so he knew about the poor distribution whereas West can only make educated guesses about East's distribution. All that said, I think the slam was worth a shot. Whether I'm East or West, I'm looking for an excuse to bid the slam.

I open 1NT. 5332 is balanced and isn't a great distribution. Each suit has a high honor. The spades are nice, but not enough to make the hand worth more than a strong 1NT bid. I don't count the heart J as being worth anything.

What does West's 1NT bid show in this auction?

I can't decide. I like to bid so probably double. Since West passed, I'm guessing that partner has a decent hand. The question I have is why not open three diamonds instead one diamond? That seems like a much better description of South's hand. I don't see South as holding an opening bid.

I'd check my horoscope and then choose among 5C, 6C, 3NT, or 6NT. Alternately, I might jump shift in a major and hope partner doesn't have four cards in it so I can show the clubs on my next turn.

This has been very helpful. Thanks!

The question is in what bidding sequences involving natural No Trump bids are stayman or jacoby transfer available? I know they apply in the sequence beginning 1N-(p)- . Do they apply in the following example sequences, assuming the bidding system is SAYC or similar? 1D-(p)-1N-(p)- 1H-(p)-1N-(p)- 1D-(p)-2N-(p)- 1S-(p)-2N*-(p)- *Assuming a natural 2NT, not jacoby 2NT. 2N-(p)- 2C-(p)-2D-(p)-2N-(p)- 2C-(p)-2H-(p)-2N-(p)- 1D-(p)-1S-(p)-2N-(p)- Can you state a principal or guideline that governs when Stayman or Jacoby transfers apply when a natural no trump is bid? The reason for the question is that it isn't clear to me if Stayman and transfers are "always" available or if they are limited to specific situations. Would there be a situation where you want to play them after a raise of a natural no trump bid? For example after 1N-(p)-2N-(p)- it seems unlikely to want to bid Stayman or transfers, but I am curious if it is done or if those bids are no longer available. The only reason I'd see for it is if you bid 1N with something like AKQxx-AKx-xxx-xx and wanted to show the points with the 1N opening bid but did not want to play in NT for whatever reason (maybe last time partner had the same weak doubleton and so you lost 5 tricks in that suit).

What would a 3 spades cue bid show?

Is it correct to say that an overcall over a preempt is always strong and a double could be strong or weak?

My opinion is that you can become a mediocre to OK player that way, but that is the upper limit. And it will take you much longer to reach that level of play than if you sought to learn prior knowledge via books and instruction. Essentially, you are undertaking an unstructured approach to learning the game and thus will spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel and spending hours/days learning things that could have otherwise been learned in minutes.

That is a simplification. Much nearer to the mark is 10k hours of quality practice are needed to become expert.

2C 2D (waiting) 3D 4D 4NT 5C (Blackwood-no aces; If West has no H or S controls, they'd be in a tough spot. So bid Blackwood. If West shows the spade Ace, the East small heart can discard on it.). 5NT 6H (Blackwood-2 kings;.) 7D P (Forced to 7D, but it is OK since we have all relevant A and K. If W showed 1 king the contract would be 6D, which is great if W has the Spade K and not as great if it is the Heart K.) In summary, we'd contract for 7D, but did it thanks to luck by the specific distribution of A's and K's and diamonds being the trump suit,

Defensive play is not a strength for me. I'm just hoping what I think is correct isn't too far from being standard practice. #1. South has the ace (partner wouldn't under lead an ace) and partner has the jack (the deuce is 4th best from an honor). So I play the ten (cheapest) to flush the ace and set up a spade trick. #2. Same as #1 except partner has the ten. I play the queen. #3. South has the Ace and Jack, so playing the king won't set up a trick. Therefore, play low to discourage spades.

I wonder if such a question would yield useful information. It seems like all you need from partner is a bid that describes the strength of the hand. How partner made that evaluation seems like it ought to be immaterial. If partner makes a limit raise, then do you really need to know if partner's stiff K was counted as 0, 1, 2, or 3 points? As a another poster mentioned, a better player might look at the hand and see a 'limit raise' hand with no counting of points being necessary.

For an initial evaluation I use this schedule: A=4 K=1 Kx=3 Qx=1 Q=0 Jx=0 J=0 AK=7 AQ=5 AJ=4 KQ=4 KJ=3 QJ=1 I don't claim this is the best approach or even a good approach, but it does help me recognize when a hand with lots of picture cards may be less strong than it seems. Once partner shows support the suit, I re-evaluate using nominal values.

I've read several of his books and his books do not advocate opening these kinds of hands. Maybe he would open them, but his books teach that these hands should not be opened.

Yes, but do these hands contain opening points? Or perhaps points are irrelevant and it is shape and the number of honors that count instead?

Is there no pre-specified mechanism within SAYC that lets a partnership bid to game in a minor suit? Or is the partnership reduced to "finding" bids and hoping they each partner realizes there is a minor suit game?

My first thought on #3 and #5 was pass because the hand was weak, especially #3. I know there is a time and place for bidding as many tricks as you have trumps, but at some point it seems like you have to consider the strength and distribution of the hand. I've always understood that a free bid shows more strength. With #3, wouldn't a bid show more strength than the hand has?

The idea is that playing 4-card majors, recognizing that that opening 1D has a rebid problem, and seeing that the diamond suit is weak then you would suppress the 5 card minor suit and bid your good major suit instead.

Hands 2 and 3 would be easy to bid if you opened 4 card majors, wouldn't they?

Can someone explain the rationale for bidding NT when you know partner is quite likely to have a spade shortage since partner and dealers partner have all of three spades between them? Why not double and then pass whatever partner bids?