TimG

We are the opener.

our hand: ♠ Kx ♥ AQJx ♦ Axx ♣ A108x 1C-(1S)-pa-pa; ?? Given the bidding, of course the ♥K rates to be on side. This is not a 50% situation! LHO overcalled (and RHO did not advance), so the HCP would tend to be on the left. I'm not sure the extra vacant spaces on the right make this a better than 50% finesse.

Yes. 1NT.

Since I care about the K of hearts, and don't care about the K of diamonds (since I can see it), I'll just 4NT RKC right now. If partner has two keys, I'll bid 6 diamonds, if he has all three and the queen of hearts, I'll bid 7. Wouldn't that be rather bad if opener has something like: ♠ x ♥ QJTx ♦ AQJxx ♣ AKx

I don't think it is a stretch to bid: 1♠-2♦ 3♦-3♥ 3♠-4♠

Wow! So, without even checking what their agreements actually were you came to the conclusion that they were playing that 4♥ shows a good hand, despite it being fairly non-standard. After 1M-(2N), without any agreement as to what minor suit cue-bids would mean, wouldn't it be standard that 4M is stronger than 3M? Similar to the auction 1♠-(3♥) where 4♠ would now be stronger than 3♠ (but not as strong as 4♥). In this auction, I would expect 3♠ to be competitive, 4♠ to look about like a limit raise (that has been denied an invitational call by the preempt) and 4♥ to look like a GF raise.

A slow 3♦ might be more descriptive. :P

I don't think you've answered my limit raise questions: when there is a BIT before a limit raise, what unauthorized information has been passed? It either shows a bare minimum or a super maximum, I agree. But, does that mean that whenever opener gets the pass v 4M decision right he will lose his result? No. Neither pass nor bidding on was suggested by the information conveyed through the BIT.

Maybe someone thought it was obvious not to lead a diamond and a disagreement ensued.

A start like 1♦-1♠; 3♥-4♦ ought to get the partnership there.

You haven't been reading the right books.

But, sometimes the BIT gives us no information. Let's go back to the case of the slow limit raise, 1♠-Pass-3♠, where the 3♠ bid is slow. What information has been conveyed by the BIT?

How about 6♥ making 13 tricks? Arguing that 6♥ is a logical alternative to 6♣ (6♣ being suggested by the UI resulting from the BIT before the 5♥ bid).

(bold added by myself) I don't think the quoted Law says that a hesitation automatically creates unauthorized information. Nor does it say that every gesture creates unauthorized information. This section of Law 73 is just listing some ways in which unauthorized information can become available.

Yes, that is my claim. Just like a slow limit raise does not suggest bidding on. The reason for the slow action could be because the bidder is stretching, or because the bidder has extras. There's no way for us to know which, so the hesitation does not suggest one way or the other. I don't feel strongly about the action over 5♥ -- I can understand the POV that the slow 5♥ suggests bidding on and that pass is a logical alternative. But, there's also inferences available from the failure to cue-bid either minor, if the player who bid slam explained this at committee, I think he could convince me that passing 5♥ was not a logical alternative.

I read this to mean that there were hesitations before 4♥ and 5♥, but that the hesitation before 4♥ could be explained by the attempts to get information and does not constitute a Break In Tempo. (The need to get information about the 2NT bid suggests that North was not very experienced and significantly hurts South's claim that 5♥ showed the ♥A by agreement.) Even if 4♥ was slow, we don't know whether the hesitation shows extras, or means that 4♥ was a stretch. I don't think it suggests bidding more over passing, or passing over bidding more.

Some would play that 4NT (over 4♠) is a trump cue-bid, you could probably invert these so that 4NT is the non-cue-bid and 5♥ is the trump cue-bid. But, with such an agreement there would likely be supporting documentation. Back to the actual situation: a slow 5♥ indicates a desire to bid something more encouraging than 5♥. To me, this means that it suggests bidding more. Since both passing 6♥ and bidding 7♥ seem to be logical alternatives, I would back it up to 6♥.

That's my question (I couldn't tell if it was his). If partner is demanding an unblock, and you have, say QJ2, do you play the Q or the J? Can you construct a combination where partner would ask for an unblock missing the Queen and Jack and it would matter to him which you played from QJ2?

I think 4♣ agrees hearts. With example (1) I would take the false preference to spades.

Playing the Jack denies the Queen. (Which you may want to do from time to time.)

I think this is just a terminology thing. Perhaps better would be to call it a "deviation from double dummy" rather than a "mistake". I don't think it matters whether you use "deviations from double dummy" or "less than optimal single dummy" or whatever you want to term a "bridge error" to evaluate a player's skill so long as you use the same criteria for everyone when you are trying to assess relative skills. Oh, I would also expect an expert's play to be closer to double dummy than a novice's. (Though I don't have any study to back up that opinion.) So, the % of the time that you make an 18 HCP 1NT contract may vary with the skill of your opponents -- that is if the advantage that declarer has in 1NT is 1/2 a trick in a study of thousands of 1NT contracts, it may really be less than 1/2 a trick with an expect defending and more than 1/2 a trick with a beginner defending.

"Subject matter: BALANCE" are the first three word on page 200 of the 1936 edition. Churchill did not advocate preempts in 1936, either. In fact, the "Treatise", written by Albert Ferguson, says "There is no opening two bid in Churchill methods. All bidding starts with a one bid except very rare preemptive bids made after partner has passed."

If doubler had something like AKx x KQxx AKQxx, wouldn't he want to explore slam, but not launch right into RKC?

It is a negative double situation.

Yeah, that's how we play in New England. You mean it's not that way everywhere?