LBengtsson

There is nothing wrong in letting the opps. play a contract now and again. They might not bid enough, or they might bid too high and go down :)

I do not play the Multi but logic says to me that East should X North's bid, to tell partner immediately that you have a weak two in ♥s. Anything else just leaves the ambiguous door open. You gotta help partner in this game, and if you pass and partner bids 3♠, as happened in the actual auction, it just makes things uncomfortable for you. The opps. are at red/white also. +500 looks a lot easier than +420. If you pass and let partner - hopefully! - reopen with a X, the opps. are going to scramble anyway, I guess: I cannot see them leaving 3♥X in imo.

Just my opinion, but if partner can be 2♣5♦ here, I do not like the opening bid of 1♣. Too much emphasis on bending a perfectly good opening bid of 1♦ to accommodate a conventional bid. On the hand in question, with T-Walsh I would bid 1♦ and await developments. Using T-Walsh does not stop you using 4SF if you need to. I want partner to describe his hand and go from there.

I was watching a friend play on BBO (intermediate level) and she wanted to know what technically was the right opening bid with this hand? She is dealer at white/red IMPs [hv=pc=n&s=s9ht8654dakqt953c]133|100[/hv]

I am in your camp with this, in that you can go all scientific trying to find the right contract without success - the opps are likely to make your life difficult also - so I would just bid 6♣ here. Yes, it might depend on a finesse, partner might have opened and rebid 2♣ without a ace in his hand - **** happens :( I doubt if partner can bid 6♠ himself after 5NT, so I do not think 5NT would work here but you know of the ♣ fit so I would bid what I think we can make - 6♣. If other pairs end up in 6♠ at MPs, well maybe the slow approach of bidding 3♠ here (as long as it is forcing) might be better but who knows. Sometimes you have to take a reasonable gamble at this game.

Cyberyeti beat me to it - again! lol. Was going to say the same. These higher level decisions are imo the ones that separate the better players from the social ones. At IMPs you would bid one more to prevent the game swing. I think at MP that can apply also. 5♣ is justifiable, if you cannot show the ♦ suit with 4NT. Good hand to post.

Whilst I agree with this, taking the bidding slowly may get you to the optimal contract. If you do not use a Soloway Jump here in the auction, partner will have to factor in that you could have a hand like this and you do hold the top trump suit. The important thing is Fourth Suit Forcing should be seen as a progressive bid asking partner what sort of hand he has and providing an answer to the question? Because FSF is not only a GF but it is asking bid. What the reply 3♣ is telling me here is partner is likely 5/5m, probably without a ♥ stopper and probably without ♠ support. That is only a approximate. It may be difficult to reach where you can go after bidding 3♠ here, but you must not lose hope that you can make a grand slam with reasonable odds - partner has a stiff ♠ and cards in the minors to dispose of your losers. But getting there could be tricky, I agree.

I do not see a problem myself. Yes, you are at red/white, so you should bid, or try to bid vulnerable games - the OP does not state whether this is MP or IMPs. But you have to trust partner here. Partner has asked a question. Is your hand any better than a minimum standard 1♠ opener? Marginally, as the main cards are in the long suits, but there's a distinct lack of substance beyond that. I think one day 3♠ will be right, on another 4♠. It is one for a simulation, and with his 3♥ bid what precisely - or not - is partner promising? That needs clarifying also.

The South hand is short on HCPs and other bits as ali quarg said. One rule I use with 'balanced' 5422 is to have 4.5-5 honor tricks in the hand. The South hand just has 3.5 honor tricks. The ♥Q7 is not pulling its weight, and changing the hand to ♠QJ10754 ♥Q ♦AK ♣AQJ4 still makes it a 1♠ opener for me. K&R on the actual South hand of 5224 is just 18.6, on my changed hand of 6124 it is still only 19.55. As soon as you open 2♣ I guess the robot just bids what it thinks it can make, having no idea whether the ♦ suit is open or not with its 6NT bid. The robot assumed you had at least 23HCPs added to its own 10 and bids 6NT as it has enough points for slam.

Horrible, rather than routine imo. Without the 2♣ overcall, in the auction 1♥ - 1♠ - I am bidding 2♦ but in the actual auction 3♦ suggests better shape and maybe extras. I think we are headed for a bad contract whatever, but 2NT keeps things low, and now if partner bids 3♣ we can now bid 3♦. I do not like 2NT but I prefer it to 3♦. Can we pass? Of course not but it might be the best action to try to get a plus score on the hand. At white/red that 2♣ overcaller is bound to have a good suit and an outside entry. My guess is our hands are fitting badly already, but 2♠ is forcing so it is a question of picking not so much the best bid as the least worst one imo.

The problem with opening 5♣ here, even though you got a fortunate lead and made the contract +2 is that you have to make 11 tricks whereas in 3NT you have to make only 9. Only if partner turns up with some shortness in the majors and some trumps does 5♣ work - or if the opps. mess up on the defense. Opposite a passed partner, the chances of making a slam are incredibly slim. You end up in a contract of 4♠ (that probably makes except for bad breaks) if you open 2NT and partner has ♠KQxxx ♥xxx ♦xxx ♣xx, whereas if you open 1♣, partner bids 1♠ and where do you go from there? I think there is no easy way to bid this hand. As I said, on a opening bid I am always looking at my next bid also. It is not unusual to open 2NT with 6m332 shape, and it does save trying to find an adequate rebid if you decide to open 1♣ instead. If you open 1♣ - 1♠ - and then rebid 2NT you are undervaluing the hand: it looks more than a 18-19 (semi) balanced with 8 playing tricks in your own hand. That is just my opinion, for what it is worth.

Without being influenced with the possible auctions shown in earlier comments, I would open this hand 1♣ even though I have not quite got a sensible rebid - which is always something I think about opening any hand. The problem is it could let the opps. into the auction and find a fit, and make it difficult to find your best, if not quite ideal contract. The only alternative, I feel, is opening this with 2NT which I do not like as two suits are open. But hey, partner could have some form of stoppers in both :)

Even at white/red there are two suits missing from my hand that suggests that the opps. will be able to bid one of them and have a fit and crash in on the auction. So 2♣ it is with the idea of partner playing 3NT, stopping the opps. entering the auction - hopefully, and seeing what partner can bid next? Usually I would bid 1♥ with 4M but the ♣ support is so strong I think that takes priority her even if the 1♣ opener is 2+. You can find any 4/4 ♥ fit later in the auction, I feel, so tell partner you want to be in game here. He does not need much for 3NT to make, and ♥10xxx is hardly a great ♥ suit. I would rather tell the truth with a 2♣ bid: that is what my hand is about and that is what I am going to tell partner with my first bid.

Yes, a interesting hand to post. I know how I would play it but not sure it is the right way either. Will have another look later in the day.

The idea with competing against any 1NT opening with a conventional bid is having some distribution in your hand, not competing when balanced with a 4432 hand. Capp should show at least 54xx or better distribution with the suits, with emphasis on the longer suit being the major when overcalling 2♥ or 2♠. So technically, with 4M4m you should not use Capp. The danger with any overcall of 1NT, even a weak NT opening, is that the opener is quite limited in shape and range, so it is easier for his partner to judge penalising you should you end up in a bad contract by using Capp, Landy, DONT or any of the other of the defenses to 1NT.

Some interesting comments from forum contributors. I will try to sum up my thoughts quickly. a) Only three times, I can remember, have I seen in a club duplicate a board where everyone played in the same contract and made the same number of tricks. b) 'Playing with the field' is just taking the safe option when you feel you are already doing well. As said previously by other forum members, different bidding systems, different hand evaluations, different strategy, different psychology and different strength of players all contribute to different results. The same for any sport or pastime. So, actually, 'playing with the field' is possibly hard to achieve as everyone is doing something 'DIFFERENT'. That is why bad players sometimes get good results, and sometimes good players get bad results. But, in the long game, the good players will get far less bad results than the bad players getting a hell of lot more good results. Put simply, that is why the better you are at any game, the more you will win. Anyone can fluke a pool shot: it is the same with bridge. If you try 'to go or play with the field' you have absolutely no idea what is actually happening at other tables: you can estimate but can not judge with certainty what everyone else is doing. So 'going or playing with the field' is reduced to guesswork or intuition, and it is not a 'absolute science'.

Irrespective of the position and vulnerability, even though I have nowhere near the knowledge of qualified tournament directors, I would rule this bid as a psyche for one reason only: you are playing 2/1 which is a 5M opening system. But what the law says might be different. I am interested what more experienced forum members who have knowledge on rulings say about this.

That made me :) over my early morning coffee. The bots do some stupid things...

27 HCP...26.9 K&R...27 Kleinman evaluation. Agree with Stephen Tu. 2♣ - 2♦ - 3NT showing 25-27. With Kokish you can tighten the point range slightly on the rebid.

It is not poor judgement imo to try to find game on this hand. How would be bidding have gone without the 3♣ pre-empt? With either partner or the opps. holding different cards then 4♠ makes. I would guess, just off the top of my head, that East holding ♠AQ10 over North is somewhere in the region of 5-10% only. Yes, the 3♣ pre-empt on the actual hand does matter, but not everyone is bidding this way. The bidding on the actual hand could have gone 1♦ - (Pass) - 1♠ - (2♥) - 2NT/3♣ (pick your poison, I prefer 2NT) - (pass) - and what does North say now? 3♠ only? Never! He has three extra ♠ than his 1♠ bid signifies, and normally a 2NT rebid from partner would be forcing to game. I expect most expert partnerships would be in either 4♠X-1 or 4♠-1. And even expert partnerships sometimes go down in contracts, or so my granny says :) (God rest her soul)

This is a excellent hand to post, with a good amount of discussion. My take (without seeing being influenced by what partner actually has) is to treat 3♣ as a standard pre-empt not an intervening bid. Opposite a standard pre-empt I would be playing partner for about 8 HCPs so would wish to be in game. I would bid 3NT if East had opened 3♣ and the ♣ suit is good for three tricks even when West overcalls 3♣. (I might think otherwise if I had a ♣ suit without the three honor cards, plus the ten.) So I think you should bid 3NT here. That's my take.

E/W have not competed at white/red so it says, in my book, partner is strong. If 1NT is a semi force, then I am 99% sure partner will bid again. As long as partner is prepared for nebulous 1NT off-shape hands like this opposite. Mrs Bennett would shoot her husband for making such a bid but we are not living in the 1920s, and 1NT does not deny ♠ support. It just says you have something but no other bid available. I prefer constructive, (stronger) raises to 2♠ than this hand, so if we belong in a ♠ contract, we can bid it through the 1NT catch all bid.

If I were looking for a top specifically I would not. If I wanted to 'play with the field' I would bid 3NT. There is not much else you can do imo. Edit: Mikeh got there first again :)

Easier seeing both hands obviously, but a possible sequence that may lead to 6♣ could go 1♦ - 2♣ - 2NT - 3♣ - 3♠ - 4♦ - 4♥ - 4NT - 5♦ - 6♣. However, a big however...is that partnerships may not cue bid this way, preferring to show first round controls throughout. Additionally after 3♣ - I think you should show that you have a good six bagger as opposed to raising 2NT to 3NT - does 3♠ agree ♣ as trump and show the 18-19 balanced, or does it show a possible area of weakness in the ♥ suit looking for 3NT with the 12-14 minimum? I personally think that 3♠ should set ♣ as trumps and shows the bigger hand imo. However, I agree it is a very difficult hand to end up in 6♣ now having had a look at it a second time. No wonder many did not get pass 3NT. Thank you for posting.

If you decide not to open 2NT with the West cards, and many would go the route of opening at the one level with 1♦, then rebidding 2♦ is just a poor bid imo - you asked for advice, so I am going to say it as it is. The reason why I say 2♦ is a poor rebid is:- 1. It is not a 6+ card suit 2. You are indicating (usually) a minimum hand - maybe in your 2/1 methods you want to save space, so you can bid 2♦ here. 3. You are not looking for a major suit fit: if partner had 5M he would have bid it at the one level instead of 2♣ surely? 4. You have no 4M to show, so no 4M/4M fit to find. 5. The hand is balanced, and to protect the ♥Kx you will need to be declarer. So here you need 2NT to show the shape, but not necessarily the point range here. After this I think it is easy to get to 6NT played from your side, although 6♣ is a better and alternative contract, but you should still get there imo. Partner rebids 3♣ after 2NT to show a 6 card suit, and with 19 HCPs and good controls opposite minimum of 12, I really cannot see how the field played in 3NT. I admit it is always easier to judge a possible contract seeing the two hands that are bidding, but there is a certain logic having a 2NT rebid as extras or minimum here on this sequence. I also admit am not a 2/1 expert, like Stephen Tu who writes on these forums, but I have seen this 2NT rebid made on both types of hand, 12-14 minimum and 18-19 balanced also.