AL78

I glossed over it and didn't register it. That's a new one on me, how do you bail out into 3NT when it's right if it means that?

North's bid means "Based on what you have told me about your hand, I want to play in 3NT". Therefore you should pass. I would have opened 1♦ as South. The chance it gets passed out when you have game on is minimal, and you can show the heart suit on the next round.

I'm thinking lead towards ♦J, if it loses wih the return, cash ♥AK, three rounds of spades (ditching a heart) and four rounds of clubs (ditching a heart). if the ♥Q is singleton or doubleton, or diamonds are 3-3, or one opponent has 4+ diamonds and 3+♥ to the Q, I make the 12th trick through a favourable red suit layout or a squeeze. I haven't worked out how the odds compare to taking the heart finesse. If the ♦J holds, play a low one back to the ♦9. If it forces the king, I have 12 tricks. If the ten wins, win the return, cash ♦A, if the king drops the ♦Q is the 12 trick. If it doesn't drop, cash one heart and run all the black suit winners ending in North throwing a low heart from each hand. Play a heart to South, if the queen doesn't appear from East, make an educated guess whether to finesse or play high.

For bridge defence for a novice: Modern Bridge Defence, Eddie Kantar Advanced Bridge Defence, Eddie Kantar Books by Ron Klinger are excellent, very easy to read and follow. For declarer play, the Bridge Master hands on BBO, work your way up from the beginning, they get progressively harder, and if you can't find the solution, the walkthrough option is very easy to follow.

Ah yes, the fourth round of hearts destroys the discard of a loser, didn't spot that.

How does 3♠ fail on a low heart lead? If declarer guesses right, he has five spades, ♥Q, two diamonds via a finesse and one club, nine tricks. I can't see how the defence get five tricks even if declarer doesn't put the queen up at trick one. The defence get three heart tricks, but then declarer has the same nine tricks available. If the defence don't take their ♥AK at tricks two and three, all declarer has to do is win the return, draw trumps and force the ♥AK out for the ninth trick I would have doubled 2♠ in the passout seat. It might not make a difference here when East bids 3♠ but I don't like letting the opps play at a low level when they have found a fit and I have a good hand with shortage in their suit. It is extremely likely we have a fit in one of the other suits, the only way we don't is if we have three seven card fits or the opponents have found a 4-3 fit.

Neo-liberal capitalism and the externalising of costs.

Partner won't have a yarborough, otherwise at least one of the opponents would have made a game try. Partner is marked with a rubbish hand though.

A quick Google search suggests that there isn't really a standard way, it comes down to agreement as to whether a new suit response is forcing, constructive but non forcing, or weak with a long suit and can't stand partner's suit.

I have always understood changes of suit opposite an overcall are forcing for one round unless it is by a passed hand. They are forcing opposite an opening bid, so why not make them forcing opposite an overcall, the HCP range is similar, about a king lighter in strength than an opening if at the one level. If you play cue bids of opener's suit as a good raise, you need a way to show a hand with possible game aspirations with a good suit, but no support for partner.

Ha ha, I was tempted to reply along those lines. I would be in hospital.

In the book The Complete Boook on Overcalls, Mike Lawrence advocates overcalling on such suits and worse, but only if it has some obstructive potential and the hand has trick taking potential outside. ♠8 ♥65432 ♦AQ32 ♣AK4 and ♠J8742 ♥8 ♦AK3 ♣AJ42 are both 1♥ and 1♠ overcalls over 1♣.

I'd open 1NT, even though it is a stonking maximum. Did you open 1NT and miss game when partner held the perfect 10 count?

I'm not sure what your point is. Bidding 3♦ is wrong because there exists a layout where it goes horribly wrong? So what, there exist layouts where it works out beautifully as well, and passing is not without risk. Bridge is a probabilistic game, so it comes down to what is most likely to get a decent, or at least satisfactory result, which cannot be diagnosed by looking at individual deals.

If I were East I'd get a bottom when I pre-emptively leap in hearts and go down. I don't know what East was thinking not raising hearts or correcting after 2♠, did they hold a different hand during the bidding? Why would you prefer a 4-1 fit over a 5-4 fit? This is one of the things I find frustrating with bridge. I do something careless/reckless/stupid, I get the hand of God down on me. Someone else does something completely irrational, they land on their feet.

So are you saying that to a certain extent, your beliefs shape your reality. If you really believe you can win, that in itself will increase your probability of winning? I've heard this stated in the context of dating, whereby believing you are a failure with women makes it more likely you will continue to fail, because of the negative vibes that women pick up on.

I said in my first post it was 5 card majors. My partner used to live in South Africa and didn't play Acol when learning the game, I don't think she likes playing it. The NT range is 15-17. 2/1 responses are a good 9+HCP. On this basis, if I repeat my suit after a 2/1 response, I would expect partner to find another bid with a good 10 or 11+ HCP, hence when partner passed my 2♠ bid, I expected her to hold a minimum 2/1. I judged at the time 2♠ was enough because it didn't look like the hands fit well, as it happens none of partners HCP are in her suit, so my singleton heart isn't the liability I thought it was, all her HCP are in the minors which are working well with mine. The fact she holds a doubleton spade helps as well, with a singleton opposite I am more likely to have two spade losers. When I bid 2♠ I knew my hand was at the upper end for that bid, so hoped partner would find another bid with anything other than a misfitting minimum.

Not winning as such, but having a good result due to nice solid play up to the limit of your ability. I have had sub 50% evenings which were enjoyable because I had cards where I could play an active role in the defence, I could formulate a plan, execute it in cooperation with my partner, and punish them for overbidding, or do the best we can. That is the core of the gameplay for me, solving a puzzle logically and getting something tangible out of it from sound reasoning and execution. Continuous sub 50% results where I keep making blunders, or I have no clue what we did to deserve finishing second to last, or a streak of evenings with poor hands where the opponents get the cards most of the time and do the optimal things with them and we get whipped, or I declare twice in 20 boards three times in a row are not enjoyable. There is a correlation between doing well and enjoyment, and there is a correlation between my average HCP and enjoyment. It is certain individual hands in an evening that tend to lower the fun, like when opponents bid and make a cold 6NT on a combined 36 count, and we get 29% because some have overbid to 7NT going off, some didn't get past game, and one hero stopped in 2♥.

I must admit I don't understand how it is possible to constantly win in a sport against rivals on the same level or slightly better, unless you are having a lucky streak. If you look at the best sportsmen/women/teams in their field (i.e. world champions), they might have a streak of consecutive wins, but they don't always win, at least not in the limited sports I have loosely followed. At some point they have an off-day at a time another not far from their ability plays above their station.

[hv=pc=n&w=s65ht98743daktckj&e=sakt872hjdq3ca863&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=1sp2hp2sppp]266|200[/hv] We are playing 5 card majors, but not 2/1, so 2♥ is 9+ HCP with a five card suit. I made 11 tricks, not the double dummy way of taking the double spade finesse, but by cashing the top trumps after a diamond lead then throwing the losing heart on the third diamond. This was worth 21%. Partner claimed I should have jumped to 3♠ on my second bid. I thought with a potentially useless ♦Q, a singleton in partners long suit and six losers my hand wasn't good enough. What do you think?

Surely if you are always winning, the competition must be well below your standard, the skill differential has to be high enough to overwhelm any luck factor. In such a situation, I don't see how you can feel you had to work for a win the majority of the time since most games will not require full effort to achieve victory. Is it not more satisfying to compete with others on your level where it is anyones game and the result comes down to who played better plus a luck element, or ideally small luck element? When I played in county competitions years ago, it was far more rewarding to win rounds in teams competitions against decent opposition, than to win when I am sitting in and assisting in the beginner duplicate (the latter is meaningless).

I can't say for sure having never played a game where I'm always a winner, but thinking about it yes, if I were to always win, that implies there is no challenge, and if there is no challenge, then it will probably lose its thrill and enjoyment. To get real gratification from winning, you have to feel you had to work for it. I'd rather get a top from finding an advanced card play technique or brilliant defence through logical inferences than be handed a top because a weak pair completely blew the hand.

I think it is more complicated than a binary answer. I'd say partially true. I get fruistrated when I do badly at bridge because I don't like losing, I don't like underperforming, and have never been a good loser. This is only one small part of my whole character, and I am not frustrated in general in all other aspects of life.

Had a chat with partner this morning. She doesn't want to play four suit transfers because she is concerned it will be too much strain on her memory. We have agreed that in future, if she bids 2♠ and the opponents come in before I have had a chance to find out her minor suit and I want to compete in her minor, double by me says please bid your minor.

I don't play Acol with this partner, we play 5 card majors, strong NT, and a few bits and bobs like 1M - 3M is pre-emptive, invitational hands go through 3♣ and 3♦ (what she calls Bergen raises). I like the idea of playing a 3♣ response as 5-5 in minors and playing 4 suit transfers to deal with the long minor hands, I'll suggest it to her.