luis

Ok interesting to see all the different ideas and lines. In the real world hand East held 1 heart and 3 spades so the "normal" line works but the guys taking the diamond finesse or playing for some exotic coups or squeezes would be down. East explanation for the double was - You may take it back to 6s or 6N thinking I ruff the lead - It may protect the heart queen or Jack fourth in pd's hand - It can make you play the hand in a weird way when the normal line wins - When all the above fails it loses just some imps

OK, so you are playing RHO to have Qxx QJxxxx xxx x. What about if RHO has Qx QJxxxx xxxx x ? Can you make then? Yes, when east shows up with the spade queen in the second round I take the queen with the ace, play a spade to the jack in dummy drawing trumps, discard a CLUB in the heart king and ruff a heart, when I ruff the heart West is squeezed, if he discards a diamond I play dA, dQ and he must now give me the club finesse if he discards a club I play a club discarding the heart T from dummy and west is endplayed again. Luis

Yikes Frances this is a very complex hand ! I appreciate all the information you gave us about the context, weak opponents etc. I will take the club jack as a true card, a singleton, weak players with QJ tend to drop the Q (principle of restricted talent), with Jx I don't think even a weak player will drop the Jack but who knows. I will play a spade to the King, discard the diamond queen in the heart King, then play a spade to the TEN then cash the diamond ace, spade ace and play King of clubs and another club. West covers and I discard a heart from dummy. Now west is endplayed and has to play from clubs or diamonds giving me the contract. Is this too crazy? Who knows but after thinking for 6 minutes it is the line that came to my mind and thus what I would play at the table.

Passing would have been idiotic to say the least. I fully agree with your 4♥ bid, you did well.

East is one of the top 10 players in the country and he passed calmly during all the bidding without asking any questions and then doubled 6♥ in tempo again without asking any questions. West meditated about his lead for some time and then lead a club, he is also a very good player and didn't ask any questions about the bidding either.

Clos match, EW are a top pair, this deal shows up: [hv=d=s&v=b&n=sakt6432hkj7d2cq5&s=s8haq8654daqj65ck]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] The bidding is: 1♥ - P - 2♠ - P 3♦ - P - 3♠ - P 4♥ - P - 5♥ - P 6♦ - P - 6♥ - X P - P -P The lead is a low club taken by East with the club ace and now east plays a low diamond. From here is up to you, what is your plan?

Mps ? 3NT automatic, Hamman's Law Enforced at MPs.

Very difficult decision but I think I would pass. I have a lot of defensive values in this hand so I don't think I have to take a violent action right now.

4♥ quite automatic

The North hand is a good example of one of my theories, My theory is that there's not such a thing as a hand "between" 1s and 2s, I think that you must open either 2s or 1s depending on your style but you can't pass. Luis

Yuo are wrong, if they have no agreements about 2♠ he doesn't have to explain 2♠ the bid is unknown for you as it is for his pd so hi was right in not explaining you can't force a player to tell what he has. I guess he can report YOU to abuse for insisting and trying to force him to explain his own hand.

What the hell was the double of 3♦? Why announce what you have? :-) I return a heart preparing a questionnaire for pd if this is the wrong card now.

At MPs I think anything can work, pass is wise and probably right but "right" bids usually attract other "right" bids from the opponents so sometimes a "wrong" bid will trigger a "wrong" reaction. So I think I will bid 3 spades here.

I think I prefer 1NT instead of 1♠ the spade suit is quite bad and 1NT tells a lot of things in just one bid. 2♠ was quite bad.

I mentioned somewhere I also think it's a matter of style,but since I would open 1D with 4-4 minor on this strength,I guess I "have" to open 1C with 4-5 to make a difference? The trend I'm seeing among experts is to open 1♣ with 4-4 in the minors or 4-5 as well. As I said it's a matter of style and I see a trend in style that says that opening 1♣ with 4 clubs or 5♣ when you have 4 diamonds is fashionable.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to what people put on their profiles if I were you. If the double and the raise to 4♠ are expert bidding, I prefer to be a novice. Roland I wouldn't judge for one hand. I agree the double is horrible but I can stand one or two horrible decisions by my pd in a session, maybe that's because I make one or two horrible bids per session as well :-)

Sick double, the 3♠ bid was fine.

Well find about hearts and if pd doesn't have hearts offer a choice between 6♣ and 6NT. I don't know how you do that on your methods but that would be my plan. Luis

I prefer 1♣ to 1♦ but I'm perfectly ok with 1♦ just a matter of style. 2♣ is fine to me I would hate raising with Jxx 3♠ is too much,I don't like the bid, I think 2♠ was more than enough.

To me pass is a logical alternative and there's one very important thing to notice. If the TD decided at the table that pass was not a logical alternative then he is inmediately wrong. In order to determine if a bid is a logical alternative or not the TD should poll some players with the same level of south and ask them what they would do, depending on the number of "pass" responses he them can decide if pass it a LA or not. Luis

Have you defeated the monster at the end of level 3?

Why would you call the TD? I see absolutely no reason for that, unless you're expecting your LHO to lead something strange BASED on his partner's hesitation. But, a spade lead in this case would be nothing strange - you're bidding 3NT so you don't seem to be interested in majors... Whenever there is a marked hesitation I call the TD, in my local rules you need to do that when it is your turn inmediately after the hesitation occurred. In 80% of the cases nothing happens. The TD arrives you let him know what happened he instructs the play to proceed and after the hand he asks if you feel you were damaged in some way. doing this automtically is for me ethical and clean since I'm not accusing the opponents of anything I just call the TD and stablish the facts and nobody feels bad about it. If you play against some "bad guys" this is also important since you are stablishing the hesitation before knowing the result after getting a good result some players will deny there was a hesitation and then the TD will have a problem since it's your word against theirs.

If this response was directed toward me, then, well, you stated the obvious. (I believe that I have a reasonably good sense of my personal bridge-related strengths and weaknesses.) If it was intended to imply that card play, and partnership-related issues are more important in general than what bidding system or style one adopts, well I strongly agree with you up to a point. However, this post was not intended to address any of the many personal bridge-related strengths or weaknesses that I have or that any other forum member might or might not have. It purpose is an attempt to try and clarify several issues to the degree that they might be clarified, and to survey what styles people have adopted, why they have adopted them, the degree to which these have or have not led to success, and why or why not. I recall a brief discussion in the original Kaplan-Sheinwold book ("How to Play Winning Bridge") about the distinction between two approaches to the game: 1) trying to stay with or slightly above the field in terms of bidding and winning via superior play, decision-making, and defense, and 2) trying to win in terms of staying with or a little above the field in terms of play and defense, and trying to win via superior bidding (and, consequentially, competitive decision-making). So, there are different views on that topic, and I feel that I am reading a variety of views on this forum about issues of style, approach, evaluation, and systems to name a few. Another currently-running thread has resulted in a number of opinions in terms of whether or not either of two hands should be opened, and various opinions on the merits of lighter initial action than the style that I am used to. I am looking for the reasoning behind adopting or not adopting a lighter initial action style, the ramifications that such an approach might have on the structure of any system that one utilizes, on how this impacts on what inferences one might take based upon action that partner has or hasn't taken (negative inferences), and the level of success that people have experienced using their' preferred styles and approaches. I or anyone else reading this thread might or might not adopt lighter initial action styles; those are individual and partnership decisions to be made. Pressure bidding seems to be in vogue these days. However, we all will likely have to play against them at some point, and understanding will be helpful in many areas, especially in competitive auctions. DHL It wasn't directed as you it was general including all the light openers, and yes that includes you and me and many others. I really don't think you have to "adjust" your bidding for light openings, you will be playing more games than the field and that is good, you will be playing more hands than the field and competing in most auctions and those are also good. This is assuming your light openings are light openings within a natural context. Most of the times in a natural context you open light when you have a major suit, my experience tells me that light openers tend not to open really light 1 of a minor. So what you probably need is some way to determine when pd opened a normal hand and when not. If you play 1M-2c as a INV+ relay then you can use 2♦ by opener or 2♠ by opener as "A normal person would have passed this hand" then responder can either signoff or continue if his hand is good enough facing a very light opening. I used this with one pd with a good degree of success, it was quite confortable. What The_hog said about 8-12 range being optimal is true, this is based in a simple statistical study and you can find information about this fact in the Polish book that Romansky wrote or in the Magic Diamond book. If you don't trust books just run a simulation and you will see if for yourself. 8-12 openings can be combined with either a baby-strong 13+ 1 club opening or can be also used in a EHAA context where 1NT is 9-12 and 2 level openings 8-12 with the 1 level openings showing 13+ any similarities with Fantunes are not just a coincidence. Hope this helps better than my "play better" initial tip :-)

AT MPs I would first call the Td, after all it is my turn and let him know about the hesitation, he will instruct the play to continue, then I will bid 3NT. Then it just depends on what east did have and he might have a problem unless he can explain what was he thinking. Luis

If I can check about 6 or 5 diamonds then I check it, 4♠ what's the problem?