luis

Wow incredible hand. As many posters said your mission is to find the diamond king. And there're some ways to do that when I saw this hand two ideas came to my mind: If you play "specific kings" with 5NT you can just use 4NT somewhere and see if pd has the dK then bid 7h or 6h. A second way is to bid hearts and then clubs and see if pd can bid 3NT if he does then he has the dK and you can jump to 7. Finally and risky you can use a diamond splinter and see if pd retreats to 4s with "wasted" values in diamonds. Then he has the dK and you go to 7.

To me,6C on that particular hand is saying: "Go play somewhere else partner, I'd like to play bridge alone" :rolleyes: So you are a wonderful pd and will show your pd you have a semi-solid 8 card club suit plus a spade void and two red aces. Go ahead I can't wait to see how you do that. Your comment applies to hands where a player takes an unilateral decision when his pd could've have helped, when there's no way to let pd take a good decision I prefer to bid what I think I can make.

Luis, it sounds very much like you are saying the following: We expect to benefit from incomplete disclosure of methods We design our bidding system to maximize our chance of creating "special" agreements If true, this is completely disgusting When did I say that? I can bid whatever I want and you can ask my pd whatever you want and he will tell you any agreement explicit or not that we have. Not bidding X or 2c with strange hands is not an agreement it's quite natural, on the other hand bidding 2c or X with an 8th card suit is worth an alert if your pd is aware of that possibility. I just don't want my pd to imagina I might be holding 3 aces and an 8th card suit when I bid 2c, is that unethical ? You have to be quite touched to imagine that I'm trying to benefit from not fully disclosing my methods. Maybe is your comment the one that is disgusting, don't you think?

I have a theory but I don't know if it's sound or just my imagination. I try to make my bids as descriptive as possible to my pd so he can remember similar hands where I used similar bids and know what to expect from me. Since he has more data than the opps he will have valuable info to make a good decision. So with strange hands like this one I'd never make a "normal" bid like X or 2c since that is usually going to misslead pd, specially in a high level competitive decision. So whenever I pick a strange hand I make a strange bid or I bid what I think it's the best gamble. That's why I picked 6c. Another reason to bid 6c is that I'm 100% sure the bid will terrorize the opponents, LHO won't know if this is to make, a spectacular save or who knows what. If they are still shocked in the play I can even make 6c when I shouldn't. Pattern recognition is part of the bridge judgement that your pd uses, when he faces a decision he samples hands he remembers where you did the same as in this auction and decides what he has to do with his cards. With the club King and a couple of red suit kings if I bid 5c my pd knows that passing is automatic and he won't be missing a slam. And that's one of my reasons to bid 6c because I don't want to blame pd for passing 5c with cards that he won't know are useful for a slam Maybe it's better to start with X, maybe it's better to start with 2c but I believe your pd judgement can be damaged if he remembers you doubled or bid 2c with a hand like this, for example he will be reluctant to pass 2c when you have a normal 2c overcall just in case you have a hand like this one. About 5c I have no problem but the next time you bid 1M-5c do you want your pd to go to six with a couple of good cards? Mmmmm.... Maybe my theory is a complete nonsense.

Over 1h a jump cue usually asks for stopper to play 3NT, the 3h bidder has a solid suit. The polish variation uses 3h to show a stopper and asks pd to bid 3NT with a solid suit :-) Over 2h, a bid of 3h usually shows spades and a minor if you are not playing leaping michaels if you do then again is asking for a stopper.

The idea of preempting when you have half the deck has always been quite an enigma for me :-) Dopping the dreaded 2NT opening even if you don't use 2NT at all is a good idea. Someone suggested a 18-20 2NT opening, In my opinion that can be even worst than the traditional 2NT and I didn't think that such a thing was possible, thanks for opening my eyes I will remember it can be worst the next time a 2NT opening preempts my side from finding the best contract. About 2NT I'm playing a 5-5 hand with hearts and a minor and 10-13 HCP now. Because that type of hand is hard to describe or show in most methods, specially if they have the feared spade suit. So for now I think that 2NT should show something related to hearts. Luis

I found the options funny, is somebody going to vote for something else than "other" ? I think 2♣, pass and dbl are really bad options. I'm between 5♣ and 6♣ because with some luck in dummy this hand is very playable in a slam at least we don't have 2 quick losers and any red suit king can be fantastic. So I vote 6♣ -optimistic-

First disaster: [hv=n=skxxxhajxdkxxxckx&s=saxhkqtxdaq9xcaxx]133|200|[/hv] Bidding was: 2NT (19-21) - 3♣ (Puppet Stayman) 3♦ - 3♥ (4 spades) 3NT - 4NT pass Is 4NT Cuantitative for you? Yes/No and why ? More disasters coming soon :-) Luis

For the record wasn't an online hand it was during a match for the trials here in Argentina. I was south and the only thing I'm going to say by the moment is that 3 boards ago this hand appeared: [hv=n=sqjt94hkdk9xxcxxx&w=sa65hxxxdajtxxcqx&e=s87hjxxxxdxxcat9x&s=sk32haqt9dqxckjxx]399|300|[/hv] I opened 1NT as south and reached 4s without intervention. West lead the club queen ducked to my King. I tried playing hA (crashing the K), h queen discarding a club and the hT discarding the other club. But eventually West played spade ace and another and there was no way to get rid of a losing diamond in dummy so this was down one. Comments on my play are welcome, maybe there was a better line. What's the point? Well... west succesfully lead a doubleton queen of clubs (!!!!!!!!!!)

If RHO guesses that ♣Q is singleton, he can win the A and beat it no matter what I do. Isn't this a strong case for playing it to be a doubleton? Arend No, because East can't tell if the lead is a singleton or QJ doubleton. If it's QJ doubleton taking the ace and returning the suit while declarer discards his losing spade and wins and impossible cK in dummy would be quite embarrasing :-) Maybe this is also a nice problem for East, if declarer plays low, what would you do and why ?

[hv=d=w&v=b&n=skxxhtxdajxxckxxx&s=sxhkqj987dkqxxcjx]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] West opened 1♠, north passed, east raised to 2♠, you bid 3♥ as south and pd raised to 4♥ ending the auction. West leads the club queen. There're two lines: play the club queen to be a doubleton and put up the cK from dummy or play the cQ to be a singleton and hope that opener has also the major suit aces. Which line would you take and why ? Luis.

Over CAPP playing Rubensohl-std doesn't make a lot of sense. I know that you can't prepare against every possible NT overcalling method but since Capp is quite popular I'd recommend playing something special over Capp and a meta-defense like Rub or Leb over other methods. After 2c (one suiter) X = clubs, allows opener to compete to 3c before the overcaller can show his suit at the 2 level. pass = can have values or a hand that wants to penalize 2d/2h/2s = natural and non-forcing 2N = INV values in 3 or the 4 suits 3x = Forcing and transfer After 2d (majors) X = penalty dbl in one or both majors. 2h = clubs, good hand 2s = diamonds, good hand 2n = INV 3c/3d = Competitive 3h/3s = asking for stopper etc.

How does top notch players handle suits like this: KTx---AJxx or KTxx---AJxx when having no "clue" from opps bidding or lead helping them? Do top notch players finesse the same way every time? Being an average player and not too competitive I like to "decide" there and then,sometimes one way,sometimes the other way. Is there a percentage there? Sounds like doing it the same way every time has some merit. Sounds like alternating 1/1 I might get it wrong or right 100%. Judging from "experience" my way using my "feel" I get it right around 50% or so. First of all I try to postpone the decision as much as I can, in a trump contract it's not often possible but in no trumps you can wait and collect information. Then you must see if you have information about a player that could have opened or could have entered the bidding with the missing queen. If that is not useful you should try to guess the distribution around the table and play for the Q in the player that has more chances to have lenght in the suit. Finally if you can't do anything of the above try to see if a player is nervous or seems to have given up hope specially in front of AJxx.

Agree with this and I think it's better to cash the King in the third round. But if East has an honest count record and he has signaled a doubleton with 2 small then it may be better to finesse. As usual I think the pure odds say play the K but at the table you will play the K sometimes and finesse the 9 when you think is right. The odds can't prevent you from doing the right thing....

I think that if your style allows light openings and you are playing 2/1 then Invitational Jump Shifts are sound otherwise your forcing NT is a complete mess. If you play sound openings (I think you don't, I think you shouldn't!) then SJS or WJS are good options. Over major openings I prefer to play jumps as mini-splinter with invitational hands that can play game with no waste opposite the singleton. Over minors WJS are fine making competition harder.

"cheating" is a very strong accusation I'd define cheating as doing someting against the laws of bridge with the intention of taking advantage. So you need both an infraction AND an intention to take advantage. Fortunately in most of the cases you only have the first of the two and that can be handled by a TD or comitee without much trouble. Hunging an innocent guy is worst than letting 100 guilty men walk free...

Depends on how often I reply 2h with 3 cards. Since I never do that pass is quite automatic, but if I am a playe rthat often raises 1m-1M with 3 cards then there're some reasons to bid 3h based in my 4th trump. Luis.

I'm not going to pass this hand I accept a possible bad outcome. I open 1d or 1h depending on what the system dictates. Usually I'm reluctant to open not strong hands with short spades in 4th position but this hand has a lot of offensive values and I like that we can play in three suits.

I would like to add the following sequences were I've seen fairly advanced players that can't distinguish between them: (Assuming you play dreaded Texas, if you play South African transfers replace 4d with 4c) 1N-2d 2h-4N 1N-2d 2h-4h 1N-4d 4h-4N

Ok Richard but once you decide not to open (I can live with that) you can't jump to 4s like a maniac on the Txx and your never shown values.

I can't tell you how much I hate players that pass with 11 and then take some dramatical measures to show that they have a lot of values. It's absolutely criminal in my opinion. Why don't they just open the hand and stop the madness? In the first hand south should be executed after a very very short trial. In the second hand the 2NT opening as flame said means "I don't care about my pd" If it were a question of leaving or staying I would say that hand #2 is worst because it shows desire to play alone. #1 is just the usual insanity of players that decide not to open and then realiza they have an opening in the middle of the aucition. Yikes! Luis

2s is fine in my opinion.

While hard to apply I think that is the claim is not proceeding the defenders should ask the claimer what 12 tricks ( in this example) he is going to take and if declarer can't make a clear statement about what 12 tricks he is taking then the defenders should politely ask declarer to claim down 1. Should be part of the online playing ettiquete.

Absolutely irregular. Once he tried to claim he is down 1 since there's no automatic line to 12 tricks and a lot of logical ways to go down. Once a claim has been tried the play must stop that's in the rules and I'm not sure why this is not observed when the game is played online.

If east is a good player I think he has AQ of diamonds and his pd has underlead the king otherwise there's no good reason to play the Q and then the A. I wonder why east didn't play a third round of diamonds forcing dummy he is not holding Qxxx of hearts or he would have went with that defense. I think I'm tempted to take the backwards finesse.