luis

I'm sorry but this is a very incomplete question to be answered. What was the vulnerability and what did they lead? Assuming they lead a club, ruffed who has the hA and what does he play? How are trumps distributed? Maybe you can get a count of the spades and the hearts and assume something about clubs from the lead so there will be more information later to decide what to do.

This auction is an exact copy of a famous hand I played, they did cuebid a Kx(x) here (4♣) and with AQ of clubs my pd passed and they reached slam. The logical lead was the other minor but dummy was so nervous that I decided 4♣ could have been a fake cuebid and lead clubs anyway. One down. When asked why he didn't double 4♣ my pd said one of his now famous phrases "If I double 4♣ they don't play slam, then why dbl if they can't make it?" :-)

The 4-3 fit can be better than the 5-2 spade fit when you dont' have heart honors in the heart hand or when you don't have a spade honor. In this layout the 5-2 fit should play equal or better specially with the hT in the 3 card side.

2♠ don't like it very much but I don't like my choices here. I think I have wasted values in the minors and not enough to stop them both in NT, sO I prefer to bid 2s and see what happens next.

15-17 to me. With 13-14 if you can't double 2♠ then you'd better pass. RHO pass doesn't mean he is not at the table.

2♣ at IMPs looks clear. Pass at MPs.

Clear pass to me, specially NV vrs VUL.

jdulmage: I think I agree with you in many things about bridge. I also like bridge as a "sport" and winning, collecting trophies and trying to represent my country are goals that I'd love to achieve. In my opinion there's a disctinction between the "sports" facet of bridge and the "business" facet of bridge. Masterpoints are "business", the sole fact that they are giving Masterpoints for online play means that Masterpoints have absolutely no value from a sports point of view, as you say anyone can sit at a PC, use a celphone or blackberry or whatever to pass information to his pd and collect a bunch of masterpoints. This makes me think that masterpoints are only colorful mirrors to give to those that want to pay the ACBL to play a tournament. Just my 2 cents.

Bidding 3N (or 3♠) on a hand where we are potentially wide open in three suits does not seem to be a apt description of this hand. If 3♣ really that much of an overbid? 3N is excellent opposite this - and a lot of similar hands: Qxxx Kxx Axx xxx. Automatic over a 3♣ balance. Over a 2♣ balance, I suppose you might play it right there. 5♣ or 6♣ looks good opposite: xxxx AKxx AQx xx You might get to 5♣ opposite this, but the balancer will need to make a very strong move on the next round, after a 2♣ reopening. I guess I don't understand the passers comments on this one, sorry. I'm not smart enough to not balance the opponents into game; I tend to be agressive with balancing and accept the occasional strange result of the opponents unearthing their buried 10 card fit. I've learned to not make the ensuing spite double though :rolleyes: You are only thinking about halh the board: your hand and pd's hand. The problem of 3♣ as Richard and others pointed out is that if they bid you can find pd doubling a game or partscore that makes. If your plan is to bid 3♣ and then every time that pd doubles something pull to some number of clubs then ok but I think that's risky and that's why I think a 3♣ bid can be a problem. Luis.

I can understand 3♠ and 3NT as well as 2♣ and pass. All of them logic bids that may or may not be the right decision under the circunstances. What I really can't understand is 3♣, a bid that in 90% of the books is used to show a 13-15 hand with a good club suit. Example: xx, AQx, Kx, KQJxxx Reopening is not a situation where a good player can intend to guess what a bid means, it's a situation where you must know what you play and most partnerships play a jump in a new suit as 13-15 with a good suit. Luis.

I ignore Zar and open 1♦. I have my symphaties for novel evaluation methods by still believe that common sense and bridge knowledge are above all of them. Let's try to NOT assign to Zar logical bids.

I do disagree. You Ron and the others come one by one :-) I strongly believe that bidding xxxx as a suit is wrong but since many fabulous players believe it is not let's just agree to disagree on that subject.

As Ron said there're so many possibilities that this is impossible. In a recent tournament I saw a very similar hand, where 4th hand had to decide whether to reopen or not with an 8 card club suit (holly coincidence but the opening was 1h not 1s) at one table 4th hand reopened and the opps drove to 5dx making (6d almost cold). At the other table he passed and let them play 1h. I wonder if there's a way to determine how many times you have game and how many times they have game when the auction is 1M-P-P and you only have a 7/8 card minor with heads and almost nothing in the side. I think partnership style about doubling and overcalling as well as opponents style is the key to the answer so there's no exact solution.

You probably know my answer: 1♥, yet again bidding a xxxx suit over 1m leads to disaster. 2NT would have been really better with a balanced 12 counter, yes denying a 4 card major. Every single responder bid is attrocius, and the bids after 1♥ are probably even worst than 1♥ but I'm going to assign the blame to the bid that started this madness. Luis

Matchpoints ? Pass!!

1♦, easy problem.

5♣, lead directing. Pd, will be leading against 5♠ or some slam and I think we need a club lead. If 5♣ is doubled I can remove to 5♥ without making pd lead a heart for a probable disaster. Luis

I'd say Ogust: Allows you to open horrible hands, medium hands and good hands without making pd guess the contract every time. Opps do have to guess.

1. Open 1♥ 2. Pass 3. 1♠ 4. 1NT Luis

I will apply a strange version of "restricted choice" here, With J653 declarer if he wants to misslead us can play 3-6, or 5-6 (hiding the 3 or the 5). With J63 he can only play the 6 and the 3. So I let my pd hold the trick and hope to get +100. :-) Luis

Pass, I think that bidding may win in 10% of the cases, in the other 90% either pd or RHO will bid something that we may not like at all. Maybe RHO is "fishing" and that combined with a "heavy" 3♣ opening bid might indicate that they have game and didn't bid it. Looking at my hand I think they can make 3N or my pd is sleeping.

In my view if an opponent missclaims it is a mistake and mistakes happen in online and face to face bridge and are part of the game. It is against the rules to give tricks to the opps and it's against the law to rule as a player, only the td can rule. Giving away tricks is not only against the rules but is also against the spirit of the game since you will be distortioning the field. In f2f bridge when declarer claims "n" tricks and the opponents accept even if there's no way for him to make less than "n+1" he is awarded only "n" tricks. It's the rule. I think the first thing that we have to do as good sportsmen is to follow the rules and mentor the others to do the same.

Playing precision your most valuable weapon is that your 1♥ and 1♠ bids are limited. So responder knows what can expect from each side and act accordingly. With that in mind I think that JumpShifts should be used to obstruct and not as strong bids, when you have a strong hand you can start with a simple 2/1 bid. The options I like for jumpshifts over 1M in precision are: - Preemptive or semi-preemptive hands - INV hands with 4 trumps and shortage in the suit (mini SPL) - INV hands with 6+ cards in the suit and no support. I like Fit-Showing jumps only in competition.

Instead of cluttering this thread with cat&mouse posts I think is time to ask Ben for one of his wonderful calculations about each line. Maybe you are right and d finesse first is right maybe not. You play diamond finesse and if that loses you try to discard a diamond on the third spade and stablish diamonds. If the finesse succeeds same idea. On the other corner I play the 4 spades discarding two diamonds from my hand without touching trumps or diamonds. The idea is to either stablish diamonds or to ruff the 3 clubs in dummy. I really think my line is better but who knows, maybe I'm wrong, I have been wrong many times before. Luis.