luis

I guess that the auction was: 1c 1d 2c 3c x p 4c p p In this case it does have some sense to discuss if 3c creates or not a forcing pass situation. My vision is that if you are vul pass is forcing while if you are not pass is not forcing.

Am I in direct seat of balance seat over 5♥ (not that it probably matters).... Sorry, you are in balancing seat, pd already said that he had 10-15 0=5=4=4 so he will remain silent for the rest of the auction unless somethin strange happens. It went 4s - 5h - pass - pass In case you want to consider table-feeling factors the 5h bid was automatical, so LHO had already decided to bid 5h if you bid 4s while you were briefly thinking in your turn.

If you overcall 1d vulnerable and your pd with 15 and 5 diamonds vulnerable vs not thinks about doubling them in 4c and finally decides that letting them play 4c undoubled nv is a good idea you have a problem that is far beyond this hand. First of all if you have whatever your minimum/near minimum overcall standard is your most descriptive bid over 4c is pass. Second if pd has 5 diamonds and good values I'm sure there is a better bid than the dreaded 3c cuebid. Maybe a fit showing jump, a splinter or something like that. Even when 3c is the right bid I think that with my best respect your pd has a serious conceptual problem.

So far so good you bid 4s but not without thinking about doubling, after all the hK plays on defense but not in offense. Now they take the obvious non-vul sacrifice at 5h what do you do now ?

Well I think we are ready for the press conference if we go down due to a stiff dK. I prefer that than not playing a clear squeeze :-)

As I posted I think that the problem with your idea bg is that pd will think that pd will just bid 4s and now you have a huge problem. If you bid 4N you will be in trouble when pd has the two aces and denies the sQ because you now need the heart JACK for a grand slam. I think your sequence shows 5-5 in spades and diamonds or 6-5 with 6 spades and 5 diamonds. It's not clear if you have a powerful hand since with 6-5 you may be just removing 3NT as a contract that you don't want to play. So first of all pd has to decide if he is being asked to pick a game between 4s and 5d or if he is asked to cuebid and if so what suit is the trump suit? Sometimes you have to think not only in your hand but in what pd will do with your description unless your pd is a genius. I accept that for some partnerships this can be a road to success but I have a lot of reservations about this auction in average. My bidding can be right or wrong but I think that 4N shows 6-5 with 6 diamonds and 5 spades and a powerful hand (otherwise I can just bid 4s over 3N). Had he bid anything different over 4N my next bid was going to be 6h. And I was very happy with that. Please understand that I'm not saying that my way to bid the hand is the right one or that is better than your idea just that I was very very happy with the way I described the hand. For the record when I bid 3s I told ben "I think this is either a 5-5 or 6-5 slamish hand or just asking for stopper for 3N" When pd bid 3N and I bid 4N I thought it was clear it was the 5-5 or 6-5 slamish hand because as Ben said if I was looking for 3N then I pass 3N :-)

Ron: Our 2/1 structure is based on never supporting without 4 cards, because knowing how many trumps you have is sometimes critical in slam bidding. So we never support with 3 and we never rebid 2N with 3 card support, we bid 2N only with doubleton in pd's suit and stoppers in the other 2 suits. This rules are great for describing the hand and make the 2M rebid very common. Our 2M rebid is not always minimum as you seem to play. After 1M-2x;2M we always use 2N as a relay since opener frequently has 3 card support and 2N is the only bid that allows opener to support any suit responder has with 3 cards.

Actually I don't have a lot to comment about this hand, I will let you know what I was thinking so you can comment and discuss with me if you want. I'm always open to discussion it's what makes this game so nice, there're options. This is a transcript of my mind during that hand: Having AKQJx in a suit and KJxxx in the other I think it's a sin to bid the weaker suit first. After all 6d and even 7d may have a play opposite a doubleton while in spades I need not only support but also honors. That was my first thought when I got that hand. I also considered what problems can arise with 2d. While the auction can develop in many different ways and I was planning on showing diamonds and spades, maybe distorting the hand as a 6-5 which I think is a pretty good distortion with AKQJx and KJxxx since the diamond Jack is as useful as a sixth trump making the suit solid. I was also thinking that I didn't want pd to correct 6d to 6s if he has xxx in spades (or Axx) and a doubleton in diamonds or other holdings if I bid spades first pd will likely correct 6d to 6s and I think that 6d makes more often than 6s with random 1h hands in pd hand. And I was also thinking that a grand slam was probable and that I need to tell pd I held the hQ a solid diamond suit and values in spades. I decided that all these factors asked for a 2d bid.

So this is a pandemia bglover :-) I thought it was an endemic problem here, students bid 1m-1M even when they have AKxxx of clubs and Txxx in the major. This inmediately leads to a painful bidding sequence and when nobody knows what's going on anymore they blast into some usually horrible contract. I kibitzed once a guy who held xx,Jxxx,AKx, KQJxx his pd opened 1d and he bid 1h. When I asked why he said "teacherd told be to always bid the major first". Shouldn't we revocate the teaching license of those guys? :-)

Your hand is: [hv=s=sk9xxhkxxdqxxxcqx]133|100|[/hv] In the bidding pd shows a three suiter with 5 spades and a heart void 10-14 HCP. So he has exactly 5=0=4=4 You are vulnerable and your opponents are not. The bidding was: Pd RHO You LHO 2d x xx 3h 3s 4h ? Double by RHO was explained as "values" Your redouble showed the hand is yours. 3s by pd showed exactly 5 spades and the heart void (nice to study this competitive auctions ah?) When your opponents reach 4h what do you do? Do you bid 4 spades, double 4h or just pass and let them play?

Excellent tip Free, now let's see if some BIL member solves both problems.

Thanks for your comment Ben, let's hope the BIL members post some answers, even tentative to these problems. The first hand might actually be from a book since it was the hand that my coach used so it's a "problem" hand. The 2nd one was just played yesterday at a local tournament. Sometimes you think that "book" hands never show up in real life and there it was a perfect hand for bridgemaster level 2 or 3 :-) Thanks also for not solving them, they are very easy for you :-)). I wonder why at the table many experts went down. My poor opponents were devastated, they lost 13 imps without doing anything wrong.

What do I do? I bid 4N, since I bid 3N to play I'm now having to play 4N because my pd is crazy. I'd inmediately change my pd, this is not something smart that you should understand this not only an idiotic bid but also a bid from something that is thinking he is very smart. Sorry pd but I'm too stupid to play with you.

Back in 1997 (yes, 7 years ago) I was training for a Juniors South American championship, our coach was probably one of the best bridge teachers in Argentina and he presented me the following deal: [hv=d=n&v=n&n=sxxxhaktxxdkxckqx&s=sakhxxxdaxxxcjxxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] East bid spades and you reach 3NT, how do you play on the s8 lead? I went down 1 in a snap. 7 years into the future: yesterday I was playing an IMP local game, training for the local 2004 season and the following gem appeared: [hv=d=n&v=n&n=sxxxhaktxxdkxckqx&s=sakhxxxdaxxxcjxxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Again east had bid spades and you reach 3NT on the simple sequence (1h-(1s)-3n) west lead the sJ, how do you play. After seeing dummy I inmediately recalled the hand from 1997 and this time I wrote 600 and to my surprise I was one of 2 declarers from a field of 14 who made the contract. :-). Since this was clearly a valuable lesson for me it may also be a valuable lesson for some Int/Beg players reading the forum. So I invite you to solve both problems.

Maybe my line is too simple, if so my sincere apologies. Seems like west lead is a singleton, if so I think the contract is laydown assuming the diamond finesse wins. Eliminate the diamonds and exit playing cA and a club, if west wins he must give up a ruff and sluff in clubs or diamonds. If east wins he must give up a ruff and sluff or play a spade into KJ.

Of course I was referring to SAYC or 2/1 with my comment. I tend to forget Moscito when answering this kind of questions because the player who asked is interested in a SAYC or 2/1 point of view, not in what you would have done playing some exotic system. So yes in 3rd position the 3 hands are a clear 1s opening to me. I agree with Ben's principles for a 3rd hand opening, the most important rule is not to punish your pd for a light 3rd hand opening, the usual punishment is doubling the opponents in a contract they make with some overtricks based in "values" pd should have had for his opening bid. If your pd knows you open light then when he doubles you know you are entitled to have what you have and can play the defense relaxed. In average what you lose for not doubling some contracts because pd may have a light hand is compensated by the competitive advantage you have in the bidding once you open before your opponents.

I think that south has the dK because he didn't play a diamond when he was in with the club king. I also think that south does have the hearts because leading low from QJx or Qxx of hearts against a slam doesn't make any sense at all. Based in this information I'd play to squeeze south in diamonds and hearts (a show up squeeze) play the 3 clubs discarding one spade and the dQ and dT from dummy. You reach AQ T 4 - vs x - A97 - I think that in this ending south will be out of spades so finesse in spades and in the sA south is squeezed in diamonds and hearts. If the ending is different you should have great chances of reading it correctly. Luis

3 spades, what's the problem?

Hi Ron, In the 2/1 flavour I'm playing now I think it would have been: 1s - 2h 2s - 2n 3h - 3s 4h - ? Very similar to yours 2h = GF 2s = frequent rebid (3h=4 cards only, 2n=2 cards in hearts) 2n = relay 3h = 3 card support 3s = slam try in hearts (spade honor) 4h = denies slam interest, minimum hand 10-12 hcp And now I think that pd can either pass or bid RKCB depending on the state of the match, room temperature, level of body fluids and caffeine in blood. It's a very difficult hand, I think that once a suit is supported you will be better if 3s is a slam try/cuebid instead of 3 card support for spades, after all pd can always correct to spades any final heart contract. A rule I use is that when a suit is supported if we bid a higher ranked suit it is ALWAYS a cuebid, even if that suit was bid by the other player. Luis

IF there's a way to invite then invite, if there isn't then just bid game, it doesn't look like the best hand to force to slam.

3 clear 1s openings in 3rd position. At all vulnerabilities.

Idea: When a tournament finishes throw the players to a chatroom automatically created, then you can chat with other players, discuss hands, etc. If the tournament was very big then you can create "n" chatrooms named "ToruneyNameDiscussion1, etc" You can have some social time and discuss hands. Eventually the chatroom can have buttons to the results, movie for the player hands and other improvements.

Paul, I'm not familiar with cuebidding style in the UK so please forgive me if my proposed bidding was strange for you or your students. My question is what is wrong with 4c-4d;4n etc? Even if you don't reach a grand seems to be more healthy that a bunch of cuebids and a final shot at the dark... I've been at some of your sessions and I've seen some of your students and I know you are one of the best teachers at the BIL, I'd like to know what is your approach to teach slam bidding to BIL members, I usually recommend 1st/2nd round controls followed by RKCB and then a relay to ask for the queen and 5NT to show all the KCs asking to bid 7 or show specific kings if 7 is not sure. I think that the presented style (in your auction) is actually better for experts than beginners, looks like Italian-style where Blackwood/KeyCard is rarely used and cuebids are used instead, I think that's not clear for beginners but maybe I'm completely wrong (again) Luis

Do you really think this was good bidding or just some bids to a great contract ? I really don't understand how ANY of the players can be sure of a grand and I'm sure there're more simple and "healthy" ways to bid this hand: 1h - 1s 3h - 4c 4d - 4n 5s - 5n 7h Just normal control exchange (4c, 4d) some RKCB discovering the hK, HQ and the cA and then over 5NT the sK is worth a 7h bid. In particular I really don't like the 4d cuebid bypassing the singleton club and endplaying pd in the bidding. Now after 5c you can't use RKCB and will end up shooting 6 or 7 at some point.

5s showing something like this hand :-)