luis

I covered this situation in my study the results are interesting: First of all the "sound" leads are a high spade, a high heart, a high diamond or a club. The 4th best heart or spade are really inferior leads and must be avoided. If the contract is down on a heart/spade an honor lead is best. That's point #1. Spades and hearts are really close as the best lead, clubs are third and diamonds are the worst option. Why? Because a diamond lead can give away the 9th trick to declarer more frequently than a neutral club lead. So the decision is between a top spade or a top heart. Both leads are close close. I'd choose a spade because the heart lead gives too much information away to declarer and can also present him with an easy way for an extra trick when dummy has HTx(x). Good leads: 1) Top spade 2) Top heart Average leads: A club Doubtful leads: Top diamond Bad leads 1) Low heart 2) Low spade 3) Low diamond Luis

I concluded a statistical study of leads against the 1N-3N auction when the opening leader has a balanced hand from 0 to 7 HCP. The conclusions are very interesting. When you have a 3 card major and a 4 card major the best opening lead is usually the 3 card major, this includes hands where you have an honor in the 4 card suit and nothing in the 3 card major. Even with QJxx in a major and Jxx in the other the 3 card suit is best on average. The simple reason is that you can find pd's long suit and he has the entries to stablish the suit. When you have a 4 card major and 2 cards in the other the best lead is the doubleton major or a minor suit most of the time. With Kxxx or Axxx in a suit it is wrong to lead that suit. Maybe this is cool for you or maybe not I found it interesting. Luis

Testdriving my "art" :-) 1) sA book lead. We may set 3NT in 3 potential suits so the best option is to check dummy and get a signal from pd. 2) sK if pd has the sQ we have 5 tricks. If not I can think about my 2nd play.

Interesting topic. Two quick comments: 1) When you should lead an honor First of all you shouldn't lead 4th best when you have a sequence or a natural honor lead. Examples: KQJx, KQT9x, KJTx, AKJx, etc. The honor to lead depend on your lead agreements, (jack denies, coded T&9s, Journalist, Rusinow etc are popular methods) 2) When you should lead a short suit Sometimes when you are almost broken is best to lead a short suit trying to find your pd's long suit, this rule applies when you have some strength but no entries to stablish your suit. This can backfire but in the long term if you know pd has all the entries try to find his longest suit.

4H is not good, I can understand north but he just has too few trumps to bid 4h. South double is not too attractive either, you have two aces and your pd didn't promise a single defensive trick. With something on defense let pd double 5c and if he bid 4h without a trick then let them play 5c. You can't win all the battles. I'd open the west hand 1c and rebid 2c if needed, bidding diamonds first and clubs later is a distortion that I don't like with a 6-4 hand. East's double looks normal.

Spade king. Luis

Low to the Queen is the correct play at matchpoints. Luis

Ace and then low to the T or Q is the percentage play. As usual Fred was right as well as many fello BBF posters. Luis

I'm sure there're ad-hoc methods that can do fantastic on this hand, but I'll try with a standard approach (using 4 way transfers) 1N 2n (xfer to d) 3c (Hxx or 4 cards) 3h (shortage) 3s (cuebid) 4c (cuebid) 4s (cuebid) 5c (cuebid) 6c (cQ or xx) 7d After a transfer to a minor I play 3M bid as showing shortage, maybe a 1st cuebid in a slamish hand or looking for a 3NT game exposing shortage in case 5m is better than 3N. In this hand over 3h opener has an easy 3s cuebid and responder can ceubid 4c, opener cuebids 4s, not 4h since the hK is not good facing shortness. Responder bids 5c thus showing AK of clubs and opener can cuebid the cQ beutifully so responder has an automatic 7d bid knowin opener has the dQ or 4 cards for his initial super-accpetance of the transfer. Hey this worked!

Yeah, a poll with about a zillion options and I had to vote "other" so it be... First of all I prefer Ghestem, knowing which two suits pd held is a very important advantage for advancer to decide the proper denomination and level to play specially when everybody is bidding. But for beginners and ints I must reckon that Ghestem accidents are more likely than Michaels accidents playing with an expert pd I played 3c on a 3-0 fit some weeks ago "oh dear..." was the comment we had a slam in spades of course but the play was interesting since I had never played a 3-0 fit before. When playing michaels I play the overcall to be either weakish or strong, that's why I voted "other". Luis

Disagree with 1 Disagree with 2 Disagree with 3 I'm sure this is either missquoted or incomplete or was said as a joke since it's clear that the three tips are absolutely wrong. Just terrible. "5c at matchpoints is forcing" (Luis)

My thoughts: South must open 1d, pass and 3d are really bad options, with 4 controls and a nice suit there's no risk in opening 1d, we have opened worst 12 counters with 1d without a hesitation. After a 1d opening getting to 3NT should be easy. If south doesn't see the cK while sorting his cards and decides to opens 3d I agree with Richard North has a clear-or-kill-me pass. There're at least a dozen things that can go really wrong if north bids 3NT.

1) No, I bid 2h 2) No, I bid 3h 3) 3h We must be very close to winning a game in this hand. In fact I'm tempted to bid 4h over pd's double but a jump to 3h should be enough. Luis

3h is to play 3c is penalties. 3d is just forcing to game. May or may not have diamonds. Sort-of GF relay. Luis

Haver, This won't work. First of all you can't measure the level of play of a player with one hand. And second preempts are probably the worst way to evaluate the level of play of a player, it's really a matter of style and in my opinion preempting style is a partnership agreement as carding and leads. Without an agreement what's normal for one player can be horrible for his pd and vice-versa. Good players avoid being "predictable" so from time to time something "strange" like opening 3d with this hand can be expected from really good players. If you always bid what the book says you have to bid you become a living pattern, and it will be very easy to play against you. So my evaluation after this post is that the player is a bridge player that opened 3d with that hand. Just that. Luis

I really think South pass is wrong, this is not the best pass ever in my opinion it's a lucky pass after one of the worst 2d overcalls ever. West has 21/2 losers tending to be 2 after south opened the bidding. Had west held a normal 2d overcall south pass might have likely produced a bad result for his side. I think west has to bid 2NT and if pd bids something cuebid or do something extra to show his powerful hand. In this particular case over 2NT east can jump to 4c and then west has a very easy 6c bid.

<bored> Pass </bored>

Richard, How can you play the same structure I play and pick a different bid? Bridge is a wonderful game :-)

Pass, waiting. I play the following simple structure: Dbl: Penalty double in one or both suits 3 of pd suit: Competitive 3 of new suit: Competitive Lower cue: Forcing with support in pd's suit Higher cue: Forcing with 5+ cards in the unbid suit So I guess I have to pass. If they bid 3c badk to me I can esily double for takeout after I already denied having a penalty double. I like my hand a lot, KJ in pd's suit and AK in the remaining suit with no wasted values in their suits.... Luis

There're no Merrimacks at MPs :-) that's true but I wouldn't use the term "passive" to define the defensive strategy at MPs. First of all you must put your side in a cash-out situation many times, whenever there's danger of being overtricked you should try to cash out some times giving away a remote chance to defeat the contract "if..." this is agressive defense not passive. And you have most opportunities to false card since declarers are more greedy there're many falsecards that may induce a player to think that there're more tricks to him available than expected resulting in a play favorable to the defense.

This is an interesting sequence for Raptor players. First of all if the 1NT overcall is normal in strength then overcaller passes 2s so when he makes a game-try he's showing extra-values. I think that the best approach here is: 2N = 5431 good hand, stopper in h and 5m. This allows a flexible continuation: 3c = Value in clubs, accept 4s inv if suit is clubs if suit is not clubs advancer can correct to 3NT. 3d = Value in diamonds, accept 4s inv if suit is diamonds if suit is not diamonds advancer can correct to 3NT 3h = General acceptation, now 3s=slam try, 3N=choice of games, 4m=suit and Slamish. 3s = Signoff, not interested in game. 3N = To play 3c = 5431, with 5c and SPL in diamonds, no stopper in h 3d = 5431 with 5d and SPL in clubs, no stopper in h 3s = INV with 5422 hand Because overcaller cannot have a singleton in hearts and a good 5431 hand or he would have doubled 1h instead of bidding 1NT. Just an idea.... Luis

I decided this was a good topic after a hand posted in the interesting hands forum. RHO You LHO Pd 1h 2d p p 2h ? Your pd settled for 2d and opener re-opens, now : a) If you bid again does it show extra values or just competitive? B) What is 2N? Dbl? 3d? 2s? The meaning of dbl is specially interesting to me... c) If you do bid something different than pass what do you expect from pd: c1) To pass or correct we are just competing c2) To try for game if he has maximum for his pass c3) Something else

Objection :-) I'm not in this problem because I'd have passed 1s :-) as far as I know 1 level overcalls are not forcing and I'm very happy to play 1s 4333 pattern with one ace and no values, argh. The 9th trump is an illusion without a ruffing feature in my hand. Had I bid 2s, which I don't like over a 3c game trial I'd have bid 3s inmediately. Hope 3s means "I should have passed 1s pd" Once pd reopens with a double I bid 3s. "Why did I bid 2s, why why...." I guess that the 1s overcall is wrong and pd should have doubled 1h. Luis

Congratulations to Free for handling my crazy bids well :-) The double of 2h once I was passed in 2d was intended as "I don't want to let them play 2h". I can stand 2s, 3c or 3d so choose one. I didn't expect pd to come back to life with a cuebid once we had settled in 2d. This is a very interesting topic to discuss. Once you passed your pd overcall are you allowed to drive to game? Once your pd passes a 2 level overcall can you double or bid again without extras just to compete? Should we start a thread? I agree with free, maybe wrongly, that once spades were supported my 3c bid may not be a suit as well as Ben's 4c. So 5NT was intended as Josephine in spades. If pd has AKxx, x, Something, Axx I have a lot of chances to win 13 tricks specially with the marked heart finesse, and maybe marked ruffing finesse in diamonds. I was too greeedy looking for a golden hand that can win 7s, I should've settled for a small slam that surely was a good enough result.

[Gambling mode on] 6d if this is doubled vigorously by LHO showing a diamond void I might bid 6NT and now go lead a diamond :-) If this is not doubled then we may have a play in 6h maybe pd is short in d's maybe they think I have a void in diamonds and lead something else. [Gambling mode off]