karlson

Play double as "I want to bid if your minor is diamonds".

I would have doubled also.

I find it hard to disagree with anything gnasher says in this thread (well, ok, that's true for most threads). If Meckwell wanted the defense because they want to actually use it, then I don't see how there could possibly be a problem with the director call. Everything in this thread is based on the premise that this is implausbile, which is probably true, but I've been surprised before. If I were a director called to the table in this situation and I found out the calling pair had absolutely no intention of using the written defense, I would tell them to stop wasting my time.

The way I play and which I think is pretty much standard around here. Some of this depends on whether you commonly rebid 1N with stiff M, which I'll assume you do. 1. Natural, forcing slam try, suit is playable opposite a stiff. With a lesser suit start with 2d. 2. Invitational with a decent 6-card suit (opener should focus less on his fit for M, like he should after a 2M invite, and more on his quick tricks outside). 3. Single suited in spades but not good enough for 3♠ immediately. 3N NF over this. 4. If m=♦, natural GF. I think it should be 5 diamonds and 4M but you'll find some disagreement about the exact lengths this should promise. If m=♣ then I think it's most commonly played as a signoff, but if you play 2N as a relay to 3c, then you can use this as some GF hand with clubs and M (again, I think 4-5, but you could play it as 5-4 or 5-5). 5. 1m-1♠-1n-3♥ is obviously 5-5 GF. 1m-1♥-1n-3♠ is a self splinter with hearts. 1♦-1M-1n-3♣ it depends again. Again, I think it's most common to play this as weak with clubs, but if you play the 2n relay, then this can be 5-5 GF. The alternative to using 2n as a relay to 3c is to play that 2c-2d-2n is a balanced invite that suggests 3m as an alternative contract, whereas the immediate 2n does not (I suppose you could just as well play it the other way). You might also discuss sequences like 1m-1h-1n-2s vs 1m-2h-1n-2c-2d-2s. I think it's pretty common that the first one is 4-4 invitational and the second one is 4-5 invitational.

I think both doubles were good.

If clubs are 4-4, then the opponents are falsecarding. Otoh, it's perfectly plausible that they are doing so, since this is kind of a classic situation for it.

1. Basically doesn't exist, but suppose I'd play partner for a good 4144 if it happens 2. Takeout, usually exactly 3 hearts, seems normal and common.

Double seems kind of nuts to me -- I think there's a great chance righty has stiff heart and we have all of two tricks. I would pass, though the r/w save (or two-way shot) is almost tempting.

I'd bid 1n.

I would basically play for -1 here. I could play a spade now, but I kind of doubt it will work, and even if I steal one spade trick I don't think I'm going to risk the diamond finesse now (the downside is the same, and while the upside is now a full board if it's Qxx onside, if it's Qxxx or Qx onside, I'm still losing with 400 vs 420.) I don't see anything wrong with cashing a couple of hearts first though. If they don't break, we know for sure to play for -1. If they break, maybe south will have some difficulty with his discards. 95% of the time he'll pitch a couple of spades with no problems, but might as well try it.

I would balance for sure. I think even though hearts rates to be the right strain, partner will bid a (bad) game much more often over 3h than over double, so I would double.

1. Probably worst hands with 4 card support should double, but there's no clearcut answer. 2. Yes, especially if the alternative is not showing support at all. e.g. if the bidding had gone 1♦-(1♥)-1♠-(2♥), then opener can still bid 2♠ with most minimum four card raises (though you might want to bid 3♠ somewhat lighter than you did before if you have a singleton heart or otherwise shapely hand). The idea is not to add a level to all your bids just because there is now competition, but to try very hard not to bury your fit. Sometimes if the level is too high, you'll be stuck (e.g. I don't think you should bid 4s with this hand if it they had bid 4♥ instead of 2♠), but gambling on the 3-level with a decent hand and a known 9-card fit is totally fine. 3. No. There are some redeeming features with a fifth trump and a side fit for partner's suit, but it doesn't make up for the fact that it's a terrible 6-count with no aces, kings, or singletons. Something like AKxx Kxx AKJx xx or KQxx x AKxxx Kxx might be typical hands for partner. Neither makes a great game (though you might make on a good day), and sometimes he'll have worse spades or diamonds (Kxxx AKx Axxx Kx?) and you'll be very lucky to make 3.

I would hook too. The middle of the three options seems about right. If you find out that they open all/most balanced 11s, then I think the hook is better by a lot.

South's points seem reasonable to me, so I think it should be allowed. Edit after a second look: those are all about the 4♠ bid, which I still agree with. But are we so sure that 3♦ should be allowed? It seems fairly normal to play 2♦ as NF here to me (and south mentioned this as well), and while you might argue south has a pretty normal 3♦ bid, not passing 2♦ is certainly suggested by the UI.

If the diamond is unbalanced, I would splinter. Of course it's possible that 4♠ will be better than 5♦, but I think it's reasonable unlikely. 6♦ on the other hand looks like a very real target, and this is the most direct route to try to get there. One of the things I started doing more playing unbalanced diamond is suppressing a major in order to raise diamonds, and it's worked out quite well every time I can remember. On the other hand, the difference in expected diamond length is not actually all that great, so I'm starting to think that maybe people don't do this enough even playing standard. I think playing standard, this hand is just barely not strong enough, so I would still double, but I think it's close and I would definitely consider 4c more now than I did before.

I play 1M-3m-3M as forcing in one partnership and NF in another. Both seem playable, I've definitely had some gains from the NF treatment. Everything else, including 4m, should surely be forcing.

I admit that I would just start with 2n over 1♠ on this hand. Yes, the diamonds are important, but they may well not be the key to slam. You might get to find out about short clubs right away, or partner might have a hand where he can take over knowing about 4 trumps.

With everyone (including myself) doubling 1♥ lighter and lighter now, I find that it's very rare that I have a normal takeout double that was just too light before but is good enough now. The hands that are more frequent are the off-shape doubles like 42(25) or 43(15) and I feel like partner should cater to this hand type. I think it's quite reasonable to play slightly higher auctions like 2h-p-3h-p-p-x as penalty fwiw.

Effervesce: I did the stiff ♦ sim you asked for. Spade did better on this than on most other possibilities, but it was still about a 1-2.5 underdog.Hands. Jdonn: average was not a good word, I meant "most". I tried another sim with both opener and responder having much better hands (10hcp/7 losers for responder, 9 controls for opener), but I didn't find a single hand in 10k where 6 was beatable (lol). I think at this point, I've tried it with opener on the weaker side, and on the stronger side, opener without all controls, opener with all controls, responder on the weaker side and the stronger side, 5d as cue, as length, and as shortness, and through all of that, it's never been close. If there was some magical middle where a spade was clearly best, I think we would have seen at least part of the effect somewhere. Anyway, since no one else seems to care anymore, I'm done with these for now (unless someone has a specific request I guess, since it's easy).

Pretty often. The diamond honors are probably split, and righty will lead low and win the second one. It would be pretty strange for you to play this way with 4 diamonds, so he'll probably shrug and play a spade. I would guess the % to be higher than 50%, probably more like 70%. There's also the chance that righty has stiff K, and I would guess they are even more likely to find the ruff then.

I still always transfer (and pass), but I'm keeping an open mind about passing 1n more. On the other hand, especially at imps, the chance of getting to a game if partner superaccepts is important.

Effervesce: So basically you think that 4♥ denies two fast losers in any other suit. Not sure I agree, but that's fine, we can include that. I also took out any east hands with a void. The rest of the hands, where you don't think north would bid 5d, seem to me to be judged quite subjectively. If you want to come up with some objective criteria, I'm happy to rerun it. But for now, more hands with your constraints here. Btw the reason that there were so many hands where opener had no diamond control is simply that in order to beat it, we need partner to have a trick somewhere, and usually that's in diamonds. He has a much better chance of having a trick there if opener has weak diamonds. Jdonn: You can always pick a few hands and say that you wouldn't have bid them this way and declare the whole exercise moot. I think some hands are probably a little too weak, and some a little too strong, but on average they are ok. What I don't see is any reason why any of this biases against a spade lead. What I've observed is that if you just keep making the south (or north) hand stronger, what goes up or down quite a bit is the chance of you being able to beat the hand at all, but the relative frequencies of the successful lead stay quite similar. What I also want to point out is that in all of the simulations, the probability of beating slam at all is quite low. We're only going to beat this if they've misjudged, or if the hands unfortunately don't fit well. So it's not particularly surprising that on the hands where slam is beatable at all, either opener or responder has somewhat marginal values. Btw, why is a diamond the best non-spade? Seems to me that a club is the big winer. Also, why can't responder have a spade void if 5d is natural?

First I gave south 22-24 balanced (4333,4432,5332) with 4+ hearts, a spade control, and a club control, responder 5+ hearts, and NS 31+ hcp, which was basically the original constraint except that I didn't make the superaccept very restrictive. Then I restricted responder's hands a bit. Gave him no 4-5 or 5-5 majors or 7 hearts, and gave him 9+ hcp or 8 or fewer losers. Allowed opener to have some 4522 shape also (hence those 4-5 majors hands). Now I've tried a couple other things. I've beefed up opener, as you suggested (and the op said too). Gave him 23-24 with at least 8 controls, and at least 6 hcp in hearts. Took away the 4-5 and 5-4 majors hands. I've tried giving responder real diamonds (4+). I've also tried beefing up responder, giving him only 7-loser or better (or 9+hcp) hands, with real diamonds. hands. The spade never comes close to being a favorite. We can pick more at criteria, but I don't believe that slight changes are going to change it from a huge underdog to a favorite. Moreover, as far as I can see, most of these hands are pretty easy to play, so I don't think there's a huge DD bias, but of course one can always argue with that.

What do you do when you do play transfers? 2n showing a bunch of different raises?

What's wrong with 2n if you want to find out more from partner? I think I would just bid 3n though.