karlson

Hah, I did forget we had the HJ. Actually the guard squeeze still works fine if the heart loses.

I don't think north has a slam try opposite the non-serious, so on your auction, I blame north. But south actually is pretty close to a serious try, so while I'd like to think I'd stop in 5, I could see getting to slam also. I would duck a club and play for a squeeze. If someone has 4 hearts and 5 diamonds (or all the honors), it'll be easy. There's also a neat guard squeeze I think if lho has 4+ hearts and two of the diamond honors. Ruff one heart and come down to -- x Kx x x -- A9x -- When you play your last trump, assuming lefty has the heart guard, he can't pitch a club or else his partner will be squeezed in the minors, so he has to come down to stiff diamond, so you can play DK and hook the 9 on the way back. This requires some reading of the position obviously, but you will probably be able to do it. They can also break it up by returning a diamond, but I doubt either defender will risk opening up the suit.

It might be, you can X and bid diamonds with a forcing hand, the problem with that is sometimes you can't stand a pass from partner which is a big problem imo, so I am not really a fan of NF. Certainly a lot more people are playing it as NF than used to, dunno if that's standard yet. Yeah, if you can't stand a pass you have to bid 4♦. Not the worst thing ever as it's reasonably descriptive and if you can't stand a pass probably 3n is out of the picture too.

I thought 3d NF was becoming standard, shows what I know.

Double: takeout (though could be the start of a GF sequence) 2N: I think natural would be the standard, but I think it's a good place to play good/bad since 3c covers a very wide range.

1. spade without particular difficulty 2. low club, lack of 1h overcall tips the scales for sure

If partner has the strong NT hand, I don't see why we can't make 5c a good portion of the time. Sure, sometimes he'll have a bunch of slow tricks in the majors, but sometimes when it goes 4c all out, you'll be +150 also. I'm not sure I can intelligently estimate this probability. They have not just one major suit fit, but 2. I think this is very different from blasting 5c when they only have a spade fit, and even that might only be 8 cards. We basically know they have a double fit, and more often than not, one of the fits will be at least 9 cards. If it's hearts, we have a good chance of burying it now. To me it seems the most likely thing that will happen if I bid 4c then 5c is that they bid 5M over that and we can't beat that either. Obviously there are a ton of unknowns, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm proven crazy, but for now I'm pretty shocked by your recommendation.

I think more people get this type of hand right than the one where you had to cash all your winners while in dummy and then take a finesse. That's probably because of the ubiquity of this type of problem in books and magazines.

I still don't understand Nigel's argument. Why can't responder want to play a game opposite max with hearts but stop otherwise? Maybe xx Kxxx AJxxxx x or so? If responder bids 2s, is opener obligated to bid something other than 3h with a max?

I would bid 5c (unless you open 1c with 4-2 or 5-2 in the minors, in which case I would bid 4n).

Sorry, I didn't write it, but I would have xx by opener deny a major. So you don't get to play 2cxx when opener has a major to show.

I like pass=stopper or wants to play 2cxx opposite any normal stayman. Forces xx unless garbage xx=cooperative (4 decent clubs) bid=no stoppper. This seems more intuitive to me than debbie's structure (what does responder do over the pass if he doesn't want to redouble but wants to know about majors? or does pass deny a major? I'm sure it all works, but you need some extra agreements). Also, I think it's right to switch the pass and bid in jeremy's scheme, since when you don't have a stopper is when they're most likely to bid 3c. It's probably right to play the major-switching responses over the balancing redouble even in this structure where opener has the stopper since it can still be Qx opposite openers's Axx or Kxx or something of this sort. Come to think of it, we should just play major-switching responses immediately over the double.

No one said anything about the double promising diamonds, just that double should promise one of the minors. (unless better than minimum)

+1 for awm's style of doubling vs passing, except that I would still play 2♦ as a reverse (if doubler's minor is clubs instead of diamonds, you're still being forced to 3c).

Well it only matters if we're looking at the ♣A, but make cherdano's example KQJ and it works fine.

I kibbed this hand in a team match on BBO. I was sure that I would have bid 5♠, but Michael Rosenberg doubled, and was right, as no one can come close to making anything. http://tinyurl.com/ygfmf5v

I vote for giving him room to operate. Maybe he has a slam force opposite a diamond card, this seems like a fine sequence then. If he really has double void, GSF will still be available after a round of cuebidding.

p > 2n > 3h

♠AT9xxxx ♥KQx ♦Qx ♣x r/r imps, partner deals. 1♦-(5♣) to you.

Of course standard is NF, but I actually think that this might be NF only because it has always been so, and I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years it becomes standard to play it as forcing. I suspect that the hands where 1s is a much better partial than 2c or 1n are pretty rare, that auctions that start 1c-1h-2s are not particularly great, and that 2s as a heart raise or something would be fairly useful.

I think the key point is that this is not exactly an "external distraction." This is a distraction which is directly caused by the actions of their opponents. It's even arguably deliberate, in the sense that the person knew he was unable to comply with the director's request that he turn off the cell phone and didn't say anything to this effect. A comparable situation might be an opponent who trash-talks during the play of the hand. The director is summoned and tells them to stop (perhaps even issuing a PP) but at this point declarer has totally lost his train of thought. Since the PP normally effects only the offending side, this means declarer now obtains a lousy result directly because of the opponent's illegal efforts to distract him (despite the fact that the PP could easily cancel his opponent's good result). That doesn't seem right to me either. I would not like an adjustment in that case either. Strict penalties seem fine to me (I dunno, first pp=3 imps, second=10 imps, third=match or something), but I'm still uncomfortable with adjusting the result. By "external" I just meant not related to the cardplay (i.e. this is very different from an adjustment based on UI, MI, etc).

Deep trouble? Everything is lying perfectly for them. I would pass in the hopes of not pushing them to a making slam. If they do bid a slam, I suspect I should probably save.

Pass, could be worse.

I'll admit that I'm not at all qualified to comment on the legal justification of the ruling, but as a player, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of changing the table result because of something external, and even more uncomfortable with the result being changed after the comparison. In my view, give whatever penalty you want for the phone going off, and then give it again if they can't manage to turn it off before it goes off again, but don't take whatever blunder declarer made in 3n and annul it just because he/she may have been distracted by the interruption. It seems like it sets a precedent of giving people a license to claim that all sorts of external distractions forced them to make a bad bridge decision. I think some flexibility because of the interruption is reasonable. If it's early in the hand, maybe it's appropriate to let declarer see the first few tricks again. If it's late in the hand, why not just let everyone finish it before taking the phone to the car?

How is that? If you pitch on the 2nd spade they play a third spade. You ruff in dummy and do what? I don't see how you are guaranteeing your contract on 4-2 hearts even if diamonds come in. You're right of course, I had two lines mixed up. In that case I see three options: 1) Ruff and play diamonds immediately (yeti's line). I don't much care for this one -- nobody forces the long hand to ruff. If they just hold off and ruff the diamond with the short trump, I don't see how to make it after that unless hearts are 3-3. 2) Ruff and play HK,DA,HA,diamond. This will work if the third round of diamonds doesn't get ruffed, i.e. diamonds are H-Hxx and the fourth trump is with the long diamond. If the third diamond is ruffed, I think I'm toast. 3) Pitch a club, then (assuming 3rd spade) HKQ,DA,CA,HA. If the hearts are 3-3 give up a diamond and claim, otherwise CK, hook the diamond, and hope that you can pitch your last club on the fourth diamond (i.e. the third diamond is not ruffed.) Unless I've missed something again, pitching is still best, but of course not a claimer.