karlson

I don't get it. How can you not look for 7 when it's at worst on a 3-2 break opposite ♠Qxxxx, ♥A and ♣xx. If I have to guess a contract right now, it would be 7♠. That said, I have no idea what we're supposed to do now. Do you have any agreements on what 5d by partner would show if we bid 5c now? Partner has nothing left to cue, so I don't see what 5d is going to do (or 5c if 5d over that is a control). The only methods I have to distinguish ♣xxx and ♣xx are bidding 6♣ after keycard, so I guess I'll just do that. Hopefully partner doesn't take it as an offer to play. Heck, maybe I'll stay out of 7 if partner is somehow missing the ♠Q also. Second choice is 7♠.

I guess I'm a victim of fallacious popular belief, since I think this asks for a diamond.

I'm pretty sure pass is forcing in the agreements that I usually play, and I would certainly bid 5h. Sounds like partner has a side suit, and we're happy whichever minor it is. Even slam might be possible if he has a real two-suiter (imagine xx KQxxx Kxxxx x or xx Kxxxx x AQxxx (admittedly not cold)). I think I would have bid 4c or 4d (surely a cue for hearts) at the previous turn.

The IHT and the NY Times are actually published by the same group.

[hv=d=e&v=b&s=saxxha9xdxxxcjxxx]133|100|Scoring: MP P P P 1♦ P 1N 2♥ 3♣ 3♥ ?? [/hv]

If partner has ♠Qxxx ♥xx ♦AKxxxx ♣x (Mike's construction) he might pull the double with the most awesome hand possible for spades. And while I agree that the cards could be better placed (in favor of bidding) given the auction, they could also much worse. If you're going to take away partner's CQ, you could also give him an extra club and give the opponents 11 hearts (surely east will bid with 5 of them, basically try Mike's second construction with east having 1534 instead of 1435). Now 5s has no shot, and 5h still goes for 500. I agree that east-west may not seem have bid the hands well, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong to double them. Perhaps this is an example of taking maximum advantage of your opponents mistakes. But they also may have been just trying to push you around, thinking that you'll bid 5 over 5 often when it's wrong, and in a way, they were right.

I agree that what Marlowe wrote is standard (at least in the US). I also think it's not as bad as people make it out to be (I play it this way with a few regular partners, and have a more complicated structure with others). Obviously you can have different agreements. I don't know your bridge level, or whether you're just looking for standard responses or someone's super-optimized structure. But I think that this is actually one area of bidding in which anything vaguely reasonable will work pretty well. So if it's the kind of thing that you find fun, try designing your own responses if you're unhappy with the way standard works.

Nice hand. My first instinct was to do something silly, so I really hope I would have gotten it right at the table.

I agree with Josh, I would take both of these as strain suggestion (something like Hx support).

Speaking of hands that might play better in 3N with a 5-4 major suit fit.... It seems like I need 1 useful card for 3N to be a good bet, so 2c-2n looks right.

I think I would (with double). -180 here we come. If your partner is wont to make a negative double with moderate hands with club length as well as spade length, then certainly pass is much more appealing. However, my style is usually to pass those hands (who knows, maybe at some point I'll be convinced that this is bad bridge)

I agree that we have to double (or 3c, though I like double) on the second round given the auction. But it seems that double followed by 2s is also a reasonable approach with this hand (a minimum, sure). The upside is that it's easier to convince partner that spades are very playable opposite small doubleton or even stiff. And of course it still keeps other strains open for partner to suggest.

a) I would definitely pay the extra dollar or two to play in such a game B) I think of the options, the third one seems most attractive. The team game is going to suffer from more people wanting to play than there is room for, though it would obviously be great if it works (presumably more expensive). Individuals in my experience never work as well as one hopes. The last option (no experts in the field, just commentary) is, in my opinion, definitely worse than having experts playing also, but also worth the dollar. The commentary would be definitely more entertaining if it was based on bidding and play from the tournament, btw. Edit. PS. it occurred to me that these fees might be higher than the typical bbo $1 increments. I think the $5-10 range would be my cutoff, assuming it was a more normal number of boards.

I think the fact that partner is limited makes a difference -- even opposite a standard 1s I'd be thinking of -50 or -100 vs -470, not +100 vs +140, but I think the chance that this is their hand is even higher here. Then again, I don't have much experience with strong club systems. So I pull, but it would sure be easier without the D9.

Hm. I definitely have different agreements on double with different partners (takeout of hearts with one, and penalty with diamonds with another). I'm really not sure which agreement the people that recommend double have, but of course the funny thing is that I think I'd double with either partner.

3H, wtp. I think that with the CK instead of the A, it would be a real minimum for me, though I suspect some people would bid with even less.

Does "across" mean East or West? I thought opening 1♦ with 45 minors to avoid bidding clubs twice is mainly an American thing, although many over here do it also. As for offshape notrump rebids my impression is that they are somewhat more normal here. Personally I prefer a style in which we almost never rebid a five-card minor. Would do it with 0445 and lousy diamonds, though. (Except that I don't play natural a 1♣ opening that often these days). I think the opening 1d with 4-5 in the minors is more of an old-school american style, which is losing popularity. Although, I do know many good (some young) players that do play this way. The off-shape 1N rebids seem to be a pretty mainstream modern trend to me. I learned this style a few years ago, and every time I've asked any new junior-ish partner whether we play this way, I got the "yeah, duh" look. Of course maybe it's area-specific too (I'm in San Francisco).

In this case they have 3 heart tricks + whatever diamond tricks, so unless diamonds are 9-0, you'll beat 6N anyway. Sure, but x QTxxxx KQxx xx or the like is very plausible.

To me, the only thing that seems to make any sense for partner's double is ♦KQ. Surely he wouldn't double with good hearts, and I don't see how he can possibly have clubs (doubling with Kx or Kxx seems weird to say the least)

I vote for a small diamond. Seems that given our length it's not very likely to blow a trick, and the stiff spade looks odd given our very likely trump trick. Also given the fact that there are no quick spade pitches coming, I don't think we need to attack as quickly as Mike is suggesting.

Hm. 4s is also cold on my example. Back to the hand generator, and leaning even more towards pulling. I guess I can replace ♦Ax by KQ, but this is getting silly.

When you say NF, it's a bit ambiguous. Yes, I agree it's NF, but also that it's invitational. If it were purely a signoff, the hand would pass 2♦. Since 2N is what you like as the GF, then 3♦ will be the invite. It's certainly a reasonable alternative. Lol. I actually wrote "NF inv" before, but changed it because I thought it was obvious and redundant :(

I think this is somewhat close, but I pull. The hands I can come up with where 3n is better are something like AKQxxx Kx Ax xxx. But it's hard to see how partner can do this with nothing in clubs, and it seems more likely that his spades are not solid (3n could be a disaster).

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I think I like the idea of having a bid for immediate gf with D (2N for justin, 3d for matt/phil). I think I prefer 2N, I agree that natural 2N is not so useful across from known 6-card minor suit. Presumably then this means that for responder's next bid after the relay (e.g. 1D-1S-2D-2H-any), 3D is NF and everything else is GF. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Does anyone have good agreements in 1m-1M-2m auctions? Care to share? One of the big problems I have with standardish treatments is that there seems to be no forcing way to agree M after the relay. For instance, 1d-1s-2d-2h-2s, and there's no way to set spades in a forcing way. But I've never felt comfortable in these auctions in general. Oh, we play the (now standard?) style where 2m shows 6, and we sometimes raise 1M on 6-3.