rhm

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Then there was no play for the contract at this point. I also think Forrester made some poor judgements. (Did he discard a club on the third heart?) First going in with the ace of diamonds is standard from almost any diamond holdings simply to preserve North entries to the hearts. It is no indication of the location of the diamond queen Unblocking the ♦J is also fairly standard. But it seems unlikely that you would have continued spades, if holding the ♦Q and your partner the ♣ king. Rainer Herrmann

This is an interesting hand, but your analysis is faulty. This was the ending when you locked Forrester in dummy with the defense having already 3 tricks. [hv=pc=n&w=shdk2caq652&e=sjhdt97ct73]266|100[/hv] Playing you for ♣KJx is both dangerous and hopeless. You would simply win the club cheaply and return a club for one down. You make 2 diamonds and a trick in every other suit. At the time Forrester is locked in dummy he knows that you started with 7 spades and 2 hearts. From declarer's point of view not only must the clubs come in for one loser without losing the lead to North, he also needs to reach the ♠J to park his diamond loser. For the contract to have a chance South will need the ♣king and North is pretty well marked with the remaining honors given his poor double. Furthermore your minor suit distribution must consist of 3 clubs and therefor the ace of diamonds must have been singleton so that South exit in diamonds. The contract will now make if your partner holds the doubleton jack of clubs and that is a reasonable chance from the bidding. Simply exit with the queen of clubs from the table. I am surprised that Forrester did not find this play Rainer Herrmann

5♠ Rainer Herrmann

5♣, on a good day slam might make. Rainer Herrmann

Double Not so much because you can guarantee a set, but because opponents are guessing as well and suits are not breaking well for them. This could be a good investment. Rainer Herrmann

It would not surprise me if they made an overtrick. They have a club fit and quick tricks on the side. Since they bid without the usual quota of points one of them seems to have extra length in clubs Our spades are blocked. Where are our tricks supposed to be coming from? While such contracts sometimes fail, even considering a double exhibits poor hand evaluation. Rainer Herrmann

Sure your high card points tend to limited, but your distributional potential values are not severely restricted by opponents bidding. If I held ♠Kxxxx ♥Qxx ♦x ♣xxxx I would raise and I guess you would as well, but with 3334♣ ? ♠Kxxxx ♥Qxx ♦x ♣xxxx will play 1-2 tricks better than the actual West hand How your partner will ever find out what you really got escapes me. Rainer Herrmann

Really? When the bidding starts [hv=d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1d1h2cp3c]133|100[/hv] game tries are the least of my worries. On frequency grounds alone competing effectively for the part-score is and the forms of scoring does not matter here. If you are reserving important bids for game tries on this occasion you are getting your priorities wrong and it looks to me your judgement got compromised by the outcome of the actual deal. Such an occurrence is likely to occur every second leap year. North after all opened the bidding, South responded forcing at the two level. East might raise 3♥ to game, based on his exceptional controls and distribution, but I said it is a tough deal for East-West. Rainer Herrmann

Tough hand I abhor people raising with such rubbish. In my experience this leads to over-competing much of the time and sometimes opponents will double you on power. East will bid again with much less suitable hands and almost always incur a minus score I also do not think 3♦ would be anything but natural. What else is West supposed to bid with 3♠-1♥-6♦-3♣ and a weak hand. I would not blame anyone missing this game, but East might bid 4♥ since he needs very little for game. It is not as risky as it sounds and it does not pay to assume partner is completely broke and it Looks like West meager values are outside of clubs. Rainer Herrmann

I am not arguing against that if you pass some distributional hands the bidding could not develop in a favorable manner for you and you might be able to describe your distribution later. But even if when opponents have not opened the bidding yet and you pass first and come in later you show a hand not strong enough to open in the first place. It might show your distribution well but it does not show your HCP strength. Of course you might not only deceive partner but also opponents, but deceiving partner has a tendency to cost much more often than it does gain. This also assumes that the bidding will develop favorably and that you can come in with a takeout double later. What if it does not? What if the bidding is at a high level when it comes to you next time? LHO opens 1♠, RHO preempts with 3♠ (preemptive) or LHO opens 2♠ and RHO raises to 4♠. Then you tend to be in an even more awkward position. Such tactics are vulnerable to stealing by opponents. Note I am not arguing what the strength requirements for an opening bid should be. I am only arguing once these strength requirements are present there is an advantage to open and a cost not to. Rainer Herrmann

All these comments show only one thing: That even seasoned tournament players have a poor grasp of hand evaluation. This problem is an exercise in hand evaluation, not one where bidding system matters. If you play weak notrumps and open 1NT with a 5 card major you may miss your spade fit. But this is purely accidental. For the sake of the argument assume playing 5 card majors and strong notrumps. [hv=pc=n&s=sq8632hqt3dk3ckq5&n=sakjhkj94djt984c4&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=p1sp2dp2sp4sppp]299|200[/hv] Obviously going down three is unlucky, but going down is not Few people understand when they should play notrumps in spite having a fit in a major. Of course the majority of deals, where you have a fit in a major, you should make the major trumps. But there are many exceptions where it is profitable to play notrumps. North is faultless. So lets concentrate on South. [hv=pc=n&s=sq8632hqt3dk3ckq5]149|150[/hv] First issue is, is this hand worth opening? There is a lot of sense in subtracting a point if you have no aces. So this is essentially a balanced 11 count. Passing the hand is good hand evaluation, particularly red in second position. If you believe in aggressive light openings and this is too radical for you, consider the following: There are hands, which are worth much more in a trump contract, and there are hands, which scream notrumps. If you have a balanced hand with a preponderance of queens (and/or jacks) and a lack of aces you should make a real effort getting to notrumps. Opening this hand with 1♠ because you have five cards is wrong. Treat the hand as balanced with a four card spade suit and bid it like that. Do not worry about the dogmatists. Believe me it is good Bridge, not hindsight. You might still get locked into spades but this is likely to happen only if you have a nine card fit and combined length in the majors makes it more likely that you belong there in spite of your hand. Why is it sensible to subtract a point if you have no aces? The answer is simple: In high level contracts first round controls dominate the game. Lets disregard voids, because they are rare. That aces are very important is obvious for slams. But it is also true for games. One can construct unbeatable 3NT contracts where declarer and dummy has not a single ace. But these constructions are so rare in practice that you can consider these constructions freaks. Major suit games make very rarely when declarer does not hold at least 2 aces. Such games can almost always be beaten. The defense only needs to create one further defensive trick and with 3 aces they control the play. This is the case here and from the South perspective it is entirely predictable. Assuming the required 25 HCP are present 3NT holding only one ace between declarer and dummy has much better chances on average. Rainer Herrmann

I am not claiming that playing notrumps from the Ax side will always be wrong. For example partner could have JTx and LHO Hx. Bridge is a game of probabilities. In your case hearts are 6-3 and the chance that the heart king is with the weak two bidder is at least twice as likely than the other way round. I prefer to cater for the probable scenarios. You can cater for the remote one as MrAce seems to prefer as well. Rainer Herrmann

A matter of contention. I often bid notrumps in fourth seat holding Qx or JTx in LHO suit if RHO has not raised and had rarely cause for regret. If partner jumps to 4♠ I presume he will not do this unless holding long spades and 3NT is not an option. Then what is the issue? If partner lebs into 3♦ I am certainly better off than having overcalled 2NT. If partner bids 3♦ directly I will try 3♥ asking for some help in ♥. Again I feel much more comfortable than with 2NT I do not understand what you claim here. You will go down at least 90% of the time , often doubled, when partner would use leb over a double. Often 3NT will not make with this stopper from this side even when 25 HCP are present between the 2 hands True so what. Double encompasses many hands and is not well limited. As the cheapest and safest intervention it should not be. Overcalling 2NT with the wrong type of stopper is not descriptive, it is dangerous. If partner passes I doubt you will make and partner will often raise and game has no play. I want to play NT only when it will likely show a profit. Rainer Herrmann

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2NT is rarely a good contract and the success of 3NT will often depend on that it will be declared from partners side. Hard to see how this is going to happen once you overcall 2NT. I am for the knee-jerk option here. Rainer Herrmann

Why could opener not have ♠AJx ♥Kx ♦Ax ♣AKJxxx and 6♥ is a very good contract. I disagree entirely. 2NT is a clear underbid, not even forcing, particularly after a 1♥ response. It just shows the same hand as a 2NT opening only in the 18-19 range. If you loathe reversing into a 3 card suit you would have to jump to 3NT, which at least properly describes this hand, a strong club suit just short of opening 2♣. 2NT opening was a poor choice. There are too many flaws. A singleton, a very strong six card minor combined with very good controls on the side. It is the combination of these flaws, which reinforce each other and make a 2NT opening unattractive. This hand is simply too suitable for a high level trump contract to open 2NT. Opening 2NT could easily lead to 3NT down, while slam in clubs (or diamonds) might be cold. The sensible options are 1♣ and over 1♥ continue either with 2♦ or 3NT. With a good partner I prefer 3NT over 1♥, because it describes this hand very well. Rainer Herrmann

Link returns 404 not found Rainer Herrmann

If nothing else, if the club ace drops on the second round (clubs being 7-2) would change my mind whom to play for the diamond queen Rainer Herrmann

Forget about the double trump squeeze. If East has at least ♣Axx(xx) and West ♣QJT9(xx) almost any player would have continued clubs. A world class player might have switched to trumps being worried about a dummy reversal. But I can not come up with a hand for South given the bidding where a dummy reversal might bring in the 12th trick and I expect a world class player to come to the same conclusion. A trump squeeze is not required, a simple squeeze against East (or West) will do just as well and requires no guessing. Theoretically it also works against West, but it seems unlikely that he underled the ♣A against this bidding. The clue that West did not continue clubs is strong. Ruff a low club and if the ace does not drop play for a heart club squeeze mainly against East. For the squeeze to operate East can have at most 2 diamonds unless he has QJT in hearts. So finesse against West in diamonds after discarding a heart on your last trump. Rainer Herrmann

Very good point maybe on the next deal Rainer Herrmann

Of course all agreements are created equal, except for upsides. Minorwood and Kickback are equally complex and have the same scope for misunderstanding and are equally error prone. Nothing could be further of the truth and a statistical analysis of recorded top level bidding - not to speak of lower levels - would show. There must be a reason that the expert on key card ask, Kantar, who has written books on the sole subject of key card asks, never touched Kickback. Rainer Herrmann

very brilliant. We did not expect that Rainer Herrmann

True, but my judgement tells me that killing one of those heart winners is the winning defense more often than not. In defense you often have to judge probabilities relying on your judgement and your experience. Constructing counter examples proves nothing. It is not possible to get the defense right in all circumstances. Back to the question raised and the defense problem: Partner is marked with a minor suit at least 5 cards in length. He will very often have no choice but to discard from his length for Bridge logic reasons. It is dangerous to discuss carding agreements based on such a specific example, because carding agreements must apply to many very different scenarios An advanced signalling agreement would be the following: Agree in cases where partner discards from a suit known to be five cards or longer as follows: A small spot card: lead the lower ranking side suit (clubs here) A high spot card: lead higher ranking side suit (diamonds here) A middle card can have a number of meanings depending on circumstances: 1) No preference. The correct switch might depend for example what leader can contribute in the side suits. 2) You want a continuation of the current suit, in this case hearts. 3) you want a switch to trumps. While this sounds complicated, leader almost always can figure out which option applies to the middle card, as long as he is aware of all the options. In this case it will be 2) or the defense does not matter. Rainer Herrmann

I would not have bid 2D At MP I lead the ace of spades. Rainer Herrmann