jdeegan

;) I have to be very, very careful about using Polish ethnic slurs. I have been married to a Polish woman for 25 years so far.

:( I don't think there were any significant pauses. I may have paused a moment before deciding to make a deliberate 3♦ overbid, but I didn't agonize over it at all. Having opened the hand, it seemed better than passing, and we had no agreement to play the support double.

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=sa2hkq109dq32cq1074&w=sq1093h8432d86ca32&e=skj7654h65dack865&s=s8haj7dkj109754cj9]399|300|Scoring: IMP 1♦-P-1♥-2♠ 3♦-3♠-P-P P[/hv] :P I was playing in an indy tourney with one board rounds. On my single hand with the Polish star, the bidding went as shown. On defense, I led the jack of clubs. Declarer won, drove out the spade ace, won the diamond return and pulled trumps. He played the king and one club. Partner tried to cash a diamond, but it was ruffed. Declarer conceded two hearts for 3♠ making three. We lost 4.7 IMPs on the board since 4♦ is making for our side. If I made an error on this hand, it escapes me, and the game of bridge is much tougher than I thought. While we were waiting for the next hand, I got a private message from the Polish star 'You are imbicil'. I cannot dispute the veracity of this comment, but I am mystified as to its motive. Can you help out?

:P Bidding 7♥ is crazy. Partner has asked you a question, and you need to answer it. Plus, your hand isn't particularly good given the bidding. One or both pointed suit kings are useless and the heart J may add little. An extra good hand on this auction would be: Axx AQ10x Axxx AK Despite the conditions of the problem, I do like the idea of bidding 6♦ as an invitation to 7♥.

:P A wise old saying is 'never kick a winner in the a**', and you did get to a good spot. Even so, there are several bids that are less than optimal IMO. 1) The original T.O. dbl is way too light for my taste. 2) I hate a redouble with a two suited hand. You risk getting preempted out of a critical information exchange when the opponents find a big fit. 3) South's 3♣ bid is even worse than his original double On this hand nothing much matters. East shows a six bagger in hearts and West bids 6♥. This happened with the actual sequence, and it would happen at my table where West bids 1♠, East bids 2♥, West bids 3♦, East bids 3NT, and West bids 6♥.

:) Pass. Your hand is way too light in terms of high cards and playing strength to bid here, and the diamond queen is a BIG warning sign. Consider that a hand with more playing strength but the same high card strength would be an easy 4♥. ♠ Kx ♥ AQJxxx ♦ x ♣ Q10xx

:P :) :P Bid 3♥ showing a limit raise with cards and only three trumps. Partner will correct to 3♠ unless he has the strength of a full opening bid plus extras. With that he would bid 4♠. Your hand is a bit too good just to bid 2♠, you will miss some good games. You could, by agreement, play a double in this position as responsive showing cards, both minors and shortness in spades. Otherwise, it should be for penalties, which is not a very useful treatment in most duplicate games where the opponents almost never psyche. In competitive auctions, doubles are either negative, responsive, penalty or (in certain well defined situations) co-operative. Co-operative doubles of part scores are always made IN FRONT OF THE HAND THAT FIRST BID THE OPPONENTS' SUIT. It advertises a holding like Axx in their suit and that our side has the majority of high cards.

:) How about: 2♣-P-2♠-P 3♥-P-4♥-P 5♣-P-5♥ all pass Making five, losing one diamond and one club.

If he held your example hand he should 100000% raise 1♠ to 2♠. It's not even close. :) OK, OK so I've been busted. I've found a 1NT rebid that offers a suitable play for game, but I'm sure it is something of a rara avis. ♠ xxx ♥ Axx ♦ KQxxx ♣ Ax

:) If RHO shows out of diamonds, I risk ruffing a club to get back to my hand.

As far as the play goes: Since I try to always bid my longest suit first, my old-fashioned bidding would go: 1♣-Pass-1♦-Pass 3♥-Pass-4♦-Pass 4♥-Pass-5♣-Pass 5♠-Pass-5NT-Pass 7♦-Pass-Pass-Pass

:angry: OK, OK I did kidnap your thread, but only because I love it. The responses to your original post never really addressed the question I asked. The new answer to the original question seems to be 2♠ if you like the hand enough to force to game, and 3♥ if you deem it invitational. You can put me down for the latter.

:D 4♣. An excellent problem, BUT the analysis contained in this thread IMO (or should I say, JMOO) is lacking in one important respect :angry: . NOBODY IS CONSTRUCTING HANDS FOR PARTNER. This particular problem is amenable to that approach because partner's distribution is considerably contrained. The opponent's announced a 9+ card spade fit. This limits partner to two spades at most. Partner's negative double denies three hearts. Unless something is quite amiss, partner has nine or more minor suit cards and 8+ HCP. Bankers have an interesting concept called the "worse case scenario" (WCS) that can be applied here. A WCS is not the worst possible case, but rather the worst case that is likely to happen. In this instance, it would look like: ♠ xx ♥ xx ♦ K9xxx ♣ AJxx Even with this dog, one has a 25% play for 4♣ and three probable tricks against 3♠ in the form of one spade and two clubs. There are two finesses in the red suits. If 3♠ goes down, 4♣ probably makes, and vice versa. Four clubs doubled has three about equally likely outcomes: down 2: -500 and minus 8 IMPs down 1: -200 and minus 2 IMPs making 4: +660 and plus 12 IMPs So, a worse case scenario isn't too bad, and if partner has a better hand, we ought to be in good shape.

B) Thanks for all the responses. Evidently, there is no standard way to play when using NMF. It looks like one should work out the meaning of all the sequences with every partner, and just not play it with a casual partner since so many sequences will not be specifically defined. On the actual hand, partner held: 82 AK42 J9762 A9 He bid 2♥ over my 2♣ bid. Not wanting to get too high, I bid 2♠. It went all pass, and 2♠ was the limit of the hand. I think this proves that Hannie's analysis is correct - bid 2♠ over 1NT because it is matchpoints. Using NMF on this hand courted disaster, and offered no compensating advantage, such as reaching a thin 4♠ game. We are just as likely to reach that contract if I had bid 2♠, and partner raised to 3♠. I was hoping partner had something like: AQx Jxx AQxxx 10x

[hv=d=w&v=n&s=skj1074h4d93ckq972]133|100|Scoring: MP P-1♦-P-1♠- P-1NT-P- ???[/hv] Playing 2/1 with NMF for one round. How would you handle this hand and why? Also, is it possible for opener to bid 3♦ or 3♥ or 3NT in response to NMF? If so, how would you handle this hand?

;) I really don't see anything wrong with either one of your bids or even your result. A preempt does a number of things that affect ones bidding besides the obvious. First, the reponder to any takeout bid, be it double or an overcall, has an expectation of having 7-9 HCP. Your partner had eight, so his 3♠ was correct. Indeed, that hand is a very marginal jump response over 1♣ -Dbl-Pass-???. The second thing is that after a preempt, you expect bad suit splits much more often than usual, so your bidding decisions in situations like the one you faced need to be on the conservative side. I, personally, don't think your hand rates a 4♠ bid, and I think any players who bid 4♠ were way too aggressive. You might bid 2♠ opposite partner's 1♠ response to a one level take out double, but no more. Finally, I think 4♠ is not the greatest contract in the world. You have only SEVEN TOP TRICKS. The necessary three extras will have to come from suit splits or ruffing. Odds of a 3-2 spade break are less than the usual 68(?)%. I am guessing it to be 50-50 or less (if anyone has any real simulation data on this, it would be great to know). The odds of the heart suit coming in for four natural tricks is less than the normal 50-50 as well. The only good thing is that you are ruffing behind the short opponent in diamonds. If you got a bad result for bidding 3♠ for +170, I would just consider it a fix and move on.

[hv=d=e&v=b&s=sxxhk9xxxxdakjcaq]133|100|Scoring: IMP P-1♥-1♠-1NT P- ???[/hv] The first question to ask is if my hand should force to game opposite pard's competitive 1NT response. Whaddayah think?

;) Interesting point, just where is the dividing line between overcalling and strong Michaels, AND how does the owner of a strong Michaels hand show his hand over 2NT? I suppose the strong hand is shown by jumping in the minor. So, over 4♣ we bid a confident 4♥. Over 4♦ we also bid 4♥, but with less confidence. If we had bid 3♥ instead of 2NT, pard would raise to four. Hmmm......, it looks like it makes little difference whether we bid 3♥ or 2NT. We play 3♥ opposite the minnie and 4♥ opposite the maxie. The only difference is that after 2NT we have the option of playing 3♦ or if pard bids 3♣ and I "correct" to 3♥, it must show extras. Again, congrats to all for starting and adding to this thread.

B) I don't think we can draw any inference from the ♥ Q discard. RHO knows the distribution of the heart suit. If LHO had not passed first seat, I would consider his having three clubs or two clubs as equally likely, so finessing RHO for the club queen makes sense. However,

B) Well said. The slow go approach allows you to evaluate your KQ of clubs - either awful or excellent depending on pard's second suit. Even so, I don't see very much hope for game. Only if we play weak or strong Michaels and pard is strong and has clubs, is there much chance for game. x AK10xx xx AJ10xx gives us a good shot at game, and leaves opener with plenty of high cards for his bid. But what if pard's second suit is diamonds? xx AK10xx AJ10xx x This means I have to pass 3 ♦. Not a bad way to go. Great posting. I really learned something from it.

:blink: O.K., you have an excellent point. It is RHO's pass that makes one uneasy. It might well be a trap with a goodish hand and short hearts. RHO would surely raise with four hearts and might raise with three. Three diamonds looks to be marginal at matchpoints. At IMPs in a serious game, it is something of an insult, or perhaps RHO's body language and manner are revealing something to the three diamond bidder.

:) The inference that pard has diamond support is far from ironclad, but consider that you have located nine hearts. The expected number of hearts for both RHO and pard is two. Since there are so many different combinations for this, the odds of his having exactly two hearts is considerable. If pard has exactly two hearts, then there are eleven empty slots that have to be filled by the other three suits. Some of these, while not ruled out, are considerably diminished in likelihood by his first round pass e.g. five, six or seven spades or six or seven clubs. Sure, he may have 4-2-2-5 shape, but even that won't be so bad if he has the diamond queen or ace. Finally, we have the mute testimony of Bob Hamman. He actually bid three diamonds at the table in a serious event. Why can't you stop arguing and learn from the master? Hamman's example should be enough all by itself. He has assured me on numerous occasions that he is the world's best bridge player. What better testimony could you ask?

:lol: Must be a close decision based on the commentary, but Bob did bid 3♦, so it can't be too outre. Indeed, you are not vul and pard figures to have 3 or 4 diamonds based on your heart holding and no 2♠ overcall. Are you going to make a speculative partscore double at IMPs with Bob Hamman at the wheel?

:lol: 3♥. Pard doesn't want to leave 2♠ alone. I don't have enough spades to pass, and I have a good place to play - 3♥. Why tell the opponents anything more? If 3♥ goes down one when 2♠ goes down or 3♣ makes, that's just too bad. It's either bad luck or pard made a bad bid.

:lol: Slam???? Why does anyone think we have a scientifically biddable slam? I would think we have AT LEAST one major suit loser OFF THE TOP. What in the world does looking at the spade king tell you? If you think that, then we already have a place to play - CLUBS. Bidding diamonds has, as I see it, two strikes against it: first, there is little reason to think diamonds will play better than clubs, and two, why advertise that our side owns the minors - THE LESS THE OPPONENTS KNOW, THE BETTER.