bid_em_up

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Since I think is reasonable for partner to have a spade trick, we need to establish our second trick as quickly as possible. I'm not going to lead a red suit into declarer, if he has a red suit loser, it is unlikely to disappear. However, if declarer had club losers, he may be able to pitch them on the spades unless we get our trick established while partner still has his spade winner. Even though I dislike leading from Jxxx, this is one time I think it is necessary to do so. So a small club it is for me. The only alternative is a spade, and I don't see how that could possibly be right given that partner could have doubled for a spade lead if he really wanted one.

I read it as he showed 1 or 4 (30-14) and it has to be one since otherwise he would have a 1N opening (or better).

I disagree with this assessment. I don't think it makes much difference whether West opens 1♣, 3♣, 4♣, 5♣ or pass. It's not like a random partnership is going to have any methods to describe this hand, so I really cannot find "fault" with whatever choice is made. The initial pass did not box him into a corner, but East's idiotic 5♦ bid certainly did. Had East made the normal call of double, West can bid 6♣ (assuming he can) as it is practically impossible to have a reasonable auction to arrive in 7♣ when playing with a random partner. East may or may not raise to 7 (I would, looking at the AK♣ and partner just bid 6 on his own).

I would be surprised if anyone said this is not penalty (and especially not without discussion otherwise).

Why don't you cash the 3rd diamond and find out? I also think you need to take the club that East discarded into consideration as it occupied one of the "vacant" spots in the East hand. (At that point, you know he had 2D-1H-1C for 9, not 10). Edit: Because you may need the 3rd diamond as entry back to hand. Never mind.

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Think about how you would play the hand if you were declaring and then defend in the same manner. jmoo.

Oh please. You like bacon too much to be able to enjoy it. By the end of the week, you will be like a herion addict looking for a bacon fix. :P

I seriously doubt this. What noosance is suggesting sounds nice in theory, but in reality, it is unlikely to make much of a difference. Lets say the number of comparisons is increased by a factor of 10 (160 board comparison). At best, all this will do is give you 10 times the number of "normal" results, and 10 times the number of idiotic random results which essentially leaves you right where you are now, if not worse, since the "normal" result (say +620) on the board will remain constant, but there is no telling what the random results will be. Realistically, given the randomness of levels of play and partnerships on BBO, I would expect that the more boards that are used for comparison that random results would be increased by a larger factor than then number of "normal" results would. I think BBO had the right idea earlier when the Relaxed Bridge club and the "Masters"? club were added in addition to the MBC. If the Masters room had succeeded as the "serious" bridge club, and the boards played in that room only contained results from that room, better/more realistic results might have been obtained. However, we all know how successful that experiment was and I doubt it will be revisited. jmoo.

1. Spade. We want partner to be the one to lead a trump through declarer on the first trump lead, if it all possible. If it turns out that he doesn't have one to lead, then a forcing game may be best, and if not, we will still be able to lead the heart Jack at our next opportunity. 2. Club Q. The trumps are not good enough to be able to draw declarers trumps, so we need to score as many trumps of our small trumps as possible. This type of holding is also subject to either being endplayed or being forced to ruff some of partners winners later in the hand if it does not shorten its trump holding as quickly as possible. 3. I would choose the spade 10. At this point, it is uncertain which plan of attack would be best. I want to see dummy before deciding what to do. The spade 10 is the only card that might not blow a crucial trick. In general, strong trump holdings should attempt to draw declarers trumps or play a forcing game. Long weak(ish) trump holdings go for ruffs. jmoo.

Your browser called. He wanted to know if you have looked in a mirror lately.

Speaking of that: TylerE and I played at a sectional over the weekend. Prior to game time on Saturday afternoon, our first round opponents (male/female) were discussing the pair that would be playing on their team on Sunday. Evidently, they had agreed to hire one of the local pro's to play on their team. The pro had told them that they would be paying for his parnter also so it was going to cost them a larger sum than the woman was happy with paying. She started carrying on about how that amount was ridiculous and began repeatedly asking her partner if that fee "includes sex". Eventually, she left the table for a few minutes, and when she returned, I turned to her and told her that Tyler and I would be more than willing to play with them for half the sum the pro was asking for. Then, I told her that if she asked Tyler nicely that he said he would agree to the sex part also. The shocked look on Tyler's face? Priceless. :lol: (The lady was in her late 50's, early 60's and Tyler is in his early 20's).

There's a joke in there somewhere. :P :lol:

Takeout. Assuming 3♥ is Pass or Correct, it just doesn't make sense (to me) to treat an X in this position as penalty. Responder was willing to hear 3♠ when he bid 3♥ so I would expect that his playing strength in spades to be as good as it is for hearts and it may well be better. We are also under the 3♠ hand which makes the availability of a penalty double here even less attractive. jmoo.

Of course it will, they will simply request that you enjoy watching it. Or else. :)

I think anybody who claims "the lead is clearcut" with this holding & sequence is delusional. Was that an option?

Clearly it is a miner issue you just need to dig deeper No, the suit is clubs. That makes it a "minor" issue.

Focus, Art, Focus. He says "oops, I had KJ♣ tight". Now how would you play if your opponents had said that they are playing coded 10/9 leads? Ok, he didn't state that, but otherwise, as you said, the hand would not be on topic. As it stands, I believe that it is. Obviously, playing the Q has to be wrong. The only hope is to play small (which seems clear) and hope that RHO plays the Ace.

Because if we can lead a trump through declarer so that partner can draw two or three trumps out of declarers hand, either immediately or soon after, those are trumps that declarer cannot use to ruff our outside winners later.

[hv=d=e&v=e&s=sk8752h52dkj10xcaj]133|100|Scoring: IMP (2♠)-p-(p)-X (p)-? [/hv] Are you King of the Jungle or a timid little mouse?

What was he afraid of? That they might run to 5 of a red suit? :(

For Windows XP, I would prefer the following over making changes to the registry (which is what the 'norebootwhenloggedon' sites appear to recommend) by following this path (other versions should have a similar function): > Start > Control Panel > Automatic Updates or >Settings > Control Panel > Security Center > Manage Security Settings for: Automatic Updates At this point, either change the frequency the updates are applied to something you can live with or change how updates occur. You have the options at this point to download updates but not install (the computer will not reboot until you tell the update to install manually), do not download or install updates but let me know that a new one exists, or turn them off completely (not recommended). If you pick one of these options, you need to be disciplined enough to make sure that you periodically install any updates yourself.

I would always open 2♦. I would always bid 2♦ over 1N. The void is an asset in a suit contract and a defect in NT play. It's quite probable that partner's suit is clubs. If the suit is solid (AKQxxxx), he cannot possibly have an outside entry to get to his hand to cash it, not to mention some people would have already bid 2♣ with this holding. If the suit is not solid (KJ86542), he cannot have enough entries to hand to be able to establish the suit and then return to hand to cash any remaining winners. However, if the suit is not solid, he will have scattered values in the other three suits, all of which will help strengthen our hand in suit play. jmoo.

I'm assuming partner did not bid 4♠ on a whim. Put me down for 5♠.