bid_em_up

The points are, when selecting your opening lead: 1) you do not know which type of defense you should actually be selecting and 2) you cannot reasonably lead a trump from your holding (the standard defense to preventing an elopement by declarer). Given your holdings and the auction so far, it appears that a forcing defense would be best (just not in this case). And as I said before, by leading the spade K, you expected retain the lead to determine what needs to be done at trick two.

Spade King should be clear cut. The objective here should be to immediately begin to force declarer to shorten his trumps and lose control of the hand. Really? Maybe I need to be educated because I always thought that you embarked on a forcing game to make your little (or partner's little) trumps good. Here, you have two trump tricks. Declarer may very well try to make this hand scambling with some minor suit tricks and hoping to make some small trumps good by ruffing. If he ruffs with enough small trumps, your trump tricks will fall on partner's winners. I'm not sure I would ever think of the forcing game holding QJ9x of trump. (Maybe it has merit if I'm the one with the five card spade suit.) That's not to say I wouldn't lead a spade, I probably would. I just wouldn't use 'the forcing game' as the reason. Well, unfortunately, you have been taught incorrectly (imo). You should begin to embark on a forcing game almost anytime you hold length in the trump suit and especially if it is the LONG hand that is being made to ruff, as you will soon hold more trumps than declarer and he will lose control of the hand. Since it is declarer (not dummy) who is most likely to be short in spades, a spade should be led. In this case, its unfortunate that it was dummy that was short in spades, but that doesnt mean a spade isnt the correct lead. (You also normally would expect the spade K to hold the first trick, allowing you to make a switch if necessary at trick after you see dummy).

I'm more curious about the bidding. Can anyone explain it? I think an expert declarer will (probably) make this after West pitches a heart.

On the minus side, 2♠ is pushing it, zero controls and no compensating distribution to speak of. On the plus side, he does have a fit for both of your suits. He also probably doesnt expect you to hang him out to dry for bidding 2S. Once you make a double on this hand, you really should not make another call. Its not your position to decide to sacrifice or not. You told your story with the X. Dont tell the same story twice. (I understand that you were gambling as a STOM bid, its still not a good choice). Which, again, is why I dont like the initial X by you. Change your hand to AJ10x x Kxxx K109x or J109x x AKxx K109x and see how much better the hand plays. Now the sacrifice might have been worthwhile. Where the Ace in your hand is located makes a big difference in how good your hand actually is. Its not Rex's fault that you made the takeout double with it being in the wrong suit.

No. But move the Ace of hearts to any other unbid suit (and replace it with a small heart) and I would. Given that the club K should be downgraded somewhat, this hand simply isnt good enough to immediately ask partner to bid, imo. Surely when you make the X, you dont expect partner to be able to bid at the one level, so you should have enough values to expect to be able to compete to at least the two level. Kxxx(x) of spades and out is about all it should take. Partner said he can stand to support either of the other two suits at the two level, effectively. Which is why his hand is too weak to X to begin with. (Mike777, note, it is highly unlikely that both hands hold a stiff heart.)

No real brilliance was necessary to execute this endplay. It should not have been particularly difficult to see (especially at this level), nor was it difficult to execute and by simply playing the hand out, without drawing another round of trumps (if I remember the hand correctly), it pretty much would have executed itself. What happened (or at least, in my opinion, appeared to happen) was he saw the bad trump break and then immediately claimed -1 without at least considering whether or not the contract could be made given a certain lie of the cards. It appeared that he just resigned himself to going down. I do not consider this to be "saving stamina". Had he spent 10-15 seconds considering it, I believe he would have seen the possibility and played accordingly. This falls into either a mistake or carelessness category. (Or just plain tired). Now, due to the fact that it is vugraph, it is entirely possible that he did consider it (even for some length of time), and it just wasnt determinable via the vugraph. But my memory says (and I think the vugraph operator commented as such) that he didnt. I believe (though I could be mistaken) at this point, Jacobs had been on a tear making up a large amount of imps and even taking the lead in the match. This can affect you just as easily as anything else. I suspect that he was at a point in the match where nothing appeared to be going right, and dejectedly, he just claimed -1, under the assumption that "well, everything else is going poorly, why should this be any different?" However, thats only a guess.

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I wholeheartedly agree. This is one of my pet peeves also, I am entitled as host of the table to know what my running session score is, perhaps even more so than the person who just sat down. It annoys me to no end that these people seem to get some sort of perverse enjoyment from sitting down, saying "reset please" and then as you do so, they get mad because you didnt do it fast enough and leave, or they play 1-2 bds, get terrible results and then leave. I wouldnt mind doing it so much if the person at least stuck around for a few boards, but 2? Geez. It seems that what julie has suggested is a marked improvement over the current methods.

5♥ is not exclusion blackwood in this sequence. You mean it's just a cue-bid? Why would you cue in hearts if you don't have controls in the minors? Care to show an example hand that would push towards a slam with no stoppers in the other two suits? In a word, No. Instead why dont you look at the hand in question and tell me where your diamond control is. 'Cause I sure dont see one. While a 2nd call isnt out of the question, you need to find out if partner has a diamond control or not. I think the best way to do so is to simply cue 5C and let them show diamond control if they have one. If they do so, now you can bid 5H. Why complicate things that dont need to be complex?

In the case of double, double, I would treat both of these doubles as "I have big hand, with no good bid of my own, but my RHO is a joker". Both doubles are essentially takeout, but are also penalty oriented. After all, partner cant really be expecting a trump stack in your hand, can he? (Nor can he really hold one of his own.) This is about the only way of exposing a "tactical" 4N bid. Consider how you would treat the 2nd X had the auction gone (3H)-p-(5H)-X, and treat it the same way. In the case of pass, double, the second double would be strictly penalty in my book. What are we going to take the double out to? 5S, 6 of a minor? When we dont even know 5H is making? This would be absurd.

5♥ is not exclusion blackwood in this sequence.

And thanks Gerardo for making adjustments to the Crete card backings, I think the new ones will be much more acceptable.

They are too bright. At least on my monitor anyway. (And thanks)

I cant stand looking at them (they hurt my eyes, believe it or not) and dont like the text card format. Or at least, please give me an option to select preferred backings.

If you were to do it as frequently as one or two times in a session (regularly), then it probably should be alerted. Partner will be aware that you are prone to making this sort of response. If you do it one or two times in a session, and then dont do it again for 4-5 sessions, then no, it doesnt. There is a difference.

If you havent done so already, you can also "replay" many deals from past events on BBO.

This is probably one of those hands where you have to do something silly, like win the 2nd club and play the heart J off the board (playing for Qx(x) offside), and either run it or win and finesse the 89 twice on the way back. Now I have 4 heart tricks, two clubs, two diamonds (finesse winning) and spade K (Ace onside) before opps can k/o the club A.

If I had a 4th trump, I would be willing to bid 3C and then raise to at least 4♠ later. Since I dont, and although my hand has reasonable values, it is not strong enough to force to game. I do have a fit with partner, however, and am a believer in the philosophy that weak(ish) hands should show a fit for opener as quickly as possible, so a mundane 2♠ it is for me. I will bid 4♣ or 4♠ over any further call partner may make, but the odds are....if it gets passed out in 2♠, this is where we belong.

The problem with introducing both suits in a michaels bid, is that partner will choose a doubleton spade over a stiff diamond honor, and also will choose spades when 2-2 in both of your suits. Given the likelihood that your hand will be tapped at either trick 1 or 2, I dont consider spades a good place to play unless partner actually has a decent spade fit. It is entirely possible that partner is 2-3-1-7 or 2-4-1-6 or similar, but whenever partners stiff diamond is an honor (very probable given your holding), diamonds will likely play better than spades. I think Mikeh's suggestion of bidding 3♦ first, followed by some # of spades is the most descriptive way of bidding this hand, and probably the safest.

Spade King should be clear cut. The objective here should be to immediately begin to force declarer to shorten his trumps and lose control of the hand.

Not sure, but if I had to bet, it is for beginning an auction/play of a hand when not holding 13 cards. However, thats just a guess.

One of the flaws behind playing 4m as splinter bid in this auction (even though this is how I would interpret the bid lacking other agreements) is more theoritical. Partner has shown 5+ hearts. RHO has effectively shown 5+ spades. One of two things is likely to happen here when you bid 4C. Either LHO is going to double it (showing the minor) allowing the opps to find their best sacrifice (or two-suited fit) or it will be partners secondary suit and the splinter will usually (not always) cause partner to devalue their hand. About the only time I would use this bid, would be if I intended to investigate beyond 4M.

I call this one a Rabbit. Always hopping from one table to another in search of a speedier game. :ph34r:

Sorry Dwayne, Most of these have been done before. :ph34r: David Bird's, The Abbot. Mollo's Rueful Rabbit and Timothy Toucan, although the Rabbit's theory was that since he was always confused, forgetting conventions wouldn't hurt his score any, but the opponents would be more confused than usual when paired against the Rabbit (not being familiar with the conventions), thereby giving his side an advantage. Mollo's Secretary Bird. Mollo's Walter the Walrus. SJ Simon's, Unlucky Expert or Futile Willy or Mollo's Papa the Greek and Molly the Mule. Any LOL. Although, in fairness, most of them do tend to care about their results, they just stand no chance of improving them.

I play it as 10+ with or without fit. And personally, I would never consider this hand to be worth an XX even though I would certainly expect 1♦ to be making, I would never expect to be allowed to actually play it there and I would want to bid 1♠ immediately for a variety of reasons. On the other side, opps may compete to 3H (or even 4H) which is cold, only to hear partner double due to my intitial XX. An XX (imo) is better suited for a hand that is either short in openers suit and you are prepared to double whatever they bid, or a (semi) balanced 10+ count where you can at least tolerate the double. I dont agree with the TD. I tend to agree with Frances. Anyone who thinks the XX means "we are making 1♦ xx'd" will usually fall into the category of a weaker player. As such, you just have to shrug your shoulders and move on.