PhantomSac

Partners 7H bid without the ace of hearts or the ace of clubs or the ace of diamonds is impossible without either the DK or a diamond void. Thus I lead a low diamond. If partner has bid 7H with KQJ KQJ in the round suits and a stiff diamond after opening and then showing a good 5H bid, more power to him I guess.

This is quite a necro

I wonder how many people will tell that joke ITT

Starting with pass seems like a freebie, if partner does not X then I will bid 7 immediately (doesn't sound like he has much wasted in clubs!). In the likely event he doubles, I can continue from there.

I feel like I have made this exact post but some flaws with this are: They include opening 4S in 3rd and 4th seat. I do not mind opening 4S with good hands in third seat, that is a totally different scenario. Like this hand for instance I would obviously open 4S in third seat, I am not worried about missing a slam. If you eliminate hands opened in 3rd or 4th seat where it made a difference I see hands 5, 12, 24, 25, 27, and 41, you are eliminating 14 imps where 4S opening worked better. You also have hands like hand 6, maybe you think this is a cherry picked example but that is not representative of real life top competition. (one guy doubled 4S with Q98x AQTx ATxx x, and the other guy bid 5C over it with J Jxxxx xx AKxxx, at the other table one guy opened 1S and rebid 2S with AKTxxxx x KJ9x x. His opponents then came in to the auction and bid to 4H and he now bid 4S..., lose 16 for those guys). Since this set of boards had a 4S opening being +26 imps vs 1S, color me unconvinced that this data shows that opening 4S with good hands and 13 HCP is a good idea in first seat. Also, you cannot really trust the BBO vugraph records, if you watch vugraph you will note that when they don't get the auction because the table went down or they didn't see it, they just make the opening bid the final contract.

Yes

You must never encounter a slam hand!

I completely discounted any layout where partner has led an unsupported ace of a suit dummy has shown shortness in rather than leading his stiff through dummy after I have doubled them in 5D. I don't feel bad about that decision.

Why would that be such a bad thing? We have AJT AQ and AQT, and trumps are not breaking. If they compete to 4S when they otherwise wouldn't have, that is a win for bidding, not a loss. If 4S is just cold they are probably bidding it regardless of whether we bid or not. Our hand is very good, we do not need him to have much. He needs a pretty good hand to bid if he doesn't have 4 hearts or a club fit. We could still be cold for a grand slam, there is no reason partner can't have xxx xxx Kxxxx Kx (he would not bid 2D with this over 1S). Bad things can always happen. You could get hit by a bus when you walk outside. We have all the first round controls, fillers on top of that, a great suit, and a great hand opposite any semblance of a fit. The opps are bidding and jump raising in spades so we know that we do in fact have a fit somewhere (and often will have a 9 card fit somewhere). Even with partners pass, they are unlikely to hold 0 points. Or 1 point. It is hard to be dealt that few points. And even in the event that they do, so what? Are we really expecting to get doubled somewhere? As you have said, the opps might just bid 4S. There is no reason to be so pessimistic about bidding with this hand.

It cannot be forcing as partner is a limited hand. Is anyone really not going to pass 2S with a hand like Kx KQJxx xx Qxxx? We cannot have a game and 2S looks like a fine spot. That being said, I am not passing with a stiff spade, partner does not have 6 spades or he would have overcalled. I do not think playing a known 5-1 fit is a logical alternative.

I'd probably bid 1H if red and 1N if white. The hand is obviously worth 15 points, and with xxx Kx Kxx AKJT9 I would open 1N regardless of anything else. But at mp it is worth it to sometimes miss a game by underbidding a little in order to increase our chance of playing in hearts, as it is pretty likely that with a heart fit hearts will play better. I am not buying the right siding thing that much, Kxx would rather play from partners side as would xxx obviously. It is fairly likely that NT will play better from partners side if that's where we end (and if he has a 1S response we can still play NT from our side... totally fair that if we belong in spades we definitely want to play from our side though). I think the "tie breaker" to me is how advantageous stealing will be, if we are white and we steal it that is likely to be good but if we are red that could be very bad. Opening 1N and going for 200 with hands like this is one of lifes greatest pains (at least to me) lol. I def would not fault anyone for opening 1H or 1N at MP though. At imps I think it's terrible to not open 1N.

If you mark partner with nothing then surely they are making 4S. What is the downside of bidding?

And after reading this hopefully it didn't seem I was harping on you! I like your posts and respond to them more since you seem like a smart and reasonable guy, in the past some people have taken that as me picking on them but hopefully you realize A) I don't think I'm necessarily right and B) I mainly respond to receptive, smart, capable players. Feel free to disagree/argue with me all you want, I think we will both be better for it.

That's true, but yes I think north is worth a move. I would bid an oldfashioned 4C like a LOL. 2C 3C 4C 5C, great bidding! These hands are better for precision where you don't need courtesy raises, but my point remains that north needs to do something. Here's a sweet cherry picked hand Axxx x xxx Kxxxx. That looks like a courtesy raise and game is (almost) cold. Sure more wastage is likely, but so are more values etc. Even something like Axxxx x QJx Kxxx, a ton of wastage, only 4 trumps in dummy, seems like a reasonable game.

Opening 4S then doubling with this hand type is a matter of agreement. I would not open 4S so 4S then X would not mean that for me. A big problem I have is that there are many handtypes people would open 4S with then X and say "it means I have this hand." (And obviously for the record, I'm not saying gnasher does this). Like for me, I'm pretty purist, I don't open 4S with opening hands so 4S then X in direct seat means "I have extra offense for my 4S). Because to me, 4S is not limited in offense, I would open 4S with 11 solid spades for instance, so I have unlimited offense, but I won't have AKQJTx Axx x Axx which is lots of defense. I might overcall 4S or bid 4S opp a PH with that hand type (ok, a little weaker), where X says "I opened 4S to make", but to me I would not do that opp an UPH. You also want to X with 8 solid --- Qxx xx on 4S p p 5H; IF IT MEANS THAT. To me that's what it means so it's incompatible with this hand. If you can open 4S with this hand I am fine with X meaning this but its still a crapshoot, partner doesn't know how they fit, you don't have much defense, you don't really have that much offense (depending on fit). It might work out well, but I'd prefer to open 1S myself. That gives a more accurate meaning to 4S then X also. That said, again I sound like a curmudgeon not wanting to do anything high variance, but anyone who knows my style knows thats not really my fear or approach to the game. But with this exact hand I really don't like it, and even if X means this then you're losing something.

Well, no one plays the Q from Q9 doubleton imo. J9 is a more plausbile falsecard but to date no one has done that vs me. So as you might guess vs the 9 I cater to H9 but vs an honor play I don't.

Is this supposed to be a theoretical debate, or what we would actually do at the table?

I disagree, north has a fantastic hand imo. Note the difference in the north hand compared to Ax Kxxxx x Axxxx. Having the HA and out is great on hands when partner is likely to be stiff, there is no wastage. Obviously the fifth club and Kx of partners suit are good assets too. On this hand partner had no aces and KQx of our stiff and game was still almost cold. Ofc the fifth club is very important for our hand, but with only 4 clubs partner will often have 5 spades or not much in diamonds (2N bid).

If they overcalled 2H I would bid 4S, if they passed I would bid 3S (which seems like an underbid but we have about 5 things to cover so it's likely if partner covers 2 of them he will bid game. Ofc the CKT and 2 small spades and out won't, but that is inconsistent with the opps passing throughout so I wouldn't be too worried about it). After a 2H overcall there is significant value in just bidding 4S as LHO may have a problem with a good heart fit and a reasonable hand obv.

Almost all of the thread seems to agree with you so it is more likely I'm wrong. BBF is a biased sample in these issues though, but it is pretty overwhelming. I would be pretty surprised if many top players opened 4S though, not that that makes it wrong (and awm in particular has posted that many more strong hands should be opened 4S iirc, and the pavlicek thing that says of hands that people on vugraph opens 1M or 4M, 4M is a big winner). Just seems super gambley with such a good hand that includes "THE BOSS SUIT." I am on board with opening 4M w/r with tons of weak hands in first seat (like any 7-4, any 7321 with a good suit), but I don't like it with good hands that don't need that much for slam. Obviously saying "thirteen points" is unreasonable since stiff Q is not worth much, but stiff Q does make it a worse 4S bid for many reasons imo. 4S puts pressure on them but it will be hard to punish them when they're wrong, our hand is so good that partner is not very likely to rip them. And it's not so good that 4S X AP is a great scenario (like if we had 9 solid spades and out or something like that). We have some good defense vs 4H/3N, and we have a good hand for slam that we will obviously miss a lot with 4S, I really don't like the added pressure with a hand like this with so many downsides. I guess if it was a BBF field I would dislike this action a lot less from my teammate, but in a normal field I think very few people open 4S and it is a totally random action (which is ok with big +EV but tbh I find it -EV even in a vacuum) so I wouldn't really like to deal with the swings of that.

Man I have really become a curmudgeon but 4S to me is not bridge and I would hate to be on a team with someone who opens 4S with this hand.

I won't comment on the defense, but as far as the bidding goes, 3D is definitely "going low" but it is reasonable, but having bid only 3D when partner competes to 4D over 3S I really think you should bid 5D, you have a great hand. You also have no reason to suspect you can beat 4S, this hand could easily be a double game swing. I would have probably just bid 3S over 2S though, it might depend on what partner passing the XX would mean though (if it is not penalty, then a 2D bid should have 5 diamonds almost always I think in which case you have quite a good hand).

I would double. Pass would be an option to me but at MP w/w it pays to be bidding usually.

There is no alternative to doubling

Feeling great about the Cowboys getting Gregory near the end of R2. LOL headcases and all that, but I'm in for the gamble for that amount of talent at a position we need sooooo badly. It worked out for us gambling on Dez so let's do this!