PhantomSac

How about 1552/0553 type hands with like an 8 count? If a balancing 2N is natural, those hands have to double and bid 3D over 2N hoping to play 3 of a red suit.

So a hand too weak to start with 2D, and too strong to balance with 3D? I guess that makes sense. I don't know tbh. Was thinking 6-4 either starts with 2D or balances 3D but I would def start with X with your example hand and then feel a little guilty about reopening with 3D since I could be much weaker.

I think 1462 would just reopen with 3D. 1453 seems more likely (trying to get to clubs, but not wanting to play 2N). Of course 1453 might pass 2N as we might be 4324 we don't need AJ9x of spades to bid 2N so I'm not sure what is percentage there.

lol @ spades breaking. Good luck with that.

I like this idea, but I think that there needs to be some "General bridge discussion" thing as there is now. Say I want to post something that is about bridge but not about cardplay or bidding. E.g, I am playing in a big tournament, any tips on how to prepare? Or mental stuff, bridge tournament stuff, some guy was rude to my partner how should I handle it, Frances is in the finals of the spring foursomes let's sweat it, blah blah. As you have it organized there is no place for these. I think General bridge discussion and offline bridge discussion can be merged, something like "Other bridge talk" or whatever. I also think there is not a need for 2 bidding forums, one for conventions and one for others. Often times a bidding problem goes with both, unless convention is straight up for talking about certain conventions which I don't think happens that much. If it were me I would do something like Bidding forum Cardplay forum Novice/Beginner forum Expert forum Other bridge talk forum Bridge Material Review forum I really think there needs to be some forum where we can talk as a community that is related to bridge. And we can talk about random bridge stuff that happens at tourneys, or ethical spots (where we don't want lawyers in the law forum, we want to know how people would actually handle certain stuff), psychological, etc. I think General and Offline have done well with that but we can merge that into one, losing them both though leaves nothing.

And see how retarded I am? I cannot cash the ace of hearts or I lose my entry in the above layout obv. So I probably would realize that and not do that at that point haha. My inclination is to play for QTxx of diamonds, maybe because it was posted here, but he did rip 6N and I don't think he would do that with Txxxx KQTx Qxx x unless he was just tilted by his double of 6S and it was out of spite.

Not an answer you will like haha but I will see what happens before deciding what to do in the end, don't really have to make a decision now, I will win the ace and drive the spade and see what happens. eg if RHO shifts to a club, I can win the ace and play a diamond to the king and cash the spades. If RHO pitches a club I will cash the ace of hearts. If the K or Q does not drop then I assume RHO has 5332. If the K or Q drops I will play for 5242.* If RHO does not pitch a club and pitches a heart, I will do the same thing. If the K or Q does not drop I will play RHO for 5431. If the K or Q does drop I will have to decide if I will probably play for 5341 but might play for 5332, we'll see! A better play is for RHO to shift to the king of hearts. If they do that I lose an entry and to play for QTxx of diamonds I will have to be really deep, but tbh I still might go for it lol. I know it is the EBU PREMIER LEAGUE but I think many opps will shift to a club and if they don't it's more likely they have QTxx of diamonds. But I don't think this is one of those hands where you need to make a decision at this point, you just need to see what they do and decide then. edit: OBV cannot cash the HA don't know what I was thinking.

W/W MP I will employ the dutch system, double for "takeout" lol. I have no idea how it works but I know that brink/drijver and wortel/michelsen have both done it against me....white/white at MP in balancing seat only. It is pretty funny to actually play that.

Partner is not a passed hand

Tru dat. QJ Jxx Axxx QJTx? opposite Axxx AKxx x AKxx 4N is not great and there is a lot of work to do to make 6C on the expected trump lead. And partners hand was so bad he did not want to encourage us with 3D over 3C?

I agree with this. I would never bid 3N then 5C, for example the construction of xx KQx JT9x KQJx bidding 3N over 3C seems ridiculous to me, but I don't see how partner can intend 5C as anything as attempting to play there.

Good point, south can obviously bid 6D over 5 (or 5S lol), he needs nothing to make slam.

Why are those the only 2 options? Personally I would overcall 3C and I would bid with the east hand. Sometimes you both have minimums with Qx opp Jx (3 points that are worth zero) and it doesn't work out. You don't have a lot of room when they preempt and you are going to have to guess. Is it really such a disaster to play 4C anyways? Sometimes I'll go down 1, and they obviously make at least 2 spades. And by the way, overcalling at imps is a lot better than at MP vul. Like on this hand no one would care if they played 4C instead of defended 2S, but if you go for 200 in 3C (or 4C) that is a complete disaster at MP. And if you get to a light 3N, that's good at MP but even better at imps vul. Also this is a funny thread to read when there is another one going on right now where almost everyone else agreed with overcalling 3C on A x Axxx AKJxxxx lol.

Phil are we wrong that you can't just claim on the spade shift, LHO might guard spades/diamonds or RHO might guard hearts/spades and in this case we actually won't be able to tell by their discards since they will basically be forced. I think trying to isolate the spade menace is correct in that case, and had a very PhilKing-like thought that if they do shift to a spade and we ruff a spade maybe we should just play club to the ace and ruff a spade with the ten, risking Jx of clubs and 2 spades on our left in order to gain on 4-0 clubs onside (we will still have to guess which sqz in the end to play for). It would be the ultimate PhilKing line, risk going down on a diamond ruff and also on a spade overruff in order to have a near claim in the endgame and protect against 4-0 trumps :P Edit: Also sry you lost in the semis, is there a bronze playoff? Edited multiple times!

I was analyzing if they continued diamonds. If they switch to a spade it looks like we have to guess what squeeze to take in this position: Q x Ax -- -- AK9 x -- That is no good. If we had the jack of clubs that probably wouldn't be a big deal since on a spade shift we could ruff a spade, CK, CA, spade ruff pull trumps and again go down when LHO had Kxxx of spades (unless we made an inspired guess) but make otherwise. But if we have to play the CK first we lose to Jxxx of clubs onside now which seems like a big deal. Seems like a spade shift is best after all? I should not have trusted PhilKing :P But maybe I'm missing something obvious. Maybe 4-0 clubs onside isn't such a big deal with diamonds 6-2 also, dunno. But again, if we know diamonds are 6-2 the squeeze line becomes much better as we will know the count and can accurately strip squeeze righty if lefty has only 2 hearts or xxx, so maybe that is best. It's probably close since if they don't shift to a spade we are in great shape and if they do we're still in pretty decent shape.

For instance, how are you going to go off on this layout? Unless you play LHO to have 6 diamonds and 5 hearts you will make as they are forced to come down to Kx of spades and a diamond and thus only 2 hearts (if they come down to stiff king in spades even if you "misguess" you'll play the SA and the king will drop). It is when LHO has Kxxx of spades and pitches 2 spades and a heart that you might go down if you play him for 2461 instead.

It's way too low

It's not like the queen of spades is worthless, if partner bids 3N I bet the queen of spades is a huge card. When partner has nothing in spades it is worthless but that's often not the case (esp if we can make 3N).

If you know the diamonds are 6-2 the other line goes up significantly. You make when LHO has 2 hearts or the SK or 3 small hearts without the QJT. Let's go back to this position: AQ x xx -- x AK9 T We play the AK of hearts. Now LHO must be down to 2 diamonds since we know the count so he pitches down to 1 major suit card and we throw a diamond. If he is down to a heart then if he had the SK he has pitched it. If not, we are down. But if he is down to a spade we are going to make it whether it is the king or not as if there are 2 spades out spades are 1-1, if there are 3 spades out there is only 1 heart out and we must assume RHO has it (else we cannot make) and we endplay righty. Ofc if I knew diamonds were 6-2 I would duck the diamond for sure since I think 60 % is a wildly unrealistic estimate of the chances we would make it in that case in the real world.

If you play 3C as leaping michaels then you probably play 3H as a strong minor/stopper ask type hand? If you play that why would you not do that? My mind is blown by everyone wanting to overcall 3C with a hand this strong.

Just goes to show that people make mistakes, even experts :) I would hope no one would judge me by my worst hands, there are too many and they are so bad. I think that's true of everyone heh.

@PhilKing I think the difference in our opinion on ducking vs winning the first trick is our nationality. I would think that 7 diamonds is more common than 6 and you think 7 diamonds would usually bid 4 and 6 would usually bid 3. Knowing your opp definitely helps, ducking is a very nice line if you are confident on that read. England/Australia (PART OF THE CW!) definitely have some of the most aggressive preempting experts compared to NA and other Euros like Italy/France/Poland/etc.

I am not a fan of this 3D bid, our diamonds are very bad and we have Kx of spades. I am not eager to play in 3D opposite a stiff, 2N might not be great either in that case but we might be able to take 8 tricks outside of diamonds with the help of spades. 2N to me is a pretty natural rebid to me, we have every suit stopped and 10-11 and no fit. What was souths rationale behind passing 3N anyways?

That's interesting since I specifically wrote: AND So in fact, based on what I wrote I would of course play a spade in this position. Notice, that this is a push vs the finesse since the spade was on, but if the SK had been on my RIGHT I would make when the SK is off. I would miss the endplay if LHO was down to 3 diamonds, and RHO had Kx of spades and a heart left. That would be nice double dummy defense by LHO to keep THREE diamonds in that case (as I said in my post, if you bothered to read it and try to learn something about bridge). However, in that case the spade finesse would have been off anyways, so I lost nothing compared to your line. And diamonds would be 7-1 so I didn't lose anything compared to ducking either. But like I said, if you think you have no edge in reading the cards at the end since they are perfect (and you don't seem to understand what perfect is, on board 17 they forced me to make it based on what I said, best defense would have been for LHO to stiff his diamond very early, in that case I would surely play for 7-1 diamonds and now go down with the SK off. The general theme is that LHO should keep 3 with 7 diamonds and 1 diamond with 6 very early if they want to be perfect). What happened in the real hand is very typical, LHO immediately pitched down to a doubleton diamond then pitched some other stuff. RHO actually pitched their diamond at some point which I agree is a bad play but will definitely happen a decent amount of the time. But for LHO to hold any number of diamonds that's not 2 is very difficult, especially when that number is 1 and he has to do it early in the play. You will have a substantial edge in real life play against anyone in the world if you assume that they came down to 2 diamonds, and if that is true then you have a massive edge in this endgame. But even if you have doubts then just take the finesse later.

But I thought you said this: Don't those two statements contradict each other? Ok, great. I agree that if you have the defense always pitching correctly, and me misguessing most of the endings when I don't hook a spade, I should hook the spade at the ending. Do you think anyone thinks otherwise in those conditions? Those are not real life conditions though. But why do you now think that? You said in your 24 board simulation, ducking the diamond only made five times out of 24, even worse than me misguessing most endings and not taking a spade hook! You also think that you have no edge in figuring out anything from their discarding since the pitch perfectly, so ducking a diamond seems like a horrible line (risking the diamond ruff, and not guessing the squeeze at the end, as you said sometimes you have to play the SA and sometimes the HAK). Do you now think you have an edge in figuring out stuff from their discards? If that's true then is it possible that you will have an edge in reaching the 5 card ending I outlined and sometimes endplaying them rather than finessing?