PhantomSac

That's not all that great, you get to 7C instead of 7H sometimes opp Qxx Kxx in the rounds imo. This requires partner to have doubled with 5323 or 4333, but its possible. Also, your point about a lightner double is a good one... if partner bids 6H then HE declares hearts, and LHO, the 4D bidder, might lightner double you. That would suck heh. There is some merit to getting to hearts from our side as RHO who passed 4D X is very unlikely to have a void (since then he probably had a raise). I don't buy your 5215 argument either, maybe I'm old fashioned but I just chance 4S with those hands, I fear 4D X 5D 5H way too much, or even 4D X 5D X when I haven't shown spades yet, or partner slam trying in hearts. Maybe in a perfect world 5N then 6D then 7C shows a longer major or something? lol. Seems like with 5D, 5N then 6D, and 5N then 7C, we should be able to resolve everything. Overall I think 7H to avoid 7C opp Qxx Kxx specifically is worth it and to declare from the side that is least likely to get lightner Xed.

♥ Nothing but low would have even occured to me lol. Surprised? I mean, I really think the 10 is the right technical lead, but you have to weigh it against the times you confuse partner and it's not worth it imo (plus it loses to J9x opp Kxx so it's not all awesomeness). So yeah I'm surprised you didn't even consider it, you've changed ♥. I feel better about low and worse about queen after thinking some more now, yay for low!

Meh the queen could hit Jxx in declarer and Axx in dummy also lol. I dunno, I'm not happy with any club.

Pretty gross spot. A heart is obviously out. A diamond lead might hope to be "passive" but youre leading into declarer's suit while not starting a tap or anything, so I think even though you don't blow a trick outright you often help declarer finesse/set up his suit while not needing entries to dummy etc. A spade is your long suit which is cool for taps and stuff, but partner didn't raise or XX so it seems quite likely you're just going to blow a trick leading from a king into the strong hand. Clubs seems like our best bet. Obv it's not passive, but it might establish some tricks, and more importantly if RHO is unbalanced he almost definitely has short clubs, and he is often unbalanced. This means we start tappign declarer, and that our lead is actually safe. Which club to lead? The ten or queen might have some appeal for spots like declarer having K9, dummy having A8xx etc, or so we can retain the lead to lead another one through when declarer is stiff etc. The queen can pin the stiff jack, but it could also cost if declarer has stiff H and dummy has HJ. It might also freeze us if declarer has stiff and AJ9 in dummy :( The ten might be confusing to partner and lead to very bad things happening. I think I'd go low but rate the queen as pretty legit.

Also the reason to double is fear that dummy has the DA and declarer is void and pitches his club. The club going away on the spade is a very specific layout. RHO 4207, LHO 3712 or something. What hands are consistent with that? Maybe: AKQx Ax --- QJT9xxx opp Jxx KQT9xxx x xx, but the bidding would not be clear with those hands (note dummy has 1 heart honor so our jack doesn't set up, and declarer has an entry with the SJ). If you include hands with 4 spades for partner, maybe it's more likely though. Anyways X is obv just in case on the spades, and just in case dummy has the DA, but the latter is way more likely for why we need the club lead immediately. It seems like RHO having 3 hearts for his 6D bid is much more likely given his lack of AK of clubs.

If RHO has a diamond void and didn't X 3D, I expect he has at least 7 clubs, probably 7330. With 6430 I think he'd double 3D for sure. RHO having the diamond ace is possible but unlikely, and even then he'd have doubled 3D most likely, even with 2416. Best case scenario partner has 3 clubs and 7 diamonds and we're down only 3 for 500 in 7D, with 6H cold. How likely is this? If partner has 2173, it leaves them with 5611 and 3307, or 4711 and 4207. If parnter has 3073 there are a lot more possible shapes, but how likely is partner to open these 3D rather than 4D w/r? Depends on partner, but I'd expect most people to open 3D with that. If he's 3172 we go for 800, but we beat their slam most likely. The missing spades makes it seem really likely that partner has 3 spades though, in which case him having 3 clubs is not that likely if he has seven diamonds. However if he has 6 diamonds, 3163 is almost surely his shape, possibly even 3064. If he's 3163 then we are gonna go for 800. How likely is parnter to have 6 diamonds rather than 7 w/r? Again, depends on partner. Probably most people are more likely to have 6 than 7 though? Also depends if we had a weak 2D bid available. It just seems like 3163+2173+3073>>3172. I don't think shapes where parnter has a doubleton heart like 3262 are that likely given their bidding. Since saving looks like 800 most times, and doubling will cost 1660 or gain 200, we don't need saving to be right that much more often than doubling in general. I think I would save.

Playing that, what does opener do when he has neither a penalty double nor a desire to cooperate? quick pass ldo

lol. With partners I have discussed it with we play the same thing we do over 1N 3D which is: X=takeout (like stayman) 3H=spades 3S=hearts 4C=nat 4D=5-5 majors 4H/4S=nat Over 2N-3C it's just transfers, with 3S=diamonds, 4C=5-5 majors, 4D/4H=texas.

F1 is the nuts, way better than NASCAR imo which is one of the most popular sports here

Sometimes they bid grands that are not 100 % and they go down. FWIW if you even hesitate about saving you will be marked with no defense and any finesse they have to take will go through partner.

I walked to my bathroom once

I'm quite happy with how the US open team is selected heh

And your rebid after X? NT whatever the minimum number I can bid is at that point.

You were right

red/white I would X, any other vul I would just pass

Meh I agree generally with this shape but east does have solid clubs so I think 5C is fine. If partner is weak and you start getting tapped playing in diamonds opposite 3-1 in the minors could be a disaster.

But not before then? ;) lol thats what i was thinking

Why must partner have at most 11 HCP?

Sorry to hear that fred ;)

I'd probly bid 1D over the X, would certainly bid 5D over the 4S and its not close, would not consider Xing 5S with the east hand, seems pretty terrible. Whether or not my partner Xed 5S, I would bid with the west hand.

Partner should not bid a 4 card heart suit unless he has no other (non spade) 4 card suit, he should bid 2N with 2 places to play. If partner is 3-3 in the minors he will probably bid 3C anyways, so you gain by bidding 2N specifically when partner is 4432 (you get to 3D). You gain when he does not have a pass with that shape anyways. If partner has any hand with 5 hearts you will probably get to an inferior spot, and even when you are gonna get to a 4-3 fit you'd like it to be hearts not clubs (so that you can take the tap in the short hand). Heck, forget about the 4-3, what about when partner is 4522 and you play the 4-2 by bidding 2N!

I don't think partner promises 6 hearts, for instance 1525 would bid 2H, and I can think of many 1534s that I would bid 2H with rather than pass in the interest of keeping the auction open and playing a major suit at MP etc. Heck I would bid 2H with xx AKJ9x xx xxxx rather than 2S, that hand plays ok even opposite a stiff. Your partner also doesn't promise a weak hand, I think it could be up to 10 with a 5 card suit (if it's not good enough to bid 2N), many 10s can bid 2N though but certainly 9 is possible. All that said, you should pass. 3D shows extras, and while you have 15 it's not great, for 15 to bid again you'd want like AKxxx x AKJxx xx. Stiff Q is a fine holding for partner, and you don't really have game interest anymore.

The problem imo is that 6 of the cards are much better than the rest of the cards (AKQJT2). In this model the 6 card guy does better than getting the 1/3/5th best of those (arguably). After those 6 then he would get 3/5/7 presumably, instead of 4/6/8, so he does better on the spot cards, and worse on the "big 6." How big of a difference is it? Not sure, should be pretty similar. I am convinced the 2 is much better than the 3 after thinking about it some though.

well I guess it must be true then! I was afraid of being biased here, since I have a tendency of saying the contrary of you when you say its "obv", so I asked dad (my usual partner), he said 5♠ was asking for heart control (pretty much my example), but he also said 4NT+5♠ was absurd :). He says with the hand given you have to just guess between 4♠ and 6♠, and 4♠ it is for him. So your dad thinks that 5S should cover one very specific, extremely unlikely hand type (spade 1 suiter, with almost 11 tricks and 2 low hearts), and ALL other hands that are between 4S and 6S should just have to guess? If your dad thinks about this long and hard, I'm sure he would come to the conclusion that it is better to have the not-so-specific, far more common hands that are too good for 4S, but not good enough for 6S, be able to bid 5S. This leaves you with a hard problem on the type of hand that comes up 0 times per lifetime, but it stops you from having to guess every time you have a great hand but one not great enough to drive to slam. In general when your only way to show a suit are 4S, 5S, and 6S, 5S does not show something specific, because you don't have enough room to be specific. The reason 5M usually asks for a control in their suit for slam is because usually we have numerous other forcing bids/cuebids available and our trump suit is already set. It is absolutely terrible to dedicate 5S to a super specific hand and leave yourself no bid for other hands that are at least 100x more common. If you have another way to show a hand that wants to invite 6 generically (a la gnashers 5H), fine, but if you don't then maybe you should reconsider your definition of 5S. It's very mature to just try to post the contrary of what I say when I say obv though.

5N to me is trying to get back to diamonds. You could be 7-5 for instance and have to bid 4N, then when partner bids 5C 5D is NF, and 6D goes past clubs, so 5N is def just tryin to get to diamonds. Good point about a 5H overcall, it should mean something.