mikegill

I would bid 3♥. Surely if we catch 3-card support or a working card we'll have some play for 4♥, and 3♣ is probably down anyway.

I think the tactical advantages of opening 1NT far outweigh the fact that this may be only worth as much as some 14-counts.

♦

Pass, add some spots in my diamond suit and maybe we'll talk.

You could also try Richard Pavlicek's (free) software http://www.rpbridge.net/rpbr.htm#11

I would bid game. Yes it is close. Disagree strongly with a direct 1n.

1) 2♥, not close to a pass - where are our 6 tricks coming from? Pard is a passed hand and seems to even open aggressively. 2) 3♣, always hesitant to X with a void and suspect defense.

It seems to me like forcing makes more sense. if you have a terrible hand with 5+ hearts, you can just rebid 3♥. If you have a terrible balanced hand, you probably just pass and take your medicine in 2n. If you have a terrible hand with 4 hearts and 5 or 6 clubs, then you probably bid 2♣ not 2♥, since you want to get to the better part score when you're not worried about game. You could easily have a reasonable hand, say 5-8 with 4 hearts and 5 clubs (or 5 hearts and 4 clubs) that bids 2♥ since hearts is the most likely game. Now you want to be able to show your clubs and have partner show 3-card heart support, and get you to 4♥ or even 5♣ if it's right.

1) This looks like a normal pass to me. We're not even red. 2) If behind, and I could do it in tempo, I would bid 3n. 4d looks normal to me. It's not even clear we have game values, so even if we avoid the down-3-off-the-top, I still need partner to have diamonds with me, plus another 3 or 4 top tricks to make 3n. Think passing is asking for -730. 3) If it were not red IMPs I wouldn't force game with this hand. Yes aces and kings are great but 4x1 is overrated, I have no spots at all, and stiff A really detracts from the value of this hand. I would either splinter or not based on which I thought was more likely to buy a club lead against these particular opponents (since I really want to avoid a lead through my pointed suit Ks). I think not splintering is normal, though.

6♥. Partner should have a good hand since he is not very likely to be short in spades. Can't see any sensible way to go about investigating this unless 4n happens to be straight blackwood by some miracle. Don't like 5♥ - how is partner supposed to know that Jxx x AQ Axxxxxx is an accept and KQ xxxx AQ KQJT9 is not?

The actual hand was A x KJxxx AQJTxx, but it didn't really happen at a table. Noble and I were discussing it, trying to figure out whether this hand should be inviting slam (if it could, we don't actually have a minors, slam invite agreement here), or whether it should ask partner to pick a minor, then raise to slam. I thought people would bid slam if invited with the example hand, so it sparked a discussion about what you needed to invite, and/or accept slam here.

Well, this is a lot of what this problem is about. My opinion initially was that you should definitely bid slam here, but maybe it's not as obvious as I first thought. Of the example hands given for partner by people in this thread: x x KJTxx AQJxxx Kxx - KJTxx AQJxx x Ax Kxxxx AQxxx x Ax Kxxxx AJxxx really only the 2nd one looks like it fits "slam try" opposite a limited opener. The others just look like "pick a minor game". The first one is close, but you are missing 5 key cards (I think the club K is pretty important even if it's not officially a keycard). If partner is looking at 4 of them e.g. xxxx Axx AQx Kxx, I think he should raise your pick-a-game bid to slam. 3 at least is a good slam opposite our hand, but I think it's not a slam try unless you add some minor suit fillers - too much can go wrong otherwise. Isn't partner going to get excited about Axx xxx AQJx T9x? I think that the actual hand has two clearly wasted major suit Qs, but I think that AQxxx Kx is way above average for your hand as a whole. Partner did make a slam try opposite a limited opener missing those awfully important cards. I don't think he should be making a slam try looking for perfecto cards. He can just bid game and if you have perfecto cards you might raise to slam. He really should have only one major suit loser in my opinion on this bidding.

Yes, the most major suit cards opener can hold is if he is (44)32, so an 8-card fit is guaranteed at least.

The 1d is not normal precision, and could be wk NT, 3-suiter short anywhere, single-suited diamonds, or 4M, 5+m (either one). Maybe I should have specified this earlier...

[hv=d=s&v=e&s=sqxxxhqxdaqxxxckx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] You open a 0+ precision 1♦, LHO bids 3♥, partner shows a slam try with both minors (at least 5-5). Assume partner has his bid, and your only options are 5d or 6d. Bid it or not?

I also don't know what game you've been playing, but opener definitely had her bid and definitely didn't have 12 HCP. Actually the 3♦ bid was on a 4-count with 5-4 minors. Opener had AKQxxxx in diamonds and a J, and wasn't playing gambling 3n so opened 1♦.

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=sakxxhaqjxxdxckt9&s=sqxxhktxxxdcaxxxx]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] 1♦ - X - 3♦ - 4♥ 5♦ - 5♥ - all pass You are playing ELC, so don't assign blame to North for the X, please.

My other choices were show 6 hearts or 4 spades... you might dislike the system but those were my choices.

To the 2n critics (who have a valid point, of course) I hated pretty much every bid. Not crazy with the idea of a high reverse on that suit either. I was worried it would endplay partner rather nastily in the bidding if he doesn't have a spade stopper. I can see either 3c or 2n working out rather poorly. But anyway, you're here. Yes, I understand this was not the most elegant auction of all time. As for Jlall and Hannie, one of you is going down and the other is not, but I won't reveal which is which until later since I don't want to bias other posters.

[hv=d=s&v=e&n=saqtxhj9dq8xxxcak&s=skxxhakt8xdcjxxxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] South opens 1h, north bids a GF 2d showing 5+ diamonds, East stares at this for a second or two but passes. You decide to rebid 2n as South, and North bids 3n. East's X hits the table almost before your partner's 3n. This passes around to partner who XXes to show doubt, and you pull to 4c, which partner corrects to 4h, and nobody doubles. LHO leads the dT. Your line?

[hv=d=n&v=b&s=sa98h73dk92cq8764]133|100|Scoring: MP 1♦ 2♦ ?[/hv] You're playing Unusual/Unusual here.

Ok, I thought it was a little more on the border than that, but fine. What is the minimum change you would need to make it not an opener?

[hv=d=s&s=sjtxxxhjtxxdkqckq]133|100|[/hv] First seat - stipulate your form of scoring and vulnerability if you think it affects your decision. Is this worth an opening bid?

Agree with pass in this case, except maybe with a partner who leans strongly toward bidding 3n with a good stopper, even with 4 spades, in which case I'd X. If you make the KQ9x of clubs AJ9x, I think bidding 3nt is probably right. This club suit is so bad for 3n when we need to take our tricks fast, because a majority of the time partner doesn't have the A. We're already playing him for a stopper - playing him for both a stopper and the cA seems a little deep.

I strongly dislike underleading either kings or aces. I used to underlead Ks a lot more, but I found that it very frequently costs a trick in practice. I usually don't underlead Ks now unless I'm sure an aggressive lead is required, or I feel a lead in a particular suit is required and I happen to have a K there. This is particularly true at matchpoints. I do like underleading aces when I have strong reason to believe it's right. I have done it about ~5-10 times in my life and it's been right nearly every time. Of course the last time I did it, I thought for only about 5 seconds on lead after partner had raised my overcall, and led low from Axxxx through a known to be strong dummy. It came down with KJx just like you want and declarer instakinged. Maybe I need to hold my cards back more...