Halo

Granted some of my comments are incorrect. However, you don't seem to have considered LHO holding Kxxx of spades, when you can't pick up the suit (you still need a discard for your losing club). Also bear in mind 51 hearts in either hand. I admit that my line (Queen of spades at trick two) needs RHO to make an error by forcing dummy about three times in ten, when he has the King of spades, in order to be better than a heart to the Queen.

There is a reason I ignore your posts. You are just one of those people for me. I am not sure why I altered my policy here but the merits of small heart to the queen have been posted several times now, and I explained the merits or lack thereof of playing the spade queen, so I'm not really sure what else you want. Would you like me to hold your hand? All you have added so far is to insult people and speak in a cryptic form of english. Back to ignoring you, but don't say I didn't try to help! And FWIW you are the only one who has been at all emotional in this thread. And I won't even ask about "name dropping." lol. Small heart to the Queen, loses for practical purposes, whenever the King is wrong. How can that be better than error plus King on the left? Jlall has given up my incomprehension. Anyone else like to give a quantified answer?.

At least some Bridge maybe. But still too much emotion and name dropping. Are you categorically saying that small to the Queen of hearts is better than Queen of Spades? We can leave mikeh to account for himself, as he or anyone else chooses so honestly to do.

I'm not sure what this post means lol. What do you mean I am too busy to take note of whether RHO hesitated or not? I played very slowly which gave RHO a lot of time to think, so RHO was likely never going to hesitate after I played slowly. Unforuntately I thought this was a hard hand and wanted to make sure I chose the best option (SQ off the dummy, heart to queen, or something else). Unfortunately if you play slowly you give RHO time to think and weird things can happen. You can no longer expect RHO to hesitate with the king, though you might expect them to pop king. So in an ideal world you play a heart off the dummy in tempo and play RHO to give away the king (I agree), but what actually happened at the table was I thought forever and played a heart so when RHO ducked I felt that playing the queen was now the best play. Can you please clarify the meaning of your post? If you really think a thread where mikeh, gnasher, and I post about how to play a hand is "gibberish" perhaps it is over your head. If you bother to read the thread you will see my suggestion of Q♠ after the ruff. I thought I was taking part in a discussion of the best play. What on this Earth is the rest of your statement about. What do you believe is objectively the best play. This is the Advanced Forum.

I usually just give in on these posts. But what I see here is complete gibberish. We have MikeH reading RHO (reasonable on OP), and Gnasher (I believe) mistaking which was the weak player, and JLall (hoho) too busy talking to notice whether RHO hesitated or not. And the conclusion is 'chortle, chortle...' Could take it to the 'interesting' forum, at risk of rejection.

Not many. Finesse the spade, draw trumps (overtaking, because you know that they're 3-2) and cash major-suit tricks. If ♥K is on the left, you need ♠K onside. The reason for playing ♥9 is to provide an entry back to hand in the event that LHO wins ♥K and forces dummy again. Yes Gnasher, But it doesn't equate to one of two finesses - since after the nine takes the King (successful finesse) you still need a second finesse to make. We are told LHO is strong, so he is not forcing you a second time when the spade finesse is failing. For the moment (until I understand the argument better) I'll stick to my defensive error or King of Hearts on the left line of play.

Although after hitch, 9♥ won by the King, a spade comes back and you have choices to make.

I think 4H is reasonable since I tend to make with hearts 33 even if diamonds are 41. Meanwhile I don't seem to make five diamonds against 41 trumps, so ignore 41 and: Ruff and play Queen of spades. If RHO wins, and forces me again I'm pretty much home. If RHO wins and plays a diamond, or LHO wins looks like I need the heart finesse.

Pass. I think there is a fair chance we are missing slam, but equally there is a good chance we are just off two Aces. I would have bid one spade, devaluing the K♥ a little, and with a hand that looks very suitable for play in spades.

If it is right to say that the auction is completely natural, and after 2H it doesn't matter that you were playing strong club, then 4H rather than 4S seems odd. After 5C, I agree with jtfanclub. Can't see how we can bid anything other than 6S.

I'm not that keen on Butler, but players in the same team play the same opposing teams, I guess.

We are not headed for a high decision on this auction.

Double Doesn't promise anything in particular for me, except a sound opener.

A puzzle. If my 4S showed two aces, then why am I not passing now? In practice I'd bid 6D, because my agreements are not quite that good.

I agree with Helene's and David's answers. I think you're right that Acol players used to bid differently. Crowhurst's 1974 Precision Bidding in Acol includes a discussion of what to rebid with AQ875 AJ6 KQJ4 2 after 1♠-1NT. The bids discussed were 2NT and 3♦ (a one-round force). Things have moved on since then, probably as a result of the same American influences that caused us to stop responding at the two level on eight counts. Nowadays I think almost everyone would rebid 2♦ on Crowhurst's example. I finally give in, hardly possible to do otherwise. Obviously, I leave you with x Kxxxx AKxx xxx I will (and I believe most tournament Acol players will) open this hand. I might ask you to consider the probability of this hand on the auction, as against the probability of the same hand with 17 points. Of course, you can't win them all, but how many are you winning.