catatonic

sorry for that , his hearts are solid missing the K ! although the hand is a nonsense due to partner's action , for me there is an interesting point of the possibility of canape resposes to stayman .....perhaps it is just me that sees this as a step forward in bidding theory , or is it just that I have never heard of it before !

sorry for the delay ...for some reason I haven't been able to log in ! the answer to the question is ...he passed ! ♠Kxxx ♥AKJT9 ♦AK ♣Qx which , it goes without saying , came as somewhat of a surprise what happened in the play I have no idea , I couldn't bear to watch but my question is somewhat of a trap , the first question is can I do better ? I considered passing 2NT , but partner could have a much better hand so I though that wrong if I bid was stayman best , or 3NT when I got a ♠3 response should raise ? at red i though I must at imps should I pass 4NT on the basis that partner has made a mistake ...body of opinion is that this is best when he bids ♦5 i think 5♥must be correct , if he is trying to recover from an initial misbid it is what he wnats to know , bearing in mind he knows I am aceless and if we are already too high it probably doesn't matter ! but perhaps the most interesting thing is something I have never considered ...could it be correct for his first rebid to be 3♠on the basis that if I am slam minded playing in the 4 4 fit could be important , and if I don't have 4♠he can correct to ♥4 , could be a good agreement perhaps ? I did take a peep to see what would be RHO's lead , with ♣AJTxx and ♠Ax the limit is 1NT while ♠4 means guessing trumps against any sensible defence

playing here with a partner who rated him/herself as expert I held the following at game all ♠Q97x ♥K9 ♦Jxxx ♣9xx no intervening bids as dealer , partner opened 2NT first decision for me , 3NT or stayman ? personally , with a weak 4333 hand I just raise even with a 4 card major , but with this sort of hand I prefer stayman response from partner 3♠....goal ! obviously I raise partner now bid 4NT and types ...aces ! ???? no option but to bid 5♣as per both cards for no aces partner now bids 5♦ unsurprisingly I have no idea what he/she is doing but presuming this seeks information I decide to show my control with 5♥ what does partner bid now and with what hand ?

very sherlock holmes ...it's the dog who barked in the night , or rather , why didn't he bark in the night ? lots of diamonds about , not so many clubs , west on balance will hold at least 4 ♦, but he didn't lead one , wonder why ? so cash the ♥'s . ♦ finesse for me pity he lead a club though , otherwise could try advancing the JTR method , advance the J♣ for a 'finesse' to test the reaction to begin with T♥ is much less tempting to cover

well , my reasoning went like this on the auction partner can't have a very big hand , so balance of probabilities is that he has playing tricks as he has come in when the opps auction is unlimited I don't want to let them play 2 H , would like to give them a little push ; in doing this would like to deceive the opps as to the distribution as the likely result is that partner will be on lead against a H contract I will be happy with whatever he leads , as long as it a spade! so I bid 2 spades ! now forget you know my hand .... when pt bids 2 spades and the next hand bids 3 hearts what do you do with T9xxxx AJx A K8x he bid 3spades which didn't meet with my approval [ I can't imagine overcalling 1Spade in an unlimited auction when you can pass and balance instead of possibly encouraging a terrible lead ]; he said it was automatic for his hand to overcall he couldn't imagine raising on the bare K ! and said so [ politely I hasten to add] as always his RHO doubled and he went 2 off trying to make , when 2H and 2S were the respective maximums happily we agreed to disagree , as having lost 8 imps on this board we put on 83 in the remaining 23 ....without , I might add , any real help from the opps ; better than crying over spilt milk! any comment as to my partners bidding ? it is already clear that my 2 spade bid is NOT the universal choice ;)

sorry , perhaps I should have been clearer ...board1 is love all of course

♠K ♥Qx ♦KT97xxx ♣T97 so, new cross imps game on BBO , board 1 , unknown pt who rates himself expert , board 1 , second in hand auction goes 1♦ , pass from U , 1♥ , 1♠ 2♥,??? I think most people will play neither 2♦ nor 3♦ on the previous round as natural what to say now? any suggestions?

frankly I have no idea what is the correct line here but my line , right or wrong , would be to finesse the T , if it loses to the J , duck the next round

definitive answer is .....it depends if you have AJ8xx you should run the T ...if covered , win A , finesse 8 next time ; that presumes you have entry otherwise finesse J , then lay down A ; of course if you think RHO isn't good enough to duck with Hx if you start with low to the T then you should do that ...increases your trick average from 3.19 to 3.24 as your post suggests , these things are close , so your estimation of your opps , inferences from the play and table presence are probably the deciding factors , not like A98xx opposite Jxx when you have to have 4 tricks

despite llol's rather cryptic post , I think the positional factor here isn't generally taken into account ; when a hand is passed around to pt you know a lot more about the hand of the opp that has passed than you would if pt had opened 1NT in first hand eg that hand lacks not only the strength to open with a 1 level bid , but also the shape for a pre-empt at the 2, 3, or 4 level ; therefore the odds on various distributions have changed ; I wish my maths was good enough to calculate the odds on pass or transfer , but certainly I suspect that passing could be correct opposite a third hand opener

interesting comments folks but I am a little surprised that nobody commented on the question that I deliberately omitted !! when your pt opens a 15-17 NT in 3rd hand , would you transfer or pass on AJxxx, xx,xxx,xxx ?

peachy has hit the nail on the head...these auctions don't come up often ...certainly I [ as stated ] have no comprehensive agreements on it is there a case for agreeing that rdl says hearts strongly held for NT purposes , not to play there [ what are the chances of making this contract anyway ] ; then pt with 5 bad spades , no heart stop but an invitational or game going hand will not fear playing in NT in addition [ without deep thought ] something like pass ....no strong heart holding , poor spade support 2!S......ditto , reasonable spade support 3!S......nothing in hearts , max , big spade fit or similar

ok , so pt passed and the doubler held K , QJ10xxx,xxxx,Ax having felt that this was too weak to open 1 ♥at game all and too strong for 2 ♥ pt took fright and went for a number ...well he was going for a number anyway but he didn't make the best of it [ am sure I am not the only person here who has struggled to get out for 1400 on foul breaks and gained 7 imps ! ] now , imho , the doublers bidding is correct , don't open , then x.... am I alone here?

well , I must admit I don't have an exact understanding in a regular partnership to cover this except to say that xx would show a max with a good heart suit I was playing here with what you could call a BBO expert , fairly sound but no experience of high level bridge ; certainly we had no understanding on this so rating the possible bids at something like pass 0% xx 80% 2♠ 10% 3♠ 10% I red'd now pt has to make a decision holding AJxxx , xx, xxx,xxx he decided that he had 2 ♥'s and an A more than he had promised , that I had no particular interest in spades , so he passed any comments on his actions in this auction?

Q85 AK94 Q10 KQJ10 third in hand pass, pass , 1NT ,pass 2♥ , X , ? with a maximum opener and possible contracts between two spades and three NT what is the best bid now ?