MFA

LHO being a passed hand seriously decreases the preemptive effect of 2♣. He could now bid a nonforcing 2M.

Very hard to comment on this star wars sequence when we don't know what other options were available underway.

2NT

If 6♣ is not just clubs then it's beyond me, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if I misunderstood most of the tricky calls in that actual game. I would have assumed that those stone axe methods would imply that bidding clubs meant clubs, but that is probably just silly me.

Pass. Partner will act too often if we overcall and the undertricks will be expensive.

I don't see why pass-double inversion has anything to do with this situation. Pass-double inversion is a convention that applies in forcing pass situations. This is not a forcing pass situation. Even if had agreed to play forcing pass in this situation, pass-double inversion would not help. Pass-double inversion simply inverts the basic meaning of a pass and that of a double. If we have a hand that would normally make a warning double (still given it is a forcing pass situation), we would pass instead with the same meaning. And if we have a forcing pass hand (in doubt of bidding 5 or defending) we would double to show that. The gain of pass-double inversion comes solely in pass-and-pull sequences. Pass and pull sequences has a weakness with standard methods if partner pulls a forcing pass himself. That is what pass-double inversion can do better, and only that.

D for penalty. Since partner for some reason has insisted not to play this, I'll try option 1 and prepare myself for minus 100.

1) 1 2) 2 3) 2 4) 1 5) 1 6) 2 7) 0 8) 1 9) 2 10) 2 11) 1 12) 2 13) 0 14) 1 15) 2 16) 1

Me too.

The bidding is weird. Did east have a pass-and-pull hand or did he just reconsider? Everthing seems to indicate the latter. Also partner's bidding might need an examination. He overcalled 2♥, not 4♥, but later when the opponents have stranded in 3NT after a misfit auction he could bid 4? Hmm. I would lead a heart. I don't agree that declarer is 100% void in hearts. Especially not after a long tank. Declarer will probably have diamonds on the side. Since we have a spade card I don't think we need to lead diamonds. A spade lead could work, playing partner for both majors with a weak heart suit to justify his bidding. I'm not leading the ♣A. That's a forum type of lead imo.

Pass, but would surely have opened 4♠ nv vs vul. Even the rule of 1-2-3, which I tell my students is a tad too conservative, dictates a 4♠ opening.

Pass.

Yes clear negative double by south and a choice between pass and 3NT by north. I would prefer 3NT, but it's close.

3♥, and I would never consider 2♥ or pass. 4♥ is too much opposite a one-level overcall.

Very nice post, mr. Burn. Although I'm pretty sure that I would vote against Burn's 40th Law. :)

No. The director should rule MI rather than misbid in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Players' statements are evidence. So the system card, and system notes if available. When there is evidence that it may have been a misbid, the director must decide on the preponderance of the evidence whether it is. There is no "automatic score adjustment" if the director is at all competent. No, they don't. This is the deWael School of thought, which has been explicitly deprecated by the WBFLC.I do think that the laws are pretty weak with dealing with potential misinformation. I deliberately didn't use the exact words from the laws since the solemn and elegant wording may so easily seduce one to believe that the underlying logic is through and through sensible, which is not the case. Yes the director is supposed to judge also from the players' statements and try to divine what's gong on. That immediately initiates a game of orally persuasion which favours untruthful players and players like myself, who just all too well know that as the bidder one should be quick to admit the "momentary lapse" that lead to the silly bid while as the explainer one should be persistent about being right about the explanation. The result is just even more success for grey area tactics.

It is against the laws of the game to go into such guess work strategies. Knowing what the laws say and doing it anyway, makes it unethical. Yes, I agree. Hopefully it's clear that what I'm doing in this thread is critisizing the laws, not explaining how I handle the situations myself or how I would like others to handle them.

For me the most important thing is that 4♣ is a big underbid. If it were approximately right on values I could easily live with not being so flexible since the upside of introducing such a strong suit is great. When we have this 'monster', and yes it is a monster with all those controls and the good shape, it's very convenient to state that 4♣ shows strong values. But it doesn't. Or at the very least it shouldn't do. Without the ♥A we would have had a routine 4♣ call. We must be able to compete with shortness in their suit and reasonable playing strength. 4♣ is clearly NF and will quite often get passed. If partner bumps us to 5♣ we would have a choice of just reraising to 6♣ or making a mild try for 7♣. If partner makes any slam try over 4♣, the hand would be good enough for a direct leap to 7. I don't want to bid like that.

I agree with dburn's theoretical view. But it just doesn't work in practice. The director should rule misinformation rather than misbid (unless there is a particular reason not to). So Fluffy can be pretty certain that if he says "hearts", which he can see his partner doesn't have, he will be subject to an automatically adjusted score if the opponent draws some unlucky conclusion from that. A pedestrian TD ruling. Just what happened. The laws are inconsistent and unfair, since they encourage untruthful explanations. The best strategy (perhaps not ethically) is to try to guess what partner has and explain that. Always, since that will keep one out of trouble most often. That's how it is.

Pass. 2NT vul vs not has so little upside but risks a lot, so that would be bad. I see no reason to overcall 2m. Some did that in a similar situation in a thread not long ago, so I wonder if there will be votes for such action here again. But I'm not close to bidding anything other than pass with this hand.

I would pass. I have doubled twice with this rather ordinary 16 count. Partner must wake up if he has something and we have a game. Partner could easily have just three spades and he doesn't need as much as in Justin's example to bid 2♠ with three spades imo.

Forbid spades. Why risk one/two ruff(s)? We know how to play spades later, so no reason to want a spade lead from west at this point.

60%. Fun, but yeah the first one was dirty because of "Hamman's rule". :)

I think west is ♠Qxx and east ♠xxxx. But obv I can't be sure. I would not have put myself in this position where it costs an extra trick to guess wrongly. Just cash hearts and play west for ♠Qxx since so many players would prefer to lead from xxx rather than Q empty fourth in diamonds (but not from ♠Qxx).

yep