MFA

No Lebensohl here?

I don't get it? <_<

I was thinking the same thing and concluded that partner must have been worried about ♣xxx, not ♣xx. Anyway it does seem tame of him not to return a club immediately.

My partnership style is to let an attitude signal solve these problems. Not to switch to suit preference. Given this, the logic is that a discouraging spade asks for a switch back to clubs, while an encouraging spade does not. We would therefore discourage here.

You wrote 12-14 yourself :mellow:

3♥, and 4♦ if partner bids 3NT.

1) Do we focus responder's window? Say a splinter done. Is it 4♣ ? Say NT opener has 4-4-2-3 and 1stly showed lower suit. How come they find 9 cards ♠ fit? 2) Visualization. NT opener's deal : Kx-AQJx-xxx-AJTx. There may be a way to discover it. If anyone tells "too risky" for sure i respect. 3) Waste of time? Oh, do you expect World Grand Masters top ten members regularly posts their ideas on BB Forums? 1) Usually one doesn't worry about finding a 5-4 fit in spades in this auction. But I guess that 3♠ could be played as natural. If so, we definitely need agreements how to show a good hand as opener, in case responder has slam interest. 4♥ must be a minimum bid. But when you post, you can specify the system in the comments. 2) Your example hand is a very strong 15-count with just the right values. Quite rare to have when you open a 12-14NT. :blink: 3) Not top 10 perhaps, but many of the other posters in the A/E forum are very strong international players.

But the case here is that your bridge "problem" is grossly inappropriate for this forum. I agree that some of the reactions you recieve are rude, but you can't expect deep answers to non-problems such as this. 1) It's standard to play splinters here. Your post seems completely ignorant of that. When you post 3♠ with no comments to it, people just assume that this is a huge misbid. 2) Asking if we should make a second slam try with this hand is totally absurd, really. For starters, for slam we need to find partner with specifically 2 aces, the ♥Q and the ♠K for his 12-14 NT. How do you like your chances? And when partner has already signed off? 3) Had you asked if it was worth to make a splinter over 2♥ in search of the magic hand opposite, you would probably have recieved some useful answers. But your question, as it is, is just waste of time, sorry to say. :mellow:

4♥. Good raise to 4♠. That will get us to slam sometimes when it is on.

Pass. It's just another 0.

3♣. I tend to always get my suits in if possible. 3♠ might make it tougher for the opponents, but maybe we have a club fit.

I don't understand the explanations, can you be more specific?

I would expect 4♣ from me to be natural, so all there is left, if I want to show a good spade raise, is 4♥. So that's my bid. I want to emphasize spades with this hand. I have ruffing power and I need to tell him about my good support.

Thinking partner has ... what?? It can't ever be right to play a heart now from 4 small, unless pard is currently on his 5th+ beer. If he has ♥A, he would overtake the second club and cash the heart to get a signal. If he has ♥KQ and ♦A he would overtake the first club and play hearts. Etc.

Sure, if I'm about to reason that partner might not dare to overtake the ♣Q (very far-fetched imo), then it was a clear error to play the ♣Q. For me the choice of ♣Q/J is suit preference. On that basis, ♣J seems like the proper card.

♦ For this to make any sense, partner must be in doubt about which red suit, he should play, if he overtakes. Since we can't have much strength left, partner's dilemma must be whether to set up a deep heart trick or to cash his diamond ace. I think he has ♠A, ♥K or Q empty, ♦A, ♣A From his perspective there is just room for ♥Q/K in our hand. But we don't have it. So I'll play a diamond to his ace.

I would very much doubt that declarer had all 3 aces on this bidding... :P

Also for me is returning to our suit the weakest possible action. Pass is encouraging, but when we have other options too, pass is the mildest possible encouragement.

2 I knew and then 8 bad guesses (as usual).

Very difficult. Here is what I think. Level 1. Basically this is a 2-way restricted choice situation and these cancel out eachother. The relevant holdings are JTxx - Q Txx - QJ If we examine 10 times of each holding, we'll expect to see the sequence T-Q 2*5 times. So it's fifty-fifty in isolation to play for the drop or to finesse. Level 2. As pointed out, E should play the J from QJ, because when W plays T and E plays J, declarer knows there were no restricted choice in W's play. When it goes T-J it is therefore right to finesse, and thus E can only gain from playing the J from QJ tight. This is also in accordance with the principle of playing "the exposed card". East hasn't exactly shown the J, but he has implied it because of the restricted choice principle! Let's say that E realizes this 40% of the time. He will then play J from QJ 70% and Q from QJ 30%. As before: 10 holdings of JTxx - Q will now produce 5 T-Q and 5 J-Q 10 holdings of Txx - QJ will now produce 3 T-Q and 7 T-J When we see T-Q it's therefore (at this level) 5:3 odds on to finesse. Is that enough to finesse considering the complete play problem? Perhaps. As pointed out we have a squeeze if east has the spade guard as well as the clubs. Level 3. Since east should play the J from QJ, it is bad news for W holding JTxx to see the spots go T-Q. He should therefore overruff with the J from JTxx to preserve the double restricted choice position in case partner has the stiff Q! Let's say that W realizes this just 20% of the time, because it's hard to see. He will then ruff with the T from JTxx 40% and with the J 60%. As before: 10 holdings of JTxx - Q will now produce 4 T-Q and 6 J-Q (level 3 considerations) 10 holdings of Txx - QJ will now produce 3 T-Q and 7 T-J (level 2 considerations) At this level, when we see T-Q it is 4:3 odds on to finesse. Not enough considering the complete deal. Evaluation. The 40% and the 20% are completely arbitrary and most likely way to high. Actually I think that W is very likely to tend to overruff with the T from JTxx and not with the J. He will often not visualize our trump problem this early. This point works in the opposite direction of the principle in 'Level 3', and makes a finesse much more attracting. All in all I find the complete play problem very difficult to judge. Without the spade problem, I would surely finesse now against these opponents, but with the spade problem also, it's close. But let me go against the majority view and say, I would finesse the hearts now anyway.

I have never found the standard interpretation of having to start with a pass on all strong hands very good. It doesn't make sense to me, if the plan is to pull partner's double anyway. Surely all jumps should be gameforcing with a pronounced one- or twosuiter. Then one could pass and await the developement on hands that are more unclear about strain.

For me 5NT would be a choice of slams bid. Only grand slam try would be 5♥. So I could do nothing more than raise to 6♦.

Agree with wtp double. If I for some strange reason had to make a different call, I think I would choose 3♥. Surely way before 2NT, but 3♣ would be a close 3rd.

Odds clearly favour cashing out here. Not cashing out is gambling on declarer being void in clubs. Not impossible but not very likely either. Ducking the spade tends just to make the disaster of not cashing out even greater. Perhaps the hearts are running also along with the clubs. And declarer might have a stiff ♠K .

Of course a pause is not defined, but I seem to recall that more than 10-15 seconds becomes a break in tempo. The SBU tends to follow the EBU guidelines in this regard. Paul This is silly of course. Unauthorized Information does not go away because some rule says it does not exist. If I am your partner and you pause at trick one and I can deduce something from that pause then I have Unauthorized Information even if there is a regulation saying that I don't. It would be wrong for me to act on the deduction that I made from your break in tempo. When declarer shotguns T1, a good and ethical player who sees that there might potentially be a defensive problem would typically take his time whether or not he has solved his problem immediately. So his partner won't know. The regulations supports such practice, which is not silly at all. Otherwise declarer would have a huge advantage by shotgunning and thus requirering the defense to solve its problem in tempo.