sathyab

Bypassing ♦s in favor of a major when partner opens 1♣ is quite popular. The opener can suppress his major or majors when balanced and rebid 1nt. This is perfectly safe as responder can rebid ♦s, go back to ♣s or bid a major when interested in game. But can you afford to suppress ♠s in a 1m-1♥ auction ? Now the responder can easily pass and you will miss a ♠ fit whenever responder was 4-4 or 4-5 with a moderate hand.

It appeared at the table that if declarer had a 5431 shape missing the ♠A, ♥AQJ and nothing in ♦, he most likely had the ♣A. But in that case why didn't he unblock it and pich his ♦losers immediately ? It all got quite confusing at the table. Finally I resolved it by telling myself that "playing the ♦4 and now ♦J" is consistent with an original holding of ♦J4 and if I don't give partner a ruff it'll go away on an eventual club or on the long heart in dummy". Disaster ! Partner had ♦J64, declarer pitched his losing club on the ♦T. I bet few of you would have conceived of that occurence even if you were looking at all four hands B) And of course thereafter it was just routine for declarer to play the heart suit for no losers, making 11 tricks !

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=st953haj8dat7ckq6&w=sj8hq9dkq983cjt53]266|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] The bidding starts p p 1c p 1s p 2s p 3h p 4s p You lead the King of Diamonds. Ace, 4, 2. You're playing UDCA. Declarer plays a spade from dummy, partner climbs with the Ace and returns the Jack of Diamonds, declarer following suit with 5. Your move.

So what about Justin's argument that 4NT increases the chances that you'll be able to show your hand on the next round, because 4♠ 4NT pass 5♣ 5♥ is a slam try, but 4♠ dbl pass 5♣ 5♥ is not? It's almost as if you're treating the 4nt and X over 4s as a relay to 5c ! What if he bids 5d instead, because 4nt appeared as a take-out in the minors ? What would 5h mean then ?

If you give these problems a lot of thought you can devise alternatives such as having an agreement that bidding directly shows a good hand and doubling shows a weak hand. Not that any such agreement is without a price, you do lose the meaning of the double which can otherwise be used to show a hand of some strength, a six-bagger in your minor and 3-card heart support. The idea of cue-bidding 3M with a good hand and winding up in 4m without a stopper doesn't appeal to me all that much as you would often have to bid 3M when pd hasn't shown any values and there's a real possibility of getting too high. It's matter of trade-off. I'd happily give up the natural meaning of 2nt rather than a double. I don't remember holding a hand where I wish I had a natural 2nt available to me.

That's easy enough to fix; assume partner made a negative double. So it's gone 1c-(1s)-X-(2s). I think most people would not like to sell out to 2s now with Ax KJx xx KJTxxx.

Most often the suit you're trying to compete to the 3-level is your own, although GB 2nt can be used to compete with a 5-5 that's not strong enough to introduce a second suit at the 3-level in standard methods. When you prefer to make natural, ambiguous bids rather than a conventional 2nt, you will be bidding 2nt with Ax KJx xx KJTxxx when it goes 1c-(1s)-p-(2s) as well as xx AKx xx AKQxxx. All your partner meeds is a slow stopper and slow trick somewhere for 3nt on the second hand, while giving you the option of staying at the 3-level without a stopper and on the first hand all you want to do is to compete to 3c without overstating your hand. I'm curious how you would bid these two hands and how your partner would divine which kind it is in your methods.

He doesn't need to lead a Diamond to beat the hand, it's not as though you had KQJ of Diamonds. I think the double is based on the gamble that your AQ of Diamonds is well-placed over dummy's King and that partner can find the switch after winning the first trick with the Ace of Spades or a high club honor. The double should warn him not to lead a spade in general, as a preemptive hand that doubles the final contract promises values elsewhere.

I don't understand why you can't double with this shape. Regardless of the kind of free-bids you play, partner has to pass with a penalty double, right ? The only time you would consider not reopening with a double is when you're looking at length is the overcalled suit, as it makes it unlikely that partner passed with a penalty double.

Passing seems conservative. Even over 2s, your partner has a difficult bid. But if opponents were playing Bergen and bid 3s, he'd have an impossible bid. When opponents play Bergen you have to constantly practice passing in tempo with hands that you would otherwise have acted. It's especially painful if you know that your teammates don't play Bergen, for then you know that the auction there will be different from what's going to transpire at your table. When it goes 3s, a strained pass from your pd and then 4s on your right, you're completely and totally out of the auction.

[hv=d=s&v=e&n=sa98h5dkj743ckq54&w=skq743h3dat52caj3&e=st652hat86dq8ct86&s=sjhkqj9742d96c972]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Yes, Phil made a good play of finessing the 9 of hearts on the first round. Next time I'll remember to hesitatte a bit before passing :) Partner leads the King of spades. As declarer wins, dropping the Jack from his hand, you know you probably did the wrong thing here and it's further confirmed when declarer wins the first trump trick with the 9 :rolleyes: When I passed it appeared reasonable to me. But when you see -12.5 IMPs even on a filed like BBO, it makes you wonder. Only one other 4h opening when I saw it last, most people opening 3h and EW played in 3s.

Just as importantly you were partnered by Gnome who's such a great dummy-putter. Play a few sessions with me and you will be cured of these habits in a hurry :)

[hv=d=w&v=n&s=st642hat82dq8ct63]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Bidding goes (4h) X (p) to You. Reasonable arguments can be made for passing as well as bidding. It's a balanced hand. If we assume that we have eight spades and they have eight hearts, the LAW tells you not to bid. And when partner has only three spades, bidding might turn out to be REALLY bad. As for bidding, there're times when partner may have even five spades. His slow cards may be lot more useful in offense than in defense.

Thanks for getting to the crux of the problem eventhough I complicated matters by presenting an auction that prematurely raised clubs. If you try 3s, partner's 3nt would be serious for most partnerships that play serious 3nt, but it's not clear that 4c would promise two top honors. The opposite of serious 3nt is a hand that's cue-bidding something below game in case that's what partner is looking for. Even if you agree that he'd bid 4c with two of the top three honors, he'd probably have to just bid 4s with only one of them or perhaps cue-bid 4h. All you know at this point is that you will settle for 12 tricks, but still don't know whether partner has a hand like 1) xx KQxx Kxx Axxx OR xx KQxx Kx Axxxx OR xx Kxxx KQx Axxx in which case 6s is is a great spot as your partner's red suit honors cover three of losing clubs OR 2) Jx Kxxx Kx AJxxx OR Jx KJxx Kx KJxxx in which case 6c is where you want to be in case you have a spade loser. If your focus has been spades mainly is there a reasonable way to get to 6s when partner holds hands like the one in (2) ?

I see my thoughts were already covered. I think the 3c bid expressed trump support early (may have turned out to be premature had partner's clubs been not real and partner may think you have more than four clubs to the Queen). Yes 2s is definitely more reasonable. The auction would most likely proceed 1c-1s 1nt-2d 2h-2s 2nt-3c 3d You're pretty much back to the same situation as stated in the problem originally.

[hv=d=n&v=b&s=saktxxxxhadacq8xx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] pd you --- ---- 1c 1s 1nt 2d (2-way checkback GF, 3s would promise solid suit and set trumps) 2h 3c (undiscussed whether pd's 2h bid denies 3 spades) 3d - probably a cue-bid in support of clubs and likely denies 3 spades Your agreement is that once you you agree on a minor suit, 4m is RKC. So 4c by you know would be RKC, as also 3s-3nt-4c. If partner has the top two club honors, 7c could be a decent spot if you can be sure that partner has at least 4 clubs. If he has only one honor without the Jack, regardless of whether he has four or five clubs, 6s might be superior as the two red kings in his hand might cover two losing clubs if spades come home. How do you proceed ?

Phil and I discussed this a fair amount when we met on BBO since. It turns out that there're quite a few alternative lines of play each with their own failure scenarios, not that I thought of as many alternatives at the table. To have any chance you need to find the ♠K on-side and trumps breaking 3-2. 1) If you win T1 with the Ace of hearts, play a spade to the Ace and a spade toward the Queen, it's instant death whenever it's Kx on your left for RHO scores a trump trick in addition to a heart and a Diamond However if you find Kxx on your left, this line is fairly solid. No matter what the defense does you can pull trumps and club King is entry to your good Diamonds after you knock out the Ace. 2) To avoid RHO's possible trump trick you might think of playing a club to the King and then a spade toward the Queen w/o releasing the Ace. The defense wins and forces you in hearts once. Now they hold up Diamonds once and you're down one losing a heart, a trump, a Diamond and a club ! 3) Another possibility is to win the King and hook the Jack immediately before playing trumps. Assuming clubs are Qxx(x) with LHO, you now play trumps. They force you in hearts once. Now you make if RHO has the Ace of Diamonds as he doesn't have any more hearts. All he can do is cash a club trick before being forced to yield to your Diamonds. If the club finesse loses and it was Kxx of trumps on your left to start with, your partner will definitely be wondering how you found this superior line of play to go down so swiftly.

If declarer has 7 solid, xx, Qx, Qx you aren't beating this. Assume pard has the ♣Q, so you can bare your ♣K in the endgame. You're right, I realized that right after I posted it (:-. To beat the hand you need pd to have the ♣Q and if he has that card you can beat this had regardless of declarer's minor suit shapes as long as you play low; if he has the stiff ♦Q the you will make 2 club tricks.

7. Ten which is the right card when pd has the Jack and when he doesn't declarer may finesse again anyway. 8. If declarer is 2722 with the minor suit queens it'd be a disaster to play small as you'll be end-played in the 3-card ending when dummy has the King of Diamonds and AJ of clubs and you have to come down to stiff Ace of Diamonds and Kx of clubs. I know this play loses whenever partner has Tx of Diamonds, but does win whenever he has Txx or longer.

He's one of my favorite commentators as well, but I didn't know that he thought preemptive raises don't gain much. The biggest gain of Bergen mixed raises which is probably a lot more frequent than the preemptive one is that if puts a lot more pressure on the fourth hand to act. On a competitive deal would you rather that the tray came to you with (1M)-p-(3d, rev Bergen, mixed raise) or (1M)-p-(2M) ? I must add that like all artificial schemes, it does give you two chances to act, one directly over 3d and another when 3M comes back to you. Personally I'd rather act over 2M.

If you think your side must bid more, then you have to take some action, not partner again. Being MP, you might easily have a weaker hand for the double. More importantly you may not have as good clubs for the double; most people tend to shade their T/O doubles at MP in terms of shape, if not strength and support for a specific minor is always a little suspect.

When you hold a balanced hand opposite a two-suiter that's exploring slam possibilities you're often short of bidding room and have to use bids that combine cue-bidding with trump agreement which can sometimes lead to confusion. Case in point: I was watching this hand on BBO recently in a high-level game. [hv=d=w&v=b&s=sakjxxxxhxdqxxxxc]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] With opponents silent the bidding proceeds 1c 1s 1nt 2d(GF) 2h 3d 3h 3s 4d 2h was presumably natural and 3h possibly a cue-bid in support of Diamonds although at the time it was bid, it should be treated simply as showing cards in the suit as 3nt is still in the picture. While it's clear that 4d sets trumps, does it also deny club control ? If not, what would a 4c bid in place of 4d mean ?

I was watching this hand on BBO yesterday and loved the enterprising defensive bidding by EW. [hv=d=n&v=b&s=saxhkjtxdaqxc87xx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Your partner opens 1c and the bidding heats up quickly. 1c-(1s)-X-(3s)-X-p It's upto you now. Most likely partner doesn't have a spade stopper. If he doesn't have hearts, he must have a fairly big hand. What're your options ? 4nt would be natural presumably showing about what you have. Is there any agreement about whether 4c should be forcing ? What if you had a weaker hand such as xx Kxxx Ax Qxxxx or worse xx Kxxx Axx Qxxx ? If you can't bid 3nt and can't leave it in, you must have a way out, so you need 4c to try to get out unscathed while you still can. Anyone in favor of passing 3s X ?

You might be OK if partner's penalty double happens to include either DQ or a running club suit. If he's doubled for penalties because he has a singleton diamond and defensive holdings in the round suits, 3NT is quite unlikely to make. I don't mind either of the possible interpretations of the double, but I'm certain that you can't play it as both. Succinctly put. That's exactly the point I was trying to make all along.

If he had a spade stopper why would he not bid 3nt himself ? What most other posters are saying is that his double is "card showing" and the opener is supposed to bid 3nt with a stopper, which is exactly the opposite of what you're saying. And he has a lot of help in your suit without a stopper and you don't have a stopper either and leave the double in, you will get good at scoring up 3S X making, 3S X making 4 without looking at the table of scores behind the bidding cards.