sathyab

I can understand that there may be many ways of playing 3♦, but it's obvious by looking at the hand how they were playing 3♦, as forcing in ♠. After that it is double of 5♣ by partner and it's all judgement. I don't understand how people expect such sequences to be worked out in more detail. As a general rule, when the bidding gets competitive at higher levels, double says I don't have a fit for you suit. The double of 5♣ appears to fall in that category, doesn't it ?

Yes, it definitely looks like declarer is looking for help in ♥ asking partner to bid slam without two losers. 5♠ would be consistent if declarer had ♥Qx, so partner could bid slam with 2nd round control. But since you can see top three ♥ honors between you and dummy, the 5♠ bid doesn't probably mean what it conventionally means. The declarer must have something else in mind. But still playing the Ten appears technically correct, but I'd also be wondering why partner didn't lead a ♥ himself instead of dummy's 1st bid suit.

The problem is that partner could still have ♠AKx ♥x ♦KJxx ♣AKQxx. Because 2♥ was ambiguous, partner wanted to bid game perhaps ? If everything breaks reasonably you could ruff two losers in dummy, unless they start with a trump lead. With a hand this good would partner rush to bid 3nt rather than say 2♠ and then follow it up with 3nt ?

Fair enough, that 4♠ is somewhat unusual. But the truth of the matter is that most people would open it 3♠ regardless of whether they had 3-2 in the minors or 4-1. It being MP. you're still under the gun to make 11 tricks when you can. So all the deliberations about RHO's fragment distribution is still valid. Apart from the excessive pre-empting, I don't think the opponents' carding is all that different from what you'd find in a mixed field.

This was in a Robot tournament. At the table, I played it slightly differently. Pitched a ♦ on ♠A, pulled two rounds of trumps ending in dummy (LHO echoing in trumps to show three) and played a low ♦ toward my hand to see if RHO would fly with the Ace for some reason. It didn't, but after winning the Nine it tried to cash the Ace. Now I simply ran trumps reducing LHO in the four-card ending to ♦K and three ♣. ♣ to Ace, ♦Q and claim. I never had to worry about the ♣ position at all. But afterward it occurred to me that I couldn't make the same play if RHO came back a low ♦. And that shouldn't be hard, because if declarer is void now, better for you to guard ♦ and let partner take care of ♣. When I re-played the hand, GIB told me that the hand was still makeable, which is when I started digging more. Here's the full hand: [hv=pc=n&s=shakqj643d64ckj74&w=sqh752dkj753cqt62&n=sat975h98dq82ca83&e=skj86432htdat9c95&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=p4s5hppp]399|300[/hv] I thought there were a couple points of interest. In the five-card ending if you suspect LHO has come down to a ♦TH (Top Honor) and four ♣, and you ruff out his ♦, you have ambiguity about whether he has QT9x or Q{T/9}xx. I think a strong RHO would return a ♣ if he had xx, as that's what's needed to break up any end-play against partner. The ♦ play can wait as after all if he does have a loser it's not going anywhere. Likewise if you suspect LHO had 1-3-4-5, the reason why RHO he didn't return his stiff ♣ was because it was the 9 or T. The other point is that trying to pin a 9 or T will lose to Qx on-side ! Don't think there's any way to combine any of the other chances to cater for that possibility.

You've already lost one ♦ trick to the Nine. If you pitch now, LHO wins with ♦honor and returns a ♦ for his partner to cover with the remaining honor, thus wiping out the entire suit.

[hv=pc=n&s=shakqj654d64ckj74&n=sat975h98dq82ca83&d=n&v=n&b=l&a=p4s5hppp]266|200[/hv] MatchPoints. ♠Q led. You pitch a ♦, pull three trumps. RHO follows with stiff T and then discards two low ♠. You play a low ♦, low, low, 9. Now RHO plays back the ♦T. Commercial break: Still looking for LM pd. http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/61483-anyone-looking-for-partner-for-open-lm-pairs-in-atlanta/

Many of partners/teammates are playing in GNT, so I am looking for a partner. If interested, please contact me directly at s_bettadapura@yahoo.com. Thanks, Sathya

That's probably a 6♥ bid to avoid a ♦ lead even in non client-server Bridge.

In that case wouldn't the pro have tried 6nt ?

I ran a simulation using http://bridge.thomasoandrews.com/deal/ (Thanks gnasher for pointing this to me) The Specs: West has the hand he's dealt. North has 5♠, South 4 or 5. East has 4 or 5♥. North-South have between themselves 19, 20 or 21 HCP, with South having between 5 and 8 HCP. North, East and South all have balanced or semi-balanced hands. I generated 100 hands and started looking at them. I stopped looking after about 20 of them. You didn't need to be a Nate Silver to know that 4♣ was an overwhelming favorite to make or go at most down 1. Even when you catch East with the dreaded 3433 and opponents keep tapping you, you have a play for down 1. And N-S are making 3♠ just about all the time. At the table, I didn't give this too much thought before passing. N-S made 3♠ by playing my hand for ♥K. (this is deal no. 28 in Reisinger SF 1, hand records on-line). There was only one other table where they were allowed to play 3♠ and it wasn't at the OT (: Instructive deal.

If bidding 4♣ is wrong you will almost surely hear from your opponents. Going for -300 on part score hands doesn't win you a board too often.

[hv=pc=n&w=sjhk3daqt94cq8742&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=1d1sd3hp3spp]133|200[/hv] 3♥ is mixed raise in support of ♠.

Most people got this one right by passing 3nt. At the table, the Precision 1♦ opening kept bothering me. What if partner had the minors, how would he bid ?, I kept thinking. Torn between the possibility of six solid ♣s on the one hand and a minor two-suiter on the other, I did the wrong thing. I should have reflected that he could have bid 2nt over opener's 1nt rebid with minors (or perhaps even 2nt over 1♦ as we don't consider it a real suit), so this 3nt had to be different. Partner had ♠AQ8 ♥A94 ♦3 ♣AKQJ73. 3nt makes as !s finesse works. Curiously opponents could have passed 1nt and won the board as the best E-W can do is beat it 3 tricks double-dummy :)

[hv=pc=n&w=s95h87dq98542ct42]133|100[/hv] N-S Vul, W dealer W N E S p 1d X 1s p 1nt p 2h p 3h 3nt p ? Opponents play Precision

I'll try for a trump squeeze against LHO. I'll play off all but one trump and two high ♥ ending in my hand. My three cards ♠ - ♥ - ♦A ♣Kx opposite ♠x ♥ - ♦Qx ♣- . I have a feeling there's more to it than a simple trump squeeze, but realistically that's what I could come up with at the table.

That was the part I was unsure when defending this hand. In retrospect, may be I shouldn't have implied good clubs, it'd definitely matter if partner had only the ♣Jx. But on this hand, what mattered really was telling partner that my entry was in ♠ in spite of the overcall before he discarded a second ♠. I knew declarer didn't have four ♥, so I was all set to pitch a ♥ from Jxx as it would have been safe. But partner had to make the critical discard before I could.

I didn't post partner's hand to wonder how he could defend better. I posted it because it was an interesting hand and the defense is extremely tough from his point of view. Nowhere did I ever imply that partner did anything unreasonable. I wasn't sure about what Smith signal would mean in this context, so I posted whatever happened at the table, noting that it could easily have been wrong. As for not leading A from Ax in partner's suit, if declarer had a stopper, it tends to work out badly. When he doesn't have a stopper it can mislead the defense as it did here. The ♠ overcaller pitched two ♠s and ♥ broke 3-3, so defense could not get more than 4 tricks before declarer had nine.

I was the one on opening lead. Most of the time I'd lead partner's suit. Leading another suit might easily waste an entry in partner's hand that might have been useful after establishing his suit. But I made an exception holding ♠Ax ♥Jxx ♦Qxx ♣Txxxx for two reasons. First, Leading the Ace might help declarer when partner has a suit such KJ9xx. Second, if responder did have a ♠ stopper, partner would have values elsewhere and if it happens to be in ♣ the lead could be productive. At the table, partner discarded a ♠ first. Naturally of course, declarer played ♦ in a way that the ♠ overcaller had to make a second discard before he could see partner's pitch, so he discarded another ♠, convinced not unreasonably that declarer had a ♠ stopper. Declarer didn't have one ! He had ♠Txxx ♥ATx ♦KJTx ♣Kx. So he now had the luxury of testing ♥ and made 4 ♦, 2♣, 3 ♥ for nine tricks ! Teammates made 8 tricks in notrump.

It's a Precision opening. If they open all 11's, responder can not bid a lot more than 1nt with 11 himself. There was a Smith at the table, but not quite sure what it should mean in this situation when everyone knows the opening leader started with 5 or 6♣ to the Ten and an outside entry. Should Smith here indicate that the opening leader has one more entry to the suit or longer suit or some such ?

Partner's long thought occured before he made the opening lead behind screens. So there are no UI issues here. I don't understand why he couldn't be leading a ♣ from Ax Axx Qxx T7632. Given his own ♠ holding and the 1nt by his RHO, he might have reasoned that you must have values outside that suit and trying to establish his own suit fearing that releasing the ♠A early on would help declarer more than the defense.

[hv=pc=n&n=s97hk987da983ca94&e=skqj43hq64d75cqj8&d=n&v=b&b=1&a=1d1s1nppp]266|200|1d was Precision[/hv] Partner consults the ceiling for quite a while and finally emerges with the ♣3, 4th best from length in your methods. You also play Reverse Smith. T1: ♣3, 4, J, K T2: ♦K, 2, 3, 5 T3: ♦J, 4, 8, 7 T4: ♦6, Q, A, ? What's your discard to this trick and the next one ?

[hv=pc=n&s=s7hajt9862da63ck6&n=skqt82hkdkqcajt73&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1sp2hp3cp3hp4cp4dp5np6hppp]266|200[/hv] 3♣ showed extras. 5nt was pick-a-slam.

When I said "advantage", I meant advantage in arguing your position. It's just a form of expression. As to your charge about my posting a comment two days after the debate started, yes I did post. Because I found the discussion very interesting, but I confined myself to just one observation, that popping the Ace was more a function of the difficulty involved in visualizing a distribution close to the one that declarer had, rather than being induced by the notion that an expert player was making a subtle/deceptive play.

Just one additional point you forgot in your summary of the discussion so far. When Andy pointed out to you very early on in #5, that ducking is fatal when declarer has J AKTxx AKxx Kxx, you said "It didn't even occur to me, until you brought it my attention; but I am not going to play for a specfific ♣ holding even after you mention it because, ducking comes out on top ...". So you had an advantage right from the start in that a losing choice didn't occur to you, so you didn't have to try as hard to convince yourself that although it was a possible distribution that it was not a probable one most of the time.