sathyab

Ok, right the mention of a ♦ discard was not relevant. With all the discussion todate, I thought it was understood that for ducking to cost, his ♣ need to be Kx or Kxx, in which case, his only loser will be a ♦.The point I was trying to make was that you had to have figured out that declarer had a hand with no losers outside of ♣ for you to duck a ♣.

Yes, a lot of times we make fundamentally unsound/fancy plays when a declarer with reputation was making a rather routine play. But here there is a strong reason to pop the Ace. In view of partner's trump lead and the combined holding in ♦ between you and dummy, you suspect that one discard from dummy will not be useful even if you pop the Ace, but that if you don't, ducking could cost you. If you have not visualized something really close to the actual 1-5-3-4 distribution by the time declarer plays a ♣, it's hard to have any conviction that ducking is right and so the default play of not losing an Ace takes priority. I would not be surprised if a lot of defenders made the same play even against non-expert declarers.

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If you are playing against a much better team bidding 6♠ directly would be a lot easier to defend in the 3rd or 4th quarter than the first half where you have to pretend that you are playing 'normal' Bridge :D

I'm going to assume RHO has ♦A and ♣AK for his double opposite partner's w/r preempt. If trumps are 2-2, this seems easy enough. Ruff T1, ♦ to Q, ♠K, ♠A, ♦ to J, ♥A pitching a ♦, ♥ ruff, ♦K. Not sure how good my chances are if trumps are 3-1. If you try to pitch a ♣, eliminate ♥ and throw RHO with ♦A, looks like he can foil it by flying with ♦A on the 2nd round and playing a ♦ back when he still has a trump.

What if the minor suits in your hand were reversed, i.e ♠AJ8xxx ♥AJTx ♦Kx ♣x ? This still looks like a good defensive hand. Would people bid 2M with this hand ? If you do pass, and partner hits 2♣, it might play really well for our side if partner's ♣ length is two more than ♠ length, but not all that well when he has only one more ♣ than ♠.

The double made it worse but only marginally. The more fundamental problem is not bidding an obvious 4-over-4 with 9 ♠. The opponents could yet make 5♥, but you'd have bid the limit of your hands. If you were playing a dreaded convention that starts with a "B" and made the appropriate 3-level bid to show a mixed raise with four trumps, partner would have an easier time bidding 4♠. Since you were not playing that convention, you have a guess both over 4♥ and whether to pull or pass partner's eventual double of 4♥. It'd be clearly wrong to bid 4♠ directly as there're many hands where 9 tricks are the limit for both sides. And as some posters have pointed out, partner could easily have had his competitive 3♠ bid and his double of 4♥.

So we're pushing ourselves to 3♠ opposite a partner who said he didn't have a full opener. Isn't the point of Drury not to get to the 3-level on such hands ? Partner may not even have five ♠ in third chair in which case we should consider defending.

We have an extra ♠ than our Drury promised and more than half the high cards are in our suit. Pulling to 3♠ seems indicated.

First hand: Q hoping West led from AKJ7 or AKT7 Second hand: Low, hoping that West led from a 5-card suit headed by the Jack or Ten, leaving East with AKT or AKJ so the suit blocks or 4-4. Putting up Q works when West led from AKxx(x), but loses when East has AKT.

My guess is that declarer played a ♣ from dummy toward his Q first. When he played a second ♣, North who was not paying attention to his partner's card played low again. No, we were not that lucky EW, but one of the two lucky NS against whom EW were playing constructive raises.

Brd #10, second final; EW 1s-1nt; North now introduces 2♥ with ♠J ♥ KJTxxx ♦ T9x ♣ Axx; ♥ lead is the only one that holds it to 11 tricks :) http://www.d21acbl.com/tournaments/nap/2012/flightA/NAPA-4.htm

Another way of looking at it is to estimate the probablity of finding an 8-card fit. If partner has a stiff ♣, you're guaranteed to have one. When he has two ♣, if he has a five-bagger himself, you're home. When he doesn't have a five-bagger, you'll fail only when his 3-card suit is ♥. Looks like pretty good odds.

Bidding 3♠ with the East hand at these colors isn't too hard, as long your teammates also play inverted minors and bid 3♣ with the North hand. The more difficult problem for me is if the colors were reversed, but I'd do it anyway I think. Bidding 3♠ with this hand is hard, but balancing with a 4-3-3-3 with the West hand is a lot harder. And I don't think I'd make a direct double with the West hand with that shape and so much in their suit.

I think pass by South should show more than a simple ♦ control in view of partner denying any control in the suit. If the opener is looking at say ♠KJxxxx ♥xx ♦Axx ♣AK, he should not make an encouraging pass, as he should most likely expect two losers in the red suits. It's of course possible to construct a perfecto such as ♠Axxx ♥Axx ♦xx ♣Qxxx and miss a slam.

I was doing a sanity check. I think it's reasonable to reopen with this hand if you do play negative doubles at the 2-level. The small sample where it has done badly got slightly bigger (:- You catch partner with ♠8xx ♥K9xx ♦xxx ♣Txx. Nowhere to go except pass. Declarer had 1-4-2-6 shape and wrapped up 8 tricks without too much trouble. Opponents can make 8 tricks in either rounded suit, but only two other pairs found 2♥ surprisingly. Others played in their 6-1 ♣ fit and made 8 tricks although some couldn't stop at the 2-level.

A question for anyone who plays negative doubles at the 2-level. MP, w/w, after two passes you open 1nt with ♠AK96 ♥82 ♦AQ83 ♣Q85. LHO overcalls 2♥ which is alerted as 4-card ♥ + possibly longer minor. Partner and RHO pass. Do you reopen ? If not, what would have to be different to make you reopen ?

Couldn't 2nt followed by 3♠ show Hx in case partner has six ♠. Upto the point that he bid 3♣ partner could easily be 6-4 in blacks, can't he ?

Good point. But it's easy enough for almost anyone to see that 6♥ is likely to be a losing bid, but can't say the same of 4♥. If it's obvious to so many that 4♥ is a bad bid, why is it so hard to prove ? Or is that only simulation can prove or disprove such claims ? I am reminded of another area where proving the obvious is non-trivial. Engineers who are reasonably good at Applied Mathematics find pure Mathematics quite hard. One of the hardest parts of Pure Math is 'proving the obvious in the abstract' something you never worry about in Applied Math.

IMHO, asking a question like this which obviously can work some of the time, invariably gets you the mix of responses you see here. People rarely follow the sage advice they dispense to others. Probably more productive to search play records of top events and look for hands that're a close approximation to your problem hand. Ask someone here if they'd overcall 3♦ BOTH Vul, when RHO deals and opens a multi-2♦ holding ♠Q ♥AT ♦KT9xxx ♣K8xx. Chances are most people would not recommend it. But look up the play records of the final two segments of World Mind Sports and you'll see someone did :)

Even assuming you wanted to, you couldn't use it when ♥s are trumps. 1nt-2♣-2♥-3♠-, now 3nt is the only asking bid available.

Sure everybody talks about K&R value of these kinds of hands. But that's all very nice when you're a commentator on VuGraph. In reality very few players including those same commentators do anything different than count 16 HCP and open 1nt.

What additional luck are you talking about ? Yes ♦ need to break 3-2 if we're missing the Jack. You need two ♣ ruffs in dummy. You will be chalking up a lot of 480's and 680's if you keep waiting for better odds. BTW, notice that neither hand can make a move if you sign-off. Also in terms of source of tricks 4144 are the worst. No reason why partner can not have Axxx Axx Axxxx x, again a hand that is pretty hard to make a move opposite a sign-off. Of course the pat answer is "partner is not barred from making a move" just because you sign-off. My problem is that my partners do have hands like KQxx QJx Qx KQJx for a sign-off.

Really ? I thought Phil already pointed that out in his very first reply. You want to play a slam opp AJxx Axxx x Axxx or AJxx Axxx Axxx x ?

Yes, if your partner thinks that's a slam try opposite a 15-17 NT, you should be signing off.