junyi_zhu

For the first one, I'd win in hand, pitch one spade, and play HQ, if H 4-0, I'd then ruff S with HT, double finnesse H, ruff S with H8, finesse and draw trumps and claim. If somebody holds 4 hearts, it must be west because east has shown long clubs and it's extremely unlikely that east holds long clubs and 4 trumps and west holds at least 11 cards in spades and diamonds.

You can probably bid 3C over 1H as a strong jumpshift if you play sayc and later raise your partner in hearts. Still, over partner's 2NT rebid, you can splinter 4D to show strong hearts and short D. Anyway, it's a simple hand for any reasonable system I believe.

I'd bid 2H, not only because it directs a lead, but also it gives partner a chance to compete at 3 level. Even if you are playing 4-3 fit in hearts, it doesn't have to be wrong because partner's short trumps control spades. If you pass, and hear 2S pass pass to you, I don't think you should bid here. So 2H can win in different ways. Also, any opps who holds HJTxx may not even double you because they have a sure fit in spades, so it's rather safe. Also, this is a pure hand and it really has a lot of advantage to show your heart value. You don't want to see partner lead a 4th from either D or C, and often, H can be the only lead to beat 4S.

But true Experts avoid to do a finess, because a 50% chance is the best a finesse can get you. Preparing a squeese or some kind of endplay often has better chances. So maybe advanced card play, is sometimes to advanced to be understood bei intermediate players. What other examples of advanced play can you think of that might be hard to understand for intermediate players. When I executed a cross squeeze, my intermediate opps always thought they have made a defensive mistake. This happened three times in my early days at okbridge. Actually the best way to tell whether a player is a good declarer or not is to let him play a shaky 4-3 fit, intermediate players or beginners can seldom play them correctly while experts can seldom play them in a complete wrong way.

I rebid 1NT with 4-4-4-1, 12 to 14 and partner bids my shortness. I open 1D and rebid 2C when I have 15 or more HCP, so I give myself some more HCP to handle 4-2 fit at 2 level, and often, I can make anotherbid over 2D when I hold 16 or 17 HCP. Rebidding 2C with 4-4 in minors and only 12 to 13 HCP is rather bad I feel because 1NT is often the par contract in this kind of situations. If you have two way checkback, you usually have no much difficulties when you rebid 1NT with a singleton in partner's suit, because you can often show it later. Also, you may find your H4-4 fit only over 1NT rebid, over 2C rebid, you probably hard to stop at 2H. Still, playing 4 card major, you can probably open 1H instead of 1D with 1-4-4-4 shape.

That's how I would normally handle a such a hand (unless my clubs were exceptionally strong), but for sure there many many players who would usually rebid 2C with that pattern instead. As far as I can tell, rebidding 1NT with a singleton is becoming increasingly acceptable among experts in America, but most Europeans still prefer to rebid their 5-card minors with such hands. Thanks Fred. I guess how often you rebid 1NT with a singleton in partner's suit should tie in quite strongly with how often you raise with a balanced hand with 3 card support, then partner knows whether to rebid their 5 bagger on a weakish hand. I quite liked a hand in the Master Solvers' Club - after 1♦:1♠, the majority decision with a 1453 minimum was to rebid 2♣. actually it's just an illusion that 2C is a good bid here. Suppose your partner holds a GF hand with good clubs, do you feel comfortable when partner gives you a gameforcing raise in clubs later? The true killer for 1-4-5-3 shape is those hand that are about good 14 to bad 16 and bad diamonds. 1NT would be an underbid if you play it to show 12 to bad 14 or normal 14. 2D would be rather poor as well. Sx HAKQx DJxxxx CAJx, for such kind of hands, it's probably best to open 1H and rebid 2D later to treat it as 5-5. For SA HKJxx DQxxxx CAQx, it's probably best to open 1NT. For Sx HAQxx DAJxxx CAxx, it would be really tough, and you may claim that you can open 1D and rebid 2C, but it should not work very well as I said above, it just postponed your fatal moment. Facing a partner who holds: SAKQxx HKx DKx CKQxx, you may hear an 4D kickback RKC from partner over this 3C, which is really a kickback. I guess that's why so many great players would rather play 4 card major. For me, I'd probably just open 1D and rebid 2D if my partner doesn't allow me to open 1H.

That's how I would normally handle a such a hand (unless my clubs were exceptionally strong), but for sure there many many players who would usually rebid 2C with that pattern instead. As far as I can tell, rebidding 1NT with a singleton is becoming increasingly acceptable among experts in America, but most Europeans still prefer to rebid their 5-card minors with such hands. The point I was trying to make is that, when you play strong notrump, you have a choice in the matter. When you play weak notrumps you don't. Note there is an analogous problem when you play a strong notrump system - the 1435 16-count, but this problem is much less serious here because a reverse bid of 2H is now a viable (though not necessarily desirable) alternative. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com because of two way checkback, I think I'd rebid 1NT with "off shape" hands whenever possible. I guess that's basically the reason why off shape 1NT rebids become more and more popular. Two way checkback is so powerful that off shape 1NT rebids often set up a very good start for bidding successes.

It's tough because we are red, 2C may cause a big number. However, pass may also be bad because in my partnership, we don't balance much. So We can't expect partner to balance with 10 HCP and some 11 HCP, because our official balancing 1NT range is 12 to good 15 against 1S. However, if I bid 2C, and partner bids 3C, I wouldn't feel very well to play in a possible 4-3 fit. Anyway, I think they are close decisions. At the table, if against light openers, I'd bid 2C, otherwise, I would pass I believe.

Well, to please all the people, I think a rating system is still applicable, but only the user himself can look at it. So the current self rating structure is still valid and you may know whether your bridge improves or not by looking at the nurating yourself. Also, I think an individual rating is probably a nonsense. Partnership rating is more reasonable than individual ones. Also, rated hands should be played only in tournaments I feel. Otherwise, you can choose your opps at lobby bridge to maintain your high rating. In a tournament, you can't choose your opps. So it changes basically nothing and just gives everybody an indication of their partnership strength and hurts nobody.

This is really a perfect time to pass the double. The overall strength is soft, game is not 100% sure even facing some 12 HCPs. And 3H would go down for sure, it's best to take the sure money. Suppose you bid 3S, then find your partner holds SAQJx Hxx DQxxx CAxx, HA, H ruff, two diamonds end the day. When 3H would go down about 3. Or partner holds SAQJx Hxx Dxxx CAJxx and you bid 3NT, oops, 3NT down 1 because they happened to find a D lead when 3H down 3...

This is a bad 14 HCP hand, which is not a hand with extra, because CKQ doubleton and DQx are bad. Still, even facing such a hand, slam is on with a non-diamond lead and I rate it as better than 50% because it's no easy to find the killing lead here and I don't mind bidding 6, especially against poor opening leaders.

Perhaps you shouldn't play "fast arrival" in 2/1 GF sequences, especially when partner can bid 2H with a huge hand, 4H would be the only way to preempt your poor partner. Anyway, the 4H rebid is rather bad, the right bid is 4C I think, which shows shortness in clubs. After that, you can again bid 4S to show your SK over partner's 4D. And 5NT over partner's 4N to show void C and two KC, now everybody would find the easy 7H I guess.

When north shows extra and poor controls, it's really not too hard to bid a slam in my point of view. You can almost never construct a hand that 6S has no play. It's usually at worst a 50% slam. When you hold 4 Key cards, 4 trumps and a singleton, and partner shows extra, what do you really wait for here? You can argue that north can cooperate with 5D, but that's not the excuse for south not bidding 6S over an extra showing bid.

If 5H is natural, heart lead would be the wrong lead because it doesn't make sense to me. Where would declarer's heart loser go? It is a lightner double and it asks for either S or D lead I believe. So it's still a guess, but not heart. If 5H is answering RKC, then heart would be a possible lead. Still, you should make sure what 5H means before you lead.

1S 2C 2D(waiting, either minimum or balanced, any strength) 2S(4 or more hearts, with 5 or more clubs and extra value) 3C(support) 3H(5 hearts) 3S(extra length in spades) 4C(waiting, extra) 4D(RKC) 5N(two KC with trump Q and a working void, which must be diamonds) 6D(king asking(with SK, I'd probably play 6S)) 6H(HK) 7C

you want to bid a game if partner's hand is: SAQJxx Hxx DAx CKxxx, you want to avoid a game, if his hand is SAQJxx HAx Dxx CKxxx, so why don't you just bid 3D to ask for help in D? hehehe. When votes of 3S and 4S are almost half half, that usually means you should give a reverse game try.

I guess the reason is that memorizing conventions is easier than analizing. For an intermediate player, he can be satisfied if he learns some new conventions or understand the meaning of a popular convention in a class. However, if you want to teach him how to count, I don't think one class or 5 classes would be enough, and to improve one's playing, one has to work hard himself. However, learning bidding is somewhat like chasing the newest fasion. It's often not through your own analysis. You usually just follow what experts or theoretists say, what is modern, what is standard, not what is right, because few know what is right! Another issue, teaching somebody how to count is boring to many, and if you want to teach somebody how to squeeze or how to endplay, the main part is still how to count. If you can really count and analyze, you don't even need to know the theory to make the right play. Squeeze is just a way to play the cards in a right order and if you can analyze all the different order of playing, you don't need to know how to squeeze. Just like a computer program, which doesn't need to "learn" how to squeeze, all it need to do is to find the most probabal layout and find the double dummy way to solve this layout by going through all the different ways of playing. Certainly, it can be boring, both to teachers and students.

Well, I have a hard time counting out many hands. I guess it is a *good* practise (for people like me) to be active while being the dummy, till we are comfortable enough with our skills in counting. If it's the event you don't care much about, you can actually practice counting when you are dummy. It's often a lot of fun to count. Once I watched my partner execute a devil's coup in 2H without realizing it, actually I was probably the only one realized that it was a devil's coup at the table. Another good exercize is to kib a game without watching anybody's cards except dummy's and try to figure out what's going on.

I don't do deep analysis on every hand. I only count shape and I count HCP when I need to count it. However, I basically memorized most cards played in one hand, high cards, defensive signals; and I analize the information when I think I need to. So basically, I don't use the term, count much. Usually, knowing the four hands isn't enough, the more important thing is to find the winning play.

This is not what I said. This is what Lawrence said. Please check lawrence's 2/1 workbook. If 4-card major is so much better than 5-card major, why most ppl play 5-card major? Why 2/1 and Sayc are so popular? Because 4 card major isn't an easy system for beginners and intermediate players, and the most difficult part is not even the bidding, it's those shaky 4-3 fit you have to play sometimes. For beginners, intermediate players or even advanced players, 4-3 fit , especially very shaky 4-3 fit, always brings up a big challenge to them. When 5 card major opening can often exclude this possibility, why people bother to figure out how to play a 4-3 fit? However, in gamebidding area, 4 card major opening system has a big advantage, that it often discloses way less information than 5 card major systems. 4 card major opening systems find major 4-4 or 4-5 fit much faster than 5 card major systems and that's why negative double was invented. In major suit slam bidding area, 5 card major system has some advantage, that's partially because of such kind of sequences: 1S p 2N(jacoby), opener has more hand types to describe if he plays 4 card major opening system, so the accuracy isn't as good as 5 card major, especially when you want to confirm a 9 card fit at early stage which is often critical for slams. However, playing 5 card system, it's often not very easy to confirm at minor suit 9 card fit early, for example, you may hold 5 clubs when partner opens 1C and you often don't how whether he holds 3 clubs or 4 clubs, which can be very important in slam bidding. So it's just a trade off in my point of view. Overally, I believe 4 card major is a very good opening scheme and more and more good players might at least give it a try.

Just give partner an excellent hand and see if I have a cold 4S: SAKxx Hx DAKxx CAKxx, no way, even facing such a hand, we have no play in 4S while 4H would usually go down 2 or even 3 once a while. Or change the hand to SAKxx HAx DAKxx CJxx, we still have no good play in 4S when 4H would go down 1 or 2. Or SAKxx Hx DAxxx CAQxx, 4H would go down one usually and it's possible to make 4H, but 4S would go down 2 or 3 sometimes. These are all typical hands and I believe the conclusion is obvious. Sure, once a blue moon, partner may hold: SAKQx Hx DKQTxx CAxx, and you might not be able to defeat 4H sometimes, 4s would also go down just one trick, but the frequency of this kind of hands is rather low I believe. If we always shoot for this kind of perfect hands, we would go broke very soon.

that's not true, give your partner SAKQJx HAx Dxxx Cxxx, do you have good play in 6S? or Even SAKQJx HAxx Dxx Cxxx, do you really like your chance in 6S? Or SKQJTx HAx DQxxx xx, do you have any play in 6S? Actually, if you really want to splinter 4H, the next bid can't be 5S, it should be 5H to show your void in hearts, now partner knows you have both minor suits controlled, void in hearts, but not strong enough to ERKC dirrectly, he would then re-evaluate his hand and draw the correct conclusion. I doubt pd would have one of those hands given by you when he bid 4S. 4H promises short only, if pd has HA he may not devaluate it. On the other hand. Pd rates to have long heart in this sequence. Of course, there are hands where we might not have slam. But you wont pass 4H, would you? There is no perfect bid here. If you start with 2H, or 3H, or whatever, if LHO rates to 4H and pd double it. What do you do? You still have problem. On the other hand, I think 5H is a good choice. Did I say what I would like to bid over 1S here? I am just saying that 4H followed by 5S can't be right for this hand, because 5H over 4H is clearly a better bid for this hand. What's the difference between 5H and 5S? 5H shows void in hearts and 5S doesn't. Also, it's just doesn't make sense to me that your claim of 5S as asking for trump suit quality. It doesn't make sense, because if you only care about trump quality and nothing else, why don't you just bid 5S directly over 1S? Why do you give extra information to opps? 5S here can't be simply asking for trump quality, it also asks for the overall playing strength and 5H serves the same purpose and it just tells your void in hearts. 5S to ask for trump quality is one of the most widely abused bids, even by some pretty good players. Actually it applies only in some very rare situations I believe. You cannot bid 5S directly over 2H because if you bid 5S after 2H, pd will go to 6S with H control. Isnt 5S asking for heart control over 2H? This is another wrong bid. Can you contruct a hand that only needs specific H information only to bid 6S? Even if you hold such a hand, you still can get the the heart suit information by some cuebids at low level. For example: SAKxxx Hxx D- CAKQxxx, you can just bid 3H, not 5S(even 5H ask ERKC would have some merrits if you need a grandslam swing). And I guarantee that you may hold such kind of hands once in more than 30 years. Direct jumping to 5 level to ask specific suit controls is another widely misused bid by most players. Anyway, enough for me, I'd better stop here.

1H, probably the best bid here. All other bids have some big flaws: double: you don't want to hear partner passes and you don't want to see partner bid 4S with 6 spades and some value, it's just too hard to process over 4S, althought there might be some method. 2NT: huge disparity in these two suits and no good way to show it the next round. 1H may get passed out once a blue moon, but it's just very unlikely.

that's not true, give your partner SAKQJx HAx Dxxx Cxxx, do you have good play in 6S? or Even SAKQJx HAxx Dxx Cxxx, do you really like your chance in 6S? Or SKQJTx HAx DQxxx xx, do you have any play in 6S? Actually, if you really want to splinter 4H, the next bid can't be 5S, it should be 5H to show your void in hearts, now partner knows you have both minor suits controlled, void in hearts, but not strong enough to ERKC dirrectly, he would then re-evaluate his hand and draw the correct conclusion. I doubt pd would have one of those hands given by you when he bid 4S. 4H promises short only, if pd has HA he may not devaluate it. On the other hand. Pd rates to have long heart in this sequence. Of course, there are hands where we might not have slam. But you wont pass 4H, would you? There is no perfect bid here. If you start with 2H, or 3H, or whatever, if LHO rates to 4H and pd double it. What do you do? You still have problem. On the other hand, I think 5H is a good choice. Did I say what I would like to bid over 1S here? I am just saying that 4H followed by 5S can't be right for this hand, because 5H over 4H is clearly a better bid for this hand. What's the difference between 5H and 5S? 5H shows void in hearts and 5S doesn't. Also, it just doesn't make sense to me that your claim of 5S as asking for trump suit quality. It doesn't make sense, because if you only care about trump quality and nothing else, why don't you just bid 5S directly over 1S? Why do you give extra information to opps? 5S here can't be simply asking for trump quality, it also asks for the overall playing strength and 5H serves the same purpose and it just tells your void in hearts. 5S to ask for trump quality is one of the most widely abused bids, even by some pretty good players. Actually it applies only in some very rare situations I believe.

that's not true, give your partner SAKQJx HAx Dxxx Cxxx, do you have good play in 6S? or Even SAKQJx HAxx Dxx Cxxx, do you really like your chance in 6S? Or SKQJTx HAx DQxxx xx, do you have any play in 6S? Actually, if you really want to splinter 4H, the next bid can't be 5S, it should be 5H to show your void in hearts, now partner knows you have both minor suits controlled, void in hearts, but not strong enough to ERKC dirrectly, he would then re-evaluate his hand and draw the correct conclusion.