effervesce

Wtf is this post? You have 4H, the opps have not looked for a Major suit fit, though a 433 is possible. Surely a H is the best lead. A club is off with the pixies when the opponents have bid this way. Let's say partner has 5 points, the opponents 25. What's the chances of partner having a heart honor? The outstanding honors are KQ spades, AQJ hearts, AKJ diamonds and AKQJ clubs (12 picture cards). The relevant cards are A hearts, Q of hearts and J of hearts. The chances of partner holding AQ is nil, AJ is approximately 1/12C2, or 1/78. Let's be generous and make the chances of partner holding two honors in hearts as 3%. What's the chances of partner holding 1 heart honor? Approximately 3C1*9C1/12C2, or 12%. Thus the chances of partner holding anything in hearts is 15%. If partner has the jack, alot of the time the lead gives a free trick. Do you still think that a heart lead is 'obviously much better than a club', given it doesn't give a free trick about only about 10% of the time? In essence, my argument is this: lead of a heart is probably best IFF (if and only if) their chances of making 3NT are >(80? 90?)%. Otherwise, a passive lead is best. P.S. You'd better check your argument again (or at least put some clarifiers). Against 1NT-2NT, from AQxx KJxx Kx xxx what is your lead? By your argument you'd lead a heart or spade....

I personally hate leading 4 card suits against NT without a decent sequence. 3 or 5 card suits are fine, but not 4. (Unless I'm 5-4 in two suits, and during the bidding I've shown the 5 card suit - then I'd lead the 4 card suit). Club for me.

Pass by me for both. IFor the first hand, if partner could not bid over 3♠, it's quite doubtful you can make anything. The gain for X seems to be when partner can pass for penalties, but with most such hands where they can be doubled for more than one off partner could have bid 3NT anyway.

We play 2NT as invitational or better with 4 card heart support in this situation; in our system we have to either bid X then 2NT (if you're aiming for NT), or 2♠ limit+ raise in hearts with 3 card support or just bash 3NT. I don't mind bashing 3NT actually - the 10♠ is likely to be a second spade stopper, and 3NT is almost as good as 3♥.

Sure, of course working out distribution is important - I'm reasonable at that. It's just remembering precisely what cards have not been played is my difficulty. I figure that, in conjunction with working out distribution, remembering how many cards of each suit played would be extremely useful in endgame situations.

I found card counting for blackjack - I tried counting cards played in every single suit-with practice it becomes easier and easier and faster. Only practiced for a short time though - I'm wondering how useful it is to practice counting cards this way. Do top players have a mental tally of cards played in each suit? I can remember the cards outstanding in critical suits, but all 4 suits at the moment I find it more difficult unless I concentrate extremely hard. Or do top players just remember the cards played to each and every single trick and thus can reconstruct exactly what cards have been played. At the moment, I can count the cards played in each suit in 2 mins 30 secs :) not great.... *wonders if i can get it below 1 min* [Note: For counting practice I used the 'deal one at a time' button ] [EDIT : yes Artk78 that tool was for blackjack not poker sorry - silly me]

What??! Not thrilled? You have 7-8 playing tricks! What more could partner expect for a 3NT bid... This bid has a huge number of ways to lose. 1) Partner doesn't have a heart stopper. 2) Partner has a good hand and drives to slam. 3) A combination of both of the above. 4) Diamonds don't run. So I think pass might be much better. I'm sort of going back and forth between the two, even though I had actually thought about it for awhile before making my first post. Unless you were being sarcastic. Then I lose. Perhaps it was in error by me to assume that your original post was sarcastic.... nevermind.

5♦ should be perfectly safe - thus I'm rejecting 3NT. 4♦. If NF then otherwise 4♥ then 5♦.

What??! Not thrilled? You have 7-8 playing tricks! What more could partner expect for a 3NT bid...

Ditto.

There is an option in FD such that you CANNOT see what your partner's bids mean. Me and my partner use this option so we don't get any advantage from using it - the gain is to the opps, who get quickly and efficiently the meaning of a given bid. Perhaps the default setting for the FD card should be set it so you and partner cannot see what each other's bid - and being able to see partner's bids optional, for when you and partner are learning a new system.

I don't like cueing shortage in partner's suits anyway. 4♠ should show a spade honor if it was a cue. In this auction a 4♠ bid would seem to be an offer to play there in any case, so 5♣ looks clearcut.

3NT?? You don't have a spade stopper, if you want to be in 3NT you've just wrong-sided the contract.... 2♣ --> 3♦ for me.

Pass. I like my low-level Xes to have the right shape if without extras. Besides, it's not MPs.

1a. X here is played in more than one way. Some play the X here to be values/card showing, others as penalty, and others as a responsive double (takeout). b. Yes, that's probably decent hand enough to make a X. 2. Preempting strongly depends on the vulnerability AND position. In 1st seat, your preempts should be pretty much textbook, though they may be slightly aggressive. 2nd seat, they should be constructive; eg AQJxxx xxx x xxx would be normal. 3rd seat, anything goes-you want to waste space in front of the person who's got the most. I would open that hand 2♠. The suit is too shabby for 3♠, and has poor distribution (7222 hands play like 6 card suits).

X looks normal. 3NT is a good alternative bid.

2♦. If east passes, 1♦.

2NT. Partner usually won't have a crap minimum for a free bid.

3♥. Partner won't have spades anyway.

4♣ - its a 5 loser hand...

I'm surprised that you think that needs agreement. Does anyone play that a queen ask below five of the trump suit promises all the key cards? I have never played it this way. You can find beautiful slams with a keycard outside, or stay out of slams when you miss a keycard and the Queen of trumps... I never understood why some would require all keycards for a Queen-ask. B) We have had this discussion before. The position that I take - that the Queen Ask guarantees possession of all 5 key cards - is an old view that appears to be in the minority today. But that was not my main point. Bidding 4NT on this hand is too much. Art - I'm one of the old schoolers here too, but I've never heard of this either. What pray tell do you do with a hand that is missing one key but only needs the trump Q after a 5♣ / 5♦ call? If we have all the keys and are only missing the trump Queen, we can figure out seven later as kings are automatically shown with the trump Q. Having played RKCB for I don't know how long, I've not ever come across anyone playing or suggesting that the queen ask promises all 5 keycards. And I can't envisage playing that. Asking about the trump queen to decide whether to stop at the 5-level or bid slam obviously is far more frequent than the grand slam hands. Besides, there's not a single problem playing it not promising all 5 keys... well.... if you RKCB (not kickback) for a minor...

Who are the opponents?

3♣. A non-problem playing a strong club system.

I presume partner either has strong hearts and want you to lead his suit, or is asking for a lead of one of LHO's suits. Thus the options are J hearts if partner wanted hearts T spades if partner wanted spades 7 clubs if partner wanted clubs A diamonds to 'take a look' Generally people who open 5-5s tend to have a decent suit(s) when opening vul, I'll choose the J of hearts.

I'll bid 4♥. Let's look at the relevant cards partner may have: AKQ spades KQ hearts AK diamonds AKQ clubs This is 30 points worth of relevant cards. Let's say partner is 16-17 points. On average he will have 5 of the cards given above. Given that he has 6+ spades, he probably has two of the three top spades- let's neither be optimistic or pessimistic and give him AQ spades. Let's give him one heart honor (K or Q), the K of diamonds and the ace of clubs (or the A of diamonds and K of clubs). Therefore, it seems that if partner has two card heart support or better, with a heart honor, you want to be in game. Let's find the odds of partner having a heart honor or more, given the constraint that he has 5 of the 10 honors given above. P(0 heart honors) = 8C5*2C0 / 10C5 = 22%. P (1 or more heart honors) = 78%. Next, let's work out the odds of partner having two or more hearts. Let's start with the premise that partner has just 6 spades. He has 7 other cards. There are 7 heart cards remaining, with 26 non-heart cards. The sample space of choosing 7 cards is therefore 26C7=657800. p(0 hearts) = 7C0*19C7/26C7 = 7.7% p(1 heart) = 7C1*19C7/26C7 = 28.9% p (2 hearts) = 7C2 * 19C5/26C7= 37.1% p (3 hearts) = 7C3 * 19C4/26C7 = 20.6% That is, p(2 or more hearts) given he has 6 spades is 63%. Since partner can have more than 6 spades, this therefore goes down a bit. Let's say 60%. Chances of game are therefore about 0.6 * 0.75 = 0.45, or 45%. Seems like a reasonable shot at IMPs, and not so good at MPs. [EDIT] I didn't add the chances for bad breaks. It should be more like 30-35% given hearts may not break. So I'll change my vote to pass.