Quantumcat

Pard is saying all he needs for game is a bit of help in the diamond suit. All of your points and long cards are in excellent places, pard will be disappointed with none of them. So bid "yes" with 4♥. If you had ♠QJx they wouldn't help pard at all so you'd say "no" with 3♥.

Declarer has 5 diamond tricks and a club, so wants 3 tricks in spades and hearts. If she had the jack, she would just take the spade finesse not caring if it lost because then she'd have 2 spade tricks in the bag plus ace of hearts. If she didn't have the jack of spades, and the spade finesse lost, she would still only have the 1 trick she started with. Because declarer is not finessing spades we assume she does not have the jack of spades. She is trying to get some heart tricks and doesn't want to lose more than 1 trick. If her 7 loses to my ten her only hope is that partner has both king and queen which probably isn't so likely, so now she'll try the spade finesse, which we know will work. We want to encourage her to take another heart finesse. If I play the ten I could have both the king and queen left, queen I might have the king, but king I definitely do not have the ten or the queen. So I play this, declarer thinks partner has them and happily finesses for the ten again, oops big mistake :-) P.S. Mrs Guggenheim (who is that anyway?) would take the ten, then declarer would have to try the spade finesse, and win. P.P.S Declarer can't have the king of spades because that would give her 14 pts. Put she could have the jack for 12 (otherwise 11)

Thanks everyone for being patient with me! I really want to figure out what I'm meant to figure out on my own but I don't think it's going to happen. Please tell me the answer!!! 1. Clubs are no good. 2. A heart now from partner is great if he has Axxxx, when he gets in declarer's hearts drop and he can take 4 tricks, 4+2=6 contract down. 3. A heart from partner is not much good (as far as I can see, but the person who suggested it seems to think you can do something with it??) if he has KJT9, declarer has two stops no matter what partner plays. 4. A heart from me initially I'm sure is fine, even if partner has KJT9, the jack draws the ace then when he gets in he gets rid of queen and gets 3 tricks. If he has Axxxx, ace and another draws decl's hearts and pard gets in and cashes a further 3 tricks. Then he can lead the queen of clubs ... but then declarer takes the ace, and scores nine tricks cause now the diamond king's out of the way. Aha! Now I get it. But, if we have to take the club tricks first, how on earth can we get any hearts when partner has KJT9?????? I just don't get it :D

Ok, I do understand the signal part, the king is affordable and should make partner stare for a few seconds, but what's the mistake in what I said about the play of the clubs? Partner has QJx and declarer Axx, he wins the jack and leads the small one, if declarer wins the ace partner retains Q and me K, later on I can overtake Q with K and play more clubs. If declarer does not win the ace, I win the king (I can't win the eight because there is still the ten left in dummy). Partner retains the Q and declarer the ace, I won't be able to overtake the Q and declarer will play the ace anyway, but we forget about clubs now and play a heart. Well this thread is really good, is making me have to think really hard!

If partner had led a low one he could keep clubs when declarer plays the ace, I keep my king and we play more clubs when partner gets in. If declarer does not, clubs are stuck, but I get the lead and can play on hearts eliminating that nasty Qx. But other than that I can't figure it out. He has to lead them by himself. If he plays the king, declarer plays the ace and the queen is still there, while if he plays the jack declarer lets the queen take it. He is only getting in once so he won't get any of his hardearned heart tricks. As for the spots question, I'm not sure what you're hinting at. Can I be super enthusiastic for hearts now, then give the wrong diamond count to incline him to take the king right away? I don't think that's the right answer.

If the pass is 5+ clubs or two places to play, isn't 3♣ a bit he is forced to make? Like Lebensohl? So why does the ♣K suddenly lose its value?

Oh, good, I thought I would bid 3NT but thought it must be wrong!

We can't get lots of club tricks, declarer has wiped out partner's clubs and we have no entry. We have an eight or nine card heart fit, I wish I'd led a heart to start with. It's all up to partner, but I don't think he has enough resources to do it on his own. 3 of his possible 10 points have already shown themselves. But, if he has the ♥A and the ♦K, and declarer has ♥Kx opposite ♥Qx, partner can play a heart now then the ♥A when he gets in. Now he can cash enough hearts to set the contract. If the question is what club do I play now, I play the one according to our agreements that says, lead a heart!!! P.S. Can we please have NO replies from non beginner/intermediates, otherwise we don't learn through figuring it out for ourselves! (At least until everyone that wants to have a go with the problem already has)

A couple of times when I've had the choice of trying to drop or to finesse the trump suit and it was important, when it came time to play from dummy and the first opponent didn't play any interesting card, I've put down my own cards and just gazed at the other for the longest time, up to 30 seconds or a minute. If they don't have the queen, they start to get irritated after ten or twenty seconds, but if they do, they try really hard to feign nochalance, because they know exactly what you are wanting to find out. I don't know if this is allowed, but nobody's complained about it yet! It works wonders. But you could never do this online :)

Why is it silly? What kind of hand do you envisage your partner is looking at when she opens 7♥? It's possible she has *two* voids, but in that case wouldn't she want to find out which of her suits you liked best before embarking on grand?

You can still open 7♥. Partner knows you didn't open 7NT because you were without the Ace in a suit thus void in it, if he holds the ♣A He will know to raise you to 7NT. Thus avoiding confusion with an opening specific ace ask :P

How do you decline the transfer? 3NT do you mean?

If you are not strong enough for 3♦, what's wrong with 2NT, anyway? (Partner presumably has some hearts)

That all sounds incredibly detailed and useful, unfortunately it totally bewildered me and I didn't follow beyond the first few sentences :)

I thought 1♠ then 3♦ was identical to 1♠ then X but now I see this difference, partner can now bid 2♠ instead of three if she wants. It seems there does not exist one single double at the two level that is penalty. There is always some excuse why it's not!

After a transfer to a suit, another suit means a second suit by responder, right? If it goes 2NT 3♦ 3♥ 4♣ How does opener say she prefers the clubs, while leaving partner room to bid further if he wishes? If she starts cuebidding if she likes clubs, and bidding 4♥ when she likes hearts, responder has to start the cuebids at the 5 level instead of the 4 level, and is unable to bid RKCB if he wants to after a few cuebids. Could you start cuebidding regardless which one your prefer, and have partner assume the lower one when bidding RKCB (for trump king) and always bid the lower slam, and let opener correct when she wanted hearts? You might want to know about the heart king though. I hate auctions starting at the 2 level!

Why does east not just bid 4S, his partner is a minimum and he'll probably lose a couple of minor tricks right away anyway?

Tonight at board 17 my partner West gets dealt this beauty. [hv=d=n&v=n&w=sakqjt6542ha6dc54&e=s9873hj92dkqt93cq]266|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] Auction goes, three passes to my partner who bids 2♣, I bid 3♦, (2♦ is negative) he bids 3♠, I bid 4♠ all out. We should only make 5, but North made the fortunate lead of the ♦A so we made 6 (maybe she thought South had a singleton - but then if she counted, so would West!). If my hand had been a little different, with a small club singleton and the ♦A instead of the ♣Q and ♦Q, we could make 6 easily but I imagine the auction would have gone the same way anyway. Everything is always so hazy after a 2C opening, the person in charge usually just randomly guesses a contract; sometimes right, sometimes wrong. What are some agreements so that we actually know exactly what's going on after a 2♣ opening? (By the way: partner told me I had the most hilarious face he'd ever seen when he tested whether he could count the thirteen by pulling one trump - and both showed out)

Is 4♠ no longer pre-emptive because an opponent bid something pre-emptive (don't pre-empt over pre-empt)? If 4♠ is strong, then what does 4♣ say now that's different? Strong, and club control perhaps?? Curious.

Oh ok so does that mean XX then a suit bid is strong (Like takeout double then bid of a suit is 17+)? And if you were strong but no five card or longer suit, you could bid 1NT or 2NT or 3.

Ok I forgot about possibly dropping the king. That makes sense.

Don't you mean pass then 2C?

When I was writing the poll answers, I thought how nice it would be if we had the agreement that 6♣ asks for a stop, then North could bid 6♦ to say yep, do you have the diamond? 6♥, yup, need some help for hearts too and still interested. 6♠, No sorry, 7♠, Yep it's a void and I have good spades, 6NT, yep heart ace & some diamond stuff, good spades how are your clubs? Does this make any sense as an agreement and if so when would you know when it doesn't show, it asks?

How many points/what exact type of hand do you expect partner to have when he rebids a suit and you've passed? (Besides just "good") I've never been exactly certain of this.

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=satxxxxhxdaxckqjx]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] Bidding goes: 1♠ 2♥ 3♥ 4♥ 4♠ 5♥ ??? Is it possible to find out whether partner has what's required for small/grand slam? If they were bidding clubs (and my hand was a little different obviously) I could bid 5♦, but I'm not really sure what now. Our agreements were that 3♥ could mean anything from invitational upwards, and 4♥ would specifically show a void. The opponent who bid 2♥ overcalled at the two level twice in previous boards with a good suit and 8 and 10 HCP respectively. I'm a beginner so keep that in mind if you feel like giving me advice :lol: