flytoox

The problem is pd didnt promise hearts, he could have spades.

Hehe, Roland, perhaps you can ask Lawrence another question, is dbl here t/o or penalty. I guess he would say penalty. You are stting behind. They didnt show an obvious fit. If you play it as t/o and pd convert it to penalty, you wont get rich. On the other hand, if you have a penalty hand, simply pass and pd will balance with a dbl. My vote here is 2H, concentrated strength. I would bid 2H without interference. So why should I change my bid if it didnt cause any inconvinence?

If you play 2/1 as 100% GF, then you are forced to play 1M-3m as 9-11 concentrated invitational. This leaves 1M-1N;2x-3m to show weak 6-8. However, I still think playing 2/1 as 95% GF, i.e. Lawrence's style, is better. Now you can play 1M-3m as fit bid. As for what trump support it shows, I think it should be doubleton at best. Otherwise you can upgrade hand and respond 2m then bid 4M. Regarding 1H-2S, I stil like strong jump shift.

This is a difficult one. you have to play and see what is going on. My plan is to play HK, then cashing my heart trick and prepare to crossruff.

If you agree with pd to play dbl as some sort of t/o, i have no problem with that and I can even play that. But when there is no discussion, dbl has to be for blood. With the hand you gave, you can bid 3S or just bid 5C. I think in competitive auction, judge is far more important/useful than convention. As Fred always said, birdge is complicated enough. I really want to keep it as simple as possible.

3NT +1 = 430? 6♦, 2♣, 2♠ or 6♦, 3♣, 1♠ ... or something like that... . If that is the case, then pd made the wrong decision, not me. My 3C says, pd, I bid it for preemptive, but if you have 18-19hcp then you can bid 3N. 3C says everything I have. Yet pd decided to punish opps. Note that 3H is forced, not a jump. It could be based on only three trumps. If you bid anything, I think you are showing no trust of pd.

Pass. Hehe, it is my turn to say "what is the problem?":)

Kind of fancy hand. YOu need to ruff high in the first round. then return to hand by CJ, then ruff high again. Cashing HA, finessing with H9. Cashing HK. Perhaps in third round we should play SQ to foce LHO to cover with SA. In that case we might make all 13 tricks by a sqz.

Take a shoot at 6H is not unreasonable.

No, he might miss a good part score. I agree passing 1D then bidding 2S is wrong though.

4♦ seems obvious to me. If partner's hand were 2-5-5-1, he could bid 4♠ over 4♦. Why is 4s in a 5-2 ok but 5d so much better than 4h in 5-2 at MP? P may have decent hearts or chose to bid 3s over 3h or rebid 4d. Playing in 4S, you can ruff club in the short trump hand. But playing in 4H, you have to ruff in the long trump hand. That might create a problem. In the sequence, 1S is marked 5 spades. So I dont think bidding rebidding 3S is a good choice. As fluffy said, pd should raise to 4S with singleton SJ. But you probably dont want it.

I would raise to 4D. Pd can still show doubleton spade support by bidding 4S. I think pd's 3D denied club stopper, otherwise he would forsee my problem and avoid it by bidding 3N.

I think both are normal. I dont think you should bid slam with these hands. Be happy with a game. Dont forget bridge is a game:)

It is quite unlikely given the bid. Pd must have exactly 2335 for that to happen. And he has no HJ. However, in that case 3N might be the only game. It is possible for the opening leader to underlead from AKxxx. 2N is not ideal, but definitely least of evil.

Quite surprised to find you pass it. This is the hand where expectation of other's choice may change my choice. I would pass but voted for opening 1H.

I think dbl is the right choice. Pd's 2c only shows 5-4minors, but didnt show which minor is longer. So I will let pd to pick a minor. If pd has good defensive strength. I dont mind he converts it to penalty.

I sort of agree with you, but I never said that there was no "best" structure - just that it would be arrogant for someone to claim that they knew what it was (because our knowledge of the game is not even close to being rich enough to be able to back up such a claim). However, it may be even more complicated that you think. Consider this example: For a while there was a clear trend toward lighter preempts among the leading players in the USA. Then people starting leaving in more takeout doubles of preempts. Then the light preempt started to result in too many penalties. Then people started to have a little more for their preempts... I am not sure if some equilibrium will eventually be reached or if this rates to be a never-ending cycle. What this proves (I think) is that, discovering the "best" set of parameters is for defining your preempts, is partly a function of the methods that your opponents use for defending against your preempts. Similarly, whatever the best methods are for defending against preempts is partly a function of what sort of hands your opponents will preempt on. Problems that contain "feedback loops" like this one can be really hard to solve! I suspect that the same is true of many aspects of bidding - whatever methods and style you agree on, the opponents can always invent some suitable monkeywrench to make your methods/style less effective. You can then change the way you play in order to adapt to their interference, but then they can change the way they interfere in order to adapt to your changes. Then... Probably all this means is that, if a "best" system/style really does exist (and I agree with Justin that it probably does), the problem of trying to figure out what it is rates to be close to intractable (sorry if this is the wrong word). Based on this principle, I made a very unsuccessful prediction a few years back: 4-card majors was going to make a comeback. The reason I thought this was likely was because, at the time, much of the expert community was raving about the results they were getting by applying the Law of Total Tricks. 4-card majors messes with the Law so I thought more people would start to use 4-card majors in order to counter this. Not sure if my prediction failed due to falty reasoning on my part or because the general love affair with the Law has cooled off. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com I think one reason 4-card major didnt gain the momentum is that it is harder to play than to play 5-card major system. The cyclical change is itself an equilibrium. All players choose a mixed strategy.

I vote for 2C. This is a one suit hand and I have ideal rebid. I donot mind much of opp's interference.

In team match I think 6S is ok and probably I would bid it.

I think south can simplify the problem by bidding 6S directly. Although Ben's point about 5H is definitely right. However, after pd's 4S, we are unlikely to have a grand slam and we are extremely unlikely to have no slam. So I would bid 6S. This is particularly true for pick-up pds. For long-term partnership, 5H is more sensible.

Declarer rates to have 6331. I would duck the spade ace. Declarer needs to return to hand by playing either H or C. We should be able to tell from it which ace pd has.

It's worth the entire point to me. My question might need rephrasing: Would you call it system standard,or would you most likely have to make an agreement that it is forcing? I think it is systematic forcing. It is very unlikely 2H is exactly better than 2D. Pd promised 6 card. To make 2H nonforcing, you have to make sure we have 8-card fit and we can only make 8 tricks. I doubt this will occur often.

BTW if we force third hand to open 1H and bidding goes: P=P=1H=2D P=P=?? At MP or IMP do you: 1) pass 2) rebid 2H 3) X? In this case I think it is better to pass. Pd could not take any action after 2D, there is no safe action for us. On the other hand, opps are likely in the worst possible place. Dont give them chance to improve.

do you really think so? 3 passes and your rho opens 1d... what type hand can you possibly have that would: 1) not double now 2) not overcall now 3) cue for partner's balance later, expecting game from 2 passed hands? answer to 1 and 2 is, a hand with diamonds... say 11 max hcp.. answer to #3 is, i have no clue... Jimmy, Pd's hand may not suit for t/o dbl. For example, Jx,Axx,Axxx,Qxxx. However, I dont think giving example hand is a good way to argue. I just think logically, playing 3D as good suport for H and invite game is more sensible. Note here after opp's 1D-1N, both minors are danger suits. On the ohter hand, majors are safe suits. Can you explain in this case why 3D should be natural diamond suit and pd want to play it? As I said in a previous post,(1) We are likely to have fit in majors,(2)2H is not dbled, so no need to escape now even if it is a bad contract,(3)3D is one level higher, and it is a marked bad break. (4)Pd passed 1st round. It is really hard to imagine pd wants to play 3D. Neither 3D as fit jump makes much sense, coz it will not help pd, and it will only help opps. As for both passed hands to bid a game, it is rare, but not unlikely. In this case, the 2H overcaller's hand is very good one in the context.

West is marked with HK. East does have club spt but didnt raise. Let's try to reconstruct their hand. Spades should be 4-4. Club should be 5-4. If west is 3-1 in red suits, then he has singlton HK. In this case either play will do the job. If west has doublton in both red suits, either cashing HA or playing diamond will do the job. The danger is west has 3 diamonds and Kx hearts, then east will ruff with HJ and returning spade, lock you in dummy. I think cashing HA is the winning play.