vuroth

A432 opp KJ98 The book answer was something different, but I led the king, then when both followed crossed outside the suit and led up to the J. Am I missing something, or does this work for 3 tricks?

While I get the idea, I think there ARE things Russia would like better. Like kittens. Who doesn't like kittens?

I own Watson's Play of the Hand. I found it dry, but it might be worth another stab. Lawrence's How to Read Your Opponent's Cards is an outstanding book, but the focus is narrow rather than broad. I've started on some of the level 3 Bridgemaster problems. So far, they're easier than the sample problems, but I'm not getting them first time necessarily, and slowing down and thinking is good. Thanks. W

What's the difference between the windows client version and this: http://bbi.bridgebase.com/software/bm2000.html ?

Discard club from dummy. Ruff. ♦ to dummy. If LHO follows, finesse. If it holds I'm home, if not RHO is endplayed. If LHO shows out on ♦s, play the 9 and exit the 7, endplaying RHO.

Spades are 5-1 or 6-0 around 16%, right? Admittedly, chances of a ruff are a bit less, since I'm cashing the A♥ straight away - there's always a chance that the short spade hand is also short in hearts. True, though I wouldn't give it much thought at the table. If it happens, I'll certainly notice it. :)

Once upon a time, I would have bid 3♠ and not thought much about it. Where I am right now, I would pass, and not think much about it. I'd like to understand people's reasoning, so I can continue to refine my decision making process. When partner overcalls at the 1 level, I would expect, on average, around 1.5 tricks from him. Certainly, it could be less, but something as weak as K KQ still has a good shot at 1 trick. On defense, I'm a full trick less than that. Plus, maybe I'm a little old-fashioned, but I already have a difficult time coping with how wide 8-16 point overcalls are. Widening the range for this hand just seems....dangerous. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a slave to HCPs here. With 7321, I'm much more likely to stick my nose out. Both gwnn and 655 seem to feel that 1S is better than Pass, or I guess at very least close. So I guess I'm wrong, but I'm trying to understand why.

Agree with pooltuna. (While RHO might have an outside A, that would leave everything else with LHO, and with QJ in both minors why not switch to clubs at trick 2 when partner discouraged?) So spades I'll go low to the king. Hearts I'll try low to the T, then the Q. Low to the K is probably only going to pick up Jx in hearts, while low to the ten picks up J(x)(x) on your left, which seems much more probable to me.

If hearts are 2-2, the 8 can be an entry to dummy in case the spades are 3-3. Since I need to cash the AK of spades before drawing a second round of trumps (using the King as entry to ruff a spade), I may risk a spade ruff (~16%), but the upside is good. If hearts/spades don't work out for me, I'll fall back on the King of diamonds. Actually, if hearts ARE 2-2, but spades are 2-4 with east, I can endplay east into leading diamonds up to my king.

Presumably if I bid 1♠ I'm pulling anything partner doubles? Or is this just one of those cases of sometimes opponents make a doubled contract? I agree that I have some play strength, but I have a TON less defense than 1♠ usually promises. For me it's not so much about being a passive vs aggressive bidder, it's more a function of how badly I'm going to mislead my partner. FWIW

Why is passing with 7222, no ace, no king disgusting?

What he said.

I wonder if the bridgemaster stuff is still supported. It does use the client rather than the browser, which I thought was obsolete, or soon to be. I think I'll ask in the relevant forum - thanks for the reminder. V

What do I know, but I agree. Partner making a slam move seems like extremely good news.

I'm starting to get frustrated with my lack of ability to solve intermediate declarer problems (here and at the table). Inevitably, the solutions are clear and obvious to me once they're pointed out. Short of playing a million hands (my time is compressed), is there a good reference out there for declarer play - something that will walk me through a checklist of things to look for - like counting entries, looking for blocked suits, recognizing endplays, when to strip, everything I guess up to squeezes? I feel like my approach just isn't consistent enough, and that I sometimes look for the key element (such as an endplay) but don't always recognize it when it's there. Thanks. V

I'm all for waiting for more info. Not sure we know the whole story here yet. That said, if an American had shot an American citizen fighting in the trenches for Germany in WW2, we wouldn't have spoken about rule of law. The CIA should not be doing any killing, anywhere (the policy of doing so had not helped the USA out in the long term), but it's not absolutely necessary that an agent of the government killing a citizen be some kind of legal travesty. I also think that our enemies (and yes, we have enemies) should not be allowed to use citizenship as an umbrella. Like I said, my guess is there's more going on here than meets the eye, so I'll wait for more info before deciding if the government is overstepping again, or if something entirely different is happening.

How many diamonds do you think partner has? If it's 7, you don't care if partner hast he queen. If it's 6, you do care. Right? W

Give me 1 minute and I probably rewire double and cancel Michael's. Sure there's a buffet before me, but I don't really NEED all that much here.

Considering the enormous variance different fields can have, no idea if it's a good score or not. My guess would be that you're getting a decent score more times than not. Am I missing something, or is there a far, far better line than taking the club finesse?

Not a huge fan of unenforceable rules. On a related story, I'm changing my firstborn's middle names to Zx Xz Jz Zj Jx Xj Vzxj Qvxj Qx Xq Qz Zq

I really want to double here. My fears are two fold - being passed (not horrible, but we're not in our best place), and that X - 3D - 4S is an overbid.

Footnote to 2:

Hand 2. Can't see any reason to duck trick 1. AS, then immediately run the 9H. I'll ruff a spade return with the J, Cash the AC (and another if clubs are 3-0), then run the TC to the Queen. Now I'll run the 8H to the TH. Since east seems to hold the KS, east also holding the KD seems kind of unlikely. I won't be surprised if trumps are 3-0, but I think I can draw 3 rounds of trump and still have the trump entries to dummy that I need. V

Hand 1: Win in dummy, DD ruff. That's the easy part. Now I'll try AS throw last diamond, ruff a spade, draw trumps (3-2 I hope!) and heart finesse. If the King is with east, I'll be left with a guess on his lead. If I don't get a heart return, maybe my best line is to ruff and play west for the KS and Jx of hearts and squeeze him? This does seem upper intermediate, as it feels like it's over my head.

I applaud the OP for his sensible action, and sensible complaint. I think he'll do well on BBO.