vuroth

Ok, I know I don't fully grok forcing pass yet, but I thought it only triggered when we'd bid GF on strength. It's not clear that's the case, is it?

Wow. My sympathies.

Wow north seriously doubled with probably zero tricks on defense? How does that work?

I'm happy to read this. I assumed every player better than me was going to bid 1NT.

Frustrating? It's fantastic! If that's really the case, you're going to do very, very well in the long term.

Happy belated!

I assumed 3NT, given that we're after 9 tricks. Maybe I'm wrong.

My first thought is to test hearts for 5 tricks. If they're there, take them, exit the K♠ and claim. My second thought is to concede a club. The second seems to fall down in that I can't really handle the diamond return. It forces me to give up on my spade trick, and now I'm reliant on 3-2 clubs with the finesse on to make. So I think I'll try the first line. J♥, ♥ to the Ace. If someone shows out, I'll cash my hearts, then ♣ finesse. If it holds, ♠ and I'm good. If not, then I think I'm toast. At MPs

Careful

:)

But partner can pass 3HX with a doubleton! Your partner pulled a penalty double to a contract one level higher, in a suit he had already bid. It's been pointed out before, but he double of 3♥ was described as "takeout", not "penalty". It seem a bit of a strange meaning to me, but so be it. Still, though, I wonder how many HCP north thought were in the deck. East can answer a weak NT and bid again over 3C. North has a weak NT opener but can double at the 4 level for penalty. If partner is as loaded as north things she is, we're probably pulling 50HCP in the deck. At some point in the bidding, imho, north has to start to rethink what south might have, whatever he hoped the first bid might mean.

I play

X and 5D. I feel better about the second one.

Bleh I wouldn't go dropping InvMinor over this hand alone. Esp if you play SAYC, as forcing with support for a minor can be messy.

I'm confused. If ♦s, are 5-2, there's no claim. I'm also confused as to the value of cashing the K♣ before drawing trump. Making 7 is less important to me than having a sensible line. Sometimes I play badly and score well - doesn't make me happy.

That's what I assumed - sort of a "we're good up to this suit" bid. We'll see if that's actually what her agreement was.

My thought is to

I don't mind passing some 12 card 4333s, but this isn't one of them.

Not to hijack but I find the range on a 1M overcall already crazy hard to deal with. If I occasionally need to make an aggressive light overcall, then I think even a less than spectacular 17 is going to have to be handled differently, or my partner will never know which way the wind is blowing. Of course, I self rate as intermediate as best, so maybe I'm completely missing the boat on this argument.

I double, but wouldn't be surprised if others don't.

Thanks guys. I tanked before trick 2, but couldn't decide what was going on, or where best to go. I felt like it was likely partner had a card, and decided to hope that meant declarer couldn't cash out. Turns out declarer had 8 quick tricks in the rounds, and partner had the queen of spades. Pretty much anything other than a low diamond (giving declarer the 9th trick straight away) would have worked, though if declarer led a low spade through me I probably would have had to duck it. I guess partner's play of the 9♦ means that he's single around half the time, which didn't occur to me at the table. I actually didn't double because I was afraid they'd run to a safer contract. Most tables played in 4♦-1 or 5♦-2, so 3NT= was a clear zero.

Interesting hand last night. I thought a bit about it ATT, but I'm not sure I asked the right questions at the right times. [hv=d=w&v=b&s=sakt2h3dakj8643c8]133|100|Scoring: MP P P 1♣ X 1♠ P 1NT 3♦ 3♠ P 3NT P P P[/hv] Led the A♦ - dummy comes down: ♠J97643 ♥A42 ♦5 ♣J32 Trick 1: ♦A, 5, 9, 2 Trick 2, I lead the 3♦ Ok, so 5 decision points - 3 bids, 2 leads. What should I have been thinking at each one, and if I went astray what was I overlooking? Thanks. W

Since I can't run the bridgecaptain thingy in linux, or at work, and I can use the browser-based lin-viewer.... If you want to pause a trick at a certain location - edit the URL line - deleting the play after that trick, or indeed after that card. The DD solver WILL show you the results for each possible card to be played at that moment.

I *think* Poland is a different case than say Iraq or North Korea, because Poland was occupied by a foreign power whose ability to "hold" external territories was waning. Who knows, though?

What I'd do at the table: