vuroth

Every time I see that in SAYC, I blink. It just seems counter-intuitive to me for some reason. I guess with invitational hands, I can make a forcing suit bid on the way to 2NT. Still, I wonder why SAYC shows 1m-2NT as 13-15 and 1m-3NT as 16-18. Is it to help keep 5m open, in the absence of inverted minors? Are the narrow ranges well-suited to exploring 3NT vs 6NT? If I wasn't paying attention at the table, I'm sure I'd interpret it as a limit raise style invitational bid for NT. :angry: V

If partner has Axx♥, K♦, then we can set, but only if we return a club. Ditto if partner had Kxx♥ I think I'm in over my head on this discussion, but I don't quite see why we absolutely need partner to have A♠

Novice opinion: I can see all clubs from the 9 to the ace. Partner's lead of the Jack stands out - he wasn't leading from KJT, or JT, or anything like that. He's either single or double in clubs. South, therefore, either has 2 or 3 clubs. Cashing the Ace and leading back a third club looks like it has a decent chance of giving partner a ruff. Partner may have as many as 3 hearts (I peg south for at least 6). Partner can easily have 7-8 points here. If he has the king of diamonds (or other diamond wastage), we probably need a ruff to set the contract, if we can set it at all. Since we have absolutely nothing we want returned to us, we could always lead a low club third round, trying to signal a diamond return. Partner isn't too likely to take this seriously if he can set the contract immediately or if he has a diamond honour, and it might cause declarer to guess incorrectly. That's about all I can think of. V

Could be. In all honesty, I find the internet to be simply an awful medium for sarcasm. With no tone of voice to back it up, it becomes very hard to tell when someone is being sarcastic and when they're just off their rocker. Thanks for pointing out the possible interpretation I was overlooking, though. V

Either you're using a definition of beginner that I'm unfamiliar with, or I need to quit this game and find something easier to master.

I assumed the asterisks were opponents explanations. Not much else makes sense, really. If the agreement seems weird, well, I don't think that an example from a Sharif book is likely to come from this century. There's probably a good lesson in this, though. Even if opponent's explanation of their system seems odd, believe it. If it turns out that their agreement was singleton or void, call the director. If it turns out LHO bid it with a void despite the agreement, shrug it off. V

I agree. I'm torn. There's a very good chance our best spot is 4♠, but I'm afraid that if I bid spades and partner declines, that showing clubs next, even jumping to 5, will give partner the impression that I'm stronger than I am. A direct 5♣, on the other hand, should be my best bet at not getting partner overly excited. At the table, I think I'd bid spades, but I can see things all going awry.... V

I think that they are equally likely. Yes. The way to see this is to count the 'x's. Each of those holdings - Qx and AQx has exactly one 'x', so there will be the same number of ways of holding each of them (3, in this case). And as both of them assume a 3-2 break, each individual holding is equally likely. Brilliant!

Two lines of thougth: 1. Spade, hoping to find partner short. I expect north to be something like 6-6 in the black suits. South bid notrump, so probably isn't void in spades. Maybe partner will be. 2. Ace of diamonds. 6-6 in blacks leaves north with 1 red card at most. If it's a heart singleton, my Ace may be ruffed setting up south's diamonds. If it's a diamond singleton, maybe I need to cash it now, before it goes away on south's heart ace. Hmmmm.. Ace of diamonds seems like it would be right half the time. Partner being out of spades seems a bit more likely than that to me, of the two. Given the auction, it's also not impossible that partner isn't broke. The ace of diamonds might not be our last chance. It feels like a bit of a coin toss, but count me down for a spade lead. V

EDIT: Never mind. I thought myself into a knot. The 9♥ seems like the key card, though.

I'm pretty sympathetic to 3♦, and am a bit surprised that 2NT is "automatic". I have a singleton and a doubleton. Partner almost certainly is single or void in clubs, unless the 2♣ bidder is a joker. With likely 5 spades, partner has 3.5 diamonds and 3.5 hearts, on average. 3♦ has to play at least a trick better than 2NT, doesn't it? V

Thanks, everyone. Overcalls, and especially responding to them, are definitely a weak point for me. So is paying attention to which seat I'm in. I'm pretty sure I didn't notice partner was a passed hand until after the bidding was over, which is probably why I was trying to move towards game (I thought I was making a forcing bid...) Still, I need to start considering which seat I'm in when I'm bidding. It makes sense for 1NT to be stronger in response to an overcall than in response to a full opening bid. Given that partner is a passed hand, I'm much less worried about underbidding. 1NT makes a lot of sense to me. V

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=s86h854dkj64cakj2]133|100|Scoring: IMP Bidding: - P (P) P (1C) 1S P ???[/hv] I know that some people would have opened with my hand, but it's not my style. My action: V

If partner takes my discards as standard signalling discards, then the ten of clubs looks best. Sometimes, though, throwing my high cards means that I want partner to guard that suit. It's nice that we have QT9 of clubs here, but what if we had Q32? Would the 3 still say that I like clubs? Or would throwing away 4 diamonds, high to low, give a stronger impression that I have nothing to keep in diamonds? I know what I want to tell partner, I'm just not sure I know a hard and fast rule as to how to tell her. V

If declarer has Kxx of ♠, do you think he would have held up at trick one? If declarer is Kxx is spades, the king is his 9th trick. He just HAS to hope spades are 4-3, or he's cooked. He has to take the king straight away, and play diamonds before defense switches to clubs. So declarer has the ace of spades, and we really only have 1 shot at defeating the contract. If declarer has 3 diamonds, he's got it made. V

Declarer has me. Does he know it? From the bidding, declarer only has 2 spades. If I duck, he'll return to his hand and repeat the finesse. I'll play the 4 of spades on the first round, and the 2 of spades on the second round. Hopefully, declarer will believe me, rise with the ace, and try to find his tricks elsewhere. V EDIT - I completley missed that the jack was not on the board. Gah!

I *think* that if partner had a minor suit ace, he would have led it on trick 4. Given the board, it couldn't cost a trick. Ergo, declarer has both minor suit aces. He started with 3 spades, 7 hearts, both minor suit aces, and 1 more minor suit card. If the minor suit card is a king, he's got it made. If partner has both kings, then declarer is squeezing my partner. I need to let partner know I have clubs covered, so he can unprotect his king of clubs and guard diamonds. I throw the 7, 5, 4 and 3 of diamonds. I hope that makes it clear. V

North has 9HCP, and we have 10. Partner has at most 6HCP. By rule of 11, declarer only has 1 spade higher than the 8 in his hand. It can't be the Q (partner would have 7 HCP), so it's either the K or the A. If declarer is Kxx in spades, returning a spade will set the contract (partner, if he's counting, would overtake our J). If declarer has the ace or 4 spades, though, we'll have more work to do. Given that we now know that partner's 4-6 points are in spades, we have a pretty good idea where his winners are coming from. 1 club, 5 diamonds, and 2 hearts. If he also has the spade ace, that's 9 winners. If he has the spade ace, the only chance I have of defeating the contract is to hope declarer only has 2 diamonds in his hand. Leading the king of clubs to knock out the ace, then holding up the first round of diamonds would lock declarer out of the board. The problem is that I can't do both. Do I attack spades, or do I knock out the ace of clubs? My choice is to attack spades. Partner will know if we have enough spade tricks, or not. If not, partner can see the same board that I can, and even though I can't signal suit preference, hopefully partner will reason out to lead me back a club. This works to knock out the ace, regardless of how declarer plays it, because there are only 2 clubs on the board. V EDIT - I like jtfan's answer. Wish I'd thought of that.

1. Good point. Partner throws K with KQ. Partner has QJ..., so declarer has K. 2. Now that I know what partner is saying, I don't want to lead a heart. 3. Now my original suspicion is confirmed, and it's suit preference.

I'll lead a spade. Our winning trick could come from anywhere, but based on dummy, declarer isn't pitching any losers. Based on the bidding, declarer might not even have many/any losers. Partner's discard COULD be heart preference, but it could be suit preference, too. We see 10 spades, so partner is definitely short. The only winner we could have that we might lose based on my lead is partner's possible spade void. (For better or worse, this one took me 5 seconds.) V

Count me for double than 2 spades on 1. I do see merit in discussing what double/3s and double/4s mean, though. The advised overcall range is getting pretty crazy in my book. I always had an awful time dealing with overcalls, because partner could be very light. If I struggled with 8-16, then yeah, 5-18+ is going to be a nightmare to respond to. I also don't see the relevance of the single heart do the double/2s approach. I'm not about to leave partner hanging - any suit preference after my double, even if opponents interfere, should make my hand pretty clear. V

I see 2 paths - either attack diamonds right away, trying to ruff one on the board, or play hearts for 3/2 and throw a diamond on the hearts (4/1 heart split won't work, unless you keep a trump entry to the board). Given the double, I'll guess RHO has 4 spades. Ace of clubs, ace of spades, low to the queen, prepared to finesse the jack of spades in righty if he's got 4. Then, I simply hope hearts are 3/2. V

I don't know where our tricks are coming from. Well, actually, I do. We're getting nothing in spades. Declarer has boss diamonds on the bard, and it looks like shortness in his hand. Partner has at most 1 trump. Looks like we need 2 club tricks and partner to have the ace of trump to put this down. The danger is that, on the wrong lead, declarer can cash the ace of spades in hand, throwing a club off the board. This limits him to 1 club loser, and he almost assuredly makes. My answer was wrong for the play (I peeked), but that analysis should lead to the correct lead, I think, if you can think it through more clearly than I could. V

Out of curiosity, how many seconds does and advanced/expert player take at the table to figure this kind of thing out? It feels good that I'm sort of getting the point of some of these puzzles, but I spent like 5 minutes thinking about it, and didn't fully get it until I walked away from my post. I'd like to think that with hard work I could become an expert, but 5 minutes to 5 seconds is a daunting prospect. V

I don't see any reason to lead anything but a spade first round. South is distributional (not balanced), and loves diamonds and clubs - say at least 5-4 in those suits. South also has 17 points. North likes hearts. Sure, south has A spade stopper, but it's the best first guess. Maybe once south's lone spade stopper is gone, you and partner can run spades. Maybe not, but it looks like the best guess prior to seeing dummy. .... Now, though, I'm playing a heart. Declarer still has 2 stops in spades - the one on the board, and the one he bid. He still has enough points in the minors for them to be solid. He also started with at least 5 diamonds (partner has an odd number of diamonds, though I think at least 5 was indicated from the bidding anyways), 4 clubs, and 2 spades. That means declarer has AT MOST 2 hearts, and may have less. Partner has 4 or 5 hearts. There's the source of tricks we need. I'll lead a low heart, though I don't think it matters. What does matter is that I unblock hearts on the second round. EDIT - changed my mind. I'll lead the king of hearts. If declarer as Qx of hearts, it doesn't matter. If declarer has singleton Q hearts, leading the king helps a lot. If declarer has nothing in hearts, showing the king makes partner's decision making process a little easier. V