CSGibson

I don't aggressively upgrade without good 5 or 6 card suits or great spots and honor structures in two four card suits, and I wouldn't do so here. I'm opening 1N, and super-accepting transfers (if I get to show a doubleton club, so much the better for potential slam exploration). I also hate opening a 2 card club suit/3 card diamond suit, because my distribution is an open book as soon as they get a count on that suit, so I feel like it will be harder to justify my upgrade when declaring against competent opponents.

There's a better chance you will know what to do after 3♥ than 4. Partner has a chance to raise you with a fit, the opponents can bid 4S right away, which is more meaningful than competing to 4♠ over 4♥, or they can still stop in 3♠ now that you've taken away their descriptive game tries. If partner doesn't have a fit for hearts, then we shouldn't be saving at these colors; even if we find partner with a hand that covers 2 of our losers, it is possible that it is a phantom. Additionally, since responder is so tightly defined in terms of fit and playing potential, opener will have a much better idea of what to do over 4 hearts.

3♥, several reasons. There is no point in preempting opponents after they have established a fit and one of the hands is limited, so 4♥ is off the table for me, and I don't want to bypass 3N with 7 solid tricks. Also, I have lots of losers.

5♦. All the aces now rate to be onside, and partner is much more likely to have spade shortage.

2N looks completely normal to me. It gets us to our two most common games, 3N and 4S, and is right on values. I see the extra club instead of an extra small diamond as a bonus to the playing strength, as I have a potential source of tricks now too.

My hand just got way better over 4H, presumably partner now has heart shortage. 5♦. Maybe I can even buy it doubled over such an awkward sequence.

Either 7♦ or some plan that involves blackwood at some point to make sure that I don't miss 7N, and to make the opponents think that the wheels may have come off when they have a "cashing" ace.

It wildly overstates it because I don't actually see any advantage. Let's say that, worst case scenerio, someone is maliciously acting as you suggest, picking up cards so that they can make a bid if they change their mind later. They don't have any additional information available to help them to make this decision, so I don't see why they have an advantage. They could have taken as much time as they wanted anyway, there's no need to manipulate your mannerisms to create an artificial window in which you can deliberate a decision further through lying.

There are a lot of considerations. A long pass play takes longer to develop, and consequently has a greater chance of allowing a sack, turning an easy first down into a long one. Additionally, interceptions on long pass plays are also a factor. Also, coaches like to pick their spots for those significant plays. If you always threw long on 2nd & short, the other team will notice that tendency, and you will be less effective in the long run. On the other hand, if you seldom do so, then when you do choose to do so, there is a much greater chance that the defence will be unprepared for the play.

This wildly overstates the situation. There is no way that there is any real competitive advantage to passing with a pass card as opposed to picking up your cards, and certainly not enough of one to actually worry about. This is a complete non-issue, but it appears by the statements in this thread...specifically the one quoted... like you are blowing it up out of proportion.

4♦. Good to let partner know we have a fit. Also, I assume that since we open crap like this that our invitations are fairly solid.

[hv=pc=n&s=sak86h98da5cakj87&n=s75hakt62dkq97c52&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=1hp2cp2dp2sp3hp5np6cp6nppp&p=d6d7djdah9h4h2h5]500|440[/hv] First of all, how do you bid these playing 2/1? 2nd, with the play as given (4th best leads, standard carding), how do you proceed? If it matters to you, LHO is unknown to you, described as competent, while RHO is very good (this is a pro-client pair).

Its a cue.

Methods are to blame. If you have a non-serious 3N available so that this (4♠) showed no slam interest in context of the auction, then this would be an easy pass of 4♠. As is, I think east is being too optimistic with no aces and values behind the kings.

How is this a hard hand? Is there a more obvious bid than 3♥ for this? Why the hell would you want to hide your support for partner? While you might be able to make a theoretical argument that this is a playable treatment to differentiate between 3 & 4 card raises, you get into trouble in the real world where opponents don't cooperate by passing or making bids that don't take up space. As to the OP, obvious 2N. Oh, and side note, I accidentally hit reputation instead of reply originally. Please do not take my upvote as agreement, because I definitely do not agree with your post.

I am trying to imagine a scenerio where a player sees the redouble, picks up her bidding cards to end the auction, rethinks things as picking up the cards, and then decides out of the blue to bid instead, and where it is not obvious whether she intended picking up her cards as a pass, or whether it was done pro-forma because she believed that the previous pass had ended the auction. I just don't see it happening. You should be able to easily determine whether she is telling the truth, and then play bridge. Doing anything else seems like you are trying to twist the laws in order to win matchpoints that you do not deserve based on cardplay.

My impression of a Soloway jump shift is different than MikeH's. I thought that after a strong JS, responder basically relayed to give responder maximum room to describe their hand. This hand would relay to 2N, and responder would clarify their hand type. I've linked to a write-up of the approach I'm describing here: http://www.bridgebum.com/soloway_jump_shifts.php In that approach, playing strong JS, my auction might go: 1♥-2♠, 2N-3♠, 3N-4♦, (3N as non-serious, only because of the 2 aces is it worth that much in my opinion) 4♥-4♠, all pass.

to the OP - a pair in my club has that same agreement. If they open 1N, they both announce the range and then say alert afterwards to indicate that there is additional unexpected information to disclose upon request.

There seems like a simple fix in context of the auction: 3♠ is a slam try in clubs. Opener can then slow it down if he wants by bidding 3N, keycard, or cue-bid as appropriate.

A few things: Non-serious 3N, and its impact on an auction. I think serious/non-serious 3N is one of the most important slam bidding tools added to the bidding arsenal in the last 30 years, and using it has certainly improved my slam bidding immensely. When to try for slam. Visualizing partner with a perfect minimum in context of the auction is a common technique. Also, try to learn about the slam potential of a hand before you get above game in your suit - five off one is a killer if bad splits are around. Slam bidding after opening 1N or 2N, especially in minor suit sequences. Pick-a-slam 5N. I'm not saying do a topic on all of these, just that all of these might be valuable topics for your target audience.

I'd lead a spade. With a double, I'd lead a heart - partner had a chance to double diamonds and clubs, afer all, and I'm treating this as a lightnerish situation.

It depends. If, over a forcing NT, partner responds 2♣, I'm happy calling this a limit raise. If 2♦, I will rebid 4♠. If 2♥, I will rebid 4♥. If partner responds 2♠, then I think 3♠ is still probably right, but would not object if people bid 4.

ok, I was on the side of passing 2♠, so I see I was and am in a large enough minority that I'm probably wrong. I mean, its probably 90% that partner bids 3N next, so I'm committing to 4 or 5 diamonds if I bid at all - combined with the possibility that they can back into hearts, it just seemed wrong to risk 3♦ - partner isn't in on the joke, after all. Dammit, I'm still half-convinced that bidding is more likely to give a minus score than passing.

If you bid 3♦, partner bids 3N. Sit, or remove?

[hv=pc=n&s=s8hkdkjt87642c984&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=2spp]133|200[/hv] A partner and I had a strong difference of opinion about the proper action on this hand. What would you do?