peachy

Never heart. The idea is to develop a trick, THEN get heart ace (if it is cashing). I agree with others that diamond J best.

I think South showed three card support with 2H. If that *is* the agreement that it shows 3-card support, then North has to share some of the blame when South never heard North has five hearts. If that is not the agreement, could someone construct a viable hand in the bidding where South only has two card hearts? Still, 3NT instead of 3H by South was a mistake.

I would have opened the given hand either 2NT, or 2C with a 2NT rebid. For a 2C with a 3D rebid, the hand is too weak, but who knows what would work best. All in all, it is too strong for a 1D and a rebid 3D. I think it would be a good agreement that after 1m-1whatever-3m or 1m-1M-3m, responder with an ace should not pass without a compelling reason to pass.

You could agree with partner that 1m-1M-3m is forcing and try it out! This agreement would probably give a little trouble when you have a hand that wants to invite instead of force. Find a way around the new hole in system [ = what to do with invites]. You could go conservative with the invites at MPs but at IMPs it could be costly. The frequency of opener holding a long minor AND a gameforcing hand is not too great, while the frequency of long minor with invitational hand I think is greater, but neither is very frequent.

Your RHO was a) not an expert and :P wrong. Had he asked either before the round or during his turn about your 1NT opening style, something like "Do you allow 5-card major in 1NT opening and if Yes, under what conditions" then you need to answer that question in detail if you had ever discussed it with your partner. Not alertable still, even if discussed.

I would have opened 1NT. In the actual auction, 3D shows game-going values combined with values from opener who has reversed; therefore, Pass is out of the question. 3NT. If in your agreements, opener may Pass 3D, then how would responder force opener to bid again, moreover, force opener to bid again BELOW 3NT which is often the best final contract holding minor suit(s).

Was it the TD or the opponents who told you off? If the opponents, they have overstepped. If the TD, dunno what to say... Also, if you don't remember pausing, then how could you have known to say 'Sorry, had nothing to think about'. I find those type of comments unnecessary anyway, extraneous and annoying. I know couple of players who issue these comments in certain situations (probably they don't even know they are doing it) when they want a switch and/or didn't like the lead. Ugly. As to winning with the A instead of the K, you can win the trick with whatever card you choose. There is no law or regulation or 'spirit of the game' to obligate you "to make it clear for the opponents". But you do have the obligation to keep tempo and not make it look like you have something to think about when you don't have anything to think about so it helps to pay attention to at least be aware if you did take a pause to think. Overall, it is best to think at trick one, to reduce pauses later in the hand.

Strongly invitational (as opposed to a plain or a mild invite). Responder can Pass the invite but with an ace he should go on even if the hand overall is nothing more than a minimum response. Any bid responder makes below game after the jump, is forcing to game.

I'm a little concerned about the overcall. Vul vs. not-vul and having a suit headed at most with QJ - overcaller must have some redeeming quality in the hand or the call was very foolish. I'm passing and after partner reopens [with a double, I should hope] I leave it in and lead DJ. If we were vulnerable, the decision would be harder as we have to hold declarer to 4 tricks in order to get a better score than game our way.

2H. Close to 3-card limit raise but if I make a limit raise with this (via forcing 1NT) partner might start mistrusting me in the future. Sometimes one has a maximum, like here for a 2H bid. If we have hopes for game, partner will make a game try which I will accept, almost no matter what sort of tries we have on card.

1S (2D) Dbl, I assume in a natural system the Double is negative double and shows hearts. If you did Dbl and partner bid hearts, he did not "bid" them, he "supported" your hearts - which you do not have. Instead of Dbl, you should have either shown clubs or supported spades.

This was exactly what I thought, so I passed then bid 4♠. However my partner strongly advocated bidding 4♥ here... Partner had Axx xx Axx KQTxx and passed my 4♠. When LHO showed up with 5♠ and LHO had the Jx of clubs that I guessed wrong... The result was -1400. Anyway, I'm interesting in hearing more thoughts on these options as this is something rarely discussed... I saw both hands in your later post. Your partner did not have what he promised and then he blamed you for a bad result. I don't think you want this partner much longer. If you do, at least do not listen to him/her.

Opener shows heart support and void or ace in clubs. 7H should be cold.

Hi, Creating a minor-suit oriented response structure to 1NT opening before you have your major suit structures well covered [in your response to TylerE and awm, you explained they were not well covered], seems backward to me because with major suit fits, the contract ideally often is in the major suit while with minor suit fits [barring slam going hands] the best contract often is 3NT - which pays better at pairs when both 5m and 3N make 11 tricks, has fewer tricks to take so can make while 5m goes down, and if 3NT is unmakeable while 5m makes, 3N will still yield near average matchpoints because most people will be in 3NT. Just my two cents. If it works for you, go for it.

It is not a psych but if their style includes it as a systemic 2C opener, then it is highly unexpected to the majority of opponents [in my estimation]. As such, alertable, under the spirit and letter of the ACBL alert regulations. To my knowledge, no beginner's bridge text advocates 2C with 8.5 tricks and no defensive tricks (something resembling AKJxxxxx-v-Jxx-Q), and to my knowledge, no self-respecting expert or even advanced player opens 2C with such a hand. Would be interesting to find out where that style was born and why. And more importantly, why ACBL cannot add explicit alertability to this style. Or define what the parameters of a non-alertable strong 2C are. It is certainly very misleading to see "8.5 tricks or 22HCP" and then find out afterwards that the example hand qualified under their agreements. The least the players of that style IMO should do is add something like "8.5 tricks regardless of HCP or 22+HCP", to be ethical and honest about disclosure.

4S can never be to play in the given auction, the responder is not in charge of the auction, IMO. I don't think the fact that your response structure included 2H "bust" has anything to do with the problem. Also, in a pickup or new partnership, even established ones, I like the guide that "all strange bids are forcing". 2C-3S works ok to show a hand that only has spades but not values for a positive spade response. Even when you did not have this agreed, one could get creative and bid it anyway because by logic (well, mine at least) that is what it has to be, ie. a reason to jump instead of bidding 2S. All in all, the splinter was fine even if undiscussed. But I would have shown the club queen instead of splinter. If your initial 2H response denied all kings and aces, partner then knows it must be the Q. The safest response of course woul be 4H but as we are now in game, partner might not go on and with your hand, I think slam should be sniffed.

It isn't club because no Lightner, it isn't trump because you posted this as a problem and that would be a normal lead when they have solid trumps and opening leader has some protectable values. I'm normally never leading from xxx, pretty much regardless of auction so I'm picking a diamond. At least it takes away diamond ace from dummy (unless for some odd reason partner has the ace...)

Once there is a non-systemic bid in the auction, matters become a bit complicated. However, I bid 3S which shows a six-carder. Next round, I bid 4H if given a chance. Apparently the Dbl over partner's 3C was some lead director which might make 3H bid more attractive, making partner declarer, but I'll still stick with my original plan, 3S, followed by 4H.

I play 12-14 with one partner and like it because it often steals the hand and gives away no information to the opponents. Plus, opps feel friskier to overcall a weak NT in some manner and get burned. Plus, opps have difficulty deciding whether to balance in against weak NT or not. Still, mostly I play 15-17 and I feel more comfortable with it. Playing weak NT, I have to concentrate to remember to look for the inferences from the auction if partner "did" or "didn't" open 1NT.

If not that way, then - when will responder who had the three card limit raise, be able to show he had the three card limit raise? I believe it's very easy over any bid but 4♣, responder bids anything he wants at all (except possibly 4♣ over a 3NT bid). I don't understand what you mean here. When/how will responder limit his hand? Does opener not need responder to limit his hand? How many more rounds will responder be forced to bid with xx spades, xx clubs and a bare minimum? Should he deny diamond ace over 4C with xx-xxx-Axxxxx-Jx and bid 4S? Should he hide spade Qx over 3C with Qx-xxx-KJxxxx-xx and bid 3D? Getting deeper in the mud here, but hope you won't mind helping out and giving your opinion on these questions.

If not that way, then - when will responder who had the three card limit raise, be able to show he had the three card limit raise?

Responder showed EITHER a weak hand with possible false preference to spades OR a great limit raise, maybe based on doublefit. If the 1NT response contained a "normal" three-card limit raise that is shown via direct 4S over 3C. Life is too hard if 3S can be just about "anything" both in strength and in shape/support. In the given auction, responder likely has weak hand, long diamonds, and a doubleton spade.

I don't want to lead a singleton in partner's suit. Leading clubs requires less from partner and several different club holdings will suffice while leading hearts requires KQJ10x and a side entry. If a heart lead would have set the contract, then we might get a bad board. If a club lead would set the contract and I led hearts then we get a bad board because I did not heed the good advice that leading singletons (even in partner's suit) against NT is rarely right.

There are a lot of 13HCP (or even more) hands that aren't NEARLY as good as this hand. For me, this is an opener.

What Mike777 said. In the given auction, 4D, but I am already concerned that we are heading in the wrong direction.