daswallow

1♠ lol.

As others have said, there are 12 tricks after knocking out ♦A. I'm not too keen on the auction, west doesn't need to splinter (he is too good). I prefer a forcing heart raise or even jump shift then support spades. Why did North x? Was it lead directional (for a club)?

Passing a 2c opener is clearly ill-advised and will harm partnership trust. I would never even consider it even with the flattest, worst hand possible. OK, you may gain on occasions, but if you have passed out 2c when partner has a monster he will be furious and will not want to keep the partnership going. The 2c bid is a statement - "Partner, I have a game forcing hand". Pass is then saying "I don't care what you have!". Incidently I once had my 2c open passed out, as partner (first and last time) thought it was weak after we agreed to play weak 2's, which they weren't too familiar with. :rolleyes:

The probability theory you use breaks down once you assume the honours are split. Both then have a 50/50 chance of holding each particular card, not 3/7 and 4/7. It is true that West is more likely to hold each honour if you do not assume the honours are split. It must be slightly better to play 10 to K, as West may cover with the Q if he has it whereas he certinly will not if he does not have it - ergo, when he does not cover he is more likely to hold A than Q. This seems like an unusual application of PRC.

If you do not like a 2NT opening showing 20-22 balanced, that does not mean there is no good system to play after opening it! These are separate issues. I just play a fairly simple puppet+smolen system which works ok most of the time.

I think we can win lead, cash top two spades, then throw LHO in with last trump. He will be endplayed!

I x first time, showing both majors, and then pass if p will not compete to the three level. I am not going for 200 in 3Mx.

I bid 3♠, showing a decent overcall (opening values) but not a great overcall. This seems to fit with what we actually have.

I go for 1nt, tho I am not thrilled to bid it. It just seems the best choice we have. I play this as 15-18, so I am a point light, but the hand has some good features such as the 2 aces. Bidding 1nt gives us the best chance of getting to a game (3NT or 4M) and a few times recently I have bid NT with similar hands, got x'd, and made it so I am sticking with it for now!

Nice system, but I don't agree you should never double stayman or NT. Assuming stayman is doubled: This system tells you whether or not NT is safe, given that you are expecting a club lead. However, without the x, you would probably not be getting a club lead so the x may have taken you out of a making 3NT (in practice after poor lead) and into either a bad 4M/5m game or only a part-score. So in my opinion 'don't double stayman or xfers' is too strong a statement. I agree that they should not be doubled just for the fun of it.

Hand a) - win diamond lead then play small spade from both hands. Ruff a spade in dummy later. Hand :P - sry I don't know precision ;)

I don't know how south is supposed to leave 3c x in when you open 1 spade. It could easily be wrong (usually be wrong?) and he won't win the post-mortem. 3♠ x will then be down a few.

It has to be 2♠, bidding in front of partner in this sequence shows weakness. I cannot stand a penalty double at the 2 level with this hand, so suggest we play 2♠ unless partner has significant extras. As an aside, I'm not even sure this necessarily shows a 6th ♠.

I would lead a trump but guess this is wrong or else the hand would not be posted.

presume 3♦ is a splinter raise. I will go for 2♠ to find out more about partner's hand, but x should work out ok too.

6d is enough - even that may fail if the 3d bidder does not have enough clubs to ruff in dummy!

I think you are too weak to bid here opposite a passed partner. x might work occassionally if you find a good fit. Here i think you have to pass 4c now although partner will have to play at the 4 level, possibly without a fit, and with the minority of the points. This is why I would pass rather than x.

The most common elimination play is when, in a trump contact, you pull trumps finishing with trumps both in hand and in dummy, elimate two side suits and give the lead to the defence. The defence then either have to give you a ruff-discard or open up the fourth suit for you. There are loads of variations and this type of play comes up very often.

1 - Pass, as 3nt is not likely and too many quacks for 4h. 2 - Pass, as I don't think the hand has got any better. 3 - 3s is enough for me, qh is probably wasted and the shape is so poor. Also we are vul and 4s will likely get doubled.

1 - 6♥ 2 - x 3 - 4c 4 - 2d 5 - 3NT

Definite 1NT here. A related issue - if playing a weak NT (12-14) in all 4 seats, would anyone open if the king of clubs was, say, the 10 of clubs?

I play that the 1♠ bid here is forcing, unless responder scraped up a bid with a sub-minimum hand in which case it can be passed.

7NT is crazy, if it goes down which is quite likely then you lost a load of points. I'd only bid it if desperate for a good score.

I play benji-acol, so we have 2NT = 19-20 (a bit low, i know!), 2c followed by 2NT = 21-22, and 2d followed by 2NT = 23-24. Although the direct 2NT is a bit lower than normal, it does allow the balanced hands to be broken down into 2 point ranges. We can also distinguish the very strong game force hands from the 8/9 trick Acol-2 hands. However, we lose a weak 2 in diamonds (tho shove some of them in with 3d) or whatever else could be used in its place.

I bid 1♥, no way this will be passed out and we can bid the clubs later. The opps will likely bid spades anyway so opening 1♣ wouldn't save much bidding space.