rogerclee

I would blame the person who passed a takeout double with basically the most offensively oriented hand possible (for the auction).

1) No, I understand opening 1N with some 4333 18's but our honor structure here is okay, no reason to downgrade. 2) I make a takeout double.

I think north undervalued his hand and south bid normally. Sometimes slams where you have an unknown 10 card fit missing the queen of trumps are hard to bid.

I would lead a low club, our best chance of beating this is surely taking 4 clubs and some other trick. RHO usually has 4 clubs on this auction (unless 3343 or 3352), but if partner has an entry we can take 4 clubs as long as he has Tx or Jx (if declarer ducks then we are likely to be able to get 3 clubs and 2 other tricks). I usually like to lead an honor here but on this hand it's right to play low.

Yes, sorry, 6 trumps or balanced non-min. I tend to not worry about 17+-19 balanced and just force to slam for better or worse.

This is a good example in just visualizing endpositions, which is almost always easiest by working backwards. If you can reach a position where RHO is trump-tight then you are good. So initially you are aiming for a 5 card endposition that looks something like K9 void Qxx void opp Q7x void x x without losing any tricks. Can you do this? Sure, having unblocked T/9 of clubs (just a matter of technique), go back to your hand again in clubs. If diamonds are 2-2 then you will have reached the desired position by just finishing clubs and ruffing a heart in dummy. If diamonds are 3-1, then can we do anything? Assuming we knew that from the start, we could get our RHO down to AJT8x x in the majors having lost no tricks, but he could brute force his way to 4 tricks from this position thanks to his 8 of spades. We can't ever play spades if they're 5-0, not hard to see that RHO will then just have 4 trump tricks by force.

In pickup partnerships I usually play that 3M = 6 trumps non-min, 3N = min balanced, and 4M = terrible min balanced.

I'm not sure why 3S is a bad bid, I think anything else is overthinking it. We might get too high if partner forces to slam in diamonds, but in all other cases 3S is a good start. If partner wants to slam in spades, my hand is not even a minimum. I can follow up pulling 3N to 4C to find a club fit, while the negative doublers could possibly land in 4S while cold for 7C. If partner passes out the negative double (which he should on many hands), doubling will likely have been either bad or disastrous.

It's becoming very common to play a variant where 3C shows any minimum hand. Here's an easy to remember version that jdonn and I played 1M - 2NT 3C: Min, 3D ask 3D: Extras, shortness, 3H ask 3H: Extras, 5422, 3S ask 3S: Extras, 6+ no shortness (3NT nonserious over this) 3NT: 18-19 bal 4lower: 5-5, extras 4M: Min, 6+ no shortness, good for slam 1M - 2NT - 3C - 3D 3H: any shortness, 3S ask 3S: 5422, 3N ask 3N: 12-14 bal 4lower: 5-5, no particular controls promised but not terrible side suit 4M: 6+ no shortness, bad for slam That said there is nothing really wrong with the SAYC structure, playing an advanced version of J2NT should be very low on your priority list of things to improve.

You must convince someone who is already good and established that you are good. This can be done by winning a lot or playing with someone who is already good and established and impressing them. I would courteously ask the best active player in your area for a game sometime when they are free, and then just try to play very well and down the middle. You must also be well liked. I can think of several LA people whose reputations are not as good as they should be, simply because the best players in LA don't like them. It's not very fair, but it's the way it is.

I would tell north that aces are good cards.

West should bid 4D over 3N, after that I think 4H-4S-4N gets you there.

phil_20686, it's obvious you are good and talented, I don't know why you did this. Posting it is in slightly bad taste, exclaiming you got him when it's obvious to everyone else that you only validated his point makes you look like an idiot.

I don't understand this argument, do you think you will stop short of slam opposite AKQxx AKx xx xxx by bidding 3C? Do you want to? Will you pass your partner's 3N bid over 3C, having never described your diamonds? Either way, you are on a guess. Bidding 2D is normal because it shows diamonds, something your hand really wants to do. This is not the same as being 6-4 with weak diamonds and great clubs, since you don't care about showing diamonds, it is not a huge feature of your hand.

In my experience, starting out, it was useful to play a lot with various different people of varying skill levels. You get lots of opinions, filter them for yourself, and see lots of different styles of play that you can choose to leave or adopt. As a non-top player, playing with non-top partners in non-top fields, you will hear lots of stupid opinions about bridge, even among the best players in your area. It's easy to stagnate if you only ever play with one person, whose stupid opinions sound increasingly reasonable to you as the years go on. If you are a talented and rapidly improving player (from your posts I would guess that you are), changing partners will be a common occurrence to you, as you outgrow your old partner every year or so, unless you and your partner are equally dedicated, something which is rare. However, if you want to make the change from being a mid-level expert to being a great player, forming a serious partnership is key. One of the problems in my game is that I never developed a serious work ethic for one partnership, memorizing theoretically good system notes, getting in sync in terms of bidding and defensive signaling, etc. Bridge players are naturally lazy, and putting in the work away from the table is an underrated aspect of bridge even among the best players.

Honestly I looked at the hand again this morning and thought "lol I can't believe I bid again". I don't remember my partner's exact hand, but it featured the AKQ of diamonds, so the 5 level was not safe.

Not that the Cayne games aren't great, but it is not like they are super exclusive matches filled with only world class players. Most of the times it's closer to being like a random star team game. I don't think a trial is necessary, any 4 of the best players on this forum would be favorites to beat a random Cayne team (though not a Cayne-Lauria-Versace-Duboin team, heh).

I would just blackwood, even if we're down on a heart lead I want to see them lead it.

I'd rather bid 7D than pass.

In retrospect this was not very interesting lol.

IMPs KQTxxxx Axx void Q9x 1C-1S 2D-2S 2N-3S 4S-? 1C = 16+ art 1S = 8+, 5+S The rest were natural.

I like your auction.

In the bidding, west bid their hand in the only way possible, and east's bidding was reasonable to me also. In the play, north knows that we have <= 2 spades and 2 or 4 hearts, and we definitely have 4 hearts more often than 2, so it seems he just played for that. If north is 2614 a club switch seems more intuitive than with 2623, and also at these colors 2614 is more likely than 2623, given that they do not have the KQ of hearts, though it depends a little on their style. With xx AJTxxx Q9 QT9/T9x, if we have something like Ax KQ9x majors and Kxx(x) HHx(x) minors, a club switch is usually not good enough to beat 3N, so they would have just continued hearts. With xx AJTxxx 9 QT9x/T9xx, a club switch often beats the contract outright when we had 3S+2H+4D on passive defense, and it is just more likely that switching to clubs is right even if it does not lead to an immediate beat. Hooking seems better to me.

There seems to be a lot of talk about the quality of our hearts and less about the length of our spades. Maybe I am overestimating how important it is, but one of the reasons I didn't double was that I had 3 spades, increasing the likelihood that the opening bidder had 4 hearts, and also increasing the probability that they could make 2Hxx if they so chose (though if they choose to play 2Hxx, I would be pretty sick no matter what my spade length was).

I love opening 1N so much on this handtype that I doubt it, but I have never played a style where a 1D opener showed 5, so it is hard for me to say that with any certainty. It seems that the main advantage to showing 1D is 5+ is that partner can be more aggressive with 3 card support. Since, if I open 1D, I am planning to compete to the 3 level in diamonds anyway if possible, I don't think there is a huge difference in this case.