655321

Not tempted. I lead the ♣A, and if everything goes well (club, club, club ruff, heart ruff) the contract could go a couple down... but if something does not go well they might make. If declarer has the ♥A any heart ruff we get might be a losing heart anyway, dummy quite possibly has only 2 clubs (declarer should have 5), etc.

I always play double is takeout of the suit they are showing, bidding the suit they are showing is natural, and bidding 2(their suit) is Michaels. There may well be better methods, but this one is simple and works well. Doubling to show the suit they bid (diamonds here) is something I don't like - if I have diamonds I much prefer to bid them and take away some space, instead of doubling to give them more room.

Please, what is a wide boy?

Always choose the lesser of two weevils.

I am sure there are auctions where the overcaller can bid opener's suit naturally at his second turn, but here, where opener's expected diamond length (except for TylerE) is 5 or more, it makes no sense for 2♦ to be natural. Also, even if it is a natural bid I don't like it to be canape.

♣K return would be too difficult for me. Dude bid and played well, and deserved a top board (well, would have deserved it if it really had been MP!)

I would always open 2♠, but the hand is worse than I would like. I certainly wouldn't say that opening 2♠ is clear.

Obviously open 1♣.

2♣ I kind of want to bid 2♥ - even though the heart aren't good enough, the rest of the hand makes up for it - but if there is a later, and I bid clubs later, partner will preference back to hearts on many hands where hearts aren't best. On principle I dislike passing first with good hands, and I also can't see how passing helps to describe this hand.

Well, sure, and I think the hand does make, but I was trying to say that it is more complicated than drawing 2 rounds of trumps (which you can't do) then run winners. Something like Club lead to Ace Club ruff Diamond to King Club ruff Spade Ace Diamond Ace Diamond Queen (ruffed, and we have only drawn 1 round of trumps so far) Club exit, ruffed in dummy Spade King Heart Queen, covered 4th round of diamond pitching the low heart and there is just one trump to lose.

1♥ OP always posts hands bid by GIB.

You can't cross in trumps if you are using both the little spades to ruff clubs.

I guess you mean a takeout double by the NT bidder over the balancing 2S. Nice resulting. It would have worked this time. Not sure I follow, what is the Aquaman procedure when opponents overcall and you have shortage in their suit?

It wouldn't hurt to know the vulnerability and form of scoring, but anyway I probably bid 3♦. I would like to have a bit more, but I do have 5 card support, and if the opponents raise spades I would feel much happier having shown my support.

That isn't so easy, you have entry problems.

Yes pass because we have nothing. We are r/w too. Also, LHO bid a limited 1NT, RHO made a minimum rebid and we have a 3 count, there has to be a fair chance partner has a strong hand. If we bid 2♠ now we are likely to be playing 4♠ even when it has no play.

(1) I would have overcalled 3♥ originally, I don't really like pass. (2) I would have overcalled 4♣, much prefer it to 3♣. (3) 3♥, good bid! (4) 4♣, good bid! (5) 4♥, unbelievably bad bid, partner has bid 3♣ at favorable then 4♣, opponents haven't stopped doubling, what do you think is going on? (6) Pass, good bid, South knew he didn't want to play in 5♥X, so 4♥X was his best result possible.

I always have a blanket rule that all these passes are for penalty (except for kgr's example, specifically at the 1 level when sitting under the bidder), but it is true that a 'no preference' pass does sound playable here when RHO has shown the Ace or King.

Yes well, the word abominable was my feeble attempt at humor.

Pass, should be a good contract.

Pass would show a desire to defend 2♣XX.

Well we pretty much agree on what to bid anyway, I also find the equal vul case unclear. My concerns about bidding at equal vulnerability are a combination of taking a phantom, and this Aceless hand going too many down when they are making. Nothing to do with a fear that partner will raise when we are making exactly 11 tricks. "FIVE-level belongs to the opponents" to me means 'when they are at the 5 level, leave them there', rather than 'when they are at the 4 level, don't bid a 5 level contract over them'.

I would only open this hand w/r. Justin discussed what to rebid on these hands in this post.

Not so easy this time it seems. It is customary on the forums when given both hands to bid to notice the best contract then construct an auction, however improbable, to reach it. 7♥ is a fairly abominable contract. Abominable being slightly with the odds I think. I haven't done exact numbers where the break in one suit affects the distibution of other suits, nor have I taken into account entries, etc when playing the hand, but the a priori numbers a good enough to give a rough idea:- 35.05% Diamonds coming in for 5 tricks and hearts 4-1 onside (including singleton J offside) is 7.30%. The chance of dropping a singleton or doubleton ♣Q is less than 10%, for 0.71% in total. The chance of clubs being 4-3 is 62%, for 4.54% in total. On top of that you will occasionally be ably to ruff the 3rd round of clubs even when they are 5-2, but that will be a very low percentage number which I have not included. All up, I get 5.25% for this. 7.96%, the a priori odds of ruffing out the ♣Q are 36.3%, without taking entries into account. The chance of these events (not the chance of making the contract given these events) are 2.8% for the ♥J singleton onside (I already included most of the ♥J singleton offside) and 2.4% for the ♦J being singleton. I don't see that you can stretch these numbers into anything other than a comfortably anti-percentage grand. So, if you want to double-dummy an auction to the bad 7♥, fair enough, but you could consider leaving out the bit about how easy these hands are for you.

Not so easy this time it seems. It is customary on the forums when given both hands to bid to notice the best contract then construct an auction, however improbable, to reach it. 7♥ is a fairly abominable contract.