xcurt

Was going to say I could see you and raise you some randoms. Those are all forum members whose posts I read and respect. Then I started thinking it's a Law failure hand except that it looks (from 15 seconds looking) that there are 11 tricks EW in spades, and 8 tricks NS in clubs. There have been quite a lot of hands on BBO lately that I could swear came out of the BBO Hand Laboratory.

I suggest you edit the post to really render theplayers names unreadable. On the other hand I played a few hands with one of these characters and am not surprised to see this here.

6S seems about right. The need to avoid both 3rd and 4th round club losers augers poorly for 7. Against that, there are lots of poor club holdings (Txx) that partner will never value but give me play for 6 even if we had space and time to force, set spades, and try in clubs. Plus the opponents will take a lot of time following to 7 rounds of spades so I might as well accelerate the auction.

Yes this is a beautiful hand. I realized later last night declarer my defense doesn't work and I couldn't see how to beat the hand. I didn't look into it as deeply as Rainer (as usual) to see that West is getting squeezed once I thought the fifth diamond had no value.

That's the hand I was thinking about (Ax, AK9xxx, Q, QJxx). It looks like the point is to ensure that we take both major suit tricks we have coming (or exchange one of them for a second diamond trick). I don't think declarer can have A, AK9xxx, Qx, QJxx, since he would have cashed the SA at T2. If he has 1615 with the CQJ he's just cold and he can never execute the coup for the overtrick, with worse clubs he's just on a club guess. But if declarer has Ax, AK9xxx, Q, QJxx he's going to play T1. H to K T2. D to K T3. H to Q T4. D ruff T5. club up then whenever he is in dummy he ruffs another diamond and plays clubs. If he does this, when we win the CA we need to play the DA tapping declarer down to fewer trumps than partner. In effect this strips declarer of his throw-in card. Edit (to remove diseased imaginings left over from my first post) -- I guess we don't need the 5th diamond. Edit -- if we take the first club and play the DA, then declarer can get his spade loser away on the 4th diamond. So we have to take specifically the second club. Edit -- I should elaborate why we should take the second club and not the third. If we duck the second club (this assumes declarer's clubs are QJ8x or better) declarer will cash the top heart before playing another club. Now partner's hand is totally stripped, and he will eventually either take his trump and be forced to lead away from the SK, or he will wind up ruffing declarer's losing spade at T13.

I'll pitch a spade now. Haven't worked out the details but I want to keep an extra diamond winner in case partner started with ♥JTx6. If declarer goes for the coup by riffing diamonds in hand, I can be in position to counter with a fifthh round.

And collecting 50 per undertrick into a vulnerable game, most of the time. Ironic that the side that collected the 800s at each table was clearly the more insane.

Who appealed? If the methods pair, this sounds like the mother of all AWMWs.

I hate to break it to you but mobile devices are the future (nay, the present) of content consumption on the web. Personally I'm done posting in handviewer until it gets fixed.* I'll continue to read content from posters I find interesting and worthwhile. If others don't want to read my posts because they're typically plaintext, that's their choice. The best solution would be some server side code that reads the user agent (or a pref) and converts handviewer into text for mobile users. Fred or Uday, please??? * if you don't believe me, get an iPad and head over to bridgewinners. Read any of Kit's excellent columns, which all contain multiple diagrams on one page separated by jumps. Those pages can take over 30 seconds to load. I have FiOs so it isnt bandwidth.

No, I wish people would enter plain text. Handviewer locks up iPad and iPhone (and probably other underpowered mobile devices) awfully. Plus there are the underlying, unaddressed issues that 5+ round auctions lack a scrollbar or other visual cue, and that indicating lists of items should be done with T for ten and a fixed width font. Hence my sig.

Good luck with this. I've been called a cheater once in front of a director (by a flight b "methods" pair who didnt realize I had figured out the real meaning of their bids and penalty doubled them or 1400 on a partscore hand) and called the director on me. Another time a director called me a cheater (for psyching Ogust against 2 LOLs, maybe not the most sporting of me). I eventually got an apology letter out of the ACBL over that one. But Ive never seen a C&E called on someone for a cheating accusation.

In the ending I won't consider playing for a guard squeeze to have operated -- it's not worth chancing down 1 when it looks like we're in the top spot. I would cash three hearts pitching a diamond from dummy, thus when I run clubs I know the heart position. This maximizes my chances of guessing the ending when RHO has the heart length (I'm aiming at a compound squeeze, since the singly guarded suit lies over the defender). If LHO has the heart length, then I'll come down to AKx -- Kx -- vs J x ATx -- Now if LHO has hearts and spades guarded, I'm OK. If LHO has heart and diamond length (including at least one honor), hopefully 6NT= isn't awful. Edit -- Weak opponents might give away the heart length if we lead to the HK at T2, it might be a little better to only cash two hearts if it looks like LHO has the length. Then we can come down to AKx -- Kxx -- vs J Ax ATx -- Dummy's diamond spot is so useless that a clash* position against LHO isn't available, but if he has the heart and diamond guards and the SQ he's had to pitch all his small spade spots and I might read that. * -- if we had cashed one high spade and pitched a diamond from hand How do the opponents defend?

I would cash two hearts at T3-4. Assuming all follow, I would cash winners to reduce to Tx -- AQx 9 -vs- A9 -- x AJ with dummy still to pitch at T8. From this point I can squeeze LHO in the blacks (by pitching the diamond) or I can play to squeeze either LHO around the minors or RHO around the pointeds depending on my pitch on this trick. If LHO is guarding the minors he's already had to pitch all his spades, and I should have a shot to count him out from the spade spots. What do the opponents do? Edit -- Really dont like locking in on the C-S squeeze; thats playing LHO to be pretty weak. On the other hand he did dbl 2C to remind himself to lead one.

Nice recaps. Makes the ACBL look pathetic. What are they doing down there (besides building shiny new HQ)?

2NT. This bidding sounds like partner has some length in the blacks to go with his hearts. So these hands fit well. Eg QTx, Jxxxx, x, Txxx looks like a good shot to lose the red kings andthe CAJ if we can keep the spades frozen. 2NT gives us a chance for partner to move forward, with the vigorish that we haven't yet made 2H anyway.

Wouldnt underlead the SA. After 3S partner was still on priority 1--stop them from bidding and making 3N. He had no way of knowing our LHO is about to drive to the 5-level. Given that the alternative is to lead from Qxxx, I think cashing the SA is best. If partner has the SK we can try tapping dummy at T2 anyway, then they would need to come to hand in clubs, not diamonds, even if they choose to hook through us.

You probably weren't winning this board anyway given that your side is supposed to bear par, and you were presumably playing against seeded opponents. Also, note that if RHO had 1750 or 1660 with the same texture you can't make 6S. Therefore, even if you knew partner's hand over 6D, it isn't clear to bid.

Those of you that gave partner an opening hand, how many hcp are there in the deck? I guess partner could have Andys hand with two queens, but isn't that hand afraid that the extra ruff from the dbl just holding down the uptrick? If the double is indeed Lighner and we assume 7420 or 7402 with the SA isnt passing clear? They might make it, but we arent playing imps so frequency dominates. Btw i agree with passing 3s.

I'd guess LHO has a 3-card limit raise and partner has 7204 or 7240 (maybe a stiff heart and a 5-carder on the side, but that hand probably just bids 4♠ the first time). Facing those hands, we're off two hearts and either two diamonds, or two clubs and a club ruff. I would pass the double and lead the ♦A, taking 4Hx-1. I think a club lead is too risky, although if right it might lead to down two.

Good points. I underanalyzed the alternative NT contract when thinking about how to play 4S, missing the squeeze on RHO. I guess this means we should be playing 4S to minimize the chances of a minus, and then play for max tricks within that constraint, and not worry so much about the 3NT folks because it's too complicated to figure out the joint distribution of layouts and field results. Given this, rhm's line, discovering where the DQ is early, seems best. We will, however, make 12 tricks in spades with my modified line when spades are 4-2 and LHO has the stiff diamond by making the last trump en passant.

My answer to "what is best?" is Frances agreement. I think "standard" is what gnasher posted. I'd double, but thats just because it's mps and: * I expect LHO to go back to hearts, and so I can hear if partner doubles 6H or not, discouraging * I expect RHO has at most one black card so splits will be awful * I a strong believer in taking the plus at matchpoints If the final contract is 6Hx I lead my ace.

I would assume everyone else is in 3NT. What was partner thinking? Anyway If everything works we can't beat the notrumpers, and the ouble spade hook is a poor chance and will lead to many down. I hope to get matchpoints from one of two scenarios * LHO had the DQ, spades are 2-4, and 3N is down while I make * LHO has 2713 when I can make 6, and NT makes 5. I would play a diamond to the J, and if it holds 3 rounds of trumps ending in dummy.

I agree it's close and exactly where it is might depend a little on the inferences you get from the table action and the play to date. One thing that argues for cashing out if it's close is that (assuming we know nothing about the state of the match) IMPs gained and lost have diminishing marginal utility. So (from the perspective of cashing out) our 85% chance of gain 3 vs 15% chance of lose 12 is worth more from the perspective of winning the match than the straight IMP equity of 0.75 IMPs. And even 0.75 IMPs in equity is quite significant, make this kind of play on every board and you gain 24 IMPs over the course of a KO match. I cash.

Justin, Was LHO your screenmate? If so, how could you have figured out at the time that a misunderstanding was on -- only from the failure to bid 6S on your right? That seems a little tough.

Best I ever had was 8solid, x, Ax, AK. Partner opened 1D playing K-S, which creates a little trap in the auction....