wank

Clear 3n imo

1) opening 1♣ is fine. it has advantages (you can easily find your diamond fit if you open 1C, but finding your club fit might prove tricky if you open 1d). this type of auction is the only disadvantage. if this occurs at a lower level, bid NTs and wait for partner to check you have a stop. 2) now you just pass. 3h should go down on power. it didn't obviously. of course we're curious to know if partner had his bid.

Another great advertisement for british bridge

Spades and a minor. You expose a psyche by penalty doubling and bidding hearts when they run.

it requires lho to have opened a systemic 2 card club and rho to have raised to a presumbly systemic 2c on his 5 card support. as for how to cater for partner's various hand types, that's the tricky part, hence my desire to keep the bidding as low as possible.

anyone who doesn't x 1c with akxx kjxx xx kxx should find a different game imo

when partner turns up with a 4423 shape are we all going to cry about his having too few diamonds to make a takeout double?

much too strong for 3D. i double because it saves space compared to 3C. cross posted with wesc. agree with him

it's poor because responder can't pre-empt in diamonds.

yes i dislike the opening. double as a passed hand must have 4♠ so east should have bid 3♦ over 2♠.

1nt is foul. this is a terrible hand for playing in no trumps. there's the obvious paucity of diamond cards, but the stiff akqj blocks the clubs even if partner has a fit and coupled with the singleton diamond it means partner's hand is probably dead unless he has something in spades, in which case we might as well bid them. even if partner has the diamonds stacked, we'll need to build at least 1 trick in spades just to make 1NT. xxxx xxx xxxxx x in partner's hand makes 1nt -1 with 4 spades only requiring a 2-2 trump break. opening and, it seems, overcalling 1NT off-shape has gone too far imo. we should be trying to bid our hands as naturally as possible. you should only be fibbing about your shape and bidding no-trumps to dodge a problem you forsee arising: opening 1NT with 24(52) because you don't have enough to reverse, opening 1NT with 6 card minor because your hand's too good to rebid 2m and too bad to rebid 3m and so on. here we don't have a problem. if partner raises spades, it's very likely because we want to play in er...spades. it's much easier to get from spades to no-trumps or indeed clubs than it is to get from no-trumps to a 5-3 spade fit and almost any club fit.

no. my hand's pony and the stiff king is very much a defensive card.

er....1nt would be a major crime on the west cards. anyway west should raise to game - even if partner just has 8, these hands play very easily when you know where all the cards are.

nevermind

blackwood if i thought partner was likely to take it that way. 6c if not.

i'm inviting at the 2 level. there is space between that and game to differentiate on marginal hands. i fail to see where this is in trouble compared to your method where you have a tighter range but you're inviting at the 3 level. i play IJS so it's irrelevant to me, but i still prefer this method to your's.

standard among weak jump shift players in my country is 1d-2s weak, 1d-1s-2c-2s invitational and 1d-1s-2c-3s GF with a good suit.

this is very awkward in standard methods: there are at least 5 hand types you want to be able to show: game in hearts, slammy in hearts, slammy in clubs, slammy in diamonds, slammy no fit, but there are only 4 obvious bids available. 4c = clubs 4d = diamonds 4H = natural, to play 4nt = natural no fit extras, probably 5323 or 6 dodgy spades. i suspect many people would ignore this handtype, probably out of ignorance, and play 4nt as rkcb for hearts though. it occurs to me, very anti-intutitively, that depending on the rest of your agreements, you might not need a natural 3S call and that this could be the heart raise. the idea being that you wouldn't be trying a dodgy 6 card suit here, opposite known shortage, and a good 6 card spade suit would have already made a forcing spade bid - i don't know your response structure but fairly normal where i'm from is a 2s response is 3-7(8-)ish 6 cards, 1s>2s = 8+-11 6 cards, 1s>3s = GF good suit 6 cards.

that part appeals, but when partner runs you're in trouble at amber.

south is on crack: of his 4 calls, only his original pass is not absurd. 5c by north is pretty poor - he shouldn't be catering to south having hands like this for a gentle raise to 3s in comp. east and west are also pretty clueless. doubling in these auctions never shows extras btw. the only time you can play it like that is when you pre-empt and the same hand doubles which should show extra offence.

there's a reason this shape isn't covered by multi landy. if you want to act, double, which would be aggressive but sensible. pass is middle-of-the-road.

Something like ajxx a akxxxx xx with lho, xxxx jxx xx xxxx with p, kqxx xxxxx xx xx with rho is an easy game (5s actually) for the opps (despite my only giving them an 8 card fit and perforce a 4-1 trimp split) where they've bid entirely normally. With our opening we promised more values than lho did with his overcall. Our partner was perforce in a better place to act but didn't with 1 of either major available. His average strength is a lot lower than rho's - with our diamond holding we know partner doesn't have a penalty pass .

Bill defending one of a minor at mps is great if it's the opps' hand. 1 of a minor doesn't score much. You need to decide whose hand it is rather than relying on blind rules like that.

No i don't. It's very likely the opps' hand in spades, very possibly in game.

yes your partner should have bid 4d instead of signing off in 4h. your bidding was fine.