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the bloke might have written more books than me, but this is bollocks. 1nt with an 11 count is gamebonusphobia.

double. you have to double with hands like this playing weak NT otherwise you miss a simple 3NT. accordingly all negative doubles are more geared towards protecting opener's strong NT than finding a fit in the other major. by the way, for those worried about end-playing partner when he's got no diamond stop, he has the option of passing freely as it's matchpoints.

as others said, the standard meaning for double is 44 in the majors. you should address that before you consider this sequence.

i would never bid 1M with this shape - partner is quite likely to be pretty strong after rho's pass and is prone to bidding vulnerable games aggressively . though he knows you might occasionally have a 3 card suit, there's not much he can do about it - bidding 2D - 2/3NT doesn't suddenly show your heart suit was faked. i'd bid 2c rather than 1M if i needed to. as it is, i have something roughly resembling a 1NT bid, so i'll do that. my minor honours are decent enough if LHO is on lead, which hopefully, is what we can force him to be several times during the play.

i'd bid 5h. i expect 5c to make and 5h to be cheap. yes 6c might make but they're pretty unlikely to bid it.

4h is horrid. you have 20 high and a fairly balanced hand so why are you scared of what the opps might make? you want to start with double to allow investigation. any idiot can imagine 3nt being cold with 4h having 4 losers off the top.

no more than the possibility that 2C would be seen as showing 7 diamonds. this really isn't advanced bidding at all. everyone plays 2h as 5+ and knows that 2C might contain a heart suit. prepare to be shocked, but with a 3433 shape, the correct response would still be 2C on a 3 card suit, because it's better to give a false impression about minors than majors. i don't want to be harsh, and you may be a decent card player, but playing in your club has given you a warped perspective of your knowledge about the game. if you played in an EBU tournament or even a decent sized county event, you would find yourself getting carted out.

i'd double. it might be screwing us but that's life

what he said. yes you have a maximum, but your hand is very defensive. just defend and hope those extra values are sufficient to get 2D off. if partner has a hand too weak to act over 1h but shape suitable, which is what you're hoping for when you double, he can act himself in the passout seat. you only need to act with extra values and a shape unsuitable hand when you're so strong you might make game opposite a hand from partner that's too weak to act himself. that seems rather unlikely when partner couldn't bid 1S/1NT or whatever over 1H.

i hate clueless players who type 'faster pls' and so on. bridge is supposed to be a thoughtful game. this 30 second tournament rule encourages these idiots and dumbs down the game. imo the objectives could be achieved better by giving a player a time allowance for the hand which he can dip into by clicking a button as in online poker. perhaps have a warning flash up every minute (or 30s as now if you want to be harsh) that the player can click to continue drawing down his time bank while he's thinking.

i understand the op might want to pre-empt himself from having to exercise any discipline later in the hand, which is evidently not his forte, and making a bad call on the first round might accomplish that on occasion, but i suspect that with this hand type it would just result in his backing in with 2M on the 2nd round.

your first double was poor. your 2nd double was lunacy.

i'll take my chances on defence. i've got more than 2 tricks on average imo.

if i play club bridge i consider this to be well within acceptable levels of cheating.

you're right that rebidding weak 5 card suits is unappetising, but it's not so bad as it appears. partner can't have 4 spades unless he's got enough to force to game. if partner has 6 clubs he'll probably rebid 3c. the only shape partner might have where you're in trouble is 3145, but you hope he'll bid 2nt over 2h. if partner has a minimum with this shape, he should have bid 1nt rather than 2c. by the way, it sounds like you play minimum level rebids in NT as 15-16. that's pretty bad as it means you need to jump with 17. better to play the rebid as 15-17 and jumps as 18-19. when you get to a more advanced level, opposite a 2/1 you can start playing 2NT as all balanced hands 15+ (any 15+ opposite the 9+ required for a 2/1 equals game so you can conserve place).

double isn't penalties lol it's very obvious to bid. my defence is negative [length opposite partner's high cards] and that length and club holding is enormous for partner. i expect 6c to be on a finesse at worst.

why are you guessing? you did see it was the opps who have been bidding hearts, yes?

bidding would be beyond absurd. you can only pull here if you opened a sub-minimal hand because of extra-shape, or if you've got a strong hand with extra shape that you need to jump with immediately to describe. key phrase: 'extra-shape'. key fact about your hand: 'balanced mush'

your partner's 4 spade bid is pretty bad. he only has 4 spades. one would think he might find some room between 2d and 4s to explore some other contracts, but it's unrealistic to except him to stop out of game (the Q of D is in no way 'wasted')

4nt shows a good hand. good enough for south to know slam might be on, but no, not good enough for him to do anything about it. that's life. insert pre-empt related cliche here. and lol at those saying south shouldn't double.

am i a client playing with a pro? that's the only reason not to open 1nt.

pass. if slam's making, it was more likely partner's job to show more enthusiasm over 3hx. in 33 hcp 6nt terms (6c will often be easier on less, e.g 18, a kq a kq, but we aren't introducing jxxxx) partner needs to hold 5 points above minimum. we only hold 4 points above our minimum.

if you don't double, you shouldn't have bid 4♥. yes, by following this course you've made everyone guess, but with the odds stacked in your favour. i think east's action is more interesting. with less than 1 defensive trick for his opening bid opposite a pre-empt, he might well pull. double just indicates ownership of the hand rather than a spade stack.

at least we can all agree with the 1NT opener.

i presume 5s is impossible in their methods with 2 keycards (QH is known to be unnecessary). Still, over 5H, you wouldn't be in a very good position.