wank

i pass. partner didn't have many spades either but he couldn't bid. there's an entirely fair chance that we'll get killed at 5 level when 4s is off.

easy double

oops double post

it's a perfect hand for acol. you can bid a genuine club suit for the lead at a sensible level, i.e. 1. you have no reason to think opponents have a game. breathe deeply and calm down.

opening the north hand is perfectly normal. south needs to learn how to bid, for example by bidding his suits and looking for a fit.

[hv=pc=n&s=skqt2ha2dt43cq765&n=s65hdkqj952cakj32&d=w&v=n&b=12&a=1s2n4h5c5h6cdppp]266|200[/hv] -1100 when opps were one off in 5h. atb. i was asked my opinion on this hand and was told i was talking out of my arse. (why ask if you don't listen?) these players will be playing the open europeans in 2 weeks. Q) What was the arrangement for the 2N ? split range ? A) Anything from kqxxx aqxxx with nothing outside upwards. i was east at this table btw. amusing situation around this match. this was a 64 board final after a qualifying league and we had a +22 imp carryover. we sold our 22 imps back to the opps on condition they agreed to play winner-takes-all for the prize money (it was almost as good for 2nd as for winning). first set we lost 4. second set we lost 21. third set we lost 10. it wasn't looking like a terribly good investment. in the fourth set we picked up 36 to win by an imp. prizes were 1600 for first and 1200 for second (dodgy local currency so don't be impressed). someone who's good at maths can tell me what our imps/board expectation would need to be to make this an attractive deal. i suppose it's hard to estimate the standard deviation though.

to explain why mikeh is suggesting 2 way stayman over 1NT.... In England almost everyone at the lower end of the ability scale plays a weak NT and as such have no idea what continuations they should play so just default to normal stayman and transfers. In places like America, only a few people at the top end play a weak NT and do so for specific purposes and have put effort into thinking what systemic follow ups to play. As slam is quite rare opposite a weak NT and the opponents will often have a game on, the American approach is to try and make the responses more pre-emptive. For example, 2♥/♠ are weak which means 4th hand only has 1 opportunity to bid, unlike over a transfer where it can pass and protect once 2M is passed out. You can play 3m similarly. To resolve the stronger hands the common approach is to play 2C as stayman with a limited hand and 2D as an artificial GF, so it's akin to 2-way checkback over a 1NT rebid.

of course your partner is clueless

4h is incredibly bad. noone outside croatia would ever think of it. we have the phrase 'a croatian flat board', where we collect a penalty from some absurd pre-empt and go back to teammates who perpetrated the same absurdity. in fact you might notice a recurring theme, 3 of your 7 posts upto now have been asking if you should pre-empt on totally unsuitable hands. and for the first time ever the hog has been caught overbidding. this is a basic 1h, 2h hand. if partner can't invite over that, you're not missing anything good.

the auction has gone 1d (1s) 1h. obviously no reason not to play 4c as a splinter. if you have the meta agreement that you can only splinter in opps' suit after an overcall, i suggest you change that to mean only the player bidding directively after interference.

no it shows the importance of finding the right people to be polled

1d - (1s) - x - 4c - 4nt - blah - blah - blah - grand. west can essentially count 13 tricks opposite akq of trumps ace of spaces (and finesse through bidder), king of diamonds and a club singleton. yes ok there might be handling problems but partner is allowed to turn up with something extra.

i expect we would have been told if partner had never played bridge before.

it shows partner should have his star rescinded.

i would expect partner to have at least 18 which makes this a suspicious deck. which suit did lho open? my guess would be lho has a fairly solid suit somewhere. if he opened a heart it all makes sense so i would pull the double. most likely pulling it to 2 of lho's suit - we can have a game on here. -380 instead of +650 would be sub-optimal imo. ah i see in the sub-title lho opened a club. well i pass then. i have those stopped. maybe partner has the solid suit. if lho has opened 1c on 7 solid diamonds, well done him.

you've evidently never played 5cM. it's entirely normal to bid a spade first and entirely normal for this auction to show a weak hand with long diamonds.

there is a red card available in his box to express potential for game.

it's just natural and weak. 5+ diamonds. you can safely do it on 5 as you're only at the 2 level.

i can see the argument for the queen - dummy was likely to be stacked in the minors so a lead from a tenace would be unattractive but a low lead from akxxx becomes more attractive vis a vis leading a high one. whether that's enough to overturn the 2:1 a priori odds, who knows? edit: i responded too fast. i didn't bother looking at the rest of the hand. the prospect of losing t1 and opps cashing the diamond suit is surely large enough to overturn the odds in the club suit irrespective of other factors. low would be more temping if lho was a passed hand then he won't have ak a

partner has a pile of crap - 4432 aceless 13 count and you can still make 4 hearts. i felt many of the players holding this hand failed to appreciate its offensive potential even if there are 4 hearts on the right, which as some have pointed out, might turn out not to be the case.

if i ever play against pran i'll be hoping i never have to ask for an explanation - i would be bored to tears once he'd finished.

what helene said

double and pull spades to nt or clubs depending how many he bids. hopefully though partner will float the double.

we bid spades when we hold spades

[hv=pc=n&s=saq6hjt63dcj96542&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1c(2+)p1dd1h(doesn%27t%20promise%20clubs)]133|200[/hv] imps for those who don't bother to look at the yellow bits in the diagram, 1♣ was 2+ and the 1♥ rebid could still be 2 clubs. x by you would be 4 hearts. Any number of clubs would be natural. 2♦ would be forcing looking for strain. 2♥ would be 5.