JavaBean

I'm with Adam - 5♣ seems like it can't be better than 75% to make, even accounting for the possibility North has ♠KQ.

MBodell and I have been playing regularly for ~3 years, I think.

At the table, partner was pushing a bit, with ♠JT543 ♥- ♦AKJ5 ♣KQ53. 6♣ is clearly the best slam, and can be made on the layout, but no slam is terribly good. Any final thoughts on the auction?

What tricks does declarer have? Two diamonds, for sure. At least seven hearts, I suspect. He must have the ace of clubs or he is toast no matter what I do. That's ten, and if he has ♦Kxx, he's up to twelve already. So instead give him, say, x AKJxxxx xx AKx. Now he has eleven tricks, and we are club-spade squeezable unless we break it up somehow; and with two entries in each minor suit I don't think it's possible. But adjust his hand to x AKJxxxx x AKxx, far-fetched though it seems, and we can break up the squeeze by playing diamonds to destroy his late entry to dummy. However, if we overtake to shift to a diamond, we are just setting up his ruffing finesse in spades! Instead we need to leave partner on lead and hope he can work it out, perhaps playing the nine of spades trick one to suggest diamonds. Anyway, there seem to be a lot of variations, and I'm sure some of then require us to overtake and switch to something, but it seems to me like we're just setting up an extra trick in spades for him most of the time, and that may be number twelve.

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=sthqjt965dtcat962]133|100|Scoring: MP 2♠ - pass 3♠ - Dbl - pass - ??[/hv] As South, you hold the above hand in second seat. Dealer opens 2♠, weak, and you pass (even if you wanted to use it, you don't have Leaping Michaels available here). This is raised to 3♠, and partner doubles it back to you. What's your call now?

You deal, all white at a BBO IMP-pairs table, and open 1NT (weak, but I doubt it matters). Partner transfers to spades, and your RHO jumps to 4♥. Partner balances with 5NT: what does it mean? On the actual hand, you held ♠A8 ♥KJ72 ♦Q76 ♣AT92. If you're interested in secondary questions, (a) would you have doubled 4♥; (b) what do you call now?

The question is a little vague: are you asking why you might choose to avoid an 8-card major fit? At IMPs, Frances's example is a perfect one: there are 9 certain tricks, 4 top losers, and nothing useful to ruff, so a notrump contract will surely be better. More generally, at IMPs it is better to bid the safer game, and at matchpoints the higher-scoring one. A lot of players read this as: at matchpoints avoid 5m, and consider avoiding 4M when 3NT might take as many tricks. But often the reverse is true: avoid 3N if 4M might take more tricks. For example: (sorry, can't make the diagram buttons work) KJ98 JTxxx x KQx AQT 9xx AKxx Axx 3NT is laydown, but you'll make only nine tricks on a minor-suit lead. In 4♠, you have several chances to make ten tricks. None of those chances are guaranteed, though, and if the opponents manage to defend well on an unfavorable layout you will go down. The odds are a bit too complicated for me to analyze, but it certainly looks better than 50%, so I'd want to be in 4♠ at pairs. At IMPs, however, 3NT is certainly best.

Love doesn't call this a vulnerable-stopper squeeze (though it does require a vulnerable stopper): he called it a surplus-winner squeeze, saving the term vulnerable-stopper for the sorts of hands that only work when you have just two losers. But I find that a helpful way to understand why this sort of squeeze works is to consider how each of the cards in East's hand contributes to the throwin/squeeze position: ♠A: Throw-in winner ♠8: Idle card ♠4: Exit card ♥Q64: heart guard (which is vulnerable, hence the need for ♠4 exit card) ♦2: Idle card ♣964: Love calls these "surplus winners". From East's point of view these are winners necessary to defeat the contract; from South's they are extra winners beyond the ♠A which declarer is planning to use for the throw-in. So East has ten cards left in his hand, eight of which are busy. You have five diamond winners to run off, on which he must necessarily discard three of his busy cards. If he attempts to counter by ducking at trick one, he has saved room in his hand for two more cards...but now he needs to keep two more clubs, since he hasn't won any yet!

Actually I don't think you want to overtake. At that point the trumps in your hand will be ♥A86 (assuming the 9 forced your ten at t1). If you overtake and find East with an original ♥9754, you cross back to dummy with ♦A for a trump coup with spades to pick up the ♥7 (abandoning the clubs you worked so hard to set up!), but if he ruffs the third spade (making him 2434 and West 5152) you'll find yourself with a diamond loser left. If you don't overtake, then either trump are 3-2 and you can ruff a spade high to hand, draw trump, and use the long spade to pitch your diamond loser; OR you find East with the same four trumps. Now you play the same trump coup, but with ♦A still intact, you can get to the fourth spade winner if he ruffs the third one. Both lines fail to West holding four trumps, of course.

You already had a board entry with ♥10 if you wanted it - lead ♥Q, ♥J, forcing the holder of ♥K to win eventually. And as effervesce noted, the finesse is certain to lose. Why would any East, holding ♥K and a doubleton spade, and knowing you have no entry to dummy to finesse in hearts, lead away from the ♥K? I don't think she necessarily has three small; maybe the ♥A will catch air if hearts are 2-2. But since we know East can't have ♥K, might as well play West for it singleton rather than giving up. As it happens, this time the ♥K was singleton. Possibly a nice counterpoint to MBodell's 1NTX hand?

Amusingly, just this Wednesday night a similar hand came up (sorry it's ugly, I can't seem to make the hand formatter work). ♠T6 ♥T43 ♦8654 ♣KJ76 ♠K953 ♥AQJ952 ♦AK ♣8 North East South West pass pass 1♥ 1♠ pass pass 2♥ all pass You may not love the auction, but that's what it was. Trick one: ♣Q K A 8 Trick two: ♥6 ?

I play a weak NT with slvrrose. Our hands may or may not be interesting to you, since we also play a non-standard system over 1NT openings. You also don't specify how you'll find the hands which are affected by a weak NT. Let me suggest that you especially look for auctions like 1m-1M;2M. These are the biggest constructive gains of the weak NT; most everything else is either symmetric with the strong NT or preemptive (Speaking of preemptive, 1N-AP and 1N-(2x)-dbl) are great examples of that aspect).

I generally play the same thing I would with a 2/1 weak-notrump style: 1NT: Pass if you are balanced 2NT: Bid game if you are balanced 3NT: Some artificial meaning, because the natural 3NT is such a space hog That way I don't have to define ranges ahead of time, but both partners can easily derive them at the table. So if your balanced range is 13-15, then your 1NT response ought to be 6-10, and your 2NT response can be 11-13 or so. But, you say, this is exactly what I'm already playing. Yes, but if you define it my way, opener won't be tempted to invite game when he shouldn't, because 1NT specifically asks him to pass if he is balanced. And if he is unbalanced, then he can go to the bother of figuring out what responder's range is before deciding how aggressively to bid. You'll notice I don't have any "Bid game if you are balanced and maximum". I'm basically advocating a pass-or-blast strategy here: since your notrump range is anti-field, you want to be in 1 or 3, never 2. That is, the last thing you want to do is be in 2 when the field is in 1(15/7, 13/11) or 3(15/9). My strategy has you in 1NT with the field on the first hand, 3NT rather than 2NT on the second, and 1NT rather than 3NT with the third. It's not perfect, but at least when you miss the field contract there will be a reasonable chance yours is better, whereas ending in 2NT will very rarely win you matchpoints.

2♦, I guess. I'm not delighted, but I don't think it's the "whitest lie" either; in fact I don't think it's a lie at all. Rebidding my suit here shouldn't guarantee six, but more like deny anything else useful to do. Partner will not have made a negative double if he can't stand for me to rebid my suit cheaply. I don't hate 2♥ either - the 4-3 may play quite well, with reasonable hearts, and a mild ruffing value. Of course, partner may think the same thing with three hearts and short diamonds!

Thanks! I'm glad you find it as interesting as I did, and in fact I read your message just after reading the January BW suit combination, so I would be delighted to see my name attached to one of them. My name is Alan Malloy, living in Santa Clara, California.

[hv=d=s&v=e&n=st8643hadk982caqt&s=sak5hkqdaj5ck9543]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Unopposed, my partner and I bid these hands up to 6♠ South (seems reasonable, though 6NT may be better). I received a heart lead, and clearly the main issue is how to tackle trumps for one loser. There is some remote possibility of a minor-suit loser, but there are several ways to take care of that and I'm not terribly interested in them. At the table I ran the ♠10, imagining that the only 4-1 split I can pick up is West's ♠9. This was a riotous success when he in fact did have a singleton nine, but when I thought about it some more it struck me that running the ten is a terrible play, gaining against one 4-1, but losing against two (East's stiff honor). I concluded that the best line is to just cash the ace, succeeding on any 3-2, and also when East holds a singleton honor. But then I gave the hand to Suitplay, which has an improvement: run the eight, which retains the ability to pick up East's stiff honor, and as an added chance gets West's singleton seven. So now I am confident that is the best line for four tricks, and I clearly understand why. But when I give the whole hand to Jack (the bridge program I play against when no humans are available), his play surprises me. He starts by leading the 8 but then, when East follows with the 2, he rises with the ace and cashes the king. Since this is demonstrably a poor line in spades, and it should be very easy for a computer to derive the best line in isolation (the same way Suitplay does), I wonder if there is some facet of the whole deal that means spades should be tackled differently. Does anyone see it?

Winning ♦A certainly seems like the best start to me - if East has ♦K and West ♦10, this is the only way to get two stoppers, and if West has ♦K after all, I can still lead up to ♦Q if I feel that's right. After that I'm not sure what the best approach to the contract is. The "avoidance play" would be a club to the jack, putting West on lead and preserving club entries to both hands. However, if the club loses, West can get to East in diamonds for a spade through, so it may be better to try to generate tricks as soon as possible, safety be damned (and I'm not sure what the best line for that is either!). It seems like the alternative is to play for hearts 3-3 with at least one honor onside, and that's still only 8 tricks, after which I'll need to get the clubs right anyway. So I'll just try the club finesse as stated. I'll assume the worst case - West wins a club and returns a diamond. I'll play him for the ten; presumably East wins ♦K and puts a spade through. Now I have eight tricks (4♣, 2♦, ♥A, ♠A), and I can generate another in hearts if the honors are split, by ducking ♠A and keeping West off lead as I play hearts - the minors should provide entries to untangle all my tricks. West can defeat this line by winning the spade that I duck and returning a diamond, but I really don't see any line that works if the defense can figure this out, so the line above seems like my best shot.

It's true there is a guess, and I think it actually doesn't matter which you do - finesse (lead up to Q) loses when West was dealt Kx, and drop (duck the second round) loses when West was dealt Jx; in all other positions they are equal. Cashing the ace first is a safety play designed to make it more likely that one of them will have to play an honor before you do, like when you hold AQT98 opposite xxxx and need only four tricks: cash the ace, removing the small cards, and when you lead up to QT West will be forced to play an honor if he has one, removing any element of guessing for you. Here you can't remove all the spot cards, but removing two of them improves your odds.

The hand seems to cry for an elimination, and the contract is secure on that line if trumps are 2-2, or if I can convince the opponent with short trump to be on lead. I expect East, if anyone, has short spades, so I'd like him to win the third diamond if possible. To that end, I cash ♥A and lead to ♦10, hoping to remove one of West's honors for the later throw-in. I'll win the return in hand, ruff ♥J, draw a second trump (If opponents haven't done so already), and play ♦A and another. If they manage a trump exit, I am left to play clubs myself, and I suppose I will simply cash ♣A and lead to ♣Q - the intrafinesse is certainly more exciting, but I don't see any reason why it should be right on this deal. At matchpoints, I think it is right to attack clubs early to set up diamond discards (as I have been spared a diamond lead): the club suit will play for one loser more than half the time, and the elimination sacrifices a diamond trick (or two) more than half the time, in exchange for a fairly small improvement to my chances for making four. So, finish drawing trump, ♣A, low to ♣Q, and hope for the best.