quiddity

I think the blame goes to the partnership for not being on the same page about what the diamond signal means in this case. Is it "showing" (no diamond honor) or "telling" (stop leading clubs!)? It depends a bit on the trump spots, but I don't see why West cannot have something like Txxx Axx Kxxxx x, in which case South might have 10 tricks if trumps are not led. I would not have guessed that south held KQ9xx of trump.

well.. ok. Maybe it's a mis-evaluation but I don't see this hand as being great for 5 or 6 diamonds. Partner is likely to have waste in hearts, we're likely to have waste in the black suits, and our trumps suck. Also, I don't think partner's hand is really normal. He has 3 card support (to the K!) for our 6-card minor, and just Kxx in hearts. He would almost certainly bid 3C over 2N, we would bid 3D and we might still reach our minor suit contract. Meanwhile it doesn't seem likely that we can get him to bid NT when it's right, given our spade holding.

A random 18-19 with bad diamonds?

Assuming 2H was game-forcing (and since it was a reverse I think it should be), I would bid 2N with the west hand. Spades are well-stopped; why highlight a bad 3-card diamond holding? And yet the bid would probably wrong-side 3NT since the stoppers are not positional - is this a big enough reason to prefer 3D?

I always thought LSGT bids asked for a combination of quantity/location. If I have a maximum raise I'll tend to bid game (or at least counter-try) unless my holding in that suit is truly wretched. And if I have a piece of garbage I'll reject, even though I might have a decent holding in that suit. The hands in the middle of the range are the ones for which the decision is based mainly on the holding in the trial suit. Yes, partner could have some of the hands you mentioned where game has a decent shot but why shouldn't he have one of the vast majority of invitational hands where game is hopeless? He is catering for a possible 8-count!

Yes, surely 1453 is a very likely shape for RHO. I would guess he is either 1453, 2452, or possibly 1444. In any case I think I would start with two top clubs and a club ruff.

Double shows the majors, doesn't it?

Perhaps, but in Kelsey's case it sounds like he's mostly worried about lead direction. He argues that if opener has a good hand he can introduce the major at his second turn, and if he doesn't there's a good chance the opponents will buy the hand and he doesn't want to direct a spade lead. (This is from his "Match Point Bridge" book).

In several books by Kelsey and Reese I have come across the advice that responder should not respond in a weak 4-card major with a weak hand. Kelsey even calls it a "golden rule" of bidding at pairs. With a hand like J9xx Qx Kxx Qxxx, if partner opens 1m, it seems they both prefer to bid 1NT or raise the minor if possible rather than bid 1S. I found this surprising, since I thought responding 1S was close to automatic. Is this advice outdated or is it still considered sound?

Overcaller's hand was AKx Qx AQ8xx Axx. Possibly X followed by 3D would have been better than X followed by cuebid. Anyway, I didn't like my hand much so I made the one bid that pretty much everyone agrees is wrong: 3S. We got to spades making 4 instead of diamonds making 6.

I don't completely agree with this; a queen is not the same as a jack in the eyes of a defender who is trying to find a passive lead (as we might expect from West, holding a possible heart stopper). Your holdings in spades and diamonds are also significantly different in terms of number of cards and quality of intermediates. But I do think it reduces the chance that West has nothing in spades.

Responding 1S shows 0-7 support pts for us. Partner's raise would be invitational in that context so she would tend to pass with many hands that might make game opposite this one.

What is the cuebid? Good hand for spades? Heart control? Pick a minor? Edit: I mean a further cuebid of 4H.

I would be tempted to cuebid 4H with the North hand after either opening. Well, maybe not after 2C. I guess a double is negative in that case?

[hv=d=w&v=e&s=sqxxxhxdk9xxcqjtx]133|100|Scoring: MP 1♥ X P 2♠ P 3♥ P ?[/hv]

My grasp on jump shift auctions is shaky. After a sequence like 1H-1N(forc) 3D I guess the preference to 3H is the default and 3N is to play, so: What do I need (trumps/strength) to raise the minor? What is 3S? What is 4C? What is a jump to 4H? If I give preference to 3H and partner bids 3S, what is that?

I thought it was standard practice to pretend to have the queen when you have reason to suspect a 9+ card fit and partner doesn't know about it. Is there something specific about this hand that makes it wrong to do so?

I would have thought that both doubles (in both auctions) are penalty.

The title says jump (over 1NT), and the post says rebid, therefore it must be a jump rebid. I vote for 1m-1H; 1N-? At least in that case the average hand is pretty close to being worth a jump to 3m...

So they lead second from 3 or 4 small? I don't think it matters much. The best alternative (I think?) is to try to endplay someone with the king of diamonds and fewer than 3 spades. The chance of someone having 2 or fewer spades is 100 - P(3-3 spades) = 64%. The king of diamonds is slightly more likely to be with the short spade holder and there's also the chance of dropping QJ doubleton of spades. Can we estimate 38% for that line? 40%? The spade double finesse alone is around 25%, so we need: x = chance of west holding the diamond king x + .25(1-x) > .4 x > .2 We need just a 20% chance of LHO holding the diamond king to make the diamond finesse plus spade double finesse the best line. Every time I try a probability calculation I do something ridiculous. What did I mess up this time?

Let's assume standard leads, and assume that West is not averse to leading from kings against suit slams. The lead could be from KJ7, KT7, K87, KJ87, KT87, or 8 possible 5-card holdings with the K. Or it could be from J87, T87, or a doubleton. It looks like the best chance by far is to run the lead around to the Q. We even have the double-finesse in spades to fall back on.

Max for the call?! Anyway, I'd probably bid 3S too.

I thought this was a choice between the "safe" play (discard heart on club and play off the AQ of diamonds) and the try for an overtrick (ruff heart to hand, diamond hook, DA). The second line is pretty safe if West is certain to have the king of diamonds - if it doesn't drop you can usually cross-ruff 12 tricks - but it's not risk-free. The choice will depend on our estimation of the field's chance of reaching slam and our read on West. My gut reaction was to play safe (distributional slam after the opponents open the bidding?) but maybe this is too conservative. West won't open at most tables so perhaps we need to try to punish him here. Anyway, I don't think this is a trivial problem - I'd rate it 3.0.

Yes, one option is to exit a club after cashing the king of spades. That means playing East as 3514 with the spade queen and club king, which would make West 4324 with the club jack. West's opening lead is unusual if that were the case. How many people lead from jack-fourth against 6NT on this auction? Another possibility is that West started with 5323 and the spade queen, and made a passive lead from 865 of clubs - and perhaps East has Tx of spades and made a great play by not pitching them. Edit: It is difficult to rate the level of play on this one. Getting it right consistently would require having a good read on the opponents, drawing the right inferences from their tempo on opening lead and on their discards, using the information to construct possible hands at trick 10. The endplay technique is the easy part.

Repost with rotated deal and current position: [hv=d=s&v=e&n=saj93h5dk87643cq9&s=sk7hak92daqj9ca74]133|200|Scoring: MP Opening lead ♣5[/hv] [hv=d=s&v=e&n=saj93h5dk87643cq9&s=sk7hak92daqj9ca74]133|200|Scoring: MP Opening lead ♣5[/hv]