quiddity

I switched to a low diamond.

There was a hand in yesterday's SF pairs game with an interesting defensive theme that I hadn't seen before. Unfortunately the hand wasn't very good as instructional material (since some of the bidding was insane), but here is the theme: [hv=pc=n&w=sqj762hkt8dj652c8&n=skt43hq64dk98ckt2]266|200[/hv] You are West, defending a 3♥ contract. You lead the stiff club, dummy plays low. Partner wins the ♣A and returns a middle club. From the bidding you can place partner with exactly one more ace somewhere. How do you defend?

[hv=pc=n&s=sakj7ht754dt6caj9&n=s963h9dkj7543ck53&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=p1c1hp2hppdp2sppp]266|200[/hv] Matchpoints, regional pairs. LHO leads ♥A and continues ♥K. I ruffed and hooked the ♣J which lost. LHO returned a club; I won in hand and ruffed another heart, RHO playing the queen. At this point, how likely is it that LHO has the ♠Q? Is it reasonable to try to drop it offside? Also, do you agree with the earlier play?

The mortgage interest deduction is a tough nut to crack. I agree that it doesn't make much sense and probably should be eliminated somehow, but the effect on recent home-buyers would be disastrous.

That includes stemmed results. The vast majority of those results are returned because they include the word "retarded" (as in retarded bid or play). If you search specifically for retard (by enclosing the term in double quotes) you get 10 results. I should add: I don't really care about the title or whether it should/shouldn't be censored. It seems like a toss-up to me. I was mostly interested in Phil's search result figures because they are counter-intuitive.

Weird - I get 10 results from google site-search for retard. Is google including stemmed keywords (retards, retarded, etc) in your result set?

No, Phil, people are offended by your use of the term to disparage opponents behind their backs. Also, the search box in the upper right returns only 13 results for "retard". Is there a more comprehensive search function somewhere?

I know that sometimes this sort of a double asks for dummy's suit. Is there a good guideline as to when it should ask for dummy's suit, when it should ask for my suit, when it should ask for partner's suit (if he shows one), and when it should ask for the unbid suit? Or do you not have any conventional agreements about this kind of double - it just means "if you pick the right suit we can beat it" and you just take your best guess?

.. but then I look at my own spade holding?

I would tend to sign off if partner bids spades over 2C-2D; 3H or whatever. This might miss some slams when partner has the ace of spades but you're right: if he has spade concentration it will generally not be good for us. And yes, if he bids spades with your sample hands and we sign off he should leave us in game (of course).

I think this is impossible. More likely he intended it as a mixed raise.

Sure, most of the very good players think 3♦ should be a raise of some kind, but I bet most of the same very good players would avoid bidding 3♦ undiscussed in a first time partnership unless there is no other way to describe the hand. I think it's extremely unlikely he would bid this way with a spade raise when he has an easy, unambiguous 3♥ bid. I don't think he would assume any standard meaning for 3♦ - he would know that it might mean any number of things - so there's no reason to bid it unless he holds the hand with 6 good diamonds and no other bid and they have the agreement that all undiscussed bids are natural. If he has bid this way with a spade raise, undiscussed, then he made a mistake. If he did it with a diamond hand, and the agreement that all undiscussed bids are natural, then he made a great bid. Why would you play your VERY good partner to have made a mistake?

3♦ sounds natural to me. If I were sure, I guess I'd bid 4NT as a slam try. I'm too scared to do it with a first-time partner though, and it seems pushy anyway with J-high of diamonds and no ace of spades, so I'll try 5♦.

I think it's too strong for 1♥; I would try 2♣.

I see.. now I understand bidding on. I thought 3NT showed a balanced 15-17, 2335 or 2434 etc; any hand interested in a club slam would start by rebidding clubs.

I assumed 3NT showed extras (something like 15-17) and still passed. What is the argument for bidding? We have a guaranteed no-fit, a maximum of 32 hcp, a terrible long suit, and a partner who will probably upgrade for his "fitting" spade honor.

pass

South knows his side has an 8+ card heart fit. He strongly suspects the opps have an 8-card spade fit (no support double). He has just a single secondary honor in the enemy suits. His side is not vulnerable. I was mildly joking about LOTT but it does seem routine to me to compete with the South hand.

I think South should compete to 3♥. LOTT?

Not to quibble with the main point (which I agree with) but I think this is clearly not a valid assumption since the invite carries some descriptive value. You will get to 0% of the light games where you don't have the values to invite (in this simplified model); jb will get to some of the light games where typically she would not accept but she does when the invite fits well with her hand.

If East has four diamonds you can execute a double squeeze by running trumps after the first diamond ruff. West guards clubs, East guards diamonds, and no one can guard spades. This also works if East has five diamonds along with the ♥9.

If declarer says something like "I'm not stating a line; I'm just showing my hand to speed up play" while facing his hand, I think it should be sufficient.

I guess I was looking at an old set of ACBL rules; the 2008 revised rules are clearer: Rule 48B, part 2: When declarer faces his cards at any time other than immediately after an opening lead out of turn, he may be deemed to have made a claim or concession of tricks (unless he demonstrably did not intend to claim)...

The OP says "face his cards while declining to state a line of play". I take this to mean that he specifically indicated that he was not claiming or conceding. This is different from facing his cards while saying nothing; I guess I can see a danger there that defenders might assume a claim was being made and might give away something about their hands as a result. As for what he was doing, maybe he was trying to speed up play. Maybe he felt sorry for torturing his opponents over a meaningless decision. Maybe his wrist was tired. Maybe he just enjoys letting his opponents play double-dummy. He cannot be penalized for exposing his cards, and as long as he makes it clear that he isn't claiming it doesn't seem to make a difference what he was doing.

On the other hand, Law 48 says that declarer cannot be penalized for exposing a card and that if he faces his cards he "may" be deemed as having made a claim or concession. The wording seems silly - if declarer can expose any card why can't he expose all of them? If he says "I am not claiming or conceding", how can he be deemed as having made a claim or concession?