mtvesuvius

The W/R opponents overcalled 1N, partner has spade shortness and reasonable diamonds which rate to be a source of tricks. I have a double spade stopper, 3 card support and some positional values, I'm definitely bidding 3N. I think most hands are "close" to pass here, but this just has too many reasons to bid.

I'd bid 2♠, interesting idea Free, but I think it will backfire too often to be worthwhile... And partner may raise if the opponents compete. RHO could still have a lot of hearts, and opener could still have 4, I don't see too much reason to believe partner has them. 2♠ seems fine, and even if we are ruffing in the long hand, it's not like our trumps were something to write home about.

I like a direct 2♥, although if you often raise on garbage I would live with making a limit raise, but it would be through 1N... I don't want to play in this spade suit. I don't want partner to look at his hand and over-evaluate because he has spade cards or under-evaluate because he has short spades. I don't want partner raising spades, etc etc. I wouldn't have bid 1♠ ever the first time. Now I guess I bid 2♥ as a mild invite (it cannot be a signoff).

Free said it very well, it depends what effects it would have on the remainder of the system. The 1♦ should be all the other hands that don't fit... This means the rest of the system should outweigh the losses that come from 1♦. Both are playable though, however the first one will lose a lot of minor fits. It would be best to remove BAL hands from 1♦, then 1N can be used to show both minors after 1♦-1M. Anyway, without knowing anything else I would always pick the 2nd one.

My meta-rule is that all jumps to 5N are Pick-A-Slam. Considering 4N would be RKC here, I think this is a 20(56) type Slam forcing hand.

This was in an ACBL Robot tournament so idk, but they have special powers

Somehow I think this is a water cooler thread... I don't see any references to bridge in the OP EDIT: To pirate22, yes yes I know I need glasses and all that. In 6 years when I'm old enough to drink, I'll buy myself a pair of shot glasses.

oh the suspense

Because we are R/W, bidding only gains when we are making or have a cheap save. We will always be doubled, so bidding only gains when we make or go -1. We don't have any reason to believe we are making anywhere near 9 tricks. This hand is still semi-balanced without any source of tricks. I'd need more shape and more offense to bid. As an additional point, we may even be beating 4♥, after all we do have one defensive trick to contribute. Despite having support for partner, the conditions are far too adverse to show it... This is definitely a pass.

Barry, my bot's spade stopper beat your bot's spade stopper :)

Exactly, trying to draw conclusions from MBC results is like trying to figure out how far the Earth is from the sun... By walking the distance.

Sorry, this tilted me a bit much, I just played this hand with a GIB, and can't take the absurdity of the 3N call lol D'oh!

The main reason why I dislike 1N is that we have 4♠, and this looks to be a partscore battle at best. We'll lose spades sometimes by bidding 1N and being R/R at MPs doesn't help either.

lol yes, shot glasses please!

I strongly dislike 3♣ for a number of reasons. The most concerning is when LHO makes a call of some number of hearts. Now partner does not know we have support, and cannot evaluate his hand properly... That means we're going to have to make a very difficult guess later. The next is that you won't be able to get much useful information from partner, and the later 4♠ bid will pre-empt any further slam investigation. 3♥ describes the hand very well, and is the correct bid IMO. 3♣ is forcing here, if you have a weaker hand with clubs, you have to pass and wait for partner to reopen. Sometimes you'll miss partscores, but overall playing 3♣ as forcing makes life MUCH easier when it's important. As you said in your original post, 4♠ shows a hand that would accept an Invite. If partner had a hand that would have slam opposite a hand better than an invite, they have a lot of bids between 3♥ and 4♠ to show that. Therefore, partner is limited. I don't want to define limited by HCP, since that isn't accurate. Partner is limited in that they thought that opposite most normal (12)13-15 raises, they don't want to be in slam... But opposite a 10-11(12) raise they want to be in game. If you think about your relative strength compared to what you have shown, and bids available to partner before making a move over a signoff by partner, it will improve your slam bidding a lot. Here you have shown a decent 10 count or better with 3 card or better support... Your hand isn't too much more than that. Yes, it's got quick tricks, but the small doubleton heart, only three trumps, and lack of club interiors makes this hand not worth more than a minimum GF raise, which will be happy to pass partner's 4♠ call.

That's why I bid 2♠... :)

RKC. It would be a general slam try if partner opened 3♥ and RHO bid 4♠.

Double, 1N here isn't too safe and won't work out very often. Pass is making life much harder later. Double is the perfect in-between... Yes, I'd like to have another club, but I'll just tell partner I had a diamond in with my clubs.

Sent mine as well -- Might need to revise the last two though. Thanks for doing this, should be fun.

[hv=pc=n&s=skq6h986d9872ckq8&n=s9ha754da6cj97432&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=pp2sppdppp]266|200|Fairly simple auction, this made two overtricks when Dummy had AT8 of spades, and North ducked the HA. ATB for this -1070. Scoring was MPs.[/hv]

At times? :lol:

Sorry no, not even me

Yep, Double.

Not enough to jump shift, a 2♦ call is fine. Over partner's 2♥ you can bid 3♣ to show extras and finish showing your hand.

2♠, don't see an alternative here, Double grossly misdescribes the hand and pass is a huge underbid.