mtvesuvius

I like 3♣ barring any special agreements.

Yes, I think the Jack is the right play. I don't really see any reason to complicate this situation. Also, Lurpoa is back with meaningless upvotes this time! Exciting!

But if you had the ♣9 it would be perfect :)

Definitely pass. Even being W/W at MPs isn't enough to double back in IMO.

This is a rough hand -- When I first looked at it, I thought it was an obvious pass. I thought about it a bit more, and think Pass is still right, but it is much closer. Partner shouldn't be trapping very often at this Vulnerability, and I'm willing to pay off to when partner has the right balanced hand that couldn't act. As a side note, I think I'd have opened 2♥, the 6-4 hands are painful to pass.

You can use the BBO handviewer, and embed the Handviewer into your blog... Here is the document on how to do so, as well as edit other things on Handviewer: http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/hvdoc.html

1♦. It's not like the clubs are significantly better, and although it will distort the suit lengths when I bid 4N later, I think it's still the longterm right bid.

Lol.

3S seems like it would be a fairly big overbid, and push the opponents to something they wouldn't bid otherwise. I see no reason to encourage this since it seems like anything they do will work out reasonably well. On the second one, I think Passing and 3N are both barking mad. Double and 2C both seem reasonable, but I think Double is better.

5S for me as well... Partner is a passed hand, so his hearts cannot be *that* good. I think whatever partner does now, we will be relatively well placed to decide the final contract... Hint: It won't be 7H.

Playing fairly standard methods: P-1♠ 1N-3♥ 4♦-4N (Cuebid for Hearts, we cannot play in a minor here IMO. If we had spade support we'd be 3♠ or 4♠/AKxxx is gold opposite the presumed doubleton/stiff) 5♥-6♥ (2 without the ♥Q/Fine, let's play here.) This might be resulting a bit though -- It's not completely clear to cuebid 4♦ here, although the other options aren't much better. My auction if West opened (Which I would whenever playing a 14-16 NT etc...): 1♣-(1♦)-1♠ 1N - 2♦ (11-13/Art. GF) 3♣ - 3♥ (2-3-3-5 (With 4♥/3♠, would bid 2M/2OM, with 4♦ and 4♣ we would open 1♦, so this is exact shape here)/Natural and Setting trump) 3N - 4♣ (Non-Serious/Serious Cue) 4♦ - 4N (Cue/Once again AKxxx is gold) 5♥ - 6♥

Pass for me as well. If I had a third diamond, I would seriously consider 3N.

2♥. Doubling on this hand is out of the question, and I think pass is too much of a position to take.

2♣ for me as well. It seems like all our normal response hands are shifted down a point. With a balanced 7, we could still choose to pass, similar to often passing balanced 8s facing a 15-17 NT.

I hate when I'm misquoted :( Notice my careful use of the word "implies".

When I describe any of my 2N as a raise type bids, I don't ever use a conventional name like Jacoby etc... If it is a GF raise and implies 4 card support, I say so. If it is INV+ and implies 4 card support, I say so. If it could have three trump, I say so. There are so many variations and twists on the standard "Jacoby", and my personal homegrown version is another weird twist on it -- I wouldn't want to give that I name too. If I had to, I'd call it Jabberwocky.

My partner must have been bidding 4♦ for a lead director, and now completing that picture with the redouble. Since we have a 4 card major that we forgot to mention, I think it's quite obvious that we should pull partner's redoubled 4 level contract that we have 5 card support for... To our 4 small spades. Majors are better than minors, right?

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4♠ for sure. If partner can't count on us to bid game with this hand, when can he?

I don't think so -- I'm fairly sure I would have recognized you, although I guess it's possible :)

Even I overcall this one :)

I feel old :ph34r:

Forgot to mention that I guessed right for the first time in two and a half years -- I played the ♣A dropping the King. The hand was a push of course, but a moral victory for my guessing skills.

I like Han's auction a lot, and in any of my 15-17 NT partnerships it would hopefully be duplicated. However this hand came up while I was playing an aggressive 2/1 and 14-16NT... So I opened the South hand with 1♣. Partner bid 1♥, RHO bid 2♦, I made a Support double and partner was off to the races. We got to 7♥ without too much trouble, but I figured it was an interesting problem nonetheless.

Once again I was South, and I thought this was an interesting problem... I don't think it's clear what to bid over 1♠, but I decided to go with 3♣. Over 3♣, I don't see why North would rebid 3♦ and not 3♠, and I think people bidding 3♦ are resulting quite a bit. Anyway, partner bid 3♠, and I felt compelled to do more than 4♠, but figured anything would still be patterning out looking for the best game. I settled for a 4♠ call, partner keycarded, I showed 3, he asked for kings, I showed the ♣K, and he bid a slow 6♠, effectively barring me from reconsidering my decision and blaming myself for not bidding differently :) So our full auction was: 1♥-1♠ 3♣-3♠ 4♠-4N 5♦-5N 6♣-6♠ AP On this auction, could I not have a hand like Kx AQxxx Qx AKxx, or some other hand with Kx♠? Partner was worried about bad trump splits, and being unable to ruff all his diamonds, or be able to pitch them. Obviously he should bid 6♥ as a last try, but still, I think it's tough to reach.