mtvesuvius

I held the South hand, and opened 1♣... Our auction was a bit crude, but it did the trick: 1♣ - 5♥ 5♠ - 6♣ AP I still cannot come up with a worse possible hand to hold when partner bids exclusion :)

My partner faced this decision yesterday in the swiss -- He chose 6♥. Mel Colchamiro was adamant that 6♣ was the right call, and various others were split between 6♥ and 6♣. Personally I felt that 6♣ was best. As for what 5N should mean... I think that Double is card-showing at this level, not necessarily minors. If I have a grand slam try with spade support, I can bid 6♥, so I figured that 5N must be a giant minor-suited hand, which was in fact what I had: [hv=pc=n&n=shqdakq973ckt8542&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=2h2s5h5np6hp7dppp]133|200[/hv] When I saw dummy, I was not unhappy where we had landed, but unfortunately the pre-empter had the ♣J9x, so 7♦ was doomed for -1. As it turns out, I had already won the board for us, as the person with my hand at the other table chose to double 5♥ instead of bidding 5N. 5♥ doubled finished one down, so we lost 5 IMPs, instead of winning 14.

Pass for me.

Quite often the 3 card limit raise will play just as well in 1N. 1N is a very tough contract to defend, especially when you have no realistic way of knowing the NT bidder's hand type. The main disadvantage of a semi-forcing NT is when you have a decent distributional hand that you cannot bid immediately. I think playing 3/1 as INV and natural improves the semi-forcing NT a lot. It is very true that I will sometimes be in 1N when 4M is cold, but that doesn't happen too often, and I think the gains are significantly worthwhile.

[hv=pc=n&s=saq97542hdt85ca54&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=2h2s5h5np]133|200[/hv] IMPs, I am your partner. [insert joke about me being a clueless aggressive idiot here] What do you do over 5N?

The key is that we want to extract information about partner's hand. We are the captain of the auction, and partner doesn't need to know what we have. We simply need to manipulate the auction to find out the necessary information to make a decision. This is why I am not a fan of 2N -- We don't rate the get the right information, and will get too high before we can make an informed decision. 1♠ allows us to hopefully be able to find out some about partner's shape then hopefully set trump and cuebid... Worse comes to worse, we can launch into keycard at some point. LOL @ the idea of 2♠ as a SJS with 4 card support.

I like 1♠. My plan is to GF and hopefully get partner to cuebid the ♣K if he has it... Starting with 2N eats up too much room and won't gain anything.

All of these hands are actual hands I played yesterday. How would you bid them playing a reasonably standard 2/1, and if you'd like, how would you bid them in your favorite system? [hv=pc=n&s=sk52hak7dj75c8532&n=saq6hqjt93dcakqj6]133|200[/hv] Dealer: South Vul: Nobody East will overcall diamonds at the cheapest level possible, the opponents pass otherwise.

All of these hands are actual hands I played yesterday. How would you bid them playing a reasonably standard 2/1, and if you'd like, how would you bid them in your favorite system? [hv=pc=n&s=sk74haq954djcakj6&n=saq9652hj3dat53cq]133|200[/hv] Dealer: South Vul: N-S only Opponents Pass Throughout

All of these hands are actual hands I played yesterday. How would you bid them playing a reasonably standard 2/1, and if you'd like, how would you bid them in your favorite system? [hv=pc=n&s=sj432hakq9dq5c432&n=sakhdk73caqjt9875]133|200[/hv] Dealer: South Vul: Nobody Opponents Pass Throughout Bonus Question:

1♣ - 1♦ 1♥ - 1♠ 3♣ - 3♠ 3N - AP

Assuming the hesitation actually occurred and is agreed to, I definitely think I've been damaged, and would be amazed if I was ruled against here.

I'd bid 3♠, there seems like too much work to do in 4♠, not to mention we may be ruffing with very high trumps in dummy. Something as little as the ♠T may convince me to do otherwise.

Clear 3♥, even at MPs. I'm not going to try to get all the matchpoints in the auction here, and I don't think that 3♦ will be bloody enough when partner does reopen. When partner isn't able to reopen, which at least for anyone within the realm of sanity will happen reasonably often, we will be getting a very bad board. Even when partner is 4414, he may pass if he has stiff Q or J. When partner has a doubleton and a fairly minimum hand, they will almost certainly be passing. There isn't a guarantee that we are beating 3♦X enough anyway. I don't expect to make a slam too often with this hand, but I do expect that passing 3♦ is a long-term loser. PS. If you are doubling on any random 4324 12 count, you will lose matchpoints on probably around 85% of hands.

Thanks for the link Helene, I vaguely remembered reading something like that on here... Even though I joined in late '08, I probably was linked there a couple times... It's an interesting read, and something that I am definitely going to try out sometime -- Seems like a lot of fun. Something new for a midnight game... Combined with a version of Bridge Bingo, this would be a lot of fun to do. I've done this in a few regional pair events, and my favorite is when they ask what a bid means and you can answer: "Well, what you YOU think it is?" If the opponents didn't have a convention card filled out, we played relay precision to punish them. And best of all, you can look at what methods you're playing... In the middle of the auction!

[hv=pc=n&s=sa73ht5dq7ckt9632&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=pp1hp1s2c2sdp]133|200[/hv] IMPs -- Bracket 1 opponents. You're playing a Strong Club so your pass is a little less heavy than most. A few questions here, some easier than others... 1) How do you play this double? 2) Does the double say anything about partner's spade holding? If so, what? 3) What is your call here?

I think playing 3 card majors would be a blast, but I haven't worked out too many of the details.

LOL she downvoted this post.

As usual, I agree with 655321, even on some non-bridge matters! In any case, now that a few of the Lurpoa votes have been neutralized, I hit 100 rep!

Sorry, misread your post. In that case, I wholeheartedly agree :)

LOL, so far Pass and 4♠, both of which seem quite bad imo. I like a nice quiet 1♠.

I'm glad you have funny friends :)

We're R/W, partner made a strong call, and North is clearly pre-empting. I don't see how they can't be on. I probably would double at the table, but now that Justin has pointed it out I like pass.

Lurpoa is back with a vengeance! I don't really see why a spade would be better than an heart either, and I find it hard to blame partner for doubling here... I mean, this is not a common layout, but you're gin for 5♥, and defending 3N undoubled really seems like it's asking for a bad board. I think this double is often a trap pass of diamonds, and does not ask for any special lead... Just a lead that doesn't throw away 5 defensive tricks.

Well, I don't really worry about the meaning of one highly unlikely obscure auction when I am trying to figure out what to bid. Here I think it's a clear 3♣ call, and if partner wants to bid 4♥, we'll figure out what's going on then. FWIW I think 4♥ is exclusion with clubs as trump, partner never set diamonds, and could have done so.