Jlall

What use is a strict cuebid? Are you implying 3S could be bid on a stiff here, and that not bidding 3S would deny a spade control? What would a 4D bid over 3H mean to you, would it really deny controls in BOTH black suits? That is pretty absurd. I learned a rule when I first started playing bridge "The first slam try below game is not shortness." Maybe this is non standard and I never knew it, but it is a sound bridge rule that I would guess most experts follow in almost every situation. I have never heard of the term help-suit slam try, this just seems like normal bridge to me the way I know it. Maybe I do not know normal bridge.

Someone asked me this recently, wasn't sure I gave the right answer... Say your partner has tanked during the bidding. Can you take advantage of the fact that RHO knows that partner has tanked and might adjust his play according to what he thinks partners tank has indicated. An example I might make up on the fly, say there is a 2 card ending, and everyone is down to spades. Dummy on your left has Kx of spades, and you have Qx, and declarer leads the jack from his hand. Under normal circumstances you should duck this, but if your partner has hesitated in the auction and not shown up with much you should cover, lest declarer run the J from Jx when partner has AT since he "knows" where the ace is from the hesitation. Are you allowed to use this info?

I do not think 4S shows slam interest after 3N, and would be a normal bid without a red king (on the second hand).

How can responder possibly know what a bad hand for slam is without being able to peek in opener's hand? IMO a tightly limited strength range hand should cue bid freely opposite a partner who asked him to cue anyway, if you have no way of knowing what constitutes wasted values. Surely an ace should cue-bid in this spot IMO. Not cue bidding a king I could go along with. Granted, the 5 level is almost certainly safe, unless partner comes up with a horrific QJx QJxx KJx xxx which arguably shouldn't qualify for a limit raise. Imo bidding a suit after finding a fit, and especially after a limit raise, is not simply a cuebid, but it is at least semi natural and asks partner to evaluate his holding in that suit. Partner will rarely cuebid back if he has a bad spade holding.

No reasonable expert would argue that if the opps are going to pass throughout then you should open 1C (assuming that rebidding spades twice could show 5-5 in your system). However, almost all reasonable experts will open 1S with this hand. There is a reason for that.

I guess 4H is possible, but PASS?!?! lol

6H

3N, what else?

I would bid a simple 4N over 3H. I would still bid 4N now, which makes the 3S bid a bit fatuous.

matmat, on hand 2 you should bid 4D. Your hand is very good, definitely worth a slam try, and the most natural one is 4D to show 5-5 and see what happens. edit: IMO

Great post thanks.

This is a very difficult hand for a beginner. First I would identify that I would treat this hand as a game force since it is a full opener opposite an opener, so the hand is worth more than a simple invitational 3C. Second I would identify that we aren't sure what strain we want to be in. We cannot simply bid 3N because we have no diamond stopper, and because partner might still have 3 spades. So what does that leave? Well in auctions like this you have to bid a "third suit" (this is easier to understand if they already know about fourth suit forcing auctions). Ideally this third suit is a natural bid, but sometimes you don't have a real second suit and have to manufacture something. Here hearts is the obvious suit to bid rather than diamonds since that is where we have some values, and it will bring diamond weakness into the picture. It allows us to avoid NT when we have D stop, and also to find a 5-3 spade fit. So I would bid 2H. Yes, the auction WILL get a little awkward if partner has 4 hearts since they will raise. The key thing to remember is that your third suit bid did not guarantee 4 in the suit you bid, so partner should not insist on hearts with 4 of them after he has raised. I probably would not mention that there is another (nonstandard) way to play this auction, where 2D is completely artificial, much like the new minor forcing convention. If your partner knows new minor forcing, it might be worth mentioning though since it transposes into something they already know.

This is not true. The reason it is good to bid with length in their suit is your second point, that partner will be overruffing LHO. It is NOT more likely that partner has longer hearts than if our minors were reversed. Awm and/or Han have already done this simulation to disprove this theory before, wish I knew how to find the thread! Are you looking for this thread? You the man.

I would raise (hoping to make it). I would not double.

3H is a splinter and I'd bid 3H.

pass.

Does not compute. I guess I would agree if you said 18 instead of 17 though.

2004 jlall thought this was close...wow. Even in 2007 when I necro'd this the first time I didn't say anything about 2004 jlall's answer! 2009 jlall would like to go on record as saying OBV 1H!

Usually you were scared they could make if you doubled the first one. Doubling twice does not exist.

West had an obvious 3N bid, not that 3N X is great.

This is not true. The reason it is good to bid with length in their suit is your second point, that partner will be overruffing LHO. It is NOT more likely that partner has longer hearts than if our minors were reversed. Awm and/or Han have already done this simulation to disprove this theory before, wish I knew how to find the thread!

OP forgot that if you have 13 points with a 5 card suit you should bid at the 5 level to begin with.

The four diamonds are not a liability, in fact they increase the chance that partner will be short in diamonds and/or have something in hearts. AHhhhhhhhh no they don't! Stop spreading this myth!

Agree Fred. This tournament I was the 21 seed which was nice because before I had been 32 etc for a while meaning winning the round of 32 was very tough. In fact I think the 42 seed rates to be better than the 32 seed (slightly tougher round of 64 match, but significantly easier round of 32 match in general). So in terms of winning the round of 32, the 21 seed was gonna be significantly better than the 32 seed (although we barely avoided the very underseeded Diamond team if we made it to the round of 32). Since OP asked about how much difference it makes in terms of winning the thing I thought the right answer was "not much" which you seem to agree with.

EAST?