Jlall

I pass

I'd show hearts

I would pass and consider it not close at all. I have a "rule" not to let them push you more than 1 level higher than you would have bid without competition, ie I would only drive to 2S with this hand (1S p 2S), so I cannot bid 4S. Obv bridge rules are terrible and meant to be broken but I don't see why this is the exception.

I play the queen all day not close to me.

If they go heart-heart you cash your minors and the double squeeze is automatic. You come down to a spade, the H9 and a club and dummy has AKJ of spades. East could break this up if he gets to win the HQ and finds a spade shift, but that would be an unnatural and extremely good/thoughtful play.

Wow I def do not think 4C is forcing after 3H, we are in a defensive auction slam is not our priority, and even if slam is our priority there are a million ways to try for slam there's only one way to stop in 4C. If it goes 3H I would bid 3S. We still have not clarified our intentions at all, but if it goes 3N we can bid 4C it's clear we have diamond and spade controls and partner can cuebid diamonds. If partner bids 4C over 3S (also non forcing to me!), we can bid 4D and it's clear what has been going on. I guess I do not see how useful in general having 4C as a slam try is going to be, with a slam try usually im fine bidding 3S or 4D for now. I do see how it could be useful when we made an aggro 3D bid and partner made a bid we don't like so now we're trying to sign off. On this hand as I have a spade control I don't understand wanting to bid 4C anyways, even if it's forcing I would think it denied a spade control.

So say someone told you that your partner was either: 5-5 16-17 or 6-5 13-16 with less than 2 spades. And your hand was QT8xx x x AKT9xx. Your options are to bid 3H or 3N (and if you bid 3N you get to 4H opposite the latter hand type). Whats your bid? lol

Even if I was 5116 with like a 6-7 count I would probably bid 3N and just hope something good happened because 5-1 fits are pretty bad, especially when you're stiff in partners other 5 card suit!

Not bidding 3N is retarded, sorry. Partner usually has like 5-5 16-17 or something and we are 1-1 with 9 and opt to play 3H instead of 3N... ROFL?!?!?! Who knows where your tricks are coming from but partner usually has 2 clubs since with 2551 he would raise spades, so it's not like you have no source of tricks, but why try and play a 5-1 fit? Yes partner might be 6-1, but then how awesome is 3H going to be. 3H is just really really really really really really bad. 3D is an overbid by at least a queen (a concentrated primed out 15 is def a min for 3D), and overbidding by a queen in a normal auction is pretty dumb. That being said, south made the winning bid! 3N was cold. I'm not trying to result, 3D is a bad bid, but I would literally lol when i saw my dummy in 3H. Wtf. Basically I think 3D at least can get lucky and has some upside and is just a super aggressive/retardedly aggressive view. Bidding 3H is completely absurd. I cannot get over it... YOU HAVE A SINGLETON HEART AND 9 POINTS! LOL.

An ask me thread? I feel like I'm back in 2+2 land. But those threads are usually good, at first, so go ahead. :P Haha on 2+2 it would be a well. You should checkout reddit, they have huge AMA (ask me anything) sections.

Well if you have no spade control you cant bid 4S or 4N. I don't think this is such an unusual auction, you have good trumps and the ace of clubs and too much to last train. KQJxx of trumps and the CA is a good example hand. For people who don't know last train it is even more common since they'll never bid 4D on the marginal hands. I think this is a more common auction than bidding 5H with good trumps and no controls anywhere.

Lobowolf would you be willing to start an ASK ME thread about being lobowolf where we can all ask you questions?

They could have called the director for sure. If you think for a longer amount of time than normal at trick 1 you have broken tempo. This is hard to prove etc, but if you think for 2 minutes for instance in a situation where it's obvious what your problem would be at trick 1, I don't think you could reasonably argue that you "always" think for 2 minutes in this situation. That being said, people freak out about this situation, but it is an attitude situation. If the expert ducked but played an encouraging card, or later played a suit preference card then despite the UI, there is AI leading to continuing the suit. Even without a signal, often it's your only play. So you'd have to show that there was an LA to continuing the suit, despite signalling and bridge logic, on top of the fact that there was UI from the BIT imo. The USBF gives guidance for declarers to always take 15 seconds at trick 1. If you play after 15 seconds, and RHO thinks, I think that will generally be considered a BIT. There are no hard and fast rules but obviously 2 minutes indicates some tough problem, and in the example given it's obvious it's whether to win the ace or not.

I'd start with 3D

Double. This is analagous to 4S-X. Double is takeout oriented but you might have to double on a wide range of shapes. I would expect partner to pass with a balanced hand, bid with extreme shape, and use his jdugement on hands in between that (sometimes bidding sometimes passing). I certainly wish this was pure takeout but I would always X with Ax Kxxx Qxx Jxxx because I have no alternative. In general they have put a lot of pressure on you. One of you has shown some points, the other one has shown nothing, and neither of you has shown a suit. You're not going to come close to having great accuracy here. Most of the time when you have enough values you're going to double them and take a plus rather than venturing into the unknown at the 5 level. That being said you're also unlikely to have a lot of spade values/trump tricks, so you gain by both sides being able to bid over a double, and lose little. I mean if you have QJ9x xx xxxx xxx you don't get to double, but you so rarely have that, and when you do partner often reopens X anyways.

Yes you get free reign at trick 1 to do what you want. Not only do you not have to say just thinking about the hand, it is in fact wrong to do so. Imagine the scenario where you're playing a pair game, the first 5 rounds you said "just thinking about the hand" twice. Now you're playign round 6 and you are thinking about the trick not the hand so you don't say anything. Well, your partner knows that you're thinking about the trick, and your opps don't know that he knows this, so you have effectively been able to cheat. Now, I think pretty much everyone who says just thinking about the hand is just trying to be nice/ethical and not nefarious, but hopefully they see the problem. Another way to look at it is even if you're playing a long knockout match, you are disadvantaging yourself by saying this and letting declarer play fast at trick 1 and then know every time if you have to think about trick 1 or not. This is not fair to you. The correct solution is that you are allowed to think as long as you want at trick 1 specifically, and everyone knows this, so you can do it and not say anything. This also doesn't give declarer free reign to fast play you and then get info from doing so. If he wants to play fast that's fine, you can take as long as you want. If declarer was cranky that you took a long time at trick 1 just say you're allowed to think as long as you want about the hand at trick 1, and you are being ETHICAL by doing so even if you don't really have much to think about so that you do not give UI to your partner the times that you play QUICKLY.

I thought 3S medium and 3N max was more standard, but I have no idea. It definitely makes more sense to play that anyways.

3H is fine, it's not a 2/1 auction it's a sayc auction. So 2C then 2S then 3D shows real diamond support since 3D over 2D is NF. Ergo 3H. After that north has a very fine hand, certainly too good to bid 3N imo. Partner doesn't have T98xx that often. After 5C I think north has to kick it in though considering that it's MP.

I would have taken it as NMF if I played that (and didn't play support Xs which I seem not to since I didn't make one).

I think you all got this problem wrong, or I did :) Ok it was me!

Yeah and how do you play 2D after 1N p ? if you play transfers. Obviously transfers suck! I understand theres more likelihood that you should play in 2D when the auction goes this way, and less need to transfer and bid again, but you are still in bad shape when you have an invitational hand and you don't play transfers. Personally I'd like to be able to transfer to a major and bid 2N more than I'd like to have the ability to play 2D (and this is always the argument for transfers). I think this 1N bid is stronger than a 1N opener, and if I had 7 points or whatever I would want to be able to invite. Also, as an added bonus you get to rightside 2 of a major which is not negligible when partner has a strong hand and RHO has a strong hand.

Too chicken for 4H but with a spade void it definitely has a lot of merit. LHO will often have long spades and just accept the transfer. But sometimes it is partner who has 6 spades and it just looks silly, or LHO cracks with 6133 or whatever instead of bidding. Also if RHO has a 3 card limit raise he might just crack us rather than bid 4S on this auction. I just think 4H is too big of a gamble when RHO doesn't raise spades. If it went 1S p 2S I would definitely bid 4H because now I know they have a fit and will bid 4S a lot more often.

It shows the ace of clubs and no spade/diamond controls.

Weird I was thinking exactly of ajms example. It is one of my favorite hands ever, especially because it was against the guy with aguably the best table feel in the game...if meck had thought for a long time it is not outrageous to me to think that Helgemo might have gotten it right. What makes the hand super special is not just the play, but the fact that meck found it quickly.

edit: Wrong thread, need to stop drinking :P I should probably bid 2S rather than 2H given that I'm cuebidding. I think cuebidding is much better than just bidding 3N since it will often be imperative to play NT from partner's side (Qx of spades for example).