Jlall

South should not X, north bid fine. However if EW were bad players doubling with south is auto, so it could be unlucky in that situation heh.

2H

FWIW this has happened against me, and the director ruled that LHO must pitch the wrong card. LHO argued that obv she would always keep the right card. If it makes a difference she was a bad club player, and when the director asked her why she would obviously keep the right card she couldn't say anything about my shape or anyones shape or anything. Interested to see what the law gurus say about this, always wondered whether that was the right ruling. Also wanna add, if RHO is not an inexperienced player definitely recorder form at least and it seems like it should be worth a PP since it's so shady.

Ken also writes about the Hyperbolic Cue in his next book: A Whole New World.

Even if partner is expected to relay with 2♠ after our "strong" jump shift? Then we could pass and let them guess what's going on, while letting partner declare the potentially poor contract. Seems like a good way to cheat to me!

If I sit down with someone and say "Meckwell" in this sequence, I would expect this to be the meaning. I think this is one of those treatments that the more variations there are, the more accident-prone it becomes. XYZ is getting to be the same way. Weird since Meckwell do not raise with 3 ever (except 3451 specifically after 1D 1S) when playing together.

I think I like the gnasher way and the jdonn way...if that makes sense. In fact I think it is very important to bid 3S any time you have 4 spades and a stiff in a competitive auction, gnasher calls this preemptive but it's also very descriptive for finding good saves or even light makes or double game swings. It is easily possible after 1m (1H) 1S (2H) 2S (4H) that partner passes on double game swing hands when you have like Kxxx x xxx AKxxx. Of course you could just bid 4S yourself after bidding 2S, but that's a little ridiculous too and very unilateral. This means you can play 3H specifically as gnasher says so you have a bid with your power hands, or you can play 3H as jdonn suggests (possibly GF with the minor, possibly balanced 18 no stopper without 3 spades) combined with possibly a power raise to game. This means you have to overbid a bit with 18 balanced, or even 5422 17 and get to game, but it's not a big deal given that partner has already guaranteed 5 trumps. This will also make it hard to distinguish between a normal real GF raises which can be a loss (no big deal if partner bids 3S or 3N, you can bid 4H or 4S accordingly, but a bigger deal if partner bids something else). Anyways thats how I prefer to play it, as I view especially GF club 1 suiters as a significant enough hand type to warrant having a bid for it. I play this with 4S also being "preemptive" as gnasher might call it. This still applies for me for 1m 1H X 2H, even though forcing to game with marginal values is worse now, imo the negative double promises more strength than responding 1S over 1m p, so again you should be fine (see another thread where I said my 1 level negative Xs are sounder than most). Also I am assuming support doubles in this post since "everyone" plays them here in USA.

The HQ definitely increases our game potential, but that potential still seems quite low. I would say that doubling is trying to find a double partial swing, which is fine, but with such defensive values and 4 of the suit they opened, I think even that is not very likely. Given the obvious risk of coming in (going for a number), or the less obvious risk (turning a plus on defense into a minus), I can't see bidding.

It depends. If it's a suit contract and xx is in dummy, almost all RHOs will not duck the second round. You may even elect to play low to the queen first so that when it wins, RHO will KNOW you have KQ so they won't fear crashing their partner's queen or something stupid, and thus be even more likely to win the A on the second round. This applies in situations where they should be ducking anyways since you are just gonna take a useful pitch if you get the trick in this suit. In general agree with all of your points though.

the hospitality at the greenville regional is exceptional. just out of curiosity, why do you have these 4 session events? and why are your regionals 10 days, especially if they're small and conflict with sectionals? I believe this was the Bridge Week regional, it has a big historical background in terms of bridge, used to be the nuts. Even when I played in LA it was nothing special anymore though. Maybe they should update it to become one of the many endless KO regionals without special events in order to maximize attendance, but keeping something special like BW has its perks too. NY has a lot of events that used to be great also that are simply a joke now, but they keep them anyways. Bridge isn't what it used to be I guess.

Thanks for the lucid explanation. So a wide ranging 2♣ overcall is becoming standard in some (most?) expert circles. I remember reading Sabine Auken advocating this in her book also. I have two regular partnerships. I've discussed this with one partner and he doesn't want to play (1♦)-2♣ this way even though he understands the motivation. The other partner would just flat out call me crazy for even suggesting this. :( Just how widespread is this 2♣ overcalling style anyway? I think its pretty normal to overcall aggressively with a 6 card suit, and conservatively (to say the least imo) with a 5 card suit, esp at favorable vulnerability. As Jdonn said, the 6th trump is better than a king, so you should adjust accordingly.

Wow even 655321 does not bid 3C, it must be madness!

Alternatively for something simpler you can play after 2M+1: Naturalish or 3min/3max/4min/4max seems to be popular because of simplicity. I'm sure some people have more efficient/better ways than the way I'm used to also.

2M+1 asks then: 3 min bal 3 min unbal 3 max unbal 4 min (bal) 3 max bal splinters 4m=5422 concentrated 4M=4 max bal

eww no :(

50/50 technically, just go with psychology.

The main one for me is 1) Your hand is too good. 2) You have enough spades where you might have a good save over 4H when partner is shapely, or you might be able to compete against them, 3) You have too many hearts (yes, some people say 3 is the best number to psyche because of the safety, but here you are expressly trying to pick off their fit on the basis that you don't really have to worry too much about partner, I'd much rather have a doubleton to make it far more likely I am actually picking off their fit. In that order. Also, I just noticed it's matchpoints. Not sure if you noticed that also but I think 1H is really absurd at MP for obvious reasons. Ok, I see that you saw it was MP later on.

The world can be a scary place, but partner is often there to help you out with any doubleton club or the ace or the king or the QJ, or maybe the QT... Failing this he sometimes comes through with the heart ace. And failing this, sometimes he doesn't have good hearts and they are cold for game in hearts. And failing this sometimes they bid 5H and go down 1 when you were going down. And failing this sometimes you go down.

Mmm yes, but don't just break this rule. Throw it away, preferably far enough away that you never find it again. lol yeah what kinda rule is that, especially from pclayton the balancing master!

A little of both imo. Edit: Also for the record I am admittedly sounder than almost everyone good after 1x-(1Y) when making negative doubles, raising minors, and bidding 1N. Would have guessed most would bid 2C with this hand.

I remember that Matt Granovetter, in his article advocating that players give up Drury, stated that one of the weak points of Drury was the artificial 2♣ bid allowed the opponents to enter the auction safely with a double showing clubs. His comment about 2-way Drury was that it merely increased the number of suits that the opening side used as artificial calls, enabling the opposition to enter the auction in whatever suit the opening side chose to bid. He also disliked losing the natural 2♣ (and 2♦) response to a third seat opening bid. Obv much more sensible to force to the 3 level rather than the 2 level in an effort to avoid them making lead directional calls.

I don't think so V vs NV. Is that related to opener? or to 'us'? (I always thought to 'us', so here we are V and they are NV). What is the concensus on BBF, seems like pretty basic. Yes V vs NV means we are vul.

Can't tell if jdonn is being serious. Anyways 1S obv.

I dont see why you would assume partner has QTxxx of hearts. Partner having long hearts is far worse for the defense than anything else, giving him 5 hearts as the basis of your analysis for our offensive and defensive potential will bias your results a lot, and I don't see any real reason for that. I was assuming he does not have 5 hearts. We need him to not have 5 hearts (for obvious reasons), which means we need cover cards for the ♦xxx, ♣xx (or RHO has 6 tricks in spades), which means 3NT is often making. I misread, my bad. Stupid contractions!

A unanimous and uncontroversial spade lead.