Jlall

For further clarity, the reasons it is obvious to play a 4-4 spade fit with this hand are: 1) Partner might get tapped in the club suit in hearts, but not if spades are trumps. 2) With our excellent spades we can withstand a bad split much more easily, or perhaps ruff in dummy and use our spades to pull trumps. 3) With our terrible hearts we will be in trouble on a bad heart split playing in hearts but not necessarily in spades (Kxxx Axxxx Qx Ax). 4) We might be able to setup the hearts via a ruff playing in spades.

Not close. There is a huge difference in having a stiff spade and a doubleton spade.

Diamond is a wtp.

Too much upside to not double.

jdonn preempted my LOL with another LOL. Anyways obviously the reason to bid 1S with QJT8 while holding Txx of hearts is to find 4S. It's not rocket science that almost 100 % of the time partner has 4-5 in the majors you want to play spades, so it is silly to give up on that for no reason. Oh, the reason is so partner doesn't think xxx or x are bad? lol ok.

I'll get right on that! (sorry couldn't resist).

Jeremy does this wayyyyyy better than I do. edit: UPDATE. HEMANT WANTS TO COOK TONIGHT!

Update: Things between Triinu and I have ended as a result of this. It ended on good terms I guess, but I know that I made the decision so I have to live with the consequences. It will really be a change, I talked to her for about 8 hours a day, but if I couldn't even go see her obviously this was headed nowhere. Oh well.

It really pays to develop countermeasures to this type of thing. Sort your hand differently on different hands. Fold up your hand between every card. This also helps induce a slight delay while you fan one or two cards out to get the one you want. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about the scorecard thing unless everyone adopts countermeasures, but it helps to score all the results in the same column, small, in as-played order, not board number order. I agree, everyone good that I've kibitzed at least puts their key honors in the middle of a side suit, or breaks up their long suit into 2 suits or something to avoid this. Hell, Hamman doesn't even sort his cards.

Italian goes very well with wine. Sushi obviously lends itself to sake.

I personally would post what I think you should do, but I don't want to bias the poll. As we know, I am jlall, and whenever I post something everyone else thinks thats what they would do too. FWIW I think 655321s vote should count twice.

It's weird, my eyes just unfocus. Cool trick!

! Partner bid the stiff queen, you have a 5 card suit, AK A, and we were even gifted with 9 9 9. Are we looking at the same hand?!? I don't think a singleton Q in partner's suit is that great. It looks great opposite any AJ / KJ / JT holding but its value is very minor otherwise and still warrants a one point deduction. 999 is useful, but not overly so. Q9xxx needs some real help from pard too. The hand has no body to it otherwise. I know there are some (I think Lynn Deas has discussed this somewhere) that upgrade any 14 with a 5 card suit, but this isn't winning bridge in my experience. Jdonn is going nuts recently.

Way more abuse of subtle UI goes on than people think, way more stuff like watching where your opp pulls their card goes on than people think, way more stuff like overhearing something about a board or seeing your opps scorecard goes on, but I still think that blatant dirty cheating is pretty rare. I'm sure many people would be shocked at how much of this stuff their favorite hero does. The thing is, if you are a top player you can make a lot of money from bridge without jeopardizing your career by cheating. And if you're not a top player and you're outright cheating you will simply get caught at some point. But you CAN get away with the other stuff, and people in general do what they can get away with. This is one reason I hate bridge. Playing it honest really puts you at a disadvantage, and that's a fact.

As usual I didn't read the whole OP. Yes if 2S shows a good 6 card suit obviously bid 4S. I question that agreement but it's good on this hand I guess!

3S is plenty, this hand doesn't play that great in spades.

That takes me back...

I'd hanp this one.

lol?

Your partner always passes after 1H 2S 4H 4S? It seems like you put him in a pretty horrible spot to judge what to do.

yes

4H is the equivalent of a good limit raise or bad GF hand. This means you can bid it with x Kxxxx Axx xxxx but not x Kxxxx xxx xxxx.

I think 2N is enough. We have a misfit, and our hearts though well positioned are not a trick source like they would usually be, and we only have 12 points.

LOL

Can't have a baby if you do it contraclockwise!