Jlall

Oh they opened 3N? LOL yeah I'd save all day, I thought it went 2N p 7C hahhaa and I was like wow I would never save but maybe thats nasty.

Just open 1N, what is the stretch about it? If you don't open 1N, you can never show a balanced hand that is this strong.

If west wants to bid 1C...1S, fine, but they have to pass 2S. I have no idea what 4H was about, but over that west has to bid 4S. 4N is really bad, even if partner will always pass why would you rather play 4N than 4S? If you're that scared of playing a moysian then don't bid 1S. From there it was a mess but the damage was already done. 2S was a great spot, especially if the field plays 2D on 1D-1H-2C-2D, or 3N on 1C 1H 2D. 4S has a lot of play depending on how they defend/lead. It just seems like west was not ready to bid this way and panicked. Bidding 1S can be fine but you just treat your hand like a normal minimum with 4 spades after that.

1N

Your partner should bid 3S, he has a minimum hand. He would happily pass your 3N bid over that.

Obviously it's inferior when you have a very strong GF hand to bid anything other than the first step. That doesn't mean the first step should necessarily be dedicated to this in every auction, it hurts your bidding the times you have non strong/GF hands. I think there's plenty of room to sort everything out if you use your 2S/2N/3C+ bids effectively. This auction is so much easier than say 1H p 1S or 1S p 1N because of 2S. Slam is also quite infrequent after 1H p 1N, so I would be happy to not play gazilli in this specific auction.

2C is a huge underbid, def bid 3C. Now I really have no clue, I guess I'd bid 5C.

How far back from first am I? Do I care about any position other than first? Hard to say what to do without knowing those things. If I judged that I absolutely needed a top and didn't care about anything else I would crack them.

Yeah I really really don't like a 4S bid, you have KQJx of diamonds which is looking like garbage to you at that point, and that is pretty much your whole hand. It's not like the way you bid it showed a yarb. I think your partner had an easy 6C bid over 5C, how can you not have the ace of hearts or a spade void for your bidding? You were a passed hand and then cuebid and jumped to game, and it is really unlikely you have all the diamond cards (your actual hand not withstanding) after the 3D bid.

Han, I'm sure I would not sac here, but this may be one of those positions where people are naturally much too risk averse so maybe I am wrong.

I think 5D making only 20 % is low, probably because the requirement of 8+ diamonds and any hand is not a reasonable one to me for a 5D overcall I guess.

The dutch have officially corrupted hanp!

If 2NT is your only invite, and forcing to game is a big overbid in your opinion, and prefer to rightside NT when it's right, wat's your call?! Oh ok I guess you're bidding 2NT. Guess we can't right side 3NT then. You have your choice of overbidding to increase the chance of playing 3N from partners side, or risking wrongsiding it. T987 is a lot better than Txxx in terms of playing it from our side at least, it might not be a disaster to play from our side and our hearts are positional (which might be their best attack if partner is 4135). Don't get me wrong obv I'd rather play it from partner's side, but I think on this hand that isn't enough of a consideration to get me to go with the overbid. No diamond stopper and no fit and exactly invitational is a normal problem hand, but it's pretty infrequent especially when partner has shown 5 clubs and you can bid 3C with only 3 sometimes. Some people also play 2D as not GF to solve this kind of problem I guess.

3N would be extremely poor, it might be imperative to play NT from partners side. Also if he is 4315 a moysian fit in hearts could easily be the right game. So if you're forcing to game you should bid 2D. IMO forcing to game is a big overbid with this hand, and 2N is my only invite. If partner is 4315 he will bid 3H and we can still get out of NT.

fyp

Yeah I agree with ggwiz, that was an unfair comment.

huh

Obv you should just play step 1 as the catchall in 2/1 auctions, that's a no brainer. Doesn't take a genius to come to that conclusion. In fact I think jdonn and I used to play that many years ago. I've never played it in a serious partnership though. Since nobody will play it with me I stick to trying to improve upon "natural" while keeping it as unartificial as possible.

lol I hope not

I used to basically be a worshipper of kokish and am pretty sure I first learned of the idea of new suits at the 3 level showing 5-5 from him. He is a smart dude.

WTF is that a frowny or a smiley, I don't even know...

Weak here usually means "less than a 1S bid" which is pretty lol to me but that's how most people who play weak play them ime. Maybe the good pairs don't but I don't know many good pairs who play weak. To mean something like 5-8 is more like constructive. I would pass over 5-8 for sure.

I'd just bid 5H in their face, it's going to be really hard for them to double and maybe they'll bid 6D and maybe we'll actually be able to make. If they double I'll be really sad, and it's possible I go -100 or -200 instead of +50 or +100 which hurts. Anyways I'm an expert and I bid 5 over 5 vul you can't double me!

I mean w/e, partner messed up. If you played a heart back thinking "this will force partner to play a club and not try to give me a trump promotion!" then that's pretty amazing heh. I wouldn't really worry about stuff like that, just try to make good plays. As hanp says I can't see any layouts where a diamond is better than a trump, and obviously a diamond risks blowing a trick, so that's why I'd play a heart...not really to avoid something like this. Declarer's play was superb btw, definitely excellent (not just the obv squeeze endplay, but winning the DA and playing heart to the king and small heart to give off this illusion). Still your partner messed up badly when he never should have.

That being said, I love it. Have had several sick sick sick endgame spots today. One we were down 93 to 410 or something, the bidding went: 2, 2, 4 to me. I had a pretty mediocre hand, probably a 4 bid. But honestly it just seemed like we had to set this to be able to win. So I went with that idea and bid 6. The play went well for us and we set them. Back in the game, the next hand my partner opened 6 so I tried double nil and we made it. We were then about even and won the game. One game we were up 413 to 390. I had Qx of spades and out and decided not to gamble, so I went 1. Lefty bid 5, and partner bid nil! Righty tanked for a long time and bid...7. I was thinking he was a donk, but then I realized what he was going to do. He set me in 1, allowing the nil to make, to win 51x to 50x. But the most absurd game of the day was one where nothing had gone right, and we hit -200. On yahoo you can't be less than -200. We also had 8 bags. The opponents had a score in the 300s. It looked bleak, but I carefully made sure we got 2 bags on a nothing hand so we could be -200 with 0 bags. This meant they had only 7 bags instead of 8, but we were going to need to bag them out anyways to win so it was correct to bag my own side, something I've never seen before. As fate would have it, I got dealt AKQxx 9 AKQJx QJ. I opened only 8, hoping they'd overbid. Lefty bid 1, partner went DN, and righty bid 2. I led my heart 9. They won and continued hearts. I ruffed and pulled trumps, 332 around the table. Now I cashed 3 diamonds allowing partner to pitch the CA. I now played the CQ driving out the king, and had a claim (with a set). We were back in the game, and got another double nil made. The next hand we underbid in order to bag them. Finally the game got to 494 to 482. Unfortunately we lost from there...coulda been epic :P