Jlall

Meh 2S unless I have some history where I know they steal. Most people don't bid 1H vul over a double with a complete yarb.

Why does it never trick people when I necro a thread but when someone else does...?!?!?!?!

and here we go!

we have amazing math

haters gonna hate

I'd also X

You mean 3S-4C? Or they passed the cue... I would bid 4H now

LOL

el paso

ten of spades, not even close.

Maybe they play weak NT. What I don't understand is a bidding problem with no vulnerability. AFAIK vulnerability is important, especially when considering whether to crack them or bid 3N.

AKQ gives your honors no chance to finesse for one. Imagine if partner has JT9xx, Axx is often one loser, AKQ is no losers, you haven't gained much from your AKQ and you've wasted your partners spades. In general having AKQJ of one suit is very bad, especially a long suit, something is almost always wasted. Even AKx vs Jxxxx is sometimes zero losers anyways. You have no option of something like that happening either. Another thing is that if you happen to be able to ruff something at some point (say partner is 5422), AKQ is no longer very good, you'd much rather have a small trump. Another thing is that all of your entries are in trumps, this is not good. On some hands where you can just pull trumps, cross to dummy, and set up your side suits you might have to risk ruffs since you cannot pull all of your trumps. On some hands where you might have been able to set up your long diamond and then cash it, you cannot because you have entry problems. AKQ of trumps does not allow fluid communication. It doesn't allow you to test trumps a lot of times. Blah blah. AKQ of trumps does not allow you to promote anything. "Good" honors allow you to do so. AKQ is bad because it doesn't have other honors working together. Notice how the Ts and J are stranded. A good hand has minor honors working together. Not to mention that surely it is obvious that it's nice to have honors in your longer suits. AKQ tight in general is bad, just because it's in trumps does not mean that AKQ tight is still a bad holding. And as you said, if partner ever has six trumps, your AKQ is obviously bad now. TBH I am surprised this is a controversial view at all, I consider this basic bridge hand evaluation. To say that this is one of the best 4333 10 counts is amazingly lol. I would rather have Axx QTx JT8x K8x and it's not even close (and it's not like this is some awesome cherry picked 10 count, it is a below average hand given a 4333 with A K Q J T T). I would easily bet on a simulation would back me up.

Once partner has shown not much, I just view it as their hand if I also have not much. Almost always they'll end up playing it, and they'll play it MUCH better if I tell them stuff about my shape. So when I bid I'd like to have a reasonable shot of buying it for a partial and making, or finding a nice save, or finding a making game ourselves. I no longer want to bid for the nuisance factor, whatever I gain in preempting them I think I lose more in them declaring more accurately. Not to mention that if you bid with shitty hands it's very easy to get you for a number, and that doesn't seem like a worthwhile risk. If you bid with crappy hands you're losing on hands when you genuinely have a bid (wider range means less accurate saving/competing etc from pard obv), and I think you lose even when you have a bad hand from helping them declare and possibly from going for a number. Just my view, obviously you can gain from making the auction hard for them also.

The gibs had this auction against me... p 1H 2N p ? Kxx KQJxx xxx xx Gib bid 3H showing 3+D 10-12 points, forcing to 3N. His partner bid 4D and he bid 5. r/w MP.

pass!

Hi Ken, 1) I am a believer that people bid much too aggressively in this situation. Given partners pass, I think 2C should be a good hand, most often 5-5 but sometimes you have like 1354 18 or something, so I don't think it guarantees 5-5 (without 5-5 I have SIGNIFICANT extras though). 2) This is not forcing, but shows a strong distributional hand. Something like x xx AKQxx AKQxx would be typical. Could obv be less strong in terms of HCP with 6-5. 3) I think this is often based on a diamond one suiter, but not necssarily (could be a super strong minors hand that didn't want to open 2C for tactical reasons). Could this be 3064 or the like? I can think of hands with that shape where I wouldn't X; they are infrequent but I wouldn't rule it out. 4) Takeout. I don't think this should be as sound as bidding 2C, but I would NOT double with say 4144 12 HCP or whatever like many people seem to do. And to re-iterate, I think this is one auction where people frequently overbid when they should not.

Helene, I think 4315 would often bid 3C imo, it is a non forcing bid so it can be passed and be the right spot. If I was too strong for that then I would cuebid with that shape.

Surely we would have more information than just this suit combination in isolation. Anyways I would duck with the info given.

I think the opposite, find this one to be on the top of 4333 because all of our honnors are working, having 2 tens doesn't make it worse. Am I wrong? Having all of your honors in trumps is very bad not good. I don't know why you think a stray jack is "working", I mean it's better than a Jxx by a little bit but it's still a jack with no supporting honors. Likewise the tens in random suits are not that good. A JT combination would be much more valuable than J T T. Again if all of our honors were not AKQ tight then our tens might be working with other honors making them much better. Compare this hand to AJT xxx KQTx xxx for a hand that actually has all working honors + 2 useful tens (same A K Q J T T). That hand is infinitely better. Even something like Qxx KJT ATxx xxx would be much better. Basically any hand with an A K Q J T T would be much better than this one.

Isn't double dummy a not terribly helpful measure here? I'd expect 6C bid on an uninformation auction to make much more often single dummy than double dummy. I guess (although you might be able to prove me wrong) that declarer will have fewer decisions in the play than the defence will have on opening lead. Well, lmilne was talking about bidding 2N-3N and questioning the merit of driving to slam if there are no methods. I think Cascades simulation has shown that bidding slam > bidding 2N-3N, since the double dummy considerations should make the % of making LOWER not higher as you point out, and it's well above 50 obv. Of course it doesn't solve the debate about whether to just try or not, and whether to blast or not.

Frances, no one would ever be sarcastic towards you! I think the first paragraph that lmilne posted was directed to you, and the second was to whereagles (who had been talking about 6 cover cards). I will admit that 2N-3N>clubs, 2N-4C>diamonds, and 2N-3S both minors has a ton of constructive merit, almost to the point where I would be willing to flip my view about 2N-3N being artificial. It just seems so good.

Any team with Brogeland = the nuts.

I edited to show this well actually explain how to read the information that was already there. Enough to make it worth right siding I think. I see thanks

How often is it necessary to play from partners side?

Not at all why Chip Martel wins tournaments and others don't