Jlall

Opening 3S w/r seems terrible with or without the HQ

I'm a big fan of feature. The more classical your style of weak 2s are the better it is.

I don't actually hate a 1D then 3C sequence but 1D 2N seems normal and I'd probably have opened 2N.

4H

3C as a stronger 3D overcall is definitely correct

I'd always pass, partner is a favorite to have a stiff diamond and if he has that plus significant extras he'll bid again. Would consider this a non problem really.

1 is an easy pass, 3 is an easy 2H, hand 2 I think depends on style, I'd certainly bid 5H opposite myself.

white/red I pass

A few comments: 1) Don't bid 3D 2) Your heart to the ten play seems completely random. If you play a heart to the jack you don't have to guess if it's KQ on or Hx. If you later get some kind of count (like RHO having 4 diamonds and 4 spades) and have a reason to play RHO for the short hearts you can lead the ten out of your hand and torture yourself later if you want for the same effect. 3) There are obviously 2 big reasons for going for the drop, restricted choice and the fact that QJxx KQ9x xx Kxx is a takeout double of 1D to a lot of people. The reason to hook is that LHO pitched a heart. In an ideal world LHOs would occasionally pitch a heart from Kxx and keep their small club in order to protect the times they have 4 hearts and are forced to pitch a heart, but in the real world people never do that and as such a heart pitch always means it was forced. IMO that is a super strong clue and I'll go for the hook on that basis. If LHO really pitched a heart keeping a losing club, congratulations to him on a nice play, he got me.

3N offer to play, X penalty. There is no need to "slow partner down from bidding 5" he only bid 2H, if we just bid 4H there is no way he can now go 5H. If you are 2 suited and want to involve partner in bidding 5 just bid your second suit

Han what are you trying to achieve with 2C? What are the chances that you are going to be on lead (hint: very high!). If partner ends up on lead vs hearts, the most likely suit LHO will get to bid, he still has a good chance of leading a club rather than a diamond, and even if he chooses a diamond it's not such a disaster. So you are getting a lead director in when you are on lead way more often than not, and partner has a reasonable chance of leading something good even if he's on lead without your help. Meanwhile you are dead on ANY followup if there's some kind of bidding. You can't really run to 3D on any auction, so you have to pass or bid 3C if partner bids 3H, or 2N. Even a responsive double might be embarassing to you if you bid 3D and partner converts to 4C. Even if you don't get doubled in any of these contracts, you are vulnerable and might go down 300 or whatever. And of course, there's quite a reasonable chance that you do get doubled.

easy pass

I really don't agree with this at all. We could very easily be doubled, our hand is not that good, and if RHO also knew they were making he won't hesitate to double us. If it was true we weren't getting doubled when wrong very often I'd be on board with bidding something NV.

I know, but I'd moved on to what it should show in abstract, rather than what I think he's got on this hand. It's probably unworkable to use it to show a good 3-5 when partner has a 4153 16-count, but as a bad 4-6 when partner has a balanced 22-count. Yes my final conclusion was that I thought it should show a 4-6 yarb, but since I don't think partner has that on this hand I think he has 3-5 with some values. I would never bid 2C on a 4-5 yarb.

Hah, thanks man, you should participate more often. A few things I disagree with you about: 1) The X of 2D being penalty. To me it is the normal thing to bid with all strong balanced hands. It can definitely be passed and shows some diamonds, but I wouldn't define it as penalty, and would X with hands like AQJx Axx Kxx AJx. Sure you can bid 2N but it is an undesirable contract if passed, and you have no source of tricks really, so it seems both safer to X (we can still end in 2S/3C), and also it leaves alive the possibility of a penalty if partner is able to pass. 2) Playing in a 3-3 fit is not possible if partner thinks you generally show 3 spades, and it's possible that is what partner thinks. He might just be trying to describe his hand. In general my whole problem with the theory that partner has 4 spades and 6 clubs and a medium hand is that he should not just bid 2S with that, surely that is a very strong hand opposite a second double and it can bid at least 3S. My problem with him having something like 4 small spades and 6 clubs and a really weak hand (which is a reasonable 2C bid imo) is that it is impossible given this auction, it gives the opps more HCP than us, and 9+ hearts, and if only 9 hearts they have 8 diamonds also! It just all doesn't really make sense to me.

A textbook double and a textbook 5C bid over the double with partner's hand leading to the perfect spot. WD.

If partner is really 4-6 with a yarb, this hand makes no sense. I would have said xxxx xxx --- QTxxxx makes sense to me, but then what are the opponents doing. In practice I wouldn't be surprised if partner has 3 spades. Nothing else makes sense. And honestly it would be very very rare for me to start wtih 2C with 4 spades, so maybe partner is trying to show his KJx xxx xx QJxxx or something that is a nice hand with 3 good spades and 5 clubs (what should this hand do btw after our second double? It's too good to bid 3C and...). Actually I feel really good about this that partner is 3-5 with a good hand and concentrated values.

Yes but we showed a very strong hand by doubling 2D, at least as strong as we have here (I think 16 is quite minimum). Since we encouraged him to bid and he made a non forcing bid I don't see why it shows such a strong hand to bid 2S.

I'd pass, guess I'm on a different planet. edit: I see jdonn has given the example of Jxxx xxx --- Axxxxx. I do not understand this at all, we doubled a second time, that hand should bid at least 3S now.

Yes the vulnerability and seat of partner should make a huge difference in how light you will reply.

Did east know he had the AKT of spades?

As I said I view Kokish as the worlds leading theorist/a genius etc and he was my first bidding influence and I am still very influenced by some of the things he says/advises (for instance I think a lot of his forcing 2N ideas are sound). I view him as a bidding theory god. I didn't mean he was crazy at all, I just meant that he advises a lot of non standard treatments. In fact he will go out of his way to point out a non standard idea that he thinks is correct in MSC because thats a great time for it. My only point was that it seems like there was an MSC problem involving this auction, Kokish and only kokish said he thought it should be 2-6, and everyone else who commented said it's a slam try in spades, with most non commenting. I didn't know if you knew that it would be an incorrect leap from this info to view the meaning of 4D to almost everybody including experts as "the jury is still out." If there were others who said 4D should be 2-6, then I am sceptical but I understand more why you would make the jump to the jury is still out, I'm curious who they are, and what the problem was (aka if the problem in front of them was a 2-6 hand). Wasn't yelling at you or getting mad. And Kokish does have enormous influence and great ideas, and he is usually 20 years ahead of his time with them ;)

This is 100 % penalty not in the "I have trump tricks" sense, but the "i have so much that I know they are down" sense. Partner never has 4 spades.

LOL. The Mikeh-hanp debate was whether to double with 5=1=3=4. haha my bad! 5134 wtf. I knew i never disagreed with hanp !H

It's so blindingly obvious/normal to most people that they would not even consider addressing it. Out of curiosity who other than kokish said that this should be 2-6? And again please remember, Kokish is often on an island of his own. I would be shocked if more than 2 panelists said that they think it's 2-6 unless the hand they were looking at was 2-6.