Jlall

Magnus Carlsen officially chess god. Just won another super GM tourney, despite losing an amazing game with Kramnik (his competition) where he could actually force a win but was in super time trouble. Credit to Kramnik for playing super aggro though and playing for a decision. Actually I guess this just shows Kasparov is god, he decides to coach someone for a year and they instantly start winning everything. Pretty sick stuff.

How about an auction like this where you have spades. You bid 5S, partner cuebids 6C You bid 6H, partner bids 6S You bid 7S Assuming getting to 7N was not a factor and then this auction should not exist. Partner signed off and you bid 7 anyways, so you should have just bid it over 6C. I see stuff like this all the time, and imo it should be banned. It just opens the doors for cheating, and using the tempo of your partner's 6S bid to determine whether or not to bid 7. Sure some will say "if they bid 6S out of tempo, you can call the director and get it rolled back." But you don't really know what their normal tempo for bidding 6S is, or their normal facial expressions, or normal body language. Only their partner knows that. Even if they are not intentionally trying to cheat, they have gained some info to guess whether to bid 7 or not. Also, you could just be planning to pass a very quick 6S bid, but bid 7 over an in tempo 6S bid. That way you get to 7 unless partner has the very worst hand. The opponents cannot call the director and say "she bid a quick 6S, so partner must bid 7" because you can just say "obviously by bidding 6H I was not forcing to 7 ever, so it doesn't matter if she signed off quickly, what matters is she signed off." This would be true only if it were true that you were never bidding 7 over 6S because it's logically inconsistent. For that reason, I think you should be barred form bidding 7S over 6S of ANY tempo. It is logically inconsistent, and only serves to take advantage of tempo issues.

In theory our only chance is stiff K of clubs. This is becuase if the CK is on, we only have 1 entry to dummy anyways since they can block us. In practice, if we lead low towards the A98x, the defender is not going to go up with the K with Kxxx, so we can get 2 entries if we want with the CK on. Then if the DK is on, it will be doubleton (given the diamond pitch must be from 5 cards), so we can drive out the spade and get 3 spades, 2 hearts, 4 clubs, and 3 diamonds. So the question is do we want to play for a stiff king of clubs? It depends on if opener is a bean counter I guess, really he should be equally likely to have A9xxx QJTxx Kx x as A9xxx QJTxx Kx K since the stiff K is irrelevant. So I would probably play a club to the 9 and then drive out the spade, later taking a diamond hook (if they forget to cover the clubs then I have a squeeze, but I'm confident I won't need it since it will be Kx of diamonds anyways). I have a feeling this isn't the line you were looking for though!

lol

1S showed 5, so why would partner bid 1N with 3 spades? Generally people try to play 8 card major suit fits!

Lol what? You really think you have to use a mixed strategy with this exact hand so that you're not too predictable? How about bidding 5H with this hand as well as x xxxxx xxxx xxx, as well as --- AQxxx Axxx, xxxx, etc etc. It's not like this is the only hand you would ever bid 5H with, and even if it was it's not like you could ever be exploited anyways in reality.

Why?

Umm I will never pass inquiry in posts, hence my undertitle (inquiry-1). That's why I post on PhantomSac now when I am 1 post less than inquiry. Josh will pass him soon though.

Ouch! lol... you understand that the smiley face was there..... :) No one seems to be voting. Now that the solution is here, I hope people will express an opinion without undo influence by your stated value (btw, you didn't vote yourself or you short-changed it). Yeah I never vote in polls, I always just post. Though that has the flaw that you just said, hmm.

Ouch!

Seems like that should be illegal

Why? Surely 4H makes far more often than 4N. Do you expect to get to slam significantly more often after a 4N overcall that you feel it's worth the times you go down in 4N cold for 4H? Also how can you be too good for 4N? Are you seriously going to drive to 5H or 4N with this (8 winner) hand? I'm just not seeing it.

I think our only chance is to win the first trick, pull trumps and strip clubs, and try AK and a diamond, pitching a spade. This wins when LHO is 1-6 in the pointed, or has only top honors (QJT third, QJT9 fourth, QJT97), or when they are not actually blocked but forget to unblock. Ducking trick 1 and hoping for a squeeze is not really an option, since if we had a spade/diamond squeeze on RHO he likely would have bid over the transfer. We could play for the 9 to tricky from H9xx or whatever, but that would be a weird lead into a 1N opener, and it might be costly to waste the 9. Assuming my first line is correct I guess I'd say this is a 4.5 (

If we are assuming things like "we KNOW declarer has a stiff club" then surely when dummy hits with the HK we can also assume things like "we know declarer has a stiff heart... (becuase if declarer happens to have the Ax of hearts this has to be cold). I think trick 1 is just count, maybe the 4N bidder did something weird. We can't just assume that they have bid correctly when they opened 4N. I don't see why you are assuming something about the club suit, and assuming nothing about the majors, becuase of the bidding.

amen brotha

Well assuming hearts are 4-2 or better, going after spades first automatically wins when: 1) The SQ is on 2) The spades are 3-3 So that's ~ 68 %. You have extra chances if those fail, but note that you cannot play for the double diamond finesse anymore as you won't have entries (say you win the heart, spade spade, they win and play a heart, you win in hand and cash a spade getting the bad news, you now have only 1 entry to dummy). So your main extra chance will be a spade diamond squeeze, or a double squeeze. Playing the DJ first automatically wins when: 1) The DK is on 2) The DT drops in 3 rounds 3) The SQ is on So that's ~84 % You have some extra squeeze chances also obviously. Anyways, the 2nd line must be much better.

Why didn't partner bid 2♠ over 2♥? That's much harder for them to double. That's certainly true. On the other hand, partner had a terrible hand with a lousy suit, QJT of hearts, and in general a pretty low odr. But maybe I should have posted partner's problem. So? It is MP w/w and he has 5 spades. Passing is good if both 2H and 2S are down. That is such an extremely unlikely scenario (14 total tricks in the majors?). If 2H is making 2S will be fine, and if 2S is making 2S will be fine. People are not doubling 2S nearly as often as you think.

Seems pretty normal unless the thirteenth card was a heart...?

To me beginner is like, take a finesse or whatever, so I doubt any hands you post will be below a 2. I guess this one is a 2.5

Maybe you're not good?

4H is dreadful, just bid michaels. 5D would have worked better than 5H, I prefer that. As for the actual result, I could easily see south leading a diamond so it's not that bad. Quite possibly if east had bid michaels EW would have landed in slam anyways, especially if NS bid 5S.

I think you bid it fine, your hand has a ton of slam potential. It is normal to transfer and bid clubs with a hand like this if you don't have special methods.

everyone obv

The most obvious reason is with only 3 trumps you are not ready to set trumps yet, and with 4 you are. Even if I'm like 3334 I could easily want to be in clubs. You could play 2N as 3+ and then dedicate bids to later finding a secondary fit, but obviously you'd rather have started with 2C in that case. It is because you have already found a 5-4 fit that you can immediately start with shortness showing followed by cuebidding, and establishing that so that you can get to the core issues immediately is why it is worth it to start the bidding at such a high level as opposed to starting with 2C.

A heart seems pretty horrible, you risk blowing up the trump suit for not much gain at all. If you want to make a passive lead then lead a spade not a trump. If you think it's important to get your tricks going then lead a club and at least gain something when you risk blowing a trick. Basically I agree with jdonn