Jlall

Umm, what? Because partner is bidding 4S over 4H SO OFTEN, that you gain an edge by bidding 4H with 5-5? OH wait, partner is pretty much never going to bid 4S. And our spades are so much stronger and can probably play a 5-2, withstand likely bad splits, etc etc, that I'd say there's nothing to be said for bidding 4H. I would give it a 0.

With 4-4 in the majors you would bid 1H first, not 1S. I agree with those who raise howls at your suggestion, bridge is pretty easy, sometimes you have a 4-4 spade fit and want to play in it, regardless of your suit quality. For the same reason you open 1M regardless of suit quality if you have 5. Nothing special, bid your 4 card spade suit, see what happens, if partner raises thats cool, you get to play 2S instead of 1N, or 4S instead of 3N. I understand that sometimes partner will be strong enough to bid 2S over 1N, but sometimes he will just want to blast 3N and make them lead, especially when he doesn't see there being much chance of a fit. If he does try to cater to you having a 4 card major, that opens up a whole new can of worms, like very frequent information leakage. There is no need to be doing something special in such a fundamental auction.

re: the possibility of us having a 5-2 diamond fit, it is possible but should be discounted based on the pass of the XX. That person would not think to bid as a RUN, but people will frequently bid with any excuse, including a 5 card major, or even a good 4 card one, ESPECIALLY when the opps seem to be able to relay after interference. I think that the pass of the XX is frequently based on a doubleton diamond, or 4414, or maybe long clubs. Also, it is obviously possible that they doubled 1D on a 4 card suit, but then they will CERTAINLY run from 1D XX. I think that the opps letting you play 1D XX will often mean the have a 5-2 diamond fit, not us.

Ever been to Europe? Although if the opps were dutch they could have opened 2C showing strong any or a weak 2 in diamonds, so it was not the worst question ever :P

Short, sweet, and simple. All of the words I was using before was basically in the hopes of communicating what you summed up very well. MFA's post is the crux of the hand.

Also, with the trump ace in our hand, on some hands where a diamond lead was necessary we can still shift effectively when in. Obviously there will be some hands where we need to use our tempo advantage to get diamonds going first, just saying that some set of hands where a diamond lead was necessary we can still shift and be ok.

I would definitely lead a spade here. Ace of trumps seems really bad, you are giving up the tempo, possibly blowing a trump trick, and to what gain? You have xxx in their side suit! Sure if you had QTxx of clubs go for it, but xxx? Really? As far as diamond vs spade, a diamond is more likely to hit a bonanza and set up tricks. It is a really active lead, and will frequently fail. Do we need to go for it this much? Well trumps are splitting, and we have xxx of their side suit so finesses are winning/suits are splitting. Still, they had an invitational auction and seem to have marginal values at best for this game. I'm not going to blow up the whole diamond suit in a desperation attempt, I think they will go down on a spade lead often enough combined with a spade rarely blowing a trick. All of this analysis leads to the little old lady choice... a spade. I understand a diamond lead though think it's misguided, think any round suit lead is bad though.

FWIW I wanted to bid this since diamonds will FREQUENTLY play better but since it isn't even a poll option, I am going to guess they just play it as KC. A lot of people actually think 4N here should be keycard becuase: With 6-4 in the minors you would double 4S. With more than that you can bid 5C. and Support with support, so this kind of hand is not possible and they forget that they have no way to slow a slam TRY, whereas if you play 4N as 2 places to play, it will often go 5C from partner, and now 5H is a clear slam try. Sure sometimes partner bids 5D, but you still have more info and can't be in a worse spot to guess than just bidding 5H/6H to begin with. FWIW I think playing keycard in an auction like this is terrible. If you really want to give up on 2 places to play, at least play 4N as a slam TRY in hearts. It is way more valuable to be able to intelligently issue a slam try than to have to guess between keycard and a simple 5H bid. But giving up on 2 places to play sucks. Find the right fit, then worry about slam later.

Meh I don't think a hand with like 11-12 (if you think 12 is too heavy because your openers are quite sound that you can GF with 12 and a stiff in partners suit, then change this range to 10-11) and a stiff spade is that rare at all. Most people I know now play 2N as an asking bid or raise or whatever on the basis that if you are weakish with a 6 card suit and partner has some values and a stiff in your suit, you want to play the 6 card suit as trumps rather than 2N anyways. I don't really agree with that, I think 2N can make on power a lot with 22-24 points, and playing a 6-1 fit at the 3 level especially when the 6 card suit could literally be ANY six card suit seems way more speculative than that. But I play strong club in all of my serious partnerships now, so it's not like I have a lot of experience in this auction.

And admittedly they miss their chance for the brilliancy prize with RHO doubling 4S with the queen and out and LHO underleading his ace :P

Because partner didn't double 4♠, but he didn't have a chance to double a heart cue-bid. Maybe such an inference isn't available when Justin's defending, but personally I find that my partners and I need all the help they can get with their slam leads. Heh you should play with my dad, we are completely opposite on this issue and it just infuriates me when my normal lead would have set them but instead I lead the suit he doubled and it's a disaster. I always wanna say "I'm not your 8 year old kid anymore, I'm a big boy now and can make good decisions!" Maybe I should adjust to these super aggro doubles and make the normal lead anyways, but then his doubles are pointless and not helping at all, and it is hurting when he actually DOES have a hand that NEEDs a spade lead.

Because partner didn't double 4♠, but he didn't have a chance to double a heart cue-bid. Maybe such an inference isn't available when Justin's defending, but personally I find that my partners and I need all the help they can get with their slam leads. Not necessarily. I'd be at least as likely to double 4♠ with the queen as with the ace. Doubling with the spade queen and a heart honor just seems really terrible to me. To each their own, but I'd rather partner make the decision about which honor he wants to hit, rather than just making some double on the queen and out. Let partner do his thing, he has a ton of information to work with, he doesn't need me confusing the issue on something really speculative. And yes, I strongly suspect RHO having a heart honor based on LHOs failure to lead a heart honor. I could see RHO doubling on the queen and out with no heart honor (I wouldn't but I can see it), but that is not the case here.

FWIW, there is no chance that Fred will play to make (maybe Brad would) on these cards in 3S. He will be happy with -1, which will beat the at least 110 at the other table in 2H, or maybe even 120 (sure they can hold this, but it's tough). Perhaps he will play to make thinking the other table will be 90 or minus though! That being said, how exactly does one play to make in 3S X on these cards lol. I would be very happy with -100 and see what happens. Don't be some kind of hero and play to win or lose the board right there in a very bad situation (ie, very likely to lose) when you can keep the ball in play imo. -100 will easily be a win if your teammates have a good board, and why shouldn't they? -300 will never be a win (barring a miracle), regardless of what your teammates dude. Nothing more annoying than bringing back some miracle 150, or even just a solid 140 where you played soundly, only to lose because of your brilliant teammates.

I would choose 3S, the value bid. If you splinter with this how do you resolve that when you actually have 20 points and a stiff club? It is really important not to needlessly overload the splinter. 3S can take up some of the slack, especially since there is ZERO point ZERO percent that it is every getting passed out (if partner really has a yarb with some spades, the opps have at least 1 big fit and well over half the deck, they would have bid something).

Your auction seems pretty reasonable to me also fwiw. Could definitely see myself duplicating that auction playing with myself on a bad day :)

Personally I could totally see a spade lead from the queen- you might cash 2 tricks, and they have some chance of running the minors on you if you don't lead it. You could use the same kind of desperation rationale for underleading the SA- it's the most likely way to take 2 tricks. However, it is also a really big lead, especially if his clubs were not exactly xx or xxx, he would see no reason for such heroics. He would either cash his ace hoping to get a trick somewhere, or would decide a heart lead is necessary before the SA is dislodged for pitches (this seems quite unlikely though, I disagree that he should always lead a heart, but I definitely think he would not underlead the SA if he had some reason to think he might get a minor suit trick somewhere.) Personally I think the fact that a huge range of his SA hands would cash it rather than underlead it is by far a big enough clue to outweigh your natural advantage if it was 50/50 in that the king would leave you much better placed. I mean if he underled the SA with Qx or Qxx of clubs, or even a stiff club...wow, more power to him! Also I do not place much of an inference from RHO not doubling a cuebid, doubling tells them the SA is off, and is not even guaranteed to get us off to the best lead, and it gives them more room to operate when space is running out. Not to mention that a heart lead might be right, obviously RHO has a heart honor or LHO would have been happy to lead from KQJ, or even KQ. Given that he has a heart honor, I think doubling with either the SA or the SQ would be extremely poor. Let them bid whatever, and let partner figure out the winning lead. People really don't give partner enough credit here. He can listen to the auction and evaluate the winning lead far more accurately than us making a unilateral decision that a spade is a MUST. However, I do think that if RHO had the SA and a potential club trick, he would have gone ahead and doubled 4S, so that slightly implies that LHO has underled, but only very slightly.

As far as popping king vs ducking at trick 1, I would need a huge reason to believe that LHO is capable of routinely underleading his ace to even consider it. World master is not enough. I need a long history vs him, or he needs to be very well known with a reputation with someone like zia/brogeland.

except if you pop king and you're right you have way more extra chances to make 6 than if you play small you're right. If it's actually 50/50 or close definitely go up with the king.

At the table I'm sure I would have cashed AK of clubs then tried hearts. No idea which is actually better.

Lol. Thanks. The 3H bidder was me. I'm used to playing with people for whom a second in hand red [unfavourable in american, i believe] weak 2 is tantamount to an acol 2. this partner and i had only played about twice before. Don't see how jdonn can say 2H 2nd seat red/white is anything but batshit crazy. I think 3H is ok.

Redoubling the first time is in freaking sane, they made a takeout X of your stiff, 2H X is going to be the final contract pretty often, and my hand cannot XX that contract with a terrible trump split. Once 2S comes back around color me wimpy but I'd pass again.

Gnasher, As a general rule I only assume sanity if I know who the opps are. If they are unknown I always play them to make default bad mistakes, like not understanding vulnerability/position/spot cards/whatever when opening a preempt. Also blindly raising ANY time they have 3 trumps because of LOTT etc. If you didn't know your opps I'd say it's a big mistake.

0% chance of 4 spades on our agreements ok i pass then.

Plus the part score bonus = 230 + 200 per overtrick, 430, 630, ... But the reasoning for bidding is the same. Robin ah forgot about that 50! lol That gives some more edge to passing for sure but I'd still bid.

Sure, 5H.