Jlall

First board of the nationals. You hold: --- Qxxx AJ9xx Qxxx Your RHO opens 2D, you pass, lefty bids 2S, RHO 4S, LHO 6S. Partner leads the DT and this is what you see: [hv=e=skt8hxxdkq8xxxcjx&s=shqxxxdaj9xxcqxxx]266|200|[/hv] You win the king with the ace as LHO follows. What now? If it matters the opps are good, the number 2 seed in your section.

ya pass, partner has a strong hand with hearts.

dunno if it's forcing but I have a good enough hand that I will bid 3H regardless.

I remember I learned that 1S p 1N p 4S doesn't show a strong 1 suiter, it shows some kind of gambling type hand that is like 7-4 and was too strong to open 4S to begin with

Poor partner has a stiff heart (or void) and chose to balance cuz he has any hand with 6 spades and we want to bury him with a misfit? lol..

lol

hmm, I would rather have the second suit. I agree with your general point but a hand with the same shape and 2 points less being better than the other hand with 2 points more is impossible to me (maybe not if you give one hand much better spots, but that defeats the point).

Thankful to be alive. Can be taken for granted. The rest is just gravy heh.

I don't like problems where no vulnerability or form of scoring is given, you are basically asking us 8 different bidding problems this way. I think I would bid game via 4H vul at imps, and bid 3S white at MP. red/red at matchpoints I'm really tempted to double them, and think I would, but it would depend on the opps and partner's style (I could see myself bidding 3S sometimes). FWIW I think double is penalty and not cards. red/white at MP I would bid 3S usually, maybe 4H depending on partner's style. White/red at imps I would bid 3S. w/w at imps I guess I'd bid 4H but could see myself bidding 3S depending on partner's style.

Well at least I have never impersonated anyone :) wrong hahaha true. I should have said I've never impersonated a star!

lol

Would def open 2C with this hand. Enough defense and enough offense. No rebid problems to speak of (yes if they bid 4S I'll have to bid 5H. Guess what, that happens when you open 1H also). Now bid 5H, what can you do?

Is it crazy to think partner will reopen with this? A pretty good 12 is not close to a min in passout seat, and he does have a stiff spade which he might well not have. I dunno I guess you could be worried about partner sitting for it and it making, but he did not X 2S. I guess it also makes constructive bidding insanely difficult if your ranges are so wide... I guess if you play responsive Xs of 2S this hand is an easy pass, and if you play penalty Xs maybe it's reasonable to reopen. As I said if I played responsive Xs I would consider this hand to be an easy one.

Well at least I have never impersonated anyone :)

I dont dislike 2H because I'm scared of missing 3N though that is possible, it's because this hand has a terrible suit and no playing strength at all. 11 HCP does not mean we have extras or a max for 2H bid, we should be thinking in terms of playing strength. Our hand/suit is too bad for 2H. I would say that I would never open 2H with KQxxxx and 6322 in this position. But all our quacks do is make me nervous we will go for a number when they make nothing. I mean this is the worst hand EVER for 2H p p X p p p because our hand is not only terrible, but the bits and pieces may well mean that they can't make anything or bid anything.

It is not true that if you are going to compete to 3S you should bid it the first time fwiw. Often if you have a lot of HCP and decent shape you are going to be able to buy it at the 2 level and it is unlikely you are going to push LHO into bidding something at the 4 level by bidding 3. But yeah, both of these hands are defensive and there's not much reason to be competing with them.

Yeah much better to play this as 1N = 5+ spades, 1S=0-4 spades imo. Then play transfers over 1S (1N=bal or clubs, 2C=diamonds, 2D=6+ hearts, 2H=4S, 5H).

They have to learn some cutoff. 16+ seems like a reasonable one. If they don't reverse with 16, they have to figure out something else to do. This might include bidding a 3 card suit or whatever. 16+ seems reasonable. 6 is another abitrary number, but why are you so convinced 5 is better than 6. It might have come from stuff like you can force to game with 19 points when partner responds to your opening bid, and often with 18. You can force to the 3 level with 17 or often 16. Having 6 leads to pretty sensible spots if those are your cutoffs. Basically if you're going to think/teach/talk in terms of point count it will always be really inadequate. That said, they aren't going to know the finer points of bridge immediately. I think these are good basic numbers to start with, then as they learn how to evaluate for points/shape/honor location they can adjust it, then when they learn how to think tactically they might respond with 0 points and a 6 card major white and stuff like that. But they can't just start that way. Also a bit of it is just being outdated. 13 used to be the magic number for opening. Then people realized 12 was better. Maybe 5 is better than 6 and it just has to be updated. Probably it doesn't matter that much.

I pass. I play double as penalty else this is probably routine X.

4S

Artificial 2♦ showing a 2♥ bid with extras. 4135 with extras you bid 2NT. 4045 with extras you either open 1♦ or bid 2NT (gross but whatever). I remember when awm posted this idea on the forums. Anyways I do not play that, I just play that 2H has a wide range of 11-15 and you go from there. If you have 16-17 bid 3H.

In other words, we rate to go plus by opening!

of course

Agree that this is just a lead director on the way to 5S.

1) Bid game 2) Don't double partials 3) Generally opt to sell out at the 3 level in competitive auctions rather than take the push when it's close 4) Make game 5) Beat game