Jlall

Jumping to 7 seems terrible, they will lead a club 100 %. Would much prefer a jump to 7 with xx hearts rather than xx clubs.

This will seem weird I'm sure but I'd overcall 4C.

I have played styles where this is a 1H opener, and styles where it's a pass. I've never played a style where it's a 2H bid and never would want to. I would open this 1H as long as my system/style permitted me to and partner wouldn't go nuts. If I didn't open aggressively I would pass. I mean, it seems like this should be a question of "What style do you prefer to play in a 2/1 system, and what style do you think most experts play in a 2/1 system?" because basically I think that your style and what partner expects from you should determine what you do. And FWIW you can prefer X while your partner prefers Y and that's perfectly fine, as long as you know that about each other. Right now I prefer a style where 1H is possible, followed by pass, followed very far behind with 2H. What kind of style would I expect most experts to play? Hard to say, in my experience very few play a style where you pass with this hand, and most people hate pass and consider it a 1 vs 2 problem. I used to live by that style before I discovered my love of aggressive openers though. So I would expect it to be a tossup for most experts between 1H and 2H with very few passing. Most of my group of experts friends would consider it a routine 1H bid, so I might be biased in thinking that about 50 % would like 1H, 40 % would like 2H, and 10 % would like pass.

Pretty close to abstain because my first pass is so mind boggling to me. I guess 4D is fine now.

I'd just go with 3D myself. Obv 2D doesn't show anything extra.

If I have to pass 1N in this situation I prefer raising to 2H to begin with. That being said I prefer for 2H in this auction not to show extras, but few people seem to agree with me.

I wouldn't ever do this but lots of people would at these colors so def not insane.

4H

3C

+1

Why does partner having clubs double stopped mean you should play 3N?

Fwiw I don't see myself perpetrating an auction that doesn't lead to keycard then 5S heh. I suck.

Surprised Ken doesn't bid 1D-2C :)

1) 4N as being straight ace asking is standard imo, but I prefer to play it as keycard. I don't think the argument "with keycard you can always bid 2N then 4N" is a great one, sometimes the opps will interfere, especially when you have the type of hand that might want to just bid keycard, and sometimes you won't want them to know anything about partner's hand, especially if you're gambling a bit trying to get a favorable lead. I also think a hand that wants to ask for straight aces is extremely rare, probably at least 10 times less likely than a hand that might want to just ask for keycards, so while it's a good agreement when it comes up, it comes up really infrequently imo. And even when you do have a straight aces hand, with that type of hand you can usually just bid your suit, set your own suit as trumps, and then ask for keycards and find out the same info. 2) I totally agree with gnasher that launching into aces/keycards is premature and more can be accomplished with a slower auction where we cuebid/learn about partner's shape etc. I just skimmed the thread though, and I haven't seen gnasher mention that their is a significant chance they will bid over 2N given our 12 card fit and interfere with our auction. Sorry if he did mention it, it is possible but I think we can deal with competition anyways, and we do have a lot of HCP so maybe they'll pass.

2H, wtp? Some days you have a misfit, but 1N seems absolutely ridiculous to me. What is your plan? You get to make some generic invite in hearts if you're lucky (partner doesn't bid 2S), and partner has no way of evaluating his hand and knowing that the right mins make game cold and the wrong hand with extras lead to game going down. Additionally if we have slam it becomes extremely hard to bid. Additionally if we belong in clubs it becomes really hard to bid. Just bid 2H then bid clubs then bid some more clubs. Get your suits in, get to slam if partner fits well, get too high on a sad gloomy day.

pass and lead a ♠ You're not on lead.

3N is horrible with Axx of clubs. As ken said, the way to investigate 3N here is to bid 3C. Passing with 4 hearts and 2 small clubs is equally horrible. I guess that makes it 50/50...

hahha WEON!

Oh and also the fact that partner should double with no outside tricks because they have stopped in 5 and he can infer we have some stuff doesn't mean that they have always evaluated correctly. This could just be a case where they made a lucky stop when they had a lot of values. The fact that such a case exists does not mean partner should not be doubling. It is a game of percentages. I don't think I ever claimed the opps ALWAYS evaluate correctly in this scenario.

I don't see why they cant go -1000 on a bad lead. Also -400 instead of -200 is much worse on a board where "anything can happen" than the gain you get from XXing and making instead of just making Xed. If you know the other table will be in the same contract then you get good XXing odds, but if you don't then the odds are getting worse, not better. Also, why are you assuming the HA is cashing? LHO bid 5H. He is void or singleton. Don't you think there's some risk of it getting ruffed? Also, if they have evlauated correctly that doesn't mean partner has a sure trick somewhere. They may have a natural club loser, or they may be on a diamond hook, etc.

It could be, it's a good thing they cannot ever logically redouble given that they've already decided they can't make SLAM on reasonable breaks, so they cannot be so confident they will make 5 when the opps get a ruff at trick 1 and still have the same amount of values you thought they had. IMO it would be a big mistake to not make a lightner double with a void on this auction, as it generally is against slam also (even when they CAN redouble!). Even if you're not sure you can beat it, you greatly increase your chances of beating it and those instances make it really worth it to give up 850, even if they are making it half the time (which, again, clearly they should not be. Sure you made them guess and they may have misevaluated, but much of the time they have probably evaluated correctly).

{name posted by justin edited out by inquiry. I agree, Justin got this one right, but there in is the problem with this kind of game.... }

To play

Why on earth would partner not double with no side tricks? That is even better than having a side trick in your hand, partner is way more likely to have an entry this way. The opps stopped in 5 and didn't bid slam, they aren't just gonna claim after I get my ruff.

tu cumpa es muy experto!