Jlall

According to my meta agreements this would be a cuebid for diamonds, no idea if it's best or not but for almost everyone it is too laborious to have different agreements for every auction to try to be optimal, so you fall back on some rules (no new suits at the 4 level in unpreempted auctions).

You are playing at the club and you hold AKQx Axxx xx KQx. Your auction goes: 1S 2N 3C 3D 3S 3N 4C 4N 5H 5N 6H ? 2N=GF spade raise 3C=minimum (typically a max of 14) 3D=asks 3S=some 5422 3N=asks 4C=5224 4N=keycard 5H=2 without the queen 5N=kings? 6H= HK, no minor suit king Do you bid 7? Partner is me and will open aggressively including with what he has already shown so far and nothing else.

On OKB almost no one played unrated games. Generally if they did they were not very good. If you are a good player who wants to play unrated games it might be quite hard to find a good game. Even if you are not a good player it will limit your options greatly since almost everyone will be playing rated. Of course BBO is now much bigger than OKB ever was, and OKB charged membership fee which kinda biases the results of how many play rated vs unrated a lot (if you're willing to pay 100 bucks a year, you'll probably want to play rated), so maybe this wouldn't be the case on BBO.

Doesn't show extras, just running from 2H. Axxx Kx AQxxx xx would be one example.

I definitely think south would X if it went 2D X 5D at these colors. Also think 5D is insane at these colors heh.

Double with 4-4 in the majors is really clear imo.

What sort of hand would want to bid keycard in this sequence? And why is ♠Hx more likely than three-card support? As usual I don't think COG is really necessary, partner can bid 4S over 4D if he wants to play there opposite Hx (we've already denied 3 spades to bid 4D obv).

Yeah, I'm sure there are some people who know Fred and Bob's game enough to tell the difference, but most probably could not. Again it is kind of random depending on who knows whos games etc. I'm sure there are a group of 20 experts I could nail and a group of 20 I know nothing about and would just be guessing a lot. My impression is that Fred and Bob have very similar bidding styles though, but again I don't know Fred's game from personal experience very much at all.

Who is Bod? Do you mean Brad (Fred's regular partner)? If so... L.O.L. I have played very few boards against them but I'm sure I could tell which was which very quickly. Brad has a very...distinct style :) If you were trying to tell which person it was if it was like Joe Grue and Brad then it would be hard though. I think you could tell the difference between Meckstroth and Rodwell, between Hamman and Zia, etc also, but it definitely depends on which 20 players were playing. Some players have very distinct styles and are much different than their partner though.

If partner has 6 spades they probably make 4H lol

LMAO I MADE A BAD POST CUZ I SAW VUL WRONG... actually maybe I didn't... NS are vul and east is the dealer...but are we NS or E? You said opps are silent so I can't infer anything from your lack of putting a pass in for them.

1) 4D, willing to play 4S if partner bids them again. 2) Light em up yo and lead a spade yo! 3) PASS?! lol 4) PASS?!?!?!?!?! 5) Open 1N. At MP with a double on my left I will just rebid 1N, call me crazy :) It's so important to play 1N rather than 2m imo, or to find hearts. I'm not really worried that partner will rebid a mediocre 5 bagger when they make a t/o X. We could easily win the board from stopping low/in the superior MP partials. If they hadn't Xed I would rebid 2C.

Just play well. It might come into play if it was something specific like "this field NEVER bids slam" and you're deciding whether to bid a 70 % grand or not (obv don't) whereas if it was an overbidding field you obv would. I suppose in very close situations for me I would try to duplicate the field, but generally I would be more interested in trying to do what I thought was right.

I think I would start 1D-2C

Do you play dbl (pass) 2NT as showing a minimum? Here in rain-drenched England it's commonly played as scrambling, but even if it's natural it doesn't say anything about opener's range. Doubling planning to pass any reply but 2♠ doesn't seem very different from bidding 2♠, which partner will raise with a maximum and 4-card support. Maybe double planning to pass 2NT but bid 3NT over 3♣ has some merit. FWIW I was planning on bidding game regardless. 2N scrambling is fine, I was thinking it's natural because they have bid 2 of the suits already, but probably since its a precision 1D it should still be scrambling. If it's natural though I think it denies the nuts, I would always bid 3N with 18 or a good 17. I agree it doesn't necessarily show a hand that would reject a normal invite though. My point was just that inviting is not really an option ever, except in some auctions if you start with a X. So even if one views this hand as not worth a GF, given that you have to GF or sign off almost always, I would think they would prefer to GF. Just bidding 2S seems like a really big underbid to me after a 1N overcall.

Im gonna be in NY for the first 2 days before SC starts, then go to SC. If any BBFers are at either one say hi!

Agree you should flag over this 3S bid

They definitely play this in certain auctions but I'm 95 % sure it's not in this specific one.

I would double, planning on playing 3N unless we have a 5-4 spade fit. Josh, what is your plan to invite? If it is going through some kind of transfer lebensohl, it seems crazy to me that you will play in three spades when partner is rejecting a spade invite. You might as well play 3N than play in a 5-2 spade fit at the 3 level. You might play 3S in a 5-3 as well when partner is rejecting, but I'd still rather be in NT myself. If RHO passed and you told me you would stayman and then bid 2N I would be on board with that, but since playing 2N will not option if you show 5 spades, and since I think 2S is too much of an underbid, somethings gotta give. You do have some options in playing below game if you start with X, like passing a 2N bid by partner or inviting over a 2S bid.

I think BWS has standard right. That means if you bid 2D and then bid 3C it's forcing though (else just raise directly).

3D? Really? I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that even gnasher and 655321 would open 2D rather than 3D if they had that choice at these colors... I would go with: 2D-2S-4D-5D-p-5S-p-p-p if south was really feelin it. It is a common error to overevaluate stiff opposite stiff when you shouldn't be doing so. South only has a great hand because normally a stiff is awesome to ruff stuff and partner has less losers overall. Here partner is likely to have 1 and definitely at most 2 diamonds, so south cannot drive it home with keycard. I would expect most people to just keycard with his hand though, but I think that's a mistake. Obviously north might double 2D rather than bid 2S also, but I prefer to get my 5 card suit in when 5-3 in the majors if at all possible.

This is a really complicated hand, who knows if the auction I gave is best. 1D-1N 3C are all automatic, 3C is a good bid not only because you might have slam, but you have no heart stopper. Remember that when it goes 1D p 1N you know with 5-4 in the minors you have a big fit, either 2 8 card minor suit fits or one 9+ card fit. That is great when you have a primed out hand like openers. After that the question is should you just bid 4C or should you start with 3H. This auction is not that well known, but in general I like the concept of setting trumps immediately rather than making an advanced cuebid. The auction can get murky if you don't set trumps immediately and clarify your intentions immediately. That being said, 3H DOES set trumps as clubs. Why? Becuase with a diamond fit you would bid 3D, and you must have either a club or a diamond fit. Still, 3H does not clarify your intentions immediately. You are not screaming "I'm slamming in clubs." You are more pinpointing that you have heart values and not spade values which could be a 3N issue. As mentioned here, 3H is not yet a slam try. When partner bids 3N over 3H and you pull it, you have clarified your intentions nicely and are well placed. But sometimes partner doesn't bid 3N as han says. Can the murkiness cost? Well, I don't really think it will. You always have available cuebidding 4H next which clarifies to me that you have the ACE rather than something else (the ace is very important, compared to your 3H bid which just showed a stopper and could have been QJx or KQx). And by cuebidding you are saying "I'm trying for slam." And remember, 3H has set clubs, so that won't be an issue. What advantage does 3H have over raising directly to 4C? Well the main advantage imo is that you are sure to be able to show that you have a heart card and probably don't have a spade card (definitely confirmed when you don't cuebid spades next). Sure 4C will work fine when partner bids 4D and you bid 4H, but I don't think partner will always bid 4D. In fact, I don't think 4D necessarily is just a cuebid, I think it brings diamonds back in as a potential trump fit, if you are say 6-4 or whatever. At the very least it should show very good diamonds or something, not just your usual first or second round control. If partner doesn't bid 4D, I can see you getting into trouble. If he bids 4H you have a great hand but you can't cuebid 4S to show this (it would show a spade control). If partner bids 4S I guess you are endplayed into bidding keycard, but you'd much rather partner was in control since you don't know that much, and can show your whole hand via keycard. Anyways, for these reasons I think 3H is better than 4C. After 3H, I think 3N is auto by south, he is minimum and his partner showed a heart stopper. Partner may just have xxx KQx Jxx xxxx or whatever, so it would be crazy to do anything else. After 3N, responder is well placed and bids 4C to emphasize his club support. The fifth club is great and he has the king, and he doesn't want to emphasize anything else. After 4C I think 4D is fine, opener probably needs partner to have the ace rather than the KQ of hearts to make slam a good proposition, and he can't yet drive to 6. 4H to confirm the ace seems normal at that point, responder greatly suspects partner to be 3154 at this point so he must show the ace. It's not really an overstatement about hearts at this point. At that point south has enough information to kick it in to slam. Should he try for 7? Maybe, you can certainly have a good grand opposite a partner with SIX clubs which is possible. If you wanted to try for 7 you should keep cuebidding since the 3rd round diamond control is what's important. I'm not sure if I purposely overlooked this for the sake of simplicity on the B/I forum, or if I thought that you would get to some bad grands via cuebidding and never be confident enough about it. Since most people will probably not even be in small slam unless you are playing an expert team, I would not really worry about 7. You could certainly come up with auctions other than the one I gave to get to slam so it's not like mine is necessarily the best or the only way, I just think it's how I would bid with myself.

I think the 4H bidders on hand 1 are missing the point if they're saying they have too much defense for 5H... When you bid 5H you strongly expect them to bid 5S imo which is good because you have lots of defense. When one guy is void and one guy is stiff it's really hard to double you. I also think we don't have that much defense if they don't end up in spades. Anyways 5H 4H 4C for me

I would never game force with this hand. Maybe if I never opened with unbalanced 11s or something, even then surely I open with unbalanced 12s and I don't have a GF opposite that... and does anyone really not open unbalanced 11s with 5 spades? Seems absolutely maniacal to GF with THIS 12, and I'd say I GF with more 12s than most good players. Re- Semi forcing NT and 2/1 GF, this has become very common/popular recently. Personally I love the treatment. If you never bid 1N with GF hands (most people), and you wouldn't accept a 3 card LR or a 2N invite (aka most 11-12 5332s, and some 13s), why not have the ability to pass 1N? It's probably your best spot. This is even more true if you play invitational jumps over a 1M opener (which many are playing now).

Yep...gl with them on their lead :rolleyes: So you will rebid 4 with any 7cS and some points in S? ..And maybe bid 4 immediatly with weaker hands if NV? Seems like a leap to say that I would bid 4S with any 7 card spade because I'm willing to with AKT heh. Anyways, if I have a weak hand with 7 spades the opps have already bid. If this is a world where the opps really didnt bid when I have KQ seventh and out and partner has a weak NT then no I definitely would not bid game, that would be silly.