Jlall

Certainly double. Had I opened 1N I would reopen X also.

Huh, it doesn't matter if you play kickback or not, you want the first step to be more common than the second step so that you save room in general. You can think about how using that room will manifest itself into good stuff, but the general point should be obvious enough that you don't have to. In a completely ideal world you would play 0314 if you had shown a strong hand where 3 is more likely than 1, and you would play 1430 if you had shown a weak hand. And if you had shown a very weak hand where 0 was more likely than 1 you wouldn't even play normal keycard since you can't have 2+ (which is why responses to keycard after a preempt are often specialized). Of course nobody but kenrexford is that precise, so you just go with 14 is more common than 03 by far on average in keycard auctions.

1430 is more common now, I doubt it matters much but as mentioned, it's so that 5C will be more common than 5D as a reply which must be good.

Yes this is right but the problem is if LHO did have QJx of diamonds or falsecarded with Hxx/QJxx you are now in big trouble because you have no entry back to dummy having burned all 3 already. This means you will go down even if the CK is onside in these cases! So that line is extremely risky. It seems better to play for the CK on combined with the chance LHO has QJx of diamonds and combined with LHO having the KJT of clubs rather than to go all in on LHO having Hx of diamonds, even if LHO is falsecarding 0 % of the time in diamonds.

LOL

Yes, and if LHO has Hx of diamonds and RHO has the JT of clubs you now go down, that was my point. That's why I think this comment by you: That what i thought but you just play clubs and cover and west cannot exit in diamonds. Was wrong. You have to commit to either ruffing out spades and playing elimination, or just playing a club to the 9 before stripping out spades. I agree with playing elimination if LHO drops an honor on the AK of diamonds, if he has falsecarded, or if he has Hx of diamonds with RHO having JT of clubs, oh well ;) However if no honor falls under the AK of diamonds, I think instead of stripping out the hand you should just play a club to the 9 and then a club to the queen if LHO has shown up with 2 hearts (which requires not stripping out the hand).

That what i thought but you just play clubs and cover and west cannot exit in diamonds. Yeah but you haven't stripped out the hand so he can exit in spades... If your plan is to win the trump, ruff spade, heart over, ruff spade, you don't have 2 entries to dummy anymore to play a club to the 9 and then a club to the queen.

Did you include KJ tight of clubs with LHO as a holding also? In all honesty at the table if they have KT tight and you lead the 9 and LHO plays the ten and RHO overtakes with the jack to play a club, you might be able to read it eventually also. I mean would LHO find the falsecard from Tx to set up this position? But if hes bad maybe hes just trying to win the ten and it's not a falsecard at all... Anyways gnashers line definitely gives you the chance to read the endgame on KT/Kx positions which has value, and it also just endplays them outright when they have KJ tight. Add in the chance they mess up and let you endplay by not covering when they have say J8xx on your right them and it's getting closer... I say J8xx because from J9xx they will probably find the cover, with the queen they will probably pop queen, and even if LHO forgets to unblock Qxx you will probably ruff when RHO plays the J anwyays and lead the C9 so you aren't gaining at all. So I think it's only J8xx with RHO and he forgets to cover. Mayybe J8xxx also. But 1.8x as likely is a lot, it's probably impossible to overcome that.

Assuming a normal LHO when they drop a diamond honor on your left on the second round I guess they have Hx to begin with or QJx. Hx being more likely because of restricted choice obv, but if LHO has Hx you still need RHO to have the JT of clubs to gain, whereas if they have QJx you will be cold. So I think if they drop an honor and they are a normal opp aka they won't drop an honor from Hxx, you should go ahead and go for the endplay.

Ummm,,,,, don't agree. The difference is, the top experts play better!

Some people play this, I think it sucks.

I don't think 4C is forcing. I think it shows an invitational hand that is distributional, something like x Axxxxx xx QJxx fits the bill. This hand cannot bid 3C obviously, but 2D then 3C is misleading. This hand has no desire to play 3N. It wants partner to focus on controls and shape rather than anything else. Slam is possible opposite the nuts, and stopping in 4C is also possible opposite a bad hand for this auction (KQx x Kxx KTxxxx). I have made this bid before and didn't think it was confusing, if I wanted to force I would always bid 2D first.

Yep...gl with them on their lead ;)

I think that the best you can do is to ruff dummy's spades, then lead ♦10 from dummy. If RHO plays low, you pitch ♣9. If RHO covers ♦10, you ruff and exit with ♣9. Disagree with this line when LHO has 2 trumps. Assuming LHO has 5 spades, 2 trumps, and the CK (if he doesn't have CK we are cold, so assume he does), and RHO has 4 spades and 0 hearts, it seems better to play RHO for the JT of clubs than to play LHO for the QJx+ of diamonds or KJ/KJT tight of clubs since the defensive error possible is pretty small. Of course it's possible when LHO has Kx of clubs to begin with you will be able to read the endgame and you give up on this also, but I think he best technical line when LHO has 2 trumps is to pull trumps, cash the AK of diamonds in case of QJ tight, and then cross and play club to the 9 then cross again and play club to the queen.

game obv

If the auction really started 2C by south, 2N showing 2 of the top 3 heart honors by north, it should be easy to get to 7 if south bids keycard and finds out about the DA as well. If north happens to take control with keycard and then bids 5N himself, south knows the same info (partner has the DA and KQ of hearts), and can bid 7 again. That auction would be the best possible start on this hand.

Yes this is perfect, you knew the answer, it's just hard to believe it's that simple :) Admittedly there are some situations which are debatable which could be played either way, and having a firm agreement in place is good. My agreement with all of my pards is if it's not obvious that it should be a forcing pass, it's not. Pretty simple. I also had an agreement once that white/red there is no forcing pass (but this is a bad agreement to have vs bad opps). But 99 % of these forcing pass situations that people discuss are just clearly not forcing passes, and they're getting to muddled up in them to see the logic that you so aptly described in your post. Re Kantar- Obv he's a great player but I disagree with a ton of his FP rules, and I think at times they violate "common sense." and are possibly outdated. But it can never hurt to have good firm rules with your partners about forcing passes, especially if you're both comfortable with them (as you might tell by now, I'm not comfortable with a lot of them). Kokish, another great player and theoritician also advocates more FPs than most. So obviously you can choose to ignore me and listen to those guys ;) I would say in recent times the number of auctions people play as forcing has gone down, which makes sense as the level of competitive bidding has gone up (now at top levels it's very common to see both sides bidding on every hand, frequently both of them bidding game! No one ever knows whos hand it is).

Eric Kokish swears by this system so it can't be too bad

hahaha this is how I heard about the hand: Clee: What would you do with [this hand] Me: I would pass, I think it must be like 80 % to go all pass and I think thats really bad overall, obv it's good if partner bids something unless it's 3N. Clee: Yeah I would double. 5 minutes later... Me: Hah I read the thread, 655321 passed! I must be right! Clee: Yeah when I read that he passed I thought to myself I must be wrong that's why I asked you.

So you're sure 6S is forcing Han? I guess logically it is but I'd be scared! Also do you think 1N-2D-2H-6N is logically forcing and pick a grand? If so, what would you think of the argument that you can bid 1N-2D-2H-5N then raise whatever to 7? I'm just saying someone could easily interpret that auction as forcing, while someone else could reasonably argue it's not, and maybe it's the same in this case. At the very least I would be worried it's a situation partner has never seen before and he might go wrong.

lol I'm with you dude

Yeah you cannot pick up Q974. Still AQ9x + Q9x > AQx + Qxx. For some reason when I was explaining this to clee I thought there was only 1 combo of AQ9x (brain fart!) so I told him to play the ten in all cases (3 3-2 combos > 2 3-2 combos + a 4-1 combo). Anyways, despite my small error and despite hans small error the methodology used is what's important. You must find a strategy where you neutralize what they do, aka if they know your strategy ahead of time they cannot game you in any way. People get very confused by this type of problem but it's actually pretty simple. For extra credit I was hoping someone would berate me for starting by leading the jack against such good opponents! Definitely lead small to the ten against good opps and pick up AQx + Qx onside :) As an added bonus you can lose 1 less trick to stiff Q and stiff A onside also!

wow wtf I lost my suit symbols, will try to get that fixed ASAP. FWIW I wrote most of my stuff on STD like 5 years ago when I was 18, I don't agree with some of it now heh. Like I agree fast arrival is bad for the reasons mentioned, but I would now add in that serious/non serious 3N is helpful in this type of situation too and is a good thing to play

3D

I think that at any vulnerability the objective should be preemption. Even at adverse, a hand that wants to invite game must be even rarer than one that wants to preempt. That doesn't, however, mean that it should be as weak as KQJxxxx x xx xxx. I suspect that faced with that hand I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation, at least at IMPs. I wouldn't do it at matchpoints though. If this is on the cusp for me, I suppose that means it's a normal 2♠ for most of the world. Sure I agree, but if the hand required to preempt is so strong in playing strength that it ends up giving you good game chances, I think it could be defined as intermediate. Something like AQJTxxxx x KJxx x looks like a 3S bid to me, whether or not the main goal is to preempt them or to find a save or to find a game I wouldn't call this a weak jump overcall. With hands like the ones posted which look like classical opening preempts, I would view it as too dangerous to get in there (I mean honestly KQJ seventh and out seems suicidal to me red/white).