Jlall

I'm passing, but that's pretty ugly.

I thought we had 8 clubs. I always just count the other cards when I have a 1 suiter and subtract from 13 :) My answer is assuming 2308 edit: Now it is 2308 and 2308 is in the title also... heh

I would just bid 2C, too scared to double. After the balance I would bid 2S.

If LHO is going to bid 4S, bidding 4C would be better if you are going to sit for a double from partner. That is still a very scary proposition as it depends a lot whether he has values in hearts or diamonds which is pretty random. Meanwhile I look forward to partner playing 3N when we are cold for a club slam!

My view is that if you do not have a pokerface and sometimes give away your holding because of that, it is your own fault. This doesn't give you the right to try and act a certain way to compensate for your lack of pokerface. Of course if you always had a concerned look on your face then that IS a pokerface, and you can keep it that way in all scenarios. Likewise if you always have a carefree look on your face you can keep it that way even when you have a problem. The key is maintaining the same look always. If you vary your face when you have a problem sometimes because you are human even though you usually have a carefree expression, it is still illegal to attempt to have the concerned face when you have no problem. With respect to your director ruling/appeal, I think you got screwed. You had a legitimate problem, do you win the ace or the queen. Certainly winning the ace is an unusual play, not at all automatic, and you may take your time in deciding to do so.

Pass then 4H over 4D looks pretty good to me (showing 5 hearts). Of course if partner bids 5D over this I will think my auction was less good. That being said 4C then 4H doesn't show 5-6 obviously so you could miss a 5-3 fit that way pretty easily. That doesn't have to be the worst thing ever though.

Wow had no idea about law 68B!

The guy who said this presumably (hopefully) meant that by cashing the AK of clubs and then shifting suits after they showed out, he would seem like he was abandoning clubs because of "the bad news." This is a fairly well known deceptive play. Obviously if he meant he would somehow physically act like he got the bad news, that is wrong. Nobody would fault someone who said they would play a high-low signal to try to look like they had a doubleton.

I like 3S, the diamonds are too weak to fit jump imo. I bid 3S rather than 4H because I want partner to know that I have a good hand in case they bid 4S. This runs the risk of letting LHO double to suggest a save, but I think it's worth it.

Pretty gross spot, I would just start by passing. Your 2C bid sucks but I'm sure you knew I'd say that :lol:

That is really funny. Players of today tend to belittle the accomplishments and the skill of the old time players. I never belittled the guys accomplishments. What I said is the equivalent of saying that Rod Laver if he were to play today would never win a championship. It is just obvious. That is not belittling his accomplishments though, he was amazing. I don't think its belittling his skills, nobody had a clue how to bid then. The theory of bidding has evolved greatly, and the theory of signalling has evolved greatly. More has been written, more has been thought about, more has been learned. This is the equivalent of technology and training and nutrition theory etc evolving in tennis. This is the natural evolution of the game. I will say that having spoken to people that played WITH Goren regularly and were great players at that time, Charles Goren was not considered that great of a player. He was much better of a promoter, and did a lot for bridge. Clearly quoting some expert of many many many years ago with respect to bidding and what they would have done is silly.

I think gnasher also once said he has a weaker range to bid 2H on this auction than I do. Maybe an English vs US thing? I have a weaker range than you too lol. I think it's about good 8 to 11 with 4, a point lighter with 5. FWIW I said 10-11 because RHO bid. If RHO had passed I would say 9-11 (which is the same as you). I think 1H being a freebid, it should include the 9 counts wtih 4 hearts.

Now this I could play. Its more functional than asking "do you have a club s/v". Sorry I typoed I meant to put at the end: 4S=club void. Also I have 4D and 4H as they are because I will often open 1N with 4252 which makes that hand less frequent than 18-19- type hand, and obv you want 4D to be the more frequent hand type so you can last train over that one. For the same reason I think in jdonns scheme he should switch 4D and 4S.

I think gnasher also once said he has a weaker range to bid 2H on this auction than I do. Maybe an English vs US thing?

almost always 2♥!!! There you go downgrading again :lol: umm, I consider it an upgrade to bid 3H with 15 and that shape (obviously it's different if I have 7 hearts). Seriously people are routinely bidding 3H with 15 and 6322?

What does that mean? The fact that Charles Goren would have opened it 60 years ago means that it should still be an opener? Bridge has evolved from Charles Goren. Charles Goren likely would not be able to win a flight A regional if he were to play now. Your theory about whether or not to open with spades or not is backwards. You want to stretch to open with hands that have spades. With this hand you can pass and make a takeout double of spades at any level. Anyways, I would obviously open this if my system permitted. For the purpose of these threads I assume a relatively expert standard system, ie 2/1 with normal stuff. In that framework I would not open. My preferred system is light openers in a strong club framework and I would definitely open in that type of system.

Non serious is bad in this auction (IMO!) Let's put it this way, partner has basically 3 hand types for 1D 1S 3S: 1) Short clubs, probably in the 14-16 range. 2) Balanced with 18-19- 3) 4252 with about 16-17 You can also include some hands with short hearts and like stiff honor that don't want to mini splinter, those should also be in the 16-17 range. So basically opener has 3 completely different types of hands. Obviously responder wants to know which type of hand opener has in order to evaluate his hand for slam purposes. Does it make more sense for opener to split his hand types into serious and non serious, likely when he has no idea which he has as it depends totally on what type of hand you have, or does it make more sense to give responder the ability to ask what type of hand partner has? I think the latter is clear. Just play 3N asks then 4C=short clubs, 4D=balanced 18-19-, 4H=4252, or a hand wrong for a mini splinter in hearts (stiff K). 4S= club void Over 4C, you can have last train available since short clubs is the widest range, and opener can move accordingly. The other hand types are well defined enough that responder can judge what to do pretty accurately. The only hand types where opener really needs to know what responder has are when responder has shortness somewhere. So play that responders other bids besides 3N shows shortness. That way opener can do the evaluating. Alternatively you can play 4 of partners minor shows a double fit, and the other bids show shortness.

Even with gib being an aggressive slam bidder, when you have THE BEST HAND EVER, probably a better hand than you can ever have, you should be happy to bid 6D. Seriously you have the complete top of your range of possible hands. This hand is far better than a 4333 18 count that you downgraded or something. If you are passing with this hand you are passing with every hand that you have. I don't think gibs slam bidding is aggressive enough to make that correct. Passing this is a wayyyy overreaction to gibs aggressive bidding, or way underestimating how good this hand is. I mean on the actual hand partner had a normal 14 and slam makes.

No, people are just bad at bridge.

Definitely don't pass assuming you play 5 card majors. Just bid 4S on the round before also.

Roughly 8-10 if you have 5 hearts, and roughly 10-11 if you have 4 hearts. Ranges not set in stone or anything and depends on shape and honor location but those are my best approximations.

Playing with myself I would pass. But playing with any normal person I would double all day just to get in there and encourage partner to bid a suit if he can so we can compete. It is not very risky at all and gets your side in cheap. It is very unlikely to even help them play the hand, and in fact is more likely to get them to misplay the hand. The reason I would pass playing with myself is I rate not to have modest values and a 5 card suit to pass in third seat w/r. Still possible though if my suit was bad.

Because in the first case he has already shown his spade support. What? So what? His partner is never going to pull his X of 5H because he raised to 4S already. Ergo it is completely irrelevant if he's shown his spade support or not, his partner is out of the auction.

Yes the 5H bidders are resulting, 1H 3S 5H is definitely a slam try in hearts with no spade control. I'm sure they'd all find that bid if the given hand was xx KQxx AKQxx Ax. What happened to don't preempt over a preempt? Part of the logic is as Andy said, it's unneccesary to preempt LHO when RHO is never going to bid again anyways.

Did RHO not double you? BTW in general a great thing about auctions like this is nobody knows who has what, the ranges are extremely wide. The 3S bidder could have almost any 6-5, or some medium 5-5's, and the 4S bidder could have anything from this to a real hand. Therefore, it is hard to guage when to double or not. People who are not experienced with this kind of highly competitive bridge do not double nearly enough on this auction. If RHO did not double with THAT hand that is very good evidence of this. Sure they might make, but you have such a great hand that you have to assume you were making and thus they were saving and protect yourself by doubling. Likewise it will be very hard for LHO to know when to double. Make sure you bid 4S in tempo and don't look like it's painful! When this is not a phantom save which I don't expect it to be that often then it's probably a really good bid.