Jlall

I would. Ditto

This seems obvious to me. There is an aspect of bridge that is not bidding, it is called card play. If you are in close contracts all the time then if you have an edge in the card play you will be doing well on those. This is even true if *gasp* double dummy you have a slightly negative expectation in these contracts. There will also be more decisions in the bidding to make, if you create competitive auctions and have superior competitive judgement you will be winning. If you are downgrading often, you are taking yourself out of these situations. Passing with 12 counts (like partner did on this hand), and just looking for reasons to downgrade in general, is not winning bridge. You don't apply pressure in either the bidding or the cardplay if you do it. Look at this hand, both guys passed with 12 counts and there they are. IMO it is not a winning style to look for reasons to downgrade, and nobody who I would consider a winning player downgrades very often, if ever. I mean I'm still waiting for the day meckstroth looks at a 14 count and doesn't open a 14-16 NT because it's too soft. It's never gonna happen. "Winning" bridge to me is applying pressure, and being better than your opponents on the close and marginal hands that can go either way. I know there are many smart people like you who do not understand why one would upgrade more than they downgrade, but there is a reason why this is universal among good players.

Yeah 6322 15 is almost always 2H. Agree with 3H on this hand though.

This is only one auction. My general point was that if the auction gets competitive, it will be hard for your side to judge what to do very often because you have such a wide range of possible hands. I do not think simulating how often this exact auction comes up is really relevant. For intance take an auction like 1C p p X 1S 2H 2S/3C ? When do you bid 3H? If you pass with 4 hearts ever, can partner ever compete, fearing that you have a weak balanced hand? Can partner even freely bid a major at the 2 level? If not, maybe RHO will bid something and you will have missed out on competing. Can he jump to the 2 level with a hand that won't make game opposite a balanced 14 count? An auction like 1C p p X 3C or jumping to 2x would be very bad for you also. Pretty much any auction where LHO bids something and RHO raises can be bad for you. Etc Etc. I do not think that the auction getting competitive is an irrelevant scenario, and when it does you will obviously have a harder time judging the auction well if your X can contain weak balanced hands with a doubleton in the major. Perhaps you don't consider 14 to be weak, but I consider it too weak to be able to bid NT later if the auction gets competitive, when partner might be competing with pretty weak hands. If you take away partners ability to compete with these pretty weak hands you will be losing something also. Yes but you will be able to stop in 2M on those cases. Why did you ignore the point that you have to play 2N rather than 1N? Surely that is a more frequent loss and not statistically irrelevant. Also, what about when responder has a weak hand with a 5 card suit. Can you stop in 3 of that suit? If you can, you probably would have been able to stop in 2 of that suit if opener could have doubled and bid 2N. Sorry, but I'm really going to question your use of simulations to try and figure out problems like this. You cannot simulate every possible situation, but these simulations don't mean anything since you are ignoring a lot of stuff imo. Lots of people try to simulate "everything" and I think that some situations are very good for simulation (like do you invite with the 6 card heart suit opposite a 1N opener) and some are very poor (like auctions involving competitive situations).

No agreement is perfectly fine here imo

Yes, play 4D transfer to 4H. Bidding 4H is just a non forcing slam try (the same as last train).

Agree with 4S, and think it is infinitely better than 4C. We are super unlikely to need to bid 5S w/w, I will consider it a victory just to get them to the 5 level. With a pretty low ODR opposite a mixed raise I am not looking to get partner to judge to bid 5 over 5. Additionally the whole point of bidding is sticking it to LHO. If we bid 4C he can double to show some values so they will have an easier time Xing 4S, and he can also bid 4H to show his heart fit and suggest to his partner that they compete to the 5 level, or he can bid 4H then X 4S to show a good hand with a heart fit so his partner can judge what to do etc.

He can't be 1255 because he played a 2nd spade. Yeah you caught me, roger warned me on AIM too :) For some reason I was thinking they had 1 spade so whether you played the DJ or low wouldn't matter. Should have stuck with my first answer :P The DJ should just stick out at you even if this is at the table. It's like it's screaming PLAY ME. This is probably because if the hand had been slightly different the DJ would be necessary for a different reason - to make partner guard diamonds rather than yourself so that you couldn't be squeezed in the reds. That is not the case here because declarer has to use the HK to run spades, but if he could magically start running them without using the HK it would be the case. Anyways at the very least a diamond should stick out because the double squeeze is going to be automatic otherwise. BTW welcome back I hope Mikeh, ♥ you in a very masculine way!

Yeah DJ. I think if I play a heart declarer will win his queen, play another heart and run spades. I have to guard hearts partner has to guard clubs. I don't have to play the diamond jack though lol. I was thinking I was gonna get squeezed in the reds but the HK is declarers only entry so I can just play small. edit: Declarer has 2 spades not 1 lol (ty rogerclee). In that case the DJ Caters to RHO being 2254 with A AKQ in the reds. Funny my first post was "without thinking about it DJ to break up a double squeeze" then I edited to low diamond and DJ are equal because RHO cant be 1255... then I edited again to DJ is better because partner can be 2254!

Balancing with a double on all balanced 14 point hands is just asking for trouble. Even over a club. For instance you're going to be doubling with some hands that have a doubleton major and 14. Often when you're that weak, LHO is going to bid again, and partner is going to compete. For instance 1D p p X 2D 2S p ? would be a disaster if you had just 14 points and 2 spades. If partner is supposed to always not jump and always pass in competition, it becomes tough to sort out your ranges and compete when it's right. The whole point of doubling and bidding with good hands and also regular takeout X hands is because the ranges are so far apart, and the strong hands are so strong they can control the auction despite being off shape even if partner bids like you have a takeout double. If you mix ranges so that 14 point balanced hands have to double and so do normal takeout doubles, the ranges are becoming too close, and the "strong" hand is not strong enough to control competitive situations. Partner must either underbid and undercompete when you have normal shape, or over compete if you have a "strong" balanced hand. Likewise, I think balancing with 2N with 17 is asking for a disaster. Partner hasn't shown anything, and LHO could be very strong. Not to mention you will miss 4-4 fits when partner has to pass 2N. These are serious problems, you are just forcing to too high of a level without enough of a hand to justify it. I also think that being able to balance with balanced 9 and 10 point hands is not really a benefit at all, but I guess that's a matter of opinion.

Definitely pass 1S imo, you have good spades so a 4-3 should be fine, and there is less of a need to bid 1N in order to shut them out (compared to if we had hearts, and they might find a spade fit and be able to compete to 2S). Bidding has a lot more merit over 1H since a 4-3 heart fit might suck compared to 1N, and we might let them find spades by passing, but I would still pass just to keep it low.

Most people I know have a balancing 1N range of about 11-15, and X then 1N is 16-18, and balancing 2N is about 19-21. Maybe this is a regional thing.

Heh when Fred posted those results of the bridge world hand, I remembered that Bart was the 1 5D bidder. I think he liked 5D on this hand too.

I'm sure the reasoning was because more people bid than passed, so he gave the top score to the top bid. I think that is misguided in a situation like this where much of the reason to pass is that bidding doesn't come close to guarantee that you get to the right spot.

A little worse than off beat, not insane though.

When our hearts are this good there is more of a chance than usual that partner will be 6322 also since he can't really bid 3H with bad hearts and probably wouldn't want to anyways with a bunch outside. If he has that slam can be great. If he has the right 19 with 2533 slam can be very good. Dunno, I think it's definitely worth making 1 try and then not making another move. Partner should only be driving with something exceptional.

A reopening 1N shows 18-19 btw because you are supposed to pass with a weak NT hand type unless it has a doubleton diamond then you should X.

This happened last night against Bart (though now that you mention it I remember a very similar MSC hand...weird). You can see the movie: here Shane chose to bid 4S which has an upside that I didn't give much weight until Bart mentioned it; they might bid 5H given their seeming great length in hearts. 4N has the same advantage, but probably slightly less (they save over 4S more than 5m). I guess I'm too predictable since everyone knew I chose to pass :) Fwiw a large part of my reasoning to pass was partner might have a strong hand with a doubleton heart, like 5233 and 52(42). Passing is going to be right then most likely, but we still might land on our feet because partner should have a very strong hand to reopen with a doubleton heart. Playing strong club I would have bid though because they are more likely to be making, and partner always has real heart shortness.

One of the downsides of weak NT in 4th seat seems to be that you can't play 1M anymore. You also are opening 1N less frequently. Of course on the plus side sometimes you will get to play 1N when they could have found a making 2 level partscore otherwise.

I think this is very inferior to leading a small diamond off dummy. Your best chance is just going to be RHO napping and ducking his DA. If you lead the king he is much less likely to be ducking (aces were meant to win kings etc). I don't think LHO will be confused into ducking regardless, especially after it goes K small J. Obviously you have QJ then and he knows you could have just led to your QJ if you want to create an entry.

Of course you'd like to be in this slam! Partner could have rebid 3C though.

It would be easy to find 6C opposite this hand. 7C would be tough but it is not a good 7!

I am sorry. There is a limit to what I am willing to believe. Making 6♦ goes past that limit. You are not very imaginative then. It's very easy to see how one would make 6D.

You didn't misread. I would bid 3H when I had 5 hearts unless I had diamonds very solidly stopped like AQJ or I had very weak hearts (in which case I'd probably have good diamonds anyways). Partner can bid 3S over 3H which I don't think shows 6-4 necessarily and just shows a punt at that point with no diamond stop and no heart fit. If partner was 5215 he would probably go past 3N but that is good anyways if our diamonds are just AJx. And I really don't want to get to 3N opposite 5314 or 5305.

Yes. 3H could be a hand with 5 hearts, or a positive hand for clubs with heart values and not diamond values, or 2443 with no diamond stopper.