Jlall

Well 2H shows about 10+. Occasionally it is stretched for competitive reasons with maybe 6-4 in the reds or so down to about 8. Something like --- AQxxxx Qxxx xxx. But as a general rule it is 10+. West has 5 points.

Maybe it doesn't mandate it, but that is what "everyone" does here in practice. I don't ever use the stop card so I can't tell you what I do. Most people are not going to read the stop card and do what it says, they're going to do what other people, especially people they respect, seem to be doing. In tournament bridge that is the normal procedure (to put it down, make your bid, wait ten seconds, take it away). My gripe has nothing to do with whether they keep it out our not, and I think jdonn if anything would prefer them not to keep it out. I am sympathetic to the view that the stop card should either be made mandatory or done away with, kind of, I'm really only sympathetic to the latter view. I think it is so horrible that I prefer it be optional to mandatory.

I agree with everyone else that the US regulation is at fault; and it is also a matter of education. In the UK, if the LHO of a skip-bidder counted to ten out loud, the director would explain that he was transmitting unnecessary unauthorised information and why that is to be avoided. Here, it is the responsibility of the skip-bidder to face the stop card while the skip-bidder counts to ten -- but not out loud either. How is this different than what happens in USA? Are you just saying because it's mandatory? If you use the stop card here you keep it there for 10 seconds and then you remove it. They cannot bid until you remove it. Obviously you are not allowed to count to 10 out loud here.

Are you really that surprised? You would bid 4H opposite a weak 2 without any qualms probably. Quick tricks + ruffing value + 3 trumps is a great hand opposite a 6 card suit.

Where do you get this? This number could easily mean inviting is correct (and does mean that to me). If you want to try to prove that bidding game > inviting you need to prove that game is better than 50 % on hands where partner passes your invite. It's tough/impossible to simulate judgment but I bet if you give partner 4-6 and 6 hearts game is not better than 50 %. But now simulations are getting dumb since we're just using HCP, so we might as well think about it from a bridge point of view. Bidding 3H on this auction shows a very good hand. Generally a primed out max with 3 hearts. That is what we have. Surely we can respect partner's judgment to be pretty good when we are able to describe our hand very well. The only time bidding game would be better than inviting is if we were not describing our hand that well. Let's say game was 80%, but partner knew our exact hand if we bid 3H. We would obviously choose to bid 3H right? An extreme example, but you get the point. Partners range is extremely wide right now, ours will be extremely narrow. He should make the final decision. Also, I would very often, much more than I would over 1D p 1S p 1N, go back to a 5 card heart suit on the auction 1D p 1H p 1N. 1H here is never a singleton, and there are more unbalanced hands with 5 hearts that we can have that don't get to show their second suit. For instance 1D p 1S p 1N with 5-4 in either red suit we go back to that red suit. After 1D p 1H p 1N we can only go back to the second suit in one case, when it's diamonds. When we have 4-5 in the majors we go back to hearts. This increases the amount of times we will need to rebid our 5 card major, not even factoring in that it's less risky given that partner never has a stiff.

The type of thing Han was talking about (and I also) was intentionally taking advantage of UI. At the world class level the players are very in tune with what's going on, even if they are lying to themselves and saying the do it subconciously they know they're doing it imo. And many of the ones who do take advantage of UI at that level are probably thinking more about "can I get away with this or not?" again imo. I agree there are those who bend over backwards when they have UI to not use it, this is how I was taught and I think my personal hero Bob Hamman is the best at this and I'm happy I got to learn a sense of his ethics, but in my experience this is far and away the exception not the rule. I totally agree with what Fred said, against other world class players these people will be more ethical. This is because they can get away with less, and someone like Fred telling all of his friends that player X is unethical is worse than someone like me saying it. This also doesn't mean they won't do anything against other world class players, there are still things you can get away with. Likewise I'm sure these people who get away with whatever they can vs me are being even more unethical with people worse/less well known than me. I mean at a regional against a non pro team you could pretty much just take advantage of everything and get away with it. I suspect there are those who do just that. Unfortunately in bridge a lot of the rules remind me of the honor system in school. That just doesn't work, especially when there is big business and a lot of money on the line. Especially when you are playing against people who you suspect of doing unethical things, or even know they are, but have NO way of getting them for it. I think most people do not have the mental fortitude to keep being ethical in the face of that.

Fred, I would consider on this auction that most non 5332s would be able to bid 2H or 2D (for you probably bidding 2D via a 2C relay). Like 5-4 majors bids 2H obv, 5-4 with diamonds gets out in 2D. So the only real non 5332s here hands with side clubs. Probably 5332s are more common than hands with side clubs (not sure?) so if you pass with most 5332s it seems like 80 % was an overbid. Anyways I feel like you and I are pretty close in what we do actually. We seem to be the same with 5332...I guess I pass a lot with 5314 also when you wouldn't, but with 5134 I would bid very often and 5224 would depend on my suit quality (I would need good spades), and I would always bid with 5-5.

OK cool, this matches my experience having played this style a lot.

Some of these examples of 4H bids are terrible. For instance the 7-4 hands should often be bidding their second suit. KJxxxxx --- AKxx Ax is a good example of that, diamond queen/jack/length are good, club queen/jack/length are not really. Heck even a doubleton diamond is awesome and a doubleton club sucks. Void showing splinters, especially 1 under the trump suit will get partner to assume that his queens in the side suit are working. Anyways I agree if you make the error of bidding 4H with that hand over 2S that bidding over 4S would be horrible.

But RHO showed ♥AK. Why wouldn't he open with ♠A1098xx or ♠KJ109xx or even with 5 spades without the other top ♠ honor? hmm? It said west wins the HA and returns the K edit: Also says lead HQ, guess I could have figured out you meant to say east rather than west.

Turns out it wasn't so hard to throw this parameter in. Results with no South round-suit singletons or worthless doubletons containing 3 spades to a high honor, 10000 hands dealt: 1 spade : 799 2 spades : 4925 3 spades : 4276 So, the odds appear to be 11.5 : 1 against. Can you add in 1444 and see how that changes it?

just gonna edit this part cuz of the edit

Cherdano you should just pitch the heart from dummy on the last trump if it's not high not a diamond (as manudude said). Anyways yeah the squeeze/count chances > 2-1 in the minors. Basically you are losing to 6241 with your line which is a very likely shape.

Imo the best line is not the line you are looking for assuming the line you are looking for is:

The first 1N bid was horrible, just bid 2H. You have a shaky stopper at best and a very good 5 card major. Opening 1N with a 5 card major is not the same as overcalling 1N with a 5 card major. The latter should not often be done, and when it is it should be based on some slow double stopper in their suit like KJx or something. After the 1N overcall west should not bid 3N if he has some alternative. Some popular methods are transferring to clubs and bidding spades showing shortness, or bidding 3S directly showing shortness and 3 cards in hearts. Failing playing any methods like that I think 3N is ok, I'd rather do that than get into some 2C then 3C sequence like I would if partner had opened 1N because here they've already shown a stopper. The second 1N is also horrible but more understandable, but I still prefer 1S. East is thinking he has great stoppers in the red suits, and doesn't really wanna bid 1S with with 18 since it doesn't show the values, so bids 1N. Again, opening 1N with a 5 card major is generally good if partner has a game going hand (1N-3N is a great auction), but generally a loser on partscore hands (even 5-2 spade fits play better when partner is weak, and 5-3 and 5-4 spade fits play much better). When you are overcalling 1N in sandwich seat with 18 it is very very very very likely partner has a weak hand. Ergo you'd rather get your 5 card major in if it's going to be a partscore hand, because you'd much rather play 1S or 2S than 1N. You may even get to games by bidding 1S thant you miss by bidding 1N (when partner has a raise to 2S or 3S but a pass of 1S). And despite your double stoppers in the red suits, your hand is very suit oriented. You have prime stoppers rather than slow stoppers (not KQT but AKx). These argue for suit play. After that start to the auction they should have recovered when they got a raise to 2H. First, west should double 2H for takeout. Bidding 3C is crude and old fashioned. Had west done that east would have no doubt bid 4S. After the crude 3C bid, east made the decision to bid 3S, very questionable but look at the gold it struck! West had 4 spades and a much better hand than he might have had and PASSED!?!?!?! Passing 3S shows a lack of bridge understanding.

spot on

If you never play 3N on any auction when you have this hand you are not losing much. Definitely on this auction you don't have enough info to make that judgement.

North had an obvious 3N bid with a source of tricks and a side ace. Look at it this way, you want to be in game opposite xxx Axx xxx Axxx, and game is nearly cold opposite xxx Axx xxxx Axx. Hopefully this illustration shows you how powerful ace+ trick source combinations can be.

Fred, do you like rebidding 1N with 1453 and 2C with 1444? Personally I like 1N with 1444 also for much the same reasons (finding hearts, playing 1N, avoiding silly partials). In fact if it was just a partscore hand I would expect 2C to be worse on 1453 than 1444 because we are more likely to get to a 6 card fit (partner frequently bidding 2D with 2D, not as frequently passing 2C with 3 clubs). I guess on other deals I would rather have 4 clubs for my 2C bid though (like if partner bids 4th suit forcing and I bid 3H 1444 seems like a much better shape to have than 1453). Also I like raising sometimes with a small doubleton and 3 trumps. All of this means that for me the chance of having a singleton spade on 1D-1S-1N is not insignificant, though still not that likely at all. I will bid 2S on that auction on the "obvious" hands with 5 spades, I gave an example in another thread of KQT9x xx Qxx xxx I think. That hand will play better in the 5-1 anyways most likely. But a large majority of the time I will pass. I get the impression that Meckwell (who never bid 1N with a stiff and never raise wtih 3) go back to 2S like 90 % of the time that they have 5 spades and a weak hand. Is that closer to your style?

Don't agree that any of gnasher's auctions should be forcing but that's me.

You're a hero, almost the kind of legend of ewj!

I can never tell if the people who suggest 1H are joking are not. For all the possible 6 card fits you can get to (2S in the 5-1, 2D in the 5-1, 2C in the 3-3) with 1N, 2d, and 2C, you can add all those times up and it won't even come close to the amount that you land in a 4-2 heart fit by opening 1H. So it pretty much sucks for partscore bidding! It also seems to suck for game bidding because you will get to 4H in a 4-3 when it's wrong very often because...you showed 5 of them! It also seems to suck for competitive bidding where opening 1D is way better because you have not lied and might get to double spades for takeout or raise hearts if partner makes a neg X etc. Whereas if you start out by lying about a card in a major partner will judge badly what to do! I mean I guess opening 1H mighta been cool 50 years ago when everyone played 4 card majors and didn't false preference to doubletons, but now that people know how to bid it's gonna backfire hard.

No chance west would bid 5H

This happened to me once, they were showing a regional swiss on vugraph and my teammate didn't want to be on and they said they were going to give us 0 VPs for the match if they refused to play, and something about it being in the conditions of contest.

I am surprised by your impression. FWIW my impression is that the game is very clean at its highest levels these days. I have had a lot of experience playing against almost all of the world's most successful professional partnerships during the past 10+ years. In that time, the number of leading pro pairs who have left me with a clear impression of "cheating" could be counted on one finger - I don't recall how many hearts that shows in the R-S methods... :) Almost all of the others top pro pairs (probably several dozen) have left me with a clear impression of "honest". Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Fred I have talked to han about this so hopefully he won't mind if I speak for him but the kind of stuff he's talking about is unethical/borderline stuff rather than very blatant cheating like R/S and the racecars. Mainly tempo related things, like getting the singleton vs doubleton problems right all the time etc. You know the kind of things that it is possible to get away with all the time because it can be subtle enough and your opps don't know your exact tempo as well as your partner so not much can be done. I am of the view that there are more top pairs that will do the small/subtle/shady things that they can get away with that are unethical than than those who won't, but if you don't agree I will defer to you since you have way more experience at the high levels than me (or anyone on this forum). I would definitely rather you be right, maybe I am cynical because of a few bad experiences. I think there are almost no top pairs (maybe none?) that are giving illicit illegal signals with their coughs and stuff like that.