JLOL

He doesn't have to have 5 hearts... why must south have 3 hearts? In my world south showed 2 or 3 hearts and then never bid hearts again.

Nope

South is clearly to blame for the bidding. He should bid 3H and failing that should OBVIOUSLY bid 4H!!! North's bidding was great. As far as the play I don't see anything better than relying on a double heart finesse. I don't see a good way to combine KQx of spades ruffing out as I don't really have the entries, so I would pitch at trick 1 and then play 2 trumps ending in hand and play a heart to the ten.

Mikeh has given the correct answer btw.

Yes if partner shows THREE keycards it's all good, but what if partner shows 2 keycards? You don't know if he has 2 aces or an A+SK. What if partner shows ONE keycard and it's the SK and you're off 2 aces? Asking for straight aces would be fine but asking for keycards would not tell you what you need to know.

Which two possibilities?

When partner shows 2 keycards guessing whether he has 2 aces is exactly what you'll be doing. Or did you mean 1S 4N regular blackwood and not mean RKC?

Bidding these freaks is hard, and constructing auctions later to get to the right spot is usually easy. Some possibilities: 1) South bids 4C over 3H. This just shows a strong raise of hearts, because his only options were 4C and 4H to raise hearts. Whenever you have a scenario where there is only one cuebid and trumps aren't set, the cuebid is just stronger and not control specific. Stiff Q of hearts is probably enough support on this auction for game, but it's easy to think of hands where diamonds plays better for slam, so this is not clear at all, I think I like 4D overall. If south had bid 4C though north could bid keycard for hearts and obviously get to 7. 2) North bids 4N over 4D, but this is probably keycard for diamonds and the DK is irrelevant so that doesn't help too much. The idea is that if partner shows 3 keycards though you can shoot out 7 and hope partner has a heart or that hearts split. Here partner would show 2 keycards and you would just bid 6H so that wouldn't work though. 3) South kicks it in to 7 after a jump to 6. Holding both aces and the KQ of spades and HQ it's hard to imagine partner not having AK of hearts and the CA. It's possible if partner decided to gamble with say 9 hearts AKJ and the KQx of clubs, but it's unlikely. I think this is the most practical way to bid it.

Isn't 76 QT9 also a possibility? Then your play does not matter

The partner of the person who played the 9 has played the 7 and the 6.

ok, If the defender is playing the Q from Q9 then why should the declarer hook on the 8 on the second round. Also, if declarer is hooking the 8 on the 2nd round when the 9 is played then why should the defender play the Q from Q9? Also, as TimG said how does the defender know his partner has the T? Also if declarer can have 5 of the suit playing the queen from Q9 is a pretty big disaster as well.

If this is true then shouldn't declarer play the 8 on the second round? As you said "it's probably a stiff." (Not saying that this is the correct or incorrect answer btw).

You can always make 3 tricks from this position no matter what you play, so I'm asking about the fourth.

Great choice for this award, congrats Peter.

OK, I understand your question. I don't think bidding something other than double means that I didn't have enough to double. In general with an unbalanced hand I would want to start getting my suits in. I would overcall 2S with both of your examples. I would only double with unbalanced hands if they were hands that are the equivalent to doubling and bidding a new suit over an opening bid.

edited thanks

So, was the government in a doubled contract? It won't affect the tournament at all. There will be a new government. And next year, there will be a new tournament too where people can try to do better than last time :P Great thanks

OK, if you expect them to lead a stiff trump you can bid 7D, not sure I would expect that vs anyone.

LOL

Agree with 15+ and some very nice 14s. I am less apt to double with 14 than most I think. In balancing seat you can double with 13, and always with 14. I hate to abstain, but it is really vital to have a way to show the majors. Other than 1 suiters in the majors a 2 suiter with the majors is when you are most likely to have game and also when you are most likely going to be able to win a partscore battle. Not having a way to show the majors over their weak NT is on the same level as not playing takeout doubles over a preempt. Anyways I guess I would bid 2S and hold my breath.

A lot of intermediates have this problem, and it might not be so easy to spot where their logic is wrong. Say you have AJ82 opposite K543 as declarer. You lead the king and it goes 6 2 9. You now lead up to dummy and LHO plays the 7. This means that the suit could be divided: Q76 T9 QT76 9 T76 Q9 T9 is less likely because of restricted choice (they could play the T or the 9 the first round). Q9 is more likely than stiff 9, so I should go up with the ace. Why is this wrong? Adv/exp hide your answers.

LOL If you expect them to lead a diamond 100 % of the time they have xx, and never with a stiff then you pick up diamonds about 79 % of the time. So you make 82.7 % of the time. That is if they ALWAYS lead from xx, you can't get much better than that! I think they are not leading diamonds close to that often but w/e. Even if you assume best case conditions you are about equal to 7N, and even then probably worse (I don't know about you but I would like my chances to guess the endgame against people who are that bad! if I was a good declarer). Also, as far as me "overstimating" how often a count helps us, I gave us a whopping 5 % extra (and gave 0 % extra when we have a 55 fit, just enough to offset the fact that those combinations are a little less likely). In reality it is often much more than that (and sometimes doesn't help that much as you said). Also of course the odds that they lead a diamond will supercede the count we get. It is not going to supercede the amount of times we are cold without guessing diamonds, or cold when spades split without guessing diaonds, or cold on a squeeze without guessing diaonds, for 7N! That is the main point.

There were 38 possible hands. On 5 of them 7N is cold. On 13 of them 7N is 90 % (really more since you will get a count, but these hand patterns are slightly less likely to occur so it probably evens out). On 6 of them you need 32 spades or picking up diamonds. If you very conservatively only pick up diamonds 60 % of the time then this is and 87 % grand. On 9 of them we have squeeze chances with varying degrees of success, but we will conservatively estimate these hands to make 70 % of the time On 5 of the you need to pick up diamonds which we are estimating conservatively at 60 % So we are making 7N about 82.1 % of the time, that is ignoring the chance of ever getting a hopeful "safe" diamond lead, and estimating pretty conservatively. Really if you are a good declarer I'm sure you'll make more often than that. Failing to bid an 82 % grand when you have 35 HCP and a double fit (meaning the opps might just power into it at the other table, and will never ever miss 6) would be completely criminal.

For fun partner's possible hands (3343) xxx Qxx Kxxx AKx 7N needs 32 spades or picking up diamonds xxx QJx Kxxx AKx 7N needs 32 spades or picking up diamonds xxx QJx Kxxx AKJ 7N needs 32 spades or picking up diamonds Jxx Qxx Kxxx AKx 7N is cold Jxx QJx Kxxx AKx 7N is cold Jxx Qxx Kxxx AKJ 7N is cold xxx Jxx Kxxx AKJ 7N needs to pick up diamonds Jxx Jxx Kxxx AKx 7N needs to pick up diamonds or H/D sqz Jxx Jxx Kxxx AKJ 7N needs to pick up diamonds or H/D sqz Jxx xxx Kxxx AKJ 7N needs to pick up diamonds Jxx QJx Kxxx AJx 7N needs to pick up diamonds (3442) xxx Qxxx Kxxx AK 7N needs to pick up diamonds (or 32 spades + H/D squeeze) xxx QJxx Kxxx AK 7N needs 32 spades or picking up diamonds Jxx Qxxx Kxxx AK 7N needs to pick up diamonds or heart/diamonds squeeze Jxx QJxx Kxxx AK 7N is cold Jxx Jxxx Kxxx AK 7N needs to pick up diamonds Jxx QJxx Kxxx AJ 7N needs to pick up diamonds or club finesse or C/D squeeze (3244) xxx Qx Kxxx AKxx 7N needs to pick up diamonds (or spades split and C/D sqz) xxx QJ Kxxx AKxx 7N needs to pick up diamonds (or spades split and C/D sqz) Jxx Qx Kxxx AKxx 7N needs to pick up diamonds (or C/D sqz) Jxx QJ Kxxx AKxx 7N needs to pick up diamonds (or C/D sqz) xxx Qx Kxxx AKJx 7N needs 32 spades or to pick up diamonds xxx QJ Kxxx AKJx 7N needs 32 spades or pick up diamonds Jxx Qx Kxxx AKJx 7N is cold Jxx QJ Kxxx AJxx 7N needs to pick up diamonds (3352) xxx Qxx Kxxxx AK 7N is 90 % xxx QJx Kxxxx AK 7N is 90 % Jxx Qxx Kxxxx AK 7N is 90 % Jxx QJx Kxxxx AK 7N is 90 % Jxx Jxx Kxxxx AK 7N is 90 % Jxx QJx Kxxxx AJ 7N is 90 % (3253) xxx Qx Kxxxx AKx 7N is 90 % xxx QJ Kxxxx AKx 7N is 90 % xxx Qx Kxxxx AKJ 7N is 90 % xxx QJ Kxxxx AKJ 7N is 90 % Jxx Qx Kxxxx AKx 7N is 90 % Jxx QJ Kxxxx AKx 7N is 90 % Jxx Qx Kxxxx AKJ 7N is 90 % Notes: 1) I ignore the HT (comes into play when partner has QTxx of hearts and we can make on Jxx of hearts as an extra chance) 2) I ignore the ST completely. Sometimes I say 100 % when it's not 100 % if we have no ST, no S98, no 8 in hand etc, and we misguess diamonds after having a full count etc. Really its 99 % but for simplicity I do this. You may think I am biasing my results this way, but it probably doesn't offset the times where you can pick up stiff J of spades also when partner has Txx. 3) The squeeze chances are not minor. For instance when partner has Jxx Jxx Kxxx AKx, we will pickup Qxx(x) of diamonds almost HALF the time now which is a huge percentage boost. When partner has Qxxx of hearts we pickup long diamonds with 4+ hearts which is also a big percentage boost. 4) Again, don't underestimate how much the ability to run winners before trying to guess diamonds will help us. We are 55 % to get it right before this but much higher when we get more of a count. 5) If you play in diamonds you lose all the squeeze chances, all the ability to get a count before the guess, and all of the times you are cold without guessing diamonds, and the times you get to test for 32 spades before trying diamonds. You also expose yourself to a trick 1 spade ruff.

LOL WTF is wrong with you people? Are you constructing actual hands for partner? If partner has 5 diamonds then 7 is going to be like 90 % (possibly 100 %), and if partner has 4 diamonds then picking up diamonds at the very least is going to be 55 % (and in reality quite a bit higher since you are going to be able to get at least a partial count which will probably make you about 65 % at least) plus the chances that partner has Jxx Qxx Kxxx AKx in which case 7 is almost 100 %, or the chances that he has xxx Qxx Kxxx AKx in which case 7 is about 85 % etc etc. And hey while I'm at it I'll just add in xxx QJxx Kxxx AK and Jxx QJxx Kxxx AK into the mix. Bidding 6 is just mind bogglingly bad. Bidding diamonds is mind bogglingly bad. This is like the bidding equivalent of a double dummy problem.