JLOL

I would bid 6C also, perhaps influenced by my style but I don't think xx xx Kx QJT9xxx is a preempt at second seat vul, let alone a clear one. If playing with gnasher maybe I would do something else :P

Oh yes. Some of us aren't all that good at counting to five either. PS: I'm not sure how I escaped an official "LOL" for that, but thank you for your restraint tbh if you say something that I think is LOL I ususally think theres a reasonable chance that I'm missing something so an LOL might backfire :P Take it as a compliment.

Hey Matt, I would always lead a systemic high heart and wouldn't think twice about it.

LOL

Textbook double

You don't get all of that 10%, because some of the time they'll drop an honour from QJ10x (or Hx, if they're on particularly good from), the hand with four clubs will have another heart, and you'll go down with spades 3-3. I'm not disagreeing with your line, though - most of us aren't very good at playing the right card as a defender in this sort of situation. Then I lose 2 clubs and 2 hearts and fall back on 3-3 spades?

What defense does he have? I would almost never expect to beat them. Also why can't it be a (double) make opposite a stiff club? Seems perfectly fine imo.

If partner has 2 little diamonds and 2 aces don't you think he would bid 3N over 3D? If you bid 3N that seems to imply that you think you will miss games often enough when partner is passing that to justify bidding 3N. No offense to you but that seems really absurd to me.

no

Would he 1N with that? Yes? lol

Is that Griff Ware or a different Ware?

HH doubleton accounts for about 10 % of the club layouts so it is not insignificant to just give up on that. Ducking a spade at any point just seems terrible, you may be ducking your 9th trick and you have no idea what is going on in the diamond suit.

I think winning the heart and playing a club is pretty clear. I would cash the ace first and if the Q/J/T dropped I would cash the king catering to HH doubleton. If it didn't I would exit the 9 and eventually bank on a black suit coming in.

3D could work but it's just way too big of a bid imo. If partner has A K K with the DK he will bid again anyways.

This 2C talk is really silly to me if the point is to find out partners shape and then hopefully take control. When my whole hand is aces and kings and the queen of trumps I am not looking to take control, I'm looking for partner to do so. When I have a flat 18 I am not looking to take control and drive to slam, I am hoping to have a cooperative auction where we decide whether or not we have enough for slam. In my ideal world I get to show 4 trumps and a balanced hand, then I get to show 2 slam tries, then I get to show 3 aces, the trump queen, and the DK. My ideal world is not learning partners shape and whether they have some extras and then bidding keycard, or having partner bid keycard without knowing about my potentially very important 4th trump. Sorry that the HJ, the only card you were not able to show, was the key to this hand because the problem is getting to 6N rather than 6S, but you cannot mastermind from the beginning unless you know what the "problem" on the hand is going to be. Also I cannot construct an auction where we know for sure partner has KQ of hearts even if we start with 2C unless you are playing rexford style cuebidding.

Yeah Ken's method is very standard. Over 1S 2C 2H 2N would be a trump cue, etc.

no

I think that if RHO plays slow after declarer plays insta then there is no UI, but if RHO plays insta after declarer plays insta that is UI.

I would never double 1H with 5044, I would double 2H only if my spades were very poor. With this hand I would bid 1S/2S. I start doubling with 5044 a lot more when they open 3H.

LOL

tres

Agree with our bidding, would pass now.

I could see bidding that way with 4126 as the most prototypical shape

Agree with your last post. Also, funny that you mention playing pro, you probably would be even more conservative in going for overtricks if you did since you'd have job security issues to worry about lol.

For me 5NT would be a choice of slams bid. Only grand slam try would be 5♥. So I could do nothing more than raise to 6♦. Yep I agree with that :(