nigel_k

You can adapt your system to cater for this and these hands are not so rare that you can just ignore them. In fact you can use a 3♣ relay to discover opener's exact shape without going past 3NT. The problem is the cost of revealing information about the 1NT opener's shape on all the hands where you end up in 3NT anyway. IMO that is too high a price to pay. So you basically accept less accurate bidding in order to gain the benefit of keeping opponents in the dark. Once you view it that way, you can accept the jump to 3NT as a percentage action that happened to fail, rather than a bad result due to incomplete methods.

Defence is the worst part of just about everyone's game. Reading books will help but is not a solution by itself. You need to work on building up a picture of the unseen hands from the available evidence in order to figure out which plays will work and which will not. When the evidence is incomplete, as it usually is, you have to defend based on the relative frequencies of the layouts that are possible. It is very difficult. There isn't a lot you can do with a singleton king except hope that declarer finesses at some point. Sometimes declarer will try to count HCP to figure out where the king is. In that case, you can try to lead declarer astray. For example, if partner has made a limited bid, then once his high cards are revealed, declarer may work out that your partner cannot have another king. So you need to try to defend in such a way that declarer doesn't find out your partner has those other high cards.

Living or dead?

Definitely pass. Partner probably has a doubleton club and three hearts but didn't bid 3♥. Maybe he is something like 4342 shape, North 2155 and South 5413. This is really quite unattractive for us and there are good chances that either they make or we could not make even 2♥, e.g. [hv=d=&v=&n=sa10h6daq1094ckj1098&w=s95hq10987d753ca72&e=skj76haj5dkj86cq4&s=sq8432hk432d2c653]399|300|[/hv] To make a matchpoint double you need a situation where you are pretty sure your contract was making and that pairs at other tables will be allowed to play there. Neither of those conditions exists here.

There is no rule that says you can't open a weak two with a void but the void does make it hard for partner to know whether his cards are useful. If you're not going to let partner make a decision anyway you are better off passing or opening 1♥ so you have a chance to find out if partner has clubs. In any case 2♥ is simply an underbid and 3♥ would be better. If you bid 4♥ because you realized it was wrong to open 2♥ in the first place then that's fine but obviously you wouldn't do it next time. The kind of hand that would bid again after preeempting is normally one that has been improved by the bidding, e.g. if you had excellent shape but bad trumps your hand would improve a lot when partner raises. When you have good trumps, as here, the raise doesn't really improve your hand so 4♥ is just a stab in the dark.

I think the ranges on overcalls are so wide now that game could still be cold when he passes 3♥ but it could also have no play at all. It's just a guess really. Chicago is probably the format where you should bid games the most because the scoring is total points but partscores don't carry over. So I would bid game but I think it's very close at IMPs or even rubber. At matchpoints I would probably pass.

♠ 97652 ♥ 8 ♦ AQ2 ♣ A542 I'm a little surprised at all the people opening. This hand is really bad if you have no fit and it's not that hard to get in later if they bid hearts. Sure it could come back to you at the four level but that's only one scenario. Is partner supposed to game force with: Qx KJxxx Kxx KJx

From the comments I'm guessing the thirteenth card was a club. In that case I think 3♣ over 2♦ is ok. If you haven't discussed with your partner what his 2NT and your 3♣ mean after the double, I'm not surprised he chose to keep bidding.

Play a diamond to the Ace then trumps, leaving one trump outstanding so they can't force me before I set up the fourth diamond. Will need 3-2 diamonds but that seems almost certain. Am I missing something?

People are correct that pass is the normal action and you could have set it four tricks though the defence is not easy. But partner could have had a worse hand and you can only set it three while 3NT makes. If you don't want to put yourself under pressure in defence it would be fine to just bid 3NT over the double. At any other vulnerability you should definitely pass though.

I would bid 2♦ even at matchpoints because I expect it to score better on average and because it might encourage them to balance.

Well said. Can we pin this somewhere?

South 60%. I think both should have bid more, but having seen the kind of hands people double with on this forum, I have more sympathy for North than South.

I would just try 3♥. If partner raises maybe 3NT was not a good spot anyway. If you're not playing 2♥ 'double negative' over 2♣, you can bid a 2♥ positive on much weaker hands than other positives because it doesn't obstruct partner's rebid. Therefore 3♥ should be the second negative here anyway, but you would need to discuss it first.

I play 6-10 points so this is much too good for 2♠ Nigel What does a suitable ten count look like? 2♠ would be fine if it was: AQJxxx xx Qx Jxx Having a 6-4 shape and good intermediates in both long suits means it just has too much trick taking potential for a weak two bid. If it's 10 it should be an ordinary looking 10 at most.

This is not an easy hand for an intermediate level player (rest hidden below):

My non-extensive analysis of World Championship hands proves that pairs playing Fantunes get much much better results on average than pairs playing 2/1 or Precision based systems QED.

Double. I briefly considered pass but I wouldn't choose it.

I play 6-10 points so this is much too good for 2♠

Can he have Ax Kxxxxx AJx Ax? I really doubt he has a hand where he will bid 3NT over 3♠ and 4♥ will play better.

Forgetting or psyching isn't an exception to the agreement. Actually I am more interested in an explanation of the difference between 'promises', 'shows' and 'guarantees'.

We must have different definitions of normal. Other than a long suit I see very little preemptive about this hand, with a suit to the A, outside Kx, one singleton and no voids, and in second seat. To me a normal second seat w/r 5♦ opener is more like - x KQJTxxxx QJTx. I don't like having the ace, but no void is fine as it helps partner to know which of his cards are working and there is no space to find out obviously. Maybe I am out of touch but green against red do I really need an 8-4 shape and 9 playing tricks? I'd open 5♦ red against green with that.

5♦. Though we're in second seat this is a normal hand for a green 5♦ opening so partner will usually decide correctly if he has a good hand. We could be too high with nothing making but I won't necessarily be in a better position if they bid game after I open 1♦.

I expect 6♠ to be pretty good. I'll bid keycard and then 6♠ unless we are missing stuff. We could be off two clubs but that's unlikely. 6NT has some appeal but I expect spades will make an extra trick often enough to make 6♠ better.

5♥. We could miss a slam but bidding six is too much. There are some RHO's I might double and try for 800 but I wouldn't do it if he is sound or unknown.