WesleyC

I agree with the other posters that this hand is certainly worth forcing to slam force, and that you should at least suggest bidding 7♠ along the way. Without complex agreements I'd prefer to advance with 6C as an unambiguous grand slam try.

"Almost certainly do have a fit" feels like an overbid. If RHO has normal t/o double shape (say 4414 +/- 1 card), then 2362/3352/2452/3361 are probably the MOST common shapes that partner will hold and in these cases our side has no fit. A counter-point to the case where parter is 3-suited, is that opposite that hand we also have a lot of defensive potential. The key to winning the board might simply be to slow partner down, so that our side defends rather than plays the hand. Bidding 1S might also lose by talking the opponents out of a doomed spade contract. On a related point, I also prefer to use 1NT through 2X-1 as transfers in this sequence which already gives up the natural 1NT advance. So partner should already expect to see some misfitting 6-9 HCP hands in our pass and can adjust accordingly.

With soft values in both minors, I'd lead a trump.

The hand which triggered me thinking about this idea again was 1D (X) ???, holding : [AJ32 98x x J98xx] Where 1D promises 4+D usually unbalanced. Would anyone pass this hand?

A couple of years ago, I noticed a hand where a top polish player passed in the auction: 1H - (X) - ??? despite holding 5 spades, short hearts and the values to respond. This worked out amazingly well when the opponents stretched to 4Sx in an 8c fit. Since then I've experimented a little bit with the same principle to reasonably good effect. By slowing down the auction on misfit deals, it feels like you can avoid getting too high and also allow the opponents to make the last mistake. Does anyone else have an experience with this idea?

Automatic double for me. It might have 15 HCP, but its certainly not worth 15 HCP!

Obviously Antrax is right. An interesting excercise would be to paste a few interesting situations (along with deck list) to discuss?...

It depends mostly on the minion. Most of the playable X/1s either have a utility ability (eg sergeant, buccaneer, deckhand, archer) in which case you usually hold or are naturally immune/resistant (worgen, argent squire, webspinner) in which case you play. In a meta with so many play/rogue/mage players, I rate the other X/1s pretty low.

Although this hand might have 19 HCP, with 3334 shape and Kxx of spades under the 1S overcaller, it feels like it's going to play a lot worse than that. Even if our side does have 25 HCP, 3NT might not make. And even if 3NT is a good contract, are we really going to be able to get there if we double 2S? At the end of the day it does come down to a style preference. If you think it's important to double with all 18-19 Balanced hands in this sequence, then double is a fine choice. But especially at these colours, I would rather that double promised a shapely hand. If I double and the auction continues (4S) ??? I want partner to be able to sacrifice aggressively if they have a weak, shapely hand.

I disagree with every point both North and South make in the original post. I guess that makes them both wrong? :)

A method that I like uses the first step to show any minimum, and other new suit bids to show shortage. It's basically an extension of Jacoby 2NT (but for the minors). The simplest version: e.g. After 1D - 2D 2H = Artificial, Any minimum. (Then 2S = Shortage Ask, 2NT = Some balanced range, 3D = To play) 2NT = 13-14 Balanced, happy to declare NT. 2S/3C/3H = Shortage, enough values for game opposite an invite. 3D = G/F Extras, no shortage but unwilling to bid 3NT. 3NT = 18-19 Balanced. This method loses some precision in showing partial stoppers, but gains a lot when choosing between 3NT and 5m/6m if opener has a shapely hand.

There aren't really hard and fast rules to follow, but your basic logic feels pretty sound. A couple of additional ideas are: 1) Consider how much length/strength partner has actually promised in the suit. A shortage in Hearts after partner has overcalled Hearts has less potential value than a shortage in Clubs when partner has opened 1C. 2) If you've only got an 8 card fit, the hand will often play awkwardly. However, if you have a very big trump fit (eg. 10+ cards) then this usually mitigates most of the downside. On these kind of deals you can sometimes establish partner's long suit via a couple of ruffs, draw a couple of trumps and still have a trump left over to ruff in another suit!

I'd settle for a boring ♦A. Once in a while this might lead to a ruff/promote if partner has short diamonds, but most often it's just a relatively safe lead. With 4 potential tricks in our own hand the main plan is just to beat this contract by force. If partner comes up with a little bit of soft length in hearts/clubs/spades (e.g xx J9xx Jx JTxxx] declarer should have their work cut out, and will hopefull end up losing 2 aces and a couple of trumps.

Clear pass for me. Partner has a doubleton (or singleton) spade and couldn't act over 1S at favourable so this isn't our hand. 2NT would be minor oriented takeout (Approximately 5.5♣ & 4.5♦).

Especially in the context of a limited opening system, you would've done much better to start describing your hand on the previous round of the auction. Assuming you play relatively natural continuations, then after 1S - 2H this hand should fall into the range of either 3S or 4S. After one of those bids partner will be in a great position to place the final contract.

On my first attempt I also think I managed to beat the contract with a misdefence.

Although its possible to come up with layouts where its wrong, ducking exactly 1 spade feels right to sever communications if they break 5-3 or 6-2. Given you are always planning to take 3c 2s 2h and 1D, discarding a diamond on the 2nd spade feels slightly better that a heart and might allow you to test for doubleton Qh on some layouts. And although starting with the 9c might fail to a singleton Q onside, it picks up AQxx onside which is far more likely. So overall, I can't find a better line.

If RHO held JT doubleton, then it's not really a falsecard - she had to play one of them. However if you walked into her JTx then congratulations and an apology are definitely in order! Regarding the rest of the play, after a heart lead you're main hope is to win 3H, 2C, 1D and 6S (assuming spades are favourable). You've also got an extra chance to fall back on of 3H, 4C, 2D and 3S if the spades are ugly but the clubs come home as well as various potential squeezes. However the way you played the hand you didn't quite give yourself the best chance, because you crossed to dummy in spades and while leaving the King of hearts on the table blocking the suit. If East had held the ♣A, they might duck the first club, win the second and then play a diamond. This play knocks out your only remaining entry to hand while the hearts are still tangled up. Now you're forced into taking the diamond finesse that you didn't even need! A better line is to cross in hearts before playing a club up and establishing your tricks. You can cash a big spade first if you like, but that leaves the chance that West will win the Ac and put you to a spade guess early in the hand when you might've had a chance to squeeze them.

Against strong opponents, you shouldn't take the finesse in this situation because, they will often play a spade honour on the first round from ♠JTx (a pretty common holding). However, If you don't think your opponents are capable of finding that play, then restricted choice makes finessing about a 65%-35% proposition.

Pass.

I think this idea is directly worse than a mosquito style opening system (where 1C = H, 1D = S). Using this method you get much more room to relay, and can actually sort out the weird shapes if partner is strong. And if you don't have a 4cM why not preempt the opponents by opening 1M+.

I think his explanation was fine. My TL;DR summary was: 1) Making a card that gives charge to any minion was a mistake. 2) We had to remove that ability. 3) We prioritized keeping the theme of the card at the expense of making it unplayable. At least he mentioned that warrior was the worst arena class!

For the most part, Freeze Mage is just a strong deck and in the hands of a good player is the favourite vs almost all midrange decks. The balancing factor is that the deck is literally 10% vs Control Warrior (they just gain armor every turn). The best way to defeat them is early board pressure combined with removal/silence for Doomsayer when they combo it with Frost Nova. Kezan Mystic is also an extremely potent tech card and allows you to steal ice-block and then kill them in one turn.

I read somewhere that below a certain rank, patron was by far the least successful deck (of all the main archetypes) with a win rate below 40%. Having tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to play patron, I gained a lot of respect for top patron players because the skill cap is extremely high. The deck forces you to make complex strategic choices almost instantly so that you actually have the time to mechanically make them happen. Although I can appreciate that it skewed the high-level tournament scene, I'm still a little sad to see it go.

There has been a fair amount of discussion on this topic and most players now lean towards the idea that you should 'invite conservatively but accept aggressively'. The idea here, is that you would much rather play 1NT or 3NT than 2NT. Using this style, the norm is to invite with 9 HCP (or possibly 8 HCP and a 5c suit) and then accept the invite with anything other than your most minimum 1NT openers.