WesleyC

In order to be able to double on this kind of hand, you have to give something up. Given you know that partner might stretch to double without good support for both minors, it makes sense to be conservative when advancing the minors, especially at MPs. Partner can bid 2C with up to 10 HCP if game prospects looks grim. Alternatively 1NT, 2NT and 2S are all available. Bidding 3C on the hand that you've suggested is completely insane. Even if your side has 25 HCP (in which case partner will bid again over 2C) what game are you hoping to make?

Partner should have a 6c club suit (or a very good 5c suit) for the jump to 3C so i'm not concerned about playing in 3C. So the only choice here is between pass and 3S (asking for spade stopper). At MPs, holding a decent spade stopper, partner would usually lean towards bidding 1NT/2NT themselves so I think i'll take the low road and pass 3C.

A couple of years ago I wanted to answer this question for myself, so I checked the convention cards of the top pairs in the world (I'm not 100% but I think I used the top 6 teams from Bali Bermuda Bowl). The one (almost) constant was that 17/18 pairs used a bid to show both majors, and this bid was usually 2C (although I forget the exact numbers there). The only pair that didn't have a way to specifically show majors was Meckwell (who play Meckwell!).

If I ever got to make a BOLS bridge tip (maybe BOLS for idiots) it would be: "When considering a marginal high level action, stretch to act with shortness and/or lots of aces". So with 2 Aces and a chunky suit i'd happily bid 4H here. But make the hand [Kxx KQJxx x KQxx] and pass would be auto.

I don't mind starting with puppet stayman, but I think you've wasted a couple of chances earlier in the auction. I'd rather pass over 3H, which leaves partner room to show/deny a diamond control based on your methods. After 3H, what does partner's jump to 4S mean? What would 3S be instead?

This hand is an obvious pass for me. Regarding your methods, I don't think it makes any sense to play re-double as anything besides rescue in this sequence. Especially at MPs there is almost no difference between +180 and +560/+760 on a hand where we don't have the balance the points.

Welcome to the forums uresh! I've got experience running simulations - usually to try and shed some light on a hand someone else has posted where a consensus hasn't been reached. As far as general simulations go, there is quite a lot of stuff scattered around: Thomas Andrew has done quite a lot including a "ridiculously detailed look at 3-5pt hands opposite a strong 2NT opener". Richard Pavlicek has a huge amount of fascinating stuff on his website, although his site isn't the easiest to navigate. You'll also find some more bits and pieces by searching through the BBForum archives.

I'm not a fan of the new arena meta. The addition of inspire is a big buff to all the classes with board influencing hero powers which has made them even stronger than they already were. Warrior, Hunter and to a lesser extent Priest and Shaman are at an even bigger disadvantage now and with Murloc Knight as a common, Pally is just ridiculous. Speaking of Paly, I did have a lot of fun grinding to legend over the past couple days with my version of a Mysterious Challenger Pally Deck: Decklist The main objective when constructing my deck was to ensure a great match-up against other secret based paladin strategies, which make up a huge chunk of the US server meta. The main differences between my list and a typical Secret Paly is no secret-keeper and only 6 secrets. Avenge and Noble Sacrifice are legitimately playable by themselves so including 2 of each is a no-brainer. Competitive Spirit is big if you have a board presence and Redemption is valuable on Minibots/Shredders/Belchers but mixed otherwise. The other secrets are easily played around by any competent opponent. Against other Secret Paly decks, Zombies Chow helps to avoid getting overrun, Aldor counters a challenger, Consecration is a silver bullet and Sludge-Belchers plus a chunkier top end guarantee that you win the long game. Most of my games were on mobile, so I don't have precise stats but from rank 3 to legendary my W/L ratio was about 20:5, only losing 2 games to other paladins (out of about 10).

In the first room, where the opponents bid and raised clubs, I think the misinformation strongly suggests a club lead. Looking at 5 clubs and 2 Aces partner is almost marked with a club void. Had South had led a club and it had proved to be the losing option then I would have some sympathy. I also agree with the director that after the ♣J lead **into a 3♣ gametry** the winning line is strongly suggested. This is a lot different to a club lead on a blind auction. Definitely no adjustment.

Someone just posted a really good guide on /r/competitiveHS about playing Handlock. Maybe if you'd just read that first you would've had an easier run to legend ;) Antrax- Handlock Guide

5D looks obvious to me.

Missing the occasional game is an unavoidable side effect of playing this system. However, you do win on other hands so it's not a dealbreaker. Holding hearts, I don't mind 2C on the West hand. I think East should act, mostly because preempting to 3C is advantageous, even if you don't find the magical major game.

I've found (especially towards the end of the season) that being matched up with low legend players makes the the final push to legendary much easier than the climb from Rank 5 to Rank 2. If you're having trouble, you might consider switching to a simple aggro deck like hunter/paladin/shaman to take advantage of all the low legend players experimenting with unusual decks.

I played the exact line you mentioned. The full layout was: [hv=pc=n&s=sa43hjt94dk2caqj2&w=sjt9865h873da976c&n=sk7hak52djt3ct543&e=sq2hq6dq854ck9876]399|300[/hv] When East returned a club West could ruff and play a spade, leaving me one dummy entry short. So either saving the ♠K or playing a diamond up early (and guessing right) makes 10 tricks, even with the heart misguess and club ruff.

With only 3 spades, a defensive orientation and a partner who couldn't act over 1H, I would never double 3H with the North hand. Also the play in 4S isn't trivial. After a heart lead crossing in clubs to lead a spade towards the Q is probably right, but it does have risks. I think table result should stand.

After reading this thread my conclusion is that "please do not live in scores" needs to become a thing.

I think that if you haven't unambiguously found an 8c major fit, then it is essential to use double as showing a hand with extra values, but uncertain about strain. On hand 2 above, what else would you bid with invitational or better values and approximately 4432 shape. You might also double on some hands with 5H, but opener certainly shouldn't bid on that assumption. If you wanted to call that a 'game try double' you could, but it's not the same as double on the first hand.

Both passes look normal to me. I'm not even sure that defending 2S is such a disaster...

You only go down when West holds SJxxx on this deal because they also have a singleton club (less than 10%). Your line would go down ALL of the time.

This line would work on the actual hand but relies on trumps are 3/3 (or doubleton J). The line declarer played is surely better, because it picks up all 4-2 spade breaks if the hearts are 4-4 and also picks up ♠Jxxx with short hearts almost all the time.

There isn't clever solution to this hand, I was more interested to hear some of the logic behind what order people choose to play the suits, how willing they are to risk a club ruff and how long they were prepared to wait before trying to guess diamonds. Not to suggest that your line is necessarily wrong, but is there a good reason to take the club finesse before playing trumps? If LHO has a hand like [JT9x Qx Axx Kxxx] you lose to club ruffs that you could've prevented... What about winning the spade in hand and leading ♥J at trick 2?

Maybe a simpler way to think about it is: If LHO has the ♠A, you are always safe so you can ignore those cases. Assuming RHO has the ♠A: Drawing all the trumps (and subsequently putting up the Kc) wins when either the ♣Ac is onside or when the clubs are blocked (For example RHO holding QJ, Qx Jx or LHO holding AJ or AQ). Drawing 2 round of trumps (and subsequently ducking club switch lower that isn't Q or J) wins whenever the lead WASN'T a singleton, and also if the Ac is offside, but not if RHO has precisely QJc. It feels like both lines are pretty reasonable, although drawing all the trumps feels counter-intuitive.

I'm probably missing something because this doesn't seem hard enough for a typical mikeh problem. If RHO has all the remaining trumps, we can't shorten ourselves twice and get to dummy at trick 11, so give up on that and assume the remaining trumps are 2-1. If trumps are 2-1 then the only risk is a club over-ruff by LHO. For LHO to ruff the 2nd club he must have started with exactly [?xxx xxx Qxxxx K] although that doesn't seem likely, (why not return a diamond?) we can give ourselves a slight extra chance by ruffing the club with the ♠T.

1M - 2NT (G/F raise) 3C( minimum) - ??? 3D (Tell me more...) 3H/3S/3NT (YOU BE THE CAPTAIN, that's my shortage!)

Earthshock is more popular in constructed than in arena because it offers a cheap answer to aggro decks and hard counters twilight drake. In arena "mediocre" feels pretty accurate, ADWCTA's tierlist gives it a base rating of 52. Picking one up isn't a disaster, but there is usually a better card offered that you would rather draft. If you assume that Earthshock is exactly halfway between the best & worst commons and that players draft purely based on 'the best card' then you would only expect Earth Shock to be drafted once for every four times it is offered. On the other hand, a cards like Fire Elemental or Consecration which is clearly the strongest common card for that class, will almost always be drafted so you'd expect to run into it roughly four times more often.