WesleyC

Without some kind of system here, life is hard. I'd try 3!s without much conviction.

Assuming teams scoring, I'd bid 6D. I'm not going to investigate grand-slam missing 2 aces when partner has preempted.

Bidding here is absolutely clear. Partner will never punish you for an aggressive balance because they heard you pass in 2nd seat.

FWIW I don't know the context of the situation (and don't really care). East's opening bid is certainly crazy but I've done worse. West's pass over 2S at favourable is pretty suspicious, pass wouldn't be a logical alternative for any sound player. So the combination of actions looks a bit dubious.

I'd happily splinter 4C, even if that usually shows a slightly stronger hand. In a high level competitive situations, the side with more Aces usually owns the hand and by splintering we get to involve partner in the choice of whether to play or defend.

I think the field forces to game on this hand (with or without a 3D opening), so i'm going to stick with them for now and bid 3H. Passing isn't unreasonable and could easily be the technically best choice (eg. if the last making spot is 3H), but if that is the case we might only be salvaging an average.

No disrespect intended, but using 2NT as a final contract suggestion in a spot where the board is known to be a part-score contest and partner has announced a weakish shapely hand with shortness in the opponents' suit actually does sound pretty crazy! This is a situation where having a bid which 'shows your hand' should take a backseat to having a bid which 'gets you to the right contract'. Aiming to accurately bid 12 HCP hands with spade length and strength, but not too much spade length and strength, that can make exactly 2NT but no other 3 level part-score is simply aiming at too small a target. Using 2NT as an artificial scramble helps you get to the best 3-level part-score most of the time and affords a sensible call on otherwise impossible hands [xxxx AKx Qxx Kxx???]. It also has lots of incidental benefits like allowing partner to balance more aggressively on off-shape hands and being able to differentiate between a invitational 3H (bid 3H directly) or a non-invitational 3H (scramble there via 2NT). However I'm sure you've heard these arguments before... :)

I've asked quite a few top players this question and based on the variety of responses, if you play natural 2/1s, it probably doesn't matter a huge amount, both methods have advantages and disadvantages. Decide what style you prefer and make sure you have good system to deal with it. However, over the next few years I think that a 2/1 structure which incorporates 1M - 2C as the start of fully artificial relay sequence (including some hands with 4c support) is likely to become standard at the highest levels of bridge. Many world class pairs already use something like this idea, and I'd be surpised if it doesn't continue to gain popularity.

Even if you generally play lebensohl, 2NT is this sequence it must be a scramble. Either way it can't hurt to bid 2NT.

There's certainly some chance its our hand but my preference is to act aggressively with shortage, and be conservative with length. Given partner couldn't act over 2S, it feels much more likely that RHO has a strong hand with 2443 shape or similar than a distributional hand with a big spade fit so i'm content to defend.

My first instinct was a trump, but on more reflection I agree that a heart is probably best. The fact that East chose to jump to 5C implies a good club fit and 3 small diamonds is a red flag. Even if dummy tracks with only 5 diamonds (e.g 1354) declarer will almost always have 2 heart discards. Also a heart lead feels slightly less committal than a trump. Some of the time that a trump lead is right partner will be able to win the first heart and switch. The other way around, might not be the case.

I agree with the other posters - ideally you would like to show this hand as balanced ~ 25+++ HCP. However, given the way your auction started you might try 4NT over partner's 3NT. This should show a natural invite to slam.

My experience has more cases where we end up sneaking home 3S in a 5/3 fit vs going down in an entry-less 2NT. Or even worse, making a lucky 4S in a 5/4 fit with 2NT still in trouble. Passing 2NT on weak hands with a 5c major just doesn't feel right to me.

I hadn't seen Frances system before and it seems like a useful meaning for an otherwise obscure bid. An extra bonus is that you might be able to right-side a 4H on a hand without any slam interest.

1S for me.

I've played a lot of Weak and Mini 1NT, and have come to the opposite conclusion about weak NT in 3rd seat. My preference is that a strong 1NT (occasionally psyched) is definitely the way to go. My only opinion about 4th seat is that it probably doesn't matter that much. The main reason isn't the risk of getting penalized by opening a weak 1NT (although that is a minor downside) but the difficulty of expressing the value of a (14)15-17 balanced hand after a 1M opening, when I will also open 1S on a hand like [KQJx x Qxxx xxxx] or [AQJxx xx Qxx xxx].

If your gut knew that declarer had the hearts and dummy had the spades, would it have a different opinion? :) FWIW I agree that if declarer's stayman response had been 2S (e.g. dummy showed hearts) then I like a heart lead.

In my part of the world, the 'modified' part of modified Cappelletti comes from switching the meaning of 2C and 2D rebids. 2C = Both Majors. 2D = 6c Major. 2M = 5c Major & 4+c Minor. Whatever it's called, this method of Cappelletti offers a lot of subtle advantages over the variant that you're currently playing. My advice would be to read a bit more about it online and then give this version a try so you can decide for yourself!

I would lean towards a spade lead, although I don't have a strong opinion. I've spent a lot of time doing double dummy lead analysis, and have noticed a consistent pattern that on marginal hands the simulation prefers a passive lead. On a few simulations I manually analysed a sample of the hands and concluded that in general, passive leads probably won't fare quite as well in real life. So on an obviously marginal situation like this, I would tend to rely more on the judgement of top human experts than the double dummy sims.

All the experts I know use this double as values. Admittedly I come from a part of the world where weak NT is fairly common.

Automatic pass for me. However, partner would've opened this hand 1H.

4S is auto.

I'd start by looking at my hand, the vul, the scoring and my system card :) Once I had that stuff locked down, if I did choose to run I would redouble.

This hand is an extremely obvious super-accept. In a pickup partnership I'd try 4C but without agreements anything other than 3S is fine.

I hate West's pass with a strong 5c spade suit and heart tolerance. A layout like this where you make game is pretty unlikely, but you can't afford to give up on the partscore. Even if we don't have a fit, a spade lead rates to be our best shot and will be very hard for partner to find if we don't bid.