WesleyC

Does Partner's pass over 4D mean something? Does the 3D bid put us in a forcing pass situation?

I'm really surprised the consensus is to double. Competing for the partscore at the 3 level, vulnerable with a minimum hand and diamond wastage on what could easily be misfit deal seems crazy. If you changed the hand to: AQxx Kxxx xx AKx then double would be clear because the major upside (partner passing for penalties) is a legitimate possibility. On the actual hand it is very unlikely.

I would double (and prefer a club lead). Echoing gszes sentiments, many Strong club players tend to upgrade nice looking 14/15s so declarer is more likely to be in the 12-14 range (with decent shape). The most important factors for me on this hand are that a double is unlikely to help declarer in the play and I've also got a reasonable hand for defending other contracts (4C/4D etc). Although there is some small chance that 3S makes, much more often we'll pick up 200 or 500 on a partscore board so I think the expected value of a double is positive.

The main reason for the switch is frequency. Bergen style, 0-5 HCP hands simply don't come up very often and even when they do, advertising a big fit and a weak hand is often counterproductive.

4M in both cases is clear.

I like your auction. Partner's 3D bid showed a lack of understanding for MPs scoring!

Over an aggressive 4S opening, you simply can't afford to assign the double and 4NT bids such a complicated meaning. Double is mandatory on any good hand that doesn't have clear direction, and 4NT is also necessary on any offensively orientated 2-suiter hand that has a strong preference for playing the hand.

It was a long time ago now, but back in classic I drafted a deck with 7(!!!) Swipes. From memory I got 4 pretty early in the draft so I managed to pickup a few +spellpower cards to supplement them. I was pretty skeptical, but the experiment ended at 12-1 from memory.

When choosing whether or not to take a light action over an opposition preempt, by far the most critical feature is the number of cards you hold in their suit. The hand from the Bridgewinner's poll [A98642 Q97 --- Q974] after a 2!H opening is a perfect example. A heart hold of ♥Qxx should jump out at you like a a giant red flag! If partner hasn't got heart shortage you could easily lose the 3 tricks and go down even if your side holds more than enough values for game. If they DO have heart shortage (as on the actual hand) then they are entitled to place you with full values for your overcall (given that you're likely to have heart length). If the hand had been [A98642 --- Q97 Q974] instead, then a 2S overcall would get plenty of support.

Having a lot of experience with both methods I can strongly recommend Kickback rather than Minorwood. Both methods require some discussion and agreements and can lead to misunderstanding when you've just incorporated them. However the upside of kickback (being able to bid 4m as a natural slam try NOT a keycard ask) is a lot bigger than the upside of minorwood.

With a singleton heart I think 2S would be automatic. With a doubleton I might lean towards pass but it's certainly close.

Automatic double.

I prefer to put the opposition under pressure by bidding 4NT on the first round. Holding such a shapely hand, there is very little chance we can win the auction in 4H so I'm prepared to commit to the 5-level.

3NT. We have sharp cards and a nice spade holding so slam could easily be laydown. But we also have sterile shape and no convenient way to try for slam without jeopardizing our positive score so I lean towards the conservative action.

I feel sorry for ADWCTA. He seemed like a genuine guy that invested a fair bit into his first website and kinda got screwed. I'm about half-way through his card review now and it seems good!

I assign most of the blame to North on this hand. I can understand opening 1H, but i don't think that the 4D rebid in this context shows a SUPER STRONG jump shift with lots of defense. It's still just an offensive hand with big shape. If north does bid 4D, they can't pass on their next action. Double feels like the most reasonable choice, to at least tell their partner that were bidding to make (and have plenty of defense).

mgoetze: yeah I took some ideas from the 'bloodlust' shaman list although most of the deck I came up with independently. One thing I really like about HS is that changing as few as 3-4 cards can completely alter the style/nature of a deck. Regarding your warrior deck, I briefly experimented with a OTK warrior before standard and although it was fun, I don't think it's neccesary. The 2/6 taunt, 6/5 create a weapon and 3/3 whirlwind are all really strong right now, so a basic midrange/tempo/patron (or some combination) warrior is a really strong class right now. I played about 10 games with warrior and got frustrated by the polarized matchups, it felt like I either won or lost based on the opponents deck a lot. Fluffy: Gratz on the 12-win! I've been doing horribly at arena since the expansion - out of 8 runs my best result is 7 wins. One thing I've noticed is that having a chunky top end seems to be more important now than it used to be. The expansion seems to have slowed things down a little, so kraken and big taunts are better than ever.

When considering whether or not to blast 3NT on a hand like this, the main consideration should be whether your side is likely to have a better alternative contract. Holding a balanced hand, the answer is usually "no". Even if 3NT can be defeated by accurate defense, it is still a better chance than making 11 tricks in Diamonds. The same principle applies when considering whether you should explore for an alternative contract after partner's 1NT opening. Exploring for a major fit is usually correct (because 4M will often be a superior contract to 3NT), but without extreme shape or serious slam interest you are usually just blasting 3NT rather than exploring for a minor fit.

I've been fairly successful with a midrange shaman deck, although i'm not sold yet on the evolution cards. http://i.imgur.com/BXi4JSD.png I did experiment with some of the evolution cards but in the end none of them made the cut. A major issue is that apart from Thing from Below (which is incredibly strong) and to a lesser extent Tuskar Totemic, all the other Shaman cards have a cheap base cost. My experience is that Shaman decks win if you can maintain board control, but lose if you cannot because summoning a 0/2 totem onto an empty board does close to nothing. The evolution mechanic doesn't really help towards early board control so i'm not sure it's a good fit.

When considering whether to open holding a weakish hand in 3rd seat, the most important thing is to remember that bridge is a 4-player game. Considreing the example hand: You hold only 10 HCP after two passes, so the opponents are likely to have the balance of the high cards. On average your LHO will hold about 13 or 14 HCP, with the rest split among the two passed hands. The opponents are also more likely to control the spade suit so if it does turn out to be a partscore battle, they will have the upper hand. Based on these two facts you expect to go negative on this board! Rather than worrying about what you will rebid and how you will reach your optimal contract, you should be thinking about how you can put the opponent's under pressure. You want to make it difficult for them to reach THEIR optimal contract and when they do win the auction, you want to give your side the best chance on defense. Opening some number of hearts achieves both of these goals. If our side is Non-Vulnerable then a 2H opening would be a popular choice among modern experts. This bid applies the maximum pressure, gives you some chance to steal the contract, conceals your hand strength and solves any rebid problems. If our side is Vulnerable, preempting is a little too risky. You should open 1H, and worry about your rebid problem later. Most of the time the opponents will intervene and you will be off the hook!

At IMPs I think at 1NT opening is clear. At MPs it's a tough decision of what to open - I lean towards 1H because missing a major fit could be a disaster. However once you open 1H and hear a 1NT response you've got a clear pass. Partner is known hold 8+ cards in the minors, so the deal looks like a misfit. Even upgrading your hand a point, your side only has 21 to 26 HCP which just isn't enough to profitably explore for game at MPs.

Most people play 3S as a minimum G/F splinter, so this hand is too strong. I'm happy with 2NT. However, a valuable (and extremely simple) improvement to the standard 1M - 2NT method is using a 3C response to show ANY minimum. The main value comes when responder can simply sign-off on the next round (and opener avoids disclosing any information about their hand). But it would also be perfect on this hand. After opener's 3C, responder could continue with either 3D (to ask again for shortage) or 3S (to show a better than minimum G/F hand with spade shortage). Either way you should be very well placed to judge the final contract.

Close decision, I'd lean towards pass at MPs.

It's common for the 5♠ to show either the ♠Q OR undisclosed extra length. It looks like GIB had evaluated based on that. On this deal, North knows his side is in at least a 10 card fit so even missing the ♠Q there's about a 90% chance of no spade loser.

My first impressions regarding WOTOG standard (about 30 games in) is that they've made a mistake with the balancing for C'Thun druid. Twin Emperor is almost always two 4/6 Taunts for 7 and the Klaxxi Amber-Weaver comes out as 4/10 consistently. It seems really strong against everything.