wyman

I would dbl, and as east I would certainly bid 2D.

Not a fan of 1N, 2S. or 3D, so some blame to both. More to south though imo.

Another vote for a diamond here

A lot of experts read n/b, and a lot read I/a. The experts that think answering n/b an I/a questions in those forums is beneath them are also not going to answer them here. And it's worth having a place for experts to discuss things among themselves (we can read too of course) so that they get value from the forums. If all they are doing is providing value, eventually all but a few will leave. I fear that this has started happening already. Just my $0.02.

Do you think people posting to N/B want their questions answered by N/B's?

I do this as well.

Well: North felt strongly that South shouldn't have bid 5C with: a) a wasted ♠A, and b) ♥xxx And (s)he defends 6D, saying that even on the given hand we might make 6D on a non-club lead, so if South shows up with heart shortness, 6D is likely to be an excellent spot. The hands North said (s)he was imagining were roughly: Kxxx / x / xxxxx / AKx or Kxxx / Kx / xxxx(x) / Ax(x) South felt that (s)he was worth one more try holding 2 aces, since North was obviously distributional, and if North is 0562 -- not unlikely on this auction, especially since North chose to bid 4H instead of 4S -- then the spade ace is not wasted. Not to mention that 5C keeps us below 6D, and South can hardly have more values.

2N for me.

Without saying whether I agree/disagree with your decision to pass this out, I think your explanation is overly simplistic. When you passed at the 1-level, you had less information; LHO had not yet revealed the nature of his hand. Had I allowed you to act over 1S while telling you either "LHO has a weak raise to 3S" or "LHO is going to bid 2-GF-hearts if you pass," you might choose different actions.

Bump for thoughts, but if no one has any, I'll let this thread die.

pass, and I preempt with nearly everything. You have 4 losers outside of hearts. I see a lot of ways for you to preempt our side out of a vulnerable game (not to mention going for a number), and the upside is what -- preempting opps out of a nonvul game or slam, where they are in for some horrific breaks if they bid it? It would be batty to preempt with this hand imo. Hell ♥AKxx and ♣Q isn't even an opener for partner and I want to be in 4♥.

I would dbl. [Aside for I/A's who happen to be reading: With good Lebensohl agreements, you will be able to play 3N when partner has GF values and only 4 hearts.]

Thanks for the discussion so far. A curveball, because I want to get away from the question of south limiting himself: What if north were in 4th chair, so S is limited to begin with? (a) Do you agree with XX over 4S? (b) Given XX, do you agree with 5C? © Given XX/5C, do you agree with 6D?

Do you think 4H denies a club ctrl or can this just be pattern? If it denies, do you think 5C shows 1st and 2nd rd club ctrls (independent of the actual south hand)?

2S = LR+ 4S = ctrl (1st or 2nd) XX = 1st There was some ambiguity as to the meaning of 4H.

MP, NAP-B district qualifier Void AQ9x AKJTxx Jxx (dealer) Axx Txx Q9xxx Ax 1D (1S) 2S (3S) 4H (P) 4S (X) XX (P) 5C (P) 6D AP

Haha. This happens to cherdano all the time on the forums. And it's hilarious every time.

I'm ok with 1c-2n or 1n but I don't like 1c-3c. 2n straightaway is a bit rich for my blood, but I get it.

So long as you understand that I was claiming that I bet that there is information latent in their tempo and mannerisms DESPITE their efforts to be ethical. And I'm not claiming that (necessarily) the partner extracts any of this information, and certainly not consciously. I'm just claiming that with enough data and technology, I bet we could find some signal in the noise. By and large, the better the bridge player I've encountered, the more ethical they are, with a few notable exceptions obviously.

In fairness to the inexperienced players, and I know we enjoy poking a little fun at their tendencies (many of which are exaggerated and seem unethical to the advanced player), I would bet (as someone who basically does machine learning for a living) that it would not be that hard to figure out from tempo and or demeanor when an expert holds a singleton. And I always wonder, even though it's futile, what partnerships subconsciously learn about each other and their tendencies, even in an environment where everyone is trying to be as ethical as possible. Unfortunately, I think this is an incredibly difficult problem to address.

The short answer is to play in better fields. What you're really asking is how to play against average club players, and my answer to that is to just ignore their signals and take the percentage line and collect your avg+. Even if they are transmitting information that you're not getting, it's not like most of them are able to use it much to their advantage. If you want the advanced course on club player discarding, their discards are a mixture between: * really high and slow and emphatic when they have an ace or king in position * smallest card in a suit they don't care about. If they have a 5 card suit, they almost always discard from that one. They never give count when discarding and rarely do otherwise unless it's a doubleton. GL.

I definitely bid 3N as south. As north, I would indeed have bid 4D over south's pass As south, if I had passed and north had bid 4D, I would commit us to slam, since I don't have a good way to find out about losers in the majors. If 4N were 6KCBW over 4D, I would employ that. A little unlucky on this deal. Had south bid 3N, though, we would be in fine shape, as north would have bid 4S or 4D (pick).

Well, at IMPs, I think I bid 6C (or 6D, depending on who's on my right :P). We either play 6C exclusion or not. If so, I bid 6H over 6D(03) and 7H over 6H(14). If not, I bid 7H over 6D (positive) and pass 6H. This is a good problem though, and I'm not sure how to think about it at MPs. Maybe I actually want to bid 4N here and angle toward 7N if I can find CA/HK/SK, 6N if we have 2KC but no SK, and 6H otherwise, giving up on the heart grand where partners got all the non-club fillers.

I would always balance (2S) as north. As south, if a dbl of 2H is takeout, I would make one, but I would not dbl 1H. It's not my own style, but I don't hate the style where S has a t/o of 1H. You're not going to get rich at MPs defending undoubled 2-level contracts. This is hard because balancing seat has 3 cards in opps' suit, and there's no guarantee that they have a fit. But still, north has 9 cards in two suits...

There's barely room for LHO to have an honest opener and RHO to have an honest raise, and I've always done well playing for honesty among opps where it's possible. In which case, we have 23, and they have 17, and 3N looks like a bad proposition when they have an easy lead. We might make 3m, but I'd rather play for +200. So, I'd double at MP if it were penalty. However, for me, doubles aren't penalty here, which makes this even tougher I think. I guess I'd probably relay to 3D.