WellSpyder

I think the fact that no-one has seen this action over a natural 2N means that responder is probably entitled to base his next call on the assumption that there has been a misunderstanding.

I don't. There are defenders now who ask me to play it out when I claim, not because they doubt the claim at all, just because they can't actually see it. At the moment I have to say that I'm not really allowed to do that. In future I will have no problems in playing a few more cards until they have worked out what I am doing. I agree there is no upside to the non-claiming side in playing on in terms of the number of tricks they are likely to take (and I expect the law change to have zero effect on play above the club level), but there is still an upside in terms of them feeling more comfortable with the outcome.

I agree with others that this is perhaps a somewhat unusual agreement and the TD should see what evidence is available to support this assertion. However, what would you expect the double to mean without such an agreement? To me, it sounds like it is really just saying I think this is our hand so we can't let the oppo play here undoubled. It is pretty unlikely to be based on trump tricks, given the opposing bidding! I'm not sure that interpretation differs very much from that put forward in the OP, and I'm also not sure that a pause for thought before finding the double really gives much clue as to whether pass or 5♠ is likely to be more successful.

Personally, I like the change - sorry if that makes me an oddity! I can't imagine ever asking declarer to play it out if I am defending, for the reason that others have mentioned that it is likely to alert declarer to the problem he has failed to identify already. But as declarer I am more than happy to continue playing cards if it will make it easier for some defenders to understand what I have tried to explain in my claim statement.

I'm guessing this pair don't play exclusion key-card, then?

Yes, it's nice to have most of your values in your suits. But I don't understand partner's arguments at all. If you swap your ♥A with a low ♣, does that make the hand worse opposite his holding??

My wife's favourite line in Chicago! (I wonder whether there is a warning for me lurking there, somewhere??)

Ha, ha, ha! You almost got me there. For a moment I was worried that the fate of the western world really was in the hands of a complete ****** idiot. Then, fortunately, I realised this had to be an example of the "false news" we hear so much about these days. I mean, nobody could really be so stupid as to spend a whole election campaign believing it was just a simple problem that they would be able to sort out to everybody's satisfaction as soon as they thought about it properly, could they? And if somebody did really believe this, nobody would want to vote for them, would they?

I agree (and so does the law). That is why it is so important to consider what is suggested by the hesitation. Sometimes it really isn't possible to tell what choice partner might be deciding, and what the implications for the success of different LAs might be. Too often, in my view, there is a temptation for TDs or ACs to say "I don't know what the implications of the hesitation might be, but I bet the person at the table does."

I think there was an element of tongue in cheek in the original comment. Of course you can't just double whatever you have in your hand. But the two basic pieces of advice that have been offered in this thread seem to me (as someone who plays this sort of opening) to be spot on: 1) Stay out of the auction if you can find any excuse to do so 2) Lead a trump

Yes, of course partner broke tempo - cheers, pard! At the table I felt reasonably comfortable bidding 5♣ because I had only bid 4♥ after deciding that I would know what to do over 4♠. Otherwise I would have tried to find an alternative to 4♥ - though I hadn't decided what it might be.... I wasn't trying to anticipate a BIT, of course, just trying to avoid being left with the last guess in the auction. Of course this will be regarded as a self-serving statement, so I was interested to see if others would tackle the problem in a similar way. Leaping Michaels certainly sounds like a possible approach to this sort of problem, though - thanks for the suggestion, Agua.

Perhaps all the players at the table were irresponsible?

Some excellent points, MrAce! On this occasion, though LHO has indeed bid 4♠ over your 4♥. What are you going to do when this comes round to you?

It makes a change from the more common mistake of forgetting what the last bid was and signing off by passing rather than bidding 5♥ over something like 5♦. But I agree that the BIT clearly suggests the player is not sure whether to sign off and therefore suggests bidding on. I also think that if partner invokes BW and then signs off, pass is pretty much always a logical alternative (unless, say, you have 5 key cards rather than 2!). So I would indeed rule the contract back to 5♥ (the second one, not that it matters which).

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. I have a follow-up question or two. If you bid 4♥ with this hand, thinking that you don't mind going on with 5♣ if oppo do bid 4♠, do you change your mind if partner hesitates over 4♠? Or, more precisely, after the auction [hv=d=e&v=0&b=14&a=pp1sd2s4h4spp]133|100[/hv] a) are there logical alternatives to bidding 5♣? b) could a break in tempo from partner over 4♠ demonstrably suggest one alternative over another?

[hv=pc=n&s=sjhjt753dt9caqt95&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=pp1sd2s]133|200[/hv] Love all, MPs. What do you bid now? Are you concerned that if you bid 4♥, you are almost inviting oppo to bid 4♠? If you are, does it affect your bid now, do you decide now what you will do if 4♠ comes round to you, or do you simply bid what you think you have to bid and wait to see what happens?

They will also know if they are thinking straight that you must have SK, otherwise you would play the 2nd and 3rd round of spades after one round of trumps rather than two. But there is no harm in giving opponents an extra chance to go wrong, even if they will normally avoid it. Everybody is careless occasionally...

They probably haven't discussed which card to lead from a singleton.

I don't think it is practical to go into more detail about what "top of sequence" means to you when first asked about leads. But I must admit I wouldn't be very happy with this explanation, because I have no idea what "invitational" leads are.

If the meaning is "universal" then I probably wouldn't bother to ask. But if I did ask and got a clear explanation that was different from the norm then it might not occur to me that they were answering a different question that I hadn't asked. (Perhaps this difference in perspective is partly because it is just more common to come across different agreements on the eastern side of the Atlantic than on the western side?)

When I read your comments, I flashed back to one of my own grievances from my school days. There was a question in a geography test asking something like "what is the main way in which the climate of place A differs from that of place B?" My answer - "it has heavy rainfall". Unfortunately I only got half marks because I missed out a crucial fact. Apparently I should have said "it has heavy rainfall while place B is relatively dry". My argument that that was implied, since otherwise heavy rainfall would not have been a difference at all just didn't seem to be understood. 44 years (I think) later, I'm also still annoyed when I think about it, but I try to tell myself that it was a useful lesson in how stupid teachers can be....

I thought the idea of protecting yourself by clarifying applied if you didn't get an alert. Saying "I don't believe you" to a player who has given you a clear explanation seems rather different, to me.

What is the "standard" lead from K987 or KJ98?

Good to see that you have at least solved the problem of the CAPS LOCK key getting stuck.

Very nice, Rainer. As a matter of interest, do you expect to see a squeeze like this at the table at the point at which the problem is posed, or would you just notice that West is likely to be guarding both pointed suits and think that there is a good chance that he will find it impossible to hold the position when the time comes? It seems to me that this squeeze has some relatively unusual elements, which makes it less easy to visualise at an early stage unless you have seen similar positions before.