Dirk Kuijt

Free So, what is XX in your system?

Interesting hand. We have a 6-4 fit, and find the outstanding trumps 2-2.

I did a study of the systems used in USBF championships. IIRC, there were only 2 or 3 pairs playing weak NT out of 60 or so pairs. To be sure, Martel and Stansby, on the winning team, are weak NT players. Obviously, this analysis is only good for American pairs; this was an event picking the US team.

I don't pretend to have an answer, nor to be good enough to think of one. But, let me raise a point which no one seems to have commented on. Why did declarer pitch a club from dummy on the second round of hearts, instead of a spade? He knows the hearts are ready to run. If we get in, the small spade is pretty worthless to him, while if he can run the clubs (as well as his diamonds), he takes 12 tricks. True, this isn't matchpoints, but it seems silly to throw away an IMP. I admit to being baffled; I don't see how pitching a club can be a deceptive play, so what is going on?

FWIW, my simulation gives, of hands that open 1♥ in a 2/1 framework, the fraction of how many hearts are held: 9+ hearts: 0.0007 8 hearts: 0.0079 7 hearts: 0.0616 6 hearts: 0.2773 5 hearts: 0.6526 Setting hands with 9+ to exactly 9 hearts, gives an average number of hearts as 5.4269. Your mileage may vary, especially depending on your view of opening 1NT with 5 hearts.

Clarification wanted: Do you have any way of playing in a spade partscore after 1♣-1♠-2♥? It seems like all the spade bids are forcing.

Thanks FWIW, our auction was 1♦-1♠ 4♠-6♦ Since I don't think either one of us bid this very well, I'll not admit to whether I was North or South. We compounded the bidding with the play. The ♥A was led, after which the hand is makeable, but declarer mistimed the play, giving us the score we deserved.

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=s107653hk1075daj42c&s=sakqh82dkq97ckq97]133|200|Scoring: MP We had a soft result on this. How should the bidding go in a 2/1 framework?[/hv] I'll admit to our bidding a bit later.

My candidates for worst 1. After the dummy goes down: Dummy ♥Qx Declarer ♥A Opening lead is the ♥J; low, and East plays the ♥K. To be sure, this was in college, and we had been playing all night. 2. Opening leads. I think it would be hard to show that any opening lead was 0%, though of course there are 100% leads. So, I don't know if I can meet Justin's standard. However, this one has to be close. I don't remember partner's entire hand, but he led the singleton ♣K against this auction: 1NT-2NT-3NT.

So, Ken, what was the answer to your question? What percentage of pairs did end in the 3-3 'fit'?

3♥ and then 5NT. Definitely want to make partner declare this one. From your side, even 3NT is not safe.

jdonn What I meant was that no one has psyched, misread a bid, or forgotten an convention; that was what I was thinking of outlandish. I agree that my 2♠ bid is bad; I'm going to claim that, in my sequence, South's double is merely poor. OTOH, it isn't all that easy to think of logical ways to get to a 3-3 fit.

If I'm guessing: what would maximize the probability, I would have East deal and open 1♣. South doubles, and North bids 1♠. From here, it gets fuzzy, but West comes in with 2♥ and it comes back to South, who balances into 2♠. Not all that likely, but no one has done anything outlandish.

Gwnn Of course the unbalanced hands make 4♥ much more easily, but can that really be the deal? Obviously the hand you cited is extreme, but, IMO, it is inconsistent with the bidding, since the opponents would be bidding much more with their many HCP and many diamonds. Yes, I'm aware there are risks in putting too much faith in the opponents to bid correctly (that is, the way I do ;) ) OTOH, it is risky to assume that the opponents have made a mistake.

OK, I admit to being one of the 3♥ bidders, and I don't think this is such a WTP, LOL problem at all, especially at matchpoints. It seems to me that there are several warning signals that suggest going low: 1. The 2♦ bidder is likely to have an easy and effective opening lead of a top diamond honor, so you don't get any help from the blind lead, and it sets up tricks for the defense. 2. The partner of the 2♦ bidder didn't double, which suggests that he doesn't want to go higher in diamonds, which in turn suggests that partner will have a few diamonds, which will be very bad for us. 3. The opposing bid was 2♦, not X. Double would tend to have more values in spades; this suggests that missing spade values are in the dummy, which is not a good place for our side's values. 4. The OP said the partnership style was to open most 12's and good 11's, so there is no potential 'reserve' of high cards, since partner is a passed hand. Putting it another way, you are not going to make this game on power; if you make it at all, it will be because of good distribution, and, at the moment, you have no reason to expect that good distribution exists. Let's look at a few possible hands: KQxx Axx xxx Qxx The worst: This is an easy beat for the defense, and if clubs are 5-1, even 3 hearts is going down. Pretty pessimistic, I admit. Kxxx Axx xxx Axx I give you having the spade Ace in front of the king, but it doesn't help much, does it? AQJx xxx xx Axxx You will make this hand fairly easily--if both round suits are 3-2. Is that likely? I'm guessing that the compound probability on this auction is less than 50%, and, note that this might well be an opener by OP's standards. Having written down a bunch of hands, I concluded that you make if partner has most of: 1. 2 or fewer diamonds 2. 4 or more hearts 3. QJ in clubs (not A, not only Q, not only J) There are too many assumptions to have an effective simulation, IMHO, but it seems to me that there are lots of hands that are going down in 4♥, and, on a really bad day, in 3♥.