Jinksy

I feel like I should understand this better. From what I gather, the archetype would be something like this hand: AQJx xx xx KJxxx Where say RHO is dealer, and the bidding goes 1D P 1H P / 2H 2S Showing a decent four card suit and probably a playable spot in the fourth suit. Is that approx right? What I'm not at all sure about is whether it's supposed to apply in these types of situations, where people talk about it: 1) Same sort of hand, LHO dealing 1H P 2H 2S(?) (why would you not just double or pass?) 2) Same sort of hand, without the 'pre' - RHO dealing, 1H P 2H P / P 2S(?) (what would be the difference between 2S and X here? Should X deny 4!S?) 3) Similar hand, original auction AQJx xx xxx KJxx or AQJx xx xxxx KJx 1D P 1H P / 2H 2S(?) (in what circumstances is P expected to pull to 3C?) 4) Good holding in their suit AQJx xx xx KJTxx 1C P 1H P / 2H 2S(?) (can this suggest their suit as a place to play? Does it matter whether they're playing short or prepared club, 4 card minors etc?) 5) Others?

A priori I think this is the best line, but there's another one that seems plausible - given that E, with no ace, didn't lead a minor we might think he doesn't have a singleton in either (granted a singleton lead loses much of its appeal with a stiff trump as well, but I think it would still be his best shot). If we're confident he has at least two clubs, it seems better to use the KH entry to ruff out dummy's second spade, play off three clubs from the top. This lets us win if either defender has Qx of clubs, or W has the Qxx and the KD.

Also, what about 1C 1M / 2M 2N / 3D? Is opener supposed to do that with 3145? If not, what would the sequence mean? (though it sounds like you might not have discussed this either?)

Does it have any effect on other game try sequences? What about 1m 1M / 2M 2M+1 / 3m 3M? Is that a GF with 5+ of the suit?

I think this is the one I was trying to remember. But we couldn't figure out obvious continuations. After 1m 1M / 2M 2N, is 3m forcing. If not, what does opener do with a max and only three cards? Also what would 3N, 3S over 2S, and 4m responses to the enquiry show?

What's a good (and not super complicated) system for untangling sequences such as 1m 1M / 2M, where opener's rebid might be on only 3-card support? (I'm sure I posted a thread about this a while ago and got some good answers, but can't find it now - so feel free to just respond with a link to that if you can remember where it is)

Given that 2!C would show 10-13 points and 5+ clubs, I think there are better descriptions of the hand.

I think people are underestimating the slam. In a constructive auction it would have been maybe 48% (the location of the K♦ doesn't matter if you're taking the C finesse), but E's preempt raises the chance both of the finesse working and of hearts being 4-0. I don't know how to do the maths properly, but my intuition is that the club situation is more important, since that's positive EV for every fraction of a club you take from E (who a priori had 2.5 in expectation), and only makes the slam worse if you give him 2 full hearts (at which point admittedly it seems to make the slam unmakeable).

[hv=pc=n&s=s84hk975dq43cj973&n=sahaq642daj7cakt2&d=n&v=b&b=13&a=1h(nat%2C%2014%2B%20HCP%20%5Bor%2015%2B%20if%20balanced%5D%2C%20unlimited)3sppdp4hppp]266|200[/hv] Also, suppose you managed to bid your way to 6♥, and E leads the Q♠. What's your plan? If you draw trumps, W shows up with JT3, and E discards a couple of nondescript spades. If you ruff out the second spade, west will follow with the 5 and 3 in some random-looking order.

Reported by a friend: Opps bid their way to some contract. Dummy puts down (say) this: [hv=pc=n&s=sqj5hkq54dJ5ckj4]133|100[/hv] Friend studies dummy for a while, then observes - "There's something wrong with that dummy. It only has 12 cards." Opp: "Oh no, it's fine. We play 12-14."

I'm confused. If pran's quotte that 'If a player has an option after an irregularity, he must make his selection without consulting partner' has no other caveats, then how can their partner make a demand about the selection? Or is this one of those cases where it's 'prohibited' without penalty for flouting the prohibition?

Ah yeah, I'd forgotten but I think the claim was that Pianola determines this somehow. So what happens? Pianola generates a movement (consistently that players rotate anticlockwise)? What does it mean for players to insist on something if there's no corresponding regulation?

If so I would expect it to do better still with 4 human players, since any of the other suits look reasonably likely to save declarer a guess that the DD solver will always get right.

To extend the second question: Declarer calls for a card from dummy, having just won in hand. Dummy tells declarer he's in hand - and now declarer's LHO rebukes dummy for getting involved, and demands that the card declarer had called for be played from dummy (RHO not having followed). Suppose I (declarer) had now called the director (real life invariably made things messier, but let's play pretend), both on the objection that LHO shouldn't have been trying to assert laws at the table even if he were correct about them, and to clear up the other infractions. What now?

I like a club. It's the one suit I can't give a trick away in, which is my normal priority to 1N. It might help set up our suit or theirs - in the latter case I'll still get one chance to run some tricks (would not lead a club if P had a natural 2♣ call available though). Diamond easy second choice, then spade.

These came up tonight - a player who knows the laws much better than me made a couple of claims that seemed prima facie odd enough that I wanted to check: 1) Given an arrow switched table, do the laws (or the EBU regulations, if they might be relevant) require a specific reseating? Ie is the former North legally required to sit West? 2) If declarer, having won a trick in hand, calls for a card from dummy, a) what obligations/rights do the defenders have assuming declarer doesn't immediately realise his mistake, b) what rights does dummy have to point out the mistake, and c) assuming 'none' to b), what happens if dummy nonetheless points out declarer's mistake, assuming no-one else had commented on it?

I like 2♥ as responder whether or not it was forcing - P is unlikely to pass it with fewer than 2 hearts, and he might only have 4 spades, so it might lead to as good or better a part score, as well as diagnosing a possible double fit for game (though I'd prob pass it as N).

The issue isn't how often it happens but how often it (or other downsides from opening this) occur compared to the gains. Sometimes you won't be able to come back into the auction on this (although I bet a lot of us would overcall 4♥ if necessary), but usually if they've got a fit, you'll get a chance. Especially when you're second in. Passed hands that have a 4♥ response to 1♥ are pretty rare, since third seat might be a light opening.

In response to the original question, 'why don't club players do it?' I think there are a couple of perfectly sensible possibilities I haven't seen anyone give: For a lot of club pairs, this ratio is much less skewed towards constructive auctions, simply because they haven't spent that much time going over *any* auctions. And to the extent that they have, they'll often have made a pragmatic decision to reach for common off-the-shelf agreements (like 1m 1x / 1N is 12-14HCP) because it requires less time to agree, and less effort to remember deviations from what they're used to. So Justin's reasoning, while it might still apply, would apply a lot less. Assuming that you're right that the defence gap is bigger, declarer averages substantially more relevant decisions to make over the course of a hand, since they have more control over the play, and (relatedly) have a higher proportion of the cards that will determine the outcome of the tricks. So club declarers could play comparatively better than club defenders and still do worse on average than expert declarers facing expert defence on the same hand.

I think Robson and Segal recommend 4m here as fit-showing fwiw. Not playing that, I would cue. We have an excellent slam opposite as little as AKxxx x xx Axxxx (although P will prob sign off with that), and P would need something really nasty for the 5 level not to be safe.

Thanks all

Partner leads to trick one. Dummy goes down, and declarer plays a card with little pause, while you're still thinking about the hand. What exactly is the appropriate behaviour if you have a singleton in the suit led? Does it depend on your normal tempo in that position? I had someone accuse me (quite aggressively) of unethical behaviour for pausing. Someone else said afterwards that he was correct in his claim (if not tone) that I should have acted differently - specifically that I should have played a card and then retained it on the table (maybe face down?), while announcing that I was thinking about the hand as a whole. But that seems really bizarre to me - under normal circumstances I would always pause to plan the defence in this position, including many circumstances where I basically have no relevant decision (eg on AK or some other such adjacent holding), so if 1 in 20 times I play the card then pause, I'm announcing to the world at large that I have a singleton. In other cases one might want to pause on a singleton to anticipate a later trick, or just take stock of the hand, and in those cases it seems like bridge ethics are inescapably faulty - you're damned if you do make an announcement and damned if you don't. But on trick 1, where it seems to be totally normal (and indeed textbook-recommended) for the third player to pause and take stock of the huge amount of info they've just received from seeing dummy, I don't see any advantage to the game from forcing the player to break natural tempo. The one (fairly obvious) exception I would expect is when a player who habitually plays quickly at trick 1 hesitates on a singleton. Was I misinformed? Or is there a rationale that I'm missing?

With a hand that good, N would have the option (which I, in his seat would certainly exercise) to make a values-showing X of 2♣.

[hv=pc=n&w=sqj32h854dakt3c85&e=st86hkj73dqj5ckq9&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1n(12-14%2C%20inc%20any%204441%20or%205422)p2c3cppdppp]266|200[/hv] IMP teams. X was TO. NS a strong pair.

Do I? We're still figuring out the boundaries for 3N and 4M bids, but 3N seems very unlikely to include 'solid suit'. Thus with Qxx x Axxx AKxxx, if it goes 3N (4♦) to me, it's obviously better odds that P has hearts, but there's no reason in principle why his suit couldn't be spades.