dellache

The best line may depend on : - the opponents skill : are they top class or not ? - the sequence : who did relay ? Is south hand well known or not ? Can you be more precise ?

Hi smiling tiger, I'm doing fine. Very happy that almost none of my opps play the 3NT version suggested by Vernes. Still hiding along the chao praya ? Cheers, Vince.

And which also may sometimes induce declarer into thinking that LHO underled his KQ, when declarer happily scores the first trick with A**J** :) -- dell-ache.

I blame in order : 1. North for overbidding with more than 5 loosers. 2. The system for not allowing north to show 6S, 6 loosers, and short Clubs. If you change the 2 minor queens into K♦ it becomes OK. If you change it into K♣ it remains terrible. Usual trial bids are too often useless : you rarely know when to accept with borderline hands (Rosenberg wrote something clever about this in his book "Bridge Zia and me"). Here it's not the 4th heart which is important : it's the short club, and the fact that pard need a max plus no wasted values in clubs (ironically, 3♥ in the system I play shows... 6 loosers and short clubs... and pard has an easy signoff)

I don't understand who is vul. If they are V, I would pass, because 1. I'm not unhappy to defend this hand, and 2. I don't really fancy 3NT at this Vul. If we are V, I think I would bid 1NT. I hate the distribution, the hand has many flaws, but I think if I pass and pard rebids, I will never know if I should try for game or not. What should I rebid over 1S or 2D if I pass ?

Not forcing.

1. Pass, don't bid your hand twice. 2. 2♠. Passing is not an option.

I still play the 3NT gambling with my most regular pard, and I don't have any qualms about it : it's rare (we only play 400 boards a year), and you get mixed results with it (sometimes they don't have an ace to lead, sometimes you bid an excellent slam, sometimes you/they get hammered, etc.). My favorite way to play the 3NT opening bid is "a la Vernes" (Vernes is the guy who discovered the LTT years before LC made it popular worldwide). This method has surely scarcely been published outside of France yet, and is a component of Vernes first artificial system (La Majeure d'abord, see. Here for a brief description, ... in french). The 3NT-Vernes opening is described as : - a 6+m suit (any quality) ; - no 4M - 13 to 15 "mixed" points (MP). Mixed points are calculated with the 4321 scale in the m-suit, and 321 scale (Ace=3) in the 3 other suits. The 7th card in your minor count as a full MP. Example : x KQx AQJxxx AJx is a 3NT opening (13MP) in Vernes system !! This looks very scary but it works very well in practice in *average*. The theory behind this opening is that you need around 17,5+ MP to make 3NT. Opponents have to lead and defend blind (leading an ace is usually awful). OK, now that you all think it's crazy. Then I just suggest you deal 100 boards with this opening w/ your favorite dealer program, and try to imagine the final results (just imagine 1. you have the right tools to pass/correct when doubled or want to play in minor -- 2. declaring slam is not really a problem -- 3. finding Major fits is alway a problem, unless responder can bid a natural NF 4M by himself). What do they lead, how do they defend ? With my second pard, we play 3NT as "Vernes" but 16-17MP.

A small ♥ (the one according your CC). A high honor is a nice attempt to block the suit. I don't have any second choice, and would be upset if my teammates would think about any other lead.

4♠ is a gross underbid. People usually tend to downgrade too much if they have "wasted" (actually, I think it's not even the case here) values facing shortness. They seem to ignore that splinters are mainly a tool for upgrading ("if all your KQJ are outside my shortness, please upgrade") rather than downgrading. Here, even AK facing shortness looks good. If may allow to discard a diamond in partner's 2/3 cards, and ruff 2 diamonds in his hand (Axxx x Axx Axxxx is enough to score 12 tricks). It follows that even if you play minisplinters (apparently not the case looking at south's hand, unless another slight underbid) you should not sign off in 4S. That being said, there are imho two problems to solve with North's hand : 1. do we miss D-control ? (unlikely but possible) and 2. how do we investigate 7 ? The way to solve problem one is to bid 4H (4C should show a club honor, allowing pard to evaluate his 5+ card holding). Investigating 7 facing Axxx x AKx Axxxx (minisplinter) can be problematic now because pard will bid BW. That's why over a GF splinter I would probably assume that 1. pard has a diamond CTRL, and 2. my problem is only 12 versus 13 tricks. And I may produce the "terrible" 4NT bid *myself* : the Ace of clubs is an important card, and I'm well placed to make a grand slam try if pard shows all missing KC. Over 5C I'll bid 5N, hoping to hear 6D (DK), or 7C (C-AKQ). Not very elegant, but practical. -- dellache

No, at matchpoints it's not irrelevant. It's irrelevant because line 2 will fail in 3NT too often.

I don't think you have a better choice than cashing Clubs, and then diamonds, hoping for "something good to happen". Having said that, I also don't think you can expect bad discards playing like that, unless you play against weak players : once you have cashed ♣KQ, you need to play Diamond to Ace , and the situation will be very clear to East (and probably to West). East may even infer your whole dist if he has only 3 hearts (west would have led heart from 5 cards). If the Clubs are 4-2 to West (likely), the position will be almost double dummy for the defense at the time when they will have to make their first important decisions. Anyway, the chances for this line are quite high : 3-3 diamonds, 2-4 diamonds and major aces in the same hand, and 4-2 diamonds (unlikely : West will prefer a diamond lead if he doesn't know 1C is 2+) and aces in the W hand. There is some negative inference from the lead, but I expect this line to be winning 2/3 of the time. Playing Spade to the Jack looks attractive because you don't reveal much of your hand at trick 2. Anyway, I think this will lose in the long run. Of course, if east plays the Queen, you will have a strong position, because he will have AQ most of the time. Otherwise the position is not so good : If West has S-AQ, he will not miss the Heart shift twice, with say H-Jxx or H-Qxx. If the spades honours are split, West having the Queen, the situation is also usually terrible. In the remaining case (West has only the S-A), you may well have succeeded at trick2... unless West has an attractive Heart shift for whatever reason (short honour combination, or oppos plays obvious shift at trick 1). Heuristically, I think this line is inferior, and will succeed only half of the time. The fact that line two may lead to 10 tricks is imho irrelevant. Interesting problem, for which computing real chances of gain is impossible. -- Dellache - Paris - France

PASS, no second choice : you have no game (pard second pass), no suit playable at the 3rd-level, and no certainty to beat 3♦. DBL is asking for trouble. If pard doubles 3♦, I will sit it, but would not be very happy about it (the only +point is that I opened in 3rd POS, and my hand could be even worse).

You have [hv=d=s&v=n&s=shkxdakqjxxcjxxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP 1♦ (P) 1♥ (1♠) 2♣ (2♠) DBL (P) ??[/hv] DOUBLE is *not* for penalties : just card showing, LIM+ hand.

My first thought is to bid 3♥ at these colours. The problem is that my pard rates to be 2344 or 23(53) with around 15HCP, game will be reached and I'm not that sure I want to be in game with this garbage "flat" hand. Actually, I would have taken the slow road : 2♥, then 3♥ if given the opportunity . I want to know more about the hand, and I very much doubt that the sequence will end in 2♥.

Postmortem : if you bid 4♥ you reached a noplay game facing the two minor queens and the ♠K. That's why my pard did. I think 4♥ is a hasty bid because : if your p isn't able to bid 4♥ on a trial bid, I doubt you can make 4 ; If on 2NT your p bids 3NT, your are probably in the best game with your 2 "useless" minor jacks. Come to think about it, even 10xxx xxx Axxx Ax isn't enough to make 4♥ (not that I suggest bidding 3NT/2NT on this hand) In the postmortem, my P told me he bid it because : He thought other table would bid it (the poll shows it's OK) We were "the stronger" team, and if the game was on because of tricky cardplay, or misdefence, he wanted to be in game ; I still think that 2NT is the RIGHT bid because you need to explore for 3NT.

Hi again, this is the postmortem of the board, which took place in the french national division. Actually, it was a cardplay problem. [hv=d=n&v=n&n=sqhxxdajxxcakjxxx&s=sjhkqxdqt9xxxcqxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP 1♣ P 1♦ 2♠ DBL 3♠ 4♦ P 5♦[/hv] The play went ♠K, ♥8 to the Ace, ♥J to your King. You then play the Q♦, do you finesse or play for the drop ? One of my teammates figured out that probably most of the players would not bid 2♠ holding the actual west hand. Moreover, they had 11 spades, and East didnot bid more than 3♠. Why ? Bare ♦K ? Backing his judgement, he went for the drop instead of the "normal" finesse. And down he was. At my table, my P bid 1♠, I bid 4♠ and they made 5♦. Any blame ? (we didnot have any :rolleyes: )

You have as East, [hv=d=s&v=n&s=sak8765h763dk2c84]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] and the sequence starts with : 1♣ PASS 1♦

You have [hv=d=s&v=b&s=sajxhakqxxxdjxcjx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] and the sequence starts 1♥ 2♥ (you dont play 1♥ 1NT as F1, so 2♥ is 6-9)

1. Using DD simulations and SD checks, here are the results I came up with facing a 13-15HCP no trump : - RED, always bid 3NT with 11+, never invite with less (never play 2NT) - WHITE, always bid 3NT with 12+, usually invite with 11. 2. Downgrading 4333 by 2 points is way too much. We have very good results downgrading them -1 (relatively to 4432 with no isolated quacks). 3. BTW, it seems that the fate of bad 3NT contacts that involve a 4333 depends more often than not of the strength of the oppos. So I will tend to relatively overbid when playing against not so good defense, or against tired experts. -- FD Codesigner of the Spider system.