dellache

1. Pass. 3♦ at these colors (even when they have a fit, and I have xxx in their suit) seems a bit crazy to me : LHO may have an easy double, and I doubt the conclusion will be a happy one then. 5332 sucks, even after 1M 2M. 2. Double, then 2♥ over 2♦.

If you can read french, there's also a very good book by former french world champion Bertrand Romanet called "Tout le squeeze". I think that the 450 pages of this book (written between 1954 and 1966, and acclaimed by many experts like Reese or Chiaradia then) are still worth a read. That was one of the first books I ever read when I started playing bridge, and well, I found it so beautiful that I read it at least 20 times. The book is still available in France.

DANGERS : if you compare the situation to "2Nt over weak 2" using quick and dirty approximations when you have the same HCP-range "R" as #2 : - your RHO will often have 3 more HCP in average than the weak version ; - it means that both CHO and LHO will have 1.5 HCP less in average ; - so it also means that your side has only 1.5 HCP less in average. So, considering the dangers, I would tend to have only a little more than when I overcall over a weak 2. The fact that your honors are probably well placed over the honors of the other side has also probably a positive effect. BTW, if I overcall 2NT with say 16HCP, my RHO will have 12 in average, so it means my side will have 22 HCP in average. That's making 2NT very playable, and you have to balance the fact that sometimes pard has 0-4 (you might go for some number depending of what LHO has) with he fact that he has sometimes 8+ (making 3NT a good bet). I'd say 16-18HCP is OK. FREQUENCY : Very few of my oppos play a precision 2C here, and I would guess the frequency of both 2NT-NAT and 2NT-RED combined with a 2C opening are VERY LOW (my guess is that 2NT-RED has by far the lowest frequency, if you decide on reasonable HCP ranges). That's also why I would certainly be happy with a 16-18 NAT-2NT, and would not spend some time doing simulations in order to decide if 17-19 is even better or not :).

I think it is paradoxically rather easy to find at the table. Imo, there are 3 keypoints that make it easy for high level declarers : 1. the play is almost double dummy : the assumptions you have to make (your pard has the 2 key black honors, and must at least guard the spades) are very easy if you can count up to twelve. So the card situation is clear for any world class player (WCP); 2. given (1), if you know the basics of double squeezes, you can see the 2 possible winning endings for declarer at a reasonable speed (either black as pivot). Now if you don't play a Heart, the fact that a good declarer may reach either ending is just a matter of picturing the play in advance. There are very very few variants, so it should just take less than one minute for a WCP (but would be difficult for those who don't know how double squeezes work in general) ; 3. at the table, one of the key to good defense (and play) is to recognize the "killing point". Here the killing point for the defense is imo easy to spot : "what should I play after I take my DQ ?" So even if the HJ looks antinatural, once he has spot that he is at the killing point, a WCP should find this play. So I would guess that more than 95% of the WCP would find it at the table, exact %age depending of what you call a WCP. Actually, I'm far from being a WCP, but would be *very* upset if I would miss such a play in an important match. Regards,

Pass. No shape, half of my HCP in their suits. I'd be happy to defend.

I'd play 2NT = nat (semi) BAL, (15)16-18 for sure ! What is the frequency (and the real need ?) of showing 5+5+ reds ?

What about declarer having ♠ATx in dummy facing ♠K9x in Hand, or any equivalent ? (any 6 cards including AKT9xx spades with split AK are dangerous holdings).

I lead a Heart. Spade would be my 2nd choice. 1. A Heart may help declarer to guess the suit but will seldom offer the 13th trick. 2. A spade might also help him to guess the suit, *and* it may also offer the 13th trick (ATx//K9x, etc.). Anyway, if declarer can count my Spades he may well guess the Hearts in pard's hand (and misguess the Clubs hopefuly :)), so I'm rather confident about this Heart lead. If I had the ♥9xx (or worse : Txx), it would be tougher.

Thanx Roland that was a nice hand to review the basics of double squeezes. A pure hand that is almost double dummy for East (any robot would solve this one at light speed). Nothing to add to the detailed post of Ben. It's just funny to see that South could easily make this if the two red 7 were interchanged. Not that he would have accepted such a trade at trick one if proposed to :).

The OP said : "They play strong 2's" That explains part of it. (Duh!) But, P-P-1♠-P-1NT-P?!?!? That still seems to eliminate at these colors any 6-card suit. Then again, my own biases suggest that anyone playing strong two's probably won't pop in here for random reasons and might pop diamond jack for similar random reasons. Anyway the knowledge of the diamond position has almost no practical influence on the right play in Hearts, so why bother ?

The OP said : "They play strong 2's"

May I add my 2 pence ? 1. Alternate way to explain the AKQ3 Vs 54 problem East plays the 2, how do we show that the chances he holds the last B-card is 4/7 using "vacant places theory for dummies" ? Let's consider a new game (not bridge!) with the ♥-JT98762 and a Joker (that's 8 cards). Rules : a. I shuffle and deal in two packs of 4 cards each. b. You look at the two packs. c. YOU have to tell me in which pack (let's call it PACK1) the 2 of Hearts stands. Now we have PACK1 = ???2 Versus PACK2 = ???? That's 7 vacant places remaining for the Joker. So the Joker is in the PACK2 4 times out of 7 (right ?). Corollary : the last B-card is with the ♥2, 4 times out of 7. 2. Cascade's theorem complicated Suppose now that we have the 2 Major suits which consist of AKQx facing xx. See Max Rebattu's "Bol tips" problem : Here We suppose that each players has exactly 7 major cards. Using the same notations as Cascade (ES and EH for spades and hearts respectively), it's (rather) easy to show that the probability of West having the last Heart (relative to East having the last Heart) is : (EH+1)/(WH+1) * (WS+1)/(ES+1) [Well if Spades are AKQ2 facing 43 (edit)... you have the single suit formula again at least]. I f you apply this to the "Bol Tips" problem, and if you suppose that the double squeeze works (East and West both have 7 major cards), then application of this formula gives you a 2:1 chance of West having the last Heart. Mmmm... anyone for a "joker game analogy" in order to explain this with "vacant places for the dummies" ? Cheers,

Pass.

I agree mostly with Ken and Mike here : we probably need to play Hearts for 4 tricks (or revert on Clubs if we are are allowed to score an early HQ) and choose the best line for this. If we don't succeed in Hearts, prospects will be bad (but not 100% desperate), even with 4-4 diamonds. Taking the Heart suit in isolation, the best play is to run the HQ, making if West has the King (barring a stiff King, or KJxxx+). If we had strong feelings that East had the HK, the alternative play (x to Ace and x to Queen) has some appeal. Hmmm... very very slightly and : 1. The diamond position is not that clear (admitedly West is more often long in D) ; 2. Even if West has long Diamonds, this is a mildly biased case for using vacant places theory : as West will lead in his longest minor (and he has a longest minor :)), the fact that we know he has long diamonds is not such a strong hint for East having the HK ; 3. There's a vacant places syllogism : a. West has long diamonds, so b. East has often long Hearts, so c. East has the HK more often... But wait ! We fail when East has H-KJxx ! So the (weak) reason (East has long Hearts) why we try to find the HK in the East hand will also often lead to defeat when he has the HK...(*) (*) Suppose we know East has 4 Hearts : playing the Q wins when West has Kx or KJ (5 cases), playing HA then x to Q wins when West has Jx or KJ (5 cases too !) Imo, best play is definitely HQ from hand at T2. Cheers,

Even if West being 1=7=5=0 is very very unlikely, you will of course have catered for this by cashing the ♣A before the ♦A :wacko: . Just kidding.

Yep.

Hi Fred, I definitely agree with your conclusion and I guess Jeff Rubens would too (for those who like these kind of problems, "Expert bridge simplified" is a "Must have"). Here's an alternative way for deciding for the best line AT THE TABLE between : - line A : club finesse ; - line B : establish hearts, fall back on line A if possible. - line B': line B but cash High trump first. 1. This is a good case for differential computing - Line A fails, AND line B works : CA East (50%), Sp. 2-2 (40%), He 3-2 (68%) = 13.5% - line A works, AND line B fails : CA West (50%), HE 4-1 (28%) = 14% So A > B, but by a non significant margin (so A = B practically speaking). 2. Computing B' Vs A : When you cash one High Spade and spades are not 4-0, you don't need to recompute the differences : you just have to perform some kind of "first order" adjustment. When you remove the 10% cases where the Spades don't break 4-0, you just multiply by 1.1 the probability of the 2-2 distribution used in the first difference computed above. So the 13.5% becomes 13.5 *1.1 = 15% Now we have B' > A (your conclusion), by a non significant margin. 3. Nitpicking. The dependencies that we could (and didnot) take into account when multiplying Sp2-2 * He3-2 are of *very low order* in general (less than 1% over the overall result) and are of no practical use. Also, using more than 2 significative digits for computing these simple results at the table is of no practical use. 4. So your conclusion remains : it's VERY easy to compute the relative merits of A and B' at the table and see that they are PRACTICALLY equal. Then all what remains is to judge the inferences to be taken from the lead (as in Justin very good post). Best regards,

My Hearts suck, the 2NT bid warns me against bad splits in the Majors, partners tells me "Hey I'm not max with all my values in the Majors", and they probably won't bid 7♦ (they already have made us take us a difficult guess, so 7♦ is overdoing things). So I pass, try to get 800/1100 and too bad if 1430 was on.

LOL

3♦ wtp ??

Oups I thought it was East who bid 5♣ ! So my line is nonsense. Gnasher is probably right, I'll rethink about it.

Just play Heart to the ten. If it loses to the queen, play then Heart to the King. If it still fails hope for 3-3 Hearts, or H9 falling. I don't see any interest in eliminating Clubs.

Double with no second thought.

This was probably our worst sequence in the whole week-end, producing a well deserved -10-Imps. This led to an interesting discussion inside our team, including about all the remarks made here in BBF, except the very nice idea of Andy Bowles (imo). I'll sum up, what we came up with : 1. Get rid of the ridiculous "DBL=drury-like" treatment. 2. I made the DBL after some thought. I wanted to bid 3♠ first (apparently like Xcurt), but then : - I didnot want to miss a possible laydown 6♣ ; - I thought that I would not dislike to play 2♦-X if partner judged to pass it (that was probably a wrong idea from me with a void, even at these colours) ; - I thought that I might want to play 4♥ in the 5-3 (possibly 6-3) fit. Afterwards, I thought that the semi-solid spade suit deserved to be bid at once, rejecting all the three minor options above : I finally prefer the rusty 3♠ balancing bid. 3. I thought my pard's 3♥ was totally misleading : you cannot have less Hearts, you cannot have more diamond stoppers, and even facing 4♥, 3NT will often play much better. I would clearly have bid 3NT as many other posters (whacking 3♦ was another possibility... that also could turn out badly). 4. I made the dumb 4♥ bid according to the (wrong) strategy I had envisioned (see point 2. above) : I didnot want to bid 3♠ now (which might be passed out), I didnot want to commit to 4♠ (why double in first place if I plan to bid 4♠ on 3♥ ?) and thought I was stuck. And chose a stupid 4♥ bid (even the 5-3 might be worse than the 6-1 in some cases). Theorically, Andy's suggestion looks nice, and I didnot think about it (although I posted a similar hand some weeks ago here, where 4♦ was chosen as a choice of game). Anyway, my pard doesn't play more than 400 boards a year, and we do not really have time to discuss agreements. So the thoughtful 4♦ would have been a dangerous *practical* bid. Thanx all for your nice comments ! Regards.

I don't think it's necessary to play a diamond at trick 2. You can still manage your main chances by starting with a trump imo. Well now, do you regret not to have played a diamond back :) ?