[Phil]

Played in a strong game last night and the following hand came up:

---

The lead was a low heart, so declarer wrapped up +1430.

Please review each action and critique.

[661_Pete]

East's bidding seems to make it difficult for E-W to discover their two losers. Perhaps 2♠ would have been enough?

As to the play - well when opponents bid a slam on what is evidently a highly distributional deal, perhaps leading off your ace is a good start. North could have signalled spectacularly by dropping the K under it!

[eagles123]

i hate the 6 heart bid.

[eagles123]

661_Pete, on 2016-November-11, 11:26, said:

East's bidding seems to make it difficult for E-W to discover their two losers. Perhaps 2♠ would have been enough?

As to the play - well when opponents bid a slam on what is evidently a highly distributional deal, perhaps leading off your ace is a good start. North could have signalled spectacularly by dropping the K under it!

Dropping the King would be an exceedingly terrible signal on the Ace of Clubs lead, just because partner has lead the Ace doesn't mean he has the Queen as well.

[johnu]

661_Pete, on 2016-November-11, 11:26, said:

As to the play - well when opponents bid a slam on what is evidently a highly distributional deal, perhaps leading off your ace is a good start. North could have signalled spectacularly by dropping the K under it!

It would indeed be spectacular, especially if opening leader is leading from Axxxx

[billw55]

Don't like west's first pass, which suggests doubt about defending or declaring. This is a very offensive hand, I would bid 5♠ right away.

[Fluffy]

2♥: I think 3♥ is a strong alternative at these colors, the hand has too much potential and partner will underbid if he has a good hand.
3♠: The only clear bid of the auction.
5♥: Fine I guess, there are many alternatives, but anything could be right.
Forcing Pass: as Bill says, you either bid 5♠, or pass and then raise oto 6♠, passing to accept the double seems ridicoulous.
5♠: Bad shape, but still enough ODR to try it.
South's pass over 5♠: Consequent, it is better nto to make the last guess, although with that hand he suspects 6♥ is cheap.
West's pass of 5♠: Makes little sense.
North's 6♥: Trying to catch up after making thew rong opening bid. This is a consequence of first round.
Pass of 6♠: He's got first round control in hearts, but I think the hand is too weak after 3♠ + 5♠ both showing a hand a bit better.
6♠: Fine, after the weak actions before, this seems routine.
Lead of a heart: Count the diamonds!, opponents have double fit, even when partner happens to have "the nuts" to avoid discards:♦QJxx, they can still discard the club loser in time. On a normal day, they will get 3 club pitches before you get the lead again. It is not a hand to stay passive, partner migh have ♣K, ♣ singleton, or if ♥A is cashing, it will cash at trick 2 as well.

[Kaitlyn S]

billw55, on 2016-November-11, 13:16, said:

Don't like west's first pass, which suggests doubt about defending or declaring. This is a very offensive hand, I would bid 5♠ right away.

I would guess that West thought he was good enough to pass and pull which shows more than a 5S bid. However, if he did think that, why on earth wouldn't be bid over 5S when slam is cold if East's ♥A was in clubs instead?

[Kaitlyn S]

Fluffy, on 2016-November-11, 17:07, said:

2♥: I think 3♥ is a strong alternative at these colors, the hand has too much potential and partner will underbid if he has a good hand.

Agree. In fact, I'm not sure in what order I'd rank 1H, 2H, and 4H, but 3H is ahead of all of them.

[Jinksy]

(repeats some of the above responses, but I didn't want to read them before writing it)

Phil, on 2016-November-11, 11:04, said:

Played in a strong game last night and the following hand came up:

---

The lead was a low heart, so declarer wrapped up +1430.

Please review each action and critique.

2♥:
Seems hard to condemn, though I would prefer to open 3 at these colours.

3♠:
Seems about right

5♥:
5♣ seems like it must be fit after a strong jump to your right. I think I would probably prefer it, since 7♥ might be a decent sac even if they'd otherwise have stopped in game.

Forcing pass:
Seems bad. If this hand isn't planning to go slam-hunting over 5♠, why's it passing? Is he planning to sit a double from P?

5♠:
I find these acey hands extremely hard to judge, but I'd surely double here. Given P's pass (assuming he's not slamming), he should(!) have something in the side suits, and there's no guarantee of making 5♠.

6♥:
Yuck. Evidently he agrees with me that he should have opened 3.

6♠:
We forgot to support before, so making up for lost time? Seems crazy now. You might just have two clubs running against you. Oh, wait...

Small heart lead:
Ehh, someone's got to be ruffing this. Clubs seem like our best chance at beating the slam, so my finely honed result-merchant sense is telling me to start with the ace (on the off chance we have a cashing ace of clubs we'll be able to do that next). It probably won't give them the 12th trick more than 45% of the time.

[rmnka447]

I agree with others that West has to bid 5 ♠ over 5 ♥. East can hardly be void in ♥, so the void adds to the losers in partner's hand you can cover. ♠ A solidifies the trump suit.

West subsequent 6 ♠ bid is a "make up" call after failing to support earlier in the auction. "Make up" calls are almost always bad bidding. Fortunately, the defense went poorly.

As to the defense, perhaps South should ask a few questions to himself before leading. First, it is highly unlikely that either East or West is void in ♣. That being so, if West's bid is legitimate and there's a ♣ loser, how many ♠ do you think West has? Then the question becomes "Do you lead the ♣ A or not?" The issue is whether you might give away a key trick to the ♣ K. Again, the bidding gives a clue. If West's bid is legitimate, then West either has a stiff or ♣ Kx. In either of these cases, leading the A probably doesn't hurt. And if West has the stiff or doubleton K along a ♥ void, then West must have a very red hand which raises the possibility that East's ♣ losers might discarded on West's ♦.

[mcphee]

If this was assign blame I would give S the lions share. I just do not understand why S did not bid C. I also have issues the 6H decision, this player made his when he opened 2H, what excuse does he have for bidding again?

If S bids C I doubt this hand would even be discussed as there will be no slam bid. The 5H bid is not going to prevent the opps from bidding more and does nothing except stop a key card ask.

[MrAce]

I think South did just fine. No need to show clubs when he is the one on lead.
North's 6♥ is bad.

About West's forcing pass; if he was intending to bid 5♠ when pd doubles then I think it is correct to pass because forcing pass followed by 5♠ shows stronger hand than direct 5♠. But if he was planning to pass if East doubles then it was awful to pass.

About the lead; if I was South and wanted to lead ♥, that would be the K, not low ♥. It is hard for me to tell whether I would lead ♣ or not after seeing all 4 hands.

[661_Pete]

eagles123, on 2016-November-11, 12:25, said:

Dropping the King would be an exceedingly terrible signal on the Ace of Clubs lead, just because partner has lead the Ace doesn't mean he has the Queen as well.

I said "spectacular". I didn't say "good".

[Phil]

I was South. If you read John Swanson's post on Fit Jumps on Bridgewinners you know how much he loathes abusing them.

John kibbed this table and thought I should bid 4C because I needed partners input and I didn't know what to lead.

I posted the hand on BW and there's a lot of heavy hitters bidding 5H and it's out ranking 4C by a sizable margin. I hate losing the entire four level and half the five level when we want to jam. 5C makes a little sense but sheesh how do we ever bid clubs?

As for the,lead I pictured a much different layout. First, I never pictured partner with so much defense. Unilaterally diving after partner gave them the last guess? Void AQJxxx Jxxxx xx seems to fit more. And LHOs forcing pass sounds balanced and RHOs pull and then pass - well 7033 made sense so we need to be patient in clubs.

[ggwhiz]

5♥ was very good... Too many players bid only 4 which is a waste of time

Forcing pass instead of 5♠.. much too optimistic for my taste without a better source of tricks in diamonds

6♣ on the way to 6♥ by north would have been very astute and (I hope) would occur to me at least 1/2 the time

Pass of 6♥ instead of double... also optimistic since it's a good 3♠ bid but minimum for that call, however it's coloured by that forcing pass.