VR, and whoever else,

I am here. I will be here all night. Try the veal.

If anyone wants to play, shoot me an AIM

FCBLComish

I might be up for it tomorrow.

TRIP REPORT:

Bobman, VR and I were having a good game, except for the randoms who were our fourth. A friend of mine logged in, and we had an excellent game after that.

Bridge is FUN, Bridge with POGGERS is awesome

Now if I can teach Bruce how to play werewofl......

rofl

Damn you guys are making me want to learn this crazy game.

Nice to see some bridge players here. Win the club Q at trick one and play a small spade off the dummy. If spades are 4-3 about 67% I'm home with 12 tricks. Opponets best return is a diamond breaking up some squeeze posibilities but say they return a
passive club, win in dummy. Play Ace of clubs unblocking the suit then test spades.
If spades are not 4-3 I have 3-3 hearts to fall back on and some chances for squeeze depending on who covers spades, hearts and possibly diamonds. I'm pitching diamonds on the spades. Come to hand with the diamond ace and play the last club. If west
has the long spade he must keep it so I pitch a spade from dummy. If my diamond jack is not good someone keeping K or Q and east must control spades as one of his last 4 cards I play queen of hearts followed by the ten of hearts. I should have a count and if hearts are know to be 4-2 with west I can try to pin the 9x of hearts in east. Or I
can hope for 3-3 hearts. The duck of the low spade at trick two is the key to the hand.
DrDbl

Our mysterious stranger has it right.

The key idea of the hand is that if you play hearts first and you're wrong, you are down, but if you play spades first and they break badly, you still have time to try the hearts. You only fail if both suits misbehave.

Honorable mention for bobman for realizing that he could afford to lose an early trick and try hearts later, but picking diamonds instead of spades for his lost trick.

i haven't played since before I moved down to LA. (part of a reason was only haven't my mac laptop)

I think I could try and find some time to play again.

Here's a hand I had no idea how to bid.
S:x
H:x
D: AKTx
C: KQJ9xxx

opponents only vulnerable, I deal. random online partner, so only standard bidding. Bidding goes 1C-1S-2D(?)-2NT-3C-3NT. Any thoughts, particularly about my rebid?

That's a practical approach to bidding it. However, do be aware that your partner is going to be visualizing a 6-4 with another ace, rather than a 7-4 that depends so heavily on distribution. You may well be in a 23-HCP 3NT, and you may well go down in 3NT when you can make 5 or 6 clubs on a bad day. At matchpoints I would leave 3NT anyway. At IMPs I think I would insist on the clubs. (And if you're going to insist on the clubs anyway, might as well leap to 5 one round sooner.)

ok. my primary concern was that i might miss something higher. partner had the three missing aces, doubleton diamonds, and the Tc, making us ice-cold for 7C

If partner has got three aces and can't figure out there might be a slam after you reverse and show extra shape...wellllll... that's a shame.

His bidding didn't promise anything close to that much; your reverse (1 of a lower-ranking suit followed by 2 of a higher-ranking suit) shows a considerably better than average opening, and forces him to bid again. He, expecting you to have a 1-3-4-5 or 1-2-4-6 17-count, could have as little as KQxxx Kxx xxx xx for his 1S-then-2NT-then-3NT. I blame him for missing the slam, not you. Nothing in any of his bids gave you any indication he was likely to have two missing aces (and you can't leap into Blackwood, since one ace gets you past 5 clubs.)

Oh god, don't talk to me about missed slams. Fun hand today online:

: Q
: AJTx
: KQxxx
: Jxx

I open 1, lho overcalls 1, partner makes it 1, I make it 1nt (opinions?) and partner jumps straight to 3nt, declining to mention her AJT983, so while everyone else is making 6 or 5 w/overtrick easily we're down two as north bangs out six winning clubs.

Partner claims that she didn't know my 1 was natural, despite me listing a very standard system (all 1-level is natural, weak twos, strong 2). At least she didn't pass ****ing stayman as happened to me the other day

I would probably rebid 2D instead of 1N, although I can understand the 1N bid. 1N shows a minimum opener, with balance in all suits (except maybe the suit your partner bid). Anyways, your hand plays poorly in no trump, because you have a wasted value in the singleton Qs, so you're probably better off in a suit contract. That shows 5D, lack of support in spades, and nothing of interest in clubs. Your partner should jump to 5D when you bid 2D and show 5 of your own.

Also, there are few systems I can think of in which 1D is not natural. In most systems it shows 4 (unless you have a 4432 shape), and in some, it might show 3, but my guess is that you guys were playing something like SAYC or 2/1 or something, so 1D should be a pretty clear bid for your partner to understand. In fact, that should be one of the most basic things you guys need to know about.