Al,

Double is good. With partner unpassed you can't risk 2C. The danger of double is that partner may make a jump response in hearts, but you should be able to handle that.

After partner responds 1H (which is no problem at all, 2H would be awkward but could be handled), there's no need to jump in clubs. The basic one level response from partner shows about 8 or less points. If you couldn't make game with that, you would just pass here, so bidding a new suit is inviting game if partner is at the top of his range - 6+ points or so - which is exactly what you want to do. So just bid 2C.

After 3C, partner's bid of the opponent's suit was "More information, please". Bidding the opponent's suit is often used for that purpose. Usually it will either mean that he's asking you if you can stop diamonds in 3NT, or that he really likes clubs. His further bidding will clarify this; if you bid 3NT here and he bids 4C, for instance, then you know it meant he has a very good hand for clubs. Anyway since you double-stop diamonds you should bid 3NT now. There's no need to be reluctant to try 3NT - you have all the suits solidly stopped and your club suit will be a source of tricks.

Blackwood should never be used with a void. Some advanced partnerships use a variant called Exclusion Blackwood to exclude the void suit, but never mind all that (I've never played it, it comes up pretty infrequently).

Heh, declarer play is a LOT more complicated than you realise at the moment. That program is just beginner stuff. There are entire classes of plays (like squeezes for instance) which I'm pretty sure wouldn't be possible to set up in spades because there are too many unknowns. Anyway rest assured you don't need to worry about declarer play being too easy.

+1. Look at it this way, there are many hands right now that you probably wouldn't be able to solve if you could see all 52 cards (forget about just yours and pards!). This probably seems impossible, but I promise you it's true. Declarer play gets really sick and in depth.

yeah, i'm just getting started, so i'm sure there are plays out there; but i do know that i would set up squeezes in spades all the time

btw Al, this seems like a really odd thing to say:

Why on Earth not? You sure don't, opener obviously doesn't have a hand full of them either.

Bear in mind that ABC Poker will show a profit in live games up to the middle limits -- just the same way, a solid ABC basic bridge player will finish above average in most clubs and some of the weaker tournament fields.

Bear in mind also that the the range of declarer play techniques you are seeing in Learn to Play Bridge are the realllllllllly basic bread and butter ones. There is an additional scope for skill in real-world play of at least half a trick a hand beyond what you're seeing in the intro. It is true that declarer play is the most purely technical look-it-up-and-master-it-all-by-yourself aspect of the game.

I'll second the previous comments that serious spades is the best of all card games as bridge preparation.

Good spot, ChrisV.

It was just a hope really because everything else would have been fine. It is in situations like these where my inexperience shows and I just hope for the best: a bit akin to pushing all-in with an ace and a face at NLHE and hoping you are good or will become good. Obviously, not the way to go.

Thanks for your considered posts.

I think the initial action is close between double (intending to show clubs next) and just overcalling 2C. Obviously you are at the top of your range for an overcall, but (as you found out) SOMEONE has hearts, and it isn't you. Your LHO is quite likely to have some, and if he has a few points as well overcalling 2C makes it far harder for him to show them than doubling does. As the auction went he's probably too weak, but I think I'd have just overcalled 2C anyway.

After double, as the auction progresses 2C is clear. 3C is an overbid by approximately a king or so. You are minimum for a double-then-bid-suit sequence. 3C is the type of bid someone who thinks they have a really big hand will make, while not listening to partner put on the brakes.

As bid, after 3D, then I'd clearly bid 3NT. Partner's asking us to further describe our hand, and we certainly aren't going to show our heart support now . And we've already shown our club suit pretty well. Time to show the diamond stoppers. Note that we aren't TOO afraid of hearts as partner has bid them, but then again we MADE partner bid something, so we could well get hearts jammed down our throats. 4NT is the type of bid that someone who thinks they have a really big hand will make, while not listening to partner try to put on the brakes. (Sense a pattern here? )

Mike Lawrence explains the principle of putting one's hand in a "box" quite well. Here, after double and then jumping in clubs, you have described a HUGE hand with a club suit. In the context of that, our hand is terrible. We have no heart fit for partner, our hand isn't exactly as strong as we advertised, and we have adequately shown our club suit. It's time to start to slow down the auction--if we have slam, partner knows what we have much better than we know what partner has. Partner's hand is in the context of "minimum response to takeout double" followed by "random forcing noise after partner shows a HUGE hand". We don't know what he might have, except that he probably has about 0-7 points and a few hearts. Let him make the decision.

Blackwood is a really really bad call here for a number of reasons. First, you don't know if you have a slam (my money is on no). Second, if you do have a slam, you don't know where to play it. Third, partner showing you zero or one aces really doesn't help you decide if you have a slam or not. Partner could have:

Qxxx
Jxxxx
x
Jxx

pretty easily here, no? That has a lot of play for slam--but you have no way of knowing it, and after Blackwood partner has no way of telling you.

Thanks for this DWetzel.

2 is the way I should have gone.

And yes, Blackwood was terribad

My 3 bid was asking you to bid 3NT if you had diamonds stopped. I had 1 stopper (Kx), and if you had 1, 3NT was cold.

You also noticed that you could have made 6 there.

Just as an aside note, when I bid the 3, I alerted the ops "I hope he knows what this means". I got a smiley from both of them. I am not sure if you noticed the smileys or not, but that was why they did it

If you want to see how hard declarer play can get, download Bridge Base Online, go to the other bridge activities part, and do Bridge Master 2000. After a few years of playing I can handle all the level 3's and about half of the level 4's. Level 5's still trick me up pretty good.

FCBLComish,

I noticed no smileys and no alerting of opponents. I am playing so badly today. My brain just does not work. In the last fifteen minutes, I opened 1 on 23 HCP balanced. Of course, this is a classic 2 opener with the rebid being 2NT (unless, of course, Partner makes a positive bid).

You have also been kind of enough not to mention my bumbling of the 3NT hand that preceded it but as you witnessed that as well you know that I am zigging when I should be zagging today.

Concerning the mathematics behind 3NT and high minor suit contracts, it seems one should only leave 3NT behind if a small slam can be made in the minors? Yes?

Yep. You only play 5 in a minor if you know you have no major fit, and you know you have a trouble suit in No Trump. Both of these things occurring happens very rarely.

Generally speaking, that's right. Of course. you may investigate slam and then find that you're not making, and be forced to play 5 of a minor; or you may KNOW that 3NT won't work because a suit is wide open--but in most cases, 3NT is vastly preferable to 5 of a minor, basically because nine tricks are a lot easier than eleven. A trump fit usually provides an extra trick, though, so the general order of preference for game contracts (and what many bidding structures are geared to get you to) is: four of a major, then 3NT, then 5 of a minor.

This matters much more at matchpoints than IMPs. At matchpoints, you might take a significant risk to play 3NT, because 3NT making 4 scores better than 5C making 5. At IMPs, that difference is much less significant, and so you should generally prefer to play in the safer contract.

Mathematically, iet's say that 5 clubs always makes exactly, and 3NT either makes four or goes down one. At matchpoints, if 3NT makes 4 more than half the time, you'd rather be there than in 5C. At IMPs, you gain 30 points, or 1 IMP, when 3NT makes an overtrick, but lose either 450 points (10 IMPs) or 700 points (12 IMPs) if 3NT goes down, depending on the vulnerability--you lose what you could have had for 5C, and give the opponents 50 or 100 depending. So you had better be pretty sure about 3NT at IMPs (assuming you're also certain that 5C is making--which is a BIG assumption!)

Axx/Kx/AKxxx/xxx
xx/Axx/QJTxx/Axx

This hand for example offers 9 easy tricks off the top in 3NT. However if play in your ten card diamond fit, you can get a ruff for 10 tricks, but the 11th trick isn't happening. These types of hands happen quite a bit.

Posting from phone, so no details, but I'm in the minority who prefer 2C over double at the first call on Al's monster above. I like pretty heavy simple overcalls unless you've agreed on something else - playing my way, if partner passes, it's probably best anyway. (Some day I'll find a partner who play overcall structure with me...)

add-on to above, re partner passing 2C: I really like transfer responses to overcalls, with which advancer can safely bid with very weak hands; that probably contributes, irrationally, to my comfort re the simple overcall.

Nich (and others, really),

As an example of advanced, but not expert, declarer play (which arose in a money-bridge game a friend of mine played the other day; he got it right):

You find yourself declaring 6N; opponents silent during the auction. The lead is a small heart.

Dummy:
Txx
AKJTx
T
KQ76

Your hand:
AQx
xx
AK5xx
A8x

Plan the play.

EDIT:

Yeah, I fixed my post above. I've got more basic things to worry about before I go mastering the technique, but yes, that third element absolutely has to be present.

EDIT: Actually, I should look into it. I'm getting way better at recognizing the possibility, and my counting has improved so much over the last year.

Grunch:

Post-reading of the spoiler:

DW,

Do you think it's more likely that LHO led a heart from 4 or 5 small? Seems not to be very productive if partner did show them. Obviously this isn't the point of the problem, though; RHO is going to get the HQ.

I didn't think it'd work but it was worth a shot.

I think he's far MORE likely to lead from 4 or 5 to the nothing than to lead from the queen (under the "don't give anything away against 6NT" principle). Which is not to say that I consider either especially likely, but I figure it probably adds a good 5% to our chances. He's never (for most values of never) leading away from the QH here, assuming partner has bid them.