My partner today was very happy with herself for bidding and making 7 when nobody else did. It was made on a bad discard by the opps. Opp had K and A at the end, and discarded the . Partner was void in

The field was in 4

I tried to explain that if she had bid 6 we get the same top. She just did not get it.

R/W MPs

RHO deals and opens:
1H-2C
2N-3N

6 4
9 7
K J 8 7 5 3 2
T 4

1) Should I bid 3D my first chance? My suit quality is pretty bad, and my shape isn't so hot. Despite that, I feel like I'm way too tight R/W, and looking back, it seems like a pre-empt would have worked well here.

2) at matchpoints, is a spade lead here terribad?

At 3NT I am leading a diamond here.

I'll certainly bid 2D over 1C, but 3D r/w I think is a bit much. I definitely wouldn't at IMPs, and trust me, you don't want matchpoint advice from me.

I'm leading the D7.

1. I would. It helps to have a partner who understands why you just went for 800 and a zero when it doesn't work though. It seems like it works more often than it doesn't work, disrupting them from getting to the right game, getting partner off to a lead, etc. At IMPs, I wouldn't.

2. If I had a strong reason to lead one, I would do it. Either opponent could easily have 4 spades here though. I'd just suck it up and lead my diamond spot.

I wouldn't have overcalled, but I'm also a pussy r/w.

Too many -1100s at the dinner table?

I think it's also fair to say that you play against a level of opponent that is much better able to take advantage of the situation when it's wrong but not obviously so. If mY LHO is sitting with AQTx of diamonds, it's a disaster. If my LHO is sitting with Qx of diamonds and RHO has Axx or something, most of us would be safe because our opponents aren't good enough to take a shot at sending us for a number.

I always assume good opponents when replying here. And I've been hammered in vulnerable partscores by opponents way worse than those Justin's accustomed to playing.

IMO, bad opponents should be part of the problem if that's who we're playing.

However, if we're playing bad opponents, I'm going to do my best to take the field action, whatever I judge that to be.

There's a big difference between "good" opponents, and "world class" opponents. And dealing with preempts and judging when to take a penalty in closeish cases is, IMO, one of those areas where there's a significant difference between the two.

Is there any reasonable way to get to 7 playing 2/1 here?

A K Q 2
K 9 3 2
A Q T 5
Q

J 5 3
A Q J T 8 6
7 3
A 4

Assume that south opens, and the opponents are silent.

1h-2nt

Now I guess south bids 4h and they stop at 6h. But I feel this is probably a hand where an upgraded j2nt is great. So lets see what I can do with the j2nt system Larry Cohen wrote about in the bridge magazine recently...

3c (minimum)-3d (relay)
3nt (minimum with 6 trumps)-4nt
5s (2 with q)-5nt
6h (no k)

hmm jack of spades is a big card here. But north knows south is either 3622 2632 2623. I guess worst case scenario at this point north knows it is at worst on a finesse and should bid it playing mps, and most of the time will have extra chances. Not sure if it is biddable at imps.

1 H - 4 C (Splinter)

now what?

hand is way too big to splinter

Really? I did not know there was an upper limit to splinter.

I was under the impression that Jacoby 2NT was used by balanced hands and splinters were used by unbalanced hands as a forcing raise in this situation. What is the upper limit of a splinter bid?

Seems easy if the responder starts with 1:

1 - 1
2 - 4NT
5 (2+Q) -

Now that responder knows he has 6 hearts +3 spades + 2 Aces, all he needs is 2 of: club ruffs, Kings, J, and even a fall back on the diamond finesse.

The disadvantage to responding 1 is you may have difficulty bidding RKC for hearts later, especially if the opps interfere. I'm probably biased by seeing both hands to respond 1

I agree that this hand should not splinter; this hand should be asking, not telling.

The problem with starting with 1s is the problem becomes more difficult when east preempts in clubs. That is why I prefer to set trumps as soon as possible. Though it definitely helps to have a system where you can discover p has 6 trumps.

The normal limit for splinter is 11-15

No more than 14 for the splinter IMO. I guess you could downgrade a 15 with a stiff jack in the splinter suit or something.

As for the auction, bidding spades here is not good. Set trumps immediately and go slammin'.

1H - 2N (and not close)

Now, this should NEVER be a 4H bid by opener with a full opener and a 6th heart. Your hand, even with no shortness, has extra trump length and 2 keycards!! 4H is lolbad.
3H or 3N by opener depending on flavor.

That said, after whatever your J2N response is, you'll cuebid and bw, and probably you'll still end up in 6H. The N hand is captain, and he'll only ever count 12 tricks. The grand really depends on the spade J, or S having 3 spades and spades 3-3 (obv you'll know S does not have the DK from the cuebidding/BW sequence). I guess you can start combining chances of SJ/3-3-3 spades/DK onside, but even that goes to hell on a diamond lead, cause you can't test spades.

I don't see a good way to bid the grand unless you're down.

edit1: down in the match, that is

edit2: Actually, if S has 3+ clubs, that's another chance, and S has at least 2 clubs, since he has no shortness. I guess 4=5=2=2 is another chance. Hmm, maybe we should bid this grand after all.

I don't know, bidding 3nt with that seems like an easy way to get in too deep, though it is a very pretty 12 hcp. Guess that is why all expert pairs play a modified j2nt for this sort of hand.

This is the kind of hand where it's good to have discussed with partner what cuebids promise extras and what are courtesy cuebids.

Anyway, I mean Jxx/AQJxx/Jxx/Kx is a full opener, and this hand is so, so much better. Just my $0.02 of course.

I'm going to stick up for the splinter on this hand, where responder is basically going to force to slam regardless and wants opener to value their hand accordingly.

Something like
1H - 4C(1)
4H(2) - 4S(3)
5C(4) - 5D(5)
5H(6) - 5S(7)
would be an okay start, but even after that it's kind of difficult to be honest. Getting opener to value that jack of spades can be a problem.

(1) Splinter, intending to bid on even over a 4H signoff
(2) I got nuthin.
(3) I don't care. By the way, I'm cuebidding.
(4) Okay, so I have this here ace of clubs.
(5) Glad to hear it, I got this here ace of diamonds.
(6) See #2, dude.
(7) I still really don't care, we're going to slam, you got ANYTHING else for me?

Opener MIGHT evaluate their sixth heart as worth another trick, but even at that it's probably not going to happen.

I do see the point about limiting one's splinters, but I think the main reason for that is that it makes things really awkward for responder with those 16-17 point splinters where you're left feeling like you have extras but can actually get in trouble by bidding on. Here, there is no risk whatsoever in bidding on as responder, you're driving to 6H anyway, you may as well describe your hand.

If you don't want to describe your hand, it's presumably because you don't think partner's going to listen anyway. Then just bid 2NT then 4NT to ask partner for aces and then the diamond king and if he's got 'em, bid seven.

4C is a mis-description of your hand, but I have no problem with you evaluating that as the easiest way to get the info you need to get to grand when you have a slam-force already; in this case, that might well be the case.

It's only a misdescription if you have the agreement that the splinter is limited to 11-15. I'm saying that's a bad agreement (specifically, that limiting it to "11-15ish" is bad). It's much better IMO to have the agreement "11-15ish, OR strong 18+-ish"). Opener will assume it's the weak range always and not feel compelled to stretch--but if responder bids again, it's a clear signal--and otherwise you have awful problems trying to describe this sort of hand for precisely the reasons we're running into here.

(random tangent: It's sort of like Michaels/unusual notrump in this regard, which a lot of people (including me) will play as split-range, either weak enough where you are comfortable passing whatever partner bids, or strong enough that you feel comfortable making a move over a minimum squeak by partner that may have nothing for you. Leaving it as a completely undefined range is bad because it puts the advancer in a terrible spot on a lot of pretty normal hands.)

If the range for splinter were 11-37, opener would have problems -- but they would would have problems because of those 16-17 hands opposite which opener MIGHT make slam but would not be able to advance because the five level isn't safe opposite a bare minimum splinter. The responder similarly can't splinter with those hands because they will have put opener in that spot, but responder ALSO can't advance safely to the five level because opener might have a minimum ill-fitting hand where five goes down. When responder has a monster such that the five level is always safe, that problem goes away.

If north ever finds out partner has 6 trumps then he has:

6 trumps
3 spades
1 diamond
1 club
1 ruff

Ok, that's 12. To get to 13 partner needs either a third club (if he knows partner is balanced that means 2623) which is pretty likely when you're 4441, or the spade jack. Both of those would make 13 top tricks.

If partner doesn't have either of those, if you catch him with 3 spades you can make on 3-3 spades, or the diamond hook (That's about 68 % which is fine for a grand). On a really good day, you hit partner with Txx of spades which means you make on Jx or stiff J of spades, in addition to 3-3 spades or the diamond hook which is like 75 %.

On a really bad day, you will catch partner with only 2 spades, and no jack, and no 3 clubs, so 2632 with no SJ. On that day, you will be on a diamond finesse. Yes, it's not great to get to a grand on a hook, but it's not a complete disaster either.

All of this analysis ignores the chance that they find a double dummy diamond lead, which will force you to guess whether to hook or play for spades coming in immediately. In the real world they won't underlead a king vs your grand so ignoring this possibility seems reasonable.

So basically we are:

100 % opposite the SJ
100 % opposite 3 clubs
75 % opposite Txx of spades
68 % opposite xxx spades
59 % oppoiste none of the above

Assigning arbitrary numbers since I don't know math, let's say when partner is 6322, they have 3 spades 30 % of the time, 3 diamonds 30 % of the time, and 3 clubs 40 % of the time (because we have 1 club and 4 diamonds, 4 spades). This means (very roughly because I don't know math):

40 % of the time we are 100 %
10 % of the time we are 100 % (1/3rd of the time he has 3 spades he will have the jack)
10 % of the time we are 75 % (1/3rd of the time he has 3 spades he will have the ten)
10 % of the time we are 68 % (no spade jack or ten but 3 spades)
6 % of the time we are 100 % (2632 and the SJ!)
24 % of the time we are 50 %

So we make grand about 82 % of the time if partner is 6(322) and we have this hand and they don't lead a diamond from the king ever. And I think I undershot it. That seems like a good bet to me. People who actually know how to do math can do more exact numbers, but the idea is we're very often 100 %, sometimes 50 %, and occasionally 75 % or 68 %, so obviously given that we should bid a grand.

Semantics I think. Obviously if p makes a move after 1M-4C-4M he is not 11-14, so I guess the agreement is more like 11-14 or any hand where 4C makes the most bridge sense to me. Which may include some 18+ hands, but not necessarily all. The latter part here is always an implicit agreement so I never mention it. Your 11-14 and 18+ means that every hand with 18+ and 4 trumps and a stiff you're supposed to splinter, and there are enough ofvthose where I want to choose a different course because I know I'm the captain.

A splinter is predominantly a telling bid, and with a monster you want to ask usually