3D implies some spades, but does not promise great support, and says nothing about the diamond shortness. When you continue past 3NT it will become clear that you do have good spades, but will look like it was simply a generic forcing bid -- because that's what it is. Could be looking for choice of games with nearly any hand that's 3=4 in the majors, for example, or many balanced hands with partial diamond stoppers and honor-doubleton or maybe honor-tripleton of spades. (Note: some people will say it guarantees spades here. I see their point, though I do not play that way, but the rest of the argument holds.)

4D, on the other hand, says you have very good spade support and short diamonds. As that is exactly what you have, it's a good bid, and you should assume it's the right one unless there's a reason to do something else.

Showing partner clearly that you love spades and have short diamonds will help him know whether slam is worth investigating, and judge how to proceed if opps compete to 5D. You will have no idea about either of these things, because partner's next bid over 3D will tell you the wrong things a lot of the times (such as heart length, OK in this case but not critical, or diamond stoppers, which are irrelevant.) Also, the failure to splinter when the bid was available tends to deny the diamond shortness, which can very easily make partner go wrong later.

Also, what is the advantage of staying low? You are always bidding game, and always playing in spades, so the only value is leaving room for slam investigation. But there is no auction that is bad for you over 4D. If partner cannot control bid 4H, or take command with an ace-ask or some other slam tool, there is no slam. If he bids 4H you will bid 4S, denying extras -- because you have no extras. (Nothing more you can really show, anyway -- though the great trumps and the void may be enough to bid on, but even then you have a very descriptive 5D bid available.) There is the slight problem that usually the splinter shows a singleton rather than a void, but partner knows this is possible, and with KTxxx AKJ Qx KQx or the like he can take another stab, probably with 5C. Meanwhile, if his hand is just slightly different but with stronger diamonds and weaker round suits, you may get too high when he overvalues diamond honors.

which has the bonus of allowing us to run to spades

I was kidding (about playing in diamonds, not about splintering).

R/W MPs. I'm playing with a random on BBO, and against two people that are regular partners. These guys aren't nits, and have no problems opening very light at these colors.

LHO deals and opens 2. Partner doubles, RHO passes.

Q 9 8 7 2
A K 7 4 2
J 7
Q

So, I can either pass 2X, but I'm thinking at these colors, shooting for game may be the better option. Is 4 a good bid here, or should I bid something (or nothing) else?

I think game is odds on for us, so we'd need to get 2 4 down for +800, and +500 will be a near bottom.

I'll just bid 4. If partner is very strong he can go on to slam himself after that.

Hand 1: KJTxx / x / A6xxx / xx IMPs w/w first seat -- 1S or P?

Hand 2: Qxx / Kxx / Kx / QJTxx IMPs r/w 2nd seat
(2D) - P - (2H) - 2S
P - ??

Hand 3: Txx / T9x / KJTx / Axx IMPs w/w 3rd seat
1S - (P) - 2S - (P)
4C - (P) - 4D - (P)
4H - (P) - ??

Depends how lightly you open. With chuck, we have a bid for this type of hand (2-9 HCP, 5-5 or better), but i would probably pass, and then bid like I have a max for a passed hand throughout the rest of it.

I think I would just leave it at 2S. There definitely are merits to raising, but I don't think you provide a lot of immediate help. Is the 2H forcing? That may explain a lot more about the hand, because it if is, I'd be more likely to pass.

5C? I fail at cuebidding though. The A is probably incredibly helpful as is the K, and you have a max for your bid, so if your opponent is promising the hand he has, you at least have a shot for slam.

I don't think this has has enough defensive strength for a 1-level opening. In my system I'd open this 2 (5-10 HCP, 5 spades and 4+ in a minor -- known as Muiderberg or Dutch Twos). I'd sell it as a maximum if partner inquires.

Since I'm vulnerable and I don't want to mis a vulnerable game, I'm shooting 4. Since the strongish opponent is in front of partner's hand, finesses seems to be working. Non-vul I'd probably just invite.

This is a tough one. I don't really like my hand, but we have a maximum and another control partner seems to want to know about. I'll tell him about my club ace with 5. If that's not enough to get him to slam, I'm passing 5.

oh, so that's what that means? i had someone play that against me and alert it as muiderberg the other day, but i just thought "wat"

Muiderberg is a Dutch variation on Polish Twos (which require 5+ in the minor), invented by Onno Janssen, player in the Dutch seniors team. He lives in the small medieval town Muiderberg, about 15 miles southeast of Amsterdam.
Hence the name.

The convention is very popular in the Netherlands among intermediate and stronger players. I estimate about 75% of such fields play it.

So, I did open this. Auction proceeded:
1S - (2H) - P - (2N)
P - (3C) - X - (3H)
AP

Righty has Qxxxx spades and KJTx diamonds. Yowzas. P told me he was close to X'ing 3H. They made 5. Could have gotten into real trouble here, but opps missed their game. Unfortunately our teammates went down in an ice cold 3N.

I bid 3D here to show limit+. Maybe that's overstating my hand a little, but I thought that there's a reasonable chance LHO psyched 2H, given that someone here doesn't have their bid. I figured if that were the case (and LHO were super light), we'd miss a slam with 4S here. Anyway, my well-positioned Kd turned out awesome when LHO X'd 3D for a lead (obv with the ace), and partner bid 4S.

-1, but we should be there.
I did bid 5C. Here's the question. 4D already said "given your splinter, I have nonzero interest in slam". The ace is a horrible card if P has a void, so, should I bid 4S here because I'm square and not covering his hearts? I decided my diamonds were good enough to bid 5C, which was followed by 6S.

Partner frowned when he saw my hand. +980 on the Kh being right.

All in all, our teammates put together some really bad boards. 2 boards in particular cost 21 VP's in a 5x5. Should have crushed this event.

Played yesterday in an open pairs with another junior. Came in 4th overall, but again should have won. 2 gigantic mistakes. On board 1, I'm declaring 3N and neglect to cash my stiff Qs at trick 2, opposite AKTxx on board and all the sudden my 9 tops are 8

On the last hand, on an auction of
(1H) - 1S - (2H) - 2S
(3H) - P - (4H)
I hold QJ8xx / x / AQ8xx / xx

I play a small spade (3/5 leads) to partner's K and declarer's A.

Dummy: 9xx / Axx / Jxx / KJTx

Declarer plays 3 rds of hearts, ending on board, and exits a club. Partner goes up with Ac and returns Td. Declarer ducks, and I play Q and A of diamonds, partner playing the D6.

So, do I lead Qs, hoping p doesnt have 4? Do I lead a diamond, hoping partner can ruff? Or, do I lead a club, hoping partner has the Q?

Blech.

Led a diamond, partner played the 9 and declarer pitched a spade. Club to her Q, pulled the last trump, and claimed.

I think this is on my P for a bad lead in D. No reason not to lead the 6 from T96 as a count card.

So yeah, we had a 63% with a round to go, definitely competing for the overall lead. We could have beat this 4H (which is cold if she plays it right) for a clear top, but we failed to, and we ended up 4th overall for 3.3 silver. Not bad for a couple of C players, but man that win would have been sweet.

So I pulled a fun little bluff off today

Dummy
QT
QJTxx
Axx
Txx

My hand
xx
Axx
Qxx
KQJxx

Contract was 2NT, clearly a bad contract. Lead was a small diamond which my queen won. Now I am looking at losing the ace of clubs and at least 5 spades. So I did the only thing I thought I could do

Thanks for the post! Brightened my day!

Yeah, I think that's the key to this question. Partner should play you for some defense when you open at the 1 level.

I would have bid 4S for that exact reason. Of course, I might have been wrong.

I'm in 5X with chuck (r/w obv)

Me LHO Chuck RHO
- 1S pass 2D
2H 2N 3H 4S
5H X all pass

The opening lead is the 3 to the A. The 5 is returned.

How do I play the hand (and is the sac good or bad)?

Chuck's hand:
Q J 7 4
9 7 4
7
A 9 8 6 5


My Hand:

J T 5 3 2
K 9 8 6
K Q 3 2

club game, playing with a friend that I don't play much with.

he opens 1c in the first seat I believe w/w, rho bids 3s. you hold:

void, KQJTxx, AKJ9, Jxx

blast into 6h straight away, double, other?

first thought would be to double

hmm, personally i don't like that sac, i think on the bidding defending 4 looks better. as for the play, i don't know, i think we need to ruff immediately, cash Kd, ruff a diamond, cross to Kc, ruff the last diamond, then run 9h. should leave us enough defense in trumps to not have them all drawn and allow us to run some clubs. might get hairy if they return a spade though

Edit: This is for Myrmidons hand obv

I'm pretty awful at declarer play (phenomenally worse than at bidding or defence) but I'd ruff the spade, ruff a diamond, ruff another spade, ruff another diamond and ruff a third spade. I don't expect the opponents to show out during this because LHO ought to have three diamonds unless I'm really unlucky and he led from the 32 or RHO has seven of them.

After all that I'd be in hand. I'd now lead the diamond king which should elicit a high ruff from LHO, on which I discard dummy's spade. The rest should be pretty obvious.

More info - is this friend good at bridge? What will double mean to him?

Heh. I would probably bid 5H. This is obviously not to play, so it should convey the message that I want to bid a slam, am thinking hearts, but need more input. Unfortunately diamonds kind of gets left by the wayside but I don't see a way to include them.

Edit: Not sure why I asked what double would mean b/c I don't want to bid it anyway.

Myrm,

The sac looks terrible at these colors, not to mention the fact that you might be beating 4S. Partner leads his stiff diamond. Now on the 3rd round of trump, when P gets in (from the 5S lead, I assume your LHO has the ace), he can lead a club to your king (on the spades, you told him you had it). Kd, diamond ruff. gg. At IMPs this is super-terrible. Your trumps suck, and LHO already told his partner that. You could easily go for 800 or 1100 here when they barely had 420. At MPs, I still hate it, but at least the worst that can happen is a MP 0.

But, we're here, and there's no undo button once dummy hits.

Let's ruff that spade. We need 11 to make the contract (lol) and 10 for it to be better than 4S=. We'll play for that, since -500 is the same as -1400 here (@ MPs. @IMPs, blech. Probably playing it the same way)

Since you're only getting one pitch on the clubs at most, you've got to ruff one diamond. No reason not to do it now. Then run H9 to see what happens. The only way to make this work is to crash heart honors. So you'll have to see what they play on the 9, draw inferences, think/coffeehouse a little, and decide what to do. e.g. LHO wins the 9 with Ah, returns a spade-J-K-ruff. Time to think and play the T out of hand. You want LHO to think you're up to something and pop the K here.

Once trump is out, you can cash your 5 clubs (if lho has JTxx, you were doomed anyway) and Kd for 6 + diamond ruff + 3 hearts if they misdefended.

Probably this didn't happen. A more likely line is that you play the T out of hand, ducked to RHO's Q. RHO returns a spade which you ruff. With only Kh outstanding, you go to work on clubs. Let them ruff in whenever they want. They'll return a spade or diamond, and you can cash out for -2 (4 clubs, Kd, 3 spade ruffs, 1 diamond ruff). Hmmm, if the ruff in on the 4th club, you can't get to the 5th. So... maybe you want to ruff that 2nd diamond early on after all, so long as LHO doesn't play the 2 on the first diamond ruff.

We avoid this by not bidding 5H!

double if negative and keep bidding till were in the right slam

Sorry, it was late at night. the colors were w/r (i just realized that i wrote them backwards on my first post).

Do you guys have agreement on what 4S shows? Some play it as Michael's (5-5 with 5 hearts), but some play it was showing a control in spades. If your partner shows clubs, you can show diamonds, and then see where you belong.

I think 4s would be interpreted as wanting to play a club slam with this particular partner. Double is agreed as negative here.

At risk of repeating myself:

#1329: pass (the double of 2H), and I don't think it's a close decision. Those hearts are neither setting up nor going away in 4S - you can't ruff any of them without getting overruffed.

#1340: pass (after RHO bids 2D), and this one is in "you'd have to put a gun to my head to make me bid even if the vulnerability wasn't unfavorable" territory.