[Foxx]

All problems are IMP scoring

(1) Dealer South, Both Vul

♠xx ♥QJx ♦KJ ♣QJ109xx

You and LHO pass, partner opens 1♠, and RHO passes. Your call.

NOTES: 2♣ = Reverse Drury; 3♣ = natural, weak.




(2) Dealer East, Both Vul

♠A108 ♥KQJ ♦AKJ10xx ♣x

You open 1♦, and partner responds 1♥. The opponents pass. Your call.




(3) Dealer West, N/S Vul

North's Hand: ♠AQx ♥KQ ♦KJ9x ♣KQ8x

South's Hand: ♠K8xx ♥9xx ♦10x ♣10xxx

   W      N      E      S

  3H      ? 	4H      P
   P      ?      P      ?
   P      ?*

*if necessary

What calls should North and South make at the decision points shown?

[Echognome]

1. Complete question of system. Have you and your partner discussed what to do with this type of hand? With most of my partners it is a 2NT call showing a max passed hand with 6 clubs. My alternative is 1NT. If I have not discussed this hand type with partner, then I bid 1NT.

2. Another Bridgeworld Death Hand. If partner's response was 1♠, I think we would get a lot of 2♥ reverses. There are also many gadgets out there for this hand type, but I assume none are in play here. I think the viable choices are 1♠, 2♠, 3♦, 3♥, and even 4♣. I will opt for 1♠ with no conviction.

3. Very tough problem to judge unbiasedly. I like double twice by north and then for south to pass throughout. But it's tough to say that completely unbiased.

[rogerclee]

1. 1n
2. 1s
3. North should x then pass. obv south should pass over 4h, passing a second x with the south hand is terrible and resulting, he has an auto 4s if north doubles twice.

[quiddity]

2 is an ugly problem. I'm on the fence between 1♠ and 4♦ (slammish 4-6).

[JLOGIC]

1N and 2S. I'm a big believer in jumpshifting on hand type 2...we are a GF hand and 2S then 3H is not a terrible description. I'm not worried about 1S all pass so much as describing a GF hand when I've made a NF 1S bid.

[JLOGIC]

Agree with X and pass on the third for north. Sucks but thats life with KQ of hearts.

[Fluffy]

On the second 2NT will lead to 3NT when partner has 4 card suit and 4♥ when he has 5, however it buries slams, 2♠ is better for slam exploration at a small risk of playing 4-3 fit wich shouldn't be too bad on this deal.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

GGG on the 2nd hand: Gnasher's Gameforce Gadget = 2S-jump over a 1H response ( you can show 3 card Ht support next after partner's 2NT!-ask ) .

A remote 2nd choice could be a 4D! double-jump Splinter... ( hate to ruff Cl with those Ht honors ... especially if only in a 4-3 fit ) .

[Hanoi5]

1NT
2♠
3NT and X by North, South passing.

[Yu18772]

I think:1NT
1♠
3NT/x by North. If double - pass the second round. If North dbls twice South should bid 4♠.

[dake50]

1. SNAP ~ Maxpass but no fit.
2. 2S, then 4H. Not C-splinter as that shows 4xH.
3. Double over 3H, but this feels like K's decapitated 20->14.
Ugly to go set in 3S (this time - tenaces over my K's)
when 4H likely fails and double warned them off.

[MrAce]

1- 1 NT

2- 2♠

3- 3NT by N followed by DBL 4♥, South passing all.

[han]

1NT on the first. Even if 2C was natural I think that 1NT has something going for it but now it is automatic.

Clear 2S on the second. 1S makes no sense, we are lying about our spade length in order to show our strength.

[han]

ON the third I agree with echognome, double with the north hand. 3NT with KQ tight of hearts and no tricks doesn´t seem right. Given that we have KQ of hearts, we are almost certain that the preemptor has the ace and we can´t hold up.

[OleBerg]

1) 1NT. Game is impotant, but a partial swing is ½ a game. This will often be the result of bidding 2NT. If I play drury (yiekes) I will open 1♣. (Not that I think it will attract a large following.)

2) Why I play 2♠ as artificial. (Well, I play other things artificial too, but using 2♠ is simple and efficient.) Having no gadgets, 1♠ is tempting, but I'll settle for an ugly conservative 3♦. (Just like friday night at the bar; I'll settle for an ugly conservative.)

3) Double and pass on the first round is obvious. I surely would double again, but pass has a lot of merit. Whether South should pass or bid 4♠ depends somewhat on the doubling style. I'll admit I'd likely end in 4♠.

[ahydra]

1) 1NT, since I can't bid 2C, sigh. Far too strong for 3C.

2) 3D, planning to correct to 4H if partner doesn't bid 3NT next. A little heavy but partner won't pass this if game is at all possible, right? Alternatively I get pard to transform into my brother, open our system's multi-way 2C and show this hand, then a natural 3H bid from my brother would show at least 5 so we definitely end up in the right place.

3) (3H)-3NT-(4H)-p
. . (p)-X-all pass

ahydra

[JLOGIC]

Why are people bidding 1S rather than 2S? Do you not view our hand as worth a GF opp a 1H response? If we have a slam it will often be hard to catch up, and we have not created a force. If we have a heart fit, we will always be worried partner will pass our non forcing bid. For example: 1D-1H-1S-1N-3H. That is not forcing, because we didn't jump shift. If our poor partner passed that with his xx Axxxx xxx Qxx, I would be quite sad. And what about 1D-1H-1S-2D? We still might have a heart fit/slam, but I would be scared to make any non forcing heart bid, which will make having an intelligent slam auction difficult. And dare I mention that partner might reasonably pass 1S with KQx T9xxx xx xxx or something?

The point of bidding 2S is that we will create a GF, be able to describe short clubs and our general hand type. We risk having to go 1D-1H-2S-3S-4H and while that shows our hand, we might have gone past our best spot of 3N 3N, but this seems like a worthy risk when our other option is 3D which is not only super heavy, but bulky (say partner bids 3N and we pass, we might have missed hearts, or we might have missed slam etc etc). What is the point of 1S?

[whereagles]

They all seem easy to me:

1. 1NT and feeling great about it.
2. 3♦ idem.
3. Dbl and leave it in.

[rduran1216]

1) 1NT

2) I really dislike 3D. To me, this bid screams shortness in responders major. For this reason, I'm bidding 2S (I do have a great hand).

3) dbl and pass. I think bidding 3NT with hands like this is really bad.

[Foxx]

(1) I had this hand, and I was forced to bid 1NT by system. I played it there, and after a diamond lead partner put down ♠KQxxx ♥K109 ♦xx ♣Axx. The ♣K was offside, and I ended up losing that, four diamonds and the major-suit aces, when the hand was cold for 3♣. The stinger was that just a few weeks before, we had agreed to play Drury, and that was the first thing to come up. #$%&^*$ Drury.......

(2) With this hand, I decided to bid a ridiculously heavy 3♦. It is possible that 2♠ would be better, but if partner were, say, 4-4 in the majors, recovery would be very difficult. At the table, partner jumped to 5♦ with ♠x ♥A10xxx ♦98x ♣Axxx, and I played there. Even without the ♦Q dropping doubleton offside (which it did), the hand is cold for six of either red suit. After the hand, partner said that he thought about bidding 4♣, but underestimated the slam potential. After a 4♣ bid, I would have gone on with 4♥, which would have really helped out our cause. Luckily, they didn't bid the slam at the other table, either.

(3) Here, partner had the North hand, while I had the South. Partner doubled twice, and I took out the second double to 4♠ and played there. We received soft defense to let me escape for down one, but LHO had shown up with three spades and two diamonds, so 4♥ doubled would have likely gone down two. After the hand, all I could say was, "They got us." If partner had bid 3NT first and then doubled 4♥, I would have had no trouble leaving it in. I might have bid 3NT with partner's hand (but I'm not sure). On the other hand, 3NT could have easily led to its own set of problems. If my dummy had, say, ♥xx and a heart lead were ducked to North, we could be in dire straits.

The hands from this set and the one before (I) were from the two-night, 8-round session on Wed and Thur. At the end, we finished two VP's below average, good enough to take Flight C. We played several A teams and were competitive against a couple of them. It was a valuable learning experience to face that level of competition.