[joshs]

jdonn, on Jul 12 2010, 12:19 AM, said:

joshs, on Jul 11 2010, 03:52 PM, said:

Well, I was south here, as some of you know. I remained unconvinced by the arguments here. Adam has argued my point of view, which is that having limited my hand by not overcalling 1S, and then bidding only 3S on this 7 loser hand after partner makes the takeout x, I have pretty much the best possible hand. My 2 small hearts was not a factor in whether or not this was a good slam. It was the lack of trump honors....Had partner had AKxx of trumps and Axx of hearts slam would be great.

I think you are mixing up "strongest" with "best". I also stated earlier that xx of hearts was only one of the reasons you shouldn't get excited, the other was lack of trump honors!

I mean partner made one slam try below game, you used that to force all the way to slam with T8xxx of trumps, then considered yourself unlucky that partner's trumps weren't good enough?

I am not mixing up anything. Strongest is in the context of the auction (in the context of your bidding, the opps bidding and partner's bidding). Its elastic and changes each turn in the auction.

Exactly what hand should I have accepted with??? Also if your answer is exactly 1 hand, I dont accept that. You dont make slam tries so that partner accepts only with his best 0.02% (randomly chosen small number) of hands... So I expect to hear a range of hands...

You seem to first think that I should overcall. I think its marginal. I also think that T8xxx x Ax KT9xx is a better hand (at my first turn). If my actual hand was at the cusp for overcalling, then this hand is an overcall.

In any case the issues here were not about my 2 small hearts, partner has the heart A or shortness in this auction. Its about tricks, and strong trumps, and I already denied strong trumps...