[pclayton]

♠ATx
♥Axxxx
♦Q9
♣Jxx

IMP's, long matches. White on red.

1♠ by pard as dealer. You make a forcing NT call (playing vanilla 2/1). LHO chimes in with 2♣ and pard makes a 3♦ call.

This is the 5th session you've played with your partner. Fast arrival sequences after jump shifts are undiscussed.

Whats your call?

[mike777]

5s

Wow

[HeartA]

4S, means I would bid 3S (3-card support, 10-11 hcp) had pd not jumped to 3D.

[whereagles]

If 3S now is forcing, I bid it.

Otherwise I bid 4C, watch pard wiggle, and bid 4S afterwards.

[Free]

whereagles, on Feb 3 2005, 10:05 AM, said:

If 3S now is forcing, I bid it.

Otherwise I bid 4C, watch pard wiggle, and bid 4S afterwards.

Why is 3♠ forcing, and not suit preference? (not sure about this)

I bid 4♠.

[luke warm]

4S

[flytoox]

I like 5S. Pd jumped shift. He should have SKQ, DAKJ and at least one of HK and CA.

[mcphee]

Partner jump shifted, I have a very good hand with what amounts to 3 aces as I hold the Q of D. I Think 3S is the reight approach and see if partner is able to show a C control. Then I plan to hang him high.

[inquiry]

5♠, what else.

[fred]

flytoox, on Feb 3 2005, 11:28 AM, said:

I like 5S. Pd jumped shift. He should have SKQ, DAKJ and at least one of HK and CA.

Agree - if partner has a club control 6S should be laydown and without discussion I think partner will interpret 5S as asking for a club control. Given my hand it is hard for me to imagine him having a hand with no club control, but perhaps he has something like:

KQJxxx
void
AKJ10x
xx

I probably would have bid only 2D with this myself, but I am sure that many players would jump shift.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[pclayton]

! bid 5♠ too. At the table I considered 3♠ and 4♠, but didn't want to get into a fast arrival vs forced preference discussion. Es[ecially with this pard, makes things as easy as possible.

I gave this hand to a lot of other players; no one thought of 5♠. I found: QJ9xxx, void, AKJxx, Ax (a bit light, but slam is excellent). Good job posters


Now you get to change seats and play it:

♠AT7
♥A6532
♦Q9
♣J73

♠QJ9832
♥void
♦AKJ73
♣A4

Opening lead: spade 4. You choose to win the Ace (if you think low is better, please state why). RHO follows with the 5.

Continue the play.

[hotShot]

If i make 5♠, 4♦, a ♥ and a ♣, i'm home.
Since my LHO bid ♣ my RHO is more likely to have an extra card in ♦ and ♠.
I prefer to play a small ♠. This is right,
if LHO played low from Kx or Kxx, it does no harm, if RHO holds Kx or Kxxx.
So i's only wrong if LHO holds xxx and RHO single K.
This way i stay in control of ♠, so i can try to ruff a small ♦ to protect against 5-1, drop a small club on A♥ and make +1.

[cherdano]

I assume I am playing 6♠, right? If so, I definitely play low on the first trick. I want to ruff a diamond to protect against them splitting 5-1, and this is safest if I draw exactly 2 rounds of trumps beforehand. It only loses to RHO having singleton ♠K and LHO having a singleton diamond.

[pclayton]

With a 2♣ call (since you switched chairs it came from the person on your right), what do you think the chances are that the hand with the 5 diamonds also holds 3 trump?

If you duck the spade, RHO wins the K♠ and shoots back a spade. Frankly, I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between rising with the ace and ducking. LHO (who is very good) wouldn't lead from Kxx. Ducking allows you to control the trumps a little better though. Rising allows you to drop a stiff K now and then (would LHO lead a trump from xxx? You betcha!).

My partner rose with the A♠; thats really the only reason I mentioned that. But its not the interesting part of this hand anyway.

[jikl]

You can actually place a lot of the high cards when RHO (formerly known as LHO in the bidding) plays ♠K. You now know a fair bit about the ♥ suit from the bidding and opening lead. Why didn't the opening leader lead his partner's suit? Why weren't ♥s lead to take those quick tricks? We probably now know that leftie does not have ♥KQJxx or QJ10xx. We can probably assume also that rightie does not have 4♥, they would probably have made a TO double of 1NT showing those 4♥s.

Hrm, don't know where I am going with this since it is nearly 6am

Sean