It’s not best hand (which is a distortion compared to FtF bridge), but is biased so that you are declarer more often than defending. I played a 20-board tournament today and declared 18 times. That is unusual, though - I would say you typically declare about 70% of the time.
Let’s try to resurrect some interest in this thread. Maybe even entice Quartz out of lurkdom.
Fun hand. Matchpoints, nonvul vs vul. Void x AQx KQJ1098xx. 2D (weak) - 2S - 3D to you. Your call.
I’d be sorely tempted to bid 3NT. I don’t like doing that with a void in partner’s suit, but he can surely stop spades and I’d guess hearts. The problem might be communication.
The hand has only 12 cards.
Sorry - add another club. It was a 9-card suit.
KJ diamonds are off side and pard prob has a stiff diamond.
Slam looks like it needs pard to have both round aces plus at least one other club, or just club ace and LHO to be bad and lead a diamond. Too much uncertainty at MPs so I’m taking the low road and trying to make some money with 3N.
Heart lead could create problems but reckon pard has my back here.
Double and then some number of clubs will certainly get your shape across but don’t think I want to go past 3N here.
3NT?? You guys are true match point hounds.
Partner rates to have:
- zero or one diamond.
- not five hearts.
So I’m thinking at least one or two clubs.
For the club slam, obviously the ace of hearts and ace of clubs are the crucial cards. How do you find out about them? Blackwood is not going to help. Bidding clubs slowly will get little cooperation from partner and may get you dropped in 5C.
So, I’ll just bid 6C. A diamond lead is likely and will help you… and you might still make 6C missing both crucial aces… RHO holding them cannot Lightner double since that would call for a spade lead.
This.
That was almost exactly my thinking. Partner could have bid 3D with a major 2-suiter so rates to have one or two clubs. I reckoned partner might need only one ace - any one of them - so surely had that after overcalling. Even the AS can be enough. On the likely diamond lead, I ruff the second diamond and discard my heart on AS.
LHO led a duly led a diamond and partner tabled an aceless wonder: KQxxxx Q10xx x xx. To repeat my hand: void x AQx KQJ1098xxx. Win the diamond, ruff a diamond. KS, covered and ruffed. Ruff my AD, cash QS throwing the heart away. +1090.
It would also have made on a spade lead.
Those of you bidding 3NT will likely make 10 tricks if they fail to cash out. With all those clubs hidden, they may not perceive the need. 430 gets you an average. The most common score was 5C doubled, making. Two pairs beat 5C - heart lead and cash AC.
Who leads a D after that bidding missing the AQ? Declarer is obviously ready for that with the A or a void? Partner didn’t double for a spade lead, so I’d lead a heart. Partner wins the A and you’re set as you must lose the AC. If a club is selected as a safe lead. Partner wins the A and cashes the heart A which is much safer than the trying to cash AS. Or if a D is returned, you have two diamond losers and can’t discard both.
I think the diamond lead is a bit naive but not completely unreasonable - sure, declarer won’t have gone straight to 6 with two quick diamond losers, but he didn’t investigate NT which suggests he has at least one red suit unstoppered. So it’s quite possible that he has a singleton diamond that will go away on a spade if you don’t take partner’s ace early - and partner, with a view of dummy, may have a better idea of what suit to lead next.
I hate those sort of hands. What usually happens when I’m declarer is that when I chicken out in 5 it makes 6 and when I bid 6 LHO tanks for a subjective month and then lays down HA “to look at dummy”. Even 3NT, which is what I’d probably bid at matchpoints, is not at all comfortable (partner could easily have no Heart stop, or a single stop and no HA).
Diamond lead is really bad there, and I say that as an authority on making bad leads 
Declarer’s got you covered, obv free finesse situation. Pard knows your hand, lead the heart to tell him you’ve got a broken suit and need one back.
Still, slam is the bid at teams - good players make bad leads all the time, let’s make them find it. Plus some players are scared of losing the post mortem so will unthinkingly lead their suit.
It seems I’m going to be having a lot of time on my hands in the next few weeks, though not in the same household as my regular bridge friends.
Which is the best website for us to set up a game? Preferably free, and if there are any with video all the better (but not essential).
I am familiar with BBO and FunBridge (which is now owned by BBO). There is also okbridge, which I know nothing about. FunBridge is designed for individual play against the computer (or with a partner against the computer). To play with friends and/or in partnerships, try BBO at https://www.bridgebase.com/. You can play social bridge for free.
There are also tournaments you can play with a partner, including those offering masterpoints for ACBL or EBU.
I’ve been playing a bit on BBO and the free accounts work fine for social bridge. They also show you how the rest of the internet handled your hand, which is kind of fun.
It doesn’t have video though - we set up a separate Zoom meeting to run alongside it.
Here’s a bidding problem from my last BBO session.
You pick up S Kx H KTxxx D ATx C xxx and are wondering if it’s worth a cheeky 3rd-hand 1H opener when partner opens 2NT (standard 20-22) as dealer.
Playing Stayman and and transfers over 2NT, RKB but no other slam conventions, what do you do?
I don’t like 20-22 - it’s too wide range when there is no room to invite. I play 20-21. Having said that, if playing 20-22 I transfer to 3H then bid 4NT, quantitative.
Playing 20-21 I just bid 3D then 3NT. If partner corrects back to 4H, I’ll bid 4S as a slam try.
I wanted to bid 4NT quantitative after 2NT - 3D - 3H, but I thought (and my partner agreed afterwards) that 4NT here would be Blackwood, confirming Hearts.
But as you can see, you are then stuck with no way to invte a slam. A common way to support both quantitative raises and RKCB is to play Texas transfers also. Then:
2NT - 3D
3H - 4NT = quantitative
2NT - 4D
4H - 4NT = RKCB
The same applies if the opening bid is 1NT.
That makes sense. I’ll have to think about adding it to the system.