[axman]

Consider these circumstances

What are the anticipated prospects of the options available to south and how do they rank?

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Diagram corrected ♥5 to ♦5

1H= 5+H 2.5+QT if balanced
1N= 15-18 balanced (with systems)
X= good hand

[mike777]

options
1. Pass
2. Redouble quickly and with confidence, to play, or to give the opponents a chance to chicken out and run. smile

[Huibertus]

I'll pass. I'd expect this to make. No redouble, I'm not willing to give E/W a chance to reconsider. We have the majority of points , and partner should have ♥ stopped decently (i.e. Not AX, that'd normally be a double). We know West has the missing high cards while East has close to nothing which helps declarer play, probably throwing in West a once/twice. If it is down 1 after all, it probably still is a decent score. I'm not deciding on the basis of trusting East/West more then partner.

[jillybean]

Is XX blood?

I pass

[mw64ahw]

I'd XX as a transfer advance to a minor

[bluenikki]

 Huibertus, on 2025-June-09, 09:53, said:

I'll pass. I'd expect this to make.

How many dummy entries are you banking on?

[Huibertus]

 bluenikki, on 2025-June-09, 10:45, said:

How many dummy entries are you banking on?

A couple, I'd expect West to have no choice but to provide entries after being thrown in from declarer's hand.

[shyams]

I pass.

I personally won't give much weight to any other action holding this hand & with the bidding as stated.

[Cyberyeti]

Pairs or teams ? could easily be -1 for 100 vs 110

[axman]

 Cyberyeti, on 2025-June-09, 11:42, said:

Pairs or teams ? could easily be -1 for 100 vs 110

Apologies. Pairs.

[axman]

axman, on 2025-June-09, 09:07, said:

Consider these circumstances

What are the anticipated prospects of the options available to south and how do they rank?

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Diagram corrected ♥5 to ♦5

1H= 5+H 2.5+QT if balanced
1N= 15-18 balanced (with systems)
X= good hand

Found an editing error, now corrected. H5 actually the D5.

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I was looking for a counterfactual for east. When Martin Caley held the east cards he felt that it was clear to punish 1NX by leading the HK. When I held the east cards I felt that it was 90% that 2H would land at least 8 tricks while there was good likelihood that if 1N fails (probably at most 1 trick) yet with prospects to make- in other words would be less than 10% to outscore +110. (I was leading S8 against 1N to avoid possible confusion with zero or 2 honor leads and hoping to capture the HQ.) Which comes down to whether south will (should) sit for 1NX?

The case for fulfilling 1N largely rests on the position of the strong NT sitting behind the good hand- west leading away from his honors. Another facet of fulfilling 1N is the possibility that NS have an undisclosed long running suit and find it. The question being east (showing willingness to punish 1NX) what inference should sway south’s view on the likelihood of beating 1N? My view is that south ‘knows’ that his side has more paint which would infer W has long suits to compensate for the disparity of paint. If the suit is a minor- he declined to rebid it which suggests the second suit if any is spades; and (if spades were 5+) so would instead open 1S to conveniently rebid hearts that infers can expect W to hold 6 hearts and prospects of four spades (and if so the SK is likely pickled). With that view would south take a jaundiced outlook for NT and more cheerful view of clubs? My hypothesis votes for clubs contrary to Caley’s.