When is 15 not a minimum 1NT?

My opponent held this hand, and opened a strong (15-17) 1NT:
S A1094
H A6
D A7642
C K5

The auction proceeded as follows:
P (1NT) P (2C);
X (2S) 3C (3S);
P (?)

What's your call?

At our table, with only 15 points the hand passed out in 3S.

But this is a *great* hand on the auction. You have quick tricks, your king of clubs is likely to be working, you have ruffing potential in two suits, you have a long suit to possibly set up, and you have good trump spots which will help if trump don't break. Obviously game made or I wouldn't be sharing. :)

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do

You're in 3rd seat at matchpoints in a club game with this hand:
S Kxx
H KQxx
D Qxx
C Q10x

Your partner opens a preemptive 3S and the next hand overcalls 4C. What would you do?

You've got a lot of values, and probably a club trick, but you're nowhere close to contributing enough for 4S to make, and you don't really have enough to double either, so pass by default.

Surprisingly 4C is raised to 5C and the auction comes back around to you. Still passing? And does it matter that your opponents aren't very good?

I figured I had a sure heart trick, a sure club trick, and enough chances for a third (and maybe fourth) trick that it was worth doubling. If partner can't contribute anything I'll probably get 100, and if partner can, then the 300 might be necessary to outscore the 140s and 170s our way.

Dummy was a bit of a surprise:
S 10xx
H AJx
D AJxx
C KJx

So much for the club trick, or really any of the other good things that might happen. Declarer didn't finesse clubs and still made 5C. The double didn't cost any matchpoints, though, since no one else in the room bid 4C with his hand:
S void
H xxx
D Kxxx
C A10xxxx

Later in the evening our opponents found a 5-4 heart fit, then played slam in their 6-3 diamond fit instead. Of course only the diamond slam succeeds. On that hand we had a 12 card spade fit with AK109 opposite QJxxxxxx. So one of my friends got to provide 8-card support for his partner's (four card) overcall.

Where did that come from?

My opponent on Saturday held the following hand in second seat with no one vulnerable:
S 3
H 3
D A10954
C AK9852

After my partner opened 1H, they bid the obvious 2NT for the minors. I passed and their partner jumped to 4D, inviting game. This hand has a pretty easy acceptance, and bid 5D (although, incidentally I think it's too good for this, and should cue bid along the way).

Now I bid 5H, and there were two passes back to this hand. What would you do?

To recap:
(1H) 2NT (P) 4D;
(P) 5D (5H) P;
(P) ?

The first question is whether your partner's pass was forcing. Many people play that when game is freely bid that pass is forcing. If that's what your agreement is, then your only real options are X and 6D, and you have the inference that your partner has at least some extra offense, or they would have doubled. If you're not playing that pass is forcing, then you've also got pass as a choice with this hand, and you know less about your partner's hand.

I don't know what's right, although I think the decision would have been easier if you'd cue bid earlier. It also depends a lot on who your opponent is, although I suspect any opponent passing originally, then bidding at the 5 level has some kind of surprise in store. I'm pretty sure though, looking at 3 quick tricks that I'd double anyway. At the table my opponent passed.

So what did I have for my bidding? SKQ109742 HJ975 D7 C10. I was pretty sure we didn't have slam (playing partner for 4 of 5 key cards), so I wanted to see how high the opponents were going to bid constructively, planning to bid hearts over their final contract no matter what it was. Certainly other options exist, including immediate heart raises, splinters, and spade showing bids. The question is whether making a more descriptive bid will help partner more than it will help the opponents.

In the end we made 5H on our combined 18 high card points for a pretty good board. It turns out the right decision for my opponent was to bid 6D, not because it makes, but because down one was a good sacrifice!

Basic Counting

You hold the following hand:
S AQ93
H 985
D 10865
C J8

The opponents have the following auction to 3NT:
1C - 1H;
1NT(1) - 2D(2);
2NT - 3C;
3D - 3NT

(1) 15-17
(2) New minor forcing

What do you lead?

Normally AQ93 is not an attractive holding to lead from, especially at matchpoints when blowing an overtrick is a very big deal, but it sure seems like from the auction the opponents don't have much strength there, so it was the S2 for me. On the first round dummy shows up with a stiff 7 and partner wins the king, declarer following with the 2.

Partner returns the S6 and declarer plays the 4. At this point you can win your 9 and cash out the suit. But this is a bad idea! Remember the auction -- declarer denied having 4 spades when they rebid 2NT over the New Minor Forcing bid. So you know that your partner has 5 or 6 spades, and if you play the 9 now you can't get them in to finish running the suit.

Playing Ace then queen then 9 lets partner overtake, and you have the first 5 tricks against 3NT. A good thing too as the opponents have 11 top tricks outside the spade suit.

Incidentally, at the table, at the sight of dummy the declarer began berating his partner about what a terrible bid 3NT was. While it's always the case on this hand that you can count the suit and know to unblock it, there will be other hands where it's not so obvious. No matter how much you're fuming as declarer, if you can stay calm the opponents are a lot more likely to err.

In the beginnning...

I like writing about bridge, but I frequently don't make the time for it. As an experiment I'm going to write about one hand each time I play bridge. It might be instructive, it might be humorous, or it might be of interest only to me. I hope you enjoy it.