daveharty

Hannnnnnn.....

I agree. It seems like whenever I lead a spade in this situation, dummy comes down with Tx and declarer has AJx and I've solved a problem for her, or lost a tempo. So we might as well try to hit partner's heart suit, planning on repeated heart leads when I get in with my kings. I suppose this all depends somewhat on how likely these opponents are to raise partner's major suit response with three cards.

Playing strong club, yes. Playing standard or 2/1, no but very close.

True, except for her use of the word "cockapitzy". That was just odd.

This really surprises me, I'd have thought that any knowledge of the hand would render results by future players of the hand problematic, and any opinions by players that had seen the hand already would be tainted.

Yeah. In hindsight I shouldn't have even included the hand that got me thinking about it.

How am I "rejecting" the many correct answers? I am fully cognizant, even more so than when I made the original post, that 2D is the "standard" bid with the hand given. As I tried to explain--perhaps I was unclear--I was curious about situations where the 4cM is much stronger than the longer minor, or where responder has a minimal GF, etc. If the answer is STILL a universal "bid the minor first", then I have learned something and filled a weird little gap in my bidding knowledge. But as the Hog pointed out, I didn't post to the 2/1 or SAYC forum, because I am interested in other treatments too, and posters to this forum have often shown a willingness to depart from "standard" practice when they feel it is superior. I'm not trying to justify my own bidding in hindsight; I'm quite capable of admitting when I have made a bidding blunder. I meant to ask the question I asked: Is there consensus on this subject? In standard methods, the answer seems to be "yes", which is a valuable part of the answer I was hoping for.

OleBerg, I'm not sure why you think I am "expecting the forum to write an entire book" for me. I posted a question about one specific bidding scenario where I expected that there might be either disagreement or consensus, and a couple of the responses have indicated that this is not an open-and-shut case. Hog, thanks for the links.

IMPs: pass>1H>dbl MP: 1H>pass>dbl

Doubt that 3NT is the right contract? I agree that the hesitation could be based on several scenarios, and West has no way of knowing which of them actually exists. But the common factor that most of those scenarios share is that bidding on is more successful than passing 3NT. So if the only question is whether passing 3NT is a logical alternative to "keeping the auction open", which the UI seems to suggest, then it seems a little murky. Nigel seems to think pass IS a LA, others think not. Obviously a poll would be ideal to determine this, but isn't this a pretty common scenario where it just isn't possible because the game is so small or everyone has seen/will see the board? What is normally done in these cases?

The question wasn't meant to be about this particular hand, it was just the hand that got me thinking about it. What if you hold, for example, AKJx xx Jxxxx Ax? Or AKQx x xxxxx QJx? Just wondering if people think there is a line, and if so, where it is. Agree that 2D is correct with the given hand.

Thanks so much for this helpful reply. There is a reason that I posted it in this forum, rather than in the B/I forum; namely, I am interested in why the forum Experts would universally start with 2D, since I assume that would be the case. Except for The Hog, nobody here has really taken the time to answer beyond scoffing at the original question.

Curious about whether there is consensus on this subject. The hand that brought this up was something like: K9xx Kx AQ532 Ax, after partner had opened 1H.

[hv=pc=n&w=sa84hqj985dkt963c]133|100[/hv] West was dealer with the hand shown. EW held the following uninterrupted auction: 1H 1S 2D 3C 3S 3NT* 4S 3C was not alerted, and was explained prior to the opening lead as "natural and forcing". There was a long hesitation prior to East's 3NT bid, agreed to by everyone at the table. The director was called to the table after West's 4S bid, and again at the end of the play of the hand. Declarer made eleven tricks in 4S; only ten tricks were available in NT. The director ruled that there was no damage, because passing 3NT was not a logical alternative to bidding 4S, given that West had opened a weak distributional hand with a void. Polling other players would not have been a feasible option; it was a small club game and everyone had either seen the hand already or would see it in a subsequent round. Thoughts?

Um...no, that's not what I meant. My own personal feeling is that using double on this auction to mean "please pick a minor at the four level" isn't optimal; maybe I'm wrong. But I think my partners would treat double as "values with no clear direction and willingness to defend". To suggest that I would attempt to show my hand via extraneous means is, as The Hog suggests, a bit unfair. I don't know Phil so I don't know if his comment was intended as a joke; if so, he has my apologies.

Fascinating, thanks for this. I was curious to see if the results aligned well with conventional wisdom. I would have guessed Michael Rosenberg, and he did very well.

Where was East? If my partner made an unfavorable 2-level overcall and I had a defensive ten count including Q9xx in their suit, I might have something to say about 3S.

As always, your math skills are impressive.

4S, accept the transfer.

I agree with some of this, and I feel that the major mistake in the auction was my failure to bid 3C immediately after 2D. If I had held my partner's cards, I would have jumped to 3S at my second turn as mike777 suggests, but I don't fault his decision to GF with the hand. But I disagree with you about passing 4H; IMO we were still searching for strain at that point, so I don't think it's plausible to treat 4C and 4H as cues. As for aguahombre's comment: yes, I would have passed 3S. If I was assigning blame on the hand, 10% to partner for not jump rebidding spades, 90% to me for first not rebidding 3C immediately over 2D, and then the subsequent horror.

x AJ98xx Q A987x I wasn't happy at all with my own bids here but I'm actually not sure what the "standard" way of bidding a minimal 6-5 hand like this would be. In retrospect I wish I had rebid 3C over 2D. Is there any case to be made for passing originally? I considered it but only for about a tenth of a second.

EW can set it one with best defense I think, but +50 would have been the same matchpoint score as -140. I was West, and I can verify that "best defense" was well beyond our capabilities during this particular session. :blink: I felt the same way as you about bidding to the four level with that shape.

[hv=pc=n&s=s7hakj54d852c8632&w=s963h9872dk73cj94&n=sqjt842hq63dj6ckq&e=sak5htdaqt94cat75&d=e&v=e&b=6]399|300[/hv] East was dealer, EW vul. The auction was as follows: 1D-1H-pass-1S 2C-pass*-2D-2H 3D-pass*-pass-3H- all pass South broke tempo twice during the auction (agreed by South, East, and West; North stated that his mind was elsewhere and didn't notice). The lead was the diamond 3; result was +140 for NS, obviously not good for EW with 11 tricks available in diamonds. Whodunnit?

Red/red, matchpoints. You hold ♠AK98xx ♥x ♦AQTxx ♣A. RHO deals and opens 1H. Double, 2H, something else? If you choose 2H, what is your plan for showing this moose? If you choose 2H the auction continues: double on your left, 2NT by partner, pass on your right. I have asked several good players about this hand and gotten very little consensus, about either the initial action or the followups. I seek clarity.

Hmm, well the shape is tempting....but pass/pass.