rmnka447

Part has heard you bid 2 suits and taken a preference to ♥. So I think it's safe to say that partner has at least 1 ♥ and maybe even longer ♥s than ♣s. If absolutely you're sure partner would take 5 ♠ as exclusion RKCB/Blackwood, you might want to use that. But if there's any doubt about how such a bid would be interpreted, then the best course is to simply bid what you think you can make. I think 6 ♥ stands out at this point.

It's definitely a 4 ♥ bid. Yeah, you're a very minimal opener. After RHO's 4 ♣ bid though, your hand got better even though the value of your ♣ J is now probably nil. All your other points are working and you have a ruffing value in ♣s. If partner holds as little as something like ♠ x ♥ KQ10xxx ♦ Axx ♣ xxx, game has a good chance. But will partner bid it if you pass? Sorry, but if you err, it's better to err on the side of supporting partner when you have support -- and you have good support.

At IMPs, it pays to bid vulnerable games that have about a 35% or more chance of making. North can't exactly know what South's "preempt" is, but with 2 QTs and ♥ Q, the hand has potentially 3+ tricks for partner. True, North is sitting in front of the opener, so it's not sure all the QTs will come home. Game ought to be close. So unless partner makes extremely wild preempts, this is one of those hands where you bid game not knowing if it will make but not wanting to miss it if it does. North has to bid 4 ♥.

IMHO North's hand is a borderline opener. 12 HCP and 2 QTs, but with two dangling honors. Aggressive players probably open it anyway. Slightly more conservative players may not. Change the hand to ♠ xx ♥ QJx ♦ AQxx ♣ Kxxx and it's a clear cut opener. East gets all the blame on this auction. West has bid exactly right. The 2 ♦ bid shows exactly the hand that West has and is right to keep from selling out at too low a level. East misbid after the reopening double. The choice was among Redouble, 2 ♥, or 3 ♥. 2 ♥ shows a decent opener with a 6 card suit. 3 ♥ shows 16+ and a good 6+ card suit. Redouble shows extras (16+) and says nothing about distribution. I'd probably bid 3 ♥. It describes the hand and makes it more difficult for the opponents to compete. Well, East took none of those choices, then tried to catch up later. With 4 1/2 QTs, East should Double 4 ♣. If it's right to bid 4 ♥ opposite a partner with less than 5, then East should have originally opened with a strong opening bid (presumably 2 ♣).

I think you have to bid some number of ♣s. Strong 1 ♣ systems open a much wider set of hands 1 ♣ than do strong and artificial 2 ♣ bidders. So anytime you can quickly get the bidding to 2 ♣ or above, you're forcing them to use the same bidding space strong 2 ♣ bidders use to sort out where they belong for a lot more hands. It exerts a lot of pressure on them and has to make it more difficult for them to find the optimum spot. NV vs. VUL, as here, I'm bidding 3 ♣. At other vulnerabilities, I'll just bid 2 ♣.

Pass. You've done your job and pushed them up a level. A further Double pushes your side into a 3 level contract of uncertain desirability. There's a good chance for the matchpoint kiss of death --down 1 doubled vulnerable - 200. Partner had a chance to compete over 3 ♦ and didn't.

Double. It looks like partner has to have values in the other side suits for a 2nd seat opening bid. The question is "Does partner have the right cards and distribution for slam?". The answer to that question is not known with any certainty. So, take your positive. If partner shows an unwillingness to defend 4 ♥, then you can think about bidding on to slam.

Hand #1 - If partner has a classic 3 ♠ bid, then you weren't bidding 4 ♠ to make. So any positive score would beat the score from your previous bidding decision. So, 5 ♥ off 1 rates to be an above average result. If you double and 5 ♥ goes down, you get a top. If it makes, you're getting a bottom. But 5 ♥ undoubled making rates to be an average result. Additionally, if you double, you're giving declarer a clue about where most of any missing values in the hand are. Declarer may play you for then anyhow, but without any information in the form of a double, it may be less clear for declarer. IMHO, pass is correct. You've already achieved one matchpoint goal in pushing them up another level. Now, see if you can beat them. Hand # 2 - By passing over 3 ♠, preempter's partner has already announced not having enough values to make bidding 4 ♠ a good bet. You have no idea whether 5 ♥ may make or not. You do have what looks like one pretty sure trick and a couple potentially useful side suit cards. I'd double and lead ♥ Q.

Just for the record, .... The responding hand is a limit raise. The opening hand is not enough for a slam try. If the ♣ K was a small ♣, you might well pass the limit raise.

Unless N/S are playing a raise to 2 ♠ as constructive, I think North's first bid should be 2 ♠. If they are playing the raise as constructive, then a forcing NT intending to rebid 2 ♠ is correct. Since there is no mention of constructive raises by OP, I going to assign the bulk of the blame to North. I also disagree with South's 2 ♥ free bid. The South hand is an absolute minimum opener because the doubleton ♣ QJ are in no way worth anywhere near full value. While you would like to show the 4 ♥s, freely bidding on such a minimum makes it very difficult for responder to make sensible bidding decisions later in the auction. This is especially true at MPs where -1 doubled vulnerable is the kiss of death on part score hands. If you want to insist that the 2 ♥ bid is fine, then responder has to take that possibility into account and have a correspondingly stronger hand to compete further.

Hand #1 is a simple 2 ♠ raise. Hand #2 is not a game force. Your questions relate to hand evaluation. Both hands are at near the boundary between two bids. In the case of hand #1, it's between a simple raise of 2 ♠ and the "2 1/2" ♠ raise made by bidding a forcing NT and then jumping in ♠. Hand #2 is at or near the divide between a game forcing 2 bid and a forward going forcing NT sequence showing the 10-12 point hand. Really good players will look beyond the raw point count to other factors that affect the hand's trick taking ability. They will also factor in, as the auction continues, how their points mesh with what partner has shown. If you'd listen to these players discuss hands, they'll frequently use adjectives such as "great", "good", "non-descript", "bad", or "terrible" to describe their point count on any particular hand. Depending on these ratings, they will tilt toward the stronger or weaker action in borderline bidding situations. Among the factors they consider are: Location of honor cards -- ♠ A ♥ AK ♦ xxxxx ♣ xxxxx vs. ♠ x ♥ xx ♦ AKxxx ♣ Axxxx-- second hand is stronger as honors are in hand's long suits, Honors working in combination -- ♠ Axxx ♥ Qxx ♦ Kxx ♣ Jxx vs. ♠ AJxx ♥ xxx ♦ KQx ♣ xxx -- second hand is better because the honors are working together, Intermediate cards (especially in combination with honors) -- ♠ A652 ♥ K74 ♦ Q43 ♣ J63 vs. ♠ A1052 ♥ K94 ♦ Q103 ♣ J109 -- second hand is stronger because the intermediates are working with the honors to create potential tenace postions, Overvalued Vs. Undervalued honors -- As are undervalued, Ks are valued about right, Qs and Js are overvalued -- hands with lots of Qs and Js (often called quacks) are not quite as valuable as hands with a more even spread of honors, Unguarded honors -- specifically stiff K, Qx, Jxx aren't worth full value unless partner has bid the suit, and finally, How well the hand fits with partner's or the opponent's bids -- something like QJxx is worth less opposite partner's announced shortness in the suit, Kxx in an opponent's bid suit is worth more or less depending on whether you sit behind or in front of the opponent bidding the suit. If there are a lot more negative factors than positive, then they tend to downgrade the hand. If there are a lot more positives than negatives, then they tend to upgrade the hand in borderline situations. So let's look at the 2 hands you're asking about -- Hand # 1 - ♠ Jxx ♥ KJx ♦ KJx ♣ Jxxx - First, the longest suit is headed by only a J. You do have 2 KJ combinations in two other suit which is sort of neutral. There are no intermediates. Bidding expert Marty Bergen particularly hates a suit head by a Q or a J with only small cards supporting. He likes to call them "dangling" honors and considers them a big negative. Jxx in partner's suit is OK. But the hand has 4 Js -- generally overvalued cards. Finally, someone mentioned that you had the worst shape (distribution) possible. Frequently, a key factor in getting an extra trick at a suit contract is the ability to ruff a card in the hand with the shorter trump length. The 4-3-3-3 distribution pretty much precludes that, so that is another negative. From the above, you can see the hand has a lot more negative factors than positive. So it's appropriate to downgrade the hand and just make a simple raise to 2 ♠. Change the hand to, say, ♠ Jxx ♥ KQx ♦ KJx ♣ xxxx and you'd probably find more people willing to make either the 2 1/2 ♠ raise or bid 2 NT after a forcing NT. Certainly if the hand was ♠ Jxx ♥ xxx ♦ KJx ♣ KQ10x, I'd be surprised if more than a very few people wouldn't a forward going bid after a forcing NT. Hand # 2 - ♠ Jx ♥ KQx ♦ KQx ♣ Jxxxx - This hand has some similar negatives to the previous hand -- lack of honor combination in your long suit, lack of intermediates, etc. In addition, you have no fit with partner. So, this hand falls more into a "bad" 12 and should be downgraded. If you are going to make a 2/1 game force bid with a bad ♣ suit, you need additional compensating values to ensure game is a good proposition opposite your partner's potential minimum opener. Putting it another way, let's say YOU opened this hand 1 ♣ and rebid 1 NT after partner's 1 ♠ response. Would you raise partner's invitational 2 NT bid (11-12) to 3 NT with this hand? If not, since you are regularly opening 11 and 12 pointers, then you need to invite with this hand via a forcing NT auction rather than game force.

Your opponent's West made an aggressive call that worked out. But it wasn't a call without some reason to it. There is a heart fit. West knows East has at most a stiff ♠ and very likely a void. West was probably thinking that if East had ♣s, they definitely must be in game. And if East had ♦, his hand also had a useful ruffing value to help set up that suit. So, especially if South's 3 ♠ was defined as weak, I suspect West bid more out of fear of missing a making game than anything else. This time it worked out. As others have suggested this is more rub of the green than anything else.

I'm passing. At IMPs, sometimes you just have to stay fixed. This I think is one of them. Yes, West has probably bid 4 ♥ on freakish hand with long, broken ♥s. But East has also presumably shown length in the black suits and some values by making a negative double over partner's 2 ♦ bid. It is possible that East has a one suited hand with not quite enough values to bid it directly over partner's overcall. But with West's 4 ♥ jump, no one at the table can know if that's the case or not. If partner wants to compete further, it has to be on an extremely distributional hand with values. In which case, partner needs to be brazen and make a bid to show the distribution -- 4 ♠, 4 NT, 5 ♣, or 5 ♦. If partner isn't good enough to make such a bid, then the only option is to sit for 4 ♥. It isn't the time to be fishing for a fit in a secondary suit with a double. That kind of double may occasionally find you a game, but more often than not it'll find you presenting the opponents with a telephone number. So, IMO, the double is for penalty. Partner might have a couple As and something like ♥ KJx where 4 ♥ -1 looks like a good bet and down something more if you have some useful cards. PS - The above was composed without seeing mikeh's suggested layout of the hand.

I'm bidding 4 ♠, but would be a little uncomfortable until I saw dummy. As someone said, 3 ♠ could be bid on zilch. So unless partner has a huge hand, it is unlikely that a raise will be made. The only time I might consider bidding 3 ♠ is if partner is notorious for doubling very lightly against preempts.

I bid 3 ♠. With a "good" 11 count, partner might have opened. If not, then partner might well make an invitational bid as responder. Partner did neither of these things, so chances of game seem remote. OTOH, partner could be bidding on virtually nothing with 5 ♠s to get out of 1 NT. Most of the time partner is somewhere in between. Over a weak NT, opener's LHO can have considerable values and not be able to bid. That's because with the NT bidder opening with less, opener's partner is more likely to have values behind the LHO. So paradoxically, you need better values to intervene immediately over a weak NT than over a strong NT. (Over the years, a steady stream of +500s and +800s from those who didn't pay heed to the foregoing after our weak NT openers has confirmed this.) So it's not clear that the NT opener's side has the balance of the points. In the meantime, 3 ♠ obstructs the opponents as much as possible. If responder has the right hand, we might get to a thin game that makes.

South seems the major culprit to me. That hand is never an opener because it has 0 QTs. (A King needs to be at least Kx to be counted as 1/2 QT.) The actual gross point count is 10, but there's no way that stiff Ks should be evaluated at full value. A discerning hand evaluator would rate the hand at somewhat less than that. Personally, I'd rate the hand at maybe 6 or 7 value. If the hand were ♠ KQxxx ♥ x ♦ KQxxxx ♣ x, I don't think anyone would have a problem opening it. As mikeh has said, many NA players still adhere to using the Redouble as the only way to show a strong hand after a take out double. If that's the agreement that N/S have, then the Redbl is proper with the North hand. After the 2 ♥ bid, I don't see South as having any call. The hand has already been overbid by opening. The biggest criticism so far has been for North not doubling 2 NT. To a great extent, I can concur with that. But I wonder if North was concerned with a possible psyche by South. If you take West's 2 NT rebid as showing an 18-19 HCP hand, then between North and West about 30 HCP are held. Bridge logic tells you that South can hold no more than about 10 HCP for the opening bid. Opening with 10 suggests a distributional holding yet South didn't show it with any call over 2 ♥. That might be enough to give North pause whether to double or not. However, until North can legitimately disprove by bridge logic that South had a opener, North must act as though South did have one. So a double of 2 NT would seem right with 3 or 4 ♥ tricks and entries. If 2 NTx goes wrong because partner has psyched, it's not North's fault. South can still save the day by passing out 2 NT. Yet South choose to compete further with a 3 ♦ call. Now North commits the final blunder of the day by bidding 3 NT. At this point, North should see that the hand is a misfit and South is bidding on some sort of minimum distributional hand. In 3 ♦, North's ♦s are useful cards to consolidate South's suit or ruff ♠ losers. The problem with NT is entries. It's highly likely that you will be unable to get to cashing tricks in one hand or the other because of lack of them. If I held the North hand at this point, I'd pass and hope for the best. I do so because if partner makes an unusual call, they usually have a good reason for doing so. So I never try to mastermind the hand and "save" partner. I've found too many times over the years that doing so often rescues defeat from the jaws of victory. And, if 3 ♦ goes down a ton, then maybe partner may learn from it. So, both players had a couple opportunities to get to a better result and neither did. If I have to apportion the blame, I'd give: South 100% for opening the hand and 100% for bidding 3 ♦, North 80% for not doubling 2 NT and 50% for bidding 3 NT.

I'd bid 1 ♦ on this hand. But this type of hand is part of an ongoing, unsettled discussion within our KO team. The concern is that by overcalling rather than doubling you may lose a good major fit especially a 4-4 ♠ fit. I think the quality of the ♦ suit tips the scales toward the overcall. If the hand had a more nondescript ♦ holding like, say, ♠ A10xx ♥ KQx ♦ AJxxx ♣ x, I'd double. But for me the initial dominant feature of the hand is the ♦ suit.

Pass. Yeah it's probably a bad spot to be in, but you haven't been doubled yet. If you bid, are you likely to land in a better spot? You're going to raise the level of the contract without any assurance you're getting to a better place to play. Also, Partner (1 NT bidder) may hold a 5 card suit. Wouldn't you hate it if your attempt to run out preempts partner from getting out in the best landing spot? If LHO doubles for penalty and it's passed around to you, you can make an SOS RDBL and bring partner into finding where to land. Instead, if LHO has some distribution, it's quite possible that LHO will compete with a bid. Then you're off the hook. But if you bid now, you may preclude LHO from rescuing you.

I bid 1 ♦. It pays to consider how the bidding will develop if you have a hand strong enough to possibly take a second competitive bid. Here the obvious choices are double/then bid ♦ later or bid ♦/then double later. Either might be workable if the opponents remain silent. But if you double, an opponent might make a weak jump shift bid or a preemptive ♣ raise. Then, you'd have to bid 3 ♦ to show your ♦ suit. Bidding 3 ♦ on a AQxxx suit with an unknown level of partner support is pretty risky. In the meantime, partner will be unaware of an opportunity to compete in ♦ because the ♦ suit remains hidden. As other have pointed out, after a double, partner may well compete in a 4 card major suit(s). That introduces some uncertainty about whether to you should compete further on 3 card support. OTOH, if you overcall 1 ♦, partner will have an opportunity to compete in ♦, if it's right. And if partner introduces a major over your overcall, it will likely be a 5+ card suit. So you'll be more comfortable raising with 3 cards. If the opponents don't raise the level too high, you may still have an opportunity to compete in a major with a double if partner is silent. And when you do double, partner won't expect you to have more than 3 cards in any major because of the overcall. So partner is more likely to make a right decision(s) about what level and what strain to compete in (major versus ♦s).

If you return a ♠ at trick three, you learn a lot more about the hand. RHO will either follow (♠s 4-3) or have to pitch (♠s 5-2). If ♠s are 4-3, you can easily fond a ♥ pitch from dummy without prejudicing any line of play. However, declarer's hand is squeezed. Whatever pitch you make locks you into a specific line of play. If you pitch a ♥ or ♦, you give up on setting up a ♥ trick. If you pitch a ♣ you give up on possibly scoring 4 ♣ tricks. LHO has 9 vacant places and RHO has 10 vacant places, so there's small but perceptible difference (10-9 odds) that RHO holds any particular card. Right or wrong, I'd pitch a ♣ and play for split ♥ honors. If spades are 5-2, you're pretty much down to playing to bring in the ♣s for four tricks. The only other possibility is a squeeze if one opponent holds both ♥ honors and 4 ♣s. So to cater to that latter possibility, pitch 2 ♥s from dummy and 2 red cards from declarer's hand. Eventually you'll end up in dummy at this point ♠ - ♥ J ♦ K ♣ 4 opposite ♠ - ♥ - ♦ 4 ♣ Q10 If someone started with ♥ KQ and 4 ♣s, they'll be squeezed at this point when you play ♦ K. So if the ♥ KQ haven't shown make your best guess as to what to do in ♣s.

Pass 1 ♥

Q1 - Since you play 2/1, if the opponent had passed instead of bidding ♠, what would you have bid with hand 1? If you're not playing any special major raises, you probably would have bid a forcing NT and then jumped to 3 ♥ over partner's rebid - the invitational 2 1/2 ♥ raise. 4-3-3-3 isn't ideal, but as JLOGIC pointed out, your ♠ K gained some value positioned behind the ♠ overcaller. You'd like to have 4 ♠s for a limit raise, but you do have the right values to make one. So, 2 ♠ showing invitational values would seem right to me. Q2 - I'd start out with 2 ♠ on this hand for a couple reasons. First, if the points are evenly distributed around the table, 2 ♠ makes it more difficult for the opponents to find their red suit fit -- they've got to do it at the 3 level. (And for this reason, I don't have any problem with those who might want to preempt it a bit more aggressively.) Second, partner is unlikely to make a competitive decision that expects more from my hand than I have (i.e. 1 1/2 QTs). Q3 - Given the auction to this point, you have a clear pass. You've already aggressively bid your values and have no idea what partner's RDBL was based on. So give partner a chance to decide what to do and make a further call. Partner might support ♠s, or double to try to find a better place to play (after which you can bid ♣s), or might just sit for 3 ♥ with the right hand to defeat it.

I would bid 3 ♣. I believe partner would bid a 4 card major when holding one rather than make a responsive double. If partner has only 3 ♠, then playing a 7 card fit would probably not be good. A forcing defense would cause you to take ruffs in the long trump hand. So I'd opt to play in a likely 8 card ♣ fit.

Add me in as a plus one more for benlessard comments. I think the hand is only worth a 2 ♣ rebid. Stiff Ks and doubleton Qs are worth something, but not full point value unless partner has bid their suit. Most really good players I know then would call this a "bad" 15 count hand. So, given a choice of bids, they would be pessimistic and chose the bid promising less. If the hand were something like ♠ x ♥ KJ10x ♦ Ax ♣ AK9xxx, you still have 15 HCP. However, the long suit have honors in combinations and have supporting intermediates -- very positive factors. So here good players would call this hand a "good" or possibly "really good" 15 and tend to bid it like a more aggressively. I'm pretty sure most would reverse into 2 ♥ with it. One final thought, it's usually easier to show added value for a hand later in the bidding than it ever is to convince partner you have less than you originally showed.

Pass, 2 ♥ might be number territory at IMPS and likely misses a club fit. 3 ♣ puts you in too much danger of missing an important ♥ fit. If you have a 2 suited bid which covers this hand, it's up to you what you do. I'd probably still pass.