PhilKing

2♣ over a normal 1♠ opening ...

I can avoid the hat-trick by confessing I would wheel out the dreaded "walk the dog" tactic with the twelve trick hand: Two Clubs! B-)

This statement is "true", but it is not true when we hold this hand for the reason given by Radrag and Suokkoi. There are more combinations of weak hands containing 5 spades than there are holding 5 hearts. In a word, "blockers". If you don't trust simulations you can do it this way - put the missing cards in three piles: spades, hearts and minors. Then deal four cards from each pile then mix the remaing major cards and deal one card. You will find more heart hands invalidated for being too strong than vice versa.

I'm a big fan of just rebidding 2♠. Look at it this way - you need partner to have three cover cards to make game laydown, which is unlikely if partner passes. And jumping to three will produce a lot of minus scores whether partner raises or not.

Were this the only variable factor, it would be a slam dunk. However, it ignores the opponent's bidding. With a borderline hand, depending on methods, an opponent would be more likely to enter the bidding with a chunky 4 card major plus a 5-card minor, for instance. And they can't only have a chunky major if it is hearts. The argument also holds with 5M4m hands. Also, assuming OP plays Stayman followed by 2♠ as invitational with five, there is a gap when holding the equivalent hand with 9 points and 45 in the majors. It is quite rational to go low and bid Stayman followed by 2♥ with that agreement. Having said all that, my gut instinct is that the spade blockers trump my arguments.

Go to your profile. Click on "manage ignored users." Adjust as appropriate.

But playing for the drop in hearts (and falling back on the spade finesse unless South is 45xx) is superior, since it requires the queen to come down in three rounds.

I can think of 2 reasons for "more hearts" off the top of my head, but none for "more spades" yet.

Well I was the only person to suggest that the choice was between pass and 6♠. Why did I reject it? On the grounds that there would be sufficient numbers of people doubling 6♣ to make it unnecessary. I would judge that a sacrifice is likely to go for less than slam more than half the time, but that is not the only problem - I would not be happy to push them into Seven whan lefty is 0058 or 0049 missing one diamond honour, which may be in his partner's hand. Anyway, the real point is whether partner's hesitation indicated bidding on as compared to a smooth pass. This is a situation where it it is likely partner is rarely passing smoothly, so I think it is pretty close, but I would reluctantly disallow the 6♠ bid.

Result merchant.

Were there a poll, I would expect a unanimous vote for 4♠ - you have 3 positive features, which is easily enough.

Yeah, the US are preferable to the other super-powers, but don't do yourself down, the US is also preferable to some totalitarian regimes outside of the premier league.

Did you really not double 5♣?

Unless the guy is insane, he would bid 5♣(I would double 1NT, but that's just me) - it's not as if we are likely to outbid him - we opened 1NT third in hand. So I attach rather more significance to the fact he bid 6♣. And he can't just pyche - there is too much chance we double him with, say, three aces, or that we just can't make a game. And he doesn't even know us - from his pov, we could just be a point-count muppet, so I just don't think he is putting his head on the block.

This is a recurring theme - there is basically no upside to doubling. The two main cases are: a) They have been dealt a twelve trick hand. b) They don't have their bid, and are not saved by a useful dummy. In case a) doubling will ensure a near bottom, but I just do not see why passing will get us a bad board. We have absolutely no reason to doubt that the player who jumped to 6♣ is looking at a twelve trick hand (he has, after all, bid a slam over a third in hand strong no trump), and if lots of muppets are doubling on the basis of some completely irrelevant major-suit cards, we will get a good score. In case b) we get a good score even if we do not double. The real problem is whether to bid 6♠ - double is just crackers.

By an astounding coincidence, they are the two people on my ignore list - I only saw the posts because their idiocy was quoted for posterity ...

One should only be able to start a thread like if one has a phd in statistics. Oh, wait ... B-)

I mentioned in another thread a short while back that it is superior to play 2NT as a game force and a direct 3m as weak in this sequence. There are a couple of reasons, but look what happens here - opener patterns out with 3♦ and now we can just insist on playing in 4♠, which looks like a great spot to me.

Partner's 3♦ bid was rather amateurish.

I don't think it's right to play 4♣ as showing clubs at all when playing a 2+ club . Playing it as NF is trying to land in a pinhead and if you have a raise to game, there are other options available. My strong preference is to play 4♣ as showing hearts (good 13+ with 6+ hearts), and 4♥ directly as weaker. Amongst the hands that are prepared to bypass 3NT, one-suited wth hearts is the most important, and the one on which you are most likely to stretch. To summarise, my structure is: 4♣ = hearts, 13+ 4♦ = nat GF 4♥ = nat, limited 4♠ = clubs plus spade control 4NT = slam try clubs, no spade control 5♣ = punt The 4NT and should be reversed, since you might want to reach 6NT at pairs, but some agreements are just a step too far even for me. A good alternative is to play the direct 4♥ as 5H4C choice of contracts and 4♣ as 6+ hearts - we are still ahead of the game with the one suiters and get to resolve the choice of games dilemma that can befuddle prepared club partnerships.

We have lost a lot of space on the forcing hands by playing 2x as non-forcing, so I like to use the three level bids to establish a game force and allow partner to explore. I guess it depends how important you think the invitational hands are, but the weak no-trumper is allowed to raise 2x with a fit.

2♦♥♠ = nat nf 7-10(11) 2NT/3♣/3♦ = GF ♦♥♠ 3♥♠ = nat inv In other words, it's the same as 1NT-(2♣)nat but with different ranges, which hardly anyone plays. Since double is for take-out, there are a few awkward hands that can go down that route. One can give up the invitational 3♠ to play it as a transfer to 3NT - universally recognised as the best convention in the history of the world.

People are drawing an erroneous conclusion from the data. The issue for a player first in hand is not whether he can get above par, it is whether an action will get closer to that goal than an alternative. You simply cannot conclude that first in hand opening bid theory is wrong. A simple example: we open 1NT in first seat at red with a balance 15 count, get doubled and go for 1100. Does that mean we should change the system? Of course not. I'm not claiming the data is going to be full of swings like that, but there are many more mundane situations where simply opening the bidding is going to hurt is when we end up defending. It's just a question of information leakage. And that's not just when we open, its when we pass. Think of all the times you play guess a queen right just because you know someone has not opened. Now if we broke the stats down to just include first in hand preempts, I would be very surprised if the opponents beat par.

Ah yes. I was looking at the last line in the table, which is of no relevance whatsoever. Line 5 is the relevant one.

In terms of calculating our results against par, one might assume there are types of hand that are a loser for opener whether we open them or not, and there ain't necessarily a great deal we can do about that. But there is a far more obvious way in which being first in hand can be a loser - for example, say we have a 2NT opener: hearing first hand open a nebulous club gives us far more information than if we were first to speak. Or perhaps we hold a weak 2 in hearts, but RHO oens 1♥, so we keep quiet and beat par ... If we are the first person to have to divulge something about our hand, although that can steal space if it is their hand and helps us reach our best spot when it is ours, it is a double-edged sword. Think of it as being under-the-gun playing full-ring texas hold'-em. I would not assume a closer analysis of the stats to lead to a Bocchiesque "big bang" in bidding theory, though doubtless a few fertile areas will emerge. Just don't expect that they will solve bridge. Note for those who have not clicked the link - the Pavlicek stats show an overall loss against par for the side first to speak.