EricK

But with a giant balanced hand, do you want your partner, probably also with a balanced hand, to bid? So probably the double is best not described as take out or penalty. You are not asking your partner to pass unless he is very distributional (which would describe a penalty double); but you are also not asking him to bid unless he has a trump stack (which would describe a take out double). You are asking him to do something sensible on the understanding that you have a very strong hand, and no good suit of your own to bid - which will often be to pass, I'd have thought.

Not really an answer to your question, but Terence Reese would probably have pointed out that this is one of the downsides of Stayman on an essentially balanced hand. And that in practical play, blasting 3NT is often the winning move, even where it is theoretically the 2nd best contract.

I would have thought that double was penalties here. Else you have no way of penalising them on this auction.

In general, this sort of light double works well when it allows us to find a contract at the two level, or push them up to the three level. Where they have already pushed themselves up to the three level, we generally oughtn't compete unless we have some reasonable hope of making something at the three level. So we need to be strong enough for there to be some play if partner has a 5 card suit and a hand too weak to overcall, or a 4 card suit in a hand unsuitable to overcall. Neither seems to be the case here.

I think it is clear to bid on. Also, I think it is clear that a partnership needs a way of setting either ♥ or ♠ as trumps before keycarding. And 4♣ followed by 4NT should do one (probably ♠), and a direct 4NT the other.

Thanks for the answers. As you might imagine there was a specific hand which led me to ask this question: ♠KJT92 ♥AJ ♦J983 ♣74 Would you overcall (presumably with a natural 2♠) with this hand at any scoring/vulnerability? Or is it, perhaps, too defensively oriented to risk a large penalty, especially vulnerable, when you might have hopes of the opponents getting too high and your beating them?

What advice can you guys offer about interfering with the opponents' strong 2♣ auction? Do you try to interfere as often as you reasonably can (to throw a spanner, however tiny, into the works), or do you only do it on hands which offer a high degree of safety (i.e. a long, good suit) in order to, perhaps, pave the way for a sacrifice? How do different vulnerabilities affect what you would do? Does it depend what suit you have (eg more likely to overcall with 2♠ than 2♦)? And what about teams vs MP Pairs?

On Monday, my partner super-accepted with a small doubleton in my suit. Irrelevant to this thread, I know - but I felt I had to tell somebody.

[hv=pc=n&w=st5hq6532d83ckq74&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=2np3hp3sp3nppp]133|200|Spots are approximate[/hv] MP Pairs. 3♥ was a transfer; 3NT offered a choice of contracts. How do you rate various leads? Would any factors (eg the strength of the field many of whom are presumably also facing this choice; or how badly you needed a good score) affect your final decision?

If I have a strong jump available, I will use it. Might as well tell partner that ♠ are trumps.

If they'd have thought even further ahead, they could have agreed to play transfer Walsh in response to 1♣ and had a 1-level rebid on this sort of hand without distorting their minor suit lengths :)

You rarely have the perfect hand for a pre-empt, and traditional advice, as I understand it, was not to pre-empt if your hand had a number of flaws i.e. was too far from the "perfect" hand. A void was one such flaw, weak spot cards was another, too much strength outside the suit versus inside the suit was a third and so on.

Presumably these 8 "anomalous boards" rewarded different pairs - you win some, you lose some. But over a long session your skill (or lack of it) will tell.

The corollary to this, though, is that if you have a really great session, you should never play again!

Thanks for the replies. My partner bid 2♠ on a GF 3415 hand - which didn't work out well when I had genuine support for his ♠. I suggested that this wasn't the wisest bid to make undiscussed; but he claimed it was standard (or he'd read it in a book) that 1♠ showed ♠ and 2♠ showed something in ♠ and ♥ support. Now I'd come across "fragment" bids before, but wasn't sure if it was this kind of auction. Also, i was pretty certain you had to have agreed them first. When he asked what he should have bid, I suggested 4♦ as I felt 2♦ was a general force and 3♦ was primarily looking for 3NT (which is a sort of combination of some of the answers above!). Is it that useful to split the splinters into 2 immediately? I suppose one is spoilt for choice on this auction in that the opps haven't taken any room away, and have given you a handy low-level force on many awkward hands.

But this is just as likely to work the other way (if not more so). If you open 1♥, partner can bid 1♠ on ♠9xxx or ♠AQJTx. Whereas if you open 2♥ he won't (I hope!) mention the former ♠ holding. Thus opener can more properly evaluate honours or short suits.

The auction starts: 1♣ (1♦) 1♥ (P) 2♠ Is there a standard meaning for this 2♠ bid? What do you think the best agreement would be? Bonus questions: Assuming the same first round, what are the standard meanings for these bids by opener? And what do you think the best agreements are? 2♦? 3♦? 4♦?

Playing a Weak NT I'd open 1NT on the first but pass the second. Playing a strong NT , I'd pass the first and open 1♠ on the second. Well, in reality, I'd probably open both whatever I was playing, but I find it hard to live up to my high ideals.

Add a king and it is borderline unacceptable, beef up the spot cards in ♠ as well and it is borderline acceptable.

Although this hand is clearly very strong for 1NT, the trouble with opening 1♠ is that it wrong sides NT after the (almost) inevitable 1NT response. partner might be put to a difficult guess at trick one with the fate of the contract depending on his choice (of course he might not!). I'm not sure if the chances of this happening are more or less than the chances of our missing a good game or slam because we underbid our hand by 3/4 of a point or so.

Further to the above, technically in SAYC responder's 2/1 promises a rebid. That implies that opener's 2NT rebid shouldn't be weak as partner might have a balanced 11 and yet be forced to bid beyond 2NT. So with a weak NT hand, opener should also rebid his major, and let responder bid a NF 2NT if the he has that hand. Whether opener's 2NT rebid shows 15-17 or 18-19 depends on whether you allow or disallow a 5 card major in the 1NT hand.

I have 8 on top don't I (4♦, 1♣, 2♠, 1♥)? Playing for the drop in ♦ gives me the chance to try the ♥ finesse if the ♦ don't break. The combined odds of that seem larger than that of finding East with ♦T. The exact odds are hard to determine - although the vulnerable overcall makes it more likely that West has short ♦, it might also make it more likely he has ♥K (depending somewhat on how constructive the opps are over a weak NT).

Your partner is wrong that 2♥ should be bid with a 4 card suit; but he is right that you shouldn't bid 2NT with this hand. A jump to 2NT as natural and invitational is one of the worst bids in bridge. Presumably partner's 3 level bids are forcing (else he has to jump on any hand with more than a bare minimum), but then how does he bid minimum hands with 5♠ and and 5m? Or a minimum 5422 hand? It is better to bid 2♣ on this sort of hand. Partner can now show a second suit, or a 5th spade, or extras in a balanced hand, and you will be able to either support spades, support hearts, bid game in NT, or show your balanced invitational NT on the next round.

The first is a clear pass IMO. I don't think game makes often enough to make it worth looking for. The second seems to involve an insufficient bid. Was the opening 2♦ or was partner's bid 3♥?

"Either" in this position seems to me to be the same as "any". He does have only two real choices - high or low - since the T and J are equals. As an aside, why does anybody ever not specify the card by name when dummy is following suit? Every card name is one syllable long (OK, except the 7), so saying "low" or "top" saves no time, and saying "either" or "any" or "it doesn't matter" costs time!