paulhar

In due time, I will state many things I take issue with. I was hoping to gather some other players' opinions first, but it appears that the people on this forum don't have strong opinions. :) But to attempt to answer your question, I will state that I think that a penalty pass here is a playable treatment; in fact a lot of decent players have that agreement; but I don't believe it to be 'standard' (perhaps it should be if N-S know that E-W are playing SOS redoubles.)

The fact that there's been 13 views and no replies tells me one of two things; either nobody is looking at the link or everybody agrees with what's said. Since I'm assuming the former, I'll save y'all the time by stating that the first supposition made is that 2h, double, redouble is SOS, asking opener to bid a new suit.

If this was the dumbest thing I had done in the last few years, it would mean that I played only 1 hand of bridge (not far from the truth) It would be hard to imagine playing a 26-board session without making at least one blunder that would be obvious in retrospect.

http://www.bridgeclues.com:8080/quiz/HomeS...omePg=N&level=1 THIS DOESN'T APPLY ANYMORE - new problem today, so this thread is dead This was an item on BridgeClues, a site that may be trusted by many up and coming players. Any comments? By the way, I expect anybody that looks at this will have plenty to say. (if my link doesn't work, go to www.bridgeclues.com, and click 'Bidding Hand' under 'Level 1'.) For those of you unfamiliar with the site, you'll see a problem when you click this link. Continually click 'answer' to see more text.

I don't think you can have more than this for your passes; so 3C seems pretty clear. Partner will know you don't have three hearts because you didn't bid 2H last turn. I would have also bid 1NT on the prior turn.

Quite a difference of opinion here. One person passes because it's a 10-loser hand without a heart honor (so is AJ10/9832/AJ10/J32) and another would never pass with support and an ace or king (presumably bidding on 432/432/432/K432, or worse, 65432/432/5432/K). I hope these two are never partners. :rolleyes: Before I get flamed too bad, I'll add that this post is totally tongue in cheek...

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=s106h72da1096cqj1082&w=sa543h84d8754ca95&e=s9872hak1065d2ck63&s=skqjhqj93dkqj3c74]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] South, thinking his hand too quacky to be worth 15 for 1NT, opens 1D. North bids 2D and East floats in with 2H, all pass. Knowing the dangers of forcing declarer when I have good trumps, I lead the spade King. By not forcing declarer, I let him set up and enjoy his fourth spade. Declarer still has to lose 2S, 2H, 1D, and 1C to go off a trick, but the declarer never lost control. At the other table, South plays a misguided forcing game by leading the spade King and Queen. Declarer ruffs, plays the club King, a club to the Ace, ruffs a spade, plays a diamond to the Ace, and ruffs a spade. Unfortuantely for declarer, he only has 2 trump to his opponent's four and never enjoys his fourth spade. Fortunately for declarer, his two trumps are the AK, to go with his six tricks taken to make 2H.

You play fourth suit forcing, ostensibly to game. Which of the following auctions express an interest in slam (showing extra values beyond those required for game)? a. 1D - 1H - 1S - 2C - 2D - 3D? b. 1D - 1S - 2C - 2H - 3C - 3D? c. 1D - 1H - 1S - 2C - 2D - 2S? Thank you!

Assume you're playing fourth suit forcing to game (possible getout at 4 of a minor if scrambling determines game is unfeasable) #1. What does 1D-1S-2C-2H-3D-3H show? #2. What does 1D-1S-2C-3H show? #3. You clearly can't have answered all three of the following: 5 spades, 5 hearts, forcing (like AJ10xx, AKJxx, x, xx) 5 spades, 5 hearts, invitational (like AJ10xx, KQxxx, x, xx) No clear action, do something intelligent (like AQxxx, xxx, Kx, Axx) If you hold the hand that you couldn't bid with either #1 or #2, how do you bid it? Thank you!

Spade King should be clear cut. The objective here should be to immediately begin to force declarer to shorten his trumps and lose control of the hand. Really? Maybe I need to be educated because I always thought that you embarked on a forcing game to make your little (or partner's little) trumps good. Here, you have two trump tricks. Declarer may very well try to make this hand scambling with some minor suit tricks and hoping to make some small trumps good by ruffing. If he ruffs with enough small trumps, your trump tricks will fall on partner's winners. I'm not sure I would ever think of the forcing game holding QJ9x of trump. (Maybe it has merit if I'm the one with the five card spade suit.) That's not to say I wouldn't lead a spade, I probably would. I just wouldn't use 'the forcing game' as the reason.

Count me in the 2S camp too. Seems pretty clear to me. If partner bids again, I accept the game invitation. By the way, I think that bidding over 2D with opener's hand in kqr's example is a joke. I hope 3NT got set several.

This was simplified and moved to 'General Bridge Discussion' because of the lack of answers in this forum. I hope that I didn't offend the BBO gods!

It appears that I have chosen my sample hands poorly. I had a friend reply that he would bid it on any weak hand that could play for only three trump losers opposite a singleton honor; i.e. 1098xxx, x, xxx, xxx. Most of my examples don't do this because I chose terrible spots. Maybe a lot of you that chose QJxxxx and out would also have chosen 1098xxx (or J109xxx) given the option, but since I gave you terrible spots in most of the examples, you didn't have that option. In any event, I would respond 2S with all the example hands; yes, it's tough to go down 200 in 2S at matchpoints but it's even tougher to go down 300 in 1D. We found weak jump shifts in our bridge literature, with all instances having the minimum of 2HCP (or higher.) All online references were also 2HCP or higher. It's hard to believe that those that think 2HCP is OK wouldn't also respond 2S on J109543, 4, 54, 9832 (yes, I know we are allowed to use judgment here), but a lot of people that read the bridge books take these constraints literally and would be led to believe that a 2S bid on the last hand would be a terrible bid.

And without the 2H opening, I wouldn't want to be in a grand! The way some people open 2H nowdays, I'm not sure you want to be in the grand anyway against an average team or in an IMP pairs game. My guess is that getting to 6C will be a pickup and also would avoid the embarrassment of going down in 7C against a piece of junk 2H opener when the other table is in 3NT or 5C or defending 5Dx. Incidentally, if I bid more than 2S with the North hand, my partners would stop balancing. Sure, I would bid more than 2S when advancing a direct takeout double, but partner can be just not selling out to 2H with heart shortness. Yes, I know in theory that the opponents should have already bid 3H in that case, but the opponents can't always be trusted. Likewise, I don't think that 3NT is an underbid either. Partner could have about 19 and if parnter's hand is diamond oriented, then 3NT could be quite high enough. Frankly, I think that both partners bid reasonably here and if the worst result they ever get is to miss a 90% grand slam with 30 highs, they're going to win a lot.

Hi! Once again, bridge literature (at least three cases) suggests a treatment for weak jump shifts which disagrees with my notion of what a weak jump shift should be. I looked online and foiund some more backup for the literature, and also some totally wretched advice. (WARNING: DO NOT !!! believe what you read about bridge from somebody's website! Check here first. I have found that the average poster on BBO formus knows a heck of a lot more about bridge than the average perosn posting about bridge on a website.) In any event, you are playing weak jump shifts. Your partner opens 1D, and the next player passes. Which of the above hands is the weakest you would bid 2S on?

Thank y'all for your answers. I'm sure some of you are sick of seeing my polls by now (I'm happy to see that, unlike a couple of years ago, nobody is posting that I'm totally clueless.) The reason for these polls: We've been doing a lot of research lately using some of the modern bridge literature, and each poll comes about because "all" the books are suggesting methods that fly in the face of what I have considered to be standard treatments. In this case, I had played 1D-3D as being a totally wretched hand (I would pass all three.) Several books I have suggest that this bid shows 6-9. Bridge World Standard states that it should be able to support 3NT or 4 of a minor opposite a balanced 18-19 point hand. A lot of the people that I used to play against (competent Flight A players) all played the bid as I did, weak in all cases. So I was just curious whether it was my own little circle of the world that played it that way. I love the suggestion about the jump shift in the other minor showing one range and the double jump showing the other. However, it would seem that an overcall could derail this treatment in some cases (for example, 1C (1S) ? )

You are playing inverted minors (the way you play them, if you play them.) You open 1D, partner bids 3D (preemptive), and you hold a typical balanced 18-count. (For example, AKx, KJx, AJxx, Q10x) What do you bid in each of the following scenarios: A. 1D pass 3D pass to you B. 1D double 3D pass to you C. 1D 1S 3D pass to you

OK, I guess I'm just old-fashioned. :D First, thank God nobody chose Gerber. It means this was answered by real players. A friend of mine that commonly plays among experts claimed that everbody played this as a splinter, unless they played something weird like fit-showing. I haven't tried fit-showing, but it would seem as though percentages would favor using this bid as preemptive rather than a splitner. First, to use it as a splinter, you have to have a hand interested in slam after your opponent has overcalled (and failed to choose a weak jump overcall), and have the singleton be in some other suit than the one overcalled. Secondly, showing the singleton has to dramatically increase your chances of getting the level right. If you're decent bidders, it would seem that you would get the game or slam decision correct most of the time anyway without the splinter. On the other hand, if you play it preemptive, you get to show a hand you can't show otherwise. You make it difficult for the opponents to know whether it's right to bid 4S or not; and if they do bid 4S, partner should know which of 5C, pass, or double is correct. Not playing this preemptive, you could in theory back into the auction later, but you've given the opponents another round to communicate and if doubling you is the right action, they'll be in a lot better position to do it.

Hi - I'd like to get an idea of how the world plays the following auction: 1H by partner 1S overcall 4C by you. Before I get flamed, I did include one answer I consider silly but expect will be chosen, and wanted to avoid a lot of people posting 'other, I play...'

Assume you are playing a natural system, where a 1C opening shows clubs (at least 3), and a 1D opening shows diamonds (at least 3) and your double in the above auction (1D 1S Double) is negative, promising four hearts, not saying too much about clubs. In all of these hands, there are players who would make a negative double showing four hearts, and players who would bid 1NT. I assume that I have ranked the hands such that the earlier hands are more suited to double and the later hands are more suited to bidding 1NT, so if you would bid 1NT on any of the hands, you would also respond 1NT on any of the hands following that hand. For your poll answer, please choose the first hand you see in the list which you would respond 1NT rather than make a negative double. Thank you for your reply!

Hi - My vote isn't in yet, but I'd like to offer up the opinions of four of my bridge playign friends, each with many regional wins and two with over 7000 MP apiece. While I strongly disagree with at least one of these, I'd like to post them anyway. These won't show up in the vote because I can only vote once. But you can add: (1st answer) This hand is much worse than it looks, as if partner is not 5-6, we can't have an 8-card fit in any suit but clubs. So, if there is a game, it has to be 9 tricks off the top in Notrump (presumably played by partner, unless he has Ace or KQ), or 11 tricks in clubs, since a 4-3 heart fit has the 4-card heart suit taking the force. Chances are any spade honors partner has aren't working. So, I would like to underbid, and the choice is between passing and bidding 2C over double, or just bidding 2C. I choose the latter because I don't want to miss game with 30 HCP between us. If the opponents bid 2S now, I'm willing to double at matchpoints. (2nd answer) 2 Spades. (3rd answer) 1 Notrump. When they bid 2S, I pass. (4th answer) Pass and rebid 1NT over the reopening double. I think we lose five spades and another trick. If they bid 2S, I double and lead a trump. This is turning out to be quite an interesting problem since there seems to be no consensus about the right answer and I've seen very few bidding problems which got more different answers than this one!

Hi - more negative double problems! You hold a typical Bridge World's Master Solver Hand: 8743 K42 AQ8 Q107 Partner opens 1C, natural, 13-21 points (or some reasonable likeness to this), and 3 or more clubs (assume 5 card majors; however, if you play 4-card majors, you can respond in that light.) The next hand overcalls 1S, and it's your guess. As you can see, I've asked you to plan your next bid over a likely continuation. If anybody would like to reply, I'd also know what people would do when, after they make their call, it goes 2S on your left, pass, pass to you, as in: Pard RHO You LHO 1C 1S (your choice) 2S P P ? Thanks for your input! Unlike the other problem I posted, I have no strong opinion about this one.

I thought it was: guarantees 4 hearts; says nothing about diamonds. However, a particular popular book for the masses states that it implies both suits. My reasoning is as follows: What are you going to do with: S-7542 H-AK94 D-62 C-J73 over 1C by pard and 1S overcalled? If you choose a negative double suggesting diamonds as well as hearts, partner will do the wrong thing over 3S (preemptive) on your left (or even 2S) when he holds some diamonds (not at all unlikely given your shortness.) While I'd like to think that everybody would make a negative double with the above hand, those that argue that pass is correct (because you don't have diamonds) will give up in many part score battles they should be winning.

Was that addressed to me? It was addressed to the original poster who wanted to know what to do with his 16-18 point hand when he played 1x-3NT as 13-15. My point was simply that if he played the 3NT response as 16-18, he would not have to ask what to do with 13-15; he would have known. So, for people that play as infrequently as I do (which may have included the asker), playing the 3NT response as 16-18 usefully solves a problem whereas playing it as 13-15 creates a hole of ambiguity.

Without an agreement on what to do with this hand, why would you play the 3NT response 13-15? 13-15 point hands are typically easy to show; 16-18 point hands are not. Covering some of the 16-18ers with a 3NT response seems sensible.