rhm

True, but the likelihood for holding a penalty double versus takeout varies with each sequence as do the relative benefits of those actions. Here you have already refrained from making a takeout double over 1♥, neither did you over-call. Your partner gave a clear preference for one suit in the balancing seat and limited his overall strength. Assuming you neither want to make a penalty double nor a raise of partner's suit, which hand can you hold where you get the urge to double now competitively instead of simply passing? What are the benefits? If partner has tolerance for the unbid suits he can reopen with a double, can't he? However, with a ♥ stack over opener you can hold a pretty good hand. I know what I would like to do then and partner is not that likely to have enough to reopen with a double when I am strong. This is not that unlikely given that both partner and opener's partner seem to have few cards in ♥ and are strictly limited. Rainer Herrmann

This assumes that neither 3♠ nor 4♠ are understood as control showing. I bet most would consider trump agreement is etched in stone after Jacoby 2NT. Many would claim that 3♠ is the start of a cue bidding sequence. After this start how often would you like to show a ♠ suit and how often would you want to start a cue bidding sequence? 4♠ in response to 3♠ may or may not show a secondary suit but would deny a ♣ control. In my view it is best to confine the Jacoby 2NT response to balanced hands and possibly to hands, which are too strong to splinter immediately, but not hands with a good 5 card or longer side suit. Rainer Herrmann

I am a 1♠ bidder, but I do not understand this sort of argument. East has not the typical balanced 4 card raise expected by J2NT. He has a good 5 card side suit (source of tricks) and all his points seem to work. West makes a forcing pass, which most consider an advantage (I don't). But if you are in a forcing pass situation you have to ask yourself what DBL by West would have meant here. I would say a hand where I would like to warn partner not to bid on. Typically it shows a minimum opening with 2 cards in ♦. There are a few other hands I double with. For example I would also double if I had a minimum with no ace even with a singleton ♦. Consequently East knows that West has either a singleton ♦ or extra, probably not both unless West intends to pull the double anyway. 5♥ must be odds on. Rainer Herrmann

Sorry, but what a nonsense. This analysis does not stand up in my view and it is a good example that most people rely too much on signals instead of applying simple Bridge logic. If you apply logic this is a trivial hand from East's perspective. If declarer holds both red aces and and a ♣ honor at least doubleton he will establish ♣ and claim 11 tricks. Accordingly East has to play West for an ace in the red suit or a ♣ honor. If West has a ♣ honor and South plays on ♣ the defense does not matter with the possible exception that East may have a singleton ♣ ace and that West may not go in with the king when a ♣ is let out of hand at trick 3. The hand will go down sooner or later. So East need to concentrate only on which ace West to play for. Accordingly East should return a ♦ unless West played specifically the ♠jack at trick 2. If South does not play on ♣ it is fairly clear that West's entry will be in ♣. (South would not bid 3NT with long ♥ and a singleton ♣ honor or a doubleton ♣AK) Most players would improve their defensive capability significantly if they would stop signaling for at least 6 months. Rainer Herrmann

Opener would have to pass 5♦ initially for lack of strength, which is not forcing. Responder is certainly too strong to pass 5 ♦ I think anyone with blood in his veins would now bid 5♥ which responder would correct to 5♠ But even if responder doubles 5♦, I can not see how opener at IMPs can pass with 4♠ to the queen and a singleton ♦. As the bidding went after the 2NT response the decision is closer. Opener's pass over 5♦ is now forcing. Responder should deduce that opener would double with 2 cards in ♦ and a minimum. Accordingly I think responders double was ill judged with the ♦ ace. The preemptor knows that he is missing this card. Responder should have bid 5♥. Rainer Herrmann

Excellent analysis so far. Here I beg to differ. First of all quick tricks are well defined and are not playing tricks. This hand has 2.5 quick tricks. But I admit I do not care. Fact is that opener has shown at least 9 cards in the minors and very likely 10 or more. The only card which is probably working (unless opener is void in ♥, which would hardly be a big surprise) is the ♥ace and maybe one of the two major kings. For me it feels very right to show no signs of life after having made a constructive 2/1 response. If that is all what opener needs for slam he will bid it with no further encouragement and your task will have be to avoid to get to a grand. Fine analysis Rainer Herrmann

Bidding weak suits with strong hands in constructive sequences is a good way to court disaster. I am not a proponent of MAFIA (majors always first) but here I definitely would treat the ♥ suit as equal in length to the ♣ suit and have bid 1♥ in response to 1♦. I also would not have cuebid in response to 4♣. It is unlikely that East now has 4 cards in ♣. West can see all his honors are opposite East short suits. 4♥ was highly optimistic. Either 4♦ over 4♣ or 4NT (if understood as a sign-off) would be my choice. Accordingly I would give the majority of blame to West. East should have preferred 4♦ to 4♣. Rainer Herrmann

The basic reason is that East is 2-2 in the minors. If opener has a minor suit shortage ♠ will play better. If responder had a minor suit shortage agree hearts and splinter at some stage. I agree that 4♦ is a slight but calculated overbid. The reason I prefer the overbid is that it still gives a very good description for slam purposes. Partner can immediately judge how well the hands fit. Rainer Herrmann

Opposite the actual hand ♠QT65 ♥KQ964 ♦3 ♣A93 I'd expect a simple raise of 1♠ opposite my suggestion ♠QT65 ♥AKQ64 ♦3 ♣A93 why would I want to be in 2♠? 4♠ looks quite reasonable. Rainer Herrmann

You do not repeat yourself, you contradict yourself. And I beg to differ that 1♠ doesn't help much to distinguish between ♠ xx and ♠ xxx and ♠ QJx. It does with any experienced Bridge player, while I do not know of one single Jacoby variant, which does not leave you in the dark about this crucial distinction. Granted that a 1♠ response does not necessarily solve all problems and some continuations may get convoluted and ambiguous, but if 2NT is such a great bid with this hand please explain how you will reach 7♠ and avoid 7♥ when opener holds ♠QT65 ♥AKQ64 ♦3 ♣ A93 (Note that I changed just one card in opener's actual hand) After 1♠ the bidding would be straight forward: 1♥-1♠ 4♦-4NT 5♠-5NT 6♥-7♠ Rainer Herrmann

Why? After all only an unlikely club lead will beat 6♠ from East. East can anticipate that in a ♠ contract he might discard a minor suit loser on the ♥. For example give West the same hand but the ♥ ace instead of a small ♥. 7♠ now is a very good contract while 7♥ would be hopeless. Early trump agreement has its advantages but sometimes it makes it almost impossible to reach the right contract. Rainer Herrmann

What I am saying: North is not an idiot because he bid 4♣. He is severely understrength in the HCP department but his distribution compensates that to some extent. Assume you, North, would have passed 3♥ and next East bids 4♥ passed back to you. How do you feel now? I would then regret not having bid 4♣ last time. This could easily be a double game swing. I still have a preference for Pass over 3♥, mainly because of the singleton ♥ King, which argues against such a scenario. But I think it is close and the critic for bidding 4♣ is too harsh for my liking. Calling it "truly idiotic" and wanting to assign more than 100% blame is out of place in my view. If I should tone down as Gwnn suggested in a different threat, other should do likewise. I am not saying everyone else is resulting. I guess when you overbid you have to take the blame if it backfires and South can hardly be blamed for the disaster. But when assigning blame always be aware that during the bidding nobody can see his partner's hand. Rainer Herrmann

Assuming you meant North is declarer and you get a passive black lead from East This looks like a double end-play to me. Cash your 6 black winners to strip East of all cards outside ♦, then exit with a ♦. East will have to give you a diamond trick. If East cashes 3 tricks in diamonds, before returning a fourth ♦ West will be squeezed between the majors, because he can not find 6 discards on the diamonds and clubs. If East ducks or does not cash all his ♦ tricks West will still have to discard on the ♦. If he has kept 3 cards in ♥ exit in ♠. Otherwise cash your ♥. Rainer Herrmann

Agreed, I would pass 4♠. But fact is 5♣ has a poor but still a much better chance to go down only once than 4♠. You need ♣ to be 2-2, then your chances holding it to down 1 are reasonable. Rainer Herrmann

I happen to agree with the 1♦ opening bid. Passing and then coming in with 2NT shows in my view a different hand. I am a simple soul. When you have the strength for an opening bid you open and when you later bid after pass you deny strength for an opening bid, not a hand you did not know what to do with first time or where you overlooked an ace. It is easy to say that opener should have passed over 3♥, but in this hyperactive world I am not so sure how many would have done so. Of course North is too weak for bidding at the 4 level vulnerable. The major reason arguing for caution is the singleton ♥king. However, he does have an unbid 6 card suit and from the opponents bidding he knows that he has a fit somewhere. Assume South, being vulnerable, passes out 3♥ not with his actual hand but with ♠Axxxx ♥Jx ♦Qx ♣Kxxx Now assign the blame for missing a very good 5♣ contract. I can almost hear some claiming: "This is easy. North is an idiot. 6-5 come alive. The one, who is short in the opponents suit must act etc. " Rainer Herrmann

Hi Qwnn, I have reread my original post and I do not really understand what upsets you. I have quoted you, but I have not addressed you personally. If you still take it personally that was not my intention, neither did I want to offend you. You said: "strongly dislike the 4♠ bid, why are you not showing your controls? You have a nice hand 14 even , so what if you don't have so much in spades." I happen to believe 4♠ was a good bid and I explained why. There is no question that for slam purposes the ♣ King and the ♥ ace are useful cards. We agree so far. But South has already forced to game and the rest of the South hand is of very dubious value and he has unusually weak trumps. I believe it is a sound principle that you do not bid the same values twice and if your hand has gone down in value you do not encourage your partner any further. Fact is none of the other honors in South hand contribute to the trick taking potential of North South and South should know this at the time when North cue-bid 4♣. For slam only these two key-cards are relevant. If my partner invites cue-bidding I believe my first duty is to check, whether my hand looks suitable for slam in the light of what I have already disclosed about my hand. Trump quality (hard to detect by cue-bidding) as well as trick taking potential and honor location are main criteria for accepting. You did ask, why is South not showing his controls. I do not bent over backwards not to cue-bid when invited, but this hand simply does poorly on all these criteria. Saying that this hand, given the previous bidding, "doesn't have so much in spades" is a nice understatement if you are evaluating for slam. Now would you force to game opposite an opening bid with just the king of ♣ and the ace of ♥? Why should North have any problems to bid the slam if this is all he needs, when South has forced to game? More general: I do not like to contribute, when 10 people before me have already given a very similar view, because I consider this "me too" is not very enlightening, hardly very original. This may give you the impression, that I disagree with your view often, which I do not. In fact I like and respect your opinion and I agree mostly with it. In this threat the poster asks: What are your comments on the actual auction? Almost all blamed South and you gave one of the strongest comments, why you think South bidding was nuts. I happen to disagree here and therefor I quoted you and I stand my ground. And to my knowledge I never said "these advanced arguments are probably wasted on most people" What I said in a different threat was : Not that I expect many to understand these arguments in advanced hand evaluation. This was made in the context, whether to open ♠xx/♥KQJxx/♦xx/♣KQJx all red at IMPs and I would bet at least 95% of all posters would open this hand 1♥. I admit this is provocative, nothing wrong with that in a discussion forum. But it is not an abuse. Nevertheless, if I offended you I feel sorry It was not my intention. If you do not like my views, just ignore them, but I hope not. ;) Rainer Herrmann

Maybe opening 2♣ is the right way of handling such hands after all. In my mind the bidding should go 2♣--2♦ 3♦--3NT If you open 1♦ and jump to 3♣ I do not see how you are going to pass 3NT. (You could play a grand in 3NT or more likely 3NT could be down when 6 ♦ is lay-down) Some have exalted requirements for opening 2♣ and do not see the cost this entails, when very strong hands ("only 9 playing tricks") are opened at the one level. I for my part do not need a 2 ♣ opening bid when I have 13 playing tricks. The problem hands for a 2♣ opening are two suited hands (vulnerable to preempts) and strong three suited hands, where you would preempt yourself with a 2♣ opening. One suited hands are just fine for a 2♣ opening. Rainer Herrmann

Really? Having forced to game and opener has shown only interest in his suits, do you have a "nice" hand with just 3 points in opener's suits? I would call this "nice" looking 14 hand awful. If opener has ♠KQxx ♥Jx ♦A ♣AQxxxx how do you avoid getting to 6♠? (Yes, I know a number of slams are playable but none is good with my example hand) A lot of people seem to believe automatic cue-bidding will always lead to good slams and avoid bad ones and besides it displays, they are experts. This always works on paper but little could be further from truth. Life at the table tells a very different story. I am not against cue bidding, but I believe good hand evaluation and judgment rules and this means sometimes you simply should take charge. With ♠AKQJ in trumps, North can anticipate that he will get little cooperation from an intelligent partner. North should either bid slam directly after having received game forcing values from partner or preferably use key-card Blackwood. When the one, who uses Blackwood has shown a long side suit I like to play it with 2 key suits, in this case ♣ and ♠. (After all if somebody takes charge with Blackwood, he must know, from where his tricks will be coming from) When South shows two key-cards: Bingo! (Yes, I know you could be off the first two tricks in ♥, but that seems remote given the previous bidding and I happen to care much more about the ♣king) If he would have shown 3 key-cards I'd bid the grand, with one I stop in my shoes. With the North hand I would never stop below slam, when partner forces to game in ♠, unless a negative reply to Blackwood (not cue-bidding!) would give me an unexpected surprise. Rainer Herrmann

The price you pay here arises because of playing XYZ not because of playing standard. However, I refuse to rebid 1NT with ♠ Axx ♥ xxxxx ♦ x ♣ Qxxx assuming the bidding started 1♣- 1♥- 1♠. I probably pass 1♠ with this hand and I am pretty sure I am in a better contract than MickyB would be in 1NT :) . I avoid raising secondary suits with less than 4 cards, but if you would make me a bit stronger with the same distribution, I would rather raise on 3 cards than biding notrump with a low singleton in the only unbid suit. Sometimes a 4-3 fit is not so bad. Remember that playing XYZ you have lots of ways of raising the ♠ suit here and raising directly is the weakest of them. But I admit I could play ♠, when opener has 3 cards in ♥ (not necessarily bad with responder's distribution) or even in a 3-3 fit, if opener is 3♠=1♥=4♦=5♣. (That is the way I like to bid this problem distribution.) These 3-3 fits can be a lot of tun. Unfortunately they happen to me less than once every other leap year. Rainer Herrmann

Since East passed already we know that we can probably play 2NT undoubled. The risk of transferring, particularly at IMPs, is high. It is quite likely that West will be short in ♥.Give him a singleton ♥. Now either partner or East has at least 4 cards in ♥. Even if West has 2 cards in ♥ the ♥ are like to break 4-2 between partner and East. If partner fits ♥, he will super-accept and 4♥ might or might not get doubled, but it likely will and I would not relish a double of 4♥. Besides, in this case the ten of ♥ will likely be an (admittedly late) entry in 2NT. If partner does not fit ♥ well, chances are that East has a ♥ stack. In this case 3♥ will get doubled and if it will, it will be a disaster. Rainer Herrmann

Of course you are right Rainer Herrmann

Sorry I got the bidding wrong. I overlooked the 1♣ opening bid. Rainer Herrmann

Q1: I would double, which should always be oriented to the unbid majors in this sequence but stronger and less distributional than 2♦. After Pass you can say good bye to game. After DBL the bidding might go (1♦) Pa (1NT) DBL (2♦) 3M (Pa) 4M Q2: I still double. Partner is marked with cards in the majors. 2♠ puts all your eggs in one basket. Q3: I agree with Pass Q4: 5♦. Partner can raise with a good hand and a ♥ control. Anything else only muddies the waters. DBL may be competitive here, but your third ♦ argues against it and DBL will frequently end the auction. Down one after a struggle, when 5 or 6♦ was cold. Partner might have ♠ AQ ♥ Ax ♦ Kxxxxxx ♣ xx Rainer Herrmann

Not clear. Do not understand how South can force to game opposite a 1NT response. Your plan may depend on whether the ♣ 9 lead can be from 3 cards. I assume it can not. A simple line is to win the ♣ ace and take the ♠ finesse. If that wins you are home. Assume it looses to West's ♠ queen. A switch to ♦ may now look attractive to West, in which case East would either have to give West a ♣ ruff, in which case you will need West to have all the red suit honors, or East will need to find the trump return to create any problems. If West switches to ♥, I will play him for the ♥ ace and go up with the ♥ king. If this fails I will have to hope that East will not switch to ♦. If West continues with a black suit I will probably play him for the ♥ queen. An alternative (and maybe better) line is to win the ♣ in hand and immediately play the ♥2. The opening lead makes it likely that West has a ♥ honor. This puts a lot of pressure on West not to duck with the ♥ ace. If he does, play him for the ♥ queen. If this looses to the ♥ queen, you are not down yet. East may have the ♦ king, in which case you may have time to establish a ♦ discard. You can always fall back on the trump finesse. If East can give West a ♣ ruff, you must hope that West has both the ♥ ace and the ♦ King and that the ♠ queen will now drop. I think I prefer the second line. Rainer Herrmann

And of course you will be happy when partner preferences you back into ♣ If you open black two-suiter with 1♣ (not my cup of tea) you should still play Bridge and treat this one as having longer ♠ than ♣. Rainer Herrmann