sathyab

Support double ? Just to make sure, you're thinking of the same auction that I meant, you open 1h, partner bids 1nt, your RHO introduces 2s. Where does the support double figure here ?

What's the "standard" meaning of X when the auction goes 1h-p-1nt-(2s)-X ? As the opener can easily have 4-5 in majors and a good hand, is there any reason this could not be a penalty double, even if you play low-level doubles in other auctions as T/O ?

It's the last round in the second semi-finals of the Blue Ribbon Pairs. Given all the Matchpoints your partner has been chucking, you have a feeling you make not make it. But the first board of the set must have been good, when opponents took a push to 5♠ over your sacrificial offering of 5♥, so may be there's a still hope.[hv=d=e&v=n&n=s6hq654dqt85ca653&e=sqt4ha982dk92ckt7]266|200|Scoring: MP Opponents bid unimpeded, 1c-1s-1nt-2c-2s-4s.[/hv] 2♣ was alerted as check-back. Before making the lead you stall by asking if it was GF and they (both) tell you they're already in game. Glad that that was cleared up, you lead the ♦8. Declarer calls for the ♦9, partner plays the ♦J which holds the trick as declarer follows with the ♦3. Partner gives the matters some thought and leads the ♣J, declarer playing the ♣4. Over to you.

If you bid 4♦ with this hand, it looks reasonable to continue with RKC over partner's 4♥ as he most likely will have something resembling QJxxx Axx xxx xx or QJxxx Axx xx xxx to cue-bid, although it might be a close decision with the second hand that contains xxx in opener's first suit. But I'm more worried that he might sign-off in 4♠ with a hand like AQxxx xx KJxx xx or AQxx xxx KJxx Qx.

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=sq8hakt5dca765432]133|100|Scoring: IMP (2d)-3c-(p)-3nt-(p)-?[/hv] If partner's 3nt is based on a club fit such as Kxx or even Kx and scattered values in other suits, 3nt may easily be the best spot. If you need time to get clubs going however, 4♥ or 5♣ might be safer. If you did try 4♣ how should partner treat it ? Should he co-operate by bidding his major suit naturally if he was dealt one or would he be reluctant to do so for fear that it might be interpreted as a cue-bid in support of clubs. In other words, would he interpret 4♣ as exploring an alternate strain rather than slam ?

Given that West has a stiff heart and that you're missing 5 spades, 6 diamonds and 7 clubs, his most likely shapes are 3145, 4135, 4144 in that order probably. So I'm willing to give up on chances that place shortness in the rounded suits in the West hand, ie, Qxx of spades on-side or Txxx of Diamonds on-side and play instead for Tx or Qx of Diamonds with the preemptor first, failing which I'll fall back on trying try to pick up Qx of spades.

Why is there a need to bid 2♥ when partner takes a preference to 2♦ ? Is it to cater for a reverse flannery hand not strong enough to bid a forcing 2♥ (at least for one round the way most people play) over 2♣ or is it to say you have more than a minimum 5-4 hand? If the former, then, when partner has only four hearts, you're not improving matters much as you'll be playing in a seven card heart fit when you might have had at least as many or more trumps in a diamond contract. If partner took a preference to 2♦ with a 5521 hand of non-invitational strength, introducing hearts now is a winner whether you had a 1453 or 1354 hand. If it's the latter, then why not bid 2nt ? If you play reverse flannery, you can rebid 2♣ and pass partner's preference to 2♦.

- 5H is an overbid, but it's not insane. Personally I would double 4H because ii) if partner bids 4S I'm at least going to think of making a slam try (though I don't know if I'm going to yet) I have a few questions here: What kind of hand would partner have, to bid 4s missing the AQT when you doubled 4h suggesting your preference to defend ? If he did hold such a hand, why would he not bid more over your 4s ? Unless you're saying that the double of 4h suggested values while not denying a beefy spade holding such as AQTx, whereas a 4s bid could be made on a lot less. The double is responsive, not penalty. It has a higher minimum in high cards than 4S. You're right, the double is responsive; in fact I play it as responsive myself in this sequence, I misspoke when I said the double suggested penalty. But when you have such a strong holding in spades, is partner expected to bid 4s on a holding such as Kxxx or even Kxxxx, knowing that a responsive double can be made on as little as xxx in spades if there're compensating values in minor suits. If you double on the actual hand, what happens if the opponents bid 5h ahead of your partner ?

- 5H is an overbid, but it's not insane. Personally I would double 4H because ii) if partner bids 4S I'm at least going to think of making a slam try (though I don't know if I'm going to yet) I have a few questions here: What kind of hand would partner have, to bid 4s missing the AQT when you doubled 4h suggesting your preference to defend ? If he did hold such a hand, why would he not bid more over your 4s ? Unless you're saying that the double of 4h suggested values while not denying a beefy spade holding such as AQTx, whereas a 4s bid could be made on a lot less.

If I had a nickel every time you declared that someone who disagreed with you serves no purpose in life... Have you considered employment opportunities at Fox News ?

Not quite sure why partner needs to have extras of any kind to reopen with a double. If you play negative doubles, it's routine to double with balanced minimums in case partner had a penalty double. If partner's reopening with a double does imply extras, it wasn't stated in the original post. What part of "or" do you not understand? The very part of "or" that you appear to be totally clueless about. The way "or" is understood in normal written English. In case you have trouble comprehending it, which I suspect you will, let me elaborate: Partner doesn't need to have either spade length "or" extras to reopen with a double to protect partner's penalty double. The only thing you can infer is that partner doesn't have length in Diamonds. Any pattern such as 2533, 2524, 3523, 3532 will suffice with minimum values for the reopening double. Hi Sathya, You really should not be so aggressive and hostile when you are clearly wrong. Cherdano seem to understand the word or, but he also seems to understand bridge. Cherdano's error in this thread was to assume it was "or" that you misunderstood, rather than fundamental bridge. In case you have trouble comprehending my post, which I suspect you will, let me elaborate: Reopening with a doubleton spade and a minimum is a mistake that not even a beginner would make. Ricky I dont think he should be hostile, even if he was clearly right. It's funny you should think I was being offensive. You don't think it's offensive when someone asks you what part of "or" you don't understand in response to a post that simply asked what their requirements for a reopening double were ?

Not quite sure why partner needs to have extras of any kind to reopen with a double. If you play negative doubles, it's routine to double with balanced minimums in case partner had a penalty double. If partner's reopening with a double does imply extras, it wasn't stated in the original post. What part of "or" do you not understand? The very part of "or" that you appear to be totally clueless about. The way "or" is understood in normal written English. In case you have trouble comprehending it, which I suspect you will, let me elaborate: Partner doesn't need to have either spade length "or" extras to reopen with a double to protect partner's penalty double. The only thing you can infer is that partner doesn't have length in Diamonds. Any pattern such as 2533, 2524, 3523, 3532 will suffice with minimum values for the reopening double.

Not quite sure why partner needs to have extras of any kind to reopen with a double. If you play negative doubles, it's routine to double with balanced minimums in case partner had a penalty double. If partner's reopening with a double does imply extras, it wasn't stated in the original post.

In my experience in playing against really good teams, by good I mean disproportionately better teams, most of the swings at IMPs happen in bidding. Last year we had the pleasure of playing Jimmy Cayne's team on the second day of Spingold in Nashville. Our loss wasn't totally unexpected, but I thought the margin could have closer than 80 IMPs. There were only about three or four hands where play or defense were interesting, everything else was about bidding. The Italian style intermediate-2 bids posed considerable trouble at both tables, not to mention their hyper-aggressive competitive bidding.

When interesting problems are posted, I usually look forward eagerly to see what the actual hands were. In this case however, I wish you had not bothered.

My semi-regular partner from my local area decided against going to Boston, as did another BBO friend, so I'm looking for partners. A brief intro: I haven't had the time or inclination to play in bracketed KOs, so I haven't amassed as many MPs as someone playing for a comparable amount of time, but I've done okay in the Nationals. I've made it to the finals of 3-day NABC Pairs events (I only play in unlimited events) 4 times, Reisinger semi-finals once, reached the GNT A semi-finals in Toronto, 2001, the same year in which we beat seed #15 in Spingold. My primary interest being MP, the Fall Nationals is my favorite one. I play 2/1 with a bunch of common gadgets, Bergen, 2-way Checkback, good-bad 2NT, UDCA carding. I don't always defend as effectively as I did in Las Vegas as reported in the story "Death Trap" in http://www.acbl.org/nabc/view.php?bulletin=6, but neither do I "protect" my partner as reported in "Protecting Partner" in http://www.acbl.org/nabc/Nashville2007/bulletins/db7.pdf :) Please contact me directly, my e-mail address is s_bettadapura@yahoo.com. Thanks, Sathya

matchpoints in the long run you are rewarded for taking percentage actions if you agree that 5♣ is the percentage call, then it is the OBVIOUS call. Let's say it was IMPs instead of MP. What then ? Partner's T/O doubles will have better support for unbid suits than at MP where support for minors may be suspect. You're still not off the hook by any means in deciding whether to bid just 5♣ or contemplate something higher .

Anyone know what the "standard" 2/1 agreement is, assuming that there's such a thing as standard 2/1, you know the kind when you say "2/1, UDCA, A from AK and 3/5 vs suits pd?". Andrew Tannenbaum, in one of his books on Computer Networking said "The great thing about standards is that here are so many to choose from". Sounds like a bridge player to me.

I asked this question in another topic, but didn't get too may responses, so I thought I'd try again in its own thread. A lot of people play 1m-(1♥)-X as showing only four spades and 1m-(1♥)-1♠ as promising a five-bagger. The question is when advancer bids 2♥ over either X or 1♠, is opener's X still support ? One thought was why play support X when you partner has exactly four spades ? If your partner has nothing more to say, this argument may be valid, but if he needs to act at all, it's critical that he knows whether your side has an eight-card spade fit or not. Another point is that when the bidding goes 1♣-(1♦)-1M-(2♦), now X has to be responsive as partner's major suit length is unknown. So if you play the X of 2♥ as non-support X, you will be treating two similar sounding auctions differently. If you want to do that you better make that part of your "20 minute discussion of CC".

Why would you have bid 4♣ on the previous round ? Couldn't partner's X of 2♥ be a simple support X ? If it was support X he didn't promise extra high cards or shape. Hopefully his X of 3♥ does show extras although I'm not sure about the shape any more except that he has genuine clubs.

I'd bet more on your bidding judgement than your judgement of Zia's bidding judgement :) Zia did indeed bid 2♠. The full hand turned out to be: [hv=d=w&v=n&n=shqt98xdtxxckqjxx&w=st98xxxhajdkqctxx&e=sqxhkxxxdjxxcaxxx&s=sakjxxhxxdaxxxxcx]399|300|Scoring: BAM[/hv] Thanks to the favorable location of the ♥J, 3♥ is down only 1, for -100 and his teammates were +110 in 2♠ when it went 1♠-p-1nt-p-2♠. If East had the ♥J, chances are it'd have been doubled. I'm assuming that East must have thought that North must have a decent hand given the unfavorable vulnerability and that a double might be too close, especially partner's hand isn't as suitable for defense as it turned out to be. Would anyone double 3♥ ? I misremembered the EW hands; West had the Axx of clubs and East had Txxx. The openings were so aggressive that opening that ten count wasn't unthinkable. But then East might have doubled 2♠. I checked for play records of 3♥, but couldn't find it. All they have is the play record for 2♠ at the other table.

I'd bet more on your bidding judgement than your judgement of Zia's bidding judgement :) Zia did indeed bid 2♠. The full hand turned out to be: [hv=d=w&v=n&n=shqt98xdtxxckqjxx&w=st98xxxhajdkqctxx&e=sqxhkxxxdjxxcaxxx&s=sakjxxhxxdaxxxxcx]399|300|Scoring: BAM[/hv] Thanks to the favorable location of the ♥J, 3♥ is down only 1, for -100 and his teammates were +110 in 2♠ when it went 1♠-p-1nt-p-2♠. If East had the ♥J, chances are it'd have been doubled. I'm assuming that East must have thought that North must have a decent hand given the unfavorable vulnerability and that a double might be too close, especially partner's hand isn't as suitable for defense as it turned out to be. Would anyone double 3♥ ?

[hv=d=w&v=n&s=shqt98xdtxxckqjxx]133|100|Scoring: BAM[/hv] Dealer opens 1♠ on your right and you have that hand as North. Your call and please follow the instructions in the title of the post.

Why would you preempt with North's hand ? It's got all kinds of secondary honors that can be valuable in defense. I know preempts can be made on a wide range of hands especially when partner has already passed, but you have to draw the line somewhere. If you preempt with this hand, partner will be taking/thinking about a lot of phantom saves. Passing over 3♣ instead of biding 3♥ is very reasonable though. My preference, especially at MP is that all bids except a cue-bid and maximal double are still competitive in a competitive auction, but then again it's just my preference.

You noticed its matchpoints didn't you>? In retrospect if South thinks of the spade distribution around the table he can get a pretty good picture of his partner's distribution. Spades are most likely 1-3-5-4 starting with West. With six hearts and three spades, there's only room for four cards in minor suits in partner's hand and therefore that East will have length in the minors. Another way to look at is that East has five spades and two hearts and so length in minors. Admittedly partner could have had the Ace of hearts instead of the King (you can swap a jack and a queen between W and E so both have their bids) in which case both 4♦ and 4♥ are off a trick.