sfi

I play with some people who have given it a lot of thought. What they like is something with a penalty double and a natural 2H/S. So we play some Aspro/Astro/Asptro thing. It's different with different people and I have no idea whether any of them match the original published conventions. Personally, I couldn't really care less. This is one area partner gets full control over.

Friends of mine managed this years ago. Sadly the opponents didn't manage the lead out of turn.

Everyone is assuming that 2H is actually a weak hand, but third seat weak openings are more variable. Maybe opener wanted to make it harder for their LHO to bid spades, so chose 2H when they would have opened at the one level in 1st and 2nd seat. Here's a similar example from a recent national tournament: Nil vul. x Jx QJTx AKQxxx After 2 passes I tried 3C. LHO with 5413 shape made a normal overcall of 3S and played it there with a 6-1 break. It turns out that both sides can make 11 tricks - them in hearts and us in clubs, so we didn't achieve the par contract. But the team picked up 7 and should have picked up 12 except for a very strange decision at the other table. The moral is that just because 3rd seat made a "weak" opening bid and their partner suggested that they don't want you to play in 4S, it doesn't have to be our hand. They have a big fit and their values are still unclear.

Concerning silly: Having the pass be forcing means we are committing ourselves to action at a level where it's not at all clear whether we should be doing so. Game in hearts may be the normal result and we can no longer achieve that. Concerning exploitable: No - I just don't believe your agreements are going to be sophisticated enough to distinguish between the times when your opponent is a passed hand and when they're not. If they do, I am impressed.

Pass, 100%.

I'm not sure anyone is claiming that it is "so very wrong". My reading of other bidders (rather than doublers) is that it is antipercentage because it misleads partner about the nature of your defensive prospects when they want to sit a reopening double. The club void reduces the defence's options considerably while only increasing partner's expected club length a bit. Partner could easily be looking to pass a reopening double on this auction so it needs to be taken into consideration when choosing the action. It's clear that a double can work well - it's the best way to a better major suit partscore for example. But partscore accuracy at IMPs isn't a high priority, and you need to consider what partner might do after your action. Think of the hands partner can have: 1. A weakish balanced hand. Here 2D is likely to be the long-term winner since you don't have to worry as much about losing control on the hand. But it probably doesn't matter much what you do. 2. A weak unbalanced hand. Double will win here since you'll find a real fit. 3. A moderate hand with no previous bid. Double can cause problems for partner who may feel the need to jump to show their strength. That should probably be fine, but still puts you one level higher opposite your moderate hand. Additionally, you don't have a minimum so you might bid again and get too high. These hands can creep up without either partner doing anything clearly wrong. 2D avoids this, and now if partner does move it's clearer that looking for game is a reasonable choice. 4. A moderate hand with club values. This is the hand here, where partner doesn't have any great desire to penalise but will willingly cooperate if you express interest in sitting for penalties. In this case the double misrepresents your hand and can lead to -280 (or -470 as here). If partner doubles 3C after your 2D reopening, they are at least forewarned and should have better defence than the given hand. 5. A good hand that wants to penalise clubs. Given the vulnerability we will need to take 9 tricks to make up for a game bonus. My offensively oriented hand is going to disappoint partner in this quest, and I would like to send this message. Occasionally I will miss out on +800/1100 and we'll score our normal game contract for a push board. Weighting each option is complex, but the warning about the offensive nature of the hand is one worth sending. After a 2D bid and 3C rebid, now North can evaluate their hand differently and bid 3D for an 11 IMP swing to the good guys. That's not going to happen every time of course, and sometimes you'll lose IMPs whichever action you take.

Partner could easily have a reasonable hand with club length and no convenient bid. This is more likely because it seems I didn't show a suit with my opening bid. Pass runs the real risk of us scoring +150 instead of our vulnerable game, so that's right out. I lean more to a double than mikeh does, but the club void means I'll probably bid 2D for the reasons he gives. There are certainly opponents or match situations I would double though.

You're also telegraphing the emerging disaster to the opposition. It is very likely they are about to start doubling when you pass, and they won't stop until after you stop bidding. 2S does not send the same message, and is definitely the best way to get out of the hand with a reasonable score.

That's not a conclusion I or the article drew.

1835 was the only time the US had a zero national debt. Shortly after that the country went into the longest depression in the nation's history. Planet Money discussed this in 2011.

Partner has a weak hand - probably very weak. We know partner has short hearts and likely 5+ spades, yet they passed over 1H. If I pass here I'm likely to be faced with a 2S balancing bid, and it's worth thinking about what to do then. Passing again means we'll be in a poor fit, but 3D highlights the possible misfit to the opponents and increases our chances of being doubled. On the other hand, partner may surprise me and do something else, like double or raise diamonds. Bidding probably overstates our hand, but not by a huge amount. We'll be fine if partner decides to raise with a stiff heart and a few diamonds. We're only in trouble if we genuinely walk into a misfit and they can double us, and that is less likely if I bid now than later. Since I'm going to bid in either case, let's try 3D now. Maybe we get lucky and partner has a stiff heart and Kxxx in diamonds, and game rolls home. Maybe they declare hearts and lose extra tricks by playing partner for the trump length.

Turns out it's clear. 3.3.2 contains this: 3.3.2 Two classes of natural calls must be alerted (unless they are self-alerting), viz. (a) The call is natural, but there is an agreement by which the call is forcing or non-forcing in a way that the opponents are unlikely to expect. Examples: • Responder’s first round jump shift on weak hands. I agree that practice is at odds with the regulations in this case, and would be very surprised if this meaning were alerted.

In Australia 3D is alertable if it shows something besides diamonds. It's also alertable if 3D is natural and weak (which surprised me when I looked up the regs just now). If it's natural and forcing or natural and invitational no alert is required.

West doesn't have any UI, so West's actions aren't constrained. East's actions deserve scrutiny though, and I would be very likely to adjust the score to 6H= with a PP for East. And I too want to know what 5D meant. I would also like to know E-W's actual agreement and what East intended it to be (presumably invitational).

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Is there any reason to be certain that 3NT was not simply "to play" with a long spade suit? This sort of bid is common enough that I would be unsure about what my opponent had (of course I would never doubt my partner).

Even with the option of a weak 2D bid, I would have opened at the 3 level. I'm not sure whether I would pass or bid 2D here - neither option looks clear.

Let's see if I can trigger your cynicism as well. :) My instinctive reaction on seeing the original post just now was that there's no way I would overcall (that's a bit too articulate - it was actually 'blech'), and I was genuinely surprised to see the first few posts supporting doing so. The hearts, flat hand, and soft values are all negatives. After looking at the comments I'm actually more likely to consider overcalling as a mainstream call, but taking action here just doesn't leap out as something with a big up side. Getting tagged for -1100 is a bit unlucky though. Mostly an overcall on this hand at this vulnerability doesn't seem to achieve much one way or another. The opponents are still going to find game or a partscore in either major if it's right. The most common good thing is that you keep them out of a 3NT they would have made without a diamond lead from partner. Call that 7 IMPs. The biggest downside (as I'm guessing is the case here) is that they were headed to 3NT and not worried about the diamonds, which is 12 IMPs. It's hard to work out the chance of each, but needing 2-1 frequency in my favour seems to back my initial reaction.

Defending against a 3C overcall is far more difficult than against a 2C overcall. I don't need too many good results to make up for the occasional -14 IMPs even if they can sort themselves well enough to double (which I don't see as a great danger), so this looks like a clear 3C to me. Much as I'm in favour of messing around against strong club openers, I don't get 1S. Good opponents can manage to bid the suit naturally most of the time, if we've just talked them out of their suit we may well give up the game bonus in undoubled undertricks anyway, and partner with 5 card support and a stiff club may well bounce to the 4 level. Oops.

Declarer played in turn with a card they were legally allowed to play. Why would they be allowed to change their card?

It's likely to be from the Spring Nationals in Sydney. Sartaj wasn't at the GNOT, as far as I can tell.

'Thanks' is almost always the right answer. There's no need or expectation to get involved in a discussion about the hand in the middle of a session.

There are times when you can overthink a hand, and this looks like one of them. I expect partner to have 5 hearts and overcall values. Since I have a 9 loser 10-count with three card support opposite a passed hand, I raise to 2H. If partner has 4 of them and it goes badly, or if partner has a magic hand to make game, then that's just too bad. I might double later in the auction, but I'm not taking a push to the 3 level.

I couldn't find anything at all about any responses to an opening bid being illegal, and in Bali we played 1♦-1♥/♠ as 3+ without anyone raising an issue. Since the bid shows length (defined as 3+) it's not clear that it is alertable either, but we certainly felt it fell under the point 2: "Those bids which have special meanings or which are based on or lead to special understandings between the partners". So, legal and alertable seems to be in line with the regulations.

Nah - the suicide squeeze kills the contract.