Interference

[gwnn]

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=sakxhatxdkqcaxxxx&s=sjt87xxhjdjt98ckx]133|200|Scoring: BAM[/hv]

 

p-1♣*-3♥-all pass

 

1♣ was 15+unbal/16+bal

 

Please assign the blame for the suboptimal final contract (new suits by S are F1). Feel free to introduce your system vs interference here, but if at all possible, keep those remarks in a separate paragraph.

 

Thank you for your help.

 

ps: if it helps, all 4 players on the other table are playing standard. @ this vulnerability your teammates are pretty agressive WJO'ers.

[pbleighton]

I would double as North, as imperfect as that call is. If you really need to pass, stop playing a strong club system, because the opps will eat you alive.

 

3S by South is pushy but OK.

 

Most of the blame to North.

 

Peter

[Flame]

Im reading Davidc blog about bidding thory and its great, one of the things he mention there is that hands with about 20 hcp should always be able to bid twice so according to this north has a second bid. I would probebly bid with south too because of the ♥ shortage. So for me its 100% blame for North and about 75% for south.

[han]

I would have bid 3S with the south hand (or 4S if that shows this hand). I'm a king light but I have a 6-card suit and heart shortness. I'd likely bid game opposite a 16-18 balanced hand.

 

North has an easy 3NT call after south's pass.

[jdonn]

I think north could bid 3NT when it came back, but it's close and I don't fault a pass. KQ doubleton is not 5 points and his long suit is weak.

 

I really feel it's souths responsibility to overbid with 3♠ in competition with this hand. He is the one who is short in the opponents' suit, and it feels a lot better to occasionally get too high than it does to never bid at all and find you have game.

[cherdano]

I don't understand. Why is 3S an overbid? If partner would open a balanced 17-19, we would definitely bid 4S. So we are overbidding by at most a point, but we have the upside that partner is unlikely to have much wastage opposite our shortness. If partner is unbalanced, we are also pretty much guaranteed a fit.

 

Of course North can bid again, but steal an ace from him and game is still good.

[effervesce]

For me, 4S is a clearcut bid by south. 3S in our moscito system would be game forcing, 4S just to play. N also has a good hand enough hand to bid again.

 

Systematically:

 

1C - (X or 1D) can be handled easily in any inteference system

1C - (1H/S/1NT/2C): step = takeout of the suit; if no anchor suit for overcall then natural GF; 2NT shows minors, cue = michaels, X = GF balanced/4441 (not singleton in their suit). Jump in suit bids NNF.

1C - (2D+): any action game forcing-X = t/o

[Free]

Imo the methods you use are the main problem. If south can't bid competitive, you're screwed. North can't double apparently, so you're screwed again. I'd change my methods if a simple 3♥ overcall gets you out of the auction!

 

With my partner we use the following rule: if they intervene at 2-level or higher, opener substracts 7hcp and responder adds 7hcp to his hand (virtual points obviously), and we bid like there was no 1♣ opening. This means South now has a hand worth 13hcp with a 6 card ♠ so he would probably overcall 3♠ after a 3♥ opening.

 

So the auction would go:

1♣ - 3♥ - 3♠ - pass

4♠ - pass - pass - pass

 

Unless opener thinks he's worth a 4♥ bid...

[mhais]

:rolleyes: i will bid 3s showing 8+ 5 cards & leave to pd 3hx pd might take as penalty & pass which i dont want.

[helene_t]

My first thought was to double with the South hand but 3♠ is probably better. I don't blame North for passing.

[Finch]

South has to bid 3S.

[whereagles]

and north has to bid 3NT

[skjaeran]

I don't think it's correct to pass with any of those two hands. So both is to blame. Since north's decision is the decisive one, I'll apportion 55% to him/her.

 

South should have bid 3♠, which north would raise (via 4♥ probably) and north should have balanced, probably with 3NT, but double is also possible.

[ulven]

As always, opinions differ.

 

For me, I have a strong dislike for stretching to make positive replies after strong 1C interference. I put the burden on the strong hand to act again. This approach is by agreement.

 

So, I'd pass the South hand, re-open with 3NT with the North hand and then remove with 4S.

[Edmunte1]

South should have bid 3♠. He has the 6-4 shape and heart shortage. And i don't even consider this an overbid. North is in trouble now, but this a systemic matter, playing strong club when opponents preempt you can have a harsh time. He has a pretty bad hand with a poor ♣ suit, too many hearts, no 4 spades, and only doubleton in diamonds. Double seems risky, and 3nt tough without a source of tricks. Some bidding theorists consider that you should take out the 2nt hand from strong club, for main reason that you now can pass 17-19 hands and dbl with stronger/distributional hands.

 

So i consider South 80% guilty, and North 20%, especially due to systemic reasons

[Apollo81]

South gets most of the blame. Looks like inexperience with strong club.

[gwnn]

OK I was South this board. I like Arend's reasoning why 3♠ should be bid.

 

Convinced as I am that 3♠ looks like a good call, I wonder... Can any of you guys run a little simulation about the chances for a game (basically 4♠ or 5m I guess, I'm not sure one should let 3NT in after 3♠) ie North has 15+/16+ and East has (say) 5-12 hcp with 7 hearts.

[dake50]

Although 3S is clear to me.

This is my partnership's Achilles. Forcing pass at 2-level and 4+level, BUT best guess at 3-level.

Is this strategically correct? What say you experts?

What hand types are eased/ pained by this strategy? ==how to show hands most needed? What is left to wicked measures? a structure please

[dake50]

Half the deck hcp as minimum AND 6 card spades AND H-2nd control can't pass.

4S best guess if no vs. obstruct agreements.

Play xfers in comp: 4H -> spades, then cue 5C(also H-control, else pass 4S). Here partner insists slam/grand try.

[ulven]

South gets most of the blame.  Looks like inexperience with strong club.

Yes, that's why I'd pass with the South hand too...

[hrothgar]

I'm going agree with Ulf on this one

 

The South hand looks a bit weak for a game forcing response over a strong club. I recognize that passing with the South hand could easily lead to missing a good game. At the same time, streaching to bid 3♠ could easily lead to the partnership going overboard and bidding to a bad slam.

 

Let's pretent that there wasn't any interference. I'd never treat this hand as a game force. I admit that that the hand revalues after RHO show's Heart length. Even so, I'm leery about a 3♠ call.

[cherdano]

I'm going agree with Ulf on this one

 

The South hand looks a bit weak for a game forcing response over a strong club. I recognize that passing with the South hand could easily lead to missing a good game. At the same time, streaching to bid 3♠ could easily lead to the partnership going overboard and bidding to a bad slam.

I have never played strong club, but this sounds like you are putting slam before game on this kind of hand. I find it hard to believe that requiring a balanced 16-18 to act again at the 3-level is a sound strategy.

If we add an ace to this hand, and make a Jack a Queen, wouldn't we all act opposite a standard opening (even though we would not force to game without interference)? Since partner promises about 5 hcp more than a standard opener, doesn't this mean it is sound to act wit this hand in the given situation?

[ulven]

We have to weigh the alternative outcomes:

 

a/ We pass and partner doesn't act and we miss a game.

 

b/ We pass and partner doesn't act and we can't make a game, due to misfit/bad breaks (i.e we should just defend).

 

c/ We pass, partner acts but we miss a making slam.

 

d/ We bid and get overboard, i.e room is scarce and partner has such a good hand that he can't pass in time. We go minus at 5/6-level.

 

e/ We bid and get to a making game/slam which we wouldn't have reached otherwise.

 

 

By bidding, we're reaching for alt e (thereby avoiding outcome a & c).

By passing, we avoid b & d (and risk e).

 

How should we act then? What line of action gives us the highest 'expected value'?

 

This depends on the strategy used in re-opening by the 1C-opener. Let's say our RHO had been dealer and opened with a 3H-preempt and it goes pass - pass to partner. We now often bid 3NT or X with various hands because we expect our partner to have certain values.

 

Say we have 17 hcp, we count 3H-opener for say 8 and we infer that the remaining hands share the rest, giving us an expectation of about 7-8 hcp with partner. So we take action based on that. Sometimes partner has more, sometimes less.

 

After already having opened a strong C, we can't expect to find partner with 8+ hcp, but it would be really unfortunate to find partner with a bust (although the reasoning is a little skewed because preempter could easily have 10-13 hcp in this situation). In the example given in this thread, I think it clear to re-open with 3NT, expecting 4-6 hcp with partner. This he doesn't have that all the time, but as we all know, we play/bid the percentages.

 

So, I adopt a philosophy/approach that we don't stretch to make positive replies and we put a larger burden on opener to act again, which doesn't necessarily promise/imply extras.

 

I think the major gain for preempts vs strong 1C is pushing the opp's overboard. When we prempt, we really want them to bid on and hope for wrong level/strain. This is more likely to happen when we stretch as responder because there's so little room left to explore and/or limit ourselves later.

 

By my approach, I put empasize on constructive bidding to slam and risk being shut out on marginal distributional weaker hands. I do this by choice because my analysis/experience is that this is a sounder and more successful strategy.

 

As always, you can come to a different conclusion than I've done and choose a different strategy.

 

To assume that passing shows inexperience makes me smile. It may also be an indication of a lot a expericence.

[awm]

I think south needs to bid here. There are minimums for partner where game is quite good:

 

Axx

Qxx

KQx

Axxx

 

Not even a 16-count and game can make if spades are 2-2 or singleton honor. I wouldn't say this flat 15 is some "magic hand" although certainly you could construct a worse one. I cannot imagine north balancing on these cards, or even with an extra queen in hand.

 

Some general rules that seem good to me:

 

(1) When in doubt, the hand with shortage in the enemy suit should act. If you dealt me JTxxxx xxx ATx x, I would be happy to pass over 1♣-3♥. If partner has three hearts also and not a lot extra we're quite unlikely to be able to make anything on the marked heart lead. On the actual hand I have the singleton heart, so I would bid.

 

(2) It seems reasonable to bid more or less the same way I would over a natural 1♣ if I were about four-five points stronger. I think most of us would bid over 1♣(natural)-3♥ holding AJTxxx J JT9x Kx even though we wouldn't game force opposite a non-fitting minimum opener. It's just too likely partner has some hand like Kxx Qxx Axx Axxx where game has great chances and he's never going to find a balance.

 

(3) Partner should cut me some slack on slam tries in competitive auctions. Especially if I am likely to have shortage in the opposing suit, it can pay to go slow. Oftentimes everyone will be facing preemption, and it is hard to bid slams accurately in the face of a lot of competition. I'd rather miss the occasional slam after a preempt than miss fairly frequent game contracts.

[the hog]

North gets all the blame. I wouldn't bid with the South hand despite the fact that I hold 6S. The S suit is simply not good enough to force to game. Partner needs to strain to reopen, especially if short in their suit. Here of course, the 1C opener has a mandatory re opening.