123

[Wackojack]

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=s1096hk74dj10986ca4]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

Bidding:1♥-p-2♥-p-3♥-p-?

You are playing with a pick-up partner on line. What would you bid? Would it make any difference if your partner was intermediate, advanced or expert?

Related question: How mainstream or otherwise is this sequence a command to pass?

[mcphee]

For me it is a command to pass although I suspect a good number of players would like it to be invitational. With the option of being able to make a game try, it really seems more senisble to have the ability to make it more difficult for the opps to balance. After all, how is the hand that makes a simple raise supposed to be able to judge which HCP they have are the valuable cards partner might need?

[kenberg]

Undiscussed I believe this is an invitational bid. I also prefer to play it invitational after discussion, but I don't feel strongly about it. As to how many play it which way, I don't really know but it seems like it's been a while since I have encountered the preemptive meaning.

 

I usually don't vary my interpretation of a pick-up partner's bid based on his expertise. I don't want to find myself in the position of explaining "Well, I knew what your bid should mean but I thought you were too stupid to know that so I assumed you meant something else".

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

3H is an invite, and I would pass,

but it is close.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[pbleighton]

Undiscussed I believe this is an invitational bid. I also prefer to play it invitational after discussion

 

Agree.

 

With this hand I would bid 4.

 

Peter

[mike777]

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=s1096hk74dj10986ca4]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

Bidding:1♥-p-2♥-p-3♥-p-?

You are playing with a pick-up partner on line. What would you bid? Would it make any difference if your partner was intermediate, advanced or expert?

Related question: How mainstream or otherwise is this sequence a command to pass?

1) Clear pass, preemptive

2) Comes up all the time. Every week or more, maybe 2-3 times just last week.

3) Too many other ways to make a game try.

[pclayton]

IMO:

 

With a beginner or an intermediate - its a game try.

 

With an advanced or most experts - its preemptive.

 

For some other experts; its a type of game try; probably asking for help in trump, but I'd say this is the exception and would be previously discussed.

[pbleighton]

With an advanced or most experts - its preemptive.

 

Phil, this must vary by region, this is a fairly unusual treatment in the Northeast U.S. among A flight players.

 

Peter

[pclayton]

With an advanced or most experts - its preemptive.

 

Phil, this must vary by region, this is a fairly unusual treatment in the Northeast U.S. among A flight players.

 

Peter

 

Yes Peter it sounds like it.

 

123 Stop is the norm here.

 

Hey - but that's OK, you guys are still bidding your 4 card diamond suits with your 7 counts, so the development of bidding theory is a little behind the times in the NE :P

[pbleighton]

Hey - but that's OK, you guys are still bidding your 4 card diamond suits with your 7 counts, so the development of bidding theory is a little behind the times in the NE

 

Bidding theory isn't the whole story at all. I really miss California, especially the level of intellectual discussion...

 

Peter

[Free]

IMO:

 

With a beginner or an intermediate - its a game try.

 

With an advanced or most experts - its preemptive.

 

For some other experts; its a type of game try; probably asking for help in trump, but I'd say this is the exception and would be previously discussed.

I agree, and it depends on what kind of expert we have in front of us :P

[Fluffy]

With a junior it is an advice that he has put his mother to play on his account because they bid 4 anyway all the time :)

[inquiry]

If 1H-2H is constructive showing sound values in a 2/1 context, 123 block is not that useful, but the natural invite doesn't give responder a chance to evualate fitting honors and the like. So i liek 1H-2H-3H as a game try aimed at 3NT and 3H shows a SIX Card suit in a hand suited for NT. With given hand in this problem i would bid 3NT playing this (correct) way. Few people play this way however.

[SoTired]

You are playing with a pick-up partner on line. What would you bid? Would it make any difference if your partner was intermediate, advanced or expert?

 

With a pick-up partner, this is a game-try. Although I can't believe real experts often play with unknown pickup partners, even if this was an expert, and even if they play this preemptive with their regular partners, they would not bid this as a preemptive bid with a pickup partner. Anybody who would have a preemptive hand, and then scolds partner for not passing is not a real expert.

[ycos]

IMP-4♥

MP-pass if preemptive

[mike777]

I must admit all of this 3h =good hand seems like nonsense. You have many other bids with a good hand...only one with a minimum hand and 6Hearts.

 

Again why make problems for your pickup partner?

[Codo]

I must admit all of this 3h =good hand seems like nonsense. You have many other bids with a good hand...only one with a minimum hand and 6Hearts.

 

Again why make problems for your pickup partner?

I must admit all of this 3h =preempt seems like nonsense. Opps had several oppourtunities to come in but failed.

 

I think nonsense is a much too strong word for using a bid 95 % of all lol will understand.

 

Why make problems for your pickup partner?

2 Spade / 3 Club/dimond shows what? It is inviting for sure, but I won´t know if this is a long/short/help suit game try. Would you?

2 NT is an invitation for sure. But Pds 3 Diamond answer shows what?

 

You create problems with any of these bids.

 

Of course you should (or at least could) use these bids in a established partnership, but with a pick up pd?

 

And 3 Heart as an invitational bid does give less informations about the lead to opps then any more descreptive bid.

 

I will never claim that 3 Heart as inviting is superior. But it is surely nonsense to claim this approach as nonsense.

[Gerben42]

I must admit all of this 3h =preempt seems like nonsense. Opps had several oppourtunities to come in but failed.

 

You have never balanced 1♥ p 2♥ p p? I think most good players will stretch to find a bid in this situation. It is very possible that opps can profit from bidding 3♠. Bid 3♥ now and they will not produce for example this auction:

 

1♥ p 2♥ p

p 2♠ p p

3♥ p p 3♠

p p p

 

I think nonsense is a much too strong word for using a bid 95 % of all lol will understand.

 

It is a too strong word perhaps but your logic is flawed. If enough people believe the earth is flat that still doesn't make it flat.

 

Why make problems for your pickup partner?

2 Spade / 3 Club/dimond shows what? It is inviting for sure, but I won´t know if this is a long/short/help suit game try. Would you?

2 NT is an invitation for sure. But Pds 3 Diamond answer shows what?

 

Undiscussed bids are natural. Bidding 3♥ with an invitational hand where you could have bid 2NT is creating problems.

 

The real problem with natural undiscussed bids is their strength...

 

And 3 Heart as an invitational bid does give less informations about the lead to opps then any more descreptive bid.

 

You could use 2NT as undescriptive invitation.

 

I will never claim that 3 Heart as inviting is superior. But it is surely nonsense to claim this approach as nonsense.

 

If our suit is ♠ the invitation approach has more merit than if our suit is ♥, that's for sure.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

undiscussed, I would never bid anything else

than 3H to inviite.

3H is the inv. bid, you learned

this in the craddel / kindergarden.

It is a good bid.

 

Why? Simply because there are at least 3

different trial bids out there, and nobody

knows, what my unknown friend plays /

knows.

And if I bid 2NT, do I really want to see

it all pass? Because I offered a choice between

3H, 2NT?

 

Preemptive 3H is similar valuable as a

preemptive Bergen raise, some people love

it, some people dont (I belong in the later

camp).

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[mike777]

1) you are assumed to be playing with a wc partner

2) you have discussed nothing or almost nothing

3) you are really worried about making some "unknown" game try over 1h=2h and prefer bidding 3H(unknown)? This seems insane :)

4) given less than wc even.....you make an unknown bid over 1h=2h and you think bidding 3H is your best game try?

5) This thread shocks me. :)

[P_Marlowe]

<snip>

4) This thread shocks me. :)

I agree.

[helene_t]

Just a side note: assuming that it's invitational, I would pass in most 2/1 styles (such as Lawrence or Hardy) since I'm in the lower half or the range for a constructive raise.

[Wackojack]

Thanks for the interesting discussion. fwiiw we were playing Acol and all the old Acol text books treat 123 as a barrage bid i.e. pre-emptive. If you are playing 2/1 with constructive 2-level raises, I (just about) see the logic in making 123 as invitational, but otherwise no. ........Just fished out Zia's "Bridge for beginners" Lo and behold 1s-2s-3s invitational.... You live and learn.

[P_Marlowe]

Thanks for the interesting discussion. fwiiw we were playing Acol and all the old Acol text books treat 123 as a barrage bid i.e. pre-emptive. If you are playing 2/1 with constructive 2-level raises, I (just about) see the logic in making 123 as invitational, but otherwise no. ........Just fished out Zia's "Bridge for beginners" Lo and behold 1s-2s-3s invitational.... You live and learn.

I have to check my Acol text book.

I am pretty sure, that 3H is inv., the book claims,

that the predecessor was a standard text book.

 

http://www.amazon.de/All-About-Acol-Ben-Co...9143124&sr=1-24

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[kenberg]

Apparently another example of "Standard? According to whom?"

 

 

I suppose that no one out there advocates causing partner a problem, but this still leaves us in the dark. I do like to play 1H-2H-2N as passable. I like to play a new suit over 2H as showing length (maybe not four cards) and some values, suggesting that a Q or K in that suit would be particularly welcome. Sometimes none of these calls seem right, and I would just like my partner to answer the question "Was that a good 2H bid or a just barely enough 2H bid". For this I bid 3H. However stupid or unsophisticated this all may be, it works pretty well in pick-up games and it doesn't fare all that badly with regular partners either.

 

Often, with pick-ups, the way to go is to skip the invitations. Not much point in issuing an invitation if partner has no idea of what he is supposed to consider in order to decide. But as a matter of history, I can't recall playing pick-up and having a misunderstanding about the 3H call. No doubt my time will come.

 

Btw. I didn't look it up but it seems to me that Michael Rosenberg ("Bridge, Zia, and Me") credits his wife with helping him sort out game tries, the idea being that "help-suit" should ask for specific help. It should ask for an honor, or it should ask for shortness, but it should not ask for either an honor or shortness. I may have this a little wrong (seems too elementary), but the idea was that deciding exactly what is being asked for in side suit game tries requires thought and discussion. Not likely in a pick-up.