What should I bid?

[Henrywong]

You are South, you hold this hand

♠ AT95

♥ QT94

♦ AJ74

♣ 4

 

The bidding is like this

1NT-(4♣)-?

 

North opens with 1NT, East bids 4♣, now what will you bid?

4♣ promises at least 8+♣

 

What will you bid in this situation:

(1) all are non-vul

(2) only NS are vull

(3) all are vul?

[kenrexford]

5♣

[the hog]

If you play x for takeout then you have an easy x on all of these hands. I don't like Ken's 5C as pd will be forced to bid a Major at the 5 level if he has one. The 5 level is not safe here, particularly with likely bad breaks.

 

If you play penalty xs then I would still x for penalty because of the likely bad breaks - this is not optimal, however.

[pclayton]

5♣ gets us to the right strain at the wrong level. Double will just get left in.

 

4♦ has an eerie attraction for me, but my mind is tilting after reading the new Mid Chart, so take my next 5 posts with a grain of salt.

[rogerclee]

Double looks totally normal.

[Guest Jlall]

Hi, this hand is a good example of why you should play X as negative. If you don't play that, you are totally stuck, and that will happen a lot. It is frequent that you have good hands without a great suit to bid, it is very infrequent that you have good trumps on this auction.

 

All that said, if you don't have a negative X available you have a nasty guess. I would guess to X for penalty, since I cannot be sure of making anything if I just guess a suit, or drive to the 5 level. I would expect only down 1 or 2, but that's better than nothing.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

the simplest soluion is double for penalty, not best

but not the worst either.

Personnally I doubt 4C will always be based on a

8 carder.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[catatonic]

x

pt almost certainly has 2/3 clubs ; although in theory the x is penalty it isn't hard for pt to work out you aren't expecting to make trump tricks with your club length

 

on that basis you would almost certainly bid a 5 card major if you had it

 

so , unless he/ she has trump tricks should bid 4 card suits in ascending order , anticipating that if you bid a major it will be a 4 card suit ; if pt has no values in clubs you have a lot of values in the other 3 suits , don't you !

[han]

Agree that this seems a normal double, but then, I didn't consider that partner might think that is a penalty doouble.

[neilkaz]

Double ! If PD leaves it in, I think 4♣x won't make and if PD pulls it, you're quite happy.

[Apollo81]

Hi, this hand is a good example of why you should play X as negative. If you don't play that, you are totally stuck, and that will happen a lot. It is frequent that you have good hands without a great suit to bid, it is very infrequent that you have good trumps on this auction.

 

All that said, if you don't have a negative X available you have a nasty guess. I would guess to X for penalty, since I cannot be sure of making anything if I just guess a suit, or drive to the 5 level. I would expect only down 1 or 2, but that's better than nothing.

This sums the situation up nicely.