Matchpoints.

[OleBerg]

RHO deals.

 

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=s76ha97d109875ca86]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv]

 

(Pass) - Pass - (1♦) - 1♠

(Double) - Pass - (1NT) - Pass

(Pass) - ???

 

The double showed 4 hearts. (Normal take-out.)

 

1NT showed 12-14 balanced or semi-balanced. Spades very likely to be stopped.

 

Any shots in the barrel?

 

(I actually find this quite interesting, so plz take a moment to reflect.)

[kenrexford]

2♦

[gnasher]

I bid 1NT on the previous round.

[OleBerg]

I bid 1NT on the previous round.

Yes, I should have included a "agree wtih the bidding so far?"

 

Anyway, imagine you passed.

[whereagles]

2♠ now.

[xcurt]

Must push them off of 1NT none vul matchpoints. Obv 2♠.

[655321]

Agree with gnasher.

 

I really dislike the pass last round.

[jdonn]

1NT last round is fine with me. Definitely pass if I find myself in this position. It's neither illegal nor an automatic bad score to let the opponents play in 1NT when we have no known (or likely) fit and a minority of the strength.

[rogerclee]

I reflected for about a minute as suggested and still found this to be very uninteresting.

 

Would've bid 1NT, now I pass.

[655321]

I reflected for about a minute as suggested and still found this to be very uninteresting.

LOL

[kenrexford]

I agree that 1NT the round earlier would have been clearly right.

 

Of course, having gone anti-percentage at that point, the question is whether passing, doubling, or bidding now is right. I don't think passing does anything other than assuring the zero passing risked. Doubling is reasonable, but passing seems doomed.

[jdonn]

I agree that 1NT the round earlier would have been clearly right.

 

Of course, having gone anti-percentage at that point, the question is whether passing, doubling, or bidding now is right. I don't think passing does anything other than assuring the zero passing risked. Doubling is reasonable, but passing seems doomed.

I literally laughed out loud at the person who balanced into the honor-less 5 card suit in which his opponent opened saying that allowing the opponents to play notrump when they have may easily more strength than we do assures us of a zero.

[xcurt]

2♦ is insane. Even if it's better than 1NT, it's only going to be marginally better (-50 or +90 vs -90, or +90 vs +50). It could be a lot worse. 2♠ on the other hand, at least offers the possibility of +110 covering most of the other possible scores out there.

 

I'm not particularly happy about 2♠, but, having lost the race to 1NT at none vul, we're likely headed for a bad score... unless having the right to make the opening lead helps us, there's no plausible number of tricks where we do better than we would if we declared 1NT. Since partner is a favorite to lead a spade from a broken sequence, also extracting one of our precious spades for leading through declarer, I'll take my chances bidding 2♠, confidently and in tempo.

[rogerclee]

I'm not particularly happy about 2♠, but, having lost the race to 1NT at none vul, we're likely headed for a bad score... unless having the right to make the opening lead helps us, there's no plausible number of tricks where we do better than we would if we declared 1NT. Since partner is a favorite to lead a spade from a broken sequence, also extracting one of our precious spades for leading through declarer, I'll take my chances bidding 2♠, confidently and in tempo.

Why is it our hand? Maybe I just dodged a bullet by passing instead of bidding 1NT.

[jdonn]

I'm not particularly happy about 2♠, but, having lost the race to 1NT at none vul, we're likely headed for a bad score... unless having the right to make the opening lead helps us, there's no plausible number of tricks where we do better than we would if we declared 1NT.  Since partner is a favorite to lead a spade from a broken sequence, also extracting one of our precious spades for leading through declarer, I'll take my chances bidding 2♠, confidently and in tempo.

Why is it our hand? Maybe I just dodged a bullet by passing instead of bidding 1NT.

That, and we don't automatically make the same tricks in 1NT declaring and defending, and partner usually won't lead a spade from a broken holding if he has another reasonable lead, and doing better declaring 1NT than defending 1NT is not synonymous with defending 1NT being a bad score. But otherwise I agree with him.

[kenrexford]

2♦ is insane.  Even if it's better than 1NT, it's only going to be marginally better (-50 or +90 vs -90, or +90 vs +50).  It could be a lot worse.  2♠ on the other hand, at least offers the possibility of +110 covering most of the other possible scores out there.

 

I'm not particularly happy about 2♠, but, having lost the race to 1NT at none vul, we're likely headed for a bad score... unless having the right to make the opening lead helps us, there's no plausible number of tricks where we do better than we would if we declared 1NT.  Since partner is a favorite to lead a spade from a broken sequence, also extracting one of our precious spades for leading through declarer, I'll take my chances bidding 2♠, confidently and in tempo.

What I don't get is how 2♦ could be worse than 2♠, seeing as 2♦ at this point shows a diamonds suit that could not be bid earlier and spade tolerance.

 

I mean, 2♠ commits us to 2♠. 2♦ allows us to play in 2♠ but gives partner the ability to pass 2♦ with support for diamonds. Options are always better than no options.

 

Josh should also consider what 2♦ shows. I did not open a NV 2♦. I did not bid 2♦ after the double. I didn't even bid 1NT. Exactly how good are my diamonds supposed to be at this point? I mean, sure -- I'd like Hxxxx, but I'm kind of stuck, having passed when I should have bid 1NT.

[gnasher]

Ken, are you seriously telling us that you play

 

  pass pass 1♦ 1♠

  dbl 2♦

 

as natural? The rest of the world plays it as a cue-bid showing spade support.

[helene_t]

But maybe Ken plays a 2♦ opening as natural .....

 

Anyway, although it would probably have been better to bid 1NT before, I don't buy that we are doomed. Defending 1NT could give us a normal -90 while biding gives us -100, or it could give us a superior -120 (the field being in -150) while bidding gives us -300, or it could give us +50 with any other action giving a minus, etc.

[kenrexford]

OK, just to make sure:

 

P-2♦ = weak two in diamonds (I'm assuming)

 

P-P-1♦-1♠-X-?

1. 2♥ = support of spades (I cannot have a heart suit that I could not open 2♥ but now want to bid in the face of a four-card showing to my right)

2. XX = probably snapdragon

3. 2♦ = snapdragon-ish (I cannot have a diamond suit that I could not open but want to bid unilaterally in the face of a three+ showing to my right)

4. 1NT = covers a world of general junk hands

 

P-P-1♦-1♠-X-P-1NT-P-P-?

1. 2♣ = really lousy clubs, balancing, spade tolerance

2. 2♦ = not so good diamonds, balancing, spade tolerance

3. 2♥ = not so good hearts, balancing, spade tolerance

 

How can any of this be controversial? Maybe it is controversial to actually bid, but if you do bid it must make at least some sense.

[cherdanno]

OK, just to make sure:

 

P-P-1♦-1♠-X-?

1. 2♥ = support of spades (I cannot have a heart suit that I could not open 2♥ but now want to bid in the face of a four-card showing to my right)

2. XX = probably snapdragon

3. 2♦ = snapdragon-ish (I cannot have a diamond suit that I could not open but want to bid unilaterally in the face of a three+ showing to my right)

4. 1NT = covers a world of general junk hands

 

How can any of this be controversial?

LOL

[kenrexford]

OK, just to make sure:

 

P-P-1♦-1♠-X-?

1. 2♥ = support of spades (I cannot have a heart suit that I could not open 2♥ but now want to bid in the face of a four-card showing to my right)

2. XX = probably snapdragon

3. 2♦ = snapdragon-ish (I cannot have a diamond suit that I could not open but want to bid unilaterally in the face of a three+ showing to my right)

4. 1NT = covers a world of general junk hands

 

How can any of this be controversial?

LOL

I'll bite.

 

How would you interpret these calls differently? I mean, I could understand Rosenkranz for the XX, which is a viable option, but would you seriously consider 2♦ to be the cue rather than 2♥? If anything, I could imagine either to be snapdragon-like and only XX for a power raise, but 2♥ as natural and 2♦ as the cue seems impossibly bizarre.

[helene_t]

Ken, 2♥ would be natural because

1) sometimes RHO may dbl without four hearts

2) for simplicity, we play the same system regardless of whether we are a passed hand or not

 

I am sure your methods are superior but when you ask "how can any of this be controversial?", expect to be LOL'ed at.

[jdonn]

Yes when you define four bids, but

- One of them says "probably"

- One of them ends in "ish"

- Two of them are the same convention

- One "covers a world of general junk hands"

- You don't believe any of this is controversial

Then a LOL seems a very light sentence.

[kenrexford]

"for simplicity, we play the same system regardless of whether we are a passed hand or not"

That's not true. That's not even remotely true. Need I mention fit-jumps and fit non-jumps again, and the like?

 

Besides, not all bids have to be discussed. Some bids are just "defined" by what they have to mean logically.

 

Using your logic, P-P-P-1♠-1NT means "15-17, balanced" because we play the same system whether we are a passed hand or not, for simplicity sake. Of course, this cannot be so. Thus, 1NT means something different. The usual default, without discussion, would be "minors," even if the partnership had not discussed this before.

 

I could buy that 2♥ could be snapdragon-like (hearts with a spade doubleton), but, if that's true, then 2♦ should mean the same thing, IMO. It CLEARLY means diamonds plus two spades if you pass first and then bid 2♦ after 1NT, though.

[xcurt]

Ken, even if your methods are theoretically superior against "standard" methods played by the bad guys, you aren't considering robustness in your method design.

 

In other words, say you play that (1m)-1H-(Dble)-1S isn't natural with spades (because they "bid" the suit). Then you run into a pair that plays Dble denies 4 spades in this sequence. OK, so now 1♠ by advancer is natural. Fine, the third pair plays some weird precision variant (for argument's sake) where Dble usually denies 4 spades, but sometimes shows 4 spades and specific pathological shapes. What now?

 

You also aren't thinking about how the play is going to go, during the auction. Playing in spades we can lead plain suit losers through opener (who is more likely to have length and strength in trumps), compressing their side suit and trump winners to our advantage. We have the perfect cards for this tactic -- fast tricks and dummy entries. Playing in diamonds their trumps are over ours, and we would be eloping with the long diamond in our hand (which is a winner on power because we have T9875) and we would be ruffing partner's 3rd spade and possibly 4th spade, which might be winners in their own right. Worse for us.