Opponents bid your suit

[Bende]

We play 1♣ = natural or balanced and then use transfer responses. It is not extremely uncommon that the opponents bid our suit i fourth position, usually without asking what the alerted transfer bid meant.

 

1♣ - (pass) - 1♦ - (1♥)

1♣ - (pass) - 1♥ - (1♠)

 

We used to play penalty doubles in this position (because of a meta agreement stating that if opponents try to play in our suit, double is for penalties). This hasn't worked out very well. Does anyone else have specific agreements in this situation?

 

If it matters, without interference we accept the transfer with minimum and 2-3 cards in partners suit and jump to 2M with minimum and 4 card support.

[paulg]

We play 1NT is a support double, double shows 17-19 balanced, and the other bids are unchanged.

 

We used to play 1NT and double the other way around ;)

[spotlight7]

Hi:

 

Support X and XXs.

 

Regards,

Robert

[Bende]

Support xx is quite difficult when they bid your suit. I thought about playing support x, but is there much point when RHO most likely has a five card suit?

[spotlight7]

Hi again:

 

You stated that playing penalty doubles did not work well here.

 

If they never double your artifical bid, XXs would also be on no use but...

 

What exactly do you want? Penalty doubles have not worked out for you and

 

if 'support' doubles are not the answer...?

 

Robert

[Flame]

Seems like penalty should be fine, why didn't it work out well ?

[Bende]

Hi again:

 

You stated that playing penalty doubles did not work well here.

 

If they never double your artifical bid, XXs would also be on no use but...

 

What exactly do you want? Penalty doubles have not worked out for you and

 

if 'support' doubles are not the answer...?

 

Robert

This is the auction I meant:

 

1♣ - (pass) - 1♥ - (1♠)

 

1♣ = natural 11+ or balanced 11-13 or 17-19

1♥ = 4+♠

 

My comment regarding support redoubles was that there has been no double, thus redoubles does not apply here.

 

Yes, it is possible to play support doubles. It seems like a strange situation for support doubles but maybe it makes sense. That's what I meant to ask in my previous post.

[Bende]

Seems like penalty should be fine, why didn't it work out well ?

I think it was because when they bid your suit there are quite many hands which would consider a penalty double but in the vast majority of cases, overcaller's partner will bid something and then my partner won't know much about my hand or if we should double their run out suit.

 

Perhaps dbl could show 17-19 balanced and a penalty, so partner can assume more defensive values in my hand if they run to something new.

[mycroft]

Ah, yes, another WeaSel expansion. So fun, that one is.

 

If it goes 1C-p-1D!, if you have both majors, double. If you have diamonds, ask what the Alert was and then double. If you have some hearts, bid them. If you have lots of hearts, ask about the Alert and then bid them. If you ask about the Alert and then bid 2D, you clearly have the pointed suits by implication (if you want, you can switch double and 2D; that may make more sense, really).

 

Seriously, though, this is one that is frustrating for anyone who plays non-standard transfers (or even standard transfers). 1NT-(2H!)-2NT!; 3C!-3NT! - That's a hand with a heart stopper. No matter that 2H shows spades (unfortunately, the time that happened, opener had the spade stopper :-). And it's hard to determine whether to ask or not - after all, another discussion after (1NT)-2D! was "what's the Alert?" "Transfer to hearts." "But we opened 1NT!" "Yes, we know."

[fromageGB]

We would play (without discussion) opener rebids 2♣ = a six card suit, X = 17+ penalty (may be doubleton in the suit), pass with anything else. Let responder pass unless he knows we have more than half the points, then he will double. Opener is guaranteed to have at least a doubleton if he does not rebid 2♣.

 

I agree there is no point in a support double, as if responder is weak he can't leave it in, and has nowhere to run.

[jjbrr]

I think something like dbl=takeout and pass=some willingness to defend is ok.

[jjbrr]

I don't think penalty is a good idea because it's profitable so infrequently. Often times they run somewhere better or just make seven tricks on strength or we could get a bigger score playing game/partscore. We can't confidently double them at the 1 level with the knowledge that they're going for a big number. It's really a small target that we double and all of the following are true: partner's trumps aren't ragged and he sits for the double with some marginal hands for defending at the one level, they don't have or won't find a better spot, and defending the one level is going to be the best score for our side a large amount of the time.

 

I like a style where responder can bid after a 1m opener with very little strength, and playing penalty doubles here would give him a lot less flexibility. If he has to pull the double, the opponents will know his hand is bad and they will then be able to double us with some significant amount of frequency.

 

I think it's much better to proceed by having a constructive auction - trying to find the best fit and the right level - and not worry too much about penalizing them. RHO heard the auction and even if he didn't care to understand the alert, he still bid with two opponents bidding and a partner passing. He rates to have a pretty decent hand.