Trouble with Support Doubles - I

[Phil]

[hv=d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1dp1h1sd(3%20card%20support)2s]133|100[/hv]

 

What do 2N, 3♣, 3♦ and 3♥ mean here? What is competitive? What is a game try? What is forcing?

[mtvesuvius]

2N - INV w/Stopper, usually 4♥

3♣ - Natural and Forcing

3♦ - Natural and NF, competitive

3♥ - Natural and NF, competitive

3♠ - Stopper Ask etc...

 

With INV w/♥ you have to Double first I think, or just bid game. Frequency-wise I think playing 3♥ as competitive is much better.

[quiddity]

What do you do with the weakish 1426 hand then? I think it's probably better to play 3♣ as NF. The weaker hands are more likely given that everyone else is bidding, and stronger hands can double or jump or ask for a stopper.

[Siegmund]

For me it's a Good/Bad 2N auction. Our meta-agreement is "they bid and raise a suit, 2NT by us is never to play."

[Free]

What do you do with the weakish 1426 hand then? I think it's probably better to play 3♣ as NF. The weaker hands are more likely given that everyone else is bidding, and stronger hands can double or jump or ask for a stopper.

You're weak, just pass...

[karlson]

I think good/bad is probably a good idea here, but otherwise I would play all four bids as natural NF. No game tries.

[xxhong]

I actually don't play support doubles, because it is sometimes difficult to show a strong (semi)balanced hand without S stopper. For example:

xxx AK AKxx KQxx after 1D 1H 1S 2H, double looks good here and 3C is probably unattractive.

Or sometimes, you may have some distributional hands that is not strong enough to reverse.

For example, x AKxx xxx AQJxx after 1C 1D 1S 2D, double feels better. For those who play support doubles, they may have to pass 2D here.