Two-suiter

[bd71]

[hv=pc=n&s=saqt54hq73dcakjt3&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=1s]133|200[/hv]

 

Your bid at matchpoints?

[BunnyGo]

2♣. I'm not passing, and I don't think it's right to double. And I'm not supporting his spades with a splinter.

 

The one other thing I'd consider is trap passing, but only if they are vulnerable.

[manudude03]

Easy 2C. The problem with passing is that it's unlikely to go P-P-X and when it doesn't, we're badly placed for the next round.

[jmcw]

Very clear 2♣ bid. I would never consider passing since a ♣ fit is virtually guaranteed. Even better P may come in with a ♥ bid which I would happily raise to at least game.

Trapping, hoping to defend a ♠ contract is quite unrealistic IMO.

Doubling with only 3♥ and 0 ♦ is from another planet.

[VM1973]

I'll try 1NT.

[ArtK78]

I'll try 1NT.

I have seen better diamond stoppers for a 1NT overcall.

[BunnyGo]

I have seen better diamond stoppers for a 1NT overcall.

 

redacted

[gordontd]

a ♣ fit is virtually guaranteed.

I agree with the rest of your post, but I can see no reason why this should be so.

[whereagles]

This is a trap. The extreme length in RHOs suit makes it very likely pard has like a 46 in the reds, opposite which you're pretty much in trouble.

 

At the moment it's better to pass and wait. If you can't stand pass, by all means bid 2♣.. but you've been warned.

[VM1973]

I have seen better diamond stoppers for a 1NT overcall.

You have 16 HCPs (assuming you believe in that system). Opposite partner's hand you might have game. Where might that game be?

 

A) 3NT

B) 4♥

C) 5♣

 

A 1NT overcall caters for A) and B). Might it go horribly wrong? Might I go for a zipcode? Of course I might, but it's matchpoints. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the spade opener doesn't have 5+ diamonds. I'm going to place him in the 0-4 range (average 2). That means my partner probably has 5+ diamonds. I'm betting there's a stopper in there somewhere.

[mike777]

since they are vul I will try pass.

[BunnyGo]

You have 16 HCPs (assuming you believe in that system). Opposite partner's hand you might have game. Where might that game be?

 

A) 3NT

B) 4♥

C) 5♣

 

A 1NT overcall caters for A) and B). Might it go horribly wrong? Might I go for a zipcode? Of course I might, but it's matchpoints. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the spade opener doesn't have 5+ diamonds. I'm going to place him in the 0-4 range (average 2). That means my partner probably has 5+ diamonds. I'm betting there's a stopper in there somewhere.

 

Dude, your partner is playing too. We'll find the best game/partscore by actually describing our hand in a way that helps him. Bidding 1NT is masterminding to a huge degree. If 3NT is the place to be, we'll have a second chance to show our stopper and extra strength. Bidding like this is only going to drive your partner nuts the next time he can't judge what type of hand you have when you bid 1NT and it could be any of a huge range of possible shapes and stoppers.

 

Regularly going out on limbs before your partner has even bid (or passed) once is usually a good way to not have that partner for too long.

[manudude03]

You have 16 HCPs (assuming you believe in that system). Opposite partner's hand you might have game. Where might that game be?

 

A) 3NT

B) 4♥

C) 5♣

 

A 1NT overcall caters for A) and B). Might it go horribly wrong? Might I go for a zipcode? Of course I might, but it's matchpoints. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the spade opener doesn't have 5+ diamonds. I'm going to place him in the 0-4 range (average 2). That means my partner probably has 5+ diamonds. I'm betting there's a stopper in there somewhere.

 

You think on average partner and LHO have 11 diamonds between them? What are you going to do if partner transfers to diamonds, or worse, thinks there's a slam in diamonds?

[ArtK78]

You have 16 HCPs (assuming you believe in that system). Opposite partner's hand you might have game. Where might that game be?

 

A) 3NT

B) 4♥

C) 5♣

 

A 1NT overcall caters for A) and B). Might it go horribly wrong? Might I go for a zipcode? Of course I might, but it's matchpoints. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the spade opener doesn't have 5+ diamonds. I'm going to place him in the 0-4 range (average 2). That means my partner probably has 5+ diamonds. I'm betting there's a stopper in there somewhere.

I can see that you play a partnership game.

 

Might not partner, with significant length in diamonds and a fair hand, think that diamonds offers a better place to play this hand than notrump? After your 1NT overcall, you may find it difficult to restrain partner from reaching for slam in diamonds if he has something like:

 

x AKx AQTxxxxx x

 

He might be very disappointed to find out that there are two (or three!) trump losers opposite a 1NT overcall.

 

In any case, I am not likely to dissaude you from overcalling 1NT. I find that choice to be exceedingly weird.

[mikeh]

You have 16 HCPs (assuming you believe in that system). Opposite partner's hand you might have game. Where might that game be?

 

A) 3NT

B) 4♥

C) 5♣

 

A 1NT overcall caters for A) and B). Might it go horribly wrong? Might I go for a zipcode? Of course I might, but it's matchpoints. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the spade opener doesn't have 5+ diamonds. I'm going to place him in the 0-4 range (average 2). That means my partner probably has 5+ diamonds. I'm betting there's a stopper in there somewhere.

1. assuming opener holds 5 spades (he may hold more but our length argues he will hold 5 most of the time), there are 34 empty spaces between his hand and the other two, into which we must fit 13 diamonds. Thus if he holds 5 spades he rates to hold 8/34 X 13 diamonds, or, rounding to integers....3, not the 2 you assume.

 

2. partner will still likely hold length and at least one stoppper. How that gets us a good result in notrump is not entirely clear, despite your apparent confidence.

 

3. If the only way to play notrump was to bid it now, and if you and your partner think that sensible mp strategy is to make high variance bids, then I can understand 1N. Personally, my preference is to pick my spots, in the bidding, cautiously (I don't mean that I think we ought to bid cautiously, only that we should usually stay within our methods and style and mastermind rarely if at all) and to try to win in the play and defence. So here, I would see that overcalling 2♣ does not bar me from reaching 3N or 4♥ or 5♣ or 6♣, while 1N pretty much eliminates playing in clubs while also making partner's decision making a trifle more difficult than it need be.

 

4. There is, it seems to me, a high risk that partner will do something we will regret. He may, for example, feel that on a weak hand with 6 diamonds, the best action is to try to play 3♦. No matter what ensues thereafter, it will probably help the opponents' score more than ours. And, of course, while he rates to have a diamond stopper or two, when he doesnt' we're going to be somewhat embarrassed by having to decide what to pitch on the run of the suit.

 

 

I can't deny that 1N will work sometimes. But I don't think it is remotely the percentage nor the partnership action.

 

Put me down for 2♣s. I can't stand the idea of passing and seeing 1N on my left and 2 red suit on my right, plus if partner has the right smattering of cards with long clubs, we may be able to bid and make 5 or even 6 in the suit....not to mention still getting on occasion to 4♥ or 3N.

[JLOGIC]

You have 16 HCPs (assuming you believe in that system). Opposite partner's hand you might have game. Where might that game be?

 

A) 3NT

B) 4♥

C) 5♣

 

That means my partner probably has 5+ diamonds.

 

And your partner will let you play 1N rather than 3D when he has 6 diamonds?

[wank]

i'm starting to suspect VM is on a wind-up. Noone can seriously take such minority positions consistently and seriously defend them as vigourously as he does.

[mikeh]

i'm starting to suspect VM is on a wind-up. Noone can seriously take such minority positions consistently and seriously defend them as vigourously as he does.

I'm starting to suspect that he and Lurpoa are one and the same....he has a reputation in the 50's and I think 95% of his votes come from Lurpoa :P

[han]

1. assuming opener holds 5 spades (he may hold more but our length argues he will hold 5 most of the time), there are 34 empty spaces between his hand and the other two, into which we must fit 13 diamonds. Thus if he holds 5 spades he rates to hold 8/34 X 13 diamonds, or, rounding to integers....3, not the 2 you assume.

 

If we assume that RHO holds exactly 5 spades then the other two hands will hold exactly 3 spades, which means there are only 31 empty spaces, giving RHO 8/31 x 13 diamonds on average (which still rounds down to 3).

 

Of course your incorrect (?) simplification may well be more accurate than my correction (?) of your simplification.

[Free]

And your partner will let you play 1N rather than 3D when he has 6 diamonds?

Or LHO doubles and partner runs to 2♦ on a 5 card...

[jdeegan]

:P 2♣ seems clear to me. Other posters have made the point that partner is almost surely short in spades so that the odds of a club fit are excellent. With your HCP power and the spade hook a 10-1 favorite, you can handle almost any subsequent bidding sequence. 3NT, 4♥ or 5♣ are all possible depending on pard's hand.

[mikeh]

If we assume that RHO holds exactly 5 spades then the other two hands will hold exactly 3 spades, which means there are only 31 empty spaces, giving RHO 8/31 x 13 diamonds on average (which still rounds down to 3).

 

Of course your incorrect (?) simplification may well be more accurate than my correction (?) of your simplification.

Well, I mistakenly set out that my calculation was based on the assumption that rho held precisely 5 spades when I should have said that it was based on the assumption that he held at least 5 spades. Make that correction, which is appropriate, and there are 34 spaces into which one must fit not only 13 diamonds but 10 hearts, 8 clubs and 3 spades. So I think that your correction of my post resulted in a grammatically more accurate calculation but one that was nevertheless incorrect....mine was incorrectly described but correctly done, I think.

[whereagles]

Other posters have made the point that partner is almost surely short in spades so that the odds of a club fit are excellent.

 

Be careful with this sort of reasoning. While it is indeed true in general, I've noticed in practice that extreme length in (e.g. 11+) in RHO's + your suit tends to produce dummies with 55 or 65 in the other suits. This is why I'm normally cautious with this sort of hands.

[mikeh]

Be careful with this sort of reasoning. While it is indeed true in general, I've noticed in practice that extreme length in (e.g. 11+) in RHO's + your suit tends to produce dummies with 55 or 65 in the other suits. This is why I'm normally cautious with this sort of hands.

You csn and in my view should do the sort of estimation I wrote about earlier.

 

In this case, granting rho at least 5 spades, we have 34 spaces in the other 3 hands into which to deal 8 clubs (and 13 diamonds, 10 hearts and 3 spades). Thus our expectation should be that partner will produce, on average, 8/34 X 13 clubs or 3 clubs. We can estimate that both partner and LHO will have distributions that cluster most closely around 1=4=5=3 shape. This isn't hard to do at the table. Allowing oneself to 'feel' that partner will usually be 5-5 or 4-6 reds is an error.

[VM1973]

I can see that you play a partnership game.

 

Might not partner, with significant length in diamonds and a fair hand, think that diamonds offers a better place to play this hand than notrump? After your 1NT overcall, you may find it difficult to restrain partner from reaching for slam in diamonds if he has something like:

 

x AKx AQTxxxxx x

 

He might be very disappointed to find out that there are two (or three!) trump losers opposite a 1NT overcall.

 

In any case, I am not likely to dissaude you from overcalling 1NT. I find that choice to be exceedingly weird.

 

Partner's proposed hand: 13 HCPs.

My hand: 16 HCPs.

Opener's hand: 13 HCPs.

Total: 42 HCPs.

Maximum in Deck: 40 Maybe we can reach 42 if we count 10s as 0.5 points?

 

I believe this scenario requires LHO to hold a Yarborough. Apparently the odds of that are 1827 to 1. Considering this is matchpoints, I'll take that chance.