Help me rate these calls

[Free]

There was a discussion after a match about this hand. I need an objective opinion, although I have some idea what the forum's opinion will be. ;)

 

Nobody vulnerable, imps, you hold:

 

♠AKQ7532

♥-

♦953

♣AK2

 

The auction goes:

pass - 1♥ - ???

 

Please rate 1♠, 4♠ and Dbl (maximum 10).

 

EDIT: I voted Justin's choices, because he never votes (thanks for sharing though) and I hate to click "show vote results" every time return to this thread :)

[olegru]

1♠ - 8

4♠ - 8

Dbl - 8

:)

 

Depending of situation in the match and personalities around the table any of this bid could be the best.

[gwnn]

4♠ (intending to double anything that comes back) like this, X with an unpassed partner. 1♠ is misguided.

[ArtK78]

Double. Much too good for 1♠, and since slam is still in the picture, 4♠ is too unilateral.

 

A grand is virtually laydown if partner has xxx xxx Ax QJTxx. Whether we can get there is another question.

[aguahombre]

4♠ (intending to double anything that comes back) like this, X with an unpassed partner. 1♠ is misguided.

Agree with all that; and add that even though I, too, would double with an unpassed partner, I doubt we could sort anything out afterward. Maybe, if CHO advances heavily in diamonds.

 

Fortunately, she is a passed hand and I can just blast

[han]

I awarded

 

4S 10

1S 4

Double 5

[jmcw]

I'm always going to at least 4♠, and I don't think 1♠ will end the auction if I bid it.

 

Double then 4♠ = 10

1♠ = 8

4♠ = 2

 

I would bid 4♠ with much less, so I rated that quite low.

[JLOGIC]

I have a very strong hand with spades...I would double!

 

Ok, not really that simple since 4S is obviously an option with strong hands and a heart void over 1H opp a PH. Still, I think our hand has too much slam potential where slam is biddable to just bid 4S. X might or might not work better than 4S tactically.

 

I would go with X=10, 4S=8, 1S=0. I do not understand 1S at all, it literally makes no sense to me. What is the point? The point of doubling is to compel partner to bid freely, 1H X 3H 4D or 1H X 3H X or 1H X 2H 3D are all great, freely bidding clubs might end up being good. 1S just seems like the worst of both worlds, partner will not be compelled to bid something freely, you do not make setting up a force below game easy, and we have not taken up any space for tactical purposes.

 

It is just quite bizarre to me to overcall 1S with a hand that is a normal 2C opener.

[xxhong]

Bidding 4S here with 9 tricks when white is simply very very bad bridge IMO. Removing CAK, you would bid 4S, so 4S is an underbid of about two tricks. Although partner has passed, you still have good chances to make a slam.

 

Double is usually good unless your partner passes it.

 

1S is also a huge underbid, but rated to be better than 4S IMO because if you bid 4S next round, partner usually knows you have a great hand.

 

There are also other choices. Some bid 2H to include this type of hands. Some bid 4H to show a very strong S one suiter.

 

 

There was a discussion after a match about this hand. I need an objective opinion, although I have some idea what the forum's opinion will be. ;)

 

Nobody vulnerable, imps, you hold:

 

♠AKQ7532

♥-

♦953

♣AK2

 

The auction goes:

pass - 1♥ - ???

 

Please rate 1♠, 4♠ and Dbl (maximum 10).

[billw55]

Interesting, I just didn't see the risk of missing a slam to be very large. I have four losers in the minor suits. So partner's passed hand will need to fix three of them - that seems pretty unlikely, the more so with RHO opening. There seems to be no way to gain a trick on opening lead, and also there is a small chance of a spade loser. To me, keeping it low with a double seems more likely to help the opponents get organized than it is to cause a missed slam.

[gwnn]

Just because you would make a certain call with an AK less, it doesn't make it very very bad bridge. When I bid 4♠ here I'm not trying to describe my hand, I am merely betting against slam. It's that simple. Arguments like what I would have bid with how much less don't really matter. I would also bid 4♠ with

 

QJ9xxxx

-

xxx

xx

 

, horror of horrors. How will partner ever know? He won't. Except when I double 5♥, he will know that I have something close to the actual hand in the OP and far from the hand in this post.

 

He should bid 5 over 5 if he has 4 spades or so, and pass most of the time. He should never try for slam.

 

 

edit: I'm not arguing that 4♠ is absolutely, demonstrably best here, I'm just saying that ruling it out because we have a range as wide as an AK difference is not good.

Edited October 13, 2011 by gwnn

[Phil]

edit, nonsense.

[aguahombre]

edit, nonsense.

Come on, man. Step on it like the rest of us and take your lumps.

[Phil]

Come on, man. Step on it like the rest of us and take your lumps.

 

Heh; I typed a bunch of malarky about how great it would be if LHO raised hearts if I overcalled 1♠ and how great my ♥xxx was.

 

Then I noticed I had three diamonds :)

[rduran1216]

I didn't read the thread yet so apologies if this is a duplicate, but 1S is the only call that seems bad to me. I would rate 4S higher than double. Yes we may have the space to find out what we need to bid slam, but more likely is its coming back to me at 4H and now I'm just bidding 4S anyway. I'd rather make LHO guess what to do and bid 4S.

 

And again, 1S gets 0, 4S = 10 x = 9 imo

[nige1]

Nobody vulnerable, imps, you hold ♠ AKQ7532 ♥- ♦ 953 ♣ AK2

pass - 1♥ - ???

IMO 1♠ = 10. _X = 8, 4♠ = 5.

• If you survive to bid again then 1♠ often provides an effective exploration-platform. For example, partner may hold ♠ - ♥ xxx ♦ Axx ♣ JTxxxxx
• Double may work even better but a potential problem is that partner may choose to pass with (say) ♠ JTxx ♥ QJT987 ♦ - ♣ xxx
• 4♠ is likely to be the best contract and is the bid most likely to win the auction but it may result in a missed slam. Arguably, when you hold ♠ there is less need to pre-empt.

[JLOGIC]

Double may work even better but a potential problem is that partner may choose to pass with (say) ♠ JTxx ♥ QJT987 ♦ - ♣ xxx

 

Even with this super duper contrived example, it's a non issue, because even if LHO has a pass of our X, of course RHO is running since they have 10 solid diamonds between them and no heart spots.

 

I mean, yeah, I'm sure there are some layouts where it goes all pass (not with partner having 4(!) spades though), and that will be bad, but it seems so rare that I wouldn't even worry about it.

 

If you survive to bid again then 1♠ often provides an effective exploration-platform. For example, partner may hold ♠ - ♥ xxx ♦ Axx ♣ JTxxxxx

 

This is a great case for doubling! If we overcall 1S and LHO raises hearts in some manner, partner is just going to pass. If we ha made a takeout double, partner will certainly bid something. If they haven't preempted us too high, we can just bid spades next (forcing since partner bid freely). We will have a real shot at bidding 6C on that start. Maybe we won't be able to, it depends how the auction times out, but obv if it goes 1H X 4H 5C even we will have a shot at getting to 6C.

 

Double is what will provide a great platform for explaration. It will also allow us to have a non unilateral action since doubling and spades if partner free bids is forcing, or doubling and cuebidding will show a strong ahnd and get partner to start describing. 1S does not start an "exploration platform" nearly enough, and it also doesn't start describing our hand (we cannot have a 2C opener and overcall 1S), all it will make us do is have to guess later with little to no information in most scenarios. No doubt that will be 4S.

 

To me this hand is just a question of how likely you think 4S is to gain tactically vs how often you can bid a good slam after doubling. This hand has so much potential that I think we must start with double, and it could work out advantageously for tactical reasons as well, but I can see both sides. So far the only reason I've seen to bid 1S is "if we double it might go all pass!" which is just not a frequent enough occurence to me to be bothered by it.

[JLOGIC]

Also, if partner is on the ball, he will not make a non rock solid pass of 1H X with a stiff spade. He knows that very likely we have a X and spade hand if it goes 1H X pass to him with a stiff spade, if we don't they would have bid 1S on his right, or they will run to 1S on his left. It is a big downside to pass when your partner has Xed with a strong 1 suiter. When partner has 2 or more spades, the odds of both RHO and LHO having passed 1H X become less and less, they have a big fit somewhere.

 

I am not trying to say it will never go 1H X AP or that it won't be a disaster, I'm just saying that this should even lessen the chance of it happening, and thought it was an interesting point.

[the hog]

Interesting. My first reaction was 4S. On reading Justin's posts i am convinced that x is far superior.

Ratings:

x = 10

4S = 5

1S = 3

[awm]

Agree that 1♠ is ridiculous.

 

An interesting option is to bid 3♥. This caters to the possibility that partner has heart values, in which case 3NT may well be our best game. Bidding 3♥ followed by 4♠ should also show the values of this hand, while perhaps pressuring opponents a bit more than double.

 

I tend to think 4♠ is a little better than double opposite a passed hand. There are definitely hands where slam makes, but it's not clear we can bid all of these without getting to some bad ones, and there are also plenty of hands where the double lets the opponents find their big heart fit or diamond fit.

[Free]

Thanks all for your votes!

 

So far 29 votes were counted:

1♠ = 3.28

4♠ = 7.21

Dbl = 7.90

 

At the table I bid 4♠ because I thought the chance of slam to be quite remote. Without a passed partner I'd Dbl for sure. Partner had the nuts: xxx-Jxxxx-A-QJxx!!! 13 tricks were easy ofcourse. At the other table the auction was the same, so no imps won/lost. One of my team mates found Dbl to be extremely clear, I thought it was close. To be honest, I expected the forum to like Dbl a lot more than 4♠.

[whereagles]

I would just bid 4S and dbl stuff afterwards. Direct dbl is great if pard replies 3C/D but that's wishful thinking and opposite a more normal 2C/D I don't think I'll be able to find out if he's got 5 cards there.

[chasetb]

Agree that 1♠ is ridiculous.

 

An interesting option is to bid 3♥. This caters to the possibility that partner has heart values, in which case 3NT may well be our best game. Bidding 3♥ followed by 4♠ should also show the values of this hand, while perhaps pressuring opponents a bit more than double.

 

I tend to think 4♠ is a little better than double opposite a passed hand. There are definitely hands where slam makes, but it's not clear we can bid all of these without getting to some bad ones, and there are also plenty of hands where the double lets the opponents find their big heart fit or diamond fit.

Since you brought up bidding 3♥, I think I'll use a convention that JLOGIC posted on his blog. He mentioned that over 1M, 3M is a transfer to 3NT. Why don't we do that, but then bid 4♠ over the 3NT showing a good hand with solid Spades and no Hearts? Let's get some more usefulness out of the bad boy and find the slam everyone else is missing!