simple balancing choice?

[billw55]

[hv=pc=n&s=sthqj73dq4cakt874&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=2spp]200|300[/hv]

 

IMPs, all vul. Now?

[gwnn]

3C, I would guess cool people x here but I don't do that with a 6-card suit unless I have 6331 (or a very bad 6-card suit). I'll lose hearts sometimes but also avoid diamonds.

[eagles123]

I say 3♣ but DBL is tempting

[Fluffy]

The fact I have 6 card suit doesn't bother me, what bothers me is the diamond short. I try 3♣, and I have easy rebids over 3♦ and 3♠

[mikeh]

3♣

 

Anything else isn't bridge: it may be poker but it feels more like crap(s).

[ggwhiz]

I was tempted to vote double just to avoid the first ever unanimous poll.... never mind but I'm curious as to how many pass or other votes happen.

[fromageGB]

With my teams partner we play 2NT as Lebensohl, with a hand that has a suit just like this. I pass his 3♣, of course. 3♣ from me initially would be quite a bit stronger.

 

So not unanimous!

[quiddity]

I think it's close. I wouldn't blame someone for doubling here; it has upside. Maybe we can get to game in hearts; maybe partner can pass with a stack. The usual downside is getting to the wrong partscore. It's probably more likely than any of the good outcomes, but there are multiple good outcomes and perhaps the gains outweigh the losses.

 

edit - on the other hand, maybe partner has a flat hand with a stopper and we can make 3NT with running clubs and instead defend 2S-X making. That would be pretty awful. ok, maybe double isn't so hot.

[JLOGIC]

Surprised by this thread, I always double with this hand and thought it was pretty normal (obviously I was mistaken lol). Good luck getting to 4H if you bid 3C

[Zelandakh]

With my teams partner we play 2NT as Lebensohl, with a hand that has a suit just like this. I pass his 3♣, of course. 3♣ from me initially would be quite a bit stronger.

What do you bid with a balanced hand too strong to pass?

 

Surprised by this thread, I always double with this hand and thought it was pretty normal (obviously I was mistaken lol). Good luck getting to 4H if you bid 3C

What are you doing next over 3♦ Justin? Could a red suit switch solve the problem? After a 3♣ overcall, we could play that a 3♦ advance is 4+ hearts and a 3♥ advance shows diamonds and there is just enough space to sort it out if they are kind enough to keep quiet.

[JLOGIC]

I am passing over 3D and obviously I'm not happy about it. I'm even less happy over lebensohl lol. Even if partner bids diamonds he will hopefully have 5+ diamonds fairly often, and sometimes he will just be playin the 4-2 fit and it will be horrible.

 

Doesn't everyone double with xx QJxx Qx AKTxx? What am I doing over diamonds then? It's the same problem, I'm not happy but I'm hoping to get to 4H or 3N or 2S X (and by the way I would be happy if partner passed my double if I had the 6-4 hand, I have the ten of spades which must be huge and whatever suit partner leads will be fine. It's true if he has club length to go with spade length it might be suboptimal, but that is pretty unlikely).

 

I get that this hand is different than 5422 since we have a more reasonable option in bidding 3C, but we also have a better hand that is more likely to produce a 4H game, and a stiff spade ismore likely to produce a pass of the double also.

 

Maybe I am off but I feel like a majority of the time that we double or bid 3C, partner will be bidding game. Partner is likely to have some spades and with 4 spades and 4 diamonds and a constructive hand his most likely action is just going to be to punt 3N on a natural 2N hand type, not to play 3D. with 4-5 he is more likely to bid 3D, but his hand is probably good enough to bid 3N.

 

My main goal is to get to 4H rather than 3N when partner has 4 (or even 5) hearts on those hands. If I double I will be able to find hearts easily via some variation of lebensohl. If I bid 3C, I have no hope, partner is just going to bid 3N. Even with a hand type like Kxxxx of hearts and 2 spade stoppers I'd expect partner to just bid 3N over 3C, he's not looking to play a 5-3 heart fit. I think that getting to 4H instead of 3N is a likely enough occurence with a big enough upside that I have to go for it with a double. I feel like another likely occurence is partner having a pass of 2S X, and on those hands I would guess that defending 2S X is better than playing 3C or 3N which will probably even go down unless partner has the club fillers.

 

If I get to the wrong partscore it's gonna suck but in this type of auction even if partner has like 9 or 10 points and a couple of clubs and spades well stopped he's bidding game over a balancing 3C so it's probably not going to be a 3C hand (since he will extremely often have those 9 or 10 points and extremely often have those spades stopped).

[JLOGIC]

If someone wants to simulate like 40 deals with whatever constraints I'd be happy to look at them and throw out hands where I think they wouldn't open 2S or pass 2S (since those are impossible to simulate due to suit quality etc), and then look at what will happen if we double vs bid 3C. It will be extremely subjective obviously and a specifically on preempting style but I think we will find that it's not very common we are going to get 2S p p 3C AP. Or maybe I will find that I'm completely wrong. Either way I think it would be a useful experience taking with a grain of salt small sample sizes, bias, and subjectivity.

[Zelandakh]

n J8542.6.AKT52.93 e A.AKT985.976.652 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KQ9763.42.J83.QJ

n KQ65.AT98.953.Q2 e 42.K62.AK862.653 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ9873.54.JT7.J9

n K864.A5.T8632.QJ e AJ.K842.J7.96532 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w Q97532.T96.AK95.

n 8753.K6.952.QJ93 e Q9.A8542.AK87.62 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AKJ642.T9.JT63.5

n Q964.K94.A97.Q92 e A8.AT852.K852.53 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KJ7532.6.JT63.J6

n A764.K42.T.Q9653 e Q5.A965.K98752.J s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KJ9832.T8.AJ63.2

n J865.AT5.AJ9.J32 e Q9.K986.T8652.Q9 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AK7432.42.K73.65

n AJ65.T98.A965.Q6 e Q3.AK6.JT872.J95 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w K98742.542.K3.32

n Q972.92.K96.J953 e 85.AKT8.AJT73.62 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AKJ643.654.852.Q

n A643.64.KJ985.J5 e K7.K98.AT73.Q962 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ9852.AT52.62.3

n K653.542.KJT7.Q2 e A9.KT86.A9863.53 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ8742.A9.52.J96

n K765.K986.J5.J32 e Q9.T54.AK9632.Q5 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ8432.A2.T87.96

n KQ76.A8.J76.6532 e 54.K6542.KT83.QJ s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ9832.T9.A952.9

n K762.A964.653.52 e Q5.KT85.AT98.Q96 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ9843.2.KJ72.J3

n KJ43.6.KT98.J932 e A6.A982.76532.Q6 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w Q98752.KT54.AJ.5

n 98543.5.AKJ83.Q5 e A.KT62.T652.J963 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KQJ762.A984.97.2

n KJ73.T865.A92.Q2 e Q8.AK92.KJT865.6 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w A96542.4.73.J953

n J876.A9.A8732.Q9 e K5.T65.KJT95.J63 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AQ9432.K842.6.52

n K943.A94.K9732.9 e A7.K5.JT865.QJ63 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ8652.T862.A.52

n AK98.K654.65.Q63 e 65.AT9.AJT92.J92 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ7432.82.K873.5

 

Here are the first 20 I got that looked reasonable with somewhat loose requirements.

[gwnn]

Maybe we should open 20 threads and add up all the imps? :)

[JLOGIC]

n J8542.6.AKT52.93 e A.AKT985.976.652 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KQ9763.42.J83.QJ

 

X will get 3D, 3C will get pass. Tough to analyze the play but I think both should make easily on this friendly layout.

 

n KQ65.AT98.953.Q2 e 42.K62.AK862.653 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ9873.54.JT7.J9

 

X will get 3H-4H, 3C will get 3N. 4H is just down, I assume 3N will get a low diamond lead. It gets tricky when the king holds and 6 rounds of clubs are run off... east can get out of the strip squeeze by pitching a heart and two spades as he can cross to the DT and pitch his heart on the spade ace and partner has another diamond. This defense should be findable fairly easily if they play the jack at trick 1.

 

n K864.A5.T8632.QJ e AJ.K842.J7.96532 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w Q97532.T96.AK95.

 

X will get 3D and 3C will get 3N. Both will go off several on this layout, not gonna analyze further than that.

 

n 8753.K6.952.QJ93 e Q9.A8542.AK87.62 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AKJ642.T9.JT63.5

 

THrowing it out, don't think it's reasonable to pass a vul 2S with Q9 Axxxx AKxx xx. Either way we would be in 3C and they would balance with 3S anyways and miss a game.

 

n Q964.K94.A97.Q92 e A8.AT852.K852.53 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KJ7532.6.JT63.J6

 

Both X and 3C will get 3N

 

 

So far it's a tie (I am not going to analyze overtricks and undertricks unless it is like a down 5 vs down 1 scenario, let's just call those ties).

[JLOGIC]

n A764.K42.T.Q9653 e Q5.A965.K98752.J s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KJ9832.T8.AJ63.2

 

X and 3C will both get you to 5C

 

n J865.AT5.AJ9.J32 e Q9.K986.T8652.Q9 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AK7432.42.K73.65

 

X and 3C will both get you to 3N (some people might pass 2S X out with J8xx ATx AJ9 Jxx rather than bid 3N, it's a pretty ugly spot but I imagine 3N would be the normal action)

 

n AJ65.T98.A965.Q6 e Q3.AK6.JT872.J95 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w K98742.542.K3.32

 

Throwing this out since I don't think opening 2S is reasonable.

 

n Q972.92.K96.J953 e 85.AKT8.AJT73.62 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AKJ643.654.852.Q

 

3C will get you pass, and X will get you 2N 3C pass

 

n A643.64.KJ985.J5 e K7.K98.AT73.Q962 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ9852.AT52.62.3

 

X will get you 3D. I imagine on the SK lead you would go for spade ruff, AK of clubs, hoping to ruff a club, ruff a spade, lead a good club off etc with the plan of taking 4 trumps in your hand, 2 ruffs in dummy, AK of clubs and the ace of spades. Here your second club would be ruffed and they'd shift to a trump, it would be very ugly. I think you get 3 diamonds 1 spade and 1 club for down 4 on best defense.

 

What happens over 3C is trickier, if north bids 3D south bids 3H. North might try 3N or 3S (planning to pass 4C). Some people might argue for a pass of 3C, but a semi club filler and the spade ace to go with a possible source of tricks in diamonds makes me think north should bid. If north passes 3C will probablymake (spade lead win and play a heart to the queen and ace. If the defense plays trumps declarer will score 6 trumps and 1 heart and 1 spade and 1 diamond). If north gets them to 4C it will go down 1. If 3N it will go down 4. I'll leave it to you to decide what would happen.

[billw55]

Fascinating analysis so far :)

 

As for the sims, I find it odd that only 2 of 20 east hands have a stiff spade, and that both of them are a stiff ace. This reduces the incidence of "double gets pass" perhaps more than should be expected.

[JLOGIC]

n K653.542.KJT7.Q2 e A9.KT86.A9863.53 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ8742.A9.52.J96

 

X will get you 3D. If they double with A9 KT86 A986x xx you would run to 4C, but most likely they would just pass (?). Let's call it down 3 or so.

 

3C will get you to 3C which looks like down 1.

 

n K765.K986.J5.J32 e Q9.T54.AK9632.Q5 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ8432.A2.T87.96

 

X will get you 2N 3C 3H. 3C will get you to 3C. Personally I would compete over either of those to 3S with Q9 Txx AKxxxx Qx, but it doesn't matter since both 3C and 3H make.

 

n KQ76.A8.J76.6532 e 54.K6542.KT83.QJ s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ9832.T9.A952.9

 

3C will get you 3N. On a spade lead to your king you can just drive the heart for the 9th trick as you still have both a spade and a diamond stopper. It's not clear what will happen if you double, personally I would pass with KQ76 Ax Jxx xxxx. 2S X seems cold. The other option for north is to just bid 3N. which would make. I'll let you decide what you think would happen.

 

n K762.A964.653.52 e Q5.KT85.AT98.Q96 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ9843.2.KJ72.J3

 

3C will get you to 3C, and X will get you to 3H. 3C on a stiff heart lead is pretty brutal, I think you have to duck since going up with the ace means you cannot make. Ducking leads to down 3.

 

3H from the other side will get the queen of spades lead to the ace. I assume they would shift to a diamond for down 1.

 

n KJ43.6.KT98.J932 e A6.A982.76532.Q6 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w Q98752.KT54.AJ.5

 

Disqualifying since I think opening 2S is not reasonable

[mikeh]

<snipped>

My main goal is to get to 4H rather than 3N when partner has 4 (or even 5) hearts on those hands. If I double I will be able to find hearts easily via some variation of lebensohl. If I bid 3C, I have no hope, partner is just going to bid 3N. Even with a hand type like Kxxxx of hearts and 2 spade stoppers I'd expect partner to just bid 3N over 3C, he's not looking to play a 5-3 heart fit. I think that getting to 4H instead of 3N is a likely enough occurence with a big enough upside that I have to go for it with a double. I feel like another likely occurence is partner having a pass of 2S X, and on those hands I would guess that defending 2S X is better than playing 3C or 3N which will probably even go down unless partner has the club fillers.

 

 

I'd be interested in finding out, if possible, how often we make a 4-4 heart game and do not make 3N. My take on it is that it is unlikely to be common: I'd expect 3N to make most times partner can bid it over 3♣. I do have what will usually be 6 quicks.

 

I expect the main problem to be when he has 5♥ and wants to be in a game: 3N or 4♥. 3♥ sounds nf to me, altho I can see an argument for it being forcing to 3N or 4♣ on the notion that one doesn't bid 3♥ to improve the partscore.

 

If 3♥ iS F1, then 3♣ becomes more attractive, since we will have the 3♠ punt available if we can't bid 4♥. I suspect, however, that 3♥ F1 is non-standard, and now we do have a real issue since I expect the 5-4 fit to produce 4♥ significantly more often than 3N.

[JLOGIC]

n 98543.5.AKJ83.Q5 e A.KT62.T652.J963 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KQJ762.A984.97.2

 

Disqualifying since I think opening 2S isnot reasonable (though maybe that is debatable, not only the overall strength of the hand but it has 4 hearts).

 

n KJ73.T865.A92.Q2 e Q8.AK92.KJT865.6 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w A96542.4.73.J953

 

Disqualifying because I think passing 2S with Qx AK9x KJTxxx x is highly questionable, as is opening 2S on A9xxxx even with 6-4.

 

n J876.A9.A8732.Q9 e K5.T65.KJT95.J63 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AQ9432.K842.6.52

 

Both X and 3C will get 3N

 

n K943.A94.K9732.9 e A7.K5.JT865.QJ63 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ8652.T862.A.52

 

This one is difficult. Will east X a constructive 3D bid? Will north pass a balncing 3C? If north bids 3N I assume east will rip it...will they run, etc.

 

I think north would pass 3C with the stiff club but maybe not, you could have 26 HCP so...

 

3D will actually play quite alright. On the likely defense of ace of spades and a trump shift it looks like down 1.

 

3C will start diamond ace, spadeto the ace, diamond ruff, heart. If you duck it and get a diamond back you will ruff with the 8 and be pleasantly surprised, then you can cross to the HA and play a club for down 1.

 

If you got to 3N on spade spade, you'd have to decide how to play the clubs. The normal play for 5 tricks is to go from the top so that wouldn't work very well. If you were doubled and sat for it you would definitely guess clubs though, but even then you would have a nasty guess on what to do when they won the club and played the jack of diamonds back. Most likely, you'd attempt to win the queen in dummy (since ducking wins ONLY on stiff ace with the 2S bidder). In that case you'd go down 1.

 

n AK98.K654.65.Q63 e 65.AT9.AJT92.J92 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w QJ7432.82.K873.5

 

3C would get you to 3N which is down on the jack of diamonds lead.

 

X would get pass which looks like down 1 (4 spades, 1 club 1 heart)

[gszes]

we are not overly strong here and an x has so many bad

outcomes it is difficult to imagine doing that here. Too much

risk and not enough reward.

 

3c

 

while somewhat underpowered has one huge benefit that an

x lacks---just about anything p chooses to do will generally be

right. the club suit is long enough to give us a shot at 3n over

a pesky 3d bid we have a nice 3h bid and if p bids 3s we merely

rebid our nice clubs at the 4 level. If p bids 3h we happily bid 4h

(who needs and x anyway). While bidding 3c gives up on a

possibly huge penalty it also removes some of the risk of the opps

making where p sits with KJ654 spades and another trick and

they make 2s ick.

[JLOGIC]

I'd be interested in finding out, if possible, how often we make a 4-4 heart game and do not make 3N. My take on it is that it is unlikely to be common: I'd expect 3N to make most times partner can bid it over 3♣. I do have what will usually be 6 quicks.

 

I don'tknow, if partner has spade length and heart length he will be short in one of the minors usually. If he is short in clubs hearts seems a lot better (clubs aren't running, we have entry problems, maybe he has only 1 spade stop, whereas in hearts we can just ruff out clubs and be on our way). If he has short diamonds they are going to run diamonds.

 

I would agree with your point if our clubs were solid or even if we had a solid entry like a side ace but with this actual hand I would think that 4H rates to be a lot better than 3N if we have a 4-4 heart fit.

[JLOGIC]

So I threw out 4 hands. Out of the 16 hands the swings were:

 

3D down 400ish vs either +110 or -100 or -400. Let's call ita medium swing for 3D

 

3D down 300 vs 3C down 100, medium swing for 3D

 

3N making vs either 2S X making or 3N making. Big swing for 3D

 

3H down 100 vs 3C down 300, medium swing for X

 

3N down 100 vs 2S X + 200, medium swing for X

 

Notably, over these 16 hands I was completely wrong that we will often get to 4H. In fact, I think partner only had 4 hearts like 3 times. Partner also only had 5 spades one time as has been noted, so having 2S X crushed is maybe less likely than I thought.

 

Still it's a very small sample, I'm not sure if it's totally representative of what is likely but it is definitely likely that we do not play 4H instead of 3N as often as I thought.

 

One more thing, I will note that just glancing at the 20 hands, the 2S opener had 4 hearts 5 times. Even given that I threw out 2 of those, I doubt the 2S bidder having 4 hearts almost 20 % of the time is realistic when my shape is 1426. I would honestly still double even after this excersize, maybe I'm just stubborn but it was close enough and that is weird enough to make me think that my general experience leading me tobelieve that double is right is still probably more accurate than this 16 hand sample.

[fromageGB]

What do you bid with a balanced hand too strong to pass?

Pass or X. While 2NT natural is a good bid, we have come unstuck bidding a suit with a fairly wide range of values, and have chosen to sacrifice that to play a sort of Lebensohl, 2NT then a suit being an opening hand, with a direct bid being about a 17-20 count. This does help in deciding on game or partscore. There are probably more sophisticated methods!

[Zelandakh]

Thank you for the analysis Justin. Everyone here appreciates it a lot when you go into hands like this. It seems to me that the decision between X and 3♣ here is pretty close, perhaps close enough to be a matter of style rather than one being much better. Can I throw out an additional idea on it, that perhaps 3♣ is better at MPs and X better at IMPs. That is, that 3♣ is right more often but that X leads to bigger swings.

 

For the record, the deal conditions were very simple (West 6 spades and 5-10 hcp; North 14hcp or less; East at most 2 spades and at most 14hcp). I then threw out a few hands because West did not look remotely like a preempt or because North was an obvious overcall. I admit freely that this might exclude some trap pass hands from North, which is a disadvantage for X. There is nothing in the script to make West more likely to have 4 hearts though. The next 3 after I had my 20 were all of the "missing" types:

 

n K976.KT542.T86.6 e Q2.A96.AJ9753.Q5 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ8543.8.K2.J932

n KQ875.T85.A952.5 e 9.A94.KJT863.J96 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ6432.K62.7.Q32

n AQ972.K965.J83.9 e 4.AT.AT7652.Q532 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KJ8653.842.K9.J6

 

Perhaps adding these to the sample would tip it back to X being ahead.